Gon' (the Moon)
Tlapanec · deity · Tlapanec traditional religion; continuing · deity
Gon' is the Moon in the religion of the Tlapanec (Me'phaa) of Guerrero. In the Me'phaa creation myth she is born on the bank of the river together with the Sun (Akha') and the Fire god (Akuun mbatsuun') and is reared by Akuun ñee, the goddess of the temazcal sweatbath. As the female and lunar member of the dominant male-and-female pair that heads the pantheon, she is the complementary counterpart of the solar Akha'. The cult of the Sun and the Moon was documented for the Sierra Madre del Sur by Leonhard Schultze-Jena and survives, much reduced under Catholicism, in modern Me'phaa cosmology.
Domains
- moon
- night sky
Powers
- to light the night sky as the Moon
- to embody the female pole of the divine pair
Epithets
- Gon'
Relations
- sibling: Akha' (the Sun)
- sibling: Akuun mbatsuun' (the Fire god)