Gon' (the Moon)

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'Schultze-Jena, Indiana III (1938), Tlapanec religious texts (primary)

Relations

• sibling: Akha' (the Sun)The Moon and the Sun are born together with the Fire god on the bank of the river; together they form the female (Moon) and male (Sun) pair that dominates the Me'phaa cosmos.Encyclopedia of World Cultures, Vol. 8 (G. K. Hall, 1995), 'Tlapanec' (Sun, Moon and Fire born together on the riverbank) (secondary)
• sibling: Akuun mbatsuun' (the Fire god)The Moon and the Fire god are born together on the riverbank and reared by Akuun ñee.Encyclopedia of World Cultures, Vol. 8 (G. K. Hall, 1995), 'Tlapanec' (secondary)

Sources

• Gon' is the Moon, the female deity of the dominant Me'phaa (Tlapanec) divine pair, born on the riverbank with the Sun and the Fire god and reared by the sweatbath goddess.: Dow, James W., and Robert Van Kemper, eds., Encyclopedia of World Cultures, Vol. 8: Middle America and the Caribbean (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1995), 'Tlapanec' (secondary); Schultze-Jena, Leonhard, Indiana III: Bei den Azteken, Mixteken und Tlapaneken der Sierra Madre del Sur von Mexiko (Jena: Gustav Fischer, 1938) (primary)