Old Woman Underneath
Tlingit · deity · mythic primordial · deity
In Tlingit cosmology an old woman dwells beneath the world and attends to the post on which the earth rests. Swanton recorded her name as Hayicā'nak!u, 'Old-woman-underneath', noting that when she is hungry the earth shakes and that people then put grease into the fire so that it may reach her below. Aurel Krause, writing from observations among the northern Tlingit in the 1880s, called her Agischanak and reported that she guards the pillar of the world and that earthquakes follow when Raven tries to drive her from her post. She is thus the traditional explanation of the frequent earthquakes of Southeast Alaska, a benign but formidable guardian on whose steadfastness the stability of the world depends.
Domains
- earth
- earthquakes
Powers
- to tend the post on which the earth rests
- to shake the earth when hungry or disturbed, causing earthquakes
Sources
- Swanton, John R., Tlingit Myths and Texts, Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 39 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1909)
- Krause, Aurel, The Tlingit Indians: Results of a Trip to the Northwest Coast of America and the Bering Straits [1885], trans. Erna Gunther (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1956)