Papa

Papa', the Moon, is an individuated male deity in Sierra Totonac religion, the brother of the Sun Chichiní. Creation narratives recorded in the Sierra Norte de Puebla tell that when the gods kindled the fire of the new era the Moon hesitated to leap and found only ashes, so he was cast into the sky as the paler nocturnal light; he is said to visit women every twenty-eight days, an explanation of the menstrual cycle, and to raise the tides. In Alain Ichon's ethnography the Moon governs the night-time, inverted half of the cosmos: the north and west, orientations of the Moon and of the dead, carry negative connotations, and the Moon stands as patron of sorcerers, in colonial syncretism assimilated to the Devil in opposition to the solar Christ.

Domains

• moon
• night and sorcery

Powers

• to rule the night sky and govern its dangerous, inverted powers
• to visit women every twenty-eight days and stir the tides of the waters

Relations

• sibling: Chichiní

Sources

• Ichon, Alain. La religión de los totonacas de la sierra. México: Instituto Nacional Indigenista / Secretaría de Educación Pública, 1973.
• Beaucage, Pierre, and Xóchitl Rojas Mora. 'Cosmologías nahua (maseual) y totonaca (tutunakú) de la Sierra Norte de Puebla (México). Primera parte: el tiempo de la creación.' Anales de Antropología 55, no. 2 (2021): 143-159.