The Sun
Wichí · deity · Wichí traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
Among the Wichí the Sun is a personified heavenly being rather than an abstract force, appearing in narrative as the father whose daughter is courted by Woodpecker in the widely told cycle of Woodpecker and the Daughter of the Sun. The Wichí term fwala covers both 'day' and the sun. With the Moon, the Sun forms one of the two great luminaries of Chaco celestial myth, and the pair are recurrently linked as kin in Matako tradition.
Domains
- sun and daylight
- celestial order
Powers
- to cross the sky and give the light of day
Relations
- sibling: The MoonSun and Moon are paired as the two great personified luminaries of the Chaco sky, recurrently associated as kin in Matako celestial myth.Alfred Métraux, Ethnography of the Chaco, in Handbook of South American Indians, vol. 1, ed. Julian H. Steward, Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 143, Washington, 1946. (secondary)
- companion: TokwajThe Sun shares the solar cycle of Woodpecker and the Daughter of the Sun with the trickster Tokwaj, who figures among the same group of myths.Alfred Métraux, Myths and Tales of the Matako Indians (The Gran Chaco, Argentina), Etnologiska Studier 9, Göteborg, 1939. (secondary)
Sources
- The Sun is a personified celestial being of Wichí myth, father of the daughter courted by Woodpecker in the solar cycle recorded by Métraux.: Alfred Métraux, Myths and Tales of the Matako Indians (The Gran Chaco, Argentina), Etnologiska Studier 9, Göteborg, 1939. (secondary); Johannes Wilbert & Karin Simoneau (eds.), Folk Literature of the Mataco Indians, UCLA Latin American Center Publications, Los Angeles, 1982. (secondary)