Gender among celestial bodies in Mesoamerica
Keywords:
Gender of celestial bodies, MesoamericaAbstract
In traditional Mesoamerican thought, the Sun, the Moon, and Venus, the three brightest objects in the sky, appear as autonomous beings endowed with the power to act. From observing their movements in the sky, the Mesoamerican peoples endowed the stars with cultural forms similar to those of humans - gender, kinship, language, exchange systems, etcetera. This, in turn, allowed the stars to behave under human social norms and precepts. In this way, the three stars, whose presence was necessary for agricultural activities, played an essential role in representing the relationships between Mesoamerican societies and cultures and their environment.
The article emphasizes the perception of the three stars as sexed beings. It is observed that the Sun is perceived as a male agent, the Moon - as a female agent, and the planet Venus as a male agent, both in its Morning Star and Evening Star aspects. [...]
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