Since the dawn of time, humanity has tried to find an explanation for everything happening around us. In this relentless quest for explanations to understand our world, the Moon has played a massive role inspiring curiosity. Humanity devoted a great amount of time studying its cycles; due to the relationship it has with the harvest, even some cultures worshipped it like a goddess. Thus, the immense amount of myths about the Moon as the main character.
Likewise, the Moon also has great importance in the spiritual world. As a symbol of renewal, the Moon is considered by many traditions to be a powerful entity capable of changing our destiny.
Male or Female entity?
The moon is often a female entity in mythology, more than often, even a deity. Sometimes this goddess is paired with the sun as a contrast of female and male power. Mother Goddess and Queen of heaven, however, in other cultures, the Moon is also represented as a male figure.
In ancient oriental legends, it is said that the wolves howled to the moon comforting her in her sadness and congratulating her on her happiness. In China and Japan, the lunar rabbit is said to mix a potion that gives you immortality, and while the rabbit may be the most famous animal that is related to the moon, the frog, the toad, and the wolf are related also to the moon as well.
The Moon in different cultures
In the Mayan writing system, a symbol shows the moon goddess sitting inside the moon. This word, Ixchel, was often added to the names of noblewomen. Ancient Mexicas called the moon Meztli and she represented mother love.
For the Greeks, the Moon had a name: Hecate, Cynthia, and Selene, while Native American tribes used epithets instead of proper names, like “the Old Woman Who Never Dies” and “the Eternal One.”
And although for many cultures it represents renewal, for other cultures the Moon represented destruction, and its other constant representations are related to creation and destruction as well as birth and death. For instance, New Zealand’s Maori people referred to the Moon as a ‘man-eater.’
Ancient Greeks even believed that the Moon was the home of the dead, Hindus believed that the souls of the dead returned to the Moon to await rebirth, and Tartars of Central Asia called the Queen of Life and Death.
But those aren’t the only representation of the Moon, in some representations, it’s portrayed as a man. The Inuit people of Greenland pictured it as a male hunter sitting in front of his igloo.
The marriage of the Sun and the Moon
There are many myths where the Moon is paired with the sun as symbols of duality. A Native American myth says that the stars are their children and that the sun loves to catch and eat his children, so every time the sun comes out, the stars hide, and when the moon wanes is to mourn the children that the sun succeeded in catching.
On the other hand, people from Nigeria saw them as husband and wife as well, a marriage that long ago lived on Earth until one day a flood, that was their best friend, visited them and rose their house so high, that they had to perch to the roof. When the flood covered the house, they had leaped into the sky.
