How'd the moon get there?

In second grade science, we noted that the tide comes in and goes out. We were told that the moon controls the ocean, and we believed it. But who controls the moon, huh?

Seriously, how did the moon get there?

Some pinheads think that science explains the tides, but Bill O’Reilly says that the moon’s existence is the work of a divine power.

O’Reilly even suggests that devotion to science is more rigorous than believing in a god.

“It takes more faith to not believe and to think this was all luck ... than it does to believe in a deity,” he said.  

Personally, I don’t really care where the moon came from — just that it stays in orbit.

Regardless, I’d like to offer up a few theories regarding the moon’s origin. Just for fun.

The Aztecs, for example, believed that the moon was created from the severed head of the goddess Coyolxauhqui.

Embarrassed by her mother’s dishonorable pregnancy, Coyolxauhqui lead her 400 siblings in an attempt to murder their mother.

The mother was saved however, by the sudden birth of Huitzilopochtli, the sun god. He sprang from her womb as a man in full armor, just in time to slay Coyolxauhqui.

The goddess’s head was then thrown into the sky so the sentimental mother could be comforted by looking at it in its new form as the moon.

Decapitated-goddess is one possible scenario for the moon’s origin, but Japanese culture has another one.

According to Shinto beliefs, the moon god Tsukuyomi was born from his father’s right eye and then climbed the celestial ladder to live in the heavens with his sister Amaterasu, the sun goddess.

One time, Amaterasu sent Tsukuyomi to have a lavish meal with the goddess of food on her behalf, but Tsukuyomi was disgusted with how the food was made and killed the goddess.  

When Amaterasu discovered what Tsukuyomi had done, she vowed to never see her brother again, which is why the sun and moon are forever alternating in the sky.

The moon stories are innumerable.

The Inuit people of Greenland refer to their moon god as Anningan. Similar to the Shinto belief, Anningan chases his sun-goddess sister across the sky.

Mawu, the creator goddess of the Fon people in Benin, Africa, is also associated with the moon and brings cool weather from the west.  

Hinduism’s lunar deity is called Chandra. He is a beautiful young man who rides his moon-chariot across the sky each night with his 10 white horses.

Among so many other colorful explanations, I don’t see how calling the moon’s presence just plain “lucky” is such a pinhead remark.

Whether the moon came from a humongous head, the arts and crafts project of the Divine or a giant and random fluke, I think we can all agree that we’re impressed.


E-mail: paihenry@indiana.edu