Ix Chel, the "Lady Rainbow," was the old Moon goddess in Maya mythology. Mayan people lived from around A.D. 250 in the territories that today are part of Guatemala and the Mexican province of Yucatan. The Mayans had a system of writing that has been only recently decoded.

Scientists have been able to decipher the content of some Mayan books that have survived until today. Mayans associated human events with Moon phases. They observed a war-avoidance period during lunar eclipse intervals.

Ix Chel was depicted as a malevolent old woman wearing a skirt with crossed bones and with a serpent in her hand. She had as an assistant, a sky serpent, who was said to possess all the waters of the heavens in its belly. She often carries with her a great jug which she overturns to send calamitous floods and rainstorms on the Earth. Surprisingly, her spouse was the benevolent Moon god Itzamna.

The Character of Ix Chel also has a benign aspect. She was worshipped because she protected weavers and women in childbirth.

Iae represents the Moon god for the Mamaiurans, an Amazon Indian tribe living along the banks of the Xingu river in Brazil. According to a Mamaiuran legend, at the beginning of time it was always night and the Indian tribes were forced to live in perpetual fear of attack from wild animals. The light could not reach the Mamaiurans because the wings of the birds blocked the sky.

Iae and his brother, Kuat, decided to steal some light from the vulture god Urubutsin, king of the birds. The two brothers hid themselves in a corpse, and waited until the birds approached. As soon as Urubutsin landed on the corpse to eat the maggots that it was supposed to contain, Kuat grasped the Urubutsin's leg. Unable to get away and deserted by his followers, Urubutsin was forced to compromise with the two brothers.

He agreed that he would share daylight with the Mamaiurans. To make the light last for long time, it was established that day should alternate with night. As a result, Kuat became associated with the Sun and Iae with the Moon.

In ancient times, Chinese people believed that there were twelve Moons as there were twelve months in one year. Likewise, Chinese people believed there were ten Suns as there were ten days in the Chinese week. The mother of the twelve Moons was the same of that of the ten Suns.

At the beginning of each month, the mother of the twelve Moons, Heng-O, washed her children in a lake at the extreme western side of the world. Then each Moon, one after the other would travel in a chariot for a month long journey to reach the east side of the world. There, the Suns would begin their journey.

It was believed that the Moons were made of water, and either a hare or a toad were living in their interior. The name "mother of moons" is strictly associated with that of Heng-o, considered in the modern folk-lore a Moon goddess. According to an ancient legend that had survived until our days, Heng-o was married with the Divine Archer Yi.

Yi had killed Heng-o's brother and spared the life of the Moon goddess. In gratitude, Heng-o consented to marry with the Archer. But later she fled to the Moon after having stolen from her husband the herb of immortality that grew on the soil of the Western Paradise. In the Moon, Heng-o became a toad.

Sin was the Sumerian Moon god. Sumerians were living more than three thousand years ago in Mesopotamia. Mesopotamia is the ancient name of the region that corresponds to the valleys of Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Today Mesopotamia is located in the territories of the states of Iraq and Kuwait.

Sin was worshipped in the city of Ur. The high priest of his temple, chosen from the royal family, was viewed as Sin's spouse. Sin was the descendant of the sky god An. His parents were the air god Enlil and the grain goddess Ninlil. Sin was depicted as a "fierce young bull, thick of horns, perfect of limbs, with a beautiful bird of blue".

The Moon god had several different names that referred to different phases of the Moon. The name Sin indicated the crescent Moon, Nanna the full Moon, and Asimbabbar the beginning of each lunar cycle.

Sin was born from the rape of the grain goddess Ninlil by Enlil. For this crime, Enlil was banished by the assembly of the gods to live in the underworld. When Ninlil realized she was pregnant, she decided to follow Enlil to the world of the dead to let him witness the birth of his child. Unfortunately the birth of the child in the underworld would have imprisoned him forever in Hades.

Thus, Enlil and Ninlil copulated three more times to offer the three children who were going to be born to the infernal deities. At last, their first child Sin could ascend to the heavens to light the night sky. This myth related to Sin's birth explains why Sumerians viewed a lunar eclipse as an attack of demons against the Moon. During the lunar eclipse, Sumerian kings used to wash themselves believing these rites could bring the purification of the Moon.