TAWA
Real
Name:
Tawa (his Pueblo name)
Occupation:
God of the sun, justice and victory
Legal
Status:
Citizen of Shipolo
Identity:
The general public is unaware of Tawa's existence. He is well-known to his own
worshippers.
Other
Aliases:
Shakuru (Pawnee name), Angpetu (Dakota name), Menahka (Mandan name), Sequinek
(Inuit name), Pautiwal (Hopi name), Wi (Dakota name)
Place
of Birth:
Somewhere in the Navaho-Pueblo Territory (now part of modern Arizona)
Known
Relatives:
Manabozho (father), Nowutset (mother), Pawa (sister/ex-wife), Susstinnako (maternal
grandmother), Utset (maternal aunt), Inktomi (maternal grandfather), Cirape (cousin), Bitsitsi, Watsusii, Kowwituma (sons),
Yumni (son by Ita), Aste Hastin (son, deceased), Chibiabos,
Wabasso, Coyote (uncles), Onatah (step-mother), Hino,
Hotamintanio, Owayodota
(half-brothers), Omamama (half-sister), Gitche Manitou (great grandfather), Gaea
(great grandmother, alias Nokomis)
Group Affiliation: The Anasazi (North American Gods)
Base of Operations: Alignak in the other-dimensional world of Shipolo ("Realm of Mist and Clouds")
First
Appearance:
Thor I Annual 10
History: Tawa is the son of Manabozho, Great Chief of the Anasazi, the gods of the Native Americans, and Nowutset, daughter of the spider-goddess Susstinnako. Despite her nature, Sustinnanko was prophesied to be the ancestor of mankind. Manabozho claimed her daughter Nowutset as a bride and his brother Coyote claimed her other daughter, Utset, to be his bride. Manabozho and Nowutset sired Tawa, the sun god, and Pawa, the moon-goddess. As adults, Tawa and his sister, Pawa, were instructed by the Great Spirit, Gitche Manitou in his role as the Navaho Tirawa, to sire Aste Hastin, the first man. As an adult, Aste Hastin married Aste Estan, the daughter of Evening and Morning.
In ancient times, the first mortals directly descended from the Anasazi lived in an other-dimensional world connected to Shipolo, the realm of the Anasazi. Aste Hastin had numerous children who became ancestors of the multiple tribes of Native Americans on Earth. Among his descendants was Ita, daughter of Chief Waziya, ancestor of the Dakota Indians. She had been seduced by Gaoh, Manabozho's father, the wind-god and had sired several sons. Her father, because of his divine grandsons, sought to use her connection to the gods to become a god himself. Planning to use this situation to embarrass the gods, Coyote, the Native American trickster, gave Ita a mystical object that made her the most beautiful of all mortal women. Tawa, in his role as Wi, the Dakota sun-god, fell in love with her as a result and in doing so accidentally alienated Pawa who fled briefly from Shipolo in disgrace. Manabozho arbitrated their separation and found Coyote to be at fault and sent him into exile with Ita and her family. Gaoh was allowed to adopt Yumni, god of the whirlwind, Ita's son by Tawa. Ita's own punishment was more severe because of her vanity. During the day in the sun's rays, she was allowed to keep her beauty, but at night when Pawa took the sky, she lost her beauty and turned to a hag. Despite this curse, Ita and her family were subsequently led to earth by Gaoh to populate it and become ancestors of mankind.
Tawa's cousin, Cirape, however,
began to create misfortunes for the first Native Americans by drying up their
fields and driving off their cattle to become the first buffalos. Pursuing their
cows led these first men to scatter their domain over much of North America. Coyote’s son,
Cirape, however, promised only to stop
terrorizing mortal man if Tawa surrendered his sister, Pawa, to him as a bride.
Tawa refused and he and his cousin remain bitter rivals to this day.
As the sun god, Tawa could watch from
heaven over his son’s descendants, but became displeased as they were forced to
give up their lands to invaders from far to the east. He joined the Anasazi
against the Asgardian gods brought by the Vikings invading North America, but it
was the alien Celestials that his father had made an oath to that prevented him
from interacting with mortals.
In recent years, Odin, the king of the
Asgardian Gods, summoned Manabozho to send his greatest warrior to assist Thor
in the battle against Demogorge the God-Eater. Tawa responded the call to arms
by commanding the purifying effects of the sun against the entity, but the
attempt only frustrated Demogorge who absorbed him and the other gods sent to
stop him one by one. Thor, the last immortal standing, however, decided to beat
Demogorge from within by appealing to the creature's true intellect, the
original sun god, Atum. The effect caused a shift in the creature's palate and
Tawa, Thor, the other gods and the death-gods who had initially raised Demogorge
were safely freed with no ill affects.
Despite being unable to traffic earth as he once did, Tawa is still worshipped by many Native Americans, particularly those among the Navaho, Pueblo and Dakota Indians. He has had brief contact with the Asgardian thunder-god Thor and the Olympian sun-god Apollo, but instead of considering them among his peers, he counts them as former allies and former deities holding on to old glories. More interested in his own personal pursuits, he is still one of the most active gods still present on Earth today.
Height:
6’0”
Weight: 425 lbs.
Eyes: Brown
Hair: Black
Strength
Level:
Tawa possesses superhuman strength enabling him to lift (press) 50 tons under
optimal conditions.
Known Superhuman Powers:
Tawa possesses the conventional physical attributes of the Anasazi gods. Like
all Anasazi Gods, he is exceptionally long-lived, but he is not immortal like
the Olympian Gods. He has not aged since reaching adulthood and cannot die by
any known conventional means. He is immune to all known terrestrial diseases and
is invulnerable to conventional injury. If wounded, his godly life force would
enable him to recover with superhuman speed. It would take an injury of such
magnitude that it dispersed a major portion of his bodily molecules to cause him
a physical death. Even then, it might be possible for Manabozho or a number of
gods of equal power working together to revive him. Tawa does have some
superhuman strength and his own Anasazi metabolism gives him far greater than
human endurance in all physical activities.
(Anasazi flesh and bone is about three times as dense as similar human
tissue, contributing to Tawa’s superhuman strength and weight).
Tawa, however, is somewhat stronger
than a typical Anasazi god (a typical Anasazi god can lift (press) about 25
tons). He has extraordinary senses on a near-clairvoyant level. His stamina,
physical endurance and physique are in the superhuman level, but he is not quite
as powerful as gods such as Hotamintano or Hino.
Tawa also has certain undefined abilities
to tap into and manipulate ambient solar energies and use them in a number of
mystical means. He can ride on beams of light and shoot arrows of fire which he
can wield with great efficiency.
Abilities: Tawa is an above average athlete and expert in unarmed combat. His fighting style even incorporates styles of American wrestling and Eastern arts of the martial arts. He is also a superb archer, hunter and a very charismatic arbitrator.
Weaponry: Tawa's chosen weapon of combat is the bow and arrow. His arrows are enchanted to never lose a target and can explode on contact with inanimate objects with a concussive force of twenty-five pounds of dynamite.
Pets: Tawa's animistic life force is tied to the crow and as such he is frequently surrounded by crows when he is on earth. He can mystically command them to follow his bidding and perceive images from them beyond his normal senses.
Comments:
Tawa's amalgamated pre-modern history comes from similar coinciding tales from the Inuit, Pueblo,
Pawnee, Navaho, Algonquin, Dakota and Cherokee tribes.
Pawa,
Native American goddess of the moon.