Xihe- Chinese GodDeity"Mother of the Suns"

The Chariot of the Sun

Xihe bore the ten suns to the sky god Di Jun and tended them at Fusang, the colossal mulberry tree growing in the eastern sea. Her children took the form of three-legged golden crows that perched in Fusang's branches, nine at rest while one worked. Each morning, Xihe bathed the day's sun-crow in the Sweetwater Pool at the tree's base, placed him in her celestial chariot, and drove him from the eastern horizon across the sky to the west. The next morning, another son took his turn. This was Xihe's work: not merely motherhood but the daily operation of the sun itself, the careful regulation of light and heat that kept the world alive.

The Shangshu credits Xihe with establishing the calendar, determining the solstices and equinoxes through her management of the sun's course. She measured time by driving it. The ten-day week (xún) reflected the rotation of her ten sons, and the seasons turned because she steered the chariot higher in summer and lower in winter.

Nine Arrows

The catastrophe came when all ten of her sons rose together, refusing to take turns. Their combined heat scorched the earth, and the archer Houyi was sent to stop them. He shot nine golden crows from the sky, and nine of Xihe's children fell trailing fire, crashing to earth as dead birds.

She had bathed her children every morning. She had driven them across the sky one by one with a care so precise it constituted the calendar. She watched nine of them killed in a single afternoon. The surviving sun still crosses the sky each day. Whether Xihe still drives the chariot, alone now with her last remaining child, the sources do not say.