#proto indo european religion
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looking-at-the-deiwos · 1 month ago
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Proto Indo-European (PIE) Pantheon
Main gods
These gods are the most easily reconstructed and appear in different sources of PIE religion
Dyḗus Pətḗr ☁️
Diwónā 🐄
Dhég̑hōm Mā́tēr 🌿
Apṓm Népōts 🌊
Áusōs 🌅
Sā́wōl ☀️
Mḗnōs 🌕
the Diwós Sūnū́ 🏇🏼
Perkʷū́nos ⛈️
Páusōn 🐐
Aryomḗn ⚖️
Wéstyā ��
Ék̑wonā 🐎
Yemós 💀
Dā́nu 🏞️
K̑ólyā ☠️
Priyā́ 🌹
Other gods
Not as easily reconstructed and don't appear in all sources
Wēyús 🌬️
Ṇgʷnís 🔥
Wórunos 🌌
Wélnos 🧙🏼‍♂️
Préwyos 🍆
Rudlós 🌀
Wḷkā́nos ⚒️
Léudheros 🍇
Swépnos 💤
Sówəmos🍶
Ṛ́tk̑onā 🐻
For the full pantheon according to the most wide possible view of it check here, other sources are way much more reserved and give less gods for the pantheon, less than 20
I will be making posts exploring each deity and I'll be linking them from here too! Stay tuned!
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gwydpolls · 1 year ago
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Time Travel Question 22: Ancient History X and Earlier
These Questions are the result of suggestions from the previous iteration.
This category may include suggestions made too late to fall into the correct grouping.
Please add new suggestions below if you have them for future consideration. All cultures and time periods welcome.
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castilestateofmind · 9 months ago
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"Do not think of the Proto-Indo-Europeans as a people who died out a long time ago. They live, and their culture lives, in us; transformed by time and the influences of other cultures maybe, but still recognisable at the core of our values, language, and culture. By understanding them, we understand ourselves."
-Ceisiwr Serith.
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rrcraft-and-lore · 4 months ago
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Tapati, who is she, and why is she significant?
Well, first, she is a river goddess, but daughter of the sun god, Surya. However, her name means the hot one, the burning one. Interestingly enough, her name is tied to the river she's said to rule over - HOWEVER, language time.
Agni, a vedic fire god, has a scythian counterpart similar in name (and the scythian's are the older culture that broke off to form the vedic, indo iranian/iranian, and levant people as well as others - mixing, breeding, invading).
Back to Tapati.
Her name is cognate with the Scythian supreme fire goddess, Tabiti. Very interesting.
Tabiti is the supreme goddess of all things in the Scythian culture, primordial, the first flame, and much like Ianna (from Summerian mythology I talked about later) went on to inspire entire god/goddess roles, and had mantles inverted as interestingly enough, there's evidence some first/supreme deities were feminine, later flipped to male as cultures evolved - their places/roles attributes assigned to male gods and their places changed - made wives, daughters, so on a similar sort of flipping happens out of the Scythian culture/ proto Indo Europeans (that I've talked about) where the root word for a divine (doesn't mean good just divinely powered) being evolved along languages the ahura, asura, and asir (Norse) come from an older proto Indo-European/Scythian word.
In the Vedic stories, the daevas are good, the asura evil. In the Avestan and Iranian texts...the ahura/asura are good, and the daevas are evil.
We know the Norse asir and vanir warred also very interesting. And interesting how gods/goddesses are changed, subsumed, adopted and more, no? Tabiti was never represented in/by art, btw. Her representation was always an actual fireplace -- a flame. That's what you used.
There's historical written evidence in places of Agni's animal form being both referred to as a bull, AND a cow in places - different genders. And his flame being referred to as female in places.
In the Hindu bronze age, Agni had way more of a prominent role as fire did before later dwindling...as fire does (ooooo symbolic - okay that's just cuz of time and shifting priorities), but there are more similarities of these things in Baltic cultures -- but oh why?
(Why am I hopping around? Cuz gods/goddesses, archetypes, beats, stories all do too - all connected you muppets).
Well, did you know the closest cognate to Sanskrit is Lithuanian? It's kept so much of its proto Indo European roots.
Wait, a South Asian language and Baltic European language are cognates? YUH. WEIRD.
Almost like they both derived out of an older culture, language, their practices, beliefs and more.
And most of human history is just migrating, fucking, invading, and settling in new places and staying long enough until your features continue to change due to bow chicka wow wowing and environment.
Funny how that works.
Here's some Scythian clothing (oh btw, women were warriors/could be too - congrats you learned that).
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Does this style look familiar? Yeah, you can see the evolution/adaptation from this to later styles (bearing similarities) in Iran, India, Mongolia, the Baltics.
Cuz....y'know, that's where the proto Indo Europeans went about their biz and got jiggy with it and settled. Wow-wow-wee-wah! Okay now I'm done. Circular ish convo to get there but started with a fire goddess, it's relevant, but it all comes back to this.
Btw, this is also an important lesson for fantasy authors.
Because of all these connections and how old a bad ass fire goddess is, many of the oldest cultures are regarded as fire worshippers (like the Zoroastrians) did you know some keep an eternal burning flame? -- one is in Udvada Gujarat in India.
This flame has been said to have been kept burning for 1,500 years.
FIFTEEN HUNDRED.
And again, while most of the surviving Indo Iranic sun gods are male, there is evidence the ORIGINAL sun deity (including in/from the German, Baltic, and Slavic religions) was FEMALE.
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swedebeast · 2 years ago
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As someone who can spend hours reading on this kind of stuff, this has been an incredibly fascinating and educational video on the timeline and similarities between Proto Indo-European and ancient Semitic mythologies.
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child-of-frigg · 2 years ago
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Ostara/Ēostre: The Spring Equinox and The Sun Goddess Héwsōs.
The Spring Equinox like many other Solar and Lunar events, was a significant marker as to the passage of time for the Northern tribes. On this day the sun rises and sets directly from east to west in the Northern hemisphere, marking a significant change in weather as summer quickly approaches and the sun begins to thaw the frozen ground. The deity associated with the Spring Equinox is now commonly referred to as Ostara or Ēostre, this was not always the case though.
Saint Bede of the seventh century was the first to make a written account of the Goddess Ēostre, where he states Pagan Anglo-Saxons held feasts in her honour during the month of Ēosturmōnaþ, the Germanic equivalent of April. For the Germanic tribes this event was to signify the beginning of the summer half of their year, for the Norse this would kick off the last month of winter, Einmánuður. Sources tend to agree that in both cases a Goddess by the name of Ostara or Ēostre was hailed during these months, representative of the sun and the essence of Spring, however this deity seems to be largely absent from Norse mythology barring Idunn who has only recently been associated with the spring season.
The Goddess Ēostre seems to be based on the Proto-Indo-European Héwsōs, meaning 'the Dawn', who scholars agree was the inspiration behind similar deities such as the Greek Eos and the Roman Aurora. Due to the consistency of her characterization she is considered one of the most important deities worshipped by the Proto-Indo-European people, and this firmly suggests an importance in Norse faith as well. The significance of spring flowers is also consistent throughout the worship of Héwsōs, with an emphasis on the colours blue, purple, and yellow which were considered sacred to the spring season by the Nordic, as well as some Western Germanic tribes; be for the colours of spring flowers or the colour of the sunrise itself this seems to be the same for many of the deities inspired by Héwsōs.
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chthonic-sorcery · 4 months ago
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The Ars Goetia didn't originate from "King Solomon" as it claims.
If it did, it wouldn't be heavily influenced by fucking Greek magic, since Solomon supposedly lived thousands of years before that period.
Medieval monks, who really wrote the Ars Goetia, had a very well documented habit of assigning parentage of magical texts to apocryphal figures like Solomon to make them seem cooler or more powerful. Particularly to christian adjacent figures, since otherwise these books would be considered hersey.
Even the word Goetia itself derives from the Greek Goêteia, meaning sorcery, specifically sorcery utilizing chthonic powers, or the Underworld: Gods, Daemons, and the Dead.
Goêteia comes from the proto Indo-European word goos, meaning to mourn, cry, or to wail; it comes from ancient funeral laments and mourning practices.
Also, Solomon likely never existed, hate to burst your bubble, but there has been zero archeological evidence found to support his, or his "father" king David's existence. Unlike other real kings of roughly the same periods, like King Nebuchadnezzar II.
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Even the fact that the magic circles within the Ars Goetia utilize the same coiled serpents and five-pointed stars that Greek goêteia uses, stemming from EGYPT and Egyptian practice, not some psudeo-biblical figure like Solomon.
But wait, there's more
Even the use of demons isn't Solomonic, nor is it Jewish or christian.
It's also fucking Greek.
The word demon itself derives from the Greek daemon, meaning earthly divinity (rather than heavenly/ouranic) or a messenger of the Gods.
It was taken and absorbed into early christian theology like many other concepts such as Tartarus due to early christianity rising in the same region.
Particularly the use of daemons in magic through evocation, or even invocation (calling them within yourself to become possessed, a hallmark of Daemonism and the Engastraitai) through ritual incantations of voces magicae and nomina barbara.
All of it is fucking Greek, no Solomon to be found.
I'll add a step further: even the use of Jewish aspects of magic within the Ars Goetia stems from Greek goêteia, as Greek goêteia was a syncretism of Greek, Jewish, Egyptian, and Mesopotamian magical and spiritual practices.
Fuck, just take a look at the Greek Magical Papyri sonetime if you don't believe it.
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Hell, even take a look at the Coptic Magical Papyri, which was a syncretism of early christianity and what we would call "ancient Egyptian" religion and Magical practices:
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See the similarities?
Solomon my ass.
��� ☆ ☆
Learn more here
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astroyongie · 19 days ago
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🐈‍⬛ ྀི Goddess Worship: An Introduction of Freyja 🐈‍⬛ ྀི
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Note: Day 17 of our October calendar! Today we have an introduction of deities I work with/worship. This post is to provide some information about the deities but also how I work with them personally. Everyone has their own methods with the Gods, and you should do whatever feels right with you while also respecting the bases of the religions.
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Historical Background:
Freyja (or Freya) is a major goddess in Norse mythology, belonging to the Vanir tribe of deities, which are associated with fertility, prosperity, and nature. (Vanir and Aesir are different deities in the Norse Mytho). She is the daughter of Njord, the sea god, and sister to Freyr (Twins), the god of fertility, peace, and prosperity. Her hall is known as Fólkvangr which welcome half of the warriors who died in battle. She is also the goddess of love, beauty, war, death, and magic (her magic is known as seidr associated with prophecy and shape-shifting. she could see into the future and use the power of runes). Freyja’s worship may predate Norse mythology, with roots in earlier Germanic or proto-Indo-European traditions second the archeologists studies.
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Attributes and Symbols:
Cats: Freyja’s chariot is said to be drawn by two large cats, symbolizing fertility and domesticity. She has been long symbolized through cats and usually people who. worship her will use cats to connect with her Boars: She also rides the boar named Hildisvíni, a symbol of fertility, protection, and strength. Brísingamen: Her famous necklace, a symbol of fertility, sexuality, and beauty. The Brísingamen was often considered an object of great power and desire as in the mytho many creatures and gods have fought to have it. Falcon Cloak: This magical cloak allows Freyja to shapeshift into a bird, symbolizing freedom, the soul’s flight, and her connection to magic. Amber and Gold: Amber, known as "Freyja's tears," is associated with the goddess due to the myth where she weeps golden tears for her missing husband, Óðr.
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Worship and Rituals:
Seidr (Magic): Freyja is a practitioner and teacher of seidr, a form of Norse magic involving divination, trance states, and influencing fate. Women (and men) who practiced seidr would invoke her for aid. this pratice is still used in the Nordic countries but it needs to be taught through initiation. One cannot learn to practice Seidr magic without initiation by another Seidr. One way of worshipping her is through the practice of Runes. Love and Fertility: As a fertility goddess, Freyja was worshipped by those seeking love, marriage, and fertility. Offerings of gold, honey, and flowers were made in her name. A lot of people would also use sexual intercourse as a way to give away their energy to the goddess in exchange of love and pregnancy. Battle and Death: Despite being a goddess of love, Freyja is also a goddess of war and death. Half of those who die in battle are said to go to her hall, Fólkvangr, while the other half go to Odin’s hall, Valhalla. One can worship her not only for love but also for strenght in battles. She is fierce when it comes to help protect those who pray her. Now in the modern times, her worship of battles have been adjusted with internal battles, challenges in life and even justice. Festivals: Freyja was likely honored during seasonal festivals like Dísablót (mostly done during winter seasons), where offerings were made to the dísir, female spirits or ancestors, who were linked to fertility and protection. It involves sacrifices (not animals but instead sacrificing something of you in return of something else) and ritual offerings to Freyja or the feminine ancestor spirits. Unfortunately there isn't many source of information about the norse mythology as Norse People didn't especially write it.
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-> When worshipping Freyja, do not take her for granted. Her energy is pure and warm but she wishes for attention. Make a small altar for her, give offerings every friday (and of course offerings during spells were you invoke her energy or help). The important here to feel connected to the deity and respect her as a whole energy. Everyone has their own way of praticing, so do what feels right. But remember to do your own research. Get out of TikTok and READ! archeological revues and works are important.
-> Ideas for offerings: Wine, honey, bread, prayers, cat symbols (statues, whiskers, furr, ect), same with boar figures, jewelery, gold, coins, amber, red fruits, apples, incense, candles, anything else that feels right to you
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BIBLIOGRAPHY:
"Freyja, Lady, Vanadis: An Introduction to the Goddess" by Patricia M. Lafayllve
"The Viking Way: Religion and War in Late Iron Age Scandinavia" by Neil Price
"Gods and Myths of Northern Europe" by H.R. Ellis Davidson LA MITOLOGÍA, Y. E. C. D. THE MYTHOLOGY AND CULT OF FREYJA AND HER IMPORTANCE TO VIKING AGE WOMEN. Bellows, Henry Adams (Trans.) (1923).
A Edda Poetica. American-Scandinavian Foundation
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talonabraxas · 5 months ago
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Solar Diety
A solar deity (also sun god(dess)) is a deity who represents the sun, or an aspect of it, usually by its perceived power and strength. Solar deities and sun worship can be found throughout most of recorded history in various forms. Hence, many beliefs have formed around this worship, such as the "missing sun" found in many cultures.
Solar deities throughout cultures
In different religions solarised supreme deities carry different names and are associated with different aspects of the cultural universe of the society, but for the most part its raw image remains identical.
The Neolithic concept of a solar barge, the sun as traversing the sky in a boat, is found in the later myths of ancient Egypt, with Ra and Horus. Earlier Egyptian myths imply that the sun is within the lioness, Sekhmet, at night and can be seen reflected in her eyes or that it is within the cow, Hathor during the night, being reborn each morning as her son (bull). Proto-Indo-European religion has a solar chariot, the sun as traversing the sky in a chariot.
During the Roman Empire, a festival of the birth of the Unconquered Sun (or Dies Natalis Solis Invicti) was celebrated on the winter solstice — the "rebirth" of the sun. In Germanic mythology this is Sol, in Vedic Surya, and in Greek Helios (occasionally referred to as Titan) and (sometimes) as Apollo. Mesopotamian Shamash plays an important role during the Bronze Age, and "my Sun" is eventually used as an address to royalty. Similarly, South American cultures have emphatic Sun worship, see Inti.
During the later periods of Roman history, sun worship gained in importance and ultimately led to what has been called a “solar monotheism.” Nearly all the gods of the period were possessed of solar qualities, and both Christ and Mithra acquired the traits of solar deities. The feast of Sol Invictus (Unconquered Sun) on December 25 was celebrated with great joy, and eventually this date was taken over by the Christians as Christmas, the birthday of Christ.[1]
Hinduism
The Ādityas are one of the principal deities of the Vedic classical Hinduism belonging to Solar class. In the Vedas, numerous hymns are dedicated to Mitra, Varuna and Savitr.
Even the Gayatri mantra, which is regarded as one of the most sacred of the Vedic hymns is dedicated to Savitr, one of the principal Ādityas. The Adityas are a group of solar deities, from the Brahmana period numbering twelve. The ritual of sandhyavandanam, performed by Hindus, is an elaborate set of hand gestures and body movements, designed to greet and revere the sun.
The sun god in Hinduism is an ancient and revered deity. In later Hindu usage, all the Vedic Ādityas lost identity and metamorphosed into one composite deity, Surya, the sun. The attributes of all other Ādityas merged into that of Surya and the names of all other Ādityas became synonymous with or epithets of Surya.
The Ramayana has Lord Rama as a descendant of the Surya, thus belonging to the Surya Vansh or the clan of the Sun. The Mahabharata describes one of its warrior heroes Karna as being the son of the Pandava mother Kunti and Surya.
The sun god is said to married to the goddess Ranaadeh, also known as Sanjnya. She is depicted in dual form, being both sunlight and shadow, personified. The goddess is revered in Gujarat and Rajasthan.
The charioteer of Surya is Aruna, who is also personified as the redness that accompanies the sunlight in dawn and dusk. The Sun God is driven by a seven-horsed Chariot depicting the seven days of the week.
In India, at Konark, in the state of Orissa, a temple is dedicated to Surya. The Konark temple has also been declared a UNESCO world heritage site. Surya is the most prominent of the navagrahas or nine celestial objects of the Hindus. Navagrahas can be found in almost all Hindu temples. There are further temples dedicated to Surya, one in Arasavilli, Srikakulam District in AndhraPradesh, one in Gujarat and another in Rajasthan. The temple at Arasavilli was constructed in such a way that on the day of Radhasaptami, the sun's rays directly fall on the feet of the Sri Suryanarayana Swami, the deity at the temple.
Chhath (Hindi: छठ, also called Dala Chhath) is an ancient Hindu festival dedicated to Surya, the chief solar deity, unique to Bihar, Jharkhand and the Terai. This major festival is also celebrated in the northeast region of India, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, and parts of Chhattisgarh.Hymns praying to the sun can be found in the Vedas, the oldest sacred texts of Hinduism. Practiced in different parts of India, the worship of the sun has been described in the Rigveda.
Ancient Egypt
Sun worship was exceptionally prevalent in ancient Egyptian religion. The earliest deities associated with the sun are Wadjet, Sekhmet, Hathor, Nut, Bastet, Bat, and Menhit. First Hathor, and then Isis, give birth to and nurse Horus and Ra. Hathor the horned-cow is one of the twelve daughters of Ra, gifted with joy and is a wet-nurse to Horus.
The sun's movement across the sky represents a struggle between the Pharaoh's soul and an avatar of Osiris. Ra travels across the sky in his solar-boat; at dawn he drives away the demon apep of darkness. The "solarisation" of several local gods (Hnum-Re, Min-Re, Amon-Re) reaches its peak in the period of the fifth dynasty.
In the eighteenth dynasty, Akhenaten changed the polytheistic religion of Egypt to a monotheistic one, Atenism of the solar-disk and is the first recorded state monotheism. All other deities were replaced by the Aten, including, Amun-Ra, the reigning sun god of Akhenaten's own region. Unlike other deities, the Aten did not have multiple forms. His only image was a disk—a symbol of the sun.
Soon after Akhenaten's death, worship of the traditional deities was reestablished by the religious leaders (Ay the High-Priest of Amen-Ra, mentor of Tutankhaten/Tutankhamen) who had adopted the Aten during the reign of Akhenaten.
Chinese mythology
In Chinese mythological cosmology, there were originally ten suns in the sky, who were all brothers. They were supposed to emerge one at a time as commanded by the Jade Emperor. They were all very young and loved to fool around. Once they decided to all go into the sky to play, all at once. This made the world too hot and nothing grew. A hero named Hou Yi shot down nine of them with a bow and arrow to save the people of the earth. He is still honored to this day. In another myth, the solar eclipse was caused by the magical dog of heaven biting off a piece of the sun. The referenced event is said to have occurred around 2,160BCE. There was a tradition in China to make lots of loud celebratory sounds during a solar eclipse to scare the sacred "dog" away. The Deity of the Sun in Chinese mythology is Ri Gong Tai Yang Xing Jun (Tai Yang Gong / Grandfather Sun) or Star Lord of the Solar Palace, Lord of the Sun. In some mythologies, Tai Yang Xing Jun is believed to be Hou Yi. Tai Yang Xing Jun is usually decipted with the Star Lord of the Lunar Palace, Lord of the Moon, Yue Gong Tai Yin Xing Jun (Tai Yin Niang Niang / Lady Tai Yin).
Buddhism
In Buddhist cosmology, the bodhisattva of the sun is known as Ri Gong Ri Guang Pu Sa (The Bright Solar Boddhisattva of the Solar Palace) / Ri Gong Ri Guang Tian Zi (The Bright Solar Prince of the Solar Palace) / Ri Gong Ri Guang Zun Tian Pu Sa (The Greatly Revered Bright Solar Prince of the Solar Palace / one of the 20 or 24 guardian devas). In Sanskrit, He is known as Suryaprabha. He is usually decipted with Yue Gong Yue Guang Pu Sa (The Bright Lunar Boddhisattva of the Lunar Palace) / Yue Gong Yue Guang Tian Zi ( The Bright Lunar Prince of the Lunar Palace) / Yue Gong Yue Guang Zun Tian Pu Sa (The Greatly Revered Bright Lunar Prince of the Lunar Palace / one of the 20 or 24 guardian devas) or known as Candraprabha in Sanskrit. With Yao Shi Fo / Bhaisajyaguru Buddha (Medicine Buddha), these two boddhisattvas create the Dong Fang San Sheng or the Three Holy Sages of the East.
Africa
The Munshi tribe considers the sun to be the son of the supreme being Awondo and the moon is Awondo's daughter. The Barotse tribe believes that the Sun is inhabited by the sky god Nyambi and the Moon is his wife. Even where the sun god is equated with the supreme being, in some African mythologies he or she does not have any special functions or privileges as compared to other deities.
Aztec mythology
In Aztec mythology, Tonatiuh (Nahuatl:Ollin Tonatiuh "Movement of the Sun") was the sun god. The Aztec people considered him the leader of Tollan, heaven. He was also known as the fifth sun, because the Aztecs believed that he was the sun that took over when the fourth sun was expelled from the sky. According to their cosmology, each sun was a god with its own cosmic era. According to the Aztecs, they were still in Tonatiuh's era. According to the Aztec creation myth, the god demanded human sacrifice as tribute and without it would refuse to move through the sky. It is said that 20,000 people were sacrificed each year to Tonatiuh and other gods, though this number is thought to be inflated either by the Aztecs, who wanted to inspire fear in their enemies, or the Spaniards, who wanted to vilify the Aztecs. The Aztecs were fascinated by the sun and carefully observed it, and had a solar calendar second only in accuracy to the Mayan's. Many of today's remaining Aztec monuments have structures aligned with the sun.
In the Aztec calendar, Tonatiuh is the lord of the thirteen days from 1 Death to 13 Flint. The preceding thirteen days are ruled over by Chalchiuhtlicue, and the following thirteen by Tlaloc.
Indonesian mythology
The same swapping process is seen in Indonesia. The solar gods have a stronger presence in Indonesia's religious life and myth. In some cases the sun is revered as a "father" or "founder" of the tribe. This may apply for the whole tribe or only for the royal and ruling families. This practise is more common in Australia and on the island of Timor, where the tribal leaders are seen as direct heirs to the sun god.
Some of the initiation rites include the second reincarnation of the rite's subject as a "son of the sun", through a symbolic death and a rebirth in the form of a sun. These rituals hint that the Sun may have an important role in the sphere of funerary beliefs. Watching the un's path has given birth to the idea in some societies that the deity of the Sun descends in to the underworld without dying and is capable of returning afterward. This is the reason for the Sun being associated with functions such as guide of the deceased tribe members to the underworld, as well as with revival of perished. The sun is a mediator between the planes of the living and the dead.
Theosophy The primary local deity in Theosophy is the Solar Logos, i.e., the consciousness of the sun.
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alpaca-clouds · 1 year ago
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About the Development of Myths
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Okay, I will talk about more of the specific gods tomorrow again (starting first with the other gods from Stray Gods and then just looking over a variety of gods - I might start just with the greeks and then... venture into other mythologies). But first let me talk about the entire basis of what I have been talking about so far with the origins of Pan and Persephone: Their mythology is not a fixed thing.
Something that I would say education in general really fails on is properly expressing the amount of changes that cultures go through. I wrote about this before just in terms of history: There is not THE middle ages, not THE ancient Egypt, not THE ancient Greece and so on. All of those historical periods lasted for at least a thousand years. Now imagine that in like 500 years someone goes and looks at the 20th and 21st century as: "The World War and Globalisation period". Which I think there is a good chance this will at some point be known at (assuming we do not manage to eradicate our species before that, that is). Yet, you and I both know that if we were talking to someone from 1923 there would be very little we had in common.
Sure, this effect got massively accelerated thanks to the internet. But... You gotta have to assume that the Roman dude from 100 BC would also live in a very different world from the Roman dude of 200 BC. Because a hundred years is always going to involve a lot of change.
The reason we look at those old cultures as unchanging is, that they do not change anymore. And everyone who is neither working with that kinda stuff, nor is a complete geek, will just look at that culture as ONE FIRM THING rather than something fluent.
This is also true in terms of religion and related traditions, though we in the west are even more prone to it than other cultures. Because we do assume Christianity as this one thing. And the bible as this one unchanging thing. Hence the core believe is the same and, so the reasoning goes, was always the same. In fact, if you went to a religious school it is kinda how you were taught. The bible is one thing and always was the same thing. Only... It wasn't and even the basic we hve now does not matter.
Just look at the many Christian subreligions. They all in some way or form believe in Jesus, the one big God and all of that - but what they take from that widely differs. And the bible really does not have a big impact onto what ideals they hold and how they hold mass and how they pray and what not. If you think about it, you will easily see that, right? And if you just look a bit into what you might have learned about history in relation to Christianity, you will also know that this has changed. The role of Jesus has changed. How much the Holy Spirit is looked upon as an active actor. Which saints get venerated. All of that has changed a lot in just the last 50 years. And has changed a ton between the different countries.
And what I now need you to keep in mind that this was the exact same with the Ancient Gods and the religion attached to them. That holds true for the Greek Gods, the Roman Gods, the Egyptian Gods, the Norse Gods... all of them. The way they were worshipped changed over those thousand(s of) years they were worshipped.
So, let me once again talk about the Proto-Indo-European culture. Which is always a doosy and I love it.
The Proto-Indo-Europeans originates probably in the areas of modern day Ukraine and/or Romania and/or southern Russia some time around 5000 BC (scholars argue a bit about the exact temporal placement, just that it was somewhere between 7000 BC and 4000 BC). We do not really know a lot about them, because they did not write stuff down. But we do know that they had horses, were patriarchal, and that they worshipped a polytheistic pantheon that at least involved a Sky Father as one of the highest gods, who controlled the weather and was especially associated with storms and lightning.
These Proto-Indo-Europeans started breaking apart and travelling. Some into Asia, some into Europe and the Arabian/Persian areas. They brought with them their language and religion.
Now, it should be noted that they were not the "original humans" or anything. And that whereever they went... in most areas there were already other people living there, with whom they intermingled. Also whatever land they ended up settling was different, had different environments and this was included into their religious practice. Which made their religion over the years differ bit by bit. So from their pantheon sprang a lot of the pantheons we know today.
But... again, a lot of places they settled had already people living there. Who had their own worship. And that stuff often was also included and merged. Sometimes those other worships were very far reaching, sometimes very local. But some of those deities were picked up and either made part of whatever pantheon was there to come or was merged with an already existing god. And this happened again and again during the time that whatever pantheon was prayed to.
How do we know that, if it was not written down?
Well, mostly due to some archeology, but mostly due to comparative mythology and comparative linguistics. Two fields of science that basically involve people going over a lot of languages or mythologies (which, by the way, at times also includes fairytales and other oral narratives that are not necessarily held as "true", but still told) and basically finding things the reoccur. As well as going back over whatever written stuff we do have and noticing the shifts happening between a text written in 600 BC and a text written in 200 BC.
Now, for all the stuff we have two things that help a lot: a) The old Hindi writings and b) the written stuff from Egypt. Because both go really far back and were very well documented in writing. So basically we always can compare stuff to that and see shifts more clearly.
But, yeah... Technically all the pantheons are very much related. At some point Zeus, Jupiter, Diespiter, Thor, Tinia and Tian originated from the same character. You can even kinda see it in how similar the names are. Susanoo in Shinto-Mythology probably came from this, too, at least in the iteration we actually know about. (There can be some arguments made that a lot of the Shinto gods were shifted through the Buddhist contact, as the original indigenous Japanese cultures were very likely not Indo-European in origin. But given that the Ainu are the only culture whose oral tradition managed to survive this long, while the others either vanished or merged in a way influenced by Buddhism, which comes from Indo-European culture... yeah, it is there now.)
So, what I am saying: Mythology is shifting and always has been shifting. Same goes with religion. Hence the evolution of the Greek Pantheon.
Fun fact: Through comparative mythology we can also find the origins of YHW, the Abrahamitic god. Or God, as you might know him. He is a fascinating one, as he probably started out as a local god associated with harvest and weather in Southern Egypt and was then picked up by the Semitic cultures. He got a more pronounced role in the Canaanite pantheon, where at some point he merged with Baal, the war god. And through some trials and tribulations he finally ended up merging with El(hoim), the top god of the pantheon, with a part of the Canaanites splitting from the culture and developing into what would become the Jewish culture.
Super fascinating stuff. I love it.
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looking-at-the-deiwos · 1 month ago
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Dhég̑hōm Mā́tēr
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Or as I write it, Dhéghom Máter, also Dʰéǵʰōm Méh₂tēr. Her name means "Mother Earth"
She was also called Pḷtáwī or Pl̥th₂éwih₂, meaning "the Broad One", and dʰengwo, meaning "Dark" (dark-skinned?)
Dhéghom is Mother Earth. Associated with plants, nature, fertility, motherhood, cooking and agriculture. She also had a cthonic aspect, being considered both the mother of all life and the place where all living returned to with death. As an ever present mother, oaths were sometimes made by her.
She is sometimes seen as a partner of Dyéus, or of Perkwúnos (or both ;)). Both these sources consider the idea of her being both the mother and consort of Perkwúnos
Offerings
Taken from here
Stones
Symbols of deep waters, earth and grain
Depictions or imagery related to pregnancy
Grains
Green ribbons
Depictions or imagery related to breasts
Depictions or imagery of sows
Devotional acts
Gardening!
Wearing green or brown
Cooking
Educate yourself on local flora and fauna
Eat fruit and vegetables
Learn new recipes involving either vegetables or grains
Make bread
Honor the cycles of nature (seasons, etc)
Picking flowers
Drink natural teas
Ground yourself in nature
Associations
Stones
Vegetation
Fruit
Agriculture
Pregnancy
Motherhood
Landscapes
Sows
Green and brown
the feast of Mabon
November
Monday
Descendants in later pantheons
Cthonia (Greek)
Demeter (Greek)
Semele (Greek)
Plataia (Greek)
Gaia (Greek)
Terra/Tellus Mater (Roman)
Ceres (Roman)
Jörd (Nordic)
Prithvi Mata (Vedic)
Finally, here's her wikipedia article
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room-surprise · 5 months ago
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do you know or have thoughts on why the dm characters sometimes reference ‘hell’ (as in ‘what the hell?’) given how the series handles religion? is that an anime thing or translation thing or…???
This is such a great question, and fun to answer, so thank you for writing to me!!! I think there's two things happening at the same time: What does hell really mean in English, and what are the characters actually saying in the original Japanese?
If the characters say hell in the original manga or in any translations, I think it is pretty safe to assume that they aren't referring to the Christian hell specifically, since it doesn't appear to exist in the Dungeon Meshi world. They are instead referring to the generic concept of a hell.
NON-CHRISTIAN HELLS
Hell is a word that can refer to a "bad afterlife" in many different world cultures. Obviously all of these cultures have their own names for these places, but when they are translated into English they are frequently referred to as "Buddhist hell", "Hindu hell", "Nordic hell", etc.
The word "hell" was adopted by Christians to describe something in their religion, but does not originate with them.
The modern English word hell is derived from Old English hel, to refer to a nether world of the dead. The word has cognates in all branches of the Germanic languages, and they all ultimately derive from the reconstructed Proto-Germanic feminine noun xaljō or haljō ('concealed place, the underworld'), and can be traced back even further to Proto-Indo European.
When the Germanic peoples were converted to Christianity, the word "hell" was adopted to refer to the Christian underworld. Before that time, hell was called many different things by the Christians, including "Sheol" (grave, death, pit, underworld), "Gehenna" (valley of wailing), "Hades" or "Tartarus." (The first two are Hebrew words, and the latter two are Ancient Greek. All of these words are attempting to describe similar things, a bad afterlife.) These Germanic cultures (most of Northern, Western and Central Europe) are the primary cultural influence of Dungeon Meshi's Eastern and Northern Continents, where the story takes place, and where most of the characters are from. So the word hel/hell would be native to the region, and logical for the characters to use both as a swear word, and also as a reference to whatever afterlife they might believe in.
WHAT ARE THE CHARACTERS ACTUALLY SAYING THOUGH?
Dungeon Meshi is, for better or for worse, written in standard, contemporary Japanese, without any particular emphasis or attempt to sound "old fashioned" or like it is "fantasy", so any changes or additions made in translation to make the dialog or narration sound that way are just that: additions and changes. The changes made during translation aren't inherently bad, but the original text is very neutral, and open to interpretation. For example, Yaad calls Laios "tono/dono" in Japanese, which is an honorific that has no direct English equivalent, but is used between two people of similar social status, when one wants to be extra polite to the other. It does not imply nobility, but respect higher than "mister" and lower than "lord." Most English translations have rendered this as "Sir Laios" which isn't literally what Yaad says, but conveys the idea with something that "feels right" for the setting. It may be that in Dungeon Meshi the characters are literally saying the English word "hell/heru" in Japanese (ヘル), the word jigoku (地獄), which is the Japanese word for Buddhist hell, another word for a specific different underworld or afterlife, they are saying a Japanese swear word, or just using casual/impolite language that doesn't have a direct translation into English, and so needs to be localized into something that will make sense in English.
The last one is most likely what is happening, and I can think of a couple of common phrases that would most likely be translated into "What the hell?":
The polite, neutral way to say "What's that?" or "What [should I] do?" is "Nan-darou? (なんだろう?) or "Nani?" (何), which just means "What?"
The more casual, aggressive, masculine way of saying it is "Nani-kore?" (なにこれ?) which doesn't mention hell in any way, but translates to something like "What the hell?" or "What the fuck?" It's more rude because it's casual speech, but doesn't literally use words for hell or fuck in it. It technically means the same thing as "Nan-darou?" or "Nani?" But translating it the same way would be ignoring the context and tone of the words.
Another thing that's often said in Japanese is "Uso!" (うそ!) Which literally means "lie" or "not true", but in conversation it’s often used to say things like "you're lying!", "For real?!", "really?", or "No way!"
Often these exclamations of "Uso!" don't have anything to do with lying or untruths, they are meant to express surprise (this can't be happening!) or a response to someone talking about an outrageous and terrible event they experienced, like saying "No way! I can't believe that happened to you!" It's also sometimes translated as "What the hell…" or "Unbelievable…"
If the translators tried to keep this sort of thing literal, the manga would be full of lines like:
CHILCHUCK, running for his life from a mimic: What's this?! (Nani-kore?!) (He isn't literally asking what the mimic is, he is expressing surprise, so he should shout some curse words in English like hell, fuck, shit, etc.)
MARCILLE, horrified by the chimera: Lie! (Uso!) (She isn't just saying the word "lie" with no context, she is expressing shock, horror and disbelief at what she sees, so she should say something like "No, that can't be..." or "Impossible...")
I am not an expert in Japanese, but I hope that all of this is helpful to you, anon, and anyone else that's interested in this sort of thing!
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tanadrin · 2 years ago
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(Note: this is all totally non-rigorous free association)
Famously, the King James Version of the Bible translates Exodus 22:18 as "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." This is one of those translations, though, that has suffered for passing through multiple different cultural lenses over the textual history of Exodus. Alternate modern translations say things like "put to death any woman who does evil magic," "*wizards* thou shalt not suffer to live," or even "whoever has sexual relations with an animal must be put to death."
In the Septuagint, the underlying word is translated φάρμακος; despite the connotation of the English word, a masculine noun; the word is associated with magical arts in general, but is *especially* associated with poison. It's from φάρμακον, a word which can mean either "poison" or "drug," and is the origin of "pharmacy." Greek had a rich vocabulary for the supernatural: an older and more general word seems to be γοητεία, "charm, jugglery, sorcery," from γόης, "sorcerer, wizard, juggler, cheat." That it includes in its semantic field the concept of sleight-of-hand shows that mundane deception is countenanced as a possible explanation for claims of magical power, which no doubt contributes to the dim social reception of magic, but also shows a neat symmetry with the modern concept of the stage magician, whom we publicly acknowledge as really being just a particular kind of illusionist and entertainer. Another Greek word for magic is, well, μάγος, the source of the English word, ultimately a borrowing from Old Persian maguš. A maguš was simply a priest of Mazda in the old Zoroastrian religion; the word is of uncertain etymology, but its connotations in Greek arise from crediting a Greek mythical version of Zoroaster with the invention of magic and astrology, showing us that perhaps orientalism of one sort or another has long been part of European traditions of the occult. There is also  θαυματουργία, "wonder-working, doing miracles, wizardry."
But the Septuagint word choice is an odd one; as I understand it, the actual underlying lexical item is מְכַשֵּׁפָה/mekhashefah, the feminine form of מְכַשֵּׁף/mekhashef. The root of this word seems to be כשף/KH-SH-F, which has been glossed various ways. One gloss I find particularly interesting is "cut." Kenneth Kitchen links this etymology to the cutting of herbs; thus, a mekhashef is a kind of herbalist, and the context, as with pharmakos, is the fear of poisons--the feminine form might also make sense here, as it seems plausible that just as in our modern society, poisoning was a more reliable tool for killing for women than for men, for whom the possibility of physically overpowering their enemies was less likely.
But I think it's interesting to note other ways in which magic is about division and breaking. Though in modern fantasy a "warlock" is either just a generic wicked sorcerer, or a summoner of demons, the word comes from Old English wǣrloga ("promise-deceiver"), a deceiver, a breaker of oaths. A warlock is thus someone who dissolves social ties, or even betrays their baptismal vows by making an unholy vow, an un-promise, to Satan himself. The English "witch" comes from the Old English wiċċa or wiċċe (masculine and feminine forms respectively), from Proto-Germanic *wikkô, "sorcerer, necromancer," from the verb *wikkōną, "to practice sorcery." One likely derivation of *wikkōną is the Proto-Indo-European stem *weyk-, "to separate, to divide, to choose." This may be a reference to cleromancy, the casting of lots; many ancient words for magic link together fortunetelling of various kinds (the second element in words like "necromancy" and "cleromancy" is ancient Greek μᾰντείᾱ, "divination, prophecy, fortune-telling), but here again the concept of separation appears in a way that is difficult to ignore.
The Romans, like the Greeks, looked east for their wisdom, and were also obsessed with divination in particular, so their words for magic are often borrowed from Greek, or concern forms of fortune-telling in particular: haruspicina, the inspection of entrails; the genius or numen, language of spiritual presence and will (the latter not dissimilar to the mana of Polynesia); auspicium, the interpretation of omens, especially the flights of birds. Perhaps other kinds of magic invoked skepticism: Pliny argues that, except possibly in the making of potions (the Romans, no less than the Greeks and the Hebrews, knew that the right herbs could kill!), most claims of magic were simply lies--though there was little harm in apotropaic wards to set the mind at ease. Apuleius granted the existence of spirits and demons, and both Augustus and Constantine worried enough about magic to try to suppress its practice.
In Sanskrit, magic was apparently sometimes called इन्द्रजाल/indrajala, "Indra's net," a metaphor for emptiness, a word that foregrounds the idea of fraud and illusion. Similarly, the word माया/maya means "magic," but also "illusion," being in that way akin to the English notion of glamour found in fairy-stories. There is also possibly semantic overlap with German Zauber, whose meaning is "magic," but which is etymologically connected to Old English tēafor, "to paint [a picture]," and Icelandic töfrar, "enchantment." (Icelandic also has galdur, "sorcery," but also "[conjuring] trick.") Chinese offers the root 魔/mo2, which according to Wiktionary is from Sanskrit मार/mara, "death, pestilence;" in Chinese it takes on theurgic qualities: "devil, demon, magic, the unnatural, crazy," depending on the context it's found in: 魔羅, a kind of Buddhist demon; 魔術, "magic," as in an illusion imitating the supernatural; 瘋魔, "to be insane, to be fascinated by, to be enchanted by," a concept of obsessive madness shared in other cultures, including our own.
A full cross-cultural, historical comparison of words pertaining to magic is far beyond my capabilities, of course; but exploring current in the vocabulary and historical development of words around magic is interesting so far as it peels back the thick systematizing, empirical layer within our culture and helps us glimpse how these ideas functioned in the past. Nowadays, magic is often prototypically the magic of high fantasy: it is systematic, little more than a flashy kind of science, even if it is one accessed through mental discipline rather than mechanical instruments. Magic is patterned, stable, fundamentally knowable, because we are so thoroughly grounded in systems of knowledge that understand the whole world as patterned and knowable that we cannot imagine anything else. We redefine magic in ways that simplify it down to nothing: to be little more than abstract spiritual practice, moral therapeutic deism with countercultural window-dressing, or to mean nothing more than simply acting on the world. But is that really in keeping with the spirit of the thing, as it is has been imagined for most of history?
Magic is about many things. It is about division: discrimination, separation, cutting. Cutting the body of the sacrifice, to prod at its bloody insides; cutting breath from a living victim; cutting off the sacred from the unholy, and vice-versa. It is about speaking, chanting, singing, the form and the performance of words. It is about writing (itself a word which means to cut or carve into something). It is about deception: lies in pursuit of status or money, lies to avoid culpability for murder, lies about secret knowledge. It is about feeling oneself inhabiting a world filled with intentional beings, beings with a will and nature unknown and perhaps unknowable to you. Spirits of the dead, of the air, and of the wild world; the genius loci, the demon, the hungry ghost. It of a world when the night could claim real darkness, when the stars were forever an inscrutable mystery, and when the terrifying unknown could intrude into your life at a moment's notice. Even modern occultism feels like a nonsensical imitation of the past, with emphasis on benign enlightenment or spiritual growth, when ancient magic was rife with murder, curses, treachery, and simple human greed. The huckster fortune-teller, who cynically defrauds their customrs, is closer to the spirit of magic than the observant neo-pagan.
We are mostly too sure of ourselves, and too confident in our ability to understand even that which is at first horrifying and inexplicable, to really replicate the feeling of that kind of magic. A world in which that kind of magic is possible is a world in which the last few centuries of philosophy and epistemology and science are shown to be so profoundly wrong that we are left with nothing but naive superstition and fear. Or else, it is a world where all these basic forms of inquiry that we take for granted simply do not work--because if they did work, we would be back in our own comforting, familiar world, a world of rationalism and enlightenment, albeit perhaps with a few of the phenomenological incidentals changed. I wonder if it is really possibly anymore for us to tell stories in the mode of that older world. With the exception of certain kinds of horror, I don't really know of anything that comes close.
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anniflamma · 6 months ago
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so…I spent like hours thinking hard on this and I can’t believe I came up with this..mind you this is my own Crackhead theory so don’t take anything I say seriously but it goes.
me and my aunt were eating dinner and talking about mythology and I told her about a really Christian man coming up to me and saying “because you don’t believe in god and Jesus you will go to hell” and my Pegan but said “cool ima go pet a three headed dog” and then my aunt told me “well Christianity doesn’t really makes sense to me because where the hell did it come from because the first prominent religions were ones such as Greece and Roman beliefs”
and that got me thinking, so I decided to do some thinking.
and I got some connections so Chaos is like the lord right? The very first and most powerful, and he created the primordials, that created the titans and so on, and then Zeus came along and screwed everything up right? Then a few hundred years later Persephone or what mortals at the time called her Core, and after our lovely goddess of spring starting taking care of all of the mistakes, such as taking care of the rejected children of Zeus and others, so I was like who the hell is her dad because she has the power of nature from Demeter but where did she get her chaotic power from? Her father can’t be Zeus because she doesn’t have any power of the sky, and it can’t be Posiden because she has no power of any body of water..
then I remembered Demeter prayed and begged for a daughter..and the fates are directly tied to Chaos so Chaos gave Persephone to Demeter..CHAOS IS PERSEPHONE DAD!! It makes sense to me when I think about it really hard..
and I also realized because the oldest version of Persephone was so feared..but because of *cough* Christian writers a lot of those stories changed because of that. Sadly I don’t think a lot of people know that.
I DO NOT HATE THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION BUT YA’LL BE CONFUSING AS HELL, and also please understand THAT NOT ALL WITCHCRAFT IS BAD I SWEAR I HEAR THAT ALL THE TIME.
okay enough of my rant I hope that shines Al title light in my head.
That is an interesting take and connection! To be honest, syncretism and the evolution of religions and cultures are my biggest hyperfixations. Well, I grew up Christian and now hyperfixate on the Bible with a more historical and cultural perspective. So I'm not really as confused when it comes to the Christian religion. If you have any questions, just ask, and I will try my best to answer them!
The thing with European religion is that almost all of them stem from Proto-Indo-European mythology. And that includes the Abrahamic faith (which makes many people feel very uneasy). This is why the planet Venus is almost always female and the sun is male, and so on and so forth! Many people don't know that the Hebrew Bible starts off as henotheistic (believing that many gods exist but worshipping only one of them, while it is acceptable if other people worship other gods). Then it rapidly becomes monolatristic (acknowledging that many gods may exist but only worshipping one of them, and it is not acceptable if other people worship other gods) and then ends with being purely monotheistic. Of course, the Bible has been edited and changed to make it fit more with the monotheistic view, such as removing acknowledgments of the existence of other Canaanite gods. And removing the goddess Asherah, God/Yahweh's wife, and replacing her name with "the grove" or just the Holy Spirit. And the Christian faith did get syncretized with Roman/Greek pagan faith. There is no hell in the Bible, but there is an underworld! It's called Sheol, the "land of gloom and deep darkness." But there is no deep dive on what Sheol really is or how it was in the bible. It was just the underworld where all the dead people went. However, Sheol pretty much got paired up with Hades in the New Testament because both of them were the name of the underworld, so it just made sense, right? But the Greeks also had Tartarus, which is the place in Hades where you get tortured for eternity. And that is where the Christian hell pretty much stems from, it's just Tartarus but with Satan....
This is just a rough generalization, and the whole thing is more complex than what I have brought up here!
I don't think, though, that it was the Christians who changed Persephone. Kore (Persephone) was already really old before Christianity became even a thing. It's a really young religion compared to the Greek gods. 😅
But the concept of Christian saints was created in a way so it would be easier to convert pagans. Instead of removing the traditions, ceremonies, and celebrations, the god they worshipped was switched with a saint that could fit the description of that said deity. So Saint Sebastian is pretty much just the Christian version of Apollo. A twink God of archery, sports, healing, plagues, and gayness was replaced with the twink saint of archery, sports, healing, plagues, and accidental gay awakening. A COINCIDENCE? I THINK NOT!! This is my crackhead theory!!!
And about witchcraft. Even the Bible thinks that not all witchcraft is bad. What I understand is there is good magic and bad magic. Necromancy is one of the bad ones. King Saul performed necromancy and brought Samuel's soul back, and that pissed Samuel off so much that he cursed Saul's whole family. But then we have good magic, like I dunno Jacob makes some weird unclear stuff with his sheep, and they become really healthy. I think the only thing Jesus said about witchcraft was like: "yeah, you can use your magic for good, and that is a good thing, but you don't need it if you already believe in my Father"!
There is a whole weird rabbit hole on Christian syncretization with the Greek gods....
Then we have the ancient history of where exactly God/Yahweh comes from. There is this popular theory that scholars think Yahweh most likely comes from the ancient Mesopotamian pantheon. And around the economic collapse during the Bronze Age, the worship of then Yahweh became isolated, which created the ancient Hebrews. Essentially, it started with an ancient warrior-storm god that became a god of the whole world. And I'm not even going to start with Gnosticism! What is like Christian Polytheism but with steroids!
I'm gonna stop here! Sorry I kinda derailed!
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ishparpuaqib · 8 days ago
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i just took a good look at that last post and uh, i just want to point out (bc my first reply has already been reblogged)—gimbutas most decidedly did not think of the yamnaya as "female-centered nature lovers". the (ostensibly indo-european) yamnaya were not "old europeans"—quite the opposite, in fact! i thought this was common knowledge, but apparently not. gimbutas did claim something of the neolithic matriarchal religion survived the onslaught of the proto-indo-europeans, but she most certainly did not consider greeks or germanics direct cultural successors to neolithic europe
and, just, a word of advice—you should probably read the wikipedia page of authors you're criticising before you make grand claims on their motives. it's this sort of thing why a not-insubstantial amount of my colleagues n amateurs alike are convinced the only reason ppl dislike gimbutas is because they're mouth-breathing misogynists bent on defending the "common sense" position androcentrism is a cultural universal across all space & time
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shamandrummer · 11 months ago
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The Many Lives of Mongolian Shamanism
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The following is excerpted from Sky Shamans of Mongolia: Meetings with Remarkable Healers by Kevin Turner.
For thousands of years, Mongolia has been a nexus of Eurasian shamanisms that competed, mixed, and meshed across our planet's largest continent. Shamanism appears to have emerged with the very dawn of human consciousness, but archeologists can probably speak with confidence about only the past 30,000 to 70,000 years.
Archeological discoveries in Eurasia alone indicate that the practice of shamanism reaches back at least to 35,000 BCE, easily making shamanism the oldest spiritual practice known to mankind. Modern religious faiths such as Buddhism and Christianity are toddlers in comparison, and psychology is a mere newborn.
The word shaman originated from the Tungusic tribal language groups (from areas to the north and east of Mongolia), which are related to Mongolic languages. These are both part of the broader Altaic language group, which includes Turkic, Manchurian, and scores of other Inner Asian and Siberian languages, and may include Korean and Japanese at the easternmost reach. The modern term "shaman" has now been adopted by many as a catch-all word to describe those who by spiritual means seek direct access to information and healing power not ordinarily available.
The nomadic northern Siberian shamanic traditions tend to retain the highly individualistic aspects of shamanism; by contrast, a most interesting facet of Mongolian and Inner Asian shamanism is the amalgamation of the shamans' direct experiences of other realities with a religious belief system known as Tengerism (Heaven or Sky God-ism). Tengerism originated in Sumeria, one of humanity's earliest civilizations, and probably derived from the early experiences of the shamans, prophets, and mystics of pre-Mesopotamian eras.
The modern Mongolian term Tenger (or Tengri), meaning both "sky realms" and "sky spirits," almost certainly derives from the Sumerian word Dingir, also meaning both "sky realm(s)" and "deity(-ies)." The concept of divinity in Sumerian was closely associated with the heavens, evident from the shared cuneiform sign for both heaven and sky, and from the fact that its earliest form is a star shape. The name of every deity in Sumerian is prefixed by a star symbol.
Mircea Eliade proposed that Tengrism may be the closest thing we have found to a reconstructed proto-Indo-European religion. It is also evident that Tengrism's three-layered worldview is nearly identical to the tripartite world found in many kinds of shamanism, as well as the Vedic triloka ("three realms") world structure.
In Mongolian, one who travels the realms of the Tengers is called a Tengeri--"sky-dweller; sky-walker." I like to think that Luke Skywalker, the young warrior-shaman Jedi knight of the fictional Star Wars films, may have inherited his name from this tradition. Interestingly, the BBC reports that in censuses taken in 2001 regarding spiritual beliefs, hundreds of thousands of people selected "Jediism" as their faith of choice--such is the power of shamanism even in our modern myths and legends.
The earliest authenticated records of Mongolian shamanism go back to the beginnings of the Hunnu Dynasty, 209-93 CE (also known as the Xiongnu in Chinese records). Mongolian legend tells us that, during this time, a nine-year-old Hunnu boy united with a she-wolf, engendering the modern-day Mongolian people. The headdress of a shaman (circa 300–100 BCE) was found in one of the graves of Noin-Ula (Mongolian: Noyon uulyn bulsh) in northern Mongolia, and is strikingly similar to the Mongol Darkhad headdress of today. The fabric's colors, weaving methods, and embroidery are also similar to those found in fabric produced by Scythians in the Greek colonies on the Black Sea coast, leading scholars to draw links between these ancient cultures. (Scythian tribal areas were just west of Mongolian territories.)
According to historian and researcher Otgony Purev, shamans played an important role in diplomatic efforts and treaties with neighboring nations. The Hunnu emperors even constructed permanent shamanic shrines, and encouraged individual shamans to synthesize their diverse practices into a national religion. "Shamanist religion" then became part of the organizational basis of governmental and military activity.
Shamanism became the main source of education and ideology for the earliest pre-Mongol states. This continued for nearly 400 years, and ties to education remain influential in the Mongolian shamanic revival even today. With the disintegration of the Hunnu Dynasty, institutionalized shamanism returned to its more natural, individualistic and autonomous forms across a series of disparate Inner Asian kingdoms that spanned a millennium.
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