TITIKANOHIMATA – The god of flying foxes, animals which figure very prominently in the myths and culture of Bel-Ren.
Rituals would be performed in this god’s honor before going out to hunt flying foxes. Titikanohimata was considered the brother of the goddess Tehahine’angiki. Continue reading
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Balladeer’s Blog continues examining various accounts of dead and resurrected deities, as is customary at this time of year.
THE GOSPEL OF NICODEMUS – Despite the title of this gospel, Nicodemus doesn’t even show up until section five. This alternate scripture started out as The Acts of Pilate, and covered the story of Christ’s trial and execution from the point of view of Pontius Pilate. This half of the gospel serves the purpose of making Pontius Pilate look even more reluctant to prosecute Jesus than the canonical gospels do. Continue reading
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What better way to mark April Fool’s Day than by commemorating one of the wittiest and most daring of practical jokes, one perpetrated by Aleister Crowley in those brilliant years before drugs and/or self-delusion fogged his mind. Decades before the pathetic “Peekaboo Crowley” of much renown Aleister was still churning out some very enjoyable poetry – some of it brilliant. The Sword of Song and Konx Om Pax are my favorite volumes of verse by “the Laird of Boleskine” … AFTER Clouds Without Water, that is.
Clouds Without Water was not Crowley’s only literary practical joke, of course, but the humor of it resonates to this very day, thanks mainly to the never-changing air of pious self-righteousness that afflicts most of the world’s clergy-members. And not just pious self-righteousness but a habit of condemning in the strongest language works of art which their self-limited minds clearly don’t understand.
**************** Crowley’s autobiography explained this photo in the poignant chapter titled “I Go Completely Nuts and Start Believing Anything and Everything”
THE JOKE: Clouds Without Water was published under one of Crowley’s pseudonyms – Reverend Charles Verey. It was circulated to various ministries and teaching colleges allegedly as a condemnation of “the type of atheism and socialism” that the young and the bohemian were embracing. Crowley – writing as Reverend Verey – wrote a foreward and a closing prayer for the volume of poetry as well as (when you know the full story) HILARIOUS footnotes expressing the kind of simplistic moral outrage that only the most narrow-minded of holy-rollers can spout.
Under another assumed identity Crowley ALSO wrote the sonnets being condemned by his Reverend Verey alter ego. On the surface the poems were written by a college professor scandalously celebrating an extramarital affair with one of his female students, a young woman named Lola. The sonnets reflect the supposed couple’s flouting of social and sexual conventions until the affair ends in tragedy for all concerned. Crowley’s fictional persona Reverend Verey was denouncing the poems and the lifestyle reflected in those poems in the strongest possible terms. Continue reading
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A WAR BETWEEN GODS
CANTO ONE – The jungle and mountain god Tan Vien was accompanying the semi-divine Emperor Hung Vuong XVIII on a Royal Hunt. A turn of fate puts them in a position to save the imperiled son of Long Vuong, the chief sea god. CLICK HERE
CANTO TWO – Tan Vien and Thuy Tinh, the god of the monsoon rains, both fall in love with Mi Nuong, the daughter of Emperor Hung Vuong XVIII. Against the backdrop of their growing rivalry, Thuy Tinh’s father Long Vuong honors Tan Vien for saving his son. CLICK HERE
CANTO THREE – Tan Vien, Thuy Tinh and the patriarch of the Thuc family are among the suitors competing in various contests for the hand of Mi Nuong. CLICK HERE Continue reading
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Spring is the time of year that always puts me in mind of the many dead and resurrected deities who were featured in various seasonal myths around the world. This is a look at Baal, but if you want more dead and resurrected gods and goddesses click HERE
BAAL
Pantheon: Canaanite
The Tale: Baal, the storm god of the Canaanites, had emerged triumphant in his war with the sea god Yam and became very hubristic. He insisted he had authority even over Mot, the god of death and warned Mot that the only places on Earth that he could visit were the deserts.
Infuriated, Mot invited/ dared Baal to visit him in his subterranean realm, the land of the dead. Baal accepted the dare/ invitation lest he lose face and once there Mot fed him the food of the dead – mud – thereby trapping Baal in the Netherworld.
With Baal thus imprisoned no rains fell on the Earth and drought consumed the world, killing vegetation and the animals who fed on that vegetation, then the animals who fed on THOSE animals, etc.
In an interesting variation on these other seasonal myths in the story of Baal the “dead season” is not winter but summer, which, given the intense heat in that part of the world, was potentially more destructive to nature than winter. Continue reading
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It’s the time of year when Balladeer’s Blog highlights comparative mythology, both in terms of other cultures’ dying and resurrected deities or in this case by showcasing alternate gospels that Christian authorities of long ago deemed to be non-canonical.
THE GOSPEL OF JUDAS – Yes, it’s the “tell-all” memoir of the figure remembered as the traitorous apostle. Among the many explosive aspects of this gospel is the credence it gave to the long-argued possiblity that Judas lived on for a time after Jesus’ death and may have even had disciples of his own, like the other followers of Jesus when they dispersed.
The other gospels generally depict their attributed author (yeah, right) as being the apostle who was closest to Jesus and who understood his teachings the best. The Gospel of Judas plays the same game, even going so far as to imply that Judas alone was privy to a particularly secret teaching of Jesus.
This “secret” is a full-on, flat-out Gnostic interpretation of Jesus and his mission. Jesus is shown laughing at the disciples’ misunderstanding of who he really is and identifies the god of the Old Testament with the Demiurge. The “Savior” is even referred to in connection with the goddess Barbelo from Gnostic myths. Continue reading
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Try imagining how different modern-day Easter celebrations might be if any of the following Gospels had been deemed “authentic” (lol) instead of just the traditional four. This continues Balladeer’s Blog’s annual examination of the Apocryphal Gospels that provide the best opportunities for comparative mythology.
THE GOSPEL OF PETER – This Gospel was in wide use in the Middle East until at least the 2nd Century A.D. Its contents would still be completely unknown if not for a fragment of the Gospel being discovered in the tomb of a Christian monk in Egypt late in the 1800s.
In The Gospel of Peter when Jesus emerges from his tomb upon being resurrected he is the size of a giant “whose head reaches above the Heavens” and is being helped from the tomb by a pair of equally giant-sized angels. Next the Cross itself emerges from the tomb for some reason and a voice from the Heavens asks “Have you preached to those who are sleeping?” The cross speaks and replies “Yes.” Continue reading
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The underappreciated mythological pantheon I’ll be looking at this time will be the Aztec pantheon. It seems all anybody ever wants to talk about with the Aztecs is human sacrifice, blood, hearts being pulled out, etc. There are many more intriguing elements to their forms of worship than just blood and guts, however. Here is a list of some of their major deities. For other pantheons I’ve addressed see these links:
KOREAN MYTH – https://glitternight.com/2011/03/24/the-top-11-deities-in-korean-mythology/
SHINTO MYTH – https://glitternight.com/shinto-myth/
HAWAIIAN MYTH – https://glitternight.com/2011/02/20/the-top-eleven-deities-in-hawaiian-mythology/
HAWAIIAN MYTH PART 2 – https://glitternight.com/2011/03/02/eleven-more-deities-from-hawaiian-mythology-2/
NORSE MYTHS – https://glitternight.com/2011/04/10/the-eleven-most-neglected-deities-in-teutono-norse-mythology/
INUIT MYTHS – – https://glitternight.com/2011/06/06/the-top-12-deities-from-inuit-mythology-2/
Plus see my pages on Navajo, Vietnamese and Bunyoro myth.
11. OMETEOTL – The primordial and hermaphroditic deity who embodied all duality and from whom all existence sprang. Ometeotl did not just personify male and female but also space and time, light and dark, order and chaos, etc. As both male and female Ometeotl conceived and gave birth to the god Tonacatecuhtli and the goddess Tonacacihuatl, who mated and went on to produce most of the rest of the deities in the Aztec pantheon, sort of like Izanagi and Izanami in Shinto myths.
Ometeotl was considered distant and aloof and took no more active role in myths after setting the ball of creation rolling, although he/she was considered to be present in every aspect of ritual. This god sat enthroned in the thirteenth and highest heaven, Omeyocan, often considered the Mt Olympus/ Asgard/ Hunamoku/ Takamagahara of Aztec myths. Continue reading
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Since these items have proven so popular here’s another of my neglected epic myths presented in chapter format.
PART ONE: THE GOD OF MAGIC – The demigod Hodadeion was the son of the creator deity Tharonhiawakon and a mortal woman. He and his siblings discover their mother’s village to be deserted, the latest victim of a coven of cannibalistic wizards. Hodadeion sets out to slay the wizards and to see if any trace of life remains in other villages. CLICK HERE
PART TWO: THE WASP-MEN – Hodadeion comes across a few more deserted villages and then gets attacked by the Wasp-Men, winged insectoid humanoids. CLICK HERE
PART THREE: THE WIZARD HODIADATGON – Hodadeion finds his path barred by an evil master of “otgon” – negative or dark life energy. To continue on his quest the hero must defeat Hodiadatgon in a duel of magic. CLICK HERE Continue reading
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KIKOMIHCI – The god who created human beings and animal life after the supreme deity Ibofanaga was finished creating the Earth, the heavens and the underground world. Kikomihci animated people and other animals with their “ghosts” which could leave their bodies at night in dreams and wander around, returning to their host body by morning to avoid causing illness.
Ibofanaga was solely responsible for the actual “souls” of the beings Kikomihci created. Like the Inuit and other peoples the Muscogee Creek distinguished between an animating force and an actual “eternal” soul.
Kikomihci created humans in the underground world and it was from there that the ancient Creek people eventually emerged from caves near what we call the Rocky Mountains. The Muscogee called those mountains “the spine of the world” (although in some versions it is instead the Appalachian Mountains that are given that designation). The realm of the gods was on the other side of those mountains. Continue reading
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