Iroquois Confederation
AIRESKOI – The Iroquois god of war, identified with the Aurora Borealis. While other Iroquois souls would go to the conventional afterlife warriors slain in battle got to reside with Aireskoi in the heavens, their souls glowing with the grandeur of their battlefied heroics, thus accounting for the brightness of the Aurora Borealis. Continue reading
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Yes, it’s the 16th of June, better known to James Joyce geeks like me as Bloom’s Day. The day is named in honor of Leopold Bloom, the Jewish advertising sales rep and Freemason who is one of the major characters in Joyce’s novel Ulysses. The novel also brings along Stephen Dedalus, the protagonist of his earlier novel Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. For those unfamiliar with this work, Ulysses is Joyce’s stream-of-consciousness novel in which he metaphorically features the events from the Odyssey in a single day – June 16th, 1904, in Dublin. (The day he met Nora Barnacle, the woman he would eventually marry after living together for decades) Bloom represents Ulysses/Odysseus, Stephen represents Telemachus and Leopold’s wife, Molly Bloom, represents Penelope.
The novel is jam-packed with Continue reading
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ONHDAGWIJA – The moose goddess. Onhdagwija wandered the forests interacting with and looking after the animals she ruled over. The most prominent myth featuring her depicts her falling in love with an Iroquois hunter. She assumes human form and begins preparing acorn bread for him in his temporary bark cabin while he is off hunting during the day. Continue reading
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As promised here is Balladeer’s Blog’s examination of the second of two different versions of the ancient myth about the Hittite storm god Tarhun battling the supreme serpent Illuyanka. Both versions tie in with the Purulli Festival.
VERSION TWO – Illuyanka, a miles- long serpent, emerged from his lair in the depths of the sea (NOT the Netherworld like in the first version) and unleashed havoc and disorder. Tarhun the storm god clashed with Illuyanka in Kiskilussa and, unexpectedly, the serpent was triumphant. Illuyanka plucked out Tarhun’s eyes and his heart and left him to live blind and helpless (yes, even though he had no heart).
The difference in the two versions centers around the way in which Tarhun eventually gets revenge on Illuyanka. In this version the defeated, blind and “heartless” storm god, seemingly living in exile from his heavenly kingdom following his defeat, marries “the daughter of a poor man”. Neither the name of the daughter or the father is mentioned in the surviving fragments of the myth. Continue reading
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Tarhun and his vizier Suwaliyut confronting Illuyanka
The readers of Balladeer’s Blog have spoken! You want more Hittite mythology! I’m always responsive to my readers so I will now examine two different versions of the ancient myth about the Hittite storm god Tarhun battling the supreme serpent Illuyanka. Both versions tie in with the Purulli Festival.
VERSION ONE – Illuyanka, a miles- long serpent, emerges from his lair in the Netherworld (making him another ally and possible son of the god Kumarbi) and unleashes havoc and disorder. Tarhun the storm god clashes with Illuyanka in Kiskilussa and, unexpectedly, the serpent is triumphant. Illuyanka plucks out Tarhun’s eyes and his heart and leaves him to live blind and helpless (yes, even though he has no heart now). Continue reading
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GASYONDETHA – The Iroquois meteor god. Like the war god Areskoi he tried to woo the goddess Iagentci when she was taking Marriage Bread to Hawenneyu, the Chief of the Iroquois deities. Gasyondetha was associated not just with meteors and comets blazing across the sky but also with ones that struck the earth in Iroquois territory. These fallen meteors were considered Gasyondetha’s teeth, which he would sometimes pluck out of his mouth as a show of fortitude and toss to the earth below.
Many unusual rock formations that were NOT really meteors were mistakenly believed to be fallen meteors by the Iroquois in ancient times. Some stones that were believed to be meteors were said to talk and were the source of ancient stories about the world and the gods in a myth about the origin of Iroquois historical and religious tales.
One of the most famous myths involving Gasyondetha involved the god visiting an Iroquois man- Svengedaigea – in a dream warning him about monsters coming to devour everyone in his village. Continue reading
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Here at Balladeer’s Blog I’m nothing if not responsive to readers! The mania over the Hittite myths I’ve been examining lately shows no signs of abating so here is another look – this time at a didactic tale involving the mountain god.
Zaliyanu, the god of the mountain which bears his name, was kind enough to shelter a deer that was fleeing hunters. The pursuit had begun on a neighboring mountain whose god didn’t dare risk the wrath of the hunting god Kurunta by sheltering the terrified creature. Zaliyanu, the greatest of the mountain deities, had no such compunction. Continue reading
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For more of my entries on Inuit myths click here: https://glitternight.com/inuit-myth/
KIVIOQ – The greatest hero and monster- slayer of Inuit mythology. The exact structure of Kivioq’s saga varies wildly from region to region, some of them with a fully Continue reading
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Love Child: Made fun of in school …
Reaction to my recent examination of Hittite gods and goddesses has been through the roof! To keep up a little with the demand here’s a quick look at another Hittite myth, this one involving the sun god Istanu.
Istanu, the Hittite sun god was riding his solar chariot across the sky one day and noticed that a cow had brazenly wandered into the area where the shepherd goddess Hapantali tended Istanu’s sheep. The sun god let his chariot continue its course, pulled by two of his prized rams with their shining golden fleeces, as he descended to upbraid Hapantali for her oversight in allowing the bovine intruder to graze with his sheep. Continue reading
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LELWANI – The goddess who ruled over the subterranean land of the dead and was thus answerable to Kumarbi, the deity who ruled over all of the undergound realms. Charnel houses and mausoleums were sacred to her. Continue reading
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