| Name ▲▼ | Origin ▲▼ | Description ▲▼ |
|---|---|---|
| Goddess name "Nortia" | Etruscan | Goddess of fate. She enjoyed an important sanctuary at Volsini, where her presence was symbolized by a large nail. In a New Year rite, the nail was hammered into a block of wood, probably derived from an old fertility ritual symbolizing the impregnation of life into the new year. She has been identified with the Greek goddess TYCHE.... |
| God name "Nzambi" | Bakongo / Democratic Republic of Congo, central Africa | Creator god. He created the first mor tal pair or, in alternative tradition, an androgy nous being in the guise of a palm tree called Muntu Walunga (the complete person). He also endowed this being with intelligence. In wooden sculptures the tree bears a woman's head and breast on one side and a bearded face on the other. Eventually the tree divided into two sepa rate sexes. Also Nyambi; Nzambe; Yambe; Zambi.... |
"Ockabewis" | Chippewa | The first earth was called Ca'ca and the inhabitants were not wise so the creator sent a man to teach them. This man was called ockabewis, the messenger, and the first thing he taught them was how to make fire by means of a bow and a stick and a bit of decayed wood. Chippewa |
| Deities name "Panao" | Kafir / Afghanistan | Creator god. Local deity worshiped in Ashkun villages in southwestern Kafiristan. Also a generic title for deities controlling the natural world and said to live in the mountains. These include Lutkari Panao (fertility), Saramun Panao (health), Plossa Panao (rain and good health), Påśśamun Panao (rain and good health), Indermun Panao (fruit and wine), and Malek Panao (nut trees). These gods were generally worshiped in sacred open spaces where their wooden images were regularly drenched with blood sacrifices.... |
| Deities name "Pao Kung" | Chinese | God of magistrates. Lived as a mortal from AD 999-1062 during the Sung Dynasty. Depicted with a dark face, implying impartiality, and wearing yellow and purple robes. Attributes include a wooden scepter. He is attended by two minor deities, one holding his seal of office and the other holding the rod of punishment.... |
| Goddess name "Papatuanuku" | Polynesian / including Maori | Chthonic mother goddess. According to tradition she evolved spontaneously in the cosmic night personified by TE PO and became the apotheosis of papa, the earth. In other traditions she was engendered, with the sky god RANGINUI, by a primordial androgynous being, ATEA. Paptuanuku and Ranginui are regarded as the primal parents of the pantheon who, through a prolonged period of intercourse, produced at least ten major deities as their children. In Maori culture Papatuanuku, like all deities, is represented only by inconspicuous, slightly worked stones or pieces of wood and not by the large totems, which are depictions of ancestors.... |
| God name "Pemba (great thing)" | Bambara / Mande / Mali, West Africa | Creator god. He was created out of the empty or Fu and his first task was to form the egg of the world. He descended to earth as an acacia seed (Acacia albida) which first grew to a mighty tree and then died. From the wood Pemba generated human souls and a female being whom he impregnated to engender all human and animal life. His brother is the god FARO, creator of the river Niger.... |
| Nymph name "Picus" | Greek | A man turned into a woodpecker by Circe for scorning her love. His wife was Canens, a nymph, who killed herself after he was transformed. They had one son, Faunus. Metamorphoses XIV by Ovid Greek / Roman |
| Goddess name "Sanju" | Kafir / Afghanistan | Harvest goddess. A littlereported deity, the consort of the war god GISH and daughter of SANU. She controls the harvesting, threshing and winnowing of grain and the safe storage of wheat and butter. She carries a golden winnow and is either depicted in human form or as a goat. Her cult is known chiefly from the village of Pronz in the southern Hindukush where she enjoyed an important sanctuary with stone seats around the icon, part of which reportedly still exists. Wooden statues depict her in human form, nude to the waist. Alternatively, she is perceived as a bird that acts as a messenger. The blood of sacrificial animals was poured over the figure. Also Sulmech; SANU.... |
| God name "Satyr" | Greek | Generic term for woodland gods and Divine beings Roman / Greek |
| God name "Satyr" | Greco - Roman | Woodland god. Generic term for an åśśortment of Divine beings with a human torso and the legs, hair and horns of a goat. They include the god PAN and the demigod Silenus who raised the adolescent BACCHUS.... |
| Goddess name "Sequana" | Roman / Celtic / Gallic | River goddess. The tutelary goddess of the Sequanae tribe. A pre-Roman sanctuary northwest of Dijon near the source of the Seine has yielded more than 200 wooden votive statuettes and models of limbs, heads and body organs, attesting to Sequana's importance as a goddess of healing. During the Roman occupation the site of Fontes Sequanae was sacred to her and was again considered to have healing and remedial properties. A bronze statuette of a goddess was found wearing a diadem, with arms spread and standing in a boat. The prow is in the shape of a duck, her sacred animal, with a cake in its mouth. Also found were models of dogs, an animal specifically åśśociated with healing through its affinity with the Greco-Roman physician deity AESCULAPIUS.... |
| God name "Shomde" | Kafir / Afghanistan | Creator god of localized observance. Known from various villages in the southern Hindukush. Shomde is regarded either as equating or senior to the more generally recognized god IMRA. According to observers he provides gold, silver and silk as well as butter, cheese, cream and flour. The main sanctuary was probably at the village of Dewa and in various wooden sculptures Shomde is depicted in human form. Also Wushum; Usum.... |
| Deities name "Silvåñuś" | Roman | Minor god of woodlands and Forests. Worship of Silvåñuś seems largely to have been limited to northern Italy. He became incorporated into the Celtic pantheon where his symbolism includes a bill-hook, pots and hammers. His sacred animal is the stag. The name was extended to embrace groups of woodland deities, the Silvani or Silvanae.... |
| God name "Tane" | Maori / New Zealand | A god of the woodlands |
| Goddess name "Tane(mahuta)" | Polynesian / including Maori | God of light. One of the children of the prime parents RANGINUI and PAPATUANUKU. Also god of trees, Forests and boat-builders, his consort is the goddess HINEAHU-ONE and he is the father of HINE-ATA-UIRA who descended to the underworld to become the goddess of death, HINE-NUI-TE-PO. In other traditions he is the consort of Hine-Nui-Te-Po, whom he joins each evening when he descends to the underworld. It was he who proposed that his parents should be pushed apart rather than slaughtered. In Maori culture Tanemahuta, like all deities, is represented only by inconspicuous, slightly worked stones or pieces of wood and not by the large totems, which are depictions of ancestors. Also KANE (Hawaiian).... |
| Deities name "Tangaroa" | Polynesian / including Maori | Sea and creator god. The deity responsible for the oceans (moana) and the fish (ika) within them. In Hawaiian belief he was the primordial being who took the form of a bird and laid an egg on the surface of the primeval waters which, when it broke, formed the earth and sky. He then engendered the god of light, ATEA (cf. TANE). According to Tahitian legend, he fashioned the world inside a gigantic mussel shell. In a separate tradition Tangaroa went fishing and hauled the Tongan group of islands from the depths of the ocean on a hook and line. He is the progenitor of mankind (as distinct from TUMATAUENGA who has authority over mankind). His son Pili married SINA, the tropic bird and they produced five children from whom the rest of the Polynesian race was born. In Maori culture Tangaroa, like all deities, is represented only by inconspicuous, slightly worked stones or pieces of wood and not by the large totems which are depictions of ancestors.... |
| Deities name "Taumata-Atua" | Polynesian / including Maori | vegetation god. He presides over the fields and may be the god Rongomatane under an alternative name. In Maori culture Taumata-Atua, like all deities, is represented only by inconspicuous, slightly worked stones or pieces of wood and not by the large totems, which are depictions of ancestors.... |
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