| Name ▲▼ | Origin ▲▼ | Description ▲▼ |
|---|---|---|
| God name "Olodumare/ Alaaye/ Elemii/ Olojo/ Oni/ Olorun/ Orishanla" | Yoruba / Nigeria | A creator god to whom the souls of the dead are expected to make a confession |
| God name "Olokun" | Fon / Yoruba / Benin / Nigeria, West Africa | God of fresh waters and oceans. The eldest son of the creator god OSANOBUA. He is symbolized in the sacred river Olokun, which runs almost the length of Benin and from the source of which come the souls of unborn children. A girl baby is given a shrine of the god which includes a pot of river water and which she takes with her to her new home when she marries. The god is particularly popular among women and has a cult of priestesses. Olokun is also a guardian deity of mariners.... |
"Ophion" | Greek | A Titan, was married to Eurynome, with whom he shared the supremacy previous to the reign of Cronos and Rhea; but being conquered by the latter, he and Eurynome were thrown into Oceåñuś or Tartarus. Greek |
| God name "Orisanla" | Yoruba / Nigeria, West Africa | sky god. Delegated by OLODUMARE as a creator of earth and living things.... |
| Supreme god name "Orisha" | Yoruba | Orisa, Orixa, a spirit that reflects one of the manifestations of Olodumare, supreme god, in the Yoruba spiritual or religious system. |
| God name "Orunmila" | Yoruba / Nigeria, West Africa | God of destiny. He accompanied the creator god OLODUMARE at the creation of the world and when the destinies of mankind were decided. He is consulted in an oracular capacity at IFA and makes decisions on such matters as choice of sacrificial animals. He is also a god of healing and in many households enjoys personal shrines which include palm nuts, fragments of ivory and sea shells.... |
| Goddess name "Oshun" | Santeria | Goddess of love, maternity and marriage. Santeria |
| King name "Osseo" | Hiawatha | Son of the Evening Star. When "old and ugly, broken with age, and weak with coughing," he married Oweenee, youngest of the ten daughters of a North hunter. She loved him in spite of his ugliness and decrepitude, because "all was beautiful within him." One day, as he was walking with his nine sisters-in-law and their husbands, he leaped into the hollow of an oak-tree, and came out "tall and straight and strong and handsome;" but Oweenee at the same moment was changed into a weak old woman, "wasted, wrinkled, old, and ugly;" but the love of Osse'o was not weakened. The nine brothers and sisters-in-law were all transformed into birds for mocking Osseo and Oweenee when they were ugly, and Oweenee, recovering her beauty, had a son, whose delight as he grew up was to shoot at his aunts and uncles, the birds that mocked his father and mother. Hiawatha |
| Goddess name "Ot" | Mongol | queen of fire and goddess of marriage. Mongol |
| Goddess name "Paca-Mama (earth mother)" | Inca / pre - Columbian South America / highlands of Peru | Chthonic earth goddess. Worshiped extensively by farmers but now largely syncretized with the Christian Virgin Mary.... |
| Goddess name "Pacha Mama" | Inca | A chthonic goddess of fertility & the earth, now syncretized with the Christian Virgin Mary |
| Goddess name "Pachamama" | Inca | A dragoness fertility goddess who presided over planting and harvesting. She caused earthquakes. After conquest by Catholic Spain her image was replaced by the Virgin Mary. Inca |
"Pandora's Box" | Greek | A present which seems valuable, but which is in reality a curse; as when Midas was permitted, according to his request, to turn whatever he touched into gold, and found his very food became gold, and therefore uneatable. Prometheus made an image and stole fire from heaven to endow it with life. In revenge, Jupiter told Vulcan to make a female statue, and gave her a box which she was to present to the man who married her. Prometheus distrusted Jove and his gifts, but Epimetheus, his brother, married the beautiful Pandora, and received the box. Immediately the bridegroom opened the box all the evils that flesh is heir to flew forth, and have ever since continued to afflict the world. The last thing that flew from the box was Hope. Greek |
"Paramesvar" | India | The supreme being of the Chamars. India |
| Goddess name "Paraskeva" | Russia | Friday. Fertility goddess åśśociated with spinning, water, health, and marriage. Russia |
| Goddess name "Pattinidevi (queen of goddesses)" | Hindu / Singhalese / Sri Lanka | Mother goddess. A deification of Kannaki, the consort of Kovolan who, according to ancient Tamil tradition, journeyed to the town of Madurai to sell a gold anklet. Through trickery she was convicted of theft and executed, but was canonized. According to another tradition, she was born from a mango pierced by a sacred arrow. In southern India and Sri Lanka a goddess of chastity and fidelity in marriage. Also a guardian against diseases, including measles and smallpox. She is åśśociated with fire-walking rituals. Attributes: cobra-hood behind the head, and a lotus.... |
| Spirit name "Pax" | Roman | spirit of peace. Became well-known as Pax Romana and Pax Augusta from the second century BC and was accorded a shrine on the Field of Mars. Depicted as a young woman bearing a cornucopia, an olive branch and a sheaf of corn.... |
"Peirithous" | Greek | A son of Ixion or Zeus by Dia, of Larissa in Thessaly. He was one of the Lapithae, and married to Hippodameia, by whom he became the father of Polypoetes. Greek |