Name ▲▼ | Origin ▲▼ | Description ▲▼ |
---|---|---|
Supreme god name "Legba" | Fon / Benin, West Africa | God of fate. The youngest son of the supreme god LISA and his consort, the moon goddess MAWU. He is also regarded as a messenger god, moving between Lisa and mankind on earth.... |
Goddess name "Leukothea" | Greco - Roman | Sea goddess. Popular around the coasts of the Mediterranean with fishing communities. A mermaid who was originally Ino, a mortal daughter of Kadmos. She was wet nurse to DIONYSOS (BACCHUS), but became mad and threw herself in the sea with her son Melikertes. In another version of the story she was escaping the wrath of Athamas, king of Thebes. The gods elevated her to the status of goddess and her son became the god PALAEMON.... |
Goddess name "MORRIGAN (queen of demons)" | Celtic / Irish | war, fertility and vegetation goddess. A complex goddess displaying various characteristics which are both generative and destructive (see also ANAT, INANA, IS'TAR, ATHENE). At the festival of Samain, she mates with the DAGDA to ensure the future prosperity of the land and as queen Maeve (Medb) of Connaught she was ritually wedded to the mortal king whose antecedent was Ailill. As Nemain (panic) and Badb Catha (raven of battle), she takes on a more warlike and destructive aspect. Rather than engaging directly in conflict, she uses her supernatural powers to spread fear and disarray. The Irish hero Cu Chulainn was thus visited on the battle field by BADB driving a chariot and dressed in a red cloak and with red eyebrows presenting an intimidating appearance. She is capable of changing her shape into various animal forms and in the guise of a raven or a crow is able to foretell the outcome of battle.... |
Goddess name "Mahacinatara (Tara of Tibet)" | Buddhist / Mahayana / / Lamaist / Tibet | Goddess. An emanation of AKSOBHYA and, in Lamaism, a fearsome form of the Vajrayana goddess, EKAJATA, who may be depicted with up to twelve heads and twenty-four hands. She stands upon a corpse. Attributes: arrow, ax, blue lotus, bow, cup, image of Aksobhya on crown, knife, skull, snake, staff, sword, tiger skin and trident. Three-eyed.... |
Goddess name "Mama-Kilya (mother moon)" | Inca / pre - Columbian South America / Peru, etc | moon goddess. The consort of the Sun god INTI, she is important in the calculation of time and regulating the Inca festival calendar. The Indians consider that an eclipse of the moon is a time of great danger, caused by a mountain lion or snake eating the moon, and perform a ritual making as much noise as possible to frighten the predator off.... |
Goddess name "Mami" | Babylon | Mother goddess, created humankind Babylon |
Goddess name "Mami" | Mesopotamian / Sumerian / Babylonian - Akkadian | Mother goddess. Identified in the Atrahasis texts and other creation legends and probably synonymous with NINHURSAG A. She was involved in the creation of mankind from clay and blood. The name almost certainly came into use because it is the first word that a child formulates. Also Mama; Mammitum.... |
Goddess name "Maui" | Polynesian / Maori / New Zealand | Tutelary god. Not a creator god but one who åśśists mankind in various supernatural ways. According to tradition he was aborted at birth and cast into the sea by his mother, who thought he was dead. He was rescued entangled in seaweed. He is the deity who drew the islands of New Zealand from the floor of the ocean in a net. Maui caught the Sun and beat it into submission, making it travel more slowly across the sky so that the days became longer. He also brought fire from the underworld for mankind and tried, unsuccessfully, to harness immortality for him by entering the vulva of the underworld goddess HINE-NUI-TE-PO while she was asleep. She awoke and crushed him to death. Though a deity, he had been made vulnerable to death by a mistake during his rites of birth (see also Balder). Also Mawi.... |
Goddess name "Medb" | Celtic | Goddess of sexuality, jolly bonking, intoxication and war. Celtic |
Goddess name "Meresger" | Thebes | She who loves silence. Goddess of the Valley of the kings at Thebes. |
Goddess name "Meretseger" | Egypt | Localized chthonic goddess åśśociated with the underworld. At Thebes she acted in either benign or destructive fashion against workers building tombs in the Valley of the kings. She is generally depicted as a coiled cobra which may possess a human head and arm. One of the best representations is on the sarcophagus of Rameses III. She lost her popularity when the use of Thebes as a royal cemetery was discontinued early in the first millennium BC.... |
Goddess name "Mor" | Ireland | Goddess of the Sun and dam of the kings of Munster Ireland |
Goddess name "Mor" | Celtic / Irish | Sun goddess. The progenitrix of the royal lineage of the kings of Munster.... |
Goddess name "Muraja" | Buddhist | Goddess of music. Deification of a kind of large drum or tambourine. Color: smoky. Attribute: tambourine.... |
Goddess name "Muso Koroni (the pure woman with the primeval soul)" | Bambara / Mali, West Africa | Chthonic fertility goddess. The mother of all living things, she introduced mankind to the principles of farming. She has a terrifying appearance, depicted either in human form, sometimes with many breasts (cf. ARTEMIS at Ephesus), or as a panther. In the latter guise she uses her claws to bring on menstruation in women and to cirçúɱcise both sexes. Prior to cirçúɱ cision a youth is said to possess wanzo, an untamed wildness. Muso Koroni is pursued by the Sun god, PEMBA, who impregnates her in the form of a tree (Acacia albida). Also Mousso Coronie.... |
Goddess name "Mut" | Egypt | The patron goddess of Thebes. In Upper Egypt she is the counterpart of SAKHMET, the Lower Egyptian goddess from Memphis. After superseding the goddess AMAUNET, she became locally the consort of the Sun god AMUN, in which capacity she is the mother of the moon god KHONSU. She was also regarded as the Divine mother of the Theban kings. Mut is depicted in human form wearing a vulture headdress sur mounted by the twin crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt. She is typically dressed in a bright red or blue patterned gown. Less frequently she is drawn with a lion's head. She enjoyed a cult center at Thebes where her sanctuary was known as the Iseru.... |
Goddess name "Myrrha / Syyrna" | Western Semitic / Phoenician | Fertility goddess. Known from inscriptions as the mother of the god Kinnur. Also Syyrna.... |
Goddess name "NA CHA (here is a loud cry)" | Taoist / Chinese | Guardian god. A somewhat ambiguous god who is generally regarded as benevolent, but whose traditions hint at a more destructive aspect. He was born a god of human parents, the reincarnation of an older deity, Ling Chu-Tzu, the intelligent pearl. According to tradition, his father was Li Ching, who threatened to kill his mother because she claimed she was made pregnant by the mystical actions of a Taoist priest who told her she was to bear the child of a unicorn. Na Cha is said to have fought in the Shang-Chou war on the side of the Chou dynasty circa 1027 BC. His chief adversary was the sea dragon king. Ultimately he became involved with the goddess Shih-Chi Niang Niang, accidentally killed her attendant and, in remorse, committed suicide.... |