Dictionary Of God And Godedesses

86 Edekecommerce and his picture hangs in most establishments.He is perhaps syncretized with thegods HIRUKO and KOTO-SHIRO-NUSHI. He mayalso be identified with Fudo, the god of knowledge.He does not join the rest of the Shintopantheon in the great October festival at Izumobecause he is deaf. His festival is celebrated concurrentlyin his own temple.EdekeGod of disasters. Teso [Uganda, East Africa]. Theantagonist of the creator god APAP, Edeke is propitiatedduring times of famine and plague.EdusaMinor god of infants. Roman. Responsible forthe proper nourishment of the child.Eee-A-O (Yao)Primordial being. Gnostic Christian. The first ofthe androgynous principles born to YALDABAOTH,the prime parent, ruling the seven heavens ofchaos in gnostic mythology.EgeriaFertility goddess. Roman. Deity of oak treeswhose priestess enacted an annual sacred marriagewith the king of Rome, who took the part ofJUPITER. The festival is a variation of that celebratingthe marriage of ZEUS and HERA whichtook place in Athens. A number of springs andlakes were sacred to her.EgresFertility god. Karelian [Finland]. The deityresponsible for the turnip crop. Also Akras.EhecatlCreator god. Aztec (classical Mesoamerican)[Mexico]. The sun deity representing the secondof the five world ages, each of which lasted for2028 heavenly years, each heavenly year beingfifty-two terrestrial years. Assigned to the air orwind and presided over by QUETZALCOATL, towhose complex of deities he belongs. Accordingto tradition, the age ended in a cataclysmicdestruction caused by hurricanes. All humanityturned into monkeys. Illustrated by the “Stone ofthe Four Suns” [Yale Peabody Museum]. Also (4)Ehecatl; Ehecatonatiuh.Ehecatl-QuetzalcoatlPrimordial god. Aztec (classical Mesoamerican)[Mexico]. A syncretization of EHECATL andQUETZALCOATL, one of four gods who supportthe lowest heaven at each cardinal point. He isperceived as residing in the west (codices Borgiaand Vaticanus B). He is the deity who rulesover the ninth of the thirteen heavens, ItztapalNanatzcayan (where the stone slabs crashtogether). In a separate tradition, Ehecatl-Quetzalcoatl executed the monstrous godXOLOTL when he declined to offer his blood inself-sacrifice for the creation of mankind.EILEITHYIA (the coming)ORIGIN Greek and previously Mycenaean. Goddessof birth.KNOWN PERIOD OF WORSHIP circa 1500 BC untilChristianization (circa AD 400).SYNONYMS Eleuthyia (possibly original Minoan);Ilithyia (Roman).CENTER(S) OF CULT chiefly in Crete where thereexists an early (Mycenaean) cave sanctuary atAmnisos, and in the region of Lakonia.ART REFERENCES sculptures and reliefs.