ENCYCLOPEDIA OF GODDESSES AND HEROINES (blue version)
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ENCYCLOPEDIA
OF GODDESSES
AND HEROINES
Patricia Monaghan
ABC-CLIO
No encyclopedia, no matter its length, could list all the goddesses
the world has known. Due to colonization and forced
conversion, innumerable goddesses and their stories have
been lost. But an impressive amount of information remains,
although scattered in sacred texts, literary epics and drama,
story collections, ethnographies, and many other works. This
encyclopedia brings together thousands of such sources to
offer an entry point for further research. Casual and curious
readers will find the legends and myths the most compelling
part of this work, but researchers will be able to trace each
figure to additional writers, who in turn will provide further
reference points.
Goddesses can appear as free-spirited young nymphs, as
self-reliant workers, and as aged sages. They can be athletes
or huntresses, dancers or acrobats. They can be herbalists
or midwives. We find goddesses who are teachers, inventors,
bartend- ers, potters, surfers, magicians, warriors, and
queens. Virtually any social role that women have played or
are capable of playing appears in a goddess myth somewhere.
These volumes show the breadth of possibilities associated
with the feminine through many ages and cultures.
Despite its length, there is no question that some goddesses
are missing from this encyclopedia. In some cases, their stories
have not yet been published in English. In other cases, the
narratives do not specify their names. A figure might be called
‘‘the earth goddess’’ while, in the same story, a male divinity
is given a personal name. The quest to reclaim lost goddesses
is never- ending, for like the Venus of Hohle Fels Cave, information
continually comes to light. Such new information
can only add to the richness of images of female potency and
power offered in these pages.
2 | Introdution
I
AFRICA
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS VII
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS IX
INTRODUCTION XI
NOTE ON SPELLING AND PRONUNCIATION XVII
SYMBOLS AND ASSOCIATIONS XIX
APPROACHES TO THE STUDY OF GODDESS MYTHS XX
AFRICA 1
EGYPT 27
AFRICAN DIASPORA 39
II
ASIA
III
EUROPE
CHINA 107
KOREA 127
CIRCUMPOLAR 135
INDIA 151
SOUTHEAST ASIA AND INDONESIA 215
JAPAN 235
THE PACIFIC ISLANDS 247
AUSTRALIA 269
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS VII
THE BALTIC 283
THE CELTIC WORLD 291
FINNO-UGRIC CULTURES 355
GREECE 371
ROME 445
SCANDINAVIA 473
SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE 499
THE SLAVIC PEOPLES 509
IV
THE AMERICAS
NORTH AMERICA 525
MESOAMERICA 577
SOUTH AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN 589
Contents | 3
AFRICAN PANTHEON
ASONA Eldest daughter of Abrewa, primal
woman of the Akan people, Asona was so
beautiful that the back of her head was more
beautiful than the face of any other woman.
When the first gold was found, protected by a
venomous snake, Asona said that she would
rather die and leave her children with a rich
inheritance than live and have them poor. She
took the gold from the snake but was fatally
bitten. She left her descendents wealthy,
and her ambition remains within her family.
(Ephirim-Donkor)
ATAGE The goddess of a hill in southwestern
Nigeria where an important festival is
held, Atage is said to have breasts like large
water-storage pots. Such huge breasts suggest
that the goddess was connected with fertility,
as does the tradition of women praying at her
shrine for healthy children. At the end of the
dry season, in March, the goddess’s priest sets
the time of Atage’s festival by consulting the
Ifa , after which he spends the night naked on
the goddess’s mountain. Any child born on the
day of the festival is named for the goddess
and considered her favorite. (Parringer 1951)
IDEMILI A primary goddess of the Nnobi
Igbo, Idemili lived in lake waters where
she appeared in the shape of a mermaid (see
Mammywata). Her husband was the god
Urashi, with whom she formed an image
of the perfect couple. Together, they were
invoked for healthy pregnancy and other
blessings. She was a healing goddess, whose
priests and priestesses often served as doctors
and herbalists. (Amadiume 1987)
MAAT Goddess of truth, Maat took the form
of an ostrich feather balanced on the underworld’s
scales, opposite someone’s heart. If
the dishes balanced, the heart was light with
justice, and the soul would live
on. But if the dishes did not
balance, the monstrous
goddess Ammut destroyed
the person forever. Sometimes
divided into two goddesses indicating
natural and moral law, Maat has been described
as a personified abstraction. But some
scholars point to her temples, the priesthood
dedicated to her, and the herds of sacred
cattle tended in her name to argue that she
was an ancient goddess. (Ellis; Faulkner 1990;
Muller; Wiedemann)
MESHAT This goddess was called the ‘‘mistress
of the house of books,’’ inventor of writing
and secretary of heaven. Charged with
studying the stars to determine the axes of
new buildings. Meshat invented mathematics;
she measured the length of human lives with
palm branches. (Muller; Wilkinson)
NEKHBET The vulture-headed goddess
of the Nile’s source, she was creatrix of the
region around the city of Nekheb, whence
her name. After unification of the two lands,
Nekhbet became the king’s protector. As goddess
of the upper reaches of the river, she was
called the ‘‘twin’’ of Wadjet, goddess of the
Lower Nile; together they formed the Neb-Ti,
the ‘‘two mistresses.’’ (Lesko; Lichtheim 1976;
Muller; Parkinson; Wiedemann)
4 | African Pantheon
LA SIRENA
The image of the siren
is common in Haitian
folk art, representing
African water goddesses
who arrived in the
western hemisphere with
enslaved Africans who maintained
but adapted their religious traditions.
A figure of both beauty and threat, the water
goddess remains popular in African diaspora
communities today.
NUEJI Among the Lunda and Bemba, Bantu-speaking
peoples of central Africa, this
moon goddess is embodied in the black stork
whose white underbelly looks like the moon
when it flies during the night. She represents
the dry season and sterility, for in her stork
embodiment she controls the seasons. She
also represents a ritual object, the torch of life
that is lit at dawn after a night when young
people have been initiated. (Bonnefoy)
NYAKAE Among the Ashanti, this supreme
goddess was connected with the moon. Early
scholars described the divinity as male, but
now she is considered female; Nyame may
have been a dual-sexed divinity. (Parringer)
NYAME The crocodile goddess Nyakae
was the spouse of the high god Okwa and,
because people depended upon fish for their
livelihood, the source of abundance. A similar
goddess, the python Nalwanga, was the divine
spouse of the king of Buganda. (Burton 1982)
SELKHET In Egyptian tombs, mourners
placed golden figures of guardian goddesses.
One was Selkhet, a scorpion goddess of
great antiquity who, with the god Qebhsnuf,
protected the vessels that held the corpse’s
intestines. Selkhet offered instructions in
the customs of the afterlife. Shown with a
scorpion headdress, she symbolized rebirth.
(Lesko; Muller)
African Pantheon | 5
EUROPEAN PANTHEON
ADECINA This water goddess was honored
in the Celtic region of Spain, near contemporary
Castle Tuŕon. Her symbols were the goat
and the cypress tree. (Bonnefoy I)
BIMA N CHAN This Cambodian heroine
was taken into the sky by the moon god
Chan, who had fallen in love with her. When
his other wives grew envious of her, Bima n
Chan begged the moon to lift her higher, but
the strong wind there blew her to pieces. Her
head fell to earth, but her body remained
aloft. (Bonnefoy)
CHIMERA Part goat, part lion, and part
dragon, this Greek monster endangered the
land of Lycia. She was the daughter of an
equally monstrous mother, Echidna. Probablyshe
was originally a volcano goddess, for
there was a volcano of her name in the country
she terrorized. (Hesiod; Ovid 1958)
CIRCE Daughter of the sun and sister of
Cretan queen Pasiphae, this illustrious witch
gained the rulership of Colchis by marrying
its prince. Then she killed him so that she
could rule alone. When Circe’s subjects discovered
her crime, they rose against her. The
enchantress fled, escaping on her father’s
rays to the island of Aeaea, a name sometimes
used to refer to her. There, Circe lived in a
stone house, tended by lions and wolves. She
entertained herself by crafting magic potions
that she tried on humans shipwrecked in her
vicinity. When Odysseus was shipwrecked on
Aeaea, she turned his men into swine. The
king escaped her spells, but he could not
escape her charms, and fathered two
sons by Circe. (Cohen; Friedrich;
Hesiod; Homer 1996; Kereń yi1
979; Larson 2001; Marinatos;
Ovid 1958; Reeder; Schein)
AOTIS
An early dawn or sun goddess, she rode
through the sky in a chariot drawn by white
steeds. She may be a form of the goddess
Helen; she was honored as a spirit of fertility.
(Larson 1995; Lonsdale)
6 | European Pantheon
ASIAN PANTHEON
EHUANG
This daughter of a river god shared a husband with her
sister, Nuÿing. When he died, Ehuang drowned herself
in sorrow. The story may have descended from a tradition
of human sacrifice in which women shamans
sacrificed themselves to prevent famine from drought
or other natural disaster. (Strassberg; Yuän)
GWENDYDD GWENDYDD was the
wtwin sister of the great magician Merlin;
she may also, or alternatively, have been his
lover or wife. She held all of Merlin’s magical
secrets, for after he was trapped by Nimue inside
an enchanted tree, he passed along both
his knowledge and his power to Gwendydd.
(Ellis 1995)
KALI Her tongue juts out of her black face.
Her four hands hold weapons. Her necklace
and earrings are strung with dismembered
bodies. Kali wears snakes all about her body,
writhing on her head and around her neck.
She was born at time’s beginning, manifesting
herself when the demon Da ruka threatened
the gods. Parvat entered the body of Shiva and
gathered poison stored in his throat, bursting
forth as three-eyed Kali, armed with a trident.
This emanation dispatched the demon, but
her battle-fury was uncontained, and Kali
threatened the world until Shiva restrained
her. Stories of Kali as a demon-destroyer
connect her with Durga, as does her name
Chamunda (see Matrikas), formed from demons
Chanda and Munda, whom she killed.
O NU An early goddess described in the
Chinese text Classic of Mountains and Seas,
O Nu was the daughter of Lei Zu, the thunder
goddess. Her name means ‘‘lovely girl,’’ and
she was the mother of a hero. Another figure
of this name also goes by Yuän-fu (‘‘liaison
wife’’) and was the mother of culture-bringing
gods. (CMS)
RANGDA In Bali, Indonesia, shadow
puppets are a popular form of entertainment,
with many plays based upon mythic
narratives. A common demon in these plays
is Rangda the sorceress, who derives from a
pre-Hindu indigenous goddess.
Asian Pantheon | 7
AMERICAN PANTHEON
NONOOSQUA
“mother of flowers’’ lives in the House of
Myths, from which she brings forth all
the plants every spring, when two old
women call forth her power in ritual.
(Boas 1898)
MICTECACHUATL This Aztec goddess
ruled the nine rivers of the afterlife to which
evil souls were condemned. There, they
suffered boredom and monotony, while better
souls enjoyed heaven’s colorful existence. She
was depicted with no face, only the bones of a
skull. (Carrasco; Caso)
MIS When the young woman Mis found her
father’s body after a battle, she lost her wits
and drank his blood. Thereafter, she wandered
through the mountains, killing animals for
food with her bare hands. Mis lived without
human contact until a harper attracted her
with music. Coming to his camp, she spoke
her first human words since her father’s
death. Mis went to live with her harper. But
he was killed in battle as her father had been.
This time, she did not go mad, but became a
poet. (Bourke et al.; Ellis 1995; Gwynn vol. 3)
NAMPAN This goddess of abundance produced
magnificent gardens full of tasty foods,
but no one seemed able to learn her magic,
according to the Aguaruna. So she gave up on
humanity and moved to the sky, where she
lived with the sun. She taught her daugh- ters
the power of singing to the garden, and her
direct descendents know secret garden- ing
songs. Her songs were also helpful in brewing
beer. (Brown)
8 | American Pantheon
SOLNTSE THE SLAVIC sun goddes
lived with the moon in a little three-bedroom
house in the sky. One room was hers, one was
the moon’s, and the children—all the stars in
the sky—bunked together in the last. (Dexter)
SIN Although a fairy woman, Sin had thepowers
of a goddess, for she was able to change
water into wine and leaves into pigs, in
order to feed battalions of warriors that she
conjured from thin air. When king Muirchertach
mac Erc killed her family, she appeared
to him as a beautiful seductive woman, then
drove him mad and killed him, revealing her
identity just before he died. (Bourke et al.;
Ellis 1988; Markale 2000; Rees and Rees)
SOIKA GAAKWA The Seneca moon goddess
is called ‘‘our grandmother,’’ but she represents
all stages of woman’s life. Each stage
of her own lunar cycle has a different name,
and each moon within the year has a name of
its own. No celestial body had more power, for
this goddess brought luck in hunting. (Parker)
VOK SNEDWEJAS This Modoc woman
was a bear every night but transformed herself
into a beautiful woman in the daylight.
She lived in wealth and comfort on a mountain,
but she was lonely until she saw a handsome
young hunter. She made herself visible
so that he fell in love with her; but at night,
he discovered that she turned into a bear.
Fear- ful of being rejected, she suggested that
he return to his human family; but he refused,
saying that they had been abusive to him.
So they lived together until their son was
born, at which point the man felt he should
visit his family and introduce the child. Vok
Snewed’jas warned him that he should never
leave the child with other children. But Vok
Snewed’jas’s husband failed to notice his son
turning into a bear while playing with other
children. Terrified, they killed the boy. Away,
Vok Snewedjas knew her child had died and
came roaring into the village. Hunters brought
her down, whereupon she turned back
into a beautiful woman. Her husband was
distraught with grief, but a young girl who
understood magic revivified Vok Snewed’jas
and her son. The family then returned to the
mountain and were never seen by humans
again, although sometimes their voices are
heard on the wind. (Curtin 1971)
MEDUSA
Her name means ‘‘queen,’’ a title
often used of the primary female
divinity. Athena, the offended
goddess turned Medusa into a
snake-haired Gorgon, later engineering
Medusa’s murder by sending
Perseus to decapitate her. He had
to be specially equipped, because
Medusa’s glance turned living
beings to stone. So Perseus carried
a mirror. Looking into it, he saw
Medusa’s reflection and struck off
her head. (Apollodorus; Burkert;
J. Fontenrose; Friedrich; Frothingham;
Ovid 1958; Tyrell)
American Pantheon | 9
In nearly seven years of work on this encyclopedia, I have been grateful to
receive the assistance of innumerable people. Without the help of the DePaul
University Library staff, especially Pat McGrail, the obscure sources could
never have been accessed. Colleagues at DePaul provided ongoing support; the
assistance of the University Research Council was especially welcome. I am
deeply appreciative of the work of the Women’s Theological Institute and the
Temple of Diana in Wisconsin, where some of the information herein was first
presented. The genial but critical community of the online Goddess Scholars
listserv and that of the Association for the Study of Women and Mythology,
especially Sid Reger, Maureen Aakre Ross, and Dana Alder, is deeply appreciated.
Finally, all the Fellows, Scholars, and Board Members of the Black Earth
Institute have provided significant and welcome support.
Colleagues across the nation who provided analysis and commentary have
included Mary Jo Neitz, Dawn Work Makinne, Cristina Eisenberg, Judith
Roche, and Miriam Robbins Dexter. Wendy Griffin’s assistance is especially
noted. Friends and family were understanding of the demands of such a comprehensive
work; thanks to Eileen Monaghan, Tim Monaghan, Janet Berres,
Ray Olson, Flo Golod, Barbara Flaherty, Sandi Liss, Nancy Hutson, and Gaye
Mack. Deeply missed are the supportive friends who have passed on, especially
Deb Trent and Mary Emily McDermut. Finally, my husband Michael Mc-
Dermott, who understood that weekends and vacations (and often midnights
too) were for writing and research, enthusiastically provided support through
the arduous process of completing this encyclopedia.
Thank you all.
10| Acknowledgments
Copyright 2010 by Patricia Monaghan
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted,
in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the
inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior
permission in writing from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Monaghan, Patricia.
Encyclopedia of goddesses and heroines / Patricia Monaghan.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978–0–313–34989–8 (set : hardcover: alk. paper) — ISBN
978–0–313–34990–4
(set : ebook) — ISBN 978–0–313–34991–1 (v. 1 : hardcover :
alk. paper) — ISBN 978–0–313–34992–8 (v. 1 : ebook) — ISBN
978–0–313–34993–5 (v. 2 : hardcover. : alk paper) — ISBN
978–0–313–34994–2 (v. 2 : ebook)
1. Goddesses—Encyclopedias. 2. Women heroes—
Encyclopedias. I. Title. BL473.5.M663 2010 202. 11403—dc22
2009043962
ISBN: 978–0–313–34989–8 EISBN: 978–0–313–34990–4 (set)
14 13 12 11 10 1 2 3 4 5
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Credits | 11
No matter from what culture they arise, goddesses have been
associated with the natural world. Animate or inanimate,
lasting or temporary, natural objects provide the most common
goddess symbols. Although goddesses are often depicted or described
as having a woman’s body, they also appear as animal,
plant, mountain, water source, or celestial object. Because the
distinction is not always clear between a tree symbolizing a
goddess, and the tree being the embodiment of that divinity,
the descriptions in this section include both.
In addition to natural objects, abstract ideas such as wisdom
or wildness can be associated with goddesses. Often a divinity
is associated with more than one such quality, some of which
can be in apparent opposition, as with goddesses connected
with both virginity and fertility. Other common associations
are with phases of life and specific human activities, such as
hunting and weaving. The following list offers an overview of
common goddess associations, as well as exemplary goddesses
in each category.
ABC-CLIO