9 World Chronicles

Buk – the daughter of the Fireflies

Classified as a goddess or guardian spirit.

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Culture : Nuer of the Sudan

Associated: River

A guardian against attack by  crocodiles.  Her protection is invoked by the ritual sacrifice of a goat,

She is typically  depicted as beautiful woman with

She’s the mother of Deng, who is the creator god in this mythology. As well as Candit and Nyaliep, both of whom are river deities.

The role of a river of water goddess is very important in its role in creation. AS the mother of the creator god the water is thus the source of the creation of life.

The river its self if of particular important inn the foundation of human settlements and essentially human civilization.

But with the benefits of the river come the danger.

The West African crocodile inhabits much of West and Central Africa, ranging east to South Sudan and Uganda, and south to Democratic Republic of the Congo (Other countries where found include Mauritania, Benin, Liberia, Guinea-Bissau, Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon, Chad, Sierra Leone, Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Senegal, Mali, Guinea, Gambia, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Gabon, Togo, Ivory Coast and Republic of Congo.

Mauritanian traditional peoples who live in close proximity to West African crocodiles revere them and protect them from harm. This is due to their belief that, just as water is essential to crocodiles, so crocodiles are essential to the water, which would permanently disappear if they were not there to inhabit it.

Hakea

Classification: evil (rejected spirit)/ God

Culture: Polynesian, Hawaii

Associated: The Underworld

Sacred Animal: the Devil Fish

Her role is shared with the chthonic goddess Miru.

She is depicted as a squid or an octopus. But just as often as a beautiful woman.

She was part of a group of spirits that were “spit out” by the gods.

Lead by Kanaloa, another spirit, they launched a rebellion against the gods but were defeated.

They were banished to the underworld.

The Ant

Ants are eusocial insects of the family Formicidae and, along with the related wasps and bees, belong to the order Hymenoptera. Ants evolved from vespoid wasp ancestors in the Cretaceous period, and diversified after the rise of flowering plants. It is estimated that there are roughly 22 thousand species of ant.

Ant society have a division of labor, communication between individuals, and the ability to solve complex problems

A symbol of diligence, patience, humility and foresight. In China, the  ant symbolized order and the tireless servant.

Its industry seen in the bible as a virtue is considered somewhat excessive in Hindu and Buddhist thought, thus becoming a symbol of the ceaseless, petty activity of those blind to the transience of human life.

In Mali ants were the beneficent organizers, originators of the skills of building and weaving and by the sympathetic magic their nest could bring fecundity.

Anteaters conversely symbolism harm and chaos.

In Greek mythology the Myrmidons were a nest of ants that Zeus transformed into humans. They were said to be among the most fierce and efficient armies in Greece.

In some southwestern tribes, ants played a more important mythological role-- in the Cahuilla creation myth, it was ants who spread the earth out for people ant animals to live upon, and in Hopi mythology, it was the Ant People who sheltered humans underground during the destruction of the First World.

In northern California tribes, ants were said to predict earthquakes, and it was considered taboo to disturb their nests. In South America, ants are more often portrayed as warriors in Indian legends, probably because of the painful sting inflicted by South American fire ants, and some Native South American initiation rites involve young people subjecting themselves to ant bites.

there are some southwestern tribes with Ant Clans, including the Hopi, Pueblo, and Akimel O'odham (Pima) tribes. Ant groupings were particularly important among the Pimas, where the people of every Pima village used to be divided into one Red Ant Clan and one White Ant Clan. The Cherokee also have an Ant Dance among their tribal dance traditions.

The Ant  is credited in North African myths with teaching the first humans about the uses of plants and grains.

The Berber and Kabyl tribes have a myth that tells the story of the wise ant that helped the first humans. Teaching them to cook grains in spring water. gave them directions for grinding the grain into flour. he showed them how to start a fire with stones, dried grass and wood, and a flint stone. The Ants taught them to bake bread.

It was the ant that directed man to save seeds and to plant them in the rainy season.

In the mythology of the Kuba People of Conga Nyonye Ngaga, the eldest son of the creator god Bumba, is the creator of the humble ant.

He made billions of ants and died of fatigue. His effort would be the standard for ants work ethic.

 the ants were grateful to Nyonye Ngana for making them, and scurried into the earth to give him a decent burial. They’ve been busy doing that ever since.

colonies consist of various castes of sterile, wingless females, most of which are workers (ergates), as well as soldiers (dinergates) and other specialised groups. Nearly all ant colonies also have some fertile males called "drones" and one or more fertile females called "queens" (gynes). The colonies are described as superorganisms because the ants appear to operate as a unified entity, collectively working together to support the colony.

Ants have colonised almost every landmass on Earth. Ants thrive in most ecosystems and may form 15–25% of the terrestrial animal biomass.

The symbolism of the bull. Power potency fecundity, a protein symbol of divinity royalty and the elemental forces of nature.

 changing in significance between different epochs and cultures. In cave art the bull is second only to the horse as the most frequently painted image of vital energy.

As the incarnation of many Supreme eastern gods the bull was one of the most important sacrificial animals.

In ritual and iconography it has represented both the moon and the sun earth and the Sky rain and heat feminine procreation and male ardor.  Both death and regeneration.

As a symbol of death and resurrection it is central to mithraism a Persian cult popular in the Roman Empire. Myth rack sacrifices celebrated the sun God mithras slaughter of a primordial bull from whose blood and ***** spraying new life.

Bulls appear from northern Europe to India as an emblem of divine power especially linked with lunar solar and sky or storm gods including the Mesopotamia and EL who is bull horned and bow . The Egyptians Ra, Ausar,  Ptah who was incarnated as the sacred apis bull and Seth .

The Greek Zeus Dionysus and  Seibel. The Norse Thor and Freya . And the Hindu Indra Aditi,  Agni,  Rudra and Shiva.

Tibetan Buddhism has the bull headed fierce deity protector Yama Dharmaraja

The physical attributes of the bull underline much of its symbolism. Its horns or link with the Crescent moon its strength suggests a support for the world in Vedic and Islamic traditions it's prolific semanis stored by the moon in Persian myth.

 and its colossal dangerous energy was widely venerated notably in Minoan Crete. Were a dangerous ritualistic sport involved somersaulting over a bull's horns developed

The orchestrated ritual of modern bull fighting continues an ancient Mediterranean tradition of using the bull to flirt with death.

Crete is a setting of numerous later Greek bull miss most famously of the monstrous half man half bull the minotaur.

Zeus transformed himself into a bull in order to abduct Europia carrying her to Crete. A bull is thus one of the attributes of Zeus and may also symbolize the continent of Europe.

 A former beast the bull from ancient times became adversaries as well as icons. Challenging its power was a task of legendary heroes such as Heracles who captured another cretin bull as his 7th labor an fought Acilius in the guise of a bull.

 And Theseus who slew the minotaur.

The Bull of Heaven was a pawn of the goddess Inanna, and the vessel of her rage against the demi god Gilgamesh. She unleashed the bull on Earth, and he began a path of devastation. He was killed by Gilgamesh and his friend Enkidu.

 Blue symbolism of the color blue .

Blue is one of the three primary colours of pigments in painting and traditional colour theory, as well as in the RGB colour model. It lies between violet and green on the spectrum of visible light. The eye perceives blue when observing light with a dominant wavelength between approximately 450 and 495 nanometres.

Blue symbolizes Infinity, eternity, truth, devotion, faith, purity, chastity, peace, spiritual, and intellectual life . It is the color of the ocean and the sky; it often symbolizes serenity, stability, inspiration,wisdom or health. It can be a calming color, and symbolize reliability.

cultures associations that appear in many ancient cultures and expressed a general feeling that blue, the color of the Sky, is the coolest most attached and least material of all hues.

The Virgin Mary and Christ are often shown wearing blue and it is the attribute of many Sky gods including Amun of  kemitic beliefs,   the Sumerian great mother,  the Greek Zeus and Hera,  the Hindu gods Indra and Vishnu and Vishnu’s blue skinned incarnation Krishna.

Blue is linked to mercy in Hebrew tradition and to wisdom in Buddhism .

 In folk tradition it stands in Europe for Fidelity in parts of China for scholarship and happy marriage and more recently the term Blues means melancholy or sad.

Hues of blue include indigo and ultramarine, closer to violet; pure blue, without any mixture of other colours; Cyan, which is midway in the spectrum between blue and green, and the other blue-greens turquoise, teal, and aquamarine.

Blue also varies in shade or tint; darker shades of blue contain black or grey, while lighter tints contain white. Darker shades of blue include ultramarine, cobalt blue, navy blue, and Prussian blue; while lighter tints include sky blue, azure, and Egyptian blue.

In Kemet blue was associated with the sky and with divinity. The Kemetic god Amun could make his skin blue so that he could fly, invisible, across the sky. Blue could also protect against evil; many people around the Mediterranean still wear a blue amulet, representing the eye of God, to protect them from misfortune.

Kauket

Classification: Primordial Goddess

Culture: Kemet

Kauket is one of the eight primordial deities of the Ogdoad cosmology.

She is representative of the chaos and darkness of pre existence of the universe.

She is paired with the god Kek  they appear in anthropomorphic form, Kauket with the head of the snake Kek, with the head of from. Some would argue that this ais a reference to binary code

Nun  and his wife Naunet symbolized the primordial waters

 Kuk and Kauket   represented darkness.

Huh and Hauhet the eternity of space.

Amun and Amaunet represent invisibility or the hidden.

As cosmic gods they are represented in anthropomorphic form. They are also sometimes conceived as chthonic animals the male gods appearing as frogs the female as snakes.

The pair epitomized the primordial darkness. The chaos existed without the light, and thus Kek and Kauket came to represent this darkness. They also symbolized obscurity, the kind of obscurity that went with darkness, and night.

She was depicted greeting the rising sun in the form of a baboon

Mithra

God of the Upper air

Culture Persian/Iranian

Known period of worship circa 400 bc to 200 common era.

Aliases Mitra (Hindu) Mithras (Roman)

Cult Center Persian influence

Literary Sources: The Avesta  The Avesta is the primary collection of religious texts of Zoroastrianism, composed in Avestan language.

commonly known as Mehr, is the Zoroastrian angelic divinity (yazata) of covenant, light, and oath.

Originating in India Mitra is a god of light who is translated in the attended of the God Ahura Mazda in the light religion of Persian. From this he was adopted into the Roman deity Mithras. He is regarded as the fertilizing power of warm light air. According to the Avesta, he possesses 10,000  eyes and ears and rides in a magical chariot.

He represent truth in the endless battle between light and darkness. He is responsible for keeping oaths and contracts.  In addition to being the divinity of contracts, Mithra is also a judicial figure, an all-seeing protector of Truth, and the guardian of cattle, the harvest, and of the Waters.

He was born from a rock, and legends tells us that he engaged in a primeval battle with Ahura Mazda’s first creation, a wild bull.

He subdued and restrained the bull. A crucial victory in the battle against chaos. The bull later escaped but was captured by Mithra who slit his throat. From his blood sprang the first plant life.

Mitra is not worshipped on his own but served as the intercessor between gods and men he was an integral part of the worship.

Modimo  - he who control the light and darkness

Classification – Creator God

Culture Tswana (Botswana, South Africa)

Associated: Creation of life, the balance of the universe

Supreme God of the Tswana. His very name is sacred,

Modimo and the universe have always existed, He is received as the river of existence which flows through space and time. He rules both aspects of light and dark opposite as well as the order of lie on Earth.

The Badimo of which there are many, are manifestations of him. Most of the Tswana people’s daily deity needs are met by the Badimo spirits, who act as Modimo’s little helpers and also ensure that rituals are performed correctly.

 Aesir

Classification: Pantheon/Civilization

Cultural Origin Icelandic

Viking worship from 700 to 1100 common era

Center of Cult : throughout areas of the Nordic Influence particularly in Uppsala in Sweden

Art references: engravings on stone and weapons, other art objects

Literary Sources : Prose Edda Historica Danica

The Aesir are the Gods of Norse mythology. They represent for these people the creators of the world as we know it, keep the forces of chaos at bay and will be consumed in the great reckoning Ragnarok

The 12 Aesir gods are headed by Odin the all father and are probably derived from the Germanic pantheon established in prehistory.

The Aesir exist in a realm called Asgard which is most likely the the Asegar Star cluster in the Taurus Star System.

Asgard is a grand empire, the finest in the 9 realms an important concept in their cosmology.

9 World Cosmology

The Aesir documented 9 distinct realms Niflheim, Muspelheim, Asgard, Midgard, Jotunheim, Vanaheim, Alfheim, Svartalfheim and Helheim.

The creation myth of the Aesir states that in the beginning there was a region of intense cold and one of incredible heat.

Muspell was the first world to exist. It was a place of light and heat. So hot that only those born to this place could survive its heat.

Beyond Muspell lay the great and yawing void called Ginningagap. And beyond that lay Niflheim the land of darkness and cold.

In between the two the perfect conditions existed and from the steam of the heat and mealting cold formed the frost giant Ymir.

Ymir slept, falling into a sweat. Under his left arm there grew a man and a woman. And one of his legs begot a son with the other. This was the beginning of the frost ogres.

Audhumla

Thawing frost then became a cow called Audhumla. Four rivers of milk ran from her teats, and she fed Ymir. The sacred cow obviously Hathor,

Buri, Bor, and Bestla

The cow licked salty ice blocks. After one day of licking, she freed a man's hair from the ice. After two days, his head appeared. On the third day the whole man was there. His name was Buri, and he was tall, strong, and handsome.

Buri begot a son named Bor, and Bor married Bestla, the daughter of a giant.

Odin, Vili, and Vé

Bor and Bestla had three sons: Odin was the first, Vili the second, and Vé the third.

It is believed that Odin, in association with his brothers, is the ruler of heaven and earth. He is the greatest and most famous of all men. A triad which we see in many beliefs. I think of Zeus, Posiedan Hades

The death of Ymir

Odin, Vili, and Vé killed the giant Ymir.

When Ymir fell, there issued from his wounds such a flood of blood, that all the frost ogres were drowned, except for the giant Bergelmir who escaped with his wife by climbing onto a lurFrom them spring the families of frost ogres

Earth, trees, and mountains

The sons of Bor then carried Ymir to the middle of Ginnungagap and made the world from him. From his blood they made the sea and the lakes; from his flesh the earth; from his hair the trees; and from his bones the mountains. They made rocks and pebbles from his teeth and jaws and those bones that were broken.  Tiamat and Marduk

To protect themselves from the hostile giants, the sons of Bor built for themselves an inland stonghold, using Ymir's eyebrows. This stonghold they named Midgard.

Ask and Embla

While walking along the sea shore the sons of Bor found two trees, and from them they created a man and a woman.

Odin gave the man and the woman spirit and life. Vili gave them understanding and the power of movement. Vé gave them clothing and names. The man was named Ask and the woman Embla.

The Vanir – The chronicles of the Aesir speak of a great war against another equal civilization who were the Vanir. The two would reach a peace after years of conflict. The Vanir are identified as the Pleiades or the so called blondes of Nordic myth. Their celestial home has been identified as the Pleiades star system.

The true enemies of the Aesir would be the various giants. And this represented the concept of order versus chaos as the central them of the mythology

Thor

The earth was Odin's daughter and his wife as well. By her he had his first son, Thor. Might and strength were Thor's characteristics. By these he dominates every living creature.

Thor would be significant as the face of the belief system and its primary protector hero. His battle against the Midgard serpent in the highlight of the conflict of order versus chaos.

Ragnarok,

 The Aesir prophecy of the end of creation was the inevitable event that would be known as Ragnarok. This was the time when the forces of chaos would win the day and all creation would burn in its fires.

But this is a story of renewal and though the old gods would die, a Son of Odin Vidar would rise as a new King. A Son of Thor would survive and become the realms new hero.

Acat  the God of Tattooers

Culture : Mayan

Classification: God or spirit

Association: Tattooers, the fetus.

Acat was a deity in Maya mythology associated with the process of tattooing. The Maya placed great importance on the tattooing process, believing that tattoos in the image of a god would imbue a person with some of that god's power.

many believe his name means ‘reed’ , a reference to the art of tattooing the skin with a reed.

Because of the importance and difficulty of this art form it was only natural that there was a god responsible for it. Acat was said to bless the ink, needles, and work spaces, and steady the hands of the artists for better results.

To them, tattooing was an act of faith. Body modification was very popular amongst the Mayans and became increasingly extreme by today’s standards the higher the person’ social standing was. Babies’ skulls were elongated by wrapping their heads tightly in cloth, or by tying a board to the backs of their head with cloth and gradually tightening a rope mechanism to create the desired shape. Numerous piercings were also encouraged, teeth were inlaid with precious stones and a more extreme form of tattooing was also practiced.

The Mayans decorated themselves with a plethora of images and iconography when tattooing: everything from celestial entities to flowers and gods, but the most important thing to them was the sacrifice and pain involved in the process. Without it, their world would quite literally cease to exist.

Tattoos had major religious significance for the Mayans. They believed that by drawing the symbols of gods on their bodies, they could attain to some of the characteristics of those gods. So accuracy was highly valued in such tattoos.

Tattoos had major religious significance for the Mayans. They believed that by drawing the symbols of gods on their bodies, they could attain to some of the characteristics of those gods. So accuracy was highly valued in such tattoos.