republikbabi

Celebrating Kartini’s Day, I decided to write this post which is related to my interest. Here is a fragment of my arduous research of Ancient Near East mythology. I have been reading extensive amounts of Sumerian-Babylonian mythologies in last few months for my next novel. I will probably read Persian, Ugaritic, Akkadian, and Hitite mythology eventually, but it will probably later, because I don’t have enough resources.

At this occasion I will write about Woman and Mother archetypes in ancient mythologies.
Woman in Mythology: Mother Earth
Have you ever thought that woman plays very important role in ancient myth, which extends to this modern day? The archetypes of woman in various ancients religions are pretty interesting to look at because we could see similar pattern in various type of myth.

Woman is usually portrayed in various forms, she is usually identified as “Universal Mother”, “Mother Earth”, and “Queen of Heaven”. This mother earth usually is the first being created in universe along with Sky Father, she is usually the cause of all possibilities because later deities born from her.

Gaia is probably one of the well-known depiction of Mother Goddess in greek myth. She is usually manifested into various different goddess such as Goddess of Grain. Agriculture is usually associated with this mother earth.

In Indonesian mythology (which is lack of documentation), we have Dewi Sri or Ibu Pertiwi. I remember there used to be wise proverb taught by my teachers: “if you don’t eat all of your rice, Dewi Sri will cry.” Rice is associated as blessings from Dewi Sri and shouldn’t be wasted.

Dewi Sri is parallel with Demeter, Greek Goddess of vegetation. There is also term of “Ibu Pertiwi” appears in our national songs, she is originally Hindu Earth Goddess, also called “Bumi”, the Indonesian term for “Earth”.

Dewi, Indonesian loanword for “goddess” is originally aspect of universal mother. She is manifested in various forms which is ranging from gentle Goddess, companion, fertility goddess, but even war goddess (just like Durga). If you are seeing a goddess in a mythology, it’s safe to assume they are all basically same entities (Mother) with different manifestation.

Inanna-Ishtar-Isis-Mary: The Queen(s) of Heaven
Aside from Mother Goddess, there is also occurrence of Goddess with complex persona, she is usually portrayed as temptress, seducer, fertility goddess, mistress of magic, etc. She is commonly associated with planet Venus.

Inanna from Sumerian mythology is the first portrayal mother goddess. Later on, Babylonian absorbed Sumerian pantheon and Inanna is later called Ishtar.

Isthar evolved more than just a mere mother goddess. There are three myths as I could recall:
1. Ishtar descended to underworld, to visit her sister Ereshkigal, the queen of underworld. But Ereshkigal later killed Ishtar, but was revived later.
2. Ishtar has husband (part of many) which is also her son, born by virgin birth, therefore, they are equal. Tammuz, vegetation God (associated with grain) was later died during hot summer, and later revived by Ishtar through many ordeals. I won’t be surprised if this story will remind you to Abduction of Persphone/Prosperina
3. There was also story of Ishtar tempted Gilgamesh, the King of Heroes in Epic of Gilgamesh. Later, Gilgamesh rejected her, saying she is unfaithful goddess for her lovers are many. Ishtar was offended, sent Gilgamesh bull of heaven, causing plague to the city, and later killed by Enkidu. Ishtar complained to council of Gods, and Enkidu was later killed and became part of underworld. The story is terrible, no?

Ishtar is celebrated in Easter day, because it was resurrection day of Tammuz, which is parallel to resurrection of Jesus.

In later myths you will retelling of her stories in various forms such as Isis, which is the most important goddess in ancient Egypt.

Isis, the universal mother of Egyptian Pantheon was an exceptional example of woman’s role in mythology. She is part of Egyptian Trinity of father-mother-son, Osiris-Isis-Horus. Later, her cult dominate the entire Egypt. In Hellenistic Egypt period, the gods are merged, and known as Serapis-Isis-Harpocrates. Among all three, Isis’ cult was the most popular and considered the most important deity, surpassing the sun god Ra. Isis and Harpocrates later merged into Roman Pantheon, and known as Venus and Cupid.

Here we see a pattern of Mother-Child archetype. Roman Catholic church later converted Isis’ temples to sites dedicated to Virgin Mary and crowned him Queen of Heaven. Baby Yeshua/Jesus is often portrayed with Mother Mary, just like little Horus was suckling to Mother Isis.

Trinity also follows the same archetype. The God-Son-Holy Spirit is based of this culture. Holy Spirit is sometimes seen Sophia (Wisdom), the consort of Christ in esoteric Christianity. Jesus was really a mortal, but he was given insight of his Divine Identity as divine Christ through Sophia who manifested in form of Dove. Mary Magdalene is also portrayed as companion of Jesus, and manifestation of Sophia.

If you are wondering the origin of Cross in Christianity, it’s originally from Egypt, symbol of Ankh which is used by Isis. Roman later adopted this into symbol of Venus, and later, adopted as symbol of Christianity.

Masculinization of Religion
It seems strange that with significance of goddess in ancient religion, women were getting marginalized. I was often wondering why there was High Priestess tarot in Major Arcana deck because there was no sign of Woman pope in entire roman catholic church. But I later found out, High Priestess is portrayal of universe mother, but never incorporated in reality due to masculinization of religion practices.

Now let’s take a quick glance to the root of all this cause. If you are thinking all ancient religions follows the same pattern (Sky father, mother earth), it is rather inaccurate.

Here are the clues:
1. There is one god that doesn’t have consort and a destructive one. Genociding other tribes, leaving no space for other religion except his cult. He said to his people that he is jealous god, saying there is no other gods but him.
2. This god put distance with his worshipping people, a distance called holy. He is very different than the down-to-earth god and goddess of Greek Gods or Abraham’s God who assumed human forms whose encounter was more human than being divine.

It’s easy guess right? The god is none other than Yahweh Sabaoth.

Yahweh was originally god of war, parallel with Ares and Mars. Remember the time when Moses first contacted Yahweh in Midian? It was burning fire, full of fear and distance, unlike the epiphany encountered by Abraham with El.

Later, Yahweh obliterated other gods and goddesses, and the cult of Yahweh became more masculine, and woman role in religion grew less important compared to primitive times because reduced role of Mother Goddess in religion. People stopped worshipping goddess of fertility.

Yahweh and ever-loving New testament God mentioned by Jesus was considered separate entity during the early Christian period due to different nature of their attributes. One is brutal and savage, one is full of love and forgiveness.

Both were merged later on to unite the diverse tribes in Roman’s colonies. Christianity is seen more effective measure to unite the people. Later on, the Roman Catholic church will demonize other gods and telling they are inferior beings, which could also be interpreted as elegant chauvinism in name of God.

In Popular Culture
If you have played Xenogears, a Japanese role playing game released by Squaresoft in 1998, you will be delighted to identify various archetypes in the game.

The protagonist, Fei Wong Fong was in love with a girl called Elehayym van Houten (called Elly in the game). After a very complicated long adventure and long blah-blah-blahs (it took about 30 hours before getting into the real story), Fei was really Abel, the first man/child in their planet.

In the lonely world, Abel was longing out for a protective figure. Zohar, an omnipotent object from another dimension heard his cry, and thus Elehayym was born. If you are familiar with Ugaritic Mythology, you will probably thrilled to know that Elehayym is feminine name of “Elohim”, which is Abraham’s God.

YHVH and Elohim was later merged, but back then they were separate deities. Elohim was High God in Canaan, identified as sky father, such as Zeus. Incase you haven’t noticed, Elly is read as “Eli”, which means ‘god’.

In the game, they are portrayed having endless cycle of rebirth, ended with tragedies, and they never have children because they are originally Mother and Son and later evolved as lovers.

Best Seller Means a Girl Must be Kidnapped and Rescued by Handsome Prince Later
If you hate the pattern of “damsel in distress”, you should blame “Perseus and Andromeda”, the archetype of story where “woman is being kidnapped by some wicked evil being, the hero saved her, having marriage, and they live happily ever after”. The pattern appears in forms of fairy tales such as “snow white and 7 dwarfs”, “Sleeping Beauty”, etc.

Back then, woman is the one came to the rescue. Just remember the story of powerful Ishtar revived Tammuz, or how Isis revived his husband, Osiris from death after his body was cut into 13 pieces (his p*n*s was replaced by Isis with magical one).

Twilight was heavily criticized because Bella is a damsel in distress (Atri told me that she was called ultimate mary sue… btw what is mary sue?).

Indeed, girls could easily associate with her due nature of girls who love story of “Knight in Shining Armor” type, Edward Cullen is a perfect archetype “Tragedic Knight in Shining Armor” because he was seen as imperfect (alienated from society due his eternity, but wtf an eternal vampire is doing in school is he an eternal student as well?), but also portrayed humanly perfect (handsome, gentle, shy, cold, RICH, etc etc.).

I have seen dozens prince types in japanese manga (called “bishonen”, means beautiful man/boy) so I’m not really surprised. The portrayal of Cullen being glittered under sunshine was hilarious, it reminds me to sparkle effects when a bishonen character appears in a scene of manga (usually ornamented with roses and such).

It seems girls starting to have fetish in cute Japanese/Chinese/Korean guys thanks to internet to distribute newest doramas from these countries. It was amusing to read girls idolizing “cute asian guys”, because from my observation, it seems Asian men are effeminated in western stereotype, they are considered less masculine and less attractive compared to other tribes. Since this is stereotype, I couldn’t say it’s true or not, well… it’s stereotype, it’s up to you to decide.

Conclusion: What can we learn from these?
If you are asking me, who is my most favorite Goddess, I would probably vote for Isis.

I was catholic, and knowing that Virgin Mary was aspect of Universal Mother, it made me even thrilled. Everyone in Catholic prayed to Virgin Mary, the universal mother. She was seen as everloving and understanding mother just like how Mary was always portrayed as loving mother. I was once told praying to Virgin Mary is praying to devil, I think this statement is terrible.

I don’t understand why protestants condemned Mary, because everything has same root. Jealous monotheist religions probably despise my opinion, but there is nothing
bad about paganism because you could see it everywhere.

Holy Spirit is also portrayed feminine, another form of universal mother. Protestants worship God as Holy Spirit, which they say shouldn’t be considered as separate being. Islam considers Christians worships three Gods, the Father, the Son, and the holy spirit, while just like Judaism, they believe God is the only one and none others.

See the pattern here? Protestants don’t agree that Catholics should pray to Mary (as intermediary between people and Jesus), Islam don’t agree to both because God/Allah is only one and incomprehensible, but Christians won’t admit Holy Spirit is also aspect of Universal Mother and has root of long pagan tradition. Protestants and Catholic, in this sense, unconsciously continue the tradition of worshipping the Universal Mother. They are believing same things in different manifestation.

We could learn a lot about toleration and compassion from the ancient polytheistic religions in ancient Greco-Roman civilizations. Roman was depicted as “Great Harlot” in revelation because of this. In the monotheist point of view, this is considered a blasphemy because they are products of evil and misleading. It’s even worse because some people probably read holy scriptures literally and insisted they are actual unquestionable facts.

Why was Isis immensely popular? Probably because everyone in this world idolizes her mother, and Isis is the archetype, ideal figure of Perfect Mother.

Now here comes interesting question, why do people worship the Universal Mother? What is the root all of this?

Freud said because our mother/father is our first love.

Conscious or unconsciously, a man or woman will seek for companion that is reflection of his/her parents, and it is manifested in the interpretation of the universe. People interpret the warmth and goodness of earth as feminine (mother) aspect of the unknown, incomprehensible God that is source of our physical realm. Man and woman idolizing their mother, because she is your life-giver and it’s manifested in various aspects.

God is neither verifiable nor falsifiable, but religion practices and their interpretation is made by man.

I could write this forever, but I will just end it here. Happy Kartini day, respect yourself, respect woman, respect your mother, respect our mother earth, the life-givers.

I will be more than happy if you could analyze and identify the archetypes in my novel, Jukstaposisi, especially if you could find inspiration of Ashra Trivurti, the protagonist, which later realized she is really god.

• July 10, 2009 -- Enuma Elish dan Bereshit (11)
• May 12, 2009 -- Mythological Deities in Indonesian Words (5)
• February 14, 2009 -- Mengenal Konsep Sinkretisme (0)
• August 29, 2009 -- God is Director: Cina, Tuhan and Annisa (20)
• April 21, 2009 -- My first Online Interfaith Dialogue (7)