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A lunar deity is a deity who represents the Moon, or an aspect of it. Lunar deities and Moon worship can be found throughout most of recorded history in various forms. The following is a list of lunar deities:
Name | Image | Mythology / Religion | Details |
---|---|---|---|
Abuk | Dinka | Goddess of fertility, morality, creativity, and love | |
Amesemi | Kushite | Protective goddess and wife of Apedemak, the lion-god. She was represented with a crown shaped as a falcon, or with a crescent moon on her head on top of which a falcon was standing. | |
Ayyur | Berber | ||
Gleti | Dahomean | ||
Mawu | Dahomean | ||
Iah | Egyptian | ||
iNyanga | Zulu | Goddess of the Moon | |
Khonsu | ![]() | Egyptian | The god of the moon. A story tells that Ra (the sun God) had forbidden Nut (the Sky goddess) to give birth on any of the 360 days of the calendar. In order to help her give birth to her children, Thoth (the god of wisdom) played against Khonsu in a game of senet. Khonsu lost to Thoth and then he gave away enough moonlight to create 5 additional days so Nut could give birth to her five children. It was said that before losing, the moonlight was on par with the sunlight. Sometimes, Khonsu is depicted as a hawk-headed god, however he is mostly depicted as a young man with a side-lock of hair, like a young Egyptian. He was also a god of time. The centre of his cult was at Thebes which was where he took place in a triad with Amun and Mut. Khonsu was also heavily associated Thoth who also took part in the measurement of time and the moon. |
Nzambici | Bakongo | She is the eternal God of Essence, as well as Goddess of Moon, Earth and Sky Mother | |
Thoth | Egyptian | God of wisdom, the arts, science, and judgment | |
Ela-Opitan | Yoruba | ||
Name | Image | Mythology / Religion | Details |
---|---|---|---|
Arianrhod [ citation needed ] | Welsh | ||
Artemis | ![]() | Greek | Artemis is the ancient Greek goddess of the hunt, wilderness, wild animals, chastity, and occasionally the Moon due to being mistaken for Selene. [33] [34] She is the daughter of Zeus and Leto and the twin sister of Apollo. [35] She would eventually be extensively syncretized with the Roman goddess Diana. Cynthia was originally an epithet of the Greek goddess Artemis, who according to legend was born on Mount Cynthus. Selene, the Greek personification of the Moon, and the Roman Diana were also sometimes called "Cynthia". [36] |
Artume | Etruscan | ||
Ataegina | ![]() | Lusitanian | |
Sen | Mesopotamian Religion | ||
Bendis | ![]() | Thracian | |
Devana | Slavic | Devana was the Slavic goddess of wild nature, forests, hunting and the moon, equated with the Greek goddess Artemis and Roman goddess Diana. | |
Diana | ![]() | Roman | Diana is a goddess in Roman and Hellenistic religion, primarily considered a patroness of the countryside, hunters, crossroads, and the Moon. She is equated with the Greek goddess Artemis (see above), and absorbed much of Artemis' and Selenes mythology early in Roman history, including a birth on the island of Delos to parents Jupiter and Latona, and a twin brother, Apollo, [37] though she had an independent origin in Italy. |
Elatha [ citation needed ] | Irish | Elatha was a king of the Fomorians in Irish mythology. He succeeded his father Delbáeth and was replaced by his son Bres, mothered by Ériu. | |
Hecate | ![]() | Greek | While associated with the Moon, Hecate is not actually considered a goddess of the moon. |
Hëna | Albanian | Hëna ("the Moon) is a personified female deity in Albanian mythology. | |
Hors | Slavic | ||
Hjúki and Bil | Norse | ||
Ilargi | Basque | ||
Kuu | Finnish | ||
Losna | Etruscan | ||
Luna | ![]() | Roman | Roman counterpart to the Greek Titaness Selene. Sibling to Sol and Aurora. Considered one of the 20 principal deities of Rome, having had temples on both the Aventine and Palatine hills. |
Mano | Sámi | ||
Máni | ![]() | Norse | Máni is the personification of the Moon in Norse mythology. Máni, personified, is attested in the Poetic Edda , compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources, and the Prose Edda , written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson. Both sources state that he is the brother of the personified sun, Sól, and the son of Mundilfari, while the Prose Edda adds that he is followed by the children Hjúki and Bil through the heavens. |
Mehnot | Proto-Indo-European mythology | ||
Meness | Latvian | ||
Myesyats | Slavic | ||
Phoebe | Greek | ||
Selene | ![]() | Greek | Selene Titan goddess and personification of the moon. She was depicted as a woman riding sidesaddle on a horse or driving a chariot drawn by a pair of winged steeds. |
Tõlze | Mari | the god of the Moon for Volga Finns peoples | |
Triple Goddess | ![]() | Wicca | |
In Kapampangan mythology, Mayari is the goddess of the moon and ruler of the world during nighttime.
In the indigenous religion of the ancient Tagalogs, Bathalà/Maykapál was the transcendent Supreme God, the originator and ruler of the universe. He is commonly known and referred to in the modern era as Bathalà, a term or title which, in earlier times, also applied to lesser beings such as personal tutelary spirits, omen birds, comets, and other heavenly bodies which the early Tagalog people believed predicted events. It was after the arrival of the Spanish missionaries in the Philippines in the 16th century that Bathalà /Maykapál came to be identified with the Christian God, hence its synonymy with Diyós. Over the course of the 19th century, the term Bathala was totally replaced by Panginoón (Lord) and Diyós (God). It was no longer used until it was popularized again by Filipinos who learned from chronicles that the Tagalogs' indigenous God was called Bathalà.
Philippine mythology is rooted in the many indigenous Philippine folk religions. Philippine mythology exhibits influence from Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, and Christian traditions.
Tala, based on Hindu goddess Tara, is the name of the goddess of the morning and evening star in Tagalog mythology. Her origins are varied depending on the region. Golden Tara, the Majapahit-era gold statue of Hindu deity Tara or Tagalog adoption Tala was found in 1918 in Agusan. The legend of Tala has very close parallels to legends among non-Filipino cultures such as the India tribes of Bihar, Savara and Bhuiya, as well as the Indianized Semang.
The Sambal people are a Filipino ethnolinguistic group living primarily in the province of Zambales and the Pangasinense municipalities of Bolinao, Anda, and Infanta. The term may also refer to the general inhabitants of Zambales. They were also referred to as the Zambales during the Spanish colonial era.
The Pangasinan people, also known as Pangasinense, are an ethnolinguistic group native to the Philippines. Numbering 1,823,865 in 2010, they are the tenth largest ethnolinguistic group in the country. They live mainly in their native province of Pangasinan and the adjacent provinces of La Union and Tarlac, as well as Benguet, Nueva Ecija, Zambales, and Nueva Vizcaya. Smaller groups are found elsewhere in the Philippines and worldwide in the Filipino diaspora.
The Bakunawa is a Serpent, that looks like a Dragon in Philippine mythology. It is believed to be the cause of eclipses, earthquakes, rains, and wind. The movements of the Bakunawa served as a geomantic calendar system for ancient Filipinos and were part of the rituals of the babaylan priestess. It is usually depicted with a characteristic looped tail and a single horn on the nose. It was believed to inhabit either the sky or the underworld.
A weather god or goddess, also frequently known as a storm god or goddess, is a deity in mythology associated with weather phenomena such as thunder, snow, lightning, rain, wind, storms, tornadoes, and hurricanes. Should they only be in charge of one feature of a storm, they will be called after that attribute, such as a rain god or a lightning/thunder god. This singular attribute might then be emphasized more than the generic, all-encompassing term "storm god", though with thunder/lightning gods, the two terms seem interchangeable. They feature commonly in polytheistic religions, especially in Proto-Indo-European ones.
Indigenous Philippine shrines and sacred grounds are places regarded as holy within the indigenous Philippine folk religions. These places usually serve as grounds for communication with the spirit world, especially to the deities and ancestral spirits. In some cases, they also function as safeguards for the caskets of ancestors, as well as statues or other objects depicting divine entities.
A dawn god or goddess is a deity in a polytheistic religious tradition who is in some sense associated with the dawn. These deities show some relation with the morning, the beginning of the day, and, in some cases, become syncretized with similar solar deities.
The indigenous religious beliefs of the Tagalog people were well documented by Spanish missionaries, mostly in the form of epistolary accounts (relaciones) and entries in various dictionaries compiled by missionary friars.