Mbaba Mwana Waresa is a fertility goddess of the Zulu religion of Southern Africa. She rules over rainbows, agriculture, harvests, rain, and beer and has power over water and earth. She taught her people how to sow and reap and also the art of making beer. It is this act that has made her one of the more revered goddesses of the Zulu people.
Mbaba Mwana Waresa lives in the clouds, in a round hut made of rainbow arches. Whenever is heard the telltale sound of her thunder drum, people know that she is pouring much-needed waters from her heavenly home. She is the daughter of the sky god Umvelinqangi. [1] She is able to shapeshift her appearance to that of an animal, hence her other name, Nomkhubulwane, which means "She who chooses the state of an animal". [2]
According to legend, Mbaba Mwana Waresa was unable to find a suitable husband in the heavens, so she scoured the land in search of a mortal husband, and then defied the other gods when she fell in love with a mortal man. In order to make sure he loved her, she tested him by sending a beautiful bride in her place while she disguised herself as a hag. Her earthly lover was not fooled and recognized her immediately. They married and to this day, they live in her rainbow-covered house in the sky.
The Zulu call on her when they need guidance to make an important decision. [3] [4]
In ancient Greek mythology and religion, Eos is the goddess and personification of the dawn, who rose each morning from her home at the edge of the river Oceanus to deliver light and disperse the night. In Greek tradition and poetry, she is characterized as a goddess with a great sexual appetite, who took numerous human lovers for her own satisfaction and bore them several children. Like her Roman counterpart Aurora and Rigvedic Ushas, Eos continues the name of an earlier Indo-European dawn goddess, Hausos. Eos, or her earlier Proto-Indo-European (PIE) ancestor, also shares several elements with the love goddess Aphrodite, perhaps signifying Eos's influence on her or otherwise a common origin for the two goddesses. In surviving tradition, Aphrodite is the culprit behind Eos' numerous love affairs, having cursed the goddess with insatiable lust for mortal men.
A goddess is a female deity. In many known cultures, goddesses are often linked with literal or metaphorical pregnancy or imagined feminine roles associated with how women and girls are perceived or expected to behave. This includes themes of spinning, weaving, beauty, love, sexuality, motherhood, domesticity, creativity, and fertility. Many major goddesses are also associated with magic, war, strategy, hunting, farming, wisdom, fate, earth, sky, power, laws, justice, and more. Some themes, such as discord or disease, which are considered negative within their cultural contexts also are found associated with some goddesses. There are as many differently described and understood goddesses as there are male, shapeshifting, or neuter gods.
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In Egyptian mythology, Sekhmet, is a warrior goddess as well as goddess of medicine.
Hathor was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion who played a wide variety of roles. As a sky deity, she was the mother or consort of the sky god Horus and the sun god Ra, both of whom were connected with kingship, and thus she was the symbolic mother of their earthly representatives, the pharaohs. She was one of several goddesses who acted as the Eye of Ra, Ra's feminine counterpart, and in this form, she had a vengeful aspect that protected him from his enemies. Her beneficent side represented music, dance, joy, love, sexuality, and maternal care, and she acted as the consort of several male deities and the mother of their sons. These two aspects of the goddess exemplified the Egyptian conception of femininity. Hathor crossed boundaries between worlds, helping deceased souls in the transition to the afterlife.
Zulu traditional religion consists of the beliefs and spiritual practices of the Zulu people of southern Africa. It contains numerous deities commonly associated with animals or general classes of natural phenomena. Unkulunkulu is known to be the Supreme Creator.
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Latvian Lauma or Lithuanian Laumė, or Yotvingian Łauma is a fairy-like woodland spirit, and guardian spirit of orphans in Eastern Baltic mythology or Yotvingian mythology. Originally a sky spirit, her compassion for human suffering brought her to earth to share our fate.
Hittite mythology and Hittite religion were the religious beliefs and practices of the Hittites, who created an empire centered in what is now Turkey from c. 1600–1180 BC.
Indrani, also known as Shachi, is the queen of the devas in Hinduism. Described as tantalisingly beautiful, proud and kind, she is the daughter of the asura Puloman and the consort of the king of the devas, Indra.
Devī is the Sanskrit word for 'goddess'; the masculine form is deva. Devi and deva mean 'heavenly, divine, anything of excellence', and are also gender-specific terms for a deity in Hinduism.
Beer goddess may refer to:
Inkosazana is a member of the Zulu pantheon and one of the fertility goddesses, with the other being Nomkhubulwane. Some sources also conflated the two with one another.