GERBILDOC The Divine Feline: Cat Goddess and Gods Mysteries Cat
          Deities                                 Page *1* of 6

Introduction:                

     This is an overview of some of the more curious of the cat
aspects in mythology. Included are the more obvious of the cat
deities, such as Bastet and Sekhmet, and some that were a little
more obscure, such as the significance of the more powerful
feline forms { lions, tigers and others } that could be found in
deities that were better know for other things, such as Ishtar,
Caridwen and Diana. Although some of them might not be strictly
involved in Cat aspects or worship, they generally are tied into
the deity being discussed in one way or another. 

AFRICA: { Agassou }  Agassou is the panther fetish of the royal
house of Dahomey, the African tribe. A fetish is not a God in the
true sense, but rather a signpost or aspect pointing towards a
God. Each Dahomey tribe has its own fetish, which may take the
form of any one of the many animals. The whole race, however, has
one supreme God and individuals have their own Legba { demon }
and their own Fa, or destiny. An interesting part of this fact is
that the tribal religious of Haiti share the concepts of Legba,
their demon of misfortune and fate, and Fa, which is the destiny
that the demon has control over. 

{ Nanan Bouclou - Mawu - Lisa }:  Nanan Bouclou is an androgynous
deity, and is the progenitor of Mawu - Lisa, who is the overall
God of the Fou tribe, the warlike people of the Dahomey race. In
the Mawu -Lisa aspect, Mawu is the female and Lisa is the male,
and together they are connected with the panther fetish Agassou,
probably serving as a sort of hierarchical direction for the
worship given through the fetish. In the aspect of Nanan Bouclou,
in strictly a more masculine form, there is also a cross
reference with the pantheon of Haiti, where he serves as a minor
deity, the God of herbs and medicine. 

NORTH AMERICA:  { Michabo }  This God was a major deity for the
Algonquin Indians of North America, as the founder of the human
race. In this instance, men were duly created by the God Michabo
by his copulating with a muskrat. He was born on the island of
Michilimakinak, and made the earth, deer, water and fish. he was
a shape shifter, and included the mountain lion among his other
forms. He dwelt in the House of Dawn, the afterlife of the
Algonquin Indians, and fed luscious fruits to the souls of good
men.           
CENTRAL AMERICA:  { Coatlicue }  This Aztec Goddess is ensconced
in this paper because of her connection with the jaguar cult in
central America, through one of her darkest aspects. Coatlicue
was the mother of Huitzilopochtli, the Aztec tribal God. She was
magically impregnated by a lump of thread and bore 400 sons and
daughters. These offspring were going to slay her, until
Huitzilopochtli sprang fully armed from her womb and decimated
the furious offspring. She was the devouring mother of the
Aztecs, with a skirt of writhing snakes, a necklace of human
hearts, flabby breasts, and clawed feet and hands. She wore a
pendant of a human skull, and dined on human corpses.  She was
the foremost Goddess of duality and contained both light and dark
aspects. 

SOUTH AMERICA:  { Jaguar }  This is the fanged God of the Machica
culture in pre-Columbian South America. In this particular
culture, the creator deity had a feline appearance, which was
seen in may of the deity statuses from the early periods of this
time.  The Jaguar, both animal and God, was considered a great
ambivalent force that the magickal adept had to master, and the
animal was hunted with one's bare hands in certain rites.  the
Jaguar was considered the personification of fertility in the
widest sense, and many statues of the period portray Jaguars
copulating with women. 

{ Sinaa }:  This God was a feline ancestor of the Juruna, an
Indian tribe along the Xingu River in Brazil. His father was a
Jaguar and his mother a human, which gives mythical credence to
the above entry. Sinaa was a very old God that magically shed his
skin with each bath { a similarity between feline and serpentine
aspects } and became young again. According to the Juruna, the
world would come to an end when Sinaa pulled down the forked
stick that supports the sky. 

EGYPT: { Ammut }  Ammut was an Egyptian demonic Goddess with a
curious appearance combining the physical qualities of the
crocodile, lioness and hippopotamus. She attended the Judging of
the Dead., where each dead man's soul was weighed against a
single feather. Should the soul in question weigh more than a
feather, the soul was condemned and was then given to Ammut to
devour. 
{ Bastet - Bast } :  Probably the most important deity as far as
feline characteristics and appearance are concerned is Bastet of
Egypt. She was a true cat Goddess, and was portrayed as having a
cat's head on a woman's body, or as being an entire cat. Scholars
believe that she probably originated as a lioness, and as her
worship continued, she became indicative of the light side of
life, and became the domesticated cat, while her darker side
became Sekhmet, who is portrayed with a lion's head.   Bastet had
her own sacred city, named Bubastis, which had a necropolis of
mummified cats, the cat being sacred to the Goddess. Living cats
were kept in her temples for worship, and were accorded even
greater sacred rank after death, being mummified and set to keep
watch over the temple.  The cat was sacred in the households of
her followers as well. Upon the death of a beloved household
deity, the members of the family would all shave their eyebrows
as a symbol of mourning, and the cat would be mummified to
preserve its body for its other life. It was also considered
impious to hunt lions { a favorite sport of the Pharaohs } during
any of the festivals of Bastet.  Bastet had a dual nature,
represented by her forms as Bastet Sekhmet, and represented both
moon and sun. In her light aspect as Bastet, she was also a lover
of music, and was pictured holding a sistrum, a musical
instrument consisting of a loop of metal with wires strung
loosely through it, which would make noise when shaken. The
Goddess was often worshipped in a manner that involved the
playing of the sistrum in her rites.  An interesting theory is
shared by some scholars that the endearment " puss ' for a
domesticated cat came as a derivative of the name Pasht, which
was also another name for Bastet, and was considered to be an
aspect of the Goddess Isis. 

{ Maahes }:  He was a minor deity believed to have originated in
Upper Egypt.  He was the son of Ra, the Sun God, and Bastet, and
was often depicted as a lion or a lion headed man. 

{ Mut }:  Mut was a minor Goddess of Thebes, worshipped at the
Temple of Koptos. Her significance is as the Sky Goddess and the
wife of Amun Ra, a Sun God form. She was at one time confuses
with Bastet, and at one time believed to have been Sekhmet,
primarily through her worship in Memphis. She was often
represented with the head of a cat or a lion, and also was linked
with the cow, which had a sky significance for the Egyptians. She
had also been represented as a man headed women, with two
vultures growing from her neck and lion's claws at her feet. 
{ Sekhmet } :  She was a vary important deity in Egypt as the
Goddess of war.  She was the dark counterpart to Bastet and was
portrayed as a woman with a lion's head, atop of which rested a
golden disc and coiled cobra. She was the wife of the great
father god Ptah, who had brought all the other gods into being
through masturbation creating them from his spilled semen.  The
Goddess Hathor took the form of Sekhmet to slay the human race
under the orders of the Sun God Ra. Ra, when seeing the
destruction, asked her to stop, but the Goddess Sekhmet /Hathor
was so full of the battle frenzy that she refused. Ra tinted beer
red with pomegranate juice and spread it liberally around the
battlefield. The Goddess in her war lust eagerly drank the beer,
believing it to be blood, and thus became to intoxicated to
continue the destruction. In spite of her dark aspects, Sekhmet
attracted osteopaths to her cult, and they would worship her to
assist their healing work. 

{ Tefnut }:  Tefnut was a minor deity, a daughter of Sekhmet who
was also portrayed with a lioness' head. She was called " the
Spitter " because it was she who sent the rain. She was the
consort of Shu, who was created by Ra as the god of the Wind. 

{ Mau } :  The Great Mau was the cat form of The Sun God Ra, who
was referred to as the Sun Cat. Mau underwent the everyday battle
to raise the sun, and did this by daily slaying the serpent of
darkness, known as Asap. 

MIDDLE EAST { Hepat }:  Hepat was the Sun Goddess of Arinna, in
the Middle East. She was thought to have survived from an earlier
religion of the Hatti, who were the progenitors of the Hittities.
She was represented by the lion as her emblematic beast, and was
often portrayed riding the same. 

{ Ishtar }  The Goddess Ishtar was derived from the Sumerian
Goddess Inanna, the Goddess of fertility and love. This Goddess
was also known to have light and dark aspects, and in her dark
aspect she was the Goddess of war and was pictured with a bow and
quiver of arrows. Ishtar was worshipped in Babylon and was the
wife and sister of Tammuz, who was derived from the Sumerian
Dumuzi. She was pictured with  lions, and was shown treading upon
them, to illustrate her immense strength. 

{ Nergal }:  Nergal was the husband of Ereshkingal, who was the
Babylonian " mistress of death ". He was the king of the
underworld, the God of plague and destructive power of the sun.
He presided over the city of Cutha, which was the land of the
dead, and was symbolized by a lion's head and by carrying a
sword.INDIA { Rakshasas } :  Rakshasas were Hindu evil spirits who
sometime took feline form. They were great shapeshifters and had
great powers of levitation and movement. They lived in
Visvakarma, a beautiful city built for them by the god of
craftsmen. This in part repaid them for their destiny, which was
to be evil to gods and men. The Rakshasas followed Ravana, a
fallen angel who was their king. Ravana was killed in one
incarnation by Vishnu in the form of a lion.   

{ Vishnu }:  Vishnu { as Narasimha }: Vishnu is usually portrayed
in human form, of a dark blue color and dressed all in yellow. He
was the god of love and is mentioned here because of one
particular story. The demon Ravana, in his incarnation as
Hiranyakashipu, threw the gods out of heaven and said that only
he would be worshipped. His son Prahlada was a follower of Vishnu
and continued to worship him. The demon tortured his son, but
could not force him to change his mind. The son claimed that
Vishnu was present in all things, and as if to prove it, Vishnu
in the form of Narasimha, the lion man, leapt from a pillar in
the demon's palace and mauled Hiranyakashipu to death.  

GREECE { Cybele }:  Cybele was a Phrygian deity who was adopted
by the Greeks along with her lover, the god Attis. She was the
Goddess of earth and caverns and was worshipped on Mount Ida. An
interesting fact is that she was the mother of King Midus.
Cybele's domain included wild beasts, and she is represented and
often accompanied by lions. 

{ Dionysus }:  Dionysus was the Greek god of wine, vegetation and
civilization. His presence here is based on one particular
instance. While walking on the seashore one day, the god was
captured by pirates. He was recognized as Dionysus, and held for
ransom.  The pirates could not tie him up, as the knots in the
ropes would loosen themselves of their own accord, and the pilot
of the ship begged that Dionysus be set free, which the other
pirates refused. All at once the pirates noticed that they were
now sailing on a sea of wine, and grape vines started to come up
from the sea and engulf the ship. At this point the god laughed
and shapeshifted into a savage lion, whereupon all the pirates
panicked and threw themselves into the sea, where all but the
pilot who had asked for Dionysus' release became dolphins. 

ITALY { Diana }:  Diana was the Goddess of the hunt and the moon,
and was known by the Greeks as Artemis. She was often portrayed {
in Sicilian mythology } as riding in a chariot that was drawn by
two lions. In various myths, Diana was known to shapeshift into a
domestic cat, and so her cults were to hold cats and other feline
family members in high esteem.           
CELTIC WALES { Caridwen }:  Caridwen was the Goddess of wisdom,
and her shapeshifting talents are well known in mythology through
the story of the Cauldron of Wisdom and the birth of Taliesin,
the great bard.  Caridwen at one time gave the gift of a small
kitten to the people of Arvon, in gratitude for a boon done for
the Goddess. The people of Arvon were astounded when the kitten
grew into a monstrous cat named Palug Cat, or Cath Palug, and
wrecked so much havoc to the countryside that it was known as one
of the Three Plagues of Anglesey. 

{ Dian Cecht }:  Dian Cecht was the Celtic god of healing, who
had the unfortunate notoriety of having murdered his own son,
filled with jealousy at his son's success in healing, which was
beginning to eclipse his own. Dian Cecht replaced eyes for the
gods by using the optical organs from domestic cats.  These new
eyes worked very well, except that the transplanted eye would
sleep during the day and at night would be constantly awake,
alert at every moment and very aware of the smallest movement or
sound of mice. 

NORWAY { Freyja }:  Freyja was the Goddess of love and sex, and
had another aspect which included agriculture. She was the
daughter of Niorder, the Waen God and nerthus, the Earth Mother,
which probably accounts for her secondary earth aspect. Frejay
always travelled in a chariot which was drawn by two large cats.
When she travelled out to bless the harvests, she would be
especially gracious to those farmers who had thought to place
pans of milk in their fields for the refreshment and nourishment
of her cats. 

{ Fenrir }:  Fenrir was the offspring of the god Loki, god of
mischief, and the giantess Angrboda. he was a god who was so
powerful and dangerous that he is meant for destruction of the
gods at Ragnarok, the Gotterdammerung of Wagner operas. On that
day, he would break free of his magical chain, slay Odin, the
father of the gods, and would himself be slain.  The magical
thread his chains were made of were as fine as silk, but could
not be broken. they were fashioned by dwarfs and were made of the
roots of a mountain, the breath of a fish, and the noise of a
moving cat.