The Faces of the Goddess

289 Pages·1997·19.8 MB·English

by  Lotte Motz

The Faces of
the goddess
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The Faces
of
the goddess
Lotte, Motz
New York Oxford
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
1997
To My Daughter
"You come of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve," said
Asian, "And that is both honour enough to erect the
head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to
bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor on earth.
Be content."
—C. S. Lewis, Prince Caspian
Oxford University Press
Oxford New York
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and associated companies in
Berlin Ibadan
Copyright © 1997 by Lotte Motz
Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.
198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016
Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted,
in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the
prior permission of Oxford University Press.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Motz, Lotte.
The faces of the goddess /
Lotte Motz.
p. cm. Includes bibligraphical references.
ISBN 0-19-508967-7
1. Mother goddesses.
2. Femininity of God.
I. Title.
BL325.M6M68 1997 291.2'114--dc20 95-41494
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 21
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
Acknowledgments
Writing this book has been a deeply satisfying intellectual adventure, and I
wish to thank those who helped and guided me in this experience. Professor
horkild Jacobsen, Professor Walther Burkert, Professor Ake Hultkrantz, and
Professor Joseph Kitagawa not only provided insight and inspiration through
their work, but also read the pertinent chapters of my study and offered cor-
rections and suggestions.
The inspired editorial advice of Professor James E. Preston allowed me to
clarify my argument and to enrich the study with an added dimension.
I received comments and advice from the late Lisbeth Gombrich of Oxford,
from Judith Hanson of Hong Kong, from Professor Edgar C. Polome of Texas,
from Professor Anatoly Liberman of Minnesota, Dr. Nigel Warburton of Oxford,
and especially from my daughter, Anna.
I owe much to my late husband, Hans, who traveled with me on this
journey, though he was a man of science, and from whose trenchant com-
ments I could no longer profit while writing the last three chapters of this
book.
I also wish to express my appreciation of the assistance rendered by Cyn-
thia Read and the staff of Oxford University Press, New York.
I further wish to acknowledge with gratitude the unfailing interest and
support of my brother, Herbert.
I am much indebted to the Ashmolean Library of Oxford, its splendid col-
lections and its helpful staff. I also wish to thank Stephanie Warburton for
her help in compiling the index.
L.M.
Oxford 1996
V
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Contents
Introduction, 1
1. The Great Mother, 5
2. The Rise of a Goddess in Our Time, 24
3. Reverence of Nature: Northern Eurasia, 39
4. The Creativity of Suffering: The Eskimo, 59
5. The Lady of the Manor: Latvia, 70
6. The Human Condition: Mesopotamia, 84
7. The Mountain Mother: Anatolia, 99
8. Demeter, the Ravished Earth: Greece, 121
9. The Exaltation of Death: Mexico, 148
10. Amaterasu and Her Sacred Land: Japan, 165
Conclusion, 179
Abbreviations, 187
Appendix A. The Sedna Tales, 189
Appendix B. Derivation of the Goddesses, 196
Appendix C. Development and Growth of the Goddesses, 197
Appendix D. Classical Authors and Works, 198
Appendix E. Mexican Sources, 200
Notes, 202
Bibliography, 256
Picture Credits, 271
Index, 272
vii
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Introduction
I
N discussion and reconstructions of archaic religions the figure of a di-
vine mother has been given an important place. A number of books
were devoted to this deity in the past—for example, Erich Neumann's
The Great Mother, E. 0. James's The Cult of the Mother Goddess, Robert
Briffault's The Mothers—and were still written in recent time—such as
Marija Gimbutas's The Language of the Goddess and Elinor Gadon's The
Once and Future Goddess. These scholars invariably draw the image of a
universal, archetypal, time-transcending being in whose womb all life has
generated. She received her exaltation through the awe and wonder inspired
by the powers of her fertile womb. The writers invariably include in their
explorations divinities who did not bear a child and do not bear the title
mother. Motherhood is also attributed to the mute forms of prehistory.
Widely divergent qualities and creatures, belonging to various cultures, are
held to be expressive of the many shapes of one single divinity. One gains
the impression that the scholars set out on their endeavor with an already
fixed belief in the existence of a primordial, maternal, all-encompassing, and
sovereign deity.
In this study, I examine evidence that might point to the presence of the
godhead, without holding a preconceived belief in her existence, and attempt
to delineate, if possible, her dimensions. I have chosen several deities, all of
importance in their respective religions, who might be variant forms of the
great maternal being: Demeter of Greece, who reclaimed her child from death;
Cybele of Anatolia, who bore the title Magna Mater; Amaterasu of Japan, the
ancestress of the emperor; Mother Saule of Latvia, goddess of the sun; Sedna
of the Eskimo, who engendered the fish and mammals of the sea; Nintur of
Mesopotamia, who created the first human; and Mexican divinities who were
ancestral to and protective of their tribes. I also examine the impact of the
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