Weekly Deity: Altjira

Altjira is an Australian deity of the Aranda tribe and others, which are located in the Northern Territory.  He is a major creator god.

Attributes

For some reason, Altjira is thought to have emu’s feet, for reasons unknown. Other attributes are not given.  However, native tribes of Australia did not have the same style of art or mythology that many Westerners are familiar with, and they may not have found the appearance of the gods important in their mythos.

Mythology

Altjira is a sky god.  He is the creator of the Earth and gave humans all that was needed to survive.  Altjira then retired to the sky and remained there once he’d finished creating things.  He is also the main god of the Dreamtime, also known as Alchera.  The Dreamtime, as far as I can understand, is sort of the framework of the cosmic universe, in which all humans exist eternally.  The Dreaming or Dreamtime existed before humans and exists after life, and holds the eternal parts of humans before the person is born and returns upon death.  It sounds like a more complicated version of heaven combined with the universe.  Anyway, Altjira is principal deity of the Dreamtime.

Altjira’s wife and children are said to have dog’s feet.

Light and Dark Sides

With so little information to go on about Altjira, it’s more difficult to get an idea of his personality.  However, I can say that as a sky god and principal god of the Dreamtime, he is probably considered a father-figure in the mythos.  He seems to be helpful to humans, because he is said to have given us all the things we need to survive–but he also seems a little uncaring, since he sort of dropped everything on us and then left for the sky.

As a creator god, he would be a deity of fertility, the earth, growth, and new things.  You could probably also associate inspiration and creativity with him as well, since those two things tend to go hand-in-hand with creation.

He doesn’t seem to be Dark, but given the lack of information, we can’t say so definitively.  But I think I would put him more on the Light side of the scale, along with most other creation gods.

Weekly Deity: Viracocha

In the Incan pantheon, Viracocha was the most important god, the main guy, the head honcho.  He was the god of the universe, time, the sun, moon, stars, and earth, and creator of humans.  The name Viracocha means “sea foam”.

Attributes

Often seen weeping, some of Viracocha’s attributes include thunderbolts in hand, the sun as a crown on his head, and tears.

Mythology

Viracocha first rose from Lake Titicaca.  All was still darkness.  Then he created the sun, the moon, and the stars.  He created time by commanding the sun to move across the sky.  His first attempt to create life resulted in giants–Viracocha breathed into stones, but they were too big and ended up brainless.  So he destroyed the giants with a huge flood and tried again.  This time he used smaller stones.  At some point, Viracocha walked across the water of the ocean and disappeared for good.  But it was believed that he still walked the world, disguised as a beggar, teaching his creations how to be civilized, and weeping for the plight and ills of his creation.

Those seem to be the basic, agreed-upon common facts.  From there the stories branch into a bunch of different paths, probably according to relatively isolated civilization lines.  One myth says Viracocha had a son, Inti (sun god), and two daughters, Mama Quilla (goddess of the moon, marriage, and menstrual cycle) and Pachamama (Mother World, goddess of fertility and earthquakes).  Viracocha destroyed the people living around Lake Titicaca with a great flood, and he saved only two people to restart civilization: the son of Inti, Manco Capac (“splendid foundation”), and Mama Ocllo (“mother fertility”).  Those two humans founded the Incan civilization.

In another myth, Viracocha has a wife named Mama Cocha.  In yet another myth, Viracocha had not one but two sons, Imahmana Viracocha and Tocapo Viracocha.  After the flood, Viracocha sent his sons to the villages and tribes to see if the people left still obeyed him.  Along the way, Imahmana and Tocapo gave names to all the plants and trees.  When they reached a village, they taught the people which of those plants and herbs and such were edible and usable.  When they were done, Imahmana, Tocapo, and Viracocha all walked across the water and disappeared.

Still another story says that Viracocha fathered the first eight civilized human beings.

Light and Dark Sides

Viracocha seems to be a rather pleasant deity.  Much nicer than Zeus, for example, though Viracocha has a great deal in common with Zeus (the thunderbolts, father of the gods, flood myth, etc.).  Viracocha does cause a great flood, but it’s more probable that he was wiping out the giants rather than people–the later myths have the feel of being heavily influenced by the missionaries that came with the Spanish conquerors.  He seems to genuinely care for the people he has created, since he wanders the world crying for humanity.

On his Light side, Viracocha is a creator.  He created the universe and time, both very big important things, and created humanity.  Plus, he doesn’t seem to actively wish anyone ill, despite the flood that killed the giants.

On the Dark side, he did cause a flood that wiped out a race so he could start over.  But from that destruction came life once again, also at his hand.  I think it would still be a stretch to say he’s a Dark god, when almost all actions point to his goodness.  The main act that sticks out in my mind is that he not only wanders the world to teach and watch over his creations, but he left in the first place.  He didn’t abandon his creations, he simply stepped back and let them find their own way.  That this way is upsetting to him is a side issue.

Weekly Deity: Ptah

**Final exams have seriously fried my brain.  This post may not be up to the usual quality standard**

Ptah is a male Egyptian deity, worshiped in all of Egypt as a major god.  He is the patron of craftsmen, creation, and artisans, and holds a lot of benign influence and associations.

Attributes

Ptah is usually portrayed as a mummified man holding a staff (so his hands are not bound in the mummy wrapping).  He has a punt beard and sometimes is shown as wearing a skullcap crown and standing on the hieroglyph for the goddess Maat (Truth deity).  His staff bears the symbols of life, stability, and power.

Mythology

Unlike most gods, Ptah was never created by anything else.  He simply exists.  He was, in the Memphite tradition, the primal creator, the originator of all, the first of all the gods and creator of the world, along with everything in it.  These things came to be because Ptah thought of what he wanted to make and spoke it aloud.  His talents were intellectual rather than physical, and set him apart from many other gods in world mythology whose talents and skills were physical displays of their power instead of physical manifestations of intellectual power.

He is said to be husband of the [cat, moon, sun] goddess Bast, and their children are supposed to be Imhotep, Nefertem, and Mahes.  Later, Ptah also became associated with reincarnation, the logic behind this being that as the god of creation Ptah could recreate and reincarnate souls as well.

Although worshiped throughout Egypt, Ptah’s cult centers were mainly placed in Memphis and Heliopolis.

In later periods, he was combined with other gods to form a triad: Ptah-Seker-Osiris.  In this form, the god was a funerary deity representing the three aspects of the universe: creation, stability, death.

Light Side

Ptah’s light side is obviously the ability to create.  He uses his thoughts to shape the reality around him, and originally all these things he created were positive manifestations of his thoughts (some would argue that creating humanity was a bad idea, but we’ll leave that aside).  He has a mostly benevolent outlook toward the universe and the creations he brought into being, and this translates into a mostly positive energy from this god.

Dark Side

Ptah’s power is all in his mind, meaning that he could easily get trapped in the realities and fantasies of his own mind.  For anyone striving to work with Ptah, this is something to watch out for.  Getting trapped in the workings of your own mind and ignoring the physical realities around you can be dangerous as well as unhealthy.

With the power to create life and create anything also comes to power to create what would destroy the previous manifestations.  What is the check on Ptah’s creations?  Other than morality, there are none, and any student of mythology would tell you that the gods’ definitions of morality are rather different than the mortals’ definitions.