The Gods Who Die
Sex, dismemberment, cannibalism, incest: what do Inanna, Odin, Dionysus, Osiris, and Pele have in common? With fun facts re: the Song of Songs and Mormons/Aztecs. Plus an otherworldly writing prompt.
Welcome back to The Cauldron!
The Cauldron features artful nudes from SF-based photographer and mysterious gentleman Jose de los Reyes. See more of his work on Instagram.
November’s post was all about the pomegranate, that dichotomous little devil of a fruit that represents fertility and death, sex and purity.
The pomegranate is associated with many liminal deities, including one of my personal favorites, a figure in my forthcoming novel (hitting shelves in 2025!), the Sumerian goddess Inanna.
In simplest terms, Inanna is the goddess of sex and war. But her powers are varied and multitudinous. She is sexual but not motherly, destructive, and terrifying. Inanna is also a goddess who dies. “She is the divine in matter,” writes Betty De Shong Meador in Inanna, Lady of Largest Heart. “As such, she sustains the ebb and flow, the relentless paradoxical reality of the natural world.”
Why do gods die?
The gods of old are not necessarily infallible, or even eternal. From the long view, they are temporal. Naturally, the gods of resurrection are closely tied to the movement of the seasons.
The Chthonic Deities
In the Sumerian tale known as Inanna’s Descent, Inanna journeys to the underworld, the domain of her sister, Ereshkigal, Queen of the Great Below, goddess of gloom and death. She was kidnapped and raped, like her Greek successor Persephone, except no rescue ever comes for Ereshkigal. She’s Inanna’s bitter rival, residing in a temple of lapis lazuli.
The gatekeeper guides Inanna through seven gates. A piece of her robe or jewels is taken at each threshold. When she finally reaches Ereshkigal, she’s naked. The seven Anunnaki, the dreaded judges of the nether world, “fasten upon Inanna their ‘look of death,’ whereupon she is turned into a corpse and hung from a stake.” Inanna the goddess dies and her corpse is disrespected.
But Inanna has a contingency plan: a messenger/servant named Ninshubur awaits her return. Three days and nights pass. On the fourth, Ninshubur starts making the rounds among the gods, per Inanna’s instructions. Enlil (god of air) and Nanna (the god of the moon) decline to help. Enki (god of water) is the one to hatch a rescue plan: he fashions two sexless creatures, the kurgarru and kalaturru, and entrusts them with the food and water of life. He tells them to go to the underworld and sprinkle the food and water sixty times on Inanna’s corpse. Thus Inanna revives, surrounded by “bogies and harpies.”
When she gets home, Inanna finds her husband living it up. Dumuzi/Dumuzid (later known as Tammuz) now seems like the perfect candidate to take Inanna’s place in death. Poor guy. A midsummer month was named for him. In spring, women ritually wept for him—there’s a reference to it in the Book of Ezekiel.
The Song of Songs may derive from Inanna and Dumuzi’s (super NSFW) courtship hymn.
In some versions of the myth, Dumuzi’s devoted sister protests this terrible arrangement. So they’re both banished to darkness for half the year. Again, the cycle mimics that of the natural world.
Indeed, the most important performance of Inanna worship was a prolonged New Year’s celebration. This festival culminated in a sacred marriage rite that wed the king—a stand-in for Inanna’s human monarch husband—to Inanna herself, represented by the high priestess. This symbolic union ensured the land’s abundance, and the worshipers’ survival.
In the Epic of Gilgamesh, which you may remember from high school English, the king of Sumeria references Tammuz, a later name for Dumuzi. In this text, Tammuz is still an ancient lord of shepherds, only he’s portrayed as the former lover of Ishtar, Inanna’s Akkadian successor. In the Epic, Tammuz is also described as a man turned into a bird with a broken wing.
Greek myth later transforms Tammuz the consort into Adonis the lover: a beautiful youth over whom goddesses squabble, whose blood seeds new life.
Speaking of tragic and beautiful Greeks…
Dionysus
Oh, Dionysus! Our sad, hedonist friend, god of wine, and frenzy. Thanks to his cult, Athenian women, prisoners, and the enslaved got a taste of the freedom usually enjoyed by elite men. People liked this flavor. It made Dionysus quite popular, as you can imagine. There were many rites and festivals devoted to him, including a sacred marriage festival, a fertility roleplay between Dionysus and his mortal wife Ariadne. (For a great fictionalized retelling of Ariadne’s story, see Ariadne by Jennifer Saint.)
During the January Dionysian festival of Lenaia, there was hymn-singing and dramatic contests between sparring playwrights. The event culminated in the sacred rite of sparagmos, the dismemberment of a sacrificial animal.
Why dismemberment, you ask? Well, Dionysus is known as the “twice-born god” and there are a few different recorded tales of his resurrection. As National Geographic details, the first- or second-century compendium called the Bibliotheca recounts the god’s near-destruction before birth. Long myth short, jealous Hera persuades pregnant Semele to do something foolish that gets her killed. Zeus rescues the fetus and gestates him within his own thigh. (In other versions of Dionysus’s birth, his mother is Persephone. Her father is Zeus, which makes Dionysus both Persephone’s offspring and sibling.)
In another myth, the Titans lure baby Dionysus with trinkets, then they cut him up, cook him, and eat him. Athena rescues his still-beating heart and Zeus likewise uses his thigh to incubate his son, who is reborn.
As the vine withers, so does Dionysus wax and wane. Through the power of myth, he is all at once the murdered infant and the full-grown life of the party. Worship of Dionysus requires release from your ego. You may dismember a living thing, and destroy your own sense of self along with it.
BTW the Olympic Games started as a religious festival dedicated to Zeus.
Re: altered consciousness…
Odin
Ancient Norse culture was rife with magic, which was categorized in ways hard to translate. For more on that subject, I highly recommend Neil Price’s The Viking Way: Magic and Mind in Late Iron Age Scandinavia.
However, it’s pretty clear that sorcery was primarily the purview of Norse women. That’s just one of the things that’s so curious about the story of Odin, the All-Father war god, the most powerful deity, and his quest for power.
Odin is a great wizard, but he doesn’t come by all his magic naturally. To acquire the power of runes, which no other god possesses, Odin makes a sacrifice. He hangs himself from the tree of life, Yggdrasil. (Note: Yggdrasil is a BFD. It’s the center of the cosmos and rooted to the nine worlds of existence.) His side is also pierced with a spear. For nine days, Odin hangs from the tree and peers down into the depths of the Well of Urd. Part of him dies in the process. On the ninth day, the runes’ mystery is known to him. Now Odin is reborn with newfound magic.
There’s something seductive about Odin’s transcendence, says Neil Price:
Part of Odinn’s appeal undoubtedly lay in the opportunities that he offered for experiences beyond the usual social framework — a kind of divine ecstasy that could be obtained through a fusion of his power with the more mundane effects of alcohol, narcotics and what anthropologists would later term ‘altered states of consciousness.’ Much of this resembles the attraction of the Greek cult of Dionysus, and seems to have carried the same double-edged dangers of the bacchic frenzy.
Odin’s second death is fated to occur with the end of all realms. In Norse myth, the world will end with Ragnarök. The giant wolf Fenrir will be unleashed, and the Midgard Serpent Jörmungandr will initiate tsunamis as it rises up from the deep, dark depths.
All the dead who have been enjoying Valhalla have to come fight and die once more. Loki arrives at the battle in a ship fashioned from the fingernails of the dead. Yes, fingernails. Fenrir kills Odin. Another god kills Loki. The nine realms go up in flames. All is lost.
In one version, there’s a postscript: the world is reborn again. But some scholars argue that ending is a cheery, post-Christian addition.
Speaking of magic…
Osiris
Osiris is an ancient Egyptian fertility god, yet his story is one of betrayal, fratricide, and sex magic. The embodiment of the dead and the resurrected king, Osiris is murdered and dismembered by his own brother. His parts are scattered on the riverbanks like birdseed, a snack for the crocodiles of the Nile. (This violent demise is associated with grain threshing.)
Isis is Osiris’s queen, and his sister. (So. Much. Incest.) She is also the goddess of magic. Isis re-assembles her husband’s corpse (Anubis and Thoth help her), makes love to the body, and brings him back to life. (This is also the conception story of the god Horus.)
Many scholars believe the image of Isis nursing Horus inspired the classic Christian portrait of the Madonna and Child.
Osiris is usually depicted in a pharaonic crown known as the atef. He also holds a crook and flail—shepherding instruments which often appear on sarcophagi.
To the kings of Egypt, Osiris was their ancestor. As his descendants, it was their right to rule. When they died, they embodied Osiris.
And now, some more fratricide…
Pele
Pele is the revered Hawaiian goddess of lightning and volcanoes, the creator of the Hawaiian Islands, and the embodiment of fire. A descendant of the Sky Father, she is also referred to as Keahilele, Madame Pele, Ka wahine ʻai honua—the earth-eating woman—and Pelehonuamea, “she who shapes the sacred land.”
Pele has multiple origin narratives. In one, she’s born in Tahiti. As she grows up, she reveals her temper, and her fondness for her sister’s husband. So her father banishes her. She flees by canoe but her sister follows her. Namaka attacks Pele and leaves her for dead. Pele flees to Oahu where she digs many large fire pits. One of those pits is now known as the Diamond Head crater, a popular tourist attraction.
Namaka keeps up her pursuit of Pele. She hunts her down in Maui, where the sisters battle to the death. In the end, Pele is torn to shreds. Her spirit then inhabits the Kilauea Volcano.
Pele is watching: Many tourists who steal rocks from Kilauea end up shipping them back.
Another creator, and destroyer…
Quetzalcoatl
The god of the morning and evening star, the symbol of death and resurrection, Quetzalcoatl became popular during the rise of the Toltec civilization, around 900 A.D. He is often depicted as a plumed serpent and his powers include priesthood, knowledge, and trade. He also embodies Ehécatl, the god of wind who brings rain for crops.
in Aztec mythology, the world is repeatedly destroyed, launching a new Sun, or a new age. Thus, on various occasions, Quetzalcoatl’s conflict with his brothers destroys the world. After a few Suns, Quetzalcoatl retrieves the bones of humankind from the lowest level of the underworld, facilitating another do-over by adding some of his blood to the bones.
In another myth, Quetzalcóatl travels the Atlantic coast, then lights himself on fire atop a pyre. He emerges as Venus, the morning star.
I did not see this coming: The Church of Latter Day Saints teaches that Jesus Christ resurrected, then walked the Earth spreading the Word. Some Mormons associate Quetzalcoatl with the East, and “east” is represented by the color white in Aztec culture. From this, they conclude that Quetzalcoatl was, in fact, white and a manifestation of Jesus. This stems from a belief that Jesus was also white (he most certainly wasn’t.)
Writing Prompt
Traverse the seven gates to reach the throne. Who—or what—awaits you?