Duality in mythology: Dual Deities, Devine Couple, or Devine Twins beyond Proto-Indo-European

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Horse Worship/Sacrifice: mythical union of Ruling Elite/Kingship and the Horse

Proto-Indo-European (PIE), ancestor of Indo-European languages: DNA, Society, Language, and Mythology

Gemini (constellation)

“Gemini is one of the constellations of the zodiac and is located in the northern celestial hemisphere. It was one of the 48 constellations described by the 2nd century CE astronomer Ptolemy, and it remains one of the 88 modern constellations today. Its name is Latin for twins, and it is associated with the twins Castor and Pollux in Greek mythology. Its old astronomical symbol is  (♊︎). Gemini lies between Taurus to the west and Cancer to the east, with Auriga and Lynx to the north, Monoceros and Canis Minor to the south, and Orion to the south-west.” ref

I am adding many Native American Deities to show:

Sky Father (in Proto-Indo-European mythology): High god, often related to the sun

Twin/two Sons: (Devine Twins in Proto-Indo-European mythology)

Sky Gods/Sky Father Gods: these, to me, are closely related myths going back to South Siberia/North China originally moved by migrations and trade.

“In comparative mythology, the sky father is a term for a recurring concept in polytheistic religion. The concept of “sky father” may also include Sun gods with similar characteristics, such as Ra. The concept is complementary to an “earth mother.” ref

Nitosi: Creator god, high god, sky spirit

Nitosi, or Yedariye, is the name of the great sky god of the Dene tribes.

Related figures in other tribes: Utakké (Carrier), Nesaru (Arikara), Gitchie Manitou (Chippewa) ref

Mukat: Creator deity, high god

“Cahuilla and other Sonoran tribes of southeast California and southwestern Arizona consider him dangerous; made the life of the ancients miserable, drove away their protector, Menily, goddess of the moon, and was eventually slain by his own creations after teaching them warfare. In the creation, Mukat and Temayuwat were born from the union of twin balls of lightning, which were the manifestations of Amnaa (Power) and Tukmiut (Night). Mukat and Temayuwat began a creative contest, in which Temayuwat was bested and fled with his ill-formed creation below the earth.” ref, ref

Divine Twins gods?

The Divine Twins are youthful horsemen, either gods or demigods, rescuers, and healers in Proto-Indo-European mythology. Often with mention of a female figure (their mother or their sister), two brothers are “Descendants” (sons or grandsons) of the Sky-God (Dyēus).” ref

“The Hero Twins (or God Boys) are recurring characters from the mythologies of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. The specifics of each myth vary from tribe to tribe, but each story has a pair of twins (usually with magical powers) who were born when their pregnant mother was killed by the tale’s antagonist. Twins were considered unnatural in many cultures of this region, with beliefs about them having supernatural abilities. Sometimes, the twins are separated at birth. Various versions have their mother’s killer leaving one where he could be easily be found by his family and the other deep in the wilderness so that one boy grew up civilized and the other wild. Eventually they become reunited and avenge the death of their mother. Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca are culture heroes and creator deities of the Aztecs and are said to be brothers. They are often seen in competition with each other, like when the two fought over who would become the sun.^[1] They are also seen as allies however, as both are considered protectors of Earth. They are also depicted as having another brother, Xolotl. He is even shown as helping Quetzalcoatl returning the bones of the humans to the land of the living to bring them back to life.” ref

“The Twin Heroes share many similarities in the mythology of different tribes, but are different in their relationships with other mythological figures, their associations with stars or animal spirits, and the nature of the particular adventures they go on. In some traditions, the twins personified good and evil: one twin is good while the other is evil, but in others both are benevolent heroes. In some versions of this myth, the evil twin manipulates others into blaming his good brother for his misdeeds. The two brothers coexisted for a while, each making their own changes to the world. In the end, though, the Twin Gods fight each other, and the good brother prevails. In other traditions, the Twin Gods are not considered good or evil but instead represent day and night, summer and winter, and life and death. In some versions of that tradition, one is a trickster rather than a villain, and the brothers’ relationship is one of rivalry rather than enmity.” ref

Native American Magical twin

“The birth of twins is considered a notable event in many Native American cultures. In most cultures, twins are considered good luck, while in some, twins are considered spiritually powerful and were trained as medicine people. Twin gods or heroes are a common motif in the mythology of many North American tribes, and human twins were sometimes associated with these mythological figures. In some Northwest Coast tribes, such as the Kwakwaka’wakw, twins are believed to be blessed by the Salmon People and have special ceremonial roles in the Salmon Ceremony. In some Southwestern tribes, such as the Mojave, twins were considered supernatural visitors who were exempt from normal tribal taboos, and though that tradition is no longer commonly observed, twins are still seen as a special blessing in these tribes. Twins are not viewed positively in all tribes, however. In some South American cultures, twins are considered a bad omen or the result of black magic, and some parents have even abandoned their newborn twins due to this belief.” ref

Native American legends and traditional stories about twins.

Native American Twin Spirits

Amalivaca and Vochi (Cariban)
The God Boys (Caddo)
Hunahpu and Ixbalanque (Maya)
Keri and Kame (Bakairi)
The Little Thunders (Seminole)
Macunaima and Pia (Carib)
Monster Slayer and Child of Water (Navajo)
The Twin Gods, Good Spirit and Bad Spirit (Iroquois)
The Twin Heroes, Lodge Boy and Spring Boy (Plains tribes)

Native American Twin Stories

Lodge-Boy and Thrown-Away:
    Crow legend about the two mythical twins.
The Twin Brothers  The Brothers Who Became Lightning And Thunder:
    Caddo legends about the twin heroes, Thunder and Lightning.
The Birth of Good and Evil:
    Oneida myth about Sky Woman’s twin grandchildren.
The Creation:
    Cayuga myth about Sky Woman and her twin sons Good Spirit and Bad Spirit.

The “two sons” of Abaangüí, god of the moon in the mythology of the Guarani Indians, climbed this chain until they reached the sky and remained there, turning into the sun and the moon.” ref

Kame (Kami): Creator god, Mythical twin

“Kame is one of the twin creator gods of the Bakairi tribe. Together with his brother Keri, Kame adapted the world for humans to live on. In other tribes: Mopo and Kujuli (Apalai)” ref

“Awonawilona. – Dual deity of the Zuñi Indians of New Mexico. He created a universe of nine layers. Earth, a large round island surrounded by oceans, is located on the central layer. The first people lived deep in the womb of Mother Earth ( Awitelin Tsta ). Then Father Sun ( Apoyan Tachi ) ordered his twin sons, the gods of war, to take them to earth because he was bored and had no one to pray to.” ref

Maya Hero Twins

“The Maya Hero Twins are the central figures of a narrative included within the colonial Kʼicheʼ document called Popol Vuh, and constituting the oldest Maya myth to have been preserved in its entirety. Called Hunahpu [hunaxˈpu] and Xbalanque [ʃɓalaŋˈke]^[2] in the Kʼicheʼ language, the Twins have also been identified in the art of the Classic Mayas (200–900 AD). The twins are often portrayed as complementary forces. The Twin motif recurs in many Native American mythologies; the Maya Twins, in particular, could be considered as mythical ancestors to the Maya ruling lineages.” ref

“Catequil (A.k.a. Apocatequil, Apu Catequil) was the tutelar god of day and good, thunder, and lightning in northern Peruvian highlands. Catequil and his twin brother Piguerao were born from hatched eggs. Catequil considered a regional variant of god Illapa.” ref

“Hahgwehdiyu is the Iroquois god of goodness and light, as well as a creator god. He and his twin brother Hahgwehdaetgah, the god of evil, were children of Atahensic the Sky Woman (or Tekawerahkwa the Earth Woman), whom Hahgwehdaetgah killed in childbirth.” ref

“Mount St. Helens and other Cascade volcanoes. The best known of these is the Bridge of the Gods story told by the Klickitat people of the Pacific Northwest.. The chief of all the gods “Great Spirit” and his two sons, WyEast (Mt. Hood) and Pahtoe, or Klickitat (Mt. Adams).” ref, ref

“Asdzą́ą́ Nádleehé is one of the creation spirits of the Navajo. She helped create the sky and the earth. Changing Woman, mother of twins Monster Slayer and Born for Water (fathered by the sun).” ref

“A zemi or cemi (Taíno: semi [sɛmi]) was a deity or ancestral spirit, and a sculptural object housing the spirit, among the Taíno people of the Caribbean. Cemi’no or Zemi’no is a plural word for the spirits. Supreme creator god and a fertility goddess. The creator god is Yúcahu Maórocoti and he governs the growth of the staple food, the cassava.” ref 

“Twins? Yúcahu was the supreme deity of the Taíno people. The three names are thought to represent the Great Spirit’s epithets. He was the supreme deity or zemi of the Pre-Columbian Taíno people along with his mother Atabey who was his feminine counterpart.” ref

“The Taíno had a well developed creation myth, which was mostly passed down via oral tradition. According to this account, in the beginning there was only Atabey, who created the heavens. However, there was still a void, where nothingness prevailed. The heavens were inactive and any action was meaningless. Earth and the other cosmic entities laid barren. Despite being dominated by darkness, Atabey herself failed to notice that this universe was incomplete. Eventually she decided to create two new deities, Yucáhu and Guacar, from magic and intangible elements. Atabey now felt confident that her creation could be completed and left it in charge of her sons. Yucáhu took over as a creation deity, becoming a universal architect and gathering the favour of his mother. From his dwelling in the heavens, he contemplated and awoke the Earth from its slumber. As part of this process, two new deities emerged from a cave. Boinael and Maroya, controlling the sun and moon respectively, which were tasked with illuminating the new world day and night.” ref

“Hahgwehdiyu is the Iroquois god of goodness and light, as well as a creator god. He and his twin brother Hahgwehdaetgah, the god of evil, were children of Atahensic the Sky Woman (or Tekawerahkwa the Earth Woman), whom Hahgwehdaetgah killed in childbirth.” ref

Keri and Kame (Bakairi Twin Creator Gods)

“Type: Indian culture hero, creator god, transformer, magical twin, Related figures in other tribes: Mopo and Ikujuri (Apalai).” ref

“Ikujuri and Mopo are the “Two” Creator gods of the Apalai and Wayana tribes. Together, they created humans, adapted the world for them to live on, and taught them Native culture. Related figures in other tribes: Keri and Kami (Bakairi).” ref

“Makunaima: High God, Creator, “God” or “Great Spirit” but not personified. Tribal affiliation: Akawaio, Pemon, Macusi, Carib. Related figures in other tribes: Kururumany (Arawak). The Sun, the Frog, and the Fire-Sticks: A Guyanese Carib legend about Makunaima and his twin brother Pia.” ref

“Mopo and Kujuri are the “Two” Creator gods of the Apalai tribe. Together, Mopo and his brother created humans, adapted the world for them to live on, and taught them Apalai culture. Related figures in other tribes: Keri and Kame (Bakairi).” ref

“Sky Woman (Ataensic, Atahensic, Ataentsic): Mother goddess, Sky spirit, Grandmother Moon, the Woman Who Fell from the Sky=Earth-Diver. Sky Woman is the Iroquois mother goddess who descended to earth by falling through a hole in the sky. She is either the grandmother or mother of the twin culture heroes Sky-Holder and Flint, sometimes known as Good Spirit and Bad Spirit.” ref

Kokumthena – Blackfoot tribe

“Kokumthena is somewhat unique in that she is female (the Blackfoot tribe have a married couple, Old-Man and Old-Lady, in this role; all the other Algonquian tribes we know of have male Transformer figures.) In Shawnee legends, Kokumthena is depicted as an old woman (her name means “our grandmother”). Paboth’kwe (or Papoothkwe) is another Shawnee name for this matriarchal figure, meaning “cloud woman.” Perhaps this may be an indication that she is related to Sky Woman of the Iroquois tribes. Related figures in other tribes: Sky Woman (Iroquois), Nookomis (Anishinabe), Old Lady (Blackfoot), Grandmother Woodchuck (Abenaki), Nogami (Mi’kmaq).” ref

Sky-Holder (Taronhiawagon): Creator, High god

“Sky-Holder is the grandson of Sky-Woman– either the same as or equivalent to the Huron Ioskeha, creator of the human race. In other tribes: Ioskeha (Huron), Good Spirit (Cayuga), Manabush (Anishinabe).” ref

Maple Sapling (Ioskeha, Little Sprout): Magical twin

“In Huron mythology and the mythology of many Iroquois communities, Ioskeha or Maple Sapling is one of the twin grandsons of Ataensic, the Sky Woman. Ioskeha was born normally, while his brother Tawiscara (Flint) burst through his mother’s side and killed her. Related figures in other tribes: Sky Holder (Iroquois), Good Spirit (Cayuga), Nanabozho (Anishinabe).” ref

“Evaki is the Bakairi night goddess, aunt of the twin culture heroes Keri and Kame. Evaki has the responsibility of taking the sun out of the jar it is kept in every morning and putting it back away at night.” ref

Old Man Coyote (Akba Atatdia): Native Creator, high god, coyote spirit

“Coyote played the role of both Creator and trickster in Crow mythology. In some versions of the Crow creation myth there were actually two Coyotes, the Old Man Coyote who created people, animals, and the earth, and a regular Coyote who had adventures and got into trouble. In other versions, they were one and the same.” ref

Piai: Creator god, Medicine spirit, Mythical twin

“In some Carib traditions, Piai is the twin brother of the god Makunaima. They are said to be sons of the Sun. Piai is the father of medicine, and his name has come to mean “medicine man” in many Cariban languages.” ref

“Amalivaca is a benevolent transformer-type demigod from the mythology of the Tamanac and other Cariban tribes. Amalivaca shapes the world for the Caribs and teaches them how to live. In some Carib traditions he is known as Sigu or Sigoo and considered to be the son of the high god Tamosi; in others, he has a twin brother named Vochi who helps him in his work. Related figures in other tribes: Sigo (Akawaio), Kururumany (Arawak).” ref

“Charred Body is a Hidatsa hero who led the people to the earth from their original home in the sky. Charred Body was the uncle of the sacred twins Lodge-Boy and Thrown-Away. In some Crow legends his name is given as the father of the sacred twins, without the Hidatsa story of migration and murder.” ref

Qone: Transformer, Culture hero, Moon god

“Qone is a Transformer figure, a type of hero common to the mythology of many Northwest Coast tribes. He changed himself into the moon and his younger brother into the sun. Many Native storytellers today refer to the two magical heroes interchangeably. In other tribes: Suku (Alsea), Cikla (Chinook).” ref

Glooskap “liar”

“Glooscap is the benevolent culture hero of the Wabanaki tribes of northeast New England. And sometimes also had a brother (either an older brother Mikumwesu or Mateguas, a younger brother Malsom, or an adopted brother Marten.) According to legend, Glooscap got this name after lying about his secret weakness to an evil spirit (in some stories, his own brother) and therefore escaping from a murder plot.” ref

The Miraculous Twins

 “South American legend about the birth and life of the Bakairi Indian gods Keri and Kame.” ref

Shikla (Cikla)

“Shikla is a Transformer type of hero common to the mythology of many Northwest Coast tribes. In some versions, there was one Shikla, while in others, there were two. Related figures in other tribes: Seuku (Alsea), Qone (Chehalis).” ref

Wisakedjak (Wesakechak): Culture hero, Transformer, trickster

“Wisakedjak is the benevolent culture hero of the Cree tribe. Wisakedjak was specifically created by the Great Spirit to be a teacher for humankind. In others, he was the divine son of the Earth. And in other legends, he was the son of a Rolling Head monster, who was forced to kill his violent mother to survive. In many traditions Wisakedjak’s younger brother was the Wolf, Mahihkan, who was killed by Water Lynxes or Horned Serpents, earning them the bitter enmity of Wisakedjak.” ref

Wisaka (Wizaka): Culture hero, Transformer, trickster

“Wisaka is the benevolent culture hero of the prairie Algonquian tribes. The details of Wisaka’s life vary somewhat from community to community. Most often he is said to have been directly created by the Great Spirit. (Some Kickapoo communities in Mexico identify Wisaka as the son of the Great Spirit, though this may be an influence from Christianity.) In other traditions, Wisaka is born of a virgin mother and raised by his Grandmother Earth. In some stories Wisaka is said to have created the first humans out of mud, while in others, the Great Spirit created people modelled on Wisaka, who then became their Elder Brother. In many tribal traditions, Wisaka has a younger brother named Chipiapoos or Yapata, who was killed by water spirits and became the ruler of the dead. Related: Wesakechak (Cree), Nanabojo (Anishinabe), Glooscap (Wabanaki), Napi (Blackfoot).” ref

“The Spider Twins: Achumawi story about a family of spiders helping the animals to end winter.” ref

“Achumawi (of northeastern California)  housing, food sources, and seasonal movements therefore also varied. In the summer, the Achomawi band, and other upper Pit River bands usually lived in cone-shaped homes covered in tule-mat and spent time under shade or behind windbreaks of brush or mats.They have a patrilineal society, with inheritance and descent passed through the paternal line. The traditional chiefdom was handed down to the eldest son. When children were born, the parents were put into seclusion and had food restrictions while waiting for their baby’s umbilical cord to fall off. If twins were born, one of them was killed at birth.” ref

Achumawi Religion

“Adolescent boys sought guardian spirits called tinihowi and both genders experienced puberty ceremonies. A victory dance was also held in the community, which involved the toting of a head of the enemy with women participating in the celebration. Elder men would fast to increase the run of fish and women and children would eat out of sight of the river to encourage fish populations.  Spiritual presences were identified with mountain peaks, certain springs, and other sacred places.” ref

“Achomawi shamans maintained the health of the community, serving as doctors. Shamans would focus on “pains” which were physical and spiritual. These pains were believed to have been put on people by other, hostile shamans. After curing the pain, the shaman would then swallow it. Both men and women held the role of shaman. A shaman was said to have a fetish called kaku by Kroeber or qaqu by Dixon. Kroeber relied upon Dixon’s work in this part of California. (The letter q was supposed to represent a velar spirant x, as in Bach, in the system generally used at that time for writing indigenous American languages. The Achumawi Dictionary does not have this word.) Dixon described the qaqu as a bundle of feathers which were believed to grow in rural places, rooted in the earth, and which, when secured, dripped of blood constantly. It was used as an oracle to locate pains in the body. Quartz crystal was also revered within the community and was obtained by diving into a waterfall. In the pool in the waterfall the diver would find a spirit (like a mermaid) who would lead the diver to a cave where the crystals grew. A giant moth cocoon, which symbolized the “heart of the world”, was another fetish, and harder to obtain.” ref

“In their networks with neighboring cultures Achomawi exchanged their furs, basketry, steatite, rabbit-skin blankets, food and acorn in return for goods such as epos root, clam beads, obsidian and other goods. Through these commercial dealings goods from the Wintun (iqpiimí – ″Wintun people″, númláákiname – Nomlaki (Central Wintu people)), Modoc and possibly the Paiute (aapʰúy – ″stranger″) were transported by the Achomawi. Eventually they would also trade for horses with the Modoc. The Achomawi used beads for money, specifically dentalia.” ref

Achomawi Puberty rites

“A girl would begin her puberty ritual by having her ears pierced by her father or another relative. She would then be picked up, dropped, and then hit with an old basket, before running away. During this part, her father would pray to the mountains for her. The girl would return in the evening with a load of wood, another symbol of women’s roles within the community, like the basket. She would then build a fire in front of her house and dance around it throughout the night, with relatives participating; around the fire or inside the house. Music would accompany the dance, made by a deer hoof rattle. During the ritual time, she would have herbs stuffed up her nose to avoid smelling venison being cooked. In the morning, she would be picked up and dropped again, and she would run off with the deer hoof rattle. This repeated for five days and nights. On the fifth night, she would return from her run to be sprinkled with fir leaves and bathed, completing the ritual.” ref

“Boys’ puberty rites were similar to the girls ritual but adds shamanistic elements. The boys ears are pierced, and then he is hit with a bowstring and runs away to fast and bathe in a lake or spring. While he is gone, his father prays for the mountains and the Deer Woman to watch over the boy. In the morning, he returns, lighting fires during his trip home and eats outside the home and then runs away again. He stays several nights away, lighting fires, piling up stones and drinking through a reed so that his teeth would not come into contact with water. If he sees an animal on the first night in the lake or spring or dream of an animal; that animal would become his personal protector. If the boy has a vision like this, he will become a shaman.” ref

The First Rainbow (with Spider Woman, Coyote, Silver Gray Fox, and the Spider Twins) – Achomawi Myth

“Sixty little spider children shivered as they slept. The snow had fallen every day for months. All the animals were cold, hungry, and frightened. Food supplies were almost gone. No one knew what to do. Blue Jay and Redheaded Woodpecker sang and danced for Silver Gray Fox, the creator, who floats above the clouds. Since Silver Gray Fox, had made the whole world with a song and a dance, Blue jay and Woodpecker hoped to be answered with blue skies. But the snow kept falling.” ref

“Finally, the animals decided to ask Coyote. Coyote had been around a long time, almost since the beginning. They thought that he might know how to reach Silver Gray Fox. They went to the cave where Coyote was sleeping, told him their troubles, and asked for help. “Grrrrowwwlll…go away,” grumbled Coyote, “and let me think.” ref

“Coyote stuck his head into the cold air outside and thought till he caught an idea. He tried singing in little yelps and loud yowls to Silver Gray Fox. Coyote sang and sang, but Silver Gray Fox didn’t listen, or didn’t want to. After all, it was Coyote’s mischief-making when the world was new that had caused Silver Gray Fox to go away beyond the clouds in the first place. Coyote thought he’d better think some more.” ref

“Suddenly he saw Spider Woman swinging down on a silky thread from the top of the tallest tree in the forest. Spider Woman’s been on Earth a long, long time, Coyote thought. She’s very wise. I’ll ask her what to do. Coyote went to the tree and lifted his ears to Spider Woman. “Spider Woman, O wise weaver, O clever one,” called Coyote in his sweetest voice. “We’re all cold and hungry and everyone’s afraid this winter will never end. Silver Gray Fox didn’t seem to notice. Can you help?” asked Coyote.” ref

“Spider Woman swayed her shining black body back and forth, back and forth, thinking and thinking, thinking and thinking. Her eight black eyes sparkled when she spoke, “I know how to reach Silver Gray Fox, Coyote, but I’m not the one for the work. Everyone will have to help. You’ll need my two youngest children, too. They’re little and light as dandelion fluff, and the fastest spinners in my web.” Spider Woman called up to her two littlest ones. “Spinnnnnn! Spinnnnnn!” ref

“They came down fast, each spinning on eight little legs, two fine, black twin Spider Boys, full of curiosity and fun. Spider Woman said, “My dear little quick ones, are you ready for a great adventure?” “Yes! Yes! We’re ready!” they cried. Spider Woman told them her plan, and the Spider Boys set off with Coyote in the snow. They hadn’t gone far when they met two White-Footed Mouse Brothers rooting around for seeds to eat. Coyote told them Spider Woman’s plan. “Will you help?” he asked. “Yes! Yes! We’ll help!” they squeaked.” ref

“So, they all traveled the trail towards Mount Shasta until they met Weasel Man looking hungry and even leaner than usual. Coyote told Weasel Man his plan. “Will you help?” asked Coyote. “Of course,” rasped Weasel Man, who joined them on the trail. Before long they came across Red Fox Woman swishing her big fluffy tail through the bushes. “Will you help?” asked Coyote. “Of course, I’ll come,” crooned Red Fox Woman. Then Rabbit Woman poked her head out of her hole. “I’ll come too.” She sneezed, shivering despite her thick fur.” ref

“Meadowlark wrapped a winter shawl around her wings, and trudged after the others along the trail to the top of Mount Shasta. The snow had stopped, but the sky was still cloudy. On top of Mount Shasta, Coyote barked, “Will our two best archers step forward?” The two White Footed Mouse Brothers proudly lifted their bows. “Everyone listen,” barked Coyote. “If any one of us is only half-hearted, Spider Woman’s plan will fail.” ref

“To get through the clouds to Silver Gray Fox, we must each share our powers, our thoughts, our dreams, our strength, and our songs whole-heartedly. Now, you White-Footed Mouse Brothers, I want you to shoot arrows at exactly the same spot in the sky.” Turning to the others, Coyote said, “Spider Boys, start spinning spider silk as fast as you can. Weasel Man, White-Footed Mouse Brothers, Red Fox Woman, Rabbit Woman, and I will sing and make music. We must sing with all our might or the Spider Boys won’t make it.” “One!” called Coyote. Everyone got ready. “Two!” counted out Coyote. The animals drew in deep breaths.” ref

“The Mouse Brothers pulled back their bowstrings. “Three!” said the Coyote. Two arrows shot straight up and stuck at the same spot in the clouds. “Whiff! Wiff! Wiff Wiff!”, sang the White Footed Mouse Brothers. “Yiyipyipla!”, sang Red Fox Woman. “Wowooooolll!” sang Coyote. Rabbit Woman shook her magic rattle. Weasel Man beat his very old and worn elk-hide drum. The Spider Boys hurled out long lines of spider silk, weaving swiftly with all their legs. The animals sang up a whirlwind of sound to lift the spider silk until it caught on the arrows in the clouds. Then the Spider Twins scurried up the lines of silk and scrambled through the opening. All the while, down below, the animals continued singing, rattling and drumming. The little Spiders sank, breathless, onto the clouds.” ref

“Silver Gray Fox spied them and called out, “What are you two doing here?” The Spider Boys bent low on their little legs and answered. “Silver Gray Fox, we bring greetings from our mother, Spider Woman, and all the creatures of the world below. We’ve come to ask if you’d please let the sun shine again. The whole world is cold. Everyone is hungry. Everyone is afraid spring will not return, ever.” They were so sincere and polite that Silver Gray Fox became gentler, and asked, “How did you two get up here?” ref

“The Spider Boys said, “Listen, can you hear the people singing? Can you hear the drum and rattle?” Silver Gray Fox heard the drum and rattle and the people singing. When the Spider Boys finished telling their story, Silver Gray Fox was pleased and told them, “I’m happy when creatures use their powers together. I’m especially glad to hear that Coyote’s been helping too. Your mother, Spider Woman, made a good plan. To reward all your hard work, I’ll create a sign to show that the skies will clear. And you may also help, but first picture the sun shining bright.” The Spider Boys thought hard and saw the sun sending out fierce rays in all directions.” ref

“Now, where sun rays meet the damp air” said Silver Gray Fox, “Picture a stripe of red, red as Woodpecker’s head. Add a stripe of blue nearby, blue as Blue Jay’s blue.” The Spider Boys thought hard, and great stripes appeared of red and blue. Silver Gray Fox chanted. “Now, in between, add stripes of orange, yellow and green!” The Spider Boys thought of this and dazzling their eyes, a beautiful arc of colors could be seen across the whole sky above the clouds. It was the very first rainbow.” ref

“Meanwhile, down below, beneath the clouds, the animals and people were so cold, hungry, and tired that they had stopped singing and drumming. Spider Woman missed her two youngest children. Each day she missed them more. She blamed Coyote for the trouble. So did the other animals. Coyote slipped away silent, lonely and sad. Above, on the clouds, the twins rested. Their legs ached and their minds were tired. Silver Gray Fox said, “You did what I asked and kept it secret. That’s very difficult, so I’m giving you a special reward. On wet mornings, when the sun starts to shine, you’ll see what I mean.” ref

“Then the Spider Boys spun down to Earth, and ran back to their mother as fast as they could. Spider Woman cried for joy and wrapped all her legs around her two littlest children. Their fifty-eight sisters and brothers jumped up and down with happiness. All the animals gathered around to hear the Spider Boys’ story. When they finished, the Spider Boys cried, “Look up!” Everyone looked up to see that the clouds had drifted apart and there, like a bridge between the earth and the sky was a radiant arch – they could still see the very first rainbow. The sun began to warm the earth. Shoots of grass pushed up through the melting snow.” ref

“Meadowlark blew her silver whistle of spring across the valley, calling streams and rivers to awake. Coyote came out of hiding, and racing to a distant hilltop, he gave a long, long howl of joy. The animals held a great feast to honor the rainbow, Silver Gray Fox, Spider Woman, the Spider Twins, Coyote, and the hard work everyone had done together. To this day, after the rain, when the sun comes out, dewdrops on spider webs shine with tiny rainbows. This is the spiders’ special reward.” ref

Spider Grandmother (Koyangwuti or Kokyangwuti): Hopi or “Old Spider Woman”

“Spider Grandmother is the special benefactor of the Hopi tribe. In the Hopi creation myths, Spider Grandmother created humans from clay (with the assistance of Sotuknang and/or Tawa), and was also responsible for leading them to the Fourth World (the present Earth.) The Spider Woman and the Twins: Hopi legend about the birth of Spider Grandmother and her first creations.” ref

Xōchiquetzal (Her Twin was Xochipilli god) weaving goddess- Aztec

“In Aztec mythology, Xochiquetzal, also called Ichpochtli, meaning “maiden”, was a goddess associated with concepts of fertility, beauty, and female sexual power, serving as a protector of young mothers and a patroness of pregnancy, childbirth, and the crafts practised by women such as weaving and embroidery. In pre-Hispanic Maya culture, a similar figure is Goddess I.

In Classical Nahuatl morphology, the first element in a compound modifies the second, and thus the goddess’ name can literally be taken to mean “flower precious feather”, or ”flower quetzal feather”. Her alternative name, Ichpōchtli, corresponds to a personalized usage of ichpōchtli (“maiden, young woman”).” ref

“Worshippers wore animal and flower masks at a festival, held in her honor every eight years. Her twin was Xochipilli and her husband was Tlaloc, until Tezcatlipoca kidnapped her and she was forced to marry him. At one point, she was also married to Centeotl and Xiuhtecuhtli. By Mixcoatl, she was the mother of Quetzalcoatl. Anthropologist Hugo Nutini identifies her with the Virgin of Ocotlan in his article on patron saints in Tlaxcala. she was also the aztec goddesss called the great goddess or teotihuacan spider woman.” ref

Diana Roman twin goddess of hunt

“Diana (short for: deivā Jāna, literally: the Divine Jana) is the Roman goddess of hunt. She is one of a pair of twins born to Apollo. Her twin brother was Janus. She preferred to stay on Earth, roaming the wilderness with her nymph companions, suiting her role as goddess of the hunt. She was also the goddes of the moon and childbirth. The name Diana is cognate to Zeus, Dyaus, and Jupiter. Diana is also heavily related to the goddesses Trivia and Luna, as originally they were aspects of Diana herself – a triple goddess through and through. During the middle ages and because of the goddess’s relation to women and to the underworld through her aspect (Trivia), she became an icon for witches and there were even new myths written about her by modern Wiccans and pagans – such as the story of Aradia.” ref

“Diana is equated with the Greek goddess Artemis, and absorbed much of Artemis’ mythology early in Roman history, including a birth on the island of Delos to parents Jupiter and Latona, and a twin brother, Apollo.” ref

The Celestial Jaguar – Tupi-Guarani

“According to a version of the legend, the mother of the heavenly twins, known as Sun and Moon, was killed by the Celestial Jaguars. The twins were raised by the jaguars until a bird told them how their mother had been killed. The twins went on a rampage, killing all jaguars except one which was pregnant and the mother of today’s primitive jaguars. Now, jaguars are a wild beast that are to be feared by the Guarani. It is common for the animal to be part of the beginning and end of a person’s life. The meat will be eaten by a child’s mother while she is pregnant and the jaguars themselves represent the souls of the dead in temples. Those that are sick, elderly, and slow-moving have also been known to have been left behind to the jaguars.” ref

“In classical antiquity, Cancer was the location of the Sun on the northern solstice (June 21). During the first century CE, axial precession shifted it into Gemini. In 1990, the location of the Sun at the northern solstice moved from Gemini into Taurus, where it will remain until the 27th century CE and then move into Aries. The Sun will move through Gemini, next, from June 21 to July 20 through 2062.” ref

“Gemini is prominent in the winter skies of the northern Hemisphere and is visible the entire night in December–January. The easiest way to locate the constellation is to find its two brightest stars Castor and Pollux eastward from the familiar V-shaped asterism (the open cluster Hyades) of Taurus and the three stars of Orion’s Belt (Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka). Another way is to mentally draw a line from the Pleiades star cluster located in Taurus and the brightest star in Leo, Regulus. In doing so, an imaginary line that is relatively close to the ecliptic is drawn, a line which intersects Gemini roughly at the midpoint of the constellation, just below Castor and Pollux. When the Moon moves through Gemini, its motion can easily be observed in a single night as it appears first west of Castor and Pollux, then aligns, and finally appears east of them.” ref

“In Babylonian astronomy, the stars Castor and Pollux were known as the Great Twins. The Twins were regarded as minor gods and were called Meshlamtaea and Lugalirra, meaning respectively ‘The One who has arisen from the Underworld’ and the ‘Mighty King’. Both names can be understood as titles of Nergal, the major Babylonian god of plague and pestilence, who was king of the Underworld.” ref

“In Greek mythology, Gemini was associated with the myth of Castor and Pollux, the children of Leda and Argonauts both. Pollux was the son of Zeus, who seduced Leda, while Castor was the son of Tyndareus, king of Sparta and Leda’s husband. Castor and Pollux were also mythologically associated with St. Elmo’s fire in their role as the protectors of sailors. When Castor died, because he was mortal, Pollux begged his father Zeus to give Castor immortality, and he did, by uniting them together in the heavens.” ref

“Gemini is dominated by Castor and Pollux, two bright stars that appear relatively very closely together forming an o shape, encouraging the mythological link between the constellation and twinship. The twin above and to the right (as seen from the Northern Hemisphere) is Castor, whose brightest star is α Gem; it is a second-magnitude star and represents Castor’s head. The twin below and to the left is Pollux, whose brightest star is β Gem (more commonly called Pollux); it is of the first magnitude and represents Pollux’s head. Furthermore, the other stars can be visualized as two parallel lines descending from the two main stars, making it look like two figures. H. A. Rey has suggested an alternative to the traditional visualization that connected the stars of Gemini to show twins holding hands.” ref

“In Chinese astronomy, the stars that correspond to Gemini are located in two areas: the White Tiger of the West (西方白虎, Xī Fāng Bái Hǔ) and the Vermillion Bird of the South (南方朱雀, Nán Fāng Zhū Què). In some cultures, the twin in Gemini refers to ‘the unborn twin’ and represents a spiritual or dual self that exists within. The modern constellation Gemini lies across two of the quadrants, symbolized by the White Tiger of the West (西方白虎, Xī Fāng Bái Hǔ) and the Vermilion Bird of the South (南方朱雀, Nán Fāng Zhū Què), that divide the sky in traditional Chinese uranography. The name of the western constellation in modern Chinese is 雙子座 (shuāng zǐ zuò), meaning “the twin constellation.” ref, ref

The Divine Twins

“Gemini, the sign of The Divine Twins. We can find the concept of The Divine Twins around the world. It is a powerful concept that, like its astrological equivalent, Gemini, takes on many forms. The Twins are depicted as two beings. Men, women. A man and woman. Two figures with multiple genders, or are beyond gender. Moreover, they are often interchangeable, with interchangeable genders, roles, and powers. I cannot say with any certainty which of these concepts was “first,” but it doesn’t matter, as they all illuminate facets in each other.” ref

Nearly all ancient civilizations recognized biologically occurring twins as holy, unique, blessed, or cursed.

“Whether identical, fraternal or conjoined, the birth of a set of twins was a significant occasion. There are many superstitions around twins. Many groups see twins as “astral” in nature, coming from or affiliated with “the stars.” However, as Holy archetypes go, the Twins are almost always closer in their behavior and habits to humanity than many many other deities.” ref

“There are some nearly universal consistencies among the holy Twins we see in various myths and religions around the planet. Duality and multiplicity are at the heart of much of our Twin symbolism. Further, almost all Twins represent polarities, and two sides of the same coin; light/dark, good/evil, mortal/divine, male/female, etc.” ref

Another symbol connected to Gemini and the Divine Twins is the horse.

“Even the Pegasus and the Unicorn connect to the Twins. The famous Greek twins that the constellation Gemini depicts, Castor and Pollux, were known far and wide for their horsemanship. Other twins have mothers or fathers associated with horses. Epona, for example, is a Gaulish/Celtic Horse Goddess who ran a race against horses and won. She then died on the finish line as She gave birth to twins. The good folks of Mackinac Island in Michigan still worship Her every year in late Spring. The island allows no cars. Horses are still the main form of transportation.” ref

Many Divine Twins have split parentage.

“Many myths feature one mother and two fathers. Or, the twins are born in two different ways, with one born naturally and one coming from an egg or some other unusual source. This split parentage speaks directly to the duality nature of these archetypes. Even from their genesis they are the same but different. Often their Holy parent is a Sky-Related Deity, like storm, air, lightning, wind, thunder, and in particularly Sun Deities. Many Twins are the natural siblings and dual protectors of Solar Maidens in particular.” ref

The Mayan Hero Twins

“The Mayan Hero Twins are named Hunahpu (One-Blowgunner) and Xbalanque (Jaguar-Sun, Jaguar-Deer, or Hidden-Sun). These Twins are a great example of twins that include many symbols of this archetype. They represent complimentary forces – life/death, sky/earth, day/night, sun/moon, male/female. Also, the twins experienced a harsh pregnancy and upbringing. They often use cleverness or trickery to solve their problems.” ref

“The twins are bird hunters and known for their hypnotic dances. While fighting the God Seven Macaw (Vucub Caquix), Hunahpu loses an arm (Gemini rules arms). At one point in their myth, they challenge the Gods to a game to retrieve the head and body of their father. All in all, the Gods pull many tricks on them, including attempting to kill the twins. The Gods succeed, but the twins are brought back to life in a river. At another point in the myth, one twin loses his head but continues to play ball. Ultimately, the twins win; they retrieve their father’s body and kill the Gods.” ref

Yoruba Divine Twins

“In Yoruba land pantheons, the Orishas Ibeji are the Holy Twins. In the diaspora Yoruba of Latin America, these twins are equal to same as Saints Cosmas and Saint Damian. Yoruba land peoples believe twins are magical. And the great ancestor God-Father Shango, who oversees thunder, lightning, justice, dance, and virility guards them. In these communities, if one twin dies, it is a bad omen, not only for the family but for the community as well. The family will ask a Babalawo (an Ifa Priest) to carve a wooden replacement for the lost twin. The family then dresses it and cares for it as a member of the family. In their myth, the 1st twin is Taiwo, 2nd is Kehinde (Omokehinde), the elder. The 2nd twin is the older twin. Taiwo goes first to make sure the world is fit for Kehinde.” ref

“For the Dahomey people, this was Lisa and Mawu, the twin/lovers who birthed the universe together over four days as the androgynous figure Mawu-Lisa. And the Dogon Tribe sees them as the Nummo Twins, who are both androgynous and hermaphroditic. Both figures express any, all and no genders, in turn. The Nummo Twins are Shapeshifters and connected to the Serpent. They are usually depicted as Conjoined twins and are described as the Mothers of the Earth.” ref

“In Haitian Vodoun, these twins are Marassa Jumeaux. They are polygendered children, but more ancient than any Loa. They represent and govern issues concerning astronomical and astrological learning, divine power vs. human impotence, justice, truth, reason, and mystery.” ref

The European world also has its Divine Twins 

• “The Latvian Dieva dēli, who were the sons of God
• Sicilian Palici; one legend claims the Palici are the sons of Zeus, or possibly Hephaestus, but another story insists the Palici were the sons of the Sicilian deity Adrianus.Ancients associated them with geysers and the underworld.
• Germanic Gods Alcis, a pair of young male brothers worshiped by the Naharvali.
• Italian Wolf-Gods Romulus and Remus, whose story tells the events that led to the founding of Rome.
• Anglo-Saxon warrior brothers Hengist and Horsa, who’s names mean “Stallion” and “Horse” respectively.
  From Wikipedia: “On farmhouses in Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein, horse-head gables were referred to as “Hengst und Hors” as late as around 1875. Rudolf Simeknotes that these horse-head gables can still be seen today, and says that the horse-head gables confirm that Hengist and Horsa were originally considered mythological, horse-shaped beings. Martin Litchfield West comments that the horse heads may have been remnants of pagan religious practices in the area.”
• Norse Freyr and Freyjawere the twin son and daughter of the Sea God, Njord. Both were deities of fertility.
• Slavic Lada and Lado, female and male personifications of beauty and fertility who were seen as twins, and as mother and son.
• Welsh Lleu Llaw Gyffes and Dylan ail Don, twin brothers who are born when Arianrhod is tested for virginity. Dylan takes on the nature of a sea creature when he comes into contact with water, while Lleu is related to the pan-Celtic plural hero god Lugus. In the related Irish story of the birth of Lugh Lámfada, one version indicates that Lugh was a surviving triplet, whose twin brothers were drowned. Some interpreters of the legend view Dylan as representing darkness and Llew connected to light.” ref

The Solar connection is essential and oft repeated.

“Many, many religions and myth cycles have an image of The Sun being pulled across the sky by a chariot drawn by two horses. Often the horses are twins or exact opposites from each other. For example, the Chariot card from Tarot depicts this image nicely. Interestingly, the Chariot card connects to Cancer, the sign directly after Gemini.” ref

“In particular, The Twins have some specific roles they play in nearly every myth around the world:

-Protectors at Sea

-Battle Protectors

-Protecting Oaths and Contracts

-Magical Healers

-Fertility

-Assisting at Birth

-Dances and Dancing

-Founding Cities

Ultimately, in true Gemini style, The Divine Twins stand for multifold experiences.” ref

“The Divine Twins represent the duality and multiplicity we experience as we shed old forms of ourselves. We are that person, but they are dying. We are the new person, but they’re not quite here yet. And we are the beings in between, shapeshifting and shedding skins.” ref

“They express the camaraderie we feel when we find our “twin” in a stranger, who suddenly becomes a best friend, a best Judy, a “sister from another mister” or “a brother from another mother.” Maybe we actually look alike, but often what we mean by this phrase is that this person feels that close to us, like someone who knows us better than we know ourselves, knows us from the inside out, and thinks about and sees the world just like us.” ref

“You share clothes, you share lovers, you share passwords. These are our “ride or die bitches,” and we often get into some of our craziest capers with them. We might feel like we would sacrifice a lot for them. We might even face (or tempt) death with them. They see our struggles, they see where we screw up, they see our messy, and they are here for all of it.” ref

The Divine Twins are also two people after union. They became a single being, and now have parted again, but with an intimate knowledge of each other.

“There is the experience of seeing ourselves in other people, and there is also the experience of seeing other people in ourselves. The Divine Twins represent the duality and multiplicity we experience as we shed old forms of self and reveal new ones during personal growth work like self-care, cord-cutting, and other profoundly altering ritual forms. There is our current self, but they are changing. Also, we’re the new person forming, but they’re not quite here yet. And we are the beings in between, shapeshifting and shedding skins.” ref

The Divine Twins also represent a profoundly holy concept. As above, so below.

“One twin divine, one twin mortal. These are the polarities of ourselves. Our mundane, extremely faulty mortal self is, in fact, the twin of our divine self, our soul, the Holy Guardian Angel, the Ka, etc. These are the same, but different, but the same. And, as it is expressed in spiritual practices stretching back through time, if you affect the spiritual body the mortal body will feel it, but also that the inverse is true. If you affect the mortal body, the spiritual twin will react.” ref

“And in the rhythmic pulse of infinite phases experienced while moving between these two extremes – mortal and holy – we discover our lives. Who we are. What we are. How we deal with and integrate the blessings and hardships introduced by our spiritual battles and our mortal experiences. The Sun, balanced between to spinning wheels. Along with the Chariot card, we can work with The Lovers card, as it is ruled by Gemini, and is a fantastic magical image for all these ideas.” ref

“This is the deep magical teaching of working with the Divine Twins as we leave Spring and Beltane season and head into Summer. Finally, we are getting some feedback on our full immersion of the real world. Being born unto the Earth plane, we are married to the consequences of our actions. We are married to reality. And now we are meeting our real world self, and learning to love them.” ref

“Most of the old Pagan religions in Europe were part of an original source: Proto-Indo-European religion. We can discover how the primordial religion looked like by comparing myths of different cultures and ethnic groups. Through this method, scholars have been able to reconstruct the entire pantheon of the primeval gods and goddesses.” ref

“One of the central figures in the Indo-European pantheon is the Sky Father. He is also known by his reconstructed Proto-Indo-European term, *Dyeus. The patriarch of the gods has an intricate web of family relatives — as it is well evinced, for example, through both Vedic and Greek mythologies. Among these relatives, the sons of *Dyeus are probably the most relevant ones. They are the divine Twins.” ref

“There is an unusual academic consensus around the ancient Indo-European origins of the divine Twins. It is considered one of the few original myths within the primordial Proto-Indo-European pantheon. We can find the same divine Twin figures in Greek, Vedic, Roman and Baltic mythology. They are the original “Sons of God.” ref

Creation Myth of Twins

“Key figures in Dogon religion are the twins Nummo and Nommo, primal spirits of Dogon ancestors, sometimes seen as deities. These are hermaphroditic water creatures, seen similarly to water deities (to-vodun) in West African vodun; they can be depicted with a human body and a fish tail. Nommo is supposed to be the first living creature created by the supreme god Amma. Shortly after his creation, Nommo spawned into four pairs of twins, with one pair defying the order established by creator Amma. To restore order, the god Amma sacrificed another creature, whose body he cut up and scattered throughout creation. A shrine for the god Amma was to be built at each place where a fragment of the body landed.” ref

“The cult of the god Amma – like the entire Dogon religion – is closely tied to the Bandiagara cliff where the Dogon live. The cult of the god Amma is geographically defined by this cliff, it is not practiced elsewhere. The Bandiagara cliff is a sandstone terrain fault approximately 150 km long, reaching a height of up to 500 m in some places. The Dogon inhabit mud villages built on the upper edge of the cliff, villages directly attached to the cliff at its lower edge, but also at various heights in the wall, also villages scattered under the cliff, and a labyrinth of caves right in the cliff. The architecture of the villages and the religiously motivated urban arrangement of mud houses centered on the hogon priestly building is unique in the context of the whole of Africa. The Dogon language forms an independent branch of the Niger-Congo language family and is not closely related to any other language.” ref

“Legend says that a long time ago in China there were immortal twins, one who brought harmony and the other, union. So artists made figurines showing the twin brothers, called ”He-He. ” They often were pictured and given to brides, because it was thought they brought a happy marriage.” ref

“He-He Er Xian, translated as the Immortals of Harmony and Union and as the Two gods of Harmony and Union, are two Taoist immortals. They are popularly associated with happy marriages. He and He are typically depicted as boys holding a lotus flower (荷, hé) and a box (盒, hé). There are a number of legendary tales behind two celestial beings of He and Ho, among them there is one regarding the two monks living a secluded life in Tiantai Mountain in the Tang dynasty by the name of Hanshan and Shide and no one know about their subsequent whereabouts. The story is based on Poems of Hanshan and Shide composed by Lv Qiuyin. They were officially canonized as the God of Harmony and the God of Good Union in the first year of Yongzheng rule in the Qing dynasty. They are widely regarded as gods who bless love between husband and wife.” ref

“The Divine Twins are youthful horsemen, either gods or demigods, who serve as rescuers and healers in Proto-Indo-European mythology. Like other Proto-Indo-European divinities, the Divine Twins are not directly attested by archaeological or written materials, but scholars of comparative mythology and Indo-European studies generally agree on the motifs they have reconstructed by way of the comparative method.” ref

Common traits

“Scholar Donald Ward proposed a set of common traits that pertain to divine twin pairs of Indo-European mythologies:

• dual paternity;
• mention of a female figure (their mother or their sister);
• deities of fertility;
• known by a single dual name or having rhymed/alliterative names;
• associated with horses;
• saviours at sea;
• of astral nature;
• protectors of oaths;
• providers of divine aid in battle; and
• magic healers.” ref

“Although the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) name of the Divine Twins cannot be reconstructed with certainty based on the available linguistic evidence, the most frequent epithets associated with the two brothers in liturgic and poetic traditions are the “Youthful” and the “Descendants” (sons or grandsons) of the Sky-God (Dyēus). Two well-accepted reflexes of the Divine Twins, the Vedic Aśvins and the Lithuanian Ašvieniai, are linguistic cognates ultimately deriving from the Proto-Indo-European word for the horse, *h₁éḱwos. They are related to Sanskrit áśva and Avestan aspā (both from Indo-Iranian *Haćwa), and to Old Lithuanian ašva, which all share the meaning of “mare“. This may point to an original PIE divine name *h₁éḱw-n-, although this form could also have emerged from later contacts between Proto-Indo-Iranian and Proto-Balto-Slavic speakers, which are known to have occurred in prehistoric times.” ref

“Represented as young men rescuing mortals from peril in battle or at sea, the Divine Twins rode the steeds that pull the sun across the sky and were sometimes depicted as horses themselves. They shared a sister, the Dawn (*H₂éwsōs), who is also portrayed as the daughter of the Sky-God (*Dyēus) in Indo-European myths. The two brothers are generally depicted as healers and helpers, travelling in miraculous vehicles to save shipwrecked mortals. They are often differentiated: one is represented as a physically strong and aggressive warrior, while the other is seen as a healer who rather gives attention to domestic duties, agrarian pursuits, or romantic adventures.” ref

“In the Vedic, Greek and Baltic traditions, the Divine Twins similarly appear as the personifications of the morning and evening star. They are depicted as the lovers or the companions of a solar female deity, preferably the Sun’s daughter but sometimes also the Dawn. In the majority of the stories where they appear, the Divine Twins rescue the Dawn from a watery peril, a theme that emerged from their role as the solar steeds. During the night, the Divine Twins were said to return to the east in a golden boat, where they traversed a sea to bring back the rising sun each morning. During the day, they crossed the nocturnal sky in pursuit of their consort, the morning star. In what seems to be a later addition confined to Europe, they were said to take a rest at the end of the day on the “Isles of the Blessed”, a land seating in the western sea which possessed magical apple orchards. By the Bronze Age, the Divine Twins were also represented as the coachmen of horse-driven solar chariots.” ref

“The Gaulish Divanno [de] and Dinomogetimarus are said to be protective deities and “the Gallic equivalents” of the Greek Dioskouroi. They seem to be represented in monuments and reliefs in France flanked by horses, which would make them comparable to Gaulish Martes and the Germanic Alcis. Scholars suggest that the numerous Gallo-Roman dedicatory epigraphs to Castor and Pollux, more than any other region of the Roman Empire, attest a cult of the Dioskoroi. Greek historian Timaeus mentions that Atlantic Celts venerated the “Dioskouroi” above all other gods and that they [Dioskouroi] had visited them from across the Ocean. Historian Diodorus Siculus, in the fourth book of Bibliotheca historica, writes that the Celts who dwelt along the ocean worshipped the Dioscuroi “more than the other gods”. The conjecture that it refers to the Gallic gods Divanno and Dinomogetimarus has no firm support.” ref

“In one of the Irish myths involving Macha (the Dindsenchas of Ard Macha), she is forced to race against the horses of King of Ulster while in late pregnancy. As a talented rider, she wins the race but starts giving birth to Fír and Fial immediately after crossing the finish line. The archetype is also partly matched by figures such as the Gallic sun god Belenus, whose epithet Atepomarus meant “having good horses”; Grannus, who is associated with the healing goddess Sirona (her name means “star”); Maponos (“Son of God”), considered in Irish mythology as the son of Dagda, associated with healing, The Welsh Brân and Manawydan may also be reflexes of the Divine Twins.” ref

“Comparative mythologist Alexander Haggerty Krappe suggested that two heroes, Feradach and Foltlebar, brothers and sons of the king of Innia, are expressions of the mytheme. These heroes help the expedition of the Fianna into Tir fa Thuinn (a realm on the other side of the sea), in a Orphean mission to rescue some of their members, in the tale The pursuit of the Gilla Decair and his horse. Both are expert navigators: one can build a ship and the other can follow the wild birds. Other possible candidates are members of Lugh‘s retinue, Atepomarus and Momorus (fr). Atepomarus is presumed to mean “Great Horseman” or “having great horses”, based on the possible presence of Celtic stem -epo- ‘horse’ in his name. Both appear as a pair of Celtic kings and founders of Lugdunum. They escape from Sereroneus and arrive at a hill. Momorus, who had skills in augury, sees a murder of crows and names the hill Lougodunum, after the crows. This myth is reported in the works of Klitophon of Rhodes and in Pseudo-Plutarch‘s De fluviis.” ref

“The Polish deities Lel and Polel, first mentioned by Maciej Miechowita in 1519, are presented as the equivalents of Castor and Pollux, the sons of the goddess Łada (counterpart of the Greek Leda) and an unknown male god. An idol was found in 1969 on the Fischerinsel island, where the cult centres of the Slavic tribe of Veleti was located, depicting two male figures joined with their heads. Scholars believe it may represent Lel and Polel. Lelek means “strong youth” in Russian dialect. The brightest stars of the Gemini constellation, α Gem and β Gem, are thought to have been originally named Lele and Polele in Belarusian tradition, after the twin characters. According to Polish professor of medieval history, Jacek Banaszkiewicz, the two Polabian gods, Porevit and Porenut, manifest dioscuric characteristics. According to him, the first part of their names derives from a Proto-Slavic root -por meaning “strength,” with first being “Lord of strength” – the stronger one, and the other “Lord in need of support (strength)” – the weaker one. They both have five faces each and appear alongside Rugiaevit, the chief god.” ref

“During childbirth, the mother of the Polish hero twins Waligóra (“Mountain Beater”) and Wyrwidąb (“Oak Tearer”) died in the forest, where wild animals took care of them. Waligóra was raised of by a she-wolf and Wyrwidąb by a she-bear, who fed them with their own milk. Together, they defeated the dragon who tormented the kingdom, for which the grateful king gave each of them half of the kingdom and one of his two daughters as a wife. The sons of Krak: Krak II and Lech II also appear in Polish legends as the killers of the Wawel dragon. Amphion and Zethus, another pair of twins fathered by Zeus and Antiope, are portrayed as the legendary founders of Thebes. They are called “Dioskouroi, riders of white horses” (λευκόπωλοι) by Euripides in his play The Phoenician Women (the same epithet is used in Heracles and in the lost play Antiope). In keeping with the theme of distinction between the twins, Amphion was said to be the more contemplative, sensitive one, whereas Zethus was more masculine and tied to physical pursuits, like hunting and cattle-breeding.” ref

“The mother of Romulus and Remus, Rhea Silvia, placed them in a basket before her death, which she put in the river to protect them from murder, before they were found by the she-wolf who raised them. The Palici, a pair of Sicilian twin deities fathered by Zeus in one account, may also be a reflex of the original mytheme. Greek rhetorician and grammar Athenaeus of Naucratis, in his work Deipnosophistae, Book II, cited that poet Ibycus, in his Melodies, described twins Eurytus and Cteatus as “λευκίππους κόρους” (“white-horsed youths”) and said they were born from a silver egg, a story that recalls the myth of Greek divine twins Castor and Pollux and their mother Leda. This pair of twins was said to have been fathered by sea god Poseidon and a human mother, Molione.” ref

“Another possible reflex may be found in Nakula and Sahadeva. Mothered by Princess Madri, who summoned the Aśvins themselves in a prayer to beget her sons (thus them being called Ashvineya (आश्विनेय)), the twins are two of the five Pandava brothers, married to the same woman, Draupadi. In the Mahabharata epic, Nakula is described in terms of his exceptional beauty, warriorship and martial prowess, while Sahadeva is depicted as patient, wise, intelligent and a “learned man”. Nakula takes great interest in Virata’s horses, and his brother Sahadeva become Virata’s cowherd. Scholarship also points out that the Vedic Ashvins had an Avestic counterpart called Aspinas. The pair of heroic brothers and main characters of the Albanian legendary epic cycle Kângë Kreshnikësh – Muji and Halili – are considered to bear common traits of the Indo-European divine twins.” ref

“The Armenian heroes Sanasar and Baldasar appear as twins in the epic tradition, born of princess Tsovinar (as depicted in Daredevils of Sassoun); Sanasar finds a “fiery horse”, is more warlike than his brother, and becomes the progenitor of a dynasty of heroes. In an alternate account, their mother is named princess Saṙan, who drinks water from a horse’s footprint and gives birth to both heroes. Scholar Armen Petrosyan also sees possible reflexes of the divine twins in other pairs of heroic brothers in Armenian epic tradition, e.g., Ar(a)maneak and Ar(a)mayis; Eruand (Yervant) and Eruaz (Yervaz). In the same vein, Sargis Haroutyunian argues that the Armenian heroes, as well as twins Izzadin (or Izaddin) and Zyaddin (mentioned in the Kurdish Sharafnama), underlie the myth of divine twins: pairs of brother-founders of divine origin.” ref

“The mytheme of the Divine Twins was widely popular in the Indo-European traditions; evidence for their worship can be found from Scandinavia to the Near East as early as the Bronze Age. The motif was also adopted in non-Indo-European cultures, as attested by the Etruscan Tinas Clenar, the “sons of Jupiter”. There might also have been a worship of twin deities in Myceanean times, based on the presence of myths and stories about pairs of brothers or male twins in Attica and Boeotia. The most prevalent functions associated with the twins in later myths are magic healers and physicians, sailors and saviours at sea, warriors and providers of divine aid in battle, controllers of weather and keepers of the wind, assistants at birth with a connection to fertility, divinities of dance, protectors of the oath, and founders of cities, sometimes related to swans. Scholarship suggests that the mytheme of twins has echoes in the medieval legend of Amicus and Amelius. In Belarusian folklore, Saints George and Nicholas are paired up together, associated with horses, and have a dual nature as healers. The veneration of the Slavic saint brothers Boris and Gleb may also be related.” ref

“Lugal-irra (𒀭𒈗𒄊𒊏) and Meslamta-ea (𒀭𒈩𒇴𒋫𒌓𒁺𒀀) were a pair of Mesopotamian gods who typically appear together in cuneiform texts and were described as the “divine twins” (Maštabba). There were regarded as warrior gods and as protectors of doors, possibly due to their role as the gatekeepers of the underworld. In Mesopotamian astronomy they came to be associated with a pair of stars known as the “Great Twins”, Alpha Geminorum and Beta Geminorum. They were both closely associated with Nergal, and could be either regarded as members of his court or equated with him. Their cult centers were Kisiga and Dūrum. While no major sanctuaries dedicated to them are attested elsewhere, they were nonetheless worshiped in multiple other cities. Lugal-irra’s name was most commonly written in cuneiform as dLugal–GÌR-ra. It can be romanized as Lugalirra as well. It has Sumerian origin and can be translated as “the strong lord”. The variant Lugal-girra, ^dLugal-gír-ra, reflects a late reinterpretation of the name as “lord of the dagger” and is no longer considered an indication that ^dLugal-GÌR-ra was ever read as Lugal-girra. Despite the phonetic similarity, the second half of Lugal-irra’s name is most likely unrelated to the theonym Erra (variant: Irra), and its Akkadian translation was gašru according to lexical lists.” ref

“Twin deities manifested integrating or opposite natural elements in ancient Egypt. Two identical falcons represented Horus and Seth. Isis and Nephtys were also a divine twin of the same gender. Shu and Tefnut were an example for unlike-sexed divine twins. The souls of Osiris and Re were the twin children of Horus. This research studies the Egyptian divine twins beside the Greek twin deities which appeared in Egypt on a limited scale. Some of them had an Egyptian origin such as; the sign of Gemini which was inspired from Shu and Tefnut. Apollo and Artemis were also venerated in Egypt.” ref

“Twins in mythology are in many cultures around the world. In some cultures they are seen as ominous, and in others they are seen as auspicious. Twins in mythology are often cast as two halves of the same whole, sharing a bond deeper than that of ordinary siblings, or seen as fierce rivals. They can be seen as representations of a dualistic worldview. They can represent another aspect of the self, a doppelgänger, or a shadow.” ref

“Twins are often depicted with special powers. This applies to both mortal and immortal sets of twins, and often is related to power over the weather. Twins in mythology also often share deep bonds. In Greek mythology, Castor and Pollux share a bond so strong that when mortal Castor dies, Pollux gives up half of his immortality to be with his brother. Castor and Pollux are the Dioscuri twin brothers. Their mother is Leda, a being who was seduced by Zeus who had taken the form of a swan. Even though the brothers are twins, they have two different fathers. This phenomenon is a very common interpretation of twin births across different mythological cultures. Castor’s father is Tyndareus, the king of Sparta (hence the mortal form). Pollux is the son of Zeus (demigod).” ref

“This brothers were said to be born from an egg along with either sister Helen and Clytemnestra. This etymologically explains why their constellation, the Dioskouroi or Gemini, is only seen during one half of the year, as the twins split their time between the underworld and Mount Olympus. In an aboriginal tale, the same constellation represents the twin lizards who created the plants and animals and saved women from evil spirits. Another example of this strong bond shared between twins is the Ibeji twins from African mythology. Ibeji twins are viewed as one soul shared between two bodies. If one of the twins dies, the parents then create a doll that portrays the body of the deceased child, so the soul of the deceased can remain intact for the living twin.” ref

“Without the creation of the doll, the living twin is almost destined for death because it is believed to be missing half of its soul. Twins in mythology are often associated with healing. They are also often gifted with the ability of divination or insight into the future. Divine twins in twin mythology are identical to either one or both place of a god. The Feri gods are not separated entities but are unified into one center. These divine twins can function alone in one body, either functioning as a male or as male and female as they desire. Divine twins represent a polarity in the world. This polarity may be great or small and at times can be opposition. Twins are often seen to be rivals or adversaries.” ref

Africa

Egyptian

• Nut and Geb, Dualistic twins. God of Earth (Geb) and Goddess of the sky (Nut)
• Osiris – Isis’ twin and husband. Lord of the underworld. First born of Geb and Nut. One of the most important gods of ancient Egypt.
• Isis – Daughter of Geb and Nut; twin of Osiris.
• Ausar – (also known by Macedonian Greeks as Osiris) twin of Set. Set tricked his brother at a banquet he organized so as to take his life.

West African

• Mawu-Lisa – Twins representing moon and sun, respectively. Ewe-Fon culture.
• Yemaja – Mother of all life on earth. Yoruba culture.
• Aganju – Twin and husband of Yemaja
• Ibeji – Twins of joy and happiness. Children of Shango and Oshun.

Amerindian

See also: Hero Twins in Native American culture

• Gluskap and Malsumis – A cultural hero and its evil twin brother for the Wabanaki peoples.
• Hahgwehdiyu and Hahgwehdaetgah – Sons of either Iroquois sky goddess Atahensic or her daughter Tekawerahkwa.
• Asdzą́ą́ Nádleehé and Yolkai Estsan – Navajo goddesses.
• Monster Slayer and Born-for-Water – Navajo Hero Twins.
• Jukihú and Juracán – Twin sons of Atabex (Mother Nature), the personifications of Order and Chaos, respectively; from the Taíno Arawak nation which once stretched from South America through the Caribbean and up to Florida in the US.
• Hun-apu and Ixbalanque, the Maya Hero Twins – Defeated the Seven Macaw
• Quetzalcoatl and Xolotl or Tezcatlipoca
• Kokomaht and Bahotahl – Good and evil forces in nature.

Ancient Mesopotamian religion

• Inanna and Utu.

Greek and Roman mythology

• Divine
• Helios and Selene – God and Goddess, children of Hyperion and Theia
• Apollo and Artemis – God and goddess, children of Zeus and Leto
• Hypnos and Thanatos – Sons of Nyx
• Despoina and Arion – Goddess and immortal horse, children of Demeter and Poseidon.
• Palici – Sicilian chthonic deities in Greek mythology and Roman mythology.
• Phobos and Deimos – Sons of Ares and Aphrodite
• Eros and Anteros – Sons of Ares and Aphrodite
• One divine, one mortal
• Heracles and Iphicles – Though their mother was Alcmene, Hercules was son of Zeus while Iphicles was son of Amphitryon.
• Castor and Pollux, known as the Dioscuri – Though their mother was Leda, Castor was mortal son of Tyndareus, the king of Sparta, while Pollux was the divine son of Zeus.
• Helen and Clytemnestra – Sisters of the Dioscuri, they were the daughters of Leda by Zeus and Tyndareus, respectively.
• Children of a god or nymph and a mortal
• Atlas and Eumelus/Gadeirus, Ampheres and Evaemon, Mneseus and Autochthon, Elasippus and Mestor, and Azaes and Diaprepes – Five sets of twins, sons of Poseidon and Cleito, and Kings of Atlantis in Plato‘s myth.
• Belus and Agenor – Sons of Poseidon and Libya.
• Aegyptus and Danaus – Sons of Belus and Achiroe, a naiad daughter of Nile.
• Aeolus and Boeotus – Sons of Poseidon and Arne.
• Lycastus and Parrhasius – Sons of Ares and Phylonome, daughter of Nyctimus of Arcadia.
• Amphion and Zethus – Sons of Zeus by Antiope
• Centaurus and Lapithes – Sons of Ixion and Nephele or Apollo and Stilbe.
• Pelias and Neleus – Sons of Poseidon and Tyro.
• Romulus and Remus – Central characters of Rome’s foundation myth. Children of Rhea Silvia by either the god Mars, or by the demi-god Hercules.
• Eurytus and Cteatus – Sons of Molione either by Actor or Poseidon
• Ascalaphus and Ialmenus – Sons of Ares and Astyoche, Argonauts who participated in the Trojan War.
• Mortal
• Kleobis and Biton – Sons of a Hera priestess in Argos
• Iasus and Pelasgus – Sons of Phoroneus or Triopas
• Proetus and Acrisius – Rival twins, children of Abas and Aglaea or Ocalea.
• Porphyrion and Ptous – Sons of Athamas and Themisto
• Thessalus and Alcimenes – Sons of Jason and Medea.
• Cassandra and Helenus – Children of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy with prophetic powers.
• Procles and Eurysthenes – Great-great-great-grandsons of Heracles, sons of Aristodemus and Argia.
• Sisyphus and Salmoneus – Rivals who angered Zeus with their deceit and hubris. Sons of King Aeolus of Thessaly and Enarete.

Ancient Syria

• Arsu and Azizos – Gods of the evening star and morning star.

Norse mythology

• Freyr and Freyja – God and goddess, children of Njörðr
• Baldr and Hodr – “The Shining One” and “The Blind God”, Children of Odin and Frigg
• Móði and Magni – Courage/Bravery and Strength. Although not Twins in every Source, they often come in a pair. In some iterations, Twin sons of Thor and Sif.

Hinduism

• The Ashvins – Sons of the sun God, Surya. Represent dualities such as building and destroying.
• Koti and Chennayya – Twin heroes
• Yama and Yami – God and Goddess of death.
• Lava and Kusha – Children of Rama and Sita.
• Nakula and Sahadeva – sons of the last born of the Pandavas
• Lakshmana and Shatrughna – Children of Dasharatha and Sumitra
• Indra and Agni – Mirror twins
• Nala and Nila Ramayan

Jewish

• Jacob and Esau – Sons of Isaac and Rebekah. Represented two nations.

Christian

Thomas the apostle and his unnamed twin brother.

Zoroastrian

• Ahura Mazda and Ahriman – Twins of opposing forces: good and evil.

Ossetian mythology

• Akhshar and Akhsartag – one of the main characters and progenitors of the Nart saga

Afro-Caribbean cosmologies

• Marassa Jumeaux – The divine, children twins in Vodou.
• Ibeji – Twins of joy and happiness. Children of Shango or Sango and Oshun.

East Asian

• Izanagi and Izanami – God and Goddess, creators of the Japanese islands.

Cain and Abel, the First Human Brothers in the Bible 

“In the biblical Book of Genesis, Cain and Abel are the first two sons of Adam and Eve. Cain, the firstborn, was a farmer, and his brother Abel was a shepherd. The brothers made sacrifices, each from his own fields, to God. God had regard for Abel’s offering, but had no regardfor Cain’s. Cain killed Abel, and God cursed Cain, sentencing him to a life of transience. Cain then dwelt in the land of Nod (נוֹד, ‘wandering’), where he built a city and fathered the line of descendants beginning with Enoch.” ref

“The story of Cain‘s murder of Abel and its consequences is told in Genesis 4:1–18:

Now the man knew his wife Eve, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, “I have produced a man with the help of the Lord.” Next she bore his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a tiller of the ground. In the course of time Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel for his part brought of the firstlings of his flock, their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell. The Lord said to Cain,

“Why are you angry,
and why has your countenance fallen?
If you do well,
will you not be accepted?
And if you do not do well,
sin is lurking at the door;
its desire is for you,
but you must master it.”

Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let us go out to the field.” And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel, and killed him.

Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?” He said, “I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?” And the Lord said, “What have you done? Listen; your brother’s blood is crying out to me from the ground! And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. When you till the ground, it will no longer yield to you its strength; you will be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth.” Cain said to the Lord, “My punishment is greater than I can bear! Today you have driven me away from the soil, and I shall be hidden from your face; I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and anyone who meets me may kill me.” Then the Lord said to him, “Not so! Whoever kills Cain will suffer a sevenfold vengeance.” And the Lord put a mark on Cain, so that no one who came upon him would kill him. Then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord, and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden. Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch; and he built a city, and named it Enoch after his son Enoch.” — Book of Genesis, 4:1–18

“Since they cannot be linked together to a common linguistic origin, other reflexes found in the Indo-European myths are less secure, although their motifs can be compared to that of the Divine Twins. Three Indo-European traditions (Greek, Indic and Baltic) attest the mytheme of equestrian twins, all associated with the dawn or the sun’s daughter. Although their names do not form a complete group of cognates, they nonetheless share a similar epithet leading to a possible ancestral name or epithet: the ‘sons or descendants of Dyēus‘, the sky-god.” ref

• (?) PIE: *diwós suHnū́ (‘sons of Dyēus’), or *diwós népoth₁e (‘descendants of Dyēus’),
• Vedic: the Divó nápātā (the Aśvins), the “sons of Dyaús“, the sky-god, always referred to in dual in the Rigveda, without individual names,
• Lithuanian: the Dievo sūneliai (the Ašvieniai), the “sons of Dievas“, pulling the carriage of Saulė (the Sun) through the sky,
• Latvian: the Dieva dēli, the “sons of Dievs”, the sky-god,
• Greek: the Diós-kouroi (Castor and Pollux), the “boys of Zeus“, the sky-god.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_twins
• Italic: both Paelignian Ioviois Pvclois and Marsian Ioveis Pvcles are interpreted as a calque of the Greek theonym Diós-kouroi.” ref

“Comparative mythologist Alexander Haggerty Krappe suggested that two heroes, Feradach and Foltlebar, brothers and sons of the king of Innia, are expressions of the mytheme. These heroes help the expedition of the Fianna into Tir fa Thuinn (a realm on the other side of the sea), in a Orphean mission to rescue some of their members, in the tale The pursuit of the Gilla Decair and his horse. Both are expert navigators: one can build a ship and the other can follow the wild birds. Other possible candidates are members of Lugh‘s retinue, Atepomarus and Momorus (fr). Atepomarus is presumed to mean “Great Horseman” or “having great horses”, based on the possible presence of Celtic stem -epo- ‘horse’ in his name. Both appear as a pair of Celtic kings and founders of Lugdunum. They escape from Sereroneus and arrive at a hill. Momorus, who had skills in augury, sees a murder of crows and names the hill Lougodunum, after the crows. This myth is reported in the works of Klitophon of Rhodes and in Pseudo-Plutarch‘s De fluviis.” ref

“There is possibility that Ūsiņš (alternately, Ūsinis), a Baltic god mentioned in the dainas, is a reflex of the mytheme in Latvian tradition. He is associated with horses, the light and sun, and possibly one of the sons of Dievs. Historical linguist Václav Blažek argues he is “a functional and etymological counterpart” of a minor Vedic character Auśijá- (a servant of the Vedic twins and related to bees) and the Aśvins themselves. Also, according to David Leeming, Usins appears as a charioteer, conducting a chariot pulled by two horses across the sky.” ref

“It has also been argued that Auseklis is the other reflex of the mytheme in Latvian. Auseklis is referred to as male in the context of the dainas (folksong), and is seen as the groom of Saules meita (“daughter of the sun”), who came all the way to Germany to court her. In addition, according to scholar Elza Kokare, Auseklis belongs to a group of heavenly deities that take part in a mythological drama about a “celestial wedding”. Auseklis is seen as a groom of Saules meita, a daughter of Saule, the female Baltic sun. Sometimes, he is deprived of his bride (Ausekļa līgaviņa and variations) because of Meness’s quarreling. In other accounts, he is a guest or member of the bridal cortege at the wedding of Saules meita with another character. He is also said to own a horse, bought by him or for him. According to Marija Gimbutas‘s analysis, Auseklis is a “dievaitis” (‘little god’) that appears with a horse the Sun gave him, and falls in love with the daughter of the (female) Sun (“Saules dukterims”).” ref

“Dualism or dualistic cosmology is the moral or belief that two fundamental concepts exist, which often oppose each other. It is an umbrella term that covers a diversity of views from various religions, including both traditional religions and scriptural religions. Moral dualism is the belief of the great complement of, or conflict between, the benevolent and the malevolent. It simply implies that there are two moral opposites at work, independent of any interpretation of what might be “moral” and independent of how these may be represented. Moral opposites might, for example, exist in a worldview that has one god, more than one god, or none. By contrast, duotheism, bitheism or ditheism implies (at least) two gods.” ref

“While bitheism implies harmony, ditheism implies rivalry and opposition, such as between good and evil, or light and dark, or summer and winter. For example, a ditheistic system could be one in which one god is a creator and the other a destroyer. In theology, dualism can also refer to the relationship between the deity and creation or the deity and the universe (see theistic dualism). That form of dualism is a belief shared in certain traditions of Christianity and Hinduism. Alternatively, in ontological dualism, the world is divided into two overarching categories. Within Chinese culture and philosophy the opposition and combination of the universe’s two basic principles are expressed as yin and yang and are traditionally foundational doctrine of Taoism, Confucianism and some Chinese Buddhist Schools.” ref

“Many myths and creation motifs with dualistic cosmologies have been described in ethnographic and anthropological literature. The motifs conceive the world as being created, organized, or influenced by two demiurges, culture heroes, or other mythological beings, who compete with each other or have a complementary function in creating, arranging or influencing the world. There is a huge diversity of such cosmologies. In some cases, such as among the Chukchi, the beings collaborate rather than compete, and they contribute to the creation in a coequal way. In many other instances the two beings are not of the same importance or power (sometimes, one of them is even characterized as gullible). Sometimes they can be contrasted as good versus evil.” ref 

“They may be often believed to be twins or at least brothers. Dualistic motifs in mythologies can be observed in all inhabited continents. Zolotarjov concludes that they cannot be explained by diffusion or borrowing but are rather of convergent origin. They are related to a dualistic organization of society (moieties); in some cultures, the social organization may have ceased to exist, but mythology preserves the memory in more and more disguised ways. Moral dualism is the belief of the great complement or conflict between the benevolent and the malevolent. Like ditheism/bitheism (see below), moral dualism does not imply the absence of monist or monotheistic principles. Moral dualism simply implies that there are two moral opposites at work, independent of any interpretation of what might be “moral” and—unlike ditheism/bitheism—independent of how these may be represented.” ref

“For example, Mazdaism (Mazdean Zoroastrianism) is both dualistic and monotheistic (but not monist by definition) since in that philosophy God—the Creator—is purely good, and the antithesis—which is also uncreated–is an absolute one. Mandaeism is monotheistic and Gnostic, and in its cosmology, the World of Light (alma d-nhūra) that is good, is contrasted with the World of Darkness or underworld (alma d-hšuka) that is evil. Zurvanism (Zurvanite Zoroastrianism) and Manichaeism are representative of dualistic and monist philosophies since each has a supreme and transcendental First Principle from which the two equal-but-opposite entities then emanate. This is also true for the suppressed Christian gnostic religions, such as Bogomils, Catharism, and so on. More complex forms of monist dualism also exist, for instance in Hermeticism, where Nous “thought”—that is described to have created man—brings forth both good and evil, dependent on interpretation, whether it receives prompting from the God or from the Demon. Duality with pluralism is considered a logical fallacy.” ref

“Moral dualism began as a theological belief. Dualism was first seen implicitly in Egyptian religious beliefs by the contrast of the gods Set (disorder, death) and Osiris (order, life). The first explicit conception of dualism came from the Ancient Persian religion of Zoroastrianism around the mid-fifth century BC. Zoroastrianism is a monotheistic religion that believes that Ahura Mazda is the eternal creator of all good things. Any violations of Ahura Mazda’s order arise from druj, which is everything uncreated. From this comes a significant choice for humans to make. Either they fully participate in human life for Ahura Mazda or they do not and give druj power. Personal dualism is even more distinct in the beliefs of later religions. The religious dualism of Christianity between good and evil is not a perfect dualism as God (good) will inevitably destroy Satan (evil). Early Christian dualism is largely based on Platonic Dualism (See: Neoplatonism and Christianity). There is also a personal dualism in Christianity with a soul-body distinction based on the idea of an immaterial Christian soul.” ref

“When used with regards to multiple gods, dualism may refer to duotheism, bitheism, or ditheism. Although ditheism/bitheism imply moral dualism, they are not equivalent: ditheism/bitheism implies (at least) two gods, while moral dualism does not necessarily imply theism (theos = god) at all. Both bitheism and ditheism imply a belief in two equally powerful gods with complementary or antonymous properties; however, while bitheism implies harmony, ditheism implies rivalry and opposition, such as between good and evil, bright and dark, or summer and winter. For example, a ditheistic system would be one in which one god is creative, the other is destructive (cf. theodicy). In the original conception of Zoroastrianism, for example, Ahura Mazda was the spirit of ultimate good, while Ahriman (Angra Mainyu) was the spirit of ultimate evil.” ref

“In a bitheistic system, by contrast, where the two deities are not in conflict or opposition, one could be male and the other female (cf. duotheism^[clarification needed^]). One well-known example of a bitheistic or duotheistic theology based on gender polarity is found in the neopagan religion of Wicca. In Wicca, dualism is represented in the belief of a god and a goddess as a dual partnership in ruling the universe. This is centered on the worship of a divine couple, the Moon Goddess and the Horned God, who are regarded as lovers. However, there is also a ditheistic theme within traditional Wicca, as the Horned God has dual aspects of bright and dark – relating to day/night, summer/winter – expressed as the Oak King and the Holly King, who in Wiccan myth and ritual are said to engage in battle twice a year for the hand of the Goddess, resulting in the changing seasons. (Within Wicca, bright and dark do not correspond to notions of “good” and “evil” but are aspects of the natural world, much like yin and yang in Taoism.)” ref

Divine couples in religion

“One of the most ancient concepts in religion is that of the divine couple. In Sumeria the divine couple appears as part of perhaps the earliest notion of Trinity. God the Father was symbolized as the Sun, his consort was symbolized alternately as either the Moon or the Earth, and the king was viewed as their offspring: the Son of the Sun; a living representative (or emanation) of God on Earth. In many traditions the gods and goddesses who comprise the divine couple are not seen as being separate or distinct entities, but rather as differing aspects of one another, or even emanations of one another. In this we see traces of an even more ancient tradition, God as the primordial androgyne. Such a notion has been part of many theologies, although the idea has largely been forgotten or (perhaps) ignored.” ref

Yin and yang

“Yin and yang (English: /jɪn/, /jæŋ/), also yinyang or yin-yang, is a concept that originated in Chinese philosophy, describing an opposite but interconnected, self-perpetuating cycle. Yin and yang can be thought of as complementary and at the same time opposing forces that interact to form a dynamic system in which the whole is greater than the assembled parts and the parts are important for cohesion of the whole.” ref

“In Chinese cosmology, the universe creates itself out of a primary chaos of material energy, organized into the cycles of yin and yang form and matter. ‘Yin’ is retractive, passive and contractive while ‘yang’ is repelling, active and expansive; in principle, this dichotomy in some form, is seen in all things in nature—patterns of change and difference, such as biological and seasonal cycles, evolution of the landscape over days, weeks, and eons (with the original meaning of the words being the north-facing shade and the south-facing brightness of a hill), gender (female and male), as well as the formation of the character of individuals and the grand arc of sociopolitical history in disorder and order.” ref

“Taiji is a Chinese cosmological term for the “Supreme Ultimate” state of undifferentiated absolute and infinite potential, the oneness before duality, from which yin and yang originate. It can be contrasted with the older wuji (無極; ‘without pole’). In the cosmology pertaining to yin and yang, the material energy which this universe was created from is known as qi. It is believed that the organization of qi in this cosmology of yin and yang has formed many things. Included among these forms are humans. Many natural dualities (such as light and dark, fire and water, expanding and contracting) are thought of as physical manifestations of the duality symbolized by yin and yang. This duality, as a unity of opposites, lies at the origins of many branches of classical Chinese science, technology and philosophy, as well as being a primary guideline of traditional Chinese medicine, and a central principle of different forms of Chinese martial arts and exercise, such as baguazhang, tai chi, daoyin and qigong, as well as appearing in the pages of the I Ching.” ref

“The notion of duality can be found in many areas, such as Communities of Practice. The term “dualistic-monism” or dialectical monism has been coined in an attempt to express this fruitful paradox of simultaneous unity and duality. According to this philosophy, everything has both yin and yang aspects (for instance, shadow cannot exist without light). Either of the two major aspects may manifest more strongly in a particular object, depending on the criterion of the observation. The yin and yang symbol (or taijitu) shows a balance between two opposites with a portion of the opposite element in each section.” ref

“In Taoist metaphysics, distinctions between good and bad, along with other dichotomous moral judgments, are perceptual, not real; so, the duality of yin and yang is an indivisible whole. In the ethics of Confucianism on the other hand, most notably in the philosophy of Dong Zhongshu (c. 2nd century BC), a moral dimension is attached to the idea of yin and yang. The Ahom philosophy of duality of the individual self han and pu is quite similar to yin and yang of Taoism. The tradition was originated in Yunnan, China and followed by some Ahom, descendants of Dai ethnic Minority. The Chinese characters 陰 and 陽 are both considered to be phono-semantic compounds, with semantic component 阝 ‘mound’, ‘hill’, a graphical variant of 阜—with the phonetic components 今; jīn (and the added semantic component 云; yún; ‘cloud’) and 昜; yáng. In the latter, 昜; yáng; ‘bright’ features 日; ‘the Sun’ + 示 + 彡; ‘sunbeam’.” ref

Fuxi and Nüwa in Chinese Creation Mythology

“Fuxi or Fu Hsi (伏羲) is a culture hero in Chinese mythology, credited along with his sister and wife Nüwa with creating humanity and the invention of music, hunting, fishing, domestication, and cooking, as well as the Cangjie system of writing Chinese characters around 2900 or 2000 BCE or around 4,900 to 4,000 years ago. Fuxi was counted as the first mythical emperor of China, “a divine being with a serpent’s body” who was miraculously born, a Taoist deity, and/or a member of the Three Sovereigns at the beginning of the Chinese dynastic period. Some representations show him as a human with snake-like characteristics, “a leaf-wreathed head growing out of a mountain”, “or as a man clothed with animal skins.” ref 

24,000 Years Old Proto-North Eurasian Language (Ancient North Eurasian) migrations? Became: Proto-Afroasiatic, Proto-Sino-Tibetan, Proto-Transeurasian, Proto-Indo-European, Proto-Yeniseian, Proto-Na-Dene, Proto-Caucasian, Sumerian, Proto-Austronesian, and the Basque language

Twins as the Sacrifice?

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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“Sungir Grave 2 had two adolescent children placed head-to-head, together with an adult femur filled with red ochre, and were all adorned with elaborate grave goods that included ivory-beaded jewelry, clothing, and spears. The children are considered a twin burial, thought to have ritual purpose, possibly sacrifice. The findings of such complete skeletons are rare in late Stone Age, and indicate the high status of the male adult and children. The children had the same mtDNA, which may indicate the same maternal lineage, but new analyses determined they were not siblings. The site is one of the earliest examples of ritual burials and constitutes important evidence of the antiquity of human religious practices. The extraordinary collection of grave goods, the position of the bodies, and other factors all indicate it was a burial of high importance.” ref

“In 2017, researchers successfully sequenced the DNA of multiple individuals from Sungir (c. 34,000 years BP), including one from Burial 1 (Sunghir I) and three from Burial 2: the two adolescent burials (Sunghir II and Sunghir III) and the adult femur accompanying the burial (Sunghir IV). The younger adolescent from Burial 2, Sunghir III, yielded high coverage genomes. Sungir III was previously thought to be female; however, genetic analysis shows that all four of the tested individuals at Sungir were male. Contrary to previous interpretations of the burials, genetic analysis shows that none of the individuals are closely related (none of the individuals were third-degree relatives or closer).” ref

“However, when compared against other populations, the individuals at Sungir are genetically closest to each other. The individuals at Sungir show closest genetic affinity to the individuals from Kostenki, with closer affinity to the individual from Kostenki 12 than to the individual from Kostenki 14. The closer affinity between Kostenki 12 and Sungir individuals was mutual, with Kostenki 12 being closer to the Sungir remains than to Kostenki 14. The Sungir individuals are inferred to have descended from a lineage that was forming a sister branch to Kostenki 14.” ref

“The Sungir individuals also show close genetic affinity to various individuals belonging to Vestonice Cluster buried in a Gravettian context, such as those excavated from Dolní Věstonice. In terms of their Y-chromosome, they all belonged to a subclade of haplogroup C1 (C1a2), which was common among early West Eurasian specimens, such as the ones in Kostenki (C1b*), but today rare among Europeans. The maternal haplogroups of S I belonged to U8c, while S II, S III, and S IV belonged to a subclade of U2, which is close to the ones observed among the Kostenki specimens. DNA analysis on a medieval individual from the Sungir 6 site (730-850 cal BP) showed it to belong to the mtDNA haplogroup W3a1, and Y-DNA haplogroup I2a1b2 (I-A16681).” ref

34,000 years old Russan “Sungir” Early Totemistic-Shamanism

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Native American “fake twin babies” died 11,500 years ago in Alaska.

“DNA analysis of an infant and a pre-term fetus buried together in central Alaska 11,500 years ago provides a clearer picture of the genetic diversity present in the ancestors of Native Americans. The findings are significant because the date of the burials is only a few thousand years after the initial dispersal of people from Beringia into the Americas and there are few individuals dating prior to 8,000 years ago from which scientists have genetic data, Raff said.” ref

“The research fills a gap into the genetic record of populations that migrated from Siberia via the Bering Land Bridge before eventually spreading south across the Americas. The analysis of the two children’s mitochondrial genomes, which reveals a person’s lineage from the mother, revealed the children belonged to mitochondrial haplogroups C1b and B2, both of which are rare or absent in contemporary Alaskan populations in the region.” ref

“This shows us that not only was genetic diversity greater in this region in the past but is also consistent with predictions from the Beringian Standstill Hypothesis, a model that posits that a stable resident population containing the ancestors of contemporary Native Americans lived in Beringia for a period of time variously estimated at less than 8,000 years or as high as 15,000 years,” Raff said.” ref

“Archaeological and genetic records have consistently indicating the Bering Land Bridge served as the primary entry point from Asia to the Americas during the Late Pleistocene era; however, there are gaps in our knowledge. Rising sea levels have separated Alaska from Siberia and covered the land bridge, inundating likely sites of human occupation or burial or both. The two individuals were buried in a residential feature at the Upward Sun River site near the confluence of the Little Delta and Tanana rivers in central Alaska. A third individual — from whom DNA was not obtained for this study — was cremated at the site. Because the two children’s DNA belonged to separate mitochondrial haplogroups, they did not share the same mother.” ref

“This is the first time we’ve been able to look at DNA from multiple burials in such an early context in the Americas,” Raff said. “And these results give us an important insight into mortuary practices and ceremonial behavior. Namely, that children buried together didn’t necessarily have to be full siblings.” ref

“Future genetic testing would shed more insight into the infants’ biological relationships, including whether they shared the same father, she said. Raff added the identification of the two haplogroups are significant from burials dating so close to migration into Beringia because both groups, B2 and C1b, are commonly found in Native Americans populations that settled to the south across North and South America, though not present-day Alaska populations.  “We are very sure of where the ancestral gene pool of ancient Native Americans came from, but this is letting us get at some of the more fine details of the migration, such as timing,” she said.” ref

“Native Americans descend from people who first left Siberia and crossed the Bering Strait when sea levels were lower and the region formed a land bridge, sometime between 23,000 and 30,000 years ago. But the details and timing of that process are up for debate. During the last ice age, the Laurentide Ice Sheet covered all of Canada and blocked the entrance to North America as recently as 20,000 years ago. Many geneticists and archaeologists have suggested that the ancestors of Native Americans were stuck and therefore lingered in the region between Siberia and Southern Alaska, called Beringia for millennia — a theory called the Beringia standstill hypothesis.” ref

“Though northern Alaska is now an extremely forbidding environment, at that time, “there were pockets of tundra, and maybe even forests, that large mammals and humans could actually live in, and it wasn’t as harsh as it is nowadays,” Tackney said. “People could eat, find food and find freshwater and survive for thousands of years.” But archaeologists and geneticists don’t agree on just how long people were stuck in Beringia. And some have even argued that people came to North and South America in multiple migration waves, some of which didn’t pass through Beringia.” ref

“One reason for the uncertainty is that there are no human remains that date to the probable time of the migration, and no ancient human remains from anywhere near Beringia. The earliest human remains in North America come from a child, known as the Anzick Boy, who died 12,600 years ago in what is now Montana. Other ancient remains, such as those of the Kennewick Man found in Washington, are thousands of years younger.” ref

Ancient surprises

“The recently discovered remains, which are 11,600 years old, were uncovered deep in Alaska’s interior, at a site known as Upward Sun River. “This is the oldest human remain we’ve found so far north,” Tackney said. The site contained the burials of three children; a cremated 3-year-old; a premature baby; and a 6-week-old infant. The researchers analyzed the little ones’ mitochondrial DNA (DNA that is passed on from mothers to their children). It turned out that the two babies, originally believed to be twins, had different mothers. (The cremated baby had no usable DNA.) One of the babies had a genetic lineage, or haplogroup, known as C1b, whereas the other had a B2 lineage, the researchers reported today (Oct. 26) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Both lineages appear in modern Native Americans, but B2 has previously been found only in tribes that currently live farther south, such as the Navajo and the Anasazi of the American Southwest.” ref

“Because the B2 lineage is common in Native Americans but has never been found in modern-day northern Siberians or North American Indians at high latitudes, some researchers have proposed that one wave of migrants from Siberia colonized the Americas, while a second colonization wave carried the B2 lineage, said Connie Mulligan, a genetics professor at the University of Florida in Gainesville, who was not involved in the study. But the new findings nix that notion, she said. The new result “really solidifies the argument for a single migration by showing that all major New World mitochondrial haplogroups can be found in ancient populations in the New World at the right time and in the right place,” Mulligan told Live Science.” ref

“The genetic data suggests that the ancestors of modern people with the B2 lineage came across the Bering Strait, whereas their ancestral population in Siberia died out, she added. Still, the new study can’t settle the debate about how long people hung out in Beringia, Tackney said. Native Americans reached a site in southern Chile, called Monte Verde, 14,800 years ago, meaning the migration out of Beringia occurred at least 3,000 years before these ancient babies died. Completing the timeline for the settlement of the Americas would require finding older human remains in the Beringia heartland — which is unlikely, given that most of that territory is now covered by ocean, he said.” ref

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First Devine Couple Motif?

“Two Neolithic figurines a female and male (9000–7000 BCE or 11,00 to 9,000 years ago), gypsum with bitumen and stone inlays, excavated in Tell Fekheriye, in Syria, on/near the border of Turkey.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Sacrifice Couple/Fake Twins Motif?

“Téviec or Théviec is an island situated to the west of the isthmus of the peninsula of Quiberon, near Saint-Pierre-Quiberon in Brittany, France. The island is an important archaeological site due to its occupation during the Mesolithic period. Many archaeological finds have been made dating back to over 6,700 years before the present day, including the remains of over 20 people. One of the most remarkable finds was that of the grave of two young women who had apparently died violently but had received an elaborate burial under a “roof” of antlers, their bodies decorated with jewellery made from shells.” ref

“The island is one of only a few known Mesolithic sites in Brittany, along with Pointe de la Torche, Hoëdic and Beg er Vil on the Quiberon peninsula. During the Mesolithic period, the sea level was much lower – it was possible to walk from France to England – and Téviec was situated in a lagoon. Extensive middens were found near places of habitation on the island, containing the remains of shellfish, crustaceans, squid, fish, birds, cetaceans and terrestrial mammals including wild boar, red deer, roe deer, dogs and so on. The hunter-gatherers of Téviec buried their own dead in the middens. This helped to preserve the graves, as the carbonates from the shells in the middens insulated human bones from the acid soil. Many tools made of bone and antler were found along with numerous flint microliths. They were originally believed to date to 6575 years ago (± 350 years) but have now been dated to between 6740 and 5680 years ago. This indicates a longer occupation than previously thought, with its end coming at the beginning of the Neolithic period.” ref

“Ten multiple graves were discovered at Téviec containing a total of 23 individuals, including adults and children. Some of the remains were scattered between different locations. Several of those interred appear to have died violent deaths. One individual was found to have a flint arrowhead stuck in a vertebra. In another grave, the skeletons of two women aged 25–35, dubbed the “ladies of Téviec”, were found with signs of violence on both. One had sustained five blows to the head, two of which would have been fatal, and had received at least one arrow shot between the eyes. The other had also traces of injuries. However, this diagnosis is disputed by some archaeologists, who have suggested that the weight of earth above the grave may have been responsible for damaging the skeletons.” ref

“The bodies had been buried with great care in a pit that was partly dug into the ground and covered over with debris from the midden. They had been protected by a roof made of antlers and provided with a number of grave goods including pieces of flint and boar bones, and jewellery made of sea shells drilled and assembled into necklaces, bracelets and ringlets for the legs. The grave assemblage was excavated from the site in one piece and is now on display at the Muséum de Toulouse, where its restoration in 2010 earned a national award.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Sacrifice Couple Motif?

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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7,500-4,750 years old Ritualistic Cucuteni-Trypillian culture of Moldova, Romania, and Ukraine

The exchange of people, ideas, and material-culture including, to me, the new god (Sky Father) and goddess (Earth Mother) religion between the Cucuteni-Trypillians and others which is then spread far and wide?

First Yin and Yang Motif?

“Joseph Needham discusses yin and yang together with Five Elements as part of the School of Naturalists. He says that it would be proper to begin with yin and yang before Five Elements because the former: “lay, as it were, at a deeper level in Nature, and were the most ultimate principles of which the ancient Chinese could conceive. But it so happens that we know a good deal more about the historical origin of the Five-Element theory than about that of the yin and the yang, and it will therefore be more convenient to deal with it first.” ref

“He then discusses Zou Yan (鄒衍; 305–240 BCE) who is most associated with these theories. Although yin and yang are not mentioned in any of the surviving documents of Zou Yan, his school was known as the Yin Yang Jia (Yin and Yang School). Needham concludes “There can be very little doubt that the philosophical use of the terms began about the beginning of the 4th century, and that the passages in older texts which mention this use are interpolations made later than that time. “ ref

“Yin and yang are a concept that originated in ancient Chinese philosophy that describes how opposite or contrary forces may create each other by their comparison and are to be seen as actually complementary, interconnected, and interdependent in the natural world, and how they may give rise to each other as they interrelate to one another.” ref

“In Daoist philosophy, dark and light, yin and yang, arrive in the Tao Te Ching at chapter 42.^[27] It becomes sensible from an initial quiescence or emptiness (wuji, sometimes symbolized by an empty circle), and continues moving until quiescence is reached again. For instance, dropping a stone in a calm pool of water will simultaneously raise waves and lower troughs between them, and this alternation of high and low points in the water will radiate outward until the movement dissipates and the pool is calm once more.” ref

“Yin and yang thus are always opposite and equal qualities and create and control each other. Whenever one quality reaches its peak, it will naturally begin to transform into the opposite quality: for example, grain that reaches its full height in summer (fully yang) will produce seeds and die back in winter (fully yin) in an endless cycle.” ref

“It is impossible to talk about yin or yang without some reference to the opposite, traditionally it is said that Yin and Yang are known by the comparison of each other, since yin and yang are bound together as parts of a mutual whole (for example, there cannot be the bottom of the foot without the top). A way to illustrate this idea is to postulate the notion of a race with only women or only men; this race would disappear in a single generation. Yet, women and men together create new generations that allow the race they mutually create (and mutually come from) to survive. The interaction of the two (Heaven and Earth) gives birth to human and therefore the ten thousand things. “ ref

“Yin and yang transform each other: like an undertow in the ocean, every advance is complemented by a retreat, and every rise transforms into a fall. Thus, a seed will sprout from the earth and grow upwards towards the sky—an intrinsically yang movement. Then, when it reaches its full potential height, it will fall. The growth of the top seeks light, while roots grow in darkness.” ref

“The cycles of the seasons and of plants that progresses or entropies depending on the season. In summer it seeks to procure healthier leaves, whittling (entropy) of the plant is in autumn, the degrown plants (destruction) is in winter, growth (creating) of the plant or tree during spring. Where it’s gaining or progressing, fully progressed occurs during summer, summer seeks stability as it seeks to keep (progress) the leaves and branches that are healthy, growth and progress reaching its end point of a cycle. Creation as part of yang, and destruction as part of yin, progress on one side (yang) and entropy on the other side (yin), is represented in the cycles.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Devine Couple Motif?

“”

Sky Father/Sky Mother “High Gods” or similar gods/goddesses of the sky more loosely connected, seeming arcane mythology across the earth seen in Siberia, China, Europe, Native Americans/First Nations People and Mesopotamia, etc.

Shapeshifters: found among Totemists, Shamanists, and Paganists?

Duality Deity?

“The archetype for characters that a duality deity. Dual God, Gods of Duality, Balance, Equilibrium, and/or Opposites. The Divine Balancer. With this (Shapeshifter) ability either is or can transform into a duality deity, a god/goddess who represents or is associated with duality, balance, equilibrium, and opposites. Deities of this type are usually two deity types in one. For example, if a duality deity personifies goodness and benevolence, then said deity would also personify evil and malevolence. Other examples could exist, such as a creator deity who also is a destroyer deity. A deity only needs to personify two opposite concepts to be considered a duality deity. Duality deities were not common in mythology but were important among ancient and current civilizations.” ref

• “Duality Embodiment
• Absolute Immortality/Death Manipulation (Life/Death)
• Absolute Restoration/Destruction (Break/Repair)
• Age Shifting/Manipulation (Young/Old)
• Beginning/Conclusion Dominance (Beginning/Ending)
• Boundary Perception (By Nature)
• Boundary Restoration (Altered/Unaltered)
• Causality Manipulation (Cause/Effect)
• Change/Stagnation (Alternation/Uniformity)
• Circadian Manipulation (Day/Night)
• Complete Arsenal (All/None)
• Creation/Destruction (Unity/Division)
• Death Inducement/Resurrection (Life/Death)
• Deification (Man/God)
• Distance Manipulation (Near/Far)
• Existence/Nothingness Manipulation (Existence/Nonexistence)
• Fiction/Real World Manipulation (Fake/Real)
• Immutability (Alteration/Preservation)
• Infinite Supply (Zero/Infinity)
• Inner God (Inner/Outer)
• Logic Manipulation (Possible/Impossible)
• Luck (Success/Failure)
• Manipulations (Inertia/Control)
• Meta Power Manipulation (Able/Unable)
• Meta Powers (Meta/Hypo)
• Meta Probability Manipulation (Possible/Certain)
• Meta Summoning/Banishment (Come/Leave)
• Meta Teleportation (Here/There)
• Moral Manipulation (Moral/Immoral)
• Omniarch (Freedom/Obedience)
• Omnicide (Kill/Survive)
• Omnicompetence (Capable/Incapable)
• Omnicounter (Opposites/Similarities)
• Omnifarious (Alteration/Restoration)
• Omnificence and Absolute Erasure (Creation/Erasure)
• Omnilingualism (Spoken/Heard)
• Omnilock (Connection/Separation)
• Omnipresence (Nowhere/Everywhere)
• Omniscience/Omninesience (Knowledge/Ignorance)
• Oneiric Reality Manipulation (Dreams/Reality)
• Paralysis Inducement (Motion/Stillness)
• Phenomenon Manipulation (Science/Magic)
• Physical Godhood (Wave/Particle)
• Portal Creation (Connection/Separation)
• Power Augmentation/Limitation Inducement (Strong/Weak)
• Power Immunity (Susceptible/Immune)
• Power Negation (Omnipotence/Impotence)
• Reality Warping/Subjective Reality (Fantasy/Reality)
• Reflective Immutability (Self/Others)
• Reversed Effect (Defeat/Victory)
• Rule Bending (Confinement/Freedom)
• Self-Sustenance (Awake/Asleep)
• Singularity/Omnifarious (Unique/Common)
• Supernatural Manipulation (Natural/Unnatural)
• Superpower Manipulation and Evolution (Old/New)
• Time Manipulation (Past/Present/Future)
• Truth Manipulation (Truth/Lies)
• Ultimate Intangibility (Touchable/Untouchable)
• Ultimate Invincibility (Beatable/Unbeatable)
• Unity (Something/Everything)
• Variable Manipulation (More/Less)
• Vector Manipulation/Power Echo (Origin/Destination)
• Virtual Warping (Reality/Virtuality)
• Wound/Death Transferal (Self/Others)

“In mythology, folklore and speculative fiction, shapeshifting is the ability to physically transform oneself through unnatural means. The idea of shapeshifting is found in the oldest forms of totemism and shamanism, as well as the oldest existent literature and epic poems such as the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Iliad. The concept remains a common literary device in modern fantasy, children’s literature and popular culture. Examples of shapeshifters are vampires and werewolves.” ref

“Examples of shapeshifting in classical literature include many examples in Ovid‘s Metamorphoses, Circe‘s transforming of Odysseus‘ men to pigs in Homer‘s The Odyssey, and Apuleius‘s Lucius becoming a donkey in The Golden Ass. Proteus was known among the gods for his shapeshifting; both Menelaus and Aristaeus captured him to obtain information, and they succeeded only by holding on through his many transformations. Nereus told Heracles where to find the Apples of the Hesperides for the same reason.” ref

“The Oceanid Metis, the first wife of Zeus and the mother of the goddess Athena, was believed to be able to change her appearance into anything she wanted. In one story, her pride led Zeus to trick her into transforming into a fly. He then swallowed her because he feared that he and Metis would have a son who would be more powerful than Zeus himself. Metis, however, was already pregnant. She stayed alive inside his head and built an armor for her daughter. The banging of her metalworking made Zeus have a headache, so Hephaestus clove his head with an axe. Athena sprang from her father’s head, fully grown, and in battle armor.” ref

“In Greek mythology, the transformation is often a punishment from the gods to humans who crossed them.

• Zeus transformed King Lycaon and his children into wolves (hence lycanthropy) as a punishment for either killing Zeus’ children or serving him the flesh of Lycaon’s own murdered son Nyctimus, depending on the exact version of the myth.
• Ares assigned Alectryon to keep watch for Helios the sun god during his affair with Aphrodite, but Alectryon fell asleep, leading to their discovery and humiliation that morning. Ares turned Alectryon into a rooster, which always crows to signal the morning and the arrival of the sun.
• Demeter transformed Ascalabus into a lizard for mocking her sorrow and thirst during her search for her daughter Persephone. She also turned King Lyncus into a lynx for trying to murder her prophet Triptolemus.
• Athena transformed Arachne into a spider for challenging her as a weaver and/or weaving a tapestry that insulted the gods. She also turned Nyctimene into an owl, though in this case it was an act of mercy, as the girl wished to hide from the daylight out of shame of being raped by her father.
• Artemis transformed Actaeon into a stag for spying on her bathing, and he was later devoured by his hunting dogs.
• Galanthis was transformed into a weasel or cat after interfering in Hera‘s plans to hinder the birth of Heracles.
• Atalanta and Hippomenes were turned into lions after making love in a temple dedicated to Zeus or Cybele.
• Io was a priestess of Hera in Argos, a nymph who was raped by Zeus, who changed her into a heifer to escape detection.
• Hera punished young Tiresias by transforming him into a woman and, seven years later, back into a man.
• King Tereus, his wife Procne, and her sister Philomela were all turned into birds (a hoopoe, a swallow and a nightingale respectively), after Tereus raped Philomela and cut out her tongue, and in revenge she and Procne served him the flesh of his murdered son Itys (who in some variants is resurrected as a goldfinch).
• Callisto was turned into a bear by either Artemis or Hera for being impregnated by Zeus.
• Selene transformed Myia into a fly when she became a rival for the love of Endymion.” ref

“While the Greek gods could use transformation punitively – such as Medusa, who turned to a monster for having sexual intercourse (raped in Ovid’s version) with Poseidon in Athena‘s temple – even more frequently, the tales using it are of amorous adventure.” ref

“Zeus repeatedly transformed himself to approach mortals as a means of gaining access:^[2]

• Danaë as a shower of gold
• Europa as a bull
• Leda as a swan
• Ganymede, as an eagle
• Alcmene as her husband Amphitryon
• Hera as a cuckoo
• Aegina as an eagle or a flame
• Persephone as a serpent
• Io, as a cloud
• Callisto as either Artemis or Apollo
• Nemesis (Goddess of retribution) transformed into a goose to escape Zeus‘ advances, but he turned into a swan. She later bore the egg in which Helen of Troy was found.

• Vertumnustransformed himself into an old woman to gain entry to Pomona‘s orchard; there, he persuaded her to marry him.
• In other tales, the woman appealed to other gods to protect her from rape, and was transformed (Daphneinto laurel, Corone into a crow). Unlike Zeus and other gods’ shapeshifting, these women were permanently metamorphosed.
• In one tale, Demetertransformed herself into a mare to escape Poseidon, but Poseidon counter-transformed himself into a stallion to pursue her, and succeeded in the rape. Caenis, having been raped by Poseidon, demanded of him that she be changed to a man. He agreed, and she became Caeneus, a form he never lost, except, in some versions, upon death.
• Clytiewas a nymph who loved Helios, but he did not love her back. Desperate, she sat on a rock with no food or water for nine days looking at him as he crossed the skies, until she was transformed into a purple, sun-gazing flower, the heliotropium.
• As a final reward from the gods for their hospitality, Baucis and Philemonwere transformed, at their deaths, into a pair of trees.
• Eos, the goddess of the dawn, secured immortality for her lover the Trojanprince Tithonus, but not eternal youth, so he aged without dying as he shriveled and grew more and more helpless. In the end, Eos transformed him into a cicada.
• In some variants of the tale of Narcissus, he is turned into a narcissus ” ref

Gods with two faces/ Dual divinities?

“Mythology is literally littered with two-faced gods: Janus (Roman), Duir (‘Thor’, Nordic), Hercules (Greek), Llyr (‘Lear’, Anglo-Saxon). Being two-faced, these gods function as time-binders. They look back on the past and forward to the future, simultaneously. That simultaneity is what we call the present.” ref

Two-faced gods are best thought of as ‘doors’: Duir (Old Norse) =  Door (English). Hercules is the ‘doorkeeper of the gods’.  These gods bind past and future in the present; but as ‘doors’ they also regulate the flow of ‘traffic’, i.e., of time. They set its pace, opening wide to allow the past to flow into the future, then closing a bit to slow down that flow and to prevent ‘regurgitation’, aka time travel.” ref

“Think of the Godhead as a sophisticated grid of traffic lights, data driven to optimize the flow of traffic, moment-by-moment, in some major metropolis. NYC could sure benefit from a taste of the Divine…perhaps in more ways than one. Note: Christians especially should be comfortable with this metaphor. After all, Logos (Ancient Greek) = ‘grid’ (English).” ref

“‘Divine doors’ are usually portrayed as males, but they are very often partnered with goddesses who function as their ‘divine hinges’. Janus, for example, is associated with the goddess Cardea, aka Eurynome, aka Rhea (in Crete). Janus is the door through which the old must pass in order to become new; Cardea is the hinge that enables and regulates Janus. Conjecture: Perhaps, ab initio all gods are two – faced. It may be a defining characteristic of Godhead, and that’s not blasphemy! Even YHWH binds time: “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.” (Exodus 3: 6)” ref

“In Egyptian myth, Ra is the creator sun god. He ruled over earth and lived among its people but as he aged, humans began to plot against him. Angry, Ra summoned a retinue of gods to his assistance. One god advisedRa to send his divine eye, goddess Hathor, to destroy all mankind. Hathor in the Egyptian pantheon is known as the patroness of lovers. But she is a goddess who can change her form to suit the need of the hour. And as Ra’s private one-woman army, she turned into Sekhmet, a raging lioness who slaughtered rebellious humans and waded in their blood. Her bloodthirst was so insatiable that she refused to give up even when Ra sought to end the destruction. Finally,through an ingenious trick,Sekhmet was drawn away and transformed once more into the beautiful Hathor.” ref

“In India, Kali is a similarly complex goddess. She is a form of Durgawho, in turn, is a form of Parvati.But,like all other Indian myths, there are as many interpretations as there are myths about the origins, forms and roles of these threedevis. One strand places Kali, Durga and Parvatias different forms of one goddess – Kali being the most ferocious and violent and Parvati the least.Another version makes out Kali to be the archetype of all fearful goddesses in the Indian pantheon. According to some, Kali emerges from Durga’s forehead, just as Hathor does from Ra’s eye. Whatever the myth we choose to believe, Kali is universally regarded as a demon slayer. She went on a rampage against asuraswho were intent on destroying the cosmic order. But she got drunk on their blood and was unable to stop even when the gods entreated her. Worried that the world would come to an end, Shiva decided to step in. He layprostrate in her path. Kali stumbled upon him and, on realising that she had committed the sin of standing on her husband’s body,was transfixed to the spot with her tongue sticking out and a garland of skulls around her neck. In Bengal, she is worshipped inthis form even today.” ref

“Ancient goddesses are double-edged divinities; they wear many faces and can be both benign and ruthless. The same is true of nature, who is also worshipped as a goddess in many civilisations. In India she is Prakruti, who along with Purush (mankind) is one of the primal forces of the universe. In Greek myths, she is Gaia, daughter of Chaos and wife of Uranus. The survival and destruction of mankind are both dependent on her will as was made chillingly evident in the recent devastation in the north Indian hills. Thousands are still missing and many more are dead.” ref

“The power to create and demolish is not the preserve of goddesses alone. A similarduality can be found in the Rig Veda where Mitra and his companion Varuna are worshipped as one. The two, although the later Indian texts tend to obliterate Mitra, control the order of nature. Varuna-Mitra is known to be harsh and ruthless towards those who disturb nature’s innate balance.” ref

“The principle of duality that we ascribe to ancient divinities is perhaps a remnant of the creation myths. According to Indian, Chinese, Egyptian and Aztec mythologies, the beginning of the universe is associated with a cataclysmic event or chaos. Remember Big Bang? Thus, destruction and creation, death and life, light and dark, chaos and order are parts of the same whole.” ref

“In the case of goddesses with a dual character, there is no good or evil. But, that’s not the same for Vedic duo Varuna-Mitra. The two are said to punish sinners and reward the faithful. And this is how many commentators have interpreted the events at Kedarnath and Badrinath. Their contention: nature has unleashed her fury against man for his sins. Maybe she did, but an interpretation that classifies nature as a goddess who punishes evil and rewards good ignores the tradition of duality in ancient cultures, especially Indian. Perhaps, this springs from greater emphasis on prayer and rituals instead of understanding the gods. Thus, in the aftermath of the disaster, there is a general rush to ensure that the prayers are restarted at the temples but very little discussion on why there was a catastrophe and how it can be avoided in the future.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Devine Couple Motif?

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Devine Couple Motif?

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Devine Couple Motif?