Triune goddess
Triune goddess denotes a religious concept according to which the mother goddess is worshiped in three different manifestations (aspects), and which is also taken up in Neopaganism (neo-paganism).
As a modern concept, the Triune Goddess goes back essentially to the English poet Robert Graves, who made it the subject of his mythological - poetological essay The White Goddess , published in 1948 (German 1985: Die Weisse Göttin ). He also gave this universal mother goddess the name White Goddess .
Robert Graves and the "White Goddess"
The writer Robert Graves (1895–1985) asserts the existence of a (at least) pan-European cult of a Triune Goddess and formulates a central myth on which this cult is based . In it, the hero meets the goddess in three forms, once as a virgin , then as a mother and finally as an old woman . This black woman embodies death and gives death to the hero, who in his role as god of the year or king of the year fits into the cycle of growth and decay in the annual cycle (compare the Celtic annual cycle ).
None of these concepts is an invention of Graves, rather, the year King already is at a central point in the theories of the Scottish anthropologist James Frazer , he in his magnum opus "1890 The Golden Bough " (The Golden Bough) executed. Such theories can also be found with other scholars from the group of so-called "Cambridge Ritualists". One of these was Jane Ellen Harrison (1850–1928), who in her writings refers, for example, to the group of three Greek Hors , which are supposed to correspond to the three phases of the moon: increasing , full moon and waning phase . Harrison also claims that there are tripartite groups of deities ( triads ) only in female deities , for example in the case of the Roman Parzen , the Greek Moiren or the Celtic-Roman-Germanic matrons (see also Nordic Norns and Slavic Zorya ). The same principle also applies to tripartite deities such as the Greek Hecate . Graves took over and from there the three-figure (moon) goddess found her way to the supporters of the new religious (neopagan) Wicca movement.
Grave's achievement does not lie in the discovery of lost religious concepts, but in the fact that he formed a coherent synthesis from various elements that had been provided between 1890 and 1920 , which was applicable and transformable. How that went, Graves showed in his 1955 published magazine The Greek Myths (German 1964: Greek mythology ), in which he called myths of Greek mythology, retold, in the apparatus but then except indication of sources of the myth of an interpretation in the reference system of the White Goddess gave . In the learned world, Graves' conclusions continued to be rejected, and in particular his idiosyncratic interpretation of Greek myths met with fundamental criticism.
Marija Gimbutas and the "Goddess of Ancient Europe"
Even if the readers of the writer Robert Graves were not deterred by technical criticism and scientific evidence was not the primary aim of Graves' writing, the lack of a scientific basis for the cult of the Triune Goddess was seen as a major deficiency.
The Lithuanian anthropologist and archaeologist Marija Gimbutas (1921–1994) tried to provide a scientific empirical foundation . From 1974 onwards she published a number of studies and writings in which she attempted to prove a culture that existed in south-east Europe and that consisted of between 6500 and 3500 BC. Existed. It was a mother-centered ( matriarchal ) peaceful culture that extended without wars, weapons and rivalry in what she called “ Old Europe ” from the Danube region to the Ukraine and from southern Italy over the Aegean to the Black Sea , led by wise women and united in the worship of the universal Mother Goddess . In her investigations, Gimbutas concentrated not only on diverse relics and ornamental patterns but also on Neolithic female figures, which she interpreted as goddesses. More precisely, Gimbutas captured this as a single goddess in her three aspects of life, death, and rebirth.
Similar symbols, which could be detected in many places, divided gimbutas into three basic groups:
- Life = water symbols: water birds, snakes, fish, frogs, zigzag ribbons, groups of parallel lines, meanders , nets and running spirals
- Death = the "white woman" accompanied by owls and vultures
- Rebirth = symbols of renewal and transcendence: egg , uterus , phallus , vertebrae, crescent moon, cattle horns
This European civilization idyll was then around 3500 BC. Was destroyed by the inflowing, warlike " Kurgan people ". These pastoral peoples, who came with their horses from the steppes of Asia, gradually conquered territories, killed residents and established their system of rule of patriarchy (patriarchal law).
Although the writings of Gimbutas were initially willingly received, especially by sections of feminism , there was also fierce feminist criticism, for example from Susan Binford in 1982: “The myth of Eve's apple, Pandora's box and Freud's penis envy has been replaced by the myth of former matriarchal greatness and the destruction of the mother goddess. ” Gimbutas was also heavily criticized in archeology , mainly because of the subjectivity of their interpretations and the lack of verifiability of their theses.
Wicca and popular culture
At first little attention was paid to the white goddess until the concepts were adopted in neo-paganism (neo-paganism), especially in the Wicca worldview established by Gerald Gardner (friend of Graves) . Scientific criticism did nothing to diminish the integration of the goddess into modern neo-paganism.
In Wicca, the goddess is embodied as a trinity, consisting of maiden (virgin), mother (mother) and crone (old woman) by the high priestess of the coven (witch circle). The virgin corresponds to the color white , the mother the color red (also as an association with menstrual blood ), and the old woman the color black (corresponding to death). In the Wicca cult, the male counterpart of the goddess is the horned god , to whom the hero corresponds in the original myth designed by Graves and who finds death through the goddess, renews himself and rises again in the annual cycle.
In the novel series The Song of Ice and Fire (from 1996) by the American writer George RR Martin and the TV series Game of Thrones based on it , the virgin , mother and old woman are three aspects of the religion of " belief in the seven ".
See also
- Great Mother (earth goddesses, fertility goddesses)
- Magna Mater ("Great Mother": name of the ancient goddess Cybele)
- Trinity (Trinity)
literature
- Marija Gimbutas : The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe. 1974 (English). German: Goddesses and Gods in Ancient Europe - Myths and Cult Images 6500 to 3500 BC Chr. Arun, Uhlstädt-Kirchhasel 2010, ISBN 978-3-86663-043-7 .
- Marija Gimbutas: The Language of the Goddess. 1989 (English). German: The language of the goddess - the buried symbol system of western civilization. Two thousand and one, Frankfurt / M. 1995, ISBN 3-86150-120-1 .
- Marija Gimbutas: The Civilization of the Goddess. 1991 (English). English: The civilization of the goddess - The world of old Europe. Two thousand and one, Frankfurt / M. 1996, ISBN 3-86150-121-X .
- Robert Graves : The White Goddess. Faber & Faber, London 1948 (English). German: The white goddess. Rowohlt, Reinbek 1999, ISBN 3-499-55416-X .
- Robert Graves: The Greek Myths. 1955 (English). German: Greek mythology - sources and interpretation. Rowohlt, Reinbek 2007, ISBN 978-3-499-55404-9 .
- Brigitte Röder , Juliane Hummel, Brigitta Kunz: Göttinnendämmerung: The matriarchy from an archaeological point of view. Klein Königsförde / Krummwisch, Königsfurt 2001, ISBN 3-933939-27-5 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Jane Ellen Harrison: Themis - A Study of the Social Origins of Greek Religion. Cambridge 1912, p. 189 (English; digitized version ).
- ^ Jan Ellen Harrison: Prolegomena to the study of the Greek religion. 1903, p. 284 ( digitized version ).
- ^ Robin Hard in: The Routledge Handbook of Greek mythology. London 2004, p. 690, quotation: “As for the explanatory notes, they are either the greatest single contribution that has ever been made to the interpretation of Greek myth or else a farrago of cranky nonsense; I fear that it would be impossible to find any classical scholar who would agree with the former diagnosis. "
- ↑ Brigitte Röder among others: Göttinnendämmerung - The matriarchy from an archaeological point of view. Klein Königsförde / Krummwisch, Königsfurt 2001, ISBN 3-933939-27-5 , p. 272.
- ↑ Quoted in: Brigitte Röder among others: Göttinnendämmerung - Das Matriarchat from an archaeological point of view. Klein Königsförde / Krummwisch, Königsfurt 2001, ISBN 3-933939-27-5 , p. 291.
- ↑ Wiki entry: Religion, Groupings: Belief in the Seven. In: A Song of Ice and Fire Wiki. Retrieved March 25, 2020.