From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
It's kind of self apparent that eggs would be a part of Spring festivals, and that evergreen trees part of Winter festivals, at least in northern climes!
And religions borrow things from previous religions, and why not?...even the communist atheist in Russia tried to replace abolished religious festivals with something, least the populace get restless...
communist festivals replacing religious festivals
The Communists made atheism compulsory for party members, and developed Communist alternatives to important religious occasions in people’s lives. They intended the Soviet versions of weddings, funerals, festivals and holidays to replace the observances and ceremonies in daily life customarily led by religion. In addition, from 1925, the League of the Militant Godless conducted a campaign against religious observance, by making a joke of religious holidays and publishing anti-religious pamphlets.
What Happened to Religion During the Communist Rule of Russia?
by Rita Kennedy, Demand Media
http://classroom.synonym.com/happened-religion-during-communist-rule-russia-8352.html
Religions have any number of ways of starting up, and can be very big or very small...somewhere out in the few remaining wildernesses in the world they're may be an undiscovered tribe that has a take on things, a religion, that's THE take...hopefully it's funny...the doom and gloom ones get wearisome!
anyway, got diverted by eggs and evergreens...wanted to make mention of Cybele...
Cybele
In Greece, Cybele met with a mixed reception. She was partially assimilated to aspects of the Earth-goddess
Gaia, her
Minoan equivalent
Rhea, and the Harvest-Mother goddess
Demeter. Some city-states, notably
Athens, evoked her as a protector, but her most celebrated Greek rites and processions show her as an essentially foreign, exotic mystery-goddess who arrives in a lion-drawn chariot to the accompaniment of wild music, wine, and a disorderly, ecstatic following. Uniquely in Greek religion, she had a
transgender or
eunuch mendicant priesthood.
[1] Many of her Greek cults included rites to a divine Phrygian castrate shepherd-consort
Attis, who was probably a Greek invention. In Greece, Cybele is associated with mountains, town and city walls, fertile nature, and wild animals, especially lions.
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Rome seems to have introduced evergreen cones (pine or fir) to Cybele's iconography, based at least partly on Rome's "Trojan ancestor" myth, in which the goddess gave Aeneas her sacred tree for shipbuilding. The evergreen cones probably originated as symbols of Attis's death and rebirth
Cybele
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Somewhere I have it that St. Peters was built atop old Rome's temple to Cybele...
St. Peters Cybele
During the trials of the Second Punic War, the ancient image of Magna Mater or Cybele was relocated to Rome about 204 B.C. and was carefully moved by the matrons of Rome to the Temple of Victoria on the Palantine Hill until a Metroon was built in 191 B.C. With this, Rome unleashed mystic and syncretic forces we will never fully understand.
... ... ...
This exotic cult thus enjoyed the support of the state and its ceremonial temple is where St. Peter's now stands.
Mother Earth in Rome
Cybele's followers were a wild sort...to show their devotion, male priests would castrate themselves, which needless to say, is a grim thing to consider, though it comes to mind that circumcision has a kind of 'why are you messing with that?' to it too...and Jesus had a take on eunuchs...
early Christian castration
More interesting for our discussion today were those eunuchs "who made themselves eunuchs for the sake" — well, not of heaven in a Jewish sense, but of heaven in the form of a goddess. I am referring to the galli or galloi, known also from countless historical sources, the eunuch followers of a range of fertility goddesses in the ancient Mediterranean. Countless sources, yes; transparent sources, no. The sources we have for the self-castration of the galli come from a variety of independent accounts, so they are reliable in a general sense, but some of the accounts are hostile and others are ignorant, so they are not so reliable in specific details. Here is what I have reconstructed from the records I have used and from the work of other scholars: the galli, whose name is given several different origins, were men who castrated themselves in honor of a fertility goddess. That goddess is most often referred to as Cybele/Kubala, a Phrygian goddess who may have Hittite origins, but she is also referred to by a host of other names, including as the Mother of the Gods (Mater Deum), as the Great Mother (Magna Mater), and as the Heavenly One (Caelestis). She was identified with many goddesses, especially Aphrodite and Isis. She had a consort: often named Attis, but also called Adonis and Osiris. In the syncretic religious atmosphere of late antiquity, it was common to associate gods and goddesses of different cultural origins together as variant names for the same beings, which probably explains the confusion of names.
Kuelfer: The Practice of Self-Castration in Early Christianity
On one festival day the followers of Cybele would self mutilate themselves, not to the extent of castration, but cutting themselves about the arms and chest...sometimes in acting out the death of Christ in festivals, people do this too, recollecting the wounds Jesus suffered...but on reading this, the Islamic festival where they cut themselves came to mind...
islam festival self mutilation
Certain traditional flagellation rituals such as Talwar zani (talwar ka matam or sometimes tatbir) use a sword. Other rituals such as zanjeer zani or zanjeer matam involve the use of a zanjeer (a chain with blades).[43]
These religious customs show solidarity with Husayn and his family. Through them, people mourn Husayn's death and regret the fact that they were not present at the battle to fight and save Husayn and his family
Day of Ashura
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I don't think this search will work...Ashura, and the self mutilation practices of Cybele's followers seem far afield different, but, lemmesseee...
Cybele ashura
Christianity isn't the only religion to practice self-flagellation. Many Shia Muslims commemorate the holiday of Ashura, which marks the death of Muhammad's grandson Hussein, by whipping their own backs with bunched knives known as zanjirs. The Hindu festival of Thaipusam includes a ritual known as kavadi in which people pierce their bodies with skewers and hooks. Native American sun dances have sometimes involved piercing and suspension by flesh. Tribal rites of passage in Africa and South America often involve circumcision without anesthetics.
well, that wasn't a good 'cast'...but what was fished up is a comment thread going on about self mutilation...from a gun forum no less...don't know but guns and tattoos are a kind of self mutilation!
anyway, thought is that the Ashura self mutilation is a snycretic carry over from the worship of many named Cybele in Arabia...
Cybele Arabia Mecca
The earliest reference we have to a goddess worshipped as a cube-shaped stone is from neolithic Anatolia. Alternatively, 'Kubaba' may mean a hollow vessel or cave - which would still be a supreme image of the goddess. The ideograms for Kubaba in the Hittite alphabet are a lozenge or cube, a double-headed axe, a dove, a vase and a door or gate - all images of the goddess in neolithic Europe. Deities of other cultures known to have been associated with black stones include Aphrodite at Paphos, Cybele at Pessinus and later Rome, Astarte at Byblos and the famous Artemis/Diana of Ephesus. The latter's most ancient sculpture was, it is said, carved from a black meteorite. The earliest form of Cybele's name may have been Kubaba or Kumbaba which suggests Humbaba, who was the guardian of the forest in the Epic of Gilgamesh - the world's oldest recorded myth from Assyria of circa 2,500 BCE and, as scholars reveal more of the text as the source of most of the major mythological themes of later civilizations. The origin of Kubaba may have been kube or kuba meaning 'cube'.
The Black Stone of Mecca
hmmph...on reading about Cybele, I'd taken note that she had a meteorite for a holy symbol, so no surprise in this roundabout I happen on Mecca and the Black Stone!
Cybele meteorite
At some unknown early time a meteoric stone fell near to Pessinus. It was taken to the shrine of Cybele, and there set up and worshipped as her image. This image and its worship very early attained a wide celebrity. About two hundred years before Christ, in the time of the second Punic war, the stone was transported to Rome. The detailed history of the transfer is given by several writers in varied terms. It forms one of Livy's charming stories, it is told in poetic terms by Ovid, it is given as a tradition by Herodian. For every detail of the history I do not ask confiding belief, but the principal event is, I suppose, historically true.
THE WORSHIP OF METEORITES.[*]
by Professor Hubert A. Newton.
hmmph...too long a post!...and I found a bit about Pine Cones...tomorrowmorrow!
DavidDavid
