Hinduism

Hinduism is the oldest world religion. With 1.2 billion followers, it is the third largest after Christianity and Islam. Most Hindus live in the Indian subcontinent, where their faith began. the Hindu symbol (above) is the word ‘Aum’ in Devanagari script, ostensibly the sound uttered at the dawn of our world. 

Strictly speaking, Hinduism is not a single ‘religion’. It has no founder, doctrine, creed or holy book. Rather, ‘Hinduism’ is an umbrella term for spiritual traditions originating in South Asia. The faith includes hundreds of different sects, each with its own rituals and understanding of the world. What unites Hindus are common beliefs, these include:

• Reincarnation (samsara) – you are reborn in another body when you die. The human soul (atman) is immortal. 
• Karma – actions have consequences in this life and the next. 
• Dharma – good karma is best attained by following one’s moral duty. Henotheism – collective atman, and the gods themselves, are manifestations of the ultimate reality (brahman). 

Buddhism and Jainism, which derrived from Hinduism, share belief in reincarnation and karma.

Mahatma Gandhi: 

“The chief value of Hinduism lies in holding the actual belief that all life (not only human beings, but all sentient beings) is one … coming from the One universal source, call it Allah, God or Parameshwara.’ 

The Vedas are the oldest Hindu text. Written between 1200 – 800 BC, they introduce the earliest Hindu deities, especially Indra, god of rain, and hymns and chants in their honour. Hinduism grew out of the Vedic religion. 

Although lacking a single scripture, several ancient texts, written in Sanskrit, continue to influence Hindu thought: 

• The Upanishads – basis of Hindu philosophy. 
• The Puranas – myths, legends and cosmology. 
• The Ramayana – an epic poem about Rama and Sita 
• The Mahabharata – an epic poem 3x the length of the Bible. 
• The Bhavagad Gita – a discourse between the warrior Arjuna and Krishna on ethics, morality and dharma. Part of the Mahabharata. 

The Trimurti are the three main gods of Hinduism. They are Brahma, the creator, Vishnu, the preserver and Shiva, the destroyer. As Brahma no longer intervenes in the world – his work being complete – only Vishnu and Shiva are actively worshipped; by Vaishnavis and Shaivites respectively. 

Vishnu incarnates into human form to restore the world’s balance in times of need, most famously as Rama, Krishna, and the Buddha. At the end of our age, Shiva will destroy the world, allowing its rebirth, and continuing a cycle which goes on forever.

The Caste System divides people into an ordained hierarchy based on birth, determining their work and who they can marry – one’s caste depends on karma attained in past lives. Before the modern era, those outside the system were ‘untouchable’, though the term dalit is now preferred. While the caste system arguably dates to Vedic times, it took its current form in the British Raj. 

Hinduism once dominated Southeast Asia, laying the foundations of Cambodian, Malay and Javanese civilisation. While most of Southeast Asia is now Muslim or Buddhist, it home to ruins of Hindu temples such as Angkor Wat. Hinduism still thrives on the island of Bali, Indonesia. In modern times, it spreads mainly through Indian migration. Hindus are a sizeable proportion of Bangladesh, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana and Fiji. Mauritius is the only Hindu-majority country outside of Asia.

The authors of the Puranas reckoned the world was 4.32 billion years old, an estimate closer to that of modern science than any other tradition.

Sources: Mainly Rachel Dwyer – What do Hindus Believe? (2008)

Norse Mythology

Norse Mythology is the body of pre-Christian stories from Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Iceland. After the Classical tradition, Norse mythology is the best preserved in Europe. Reaching their heyday in the Viking age, tales of the Norse gods still influence film and literature today.

Norse mythology comes from the northern branch of the paganism once followed in Germany, Scandinavia and England, and is by far the most extensive and best preserved. 

Snorri Sturlusson, an Icelandic priest and politician, recorded the old oral tales in the Prose Edda in the 13th century. Unlike the monks who recorded the Slavic and Celtic myths around the same time, Sturlusson did not overtly Christianise this subject matter but told the Norse stories as is. We therefore know far more about them today.

The Poetic Edda, recorded in the same time, is a compilation of 31 poems by unknown authors and a key source.

Norse mythology preserves many old Indo-European motifs, including:

• a world tree
• a hound at the gates of the underworld
• dragon slaying heroes
• the wild hunt
• a prominant thunder god

Yggdrasil is the tree at the centre of the universe. A dragon called the Niddhog gnaws at its roots and from it forms nine worlds:

• Asgard – home of the Aesir
• Vanaheim – home of the Vanir
• Alfheim – home of the light elves
• Dokkalfheim – home of the dark elves
• Midgard – our world
• Jotunheim – home of the giants
• Svartalfheim – home of the dwarves
• Muspelheim – the world of fire
• Niflheim – the world of ice

The universe started in a collision of the primordial worlds of ice and fire. A giant called Ymir emerged from the ice, whom Odin – father of the gods – slew. His body formed the earth, and his blood the sea. 

Jötnar (singular jötun), came from Ymir’s armpits. Commonly translated as ‘giants’, they have similar powers to the gods and represent antagonistic forces. While sometimes mentors, helpers or lovers to the Aesir, they are most often foes. As Odin, Loki and Tyr are half-Jötunn, the jötnar may have been a rival family of gods rather than different beings altogether. 

Norsemen worshipped the Aesir. These include taciturn Odin, who sacrifices his right eye for knowledge, and hot-blooded Thor, who wields a hammer and protects humankind. The Aesir’s power surpasses humanity, but they are not immortal. They rely on golden apples to retain their youth and know when and how they will die.  

Main Gods:

• Odin – god of wisdom, poetry and war. 
• Thor – his son, god of thunder.
• Loki – god of mischief and deceit
• Freyja – goddess of magic, fertility and beauty.
• Freyr – her brother, god of fertility
• Njord – their father, god of the sea
• Heimdall – god of vigilance, watches the bridge between Asgard and the other worlds.
• Hel – Loki’s daughter, goddess of the underworld
• Frigg – Odin’s wife, goddess of motherhood and clairvoyance
• Baldr – their son, god of beauty.

Freyja, Frey and Njord were originally Vanir, a rival group of gods. After an inconclusive war, they went to live with the Aesir in Asgard.

In Icelandic, nouns have an ‘r’ at the end when they are the subject. So, for example, names like Odin and Njord are sometimes rendered Odinr and Njordr.

The Norse believed if they died in battle, female warriors called Valkyries would fly them to Valhalla, where they would feast all night and fight all day, only to be born again and again. Odin was raising an army for Ragnarok. Those who died of natural causes go to the dreary realm of Hel. 

Loki, the trickster, is the enemy within. His scheming starts as simple mischief but grows more and more destructive. His shenanigans breed monstrous children who end up causing Armageddon.

Ragnarok is the end of the world. Norse mythology is unique in that it has an ending. In the final battle, the Aesir and their foes destroy each other and Asgard crumbles. Once the dust settles, however, the few survivors rebuild a new and better world.

See Also:

• Myths and Legends
  • Inuit Mythology
  • Māori Mythology
• Orcadian Folklore
• Greenland Norse

Inuit Mythology

Inuit Mythology covers the indigenous myths and legends of Arctic North America. These myths eschew the creation narratives of most traditions in favour of grisly cautionary tales. They are often as harsh as the environment which made them. Their deities blend the concepts of spirits, humans, animals and monsters.

The Inuit worldview is animistic. Invisible spirits called tornait (singular, tornit) imbue every aspect of the world. Most are harmful and held in fear and reverence by humans. As natural death is so common in the Arctic, respecting taboos and superstitions is essential. Tornait can take the visible form of stones, bears or humans.

Inuit deities resemble powerful tornait, to be feared and appeased rather than worshipped. These include:

• Sedna, ruler of Adlivun
• Anguta, her father and guide of dead souls. In some Greenland traditions, he is a creator god.
• Nanook – spirit of polar bears
• Malina – spirit of the sun
• Igaluk – spirit of the moon

Adlivun is the world beneath the sea. Spirits of the dead travel to this frozen wasteland when they die and remain for a year, then travel to the elusive Land of the Moon, where deer roam and no snow falls. Shamans called annagguit may travel to Adlivun in their dreams to appease the goddess Sedna when a taboo is broken.

Sedna is the mistress of animals. She was once a human woman, tricked into marriage by an evil spirit or, in some traditions, a fulmar.

Her father, Anguta, slew the spirit and took Sedna back on his canoe. On the way home, however, a terrible storm brewed that threatened to kill them both. To appease the ocean, Sedna’s father pushed her off the boat. When she grabbed a hold of the canoe, Anguta cut off her fingers and sent Sedna to the bottom of the sea. 

Her fingers became the creatures of the ocean – the seals, walrus, whales and fish. She descended to Adlivun, where she transformed into a walrus-like creature that rules the underwater realm to this day.

In the Land of the Moon, ancestral spirits play a game with a walrus’s head. Their movements form the Aurora Borealis.

Malina, the spirit of the sun, was once a beautiful woman. Her brother Igaluk lusted after her and made her flee across the sky. To this day, Igaluk chases his sister, neglecting even to eat. As time passes, he withers until he disappears for three days eat once more. Occasionally, on a solar eclipse, he catches up. Igaluk lives on an igloo on the moon with the souls of dead animals. The legend differs amongst tribes: in some versions, the sister is the moon, the brother the sun.

Legends of Sauman Kar -an ancient race of giants– are likely misremembered accounts of the Dorset Culture who lived in the Arctic before the Inuit came. Other mythical creatures include polar bears who walk upright and live in igloos, akhlut – wolf-orca hybrids and qallupaluit – hideous creatures who lurk in the ocean and drown disobedient children. 

Sources: Franz Boas – The Central Eskimo (1888), Canadian Encyclopedia, Inuit Myths, Philip Wilkinson – Myths and Legends (2009)

See Also:

• Inuit
• Myths and Legends

Māori Mythology

Māori Mythology encompasses the traditional creation narratives, legends and folktales of New Zealand. Deriving from the Polynesian tradition, Māori mythology is among the world’s youngest. Its stories survive today through accounts recorded by 19th-century British scholars and oral tradition.

Because Māori, the indigenous people of New Zealand, were never a single nation, and because their stories transmitted by word of mouth, there is not one mythological narrative. Key details differ from place to place. The most familiar stories come from North Island traditions, many of which British governor Sir George Grey recorded in his ‘Nga Mahi a nga Tipuna’ (1853). 

Ātua are supernatural beings resembling gods or deities. Over 70 in number, they personify all aspects of the living world. Many genealogies trace descent to a particular atua. Some of the most well-known include:

• Tāne-Mahuta – atua of the forests and birds. In wooded New Zealand, he, not Tangaroa is humanity’s tutelary deity.
• Tangaroa – atua of the ocean and its creatures. Analogous to Tangaloa/Kanaloa – the sea god of Polynesian mythology.
• Tāwhiri-mātea – atua of the weather. 
• Tū-mata-uenga – atua of war.
• Tama-nui-te-rā – atua of the sun. 
• Rongo-ma-tāne – atua of kumara (sweet potato), cultivated foods and peace.
• Ruaumoko – atua of earthquakes.
• Whiro – atua of misfortune.
• Mahuika – atua of fire.
• Hine-nui-te-pō – atua of death.

Long ago, the Sky Father Rangi-nui and the Earth Mother Papa-tū-ā-nūkū joined in a tight and loving embrace. Their 70 children, the original ātua, lived in the dark and confined space between them. Some wanted to separate the two; others did not. Eventually, Tāne-mahuta wrenched his parents apart with his legs and forever separated the sky from the earth, letting light into the world. To this day, Rangi-nui and Papa-tū-ā-nūkū grieve their separation. 

Our world is one of many, each layered above and below. Some traditions speak of an atua called Io-matua-kore, the uncreated one, who dwells in the highest plane. Whiro, who tried to usurp Tāne, dwells in the lowest.

Each of the ātua bestowed a piece of their essence on the first person, meaning although humans die, we too are divine. 

Māui, a demigod appearing across Polynesian mythology, is one of the most famous figures of the Māori tradition. His deeds include:

• fishing out the North Island of New Zealand
• tethering the sun so it passed slowly across the sky
• stealing fire from the goddess Mahuika and granting it to the world

Hine-nui-te-pō, the goddess of death, shepherds the souls of the dead to the next world. Māui met his doom when trying to defy her.

Māori myth blends into history with the tales of discovery and migration from Polynesia. There are stories of fearsome ogres, moving mountains, dragon-like taniwha, elf-like turehu, and bloodthirsty sea demons called ponaturi.

As the ātua represent natural forces, they are still significant for many in New Zealand today.

Sources: Witi Ihimaera – Navigating the Stars (2020), Te Ara Encyclopedia

See Also:

• Polynesian Migrations
• Myths and Legends

Myths and Legends

Myths and legends are the sacred narratives of a culture. Like music, they are a human universal. Most myths have ancient origins and are transposed across generations by spoken word or sacred writings. Seldom are they ascribed to a single author. These stories blend religion with history, literature and science. They are the oldest recorded stories in the world.

Myths explain the way the world is through story. Carrying a deeper ‘spiritual truth’, they often deal with the origins of the universe, the deeds of supernatural beings and heroic individuals. Myths encapsulate a culture’s collective values and heritage; they both inform and reflect their worldview. Myths create cohesion and common values across a society and people who have never met.

Yuval Noah Harari, author of ‘Sapiens’:

Fiction has enabled us not merely to imagine things, but to do so collectively. We can weave common myths such as the biblical creation story, the Dreamtime myths of Aboriginal Australians, and the nationalist myths of modern states. Such myths give Sapiens the unprecedented ability to cooperate flexibly in large numbers.

Finnish Folklorist Lauri Honko:

Myth, a story of the gods, a religious account of the beginning of the world, the creation, fundamental events, the exemplary deeds of the gods as a result of which the world, nature, and culture were created together with all parts thereof and given their order, which still obtains. A myth expresses and confirms society’s religious values and norms, it provides a pattern of behaviour to be imitated, testifies to the efficacy of ritual with its practical ends and establishes the sanctity of cult.

‘Mythology’ refers to a culture’s collective body of myths and legends. The word myth comes from the Greek ‘mythos’, meaning story.

Examples of Myth: 

• The Osiris Myth
• The Great Flood
• The Ramayana

In modern English, ‘myth’ is sometimes used to describe something commonly believed but untrue. This is not the scholarly definition, however. Experts seldom speculate whether a particular myth is empirically ‘true’ or not. A sacred narrative is the primary definition of a myth.

Legends, as defined by Oxford Dictionary, are ‘traditional [stories] sometimes popularly regarded as historical but not authenticated.’ Typically, they seem more credible than myths and often focus on heroic or saintly human characters instead of divinities. 

Examples of Legends:

• The Trojan War
• King Arthur and the Holy Grail
• El Dorado

Folk Tales are traditional tales from a particular culture. Unlike myths and legends, folk tales are not religious and focus on ordinary people or magical creatures rather than deities and heroes. While high literature, and epic poetry is often recorded by a culture’s elite, folk tales spring from the oral tradition of the common people.

Examples of Folk Tales:

• Androcles and the Lion
• Brothers Grimms’ Fairy tales
• The One Thousand and One Nights

Because myths, legends and folk tales are primarily oral and are retold by different peoples, the same story can have multiple versions, with names and key details varying. Through that measure, they would constantly improve. Most myths and legends do not have an official version.

Most of these traditional stories are thousands of years old. The staying power of myths is a testament to their value. 

Sources: Lauri Honko – the Problem of Defining Myth, Oxford Dictionary, Philip Wilkinson – Myths and Legends, Yuval Noah Harari – Sapiens

See Also:

• Magic and Religion
• Yuval Noah Harari – Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
  
• Mythology:
  • Māori Mythology
  • Inuit Mythology
  • Venus, the Queen of Heaven and the Dying God
  • The Epic of Gilgamesh
• Folklore
  • Asturian Folklore
  • Folklore of the Orkney Islands
  • How Syuna the Rockfish got his Flat Head

Asturian Folklore

Asturian Folklore covers the superstitions, tales and legends of the Celtic part of Spain. Pagan beliefs lingered longer here than any other part of the country.

Asturias is a region of northern Spain between the Cantabrian Mountains and the Atlantic Ocean. Like the Basque Country, its isolation bred a distinct cultural identity. Under the Romans and Visigoths, Asturias clung to its Celtic roots. It was also the only part of Iberia to withstand the Moorish invasions and a partisan stronghold for twenty years after Franco won the Civil War. Today Asturias is one of the ‘Six Celtic Nations’, sharing much of its lore with Ireland and Wales. It is a land of green pastures, craggy shores and rugged mountain slopes. Today most Asturians speak Spanish though the native language still has 642,000 speakers.

Until recently, the Cantabrians were impassable in winter. Asturias was a backwater; Christianity, literacy and the Industrial Revolution were slow to spread. Asturian shepherds and fishermen clung to nature and old beliefs. As it was easier to travel by sea, Asturias kept closer ties with Brittany and Ireland than the rest of Spain.

Early Asturians were animists. Every tree, river and cave had a guardian spirit to be respected and feared. Rather than assimilate, the Catholic church denounced Asturian spirits as demons. Their priests, however, failed to extinguish the beliefs of shepherds who spent most of the year in mountain pastures. Belief in supernatural beings survived into the 20th century.

In Asturian folklore, Xanas were benevolent water spirits resembling Naiads of Greek mythology: beautiful women who guarded treasures at the bottom of lakes.

The culebre is a cave-dwelling dragon. It evolved from a nature god placated with animal sacrifice in pagan times to a bloodthirsty monster requiring human sacrifice in the Christian era. 

The bogosu, half-man, half-goat is the Asturian satyr. The early bogusu was a guardian of the forests. Christians painted him as a demon to be feared and shunned, and through this lens, stories survive of the ‘devil’ helping Asturian peasants by building bridges and granting technologies.

The Nuberu is a bearded old man in a wide-brimmed hat who lives in the clouds. He controls the rain and lightning and likely derives from the Celtic weather god, Taranis. There are stories of Nuberu falling from the sky and blessing peasants who aid his return.

The trasgu is a mischievous house spirit who wears a red hat and has a hole in one hand. They like to steal household items and inconvenience families. If one moves house, the trasgu will follow. Today the Trasgu is the region’s unofficial mascot. Many businesses bear its name.

Asturian folk beliefs died out with the modern age. As cities spread and machines transformed the landscape the xanas and culebres were silent.

Sources: David Wacks – Some thoughts on Asturian mythology

See Also:

• Folklore of the Orkney Islands
• The Caliphate of Cordoba

Folklore of the Orkney Islands

Orcadian Folklore covers the folk traditions, superstitions and myths of the Orkney Islands. This archipelago, in the northern tip of Scotland, shares traditions with the Shetlands and Faroe Islands that reflect its Norse-Gaelic heritage. It includes eerie accounts of sea serpents, trows and shapeshifting seals.

The Orkneys have a population of 22,000 and a landscape of treeless hills and towering crags. Strong winds are common and temperatures rarely exceed 12 degrees celcius. 

In the Stone Age, indigenous Orcadians built villages and megaliths out of stone slabs. The Picts inhabited the islands in Roman times. In the 9th century, Vikings took over and ruled the Orkneys until Scotland annexed the region in 1472. Today both the Orkney dialect and gene pool is three-quarters Scottish and one-quarter Scandinavian. 

Two factors give Orkney folklore its unique flavour:

• Geography. The North Sea meets the Atlantic Ocean in the Orkneys, making for notoriously stormy waters. Seals, sharks and sea birds are a common sight, drowning a common death. 
• Ruins. Megaliths, barrow mounds and ancient stone villages dominate the Orkneys. Built around 3,000 BC, they awed later inhabitants and earned a hallowed reputation. Ancient sites inspired myths of fairies and ‘hidden people’ who called them home.

Trows are the foremost of these ‘hidden people’. Squat goblin-like creatures, they inhabit hinterlands and barrows of Orkney. Their name derives from the Scandinavian ‘troll’. Like trolls, they are ugly and malicious, like fairies small and mischievous. Trows kidnap human babies and replace them with their own. The ‘hogboon’ was a more benevolent house-spirit.

Sea Serpents are common. The Stoorworm was a sea dragon with a monstrous appetite. According to legend, Assipattle the farmer’s son, slew it by sneaking into the Stoorworm’s belly and lighting a peat fire in its liver. In 1804 fishermen found the Stronsay Beast, an unidentified carcass washed up at sea – 4 feet wide and 10 feet long. Scientists concluded it was a decomposed basking shark. 

Selkies are shapeshifters who take the form of humans on land and seals at sea. While their human forms are beguiling, they can only revert through their sealskin. Stories abound of selkies who take human lovers and the complications that subsequently arise. Selkie myths spread from the Orkneys to Iceland, the Faroes, Shetlands, western Scotland and parts of Ireland.

Finnfolk are malicious sea spirits who abduct humans. Their summer home is the vanishing isle of Hildaland, their winter home is Finnfolkaheem, deep beneath the sea. Finnmen prey on fishermen who sail too far out to sea. Their daughters are mermaids. If one fails to find a human husband, she must marry a finnman and will rapidly wither into a haggish ‘finnwife’ thereafter. They then take to land and funnel silver back to their husbands. Orcadians blamed finnfolk for death at sea. 

Selkies and Finnfolk may be of common origin. There are three possible explanations:

1. Sami. The Norwegians used to view their reindeer herding neighbours as magic-workers to be feared and avoided. They called them ‘Finnar’. The finnfolk could have come from misremembered accounts brought by Norwegian colonists.
2. Inuit. Orcadian fishermen occasionally saw Greenland Inuit at sea. Dressed in sealskin robes and rowing canoes, they looked alien to the fisherman, who kept their distance and reported the sightings to their families.
3. Medical conditions. Syndallacty is when children have conjoined fingers and/or toes resembling a seal’s flipper. It is hereditary and used to be common in the Orkneys; people claimed it came from selkie ancestry.

Sources: Orkneyjar, Owlcation.

See Also:

• How Syuna the Rockfish got his Flat Head (Yahghan Legend)
• Asturian Folklore
• Inuit

Venus, the Queen of Heaven and the Dying God

Venus is the first or last star to appear in the sky each night depending on its orbit.  As either the Evening or the Morning Star it is visible in daylight when the sun is rising or falling. Ancient cultures associated the planet with the goddess of love and war and told myths to explain her place in the night sky.

Venus is the closest planet to Earth and the hottest in the solar system.  Though a similar size and mass, its surface is thick with carbon dioxide and burning sulphur.  Venus is therefore the most vibrant body in the night sky after the moon and is often visible from earth when the sun is rising or setting.

The planet’s name is Roman but the goddess it represents is far older. Since the third millennium BC, Mediterranean cultures associated her with the Queen of Heaven archetype.  As she was the most beautiful of all the gods, Venus was the brightest of all the stars.

The ancient Sumerians were the first people to study the night sky. They recognised the Morning and Evening Stars were the same planet and explained why she rose and fell through story.

Later cultures thought the stars were different bodies. A common myth developed in the ancient Mediterranean around the Evening Star. The Morning Star was the Queen of Heaven, and the Evening Star was her lover, the Dying God. Different cultures gave them different names, but the story remained more or less the same.

The Queen of Heaven

• Sumerian: Innana
• Babylonian/Assyrian: Ishtar
• Egyptian: Isis
• Phonecian: Astarte
• Greek: Aphrodite
• Roman: Venus

The Dying God:

• Sumerian: Dummuzid
• Babylonian/Assyrian: Tammuz
• Egyptian: Osiris
• Phonecian: Adonai
• Greek/Roman: Adonis

The Queen of Heaven takes the Dying God as her lover. In the Egyptian myth, he is an existing god, in the Tammuz/Adonis tradition, he is a beautiful mortal. When he dies, the Queen of Heaven weeps and descends into the underworld to bring him back.  The oldest form of this myth is the Sumerian text ‘Innana’s Descent into the Underworld’ (c.2000 BC), which appears in Ovid’s Metamorphoses (AD 8) as the tale of Aphrodite and Adonis. The Osiris Myth (c.2400 BC) is even older.

The Evening Star represents the Dying God, destined to burn brightly at evening then fade into the night sky to be reborn again. As Venus closely orbits the sun, the Evening Star ‘falls’ into the horizon a few hours after sunset.

Pythagoras rediscovered the Evening and Morning Stars were the same in the 6^th century BC. Despite this, they retained their mythical significance.

The Latin name for the Evening Star was Lucifer. When the Romans became Christian, they reinterpreted the falling star as an angel. Lucifer fell from heaven and thus was associated with the Devil. Over a thousand years later, English Poet John Milton expanded on this idea in his epic poem ‘Paradise Lost’ which details Lucifer’s rebellion against God and his becoming Satan.

Though the cult of Adonis died out, Venus retained its association with the Morning Star and the Queen of Heaven archetype. The alchemical symbol for Venus is the modern symbol for the female gender.

Sources: Jeff Cooley – Inana Sukelatuda, Inana’s Descent into the Underworld, Universe Today

See Also: 

• The 1769 Transit of Venus
• The Epic of Gilgamesh
• The Historical Babylon
• Myths and Legends