Goddesses as Creators in Origin Myths

European culture is not a monolithic entity originating in Ancient Greece, Rome and with the Church Fathers. European culture has much older roots, and its many levels are imbedded in cultural memory. One of these mythical levels is the Universe, of woman born. This blog post looks at how gender construes mythological structure as a whole in the context of creation stories. The next blog will look at goddesses as representatives of Nature and as the shapers of natural concepts.

When studying the older layers of creation myths, there is no shortage of female creatixes. Prior to the Indo-European steppe nomads' migration (circa 3100 BCE), in other words before the arrival of patriarchal culture, Europeans woshipped the Great Mother Goddess. The mythology of the Great Mother-Creator or Mother Earth lives on in many cultures today, for example in Samoyed cultures including the Sámi peoples (the goddess Beaivi, the Sun Mother), North American Indian cultures (Mother Spider or Grandmother Spider), and in Japanese Shinto (the Sun Goddess Amaterasu).

Origin stories with female creators have been found in geographical regions far apart from each other. When similar myths appear in cultures distant from one another, we can assume that parallel concepts were born after the last Ice Age and carried over into later cultural regions (Haarmann, 2019, 89-90)

The cult of the Great Goddess is known in many areas of Eurasia, including Ancient Greece, Anatolia, the Middle East, and in various regional cultures of Ancient India. In Eurasian cultures from the Northern hemisphere, the figure of the Eternal Goddess was honoured as a creatrix. She transforms into a water bird and all the things in the Universe are born from her egg. In Baltic Finnic versions she is Ilmatar (the air goddess), or Tuuletar (the wind goddess) (Haarmann, Mayssalo)

The mother of Nature and all life forms was revered in Eurasian cultures. In Anatolia, people worshipped her as the great Cybele, and in the Middle East as Artemis and Aphrodite. In Mesopotamia, the primordial goddess Innanna later became the great Ishtar. Isis, mother of Horus, was popular in Ancient Egypt, and in Ancient India the black goddess Kali reigned in religious life and cosmology prior to the Indo-European migrations. In many regional cultures, Goddess cults were connected to gender equality in social relations in an era when people were still aware of Mother Nature's gifts and lived in respect and harmony with their natural environments.

The first thoroughly researched and documented historical period, during which gender relationships were based on equality and people lived in harmony with Nature, took place in Çatalhöyük, an ancient community in Southern Anatolia (7500- 5600 BCE). The presence of a great nature goddess correlates directly with gender equality. Both goddess cults and social equality are proven to have co-existed in Old Europe (the Danube Civilization; 6000-3000 BCE), the Indus civilization (Harappa; 2600-1700 BCE), and in Halaf culture (5500-4500 BCE) on the Southern Black Sea region, during the pre-Sumerian era.

We know the goddess Eurynome from Greek culture. Old European civilization (or the Danube civilization) represents the world's oldest highly developed culture, which began to flourish in circa 6000 BCE. The Great Goddess was worshipped for millienia, and was transmitted into Greek religion. The Greeks called the pre-Greeks ”pelasgoi”. Pelasgi cultural traditions, including their creation story, were not of Greek origin. The story features the adventures of  Euronyme, goddess of  the Universe. ”Euronyme” means to widely rule and wander . In the myth, Euronyme separates the sky from the eternal waters after which she tires and looks for a resting place. Not finding a suitable refuge, she succumbs to drift with the waves. 

The story of the holy wedding (hieros gamos) is also weaved into this creation myth. Euronyme's beauty and attractiveness is noticed by Boreas, the North Wind. Disguised as a snake, Boreas follows Eurynome and the deities unite. The goddess is impregnated and goes through a metamorphosis. She turns into a water bird, who lays and egg on a small island that she finds in the sea. The egg hatches and all of the living and unliving things in the world are born. The Eurynome myths are rooted in both Indian as well as Old European traditions. After her creation work, the goddess becomes the ruler of Mount Olympos, residence of the mythical gods. (MDC, p.153-154)

In Baltic Finnic mythology, Ilmatar or Ilmanemo is a primordial goddess akin to Eurynome. The world is born when Ilmatar grows tired of her life in the sky and descends onto the sea. A goldeneye searches for a place to nest and finds Ilmatar's knee, on top of which she makes a nest. Ilmatar's leg starts to itch and the egg falls and breaks. Everything in the world is born from the egg shards. There are essential similarities between creation myths. Crucial to the stories is that before the world is born, a primordial mother or mother-being is present during the creation. Ilmatar is also depicted as the mother of the hero-God Väinämöinen. She carries Väinämöinen in her womb for thirty years. Ilmatar (the primordial mother) finds her husband, the primordial water god ”the old man of the sea” (or ”Iku-Turso”). In other versions, Ilmatar is impregnanted by the wind and water, and gives birth to Väinämöinen (Siikala, p. 287;Haavio p. 387).

In the Old European creation story the Goddess has agency, and thus for the pre-Greeks the creation of the world was an intentional act. This stands in contrast to Eurasian mythology, in which the egg is accidentally broken and all of the things in the world come tumbling out as if by chance. The creation story of the cosmic egg seems to be one of transformation or a quirk of fate, with no intentional design (Haarmann/Marler 2008, p.115).

By studying archaeological findings and myths, we can begin to understand the cult of the Great Mother. Although the Goddess is one and omnipotent, she has many manifestations which are worshipped separately. The Great Mother is a cosmic primordial being, linked to Mother Nature. The primordial mother is not a goddess as such but the mother of goddesses and gods, the primal source or prototype. Woman was the dawn of everything, she alone existed at the beginning of the world (Kailo, p.87). In old animistic cultures this primal source is connected to important animals. For example in Çatalhöyük, the Great Goddess was associated with the bear, as was Artemis in later periods.

In Baltic Finnic traditions, animals have a mystical primeval form called ”emu” (or ”emä/emo”), but these can also refer to clans. The feminine original source enters an emu, taking on different forms of animal deities (snake, deer, fox, bear, etc.). In Finland and among Karelian peoples, the primal source is also called ”synnyt”, which returns to the original feminine source, ”kantaemo” (primal mother). Over time, the term ”emo” may have been replaced in oral traditions with Mother Mary (”Maria emonen”) from Christianity.

In his book The Mystery of the Danube Civilization, Harald Haarmann suggests that the creatrix Goddess is conceptualized in older layers as a deity who gives birth to the Universe and everything in it, including all of the other deities. Throughout the millenia, parts of the original Goddess were integrated into many other deities, and the goddesses diverged into a multiplicity. (p. 92).

The Eurasian steppe nomads migrated (circa 3100 BCE) to Old European regions in Southeastern and Central Europe. A similar nomadic migration took place in the Middle East, when the Akkadians left the desert and took over Sumerian city states in the third millenium BCE. They brought with them mighty male gods such as Marduk, who is well known from Babylonian history. However, the nomads didn't succeed in displacing the goddesses in Europe or Asia.

The Goddess of Old Europe was not abandoned – her cult transformed from one into many. The powerful goddesses of Ancient Greece – Athena, Hera, Hestia, Themis and others, were the ”descendents” of the Great Goddess. Neither were the ancient goddesses of Anatolia and the Middle East forsaken. The Romans brought Cybele to Italy, where her cult continued as the Magna Mater (”Great Mother”). St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican City was built near Cybele's former temple, and the worship of the Great Mother was incorporated into the Marian doctrines of the Church.

Artemis transformed into two different characters within the Greek canon of dieties. Both had her own function: the great goddess with her most famous temple in Ephesus; and Artemis, goddess of wild animals. In this latter aspect she was worshipped as the patroness of animals in their natural environment. Aphrodite and her cult lived on because her nature and function were universally so influential – Aphrodite reigned over the entire cosmos. The Greeks made her the goddess of love. Although the goddesses managed to secure their place next to the male gods, the patriarchal social order became dominant and gender equality disintegrated. Thus the roles of men and women became imbalanced in Ancient Greece, as well as in Anatolia and the Middle East.

References:

Haavio, Martti 1967: Suomalainen Mytologia, SKS

Haarmann, Harald & Maya Vassallo: The goddess cult in relation to gender equality  - The dynamic process of cultural transition from the One-ness to the many female divinities under patriarchal pressure (Blog, 14 june 2023)

Haarmann, Harald 2019: The Mystery of the Danube Civilisation, Marix Verlag

Haarmann, Harald & Marler, John 2008: Introducing the Mythological Crescent. Ancient beliefs and imagery connecting Eurasia with Anatolia, Otto Harrassowitz Verlag

Kailo, Kaarina 2024: Karhu-mytologia – Luola uskonnosta Saunapyhäkköön, Basam Books

Siikala, Anna-Leena 2014: Itämeren suomalainen mytologia, SKS

The Sun Goddess Amaterasu.

Mother goddess Isis became a very important deity in Egypt. So important that eventually all other gods were considered mere manifestations of Isis.