Was there ever a Mother-Goddess society?

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Topic: Was there ever a Mother-Goddess society?

Posted By: charlesbrough
Subject: Was there ever a Mother-Goddess society?
Date Posted: 22-Nov-2008 at 18:43

I notice that mostly male anthropologists discount the existence of a prehistory mother-goddess society. Those who have proposed one have mostly been women. It seems to me this is the only field and the only subject that divides science up into gender!

The scientific consensus seems to be that there has never been a society ruled by women. Taking a scattering of clues from a half dozen different social and natural sciences and with them, I have reason to believe that there was indeed a mother goddess society and that, as the consensus claims, women did not rule.

That is not a contradiction. To "rule" implies a formal hierarchy which we call "government." Governments did not exist in prehistory. People lived in communes. No one "ruled" but the women would have controlled public opinion. In that sense, they ruled. . .

In http://atheistic-science.com there is a description of the society---and, a concise meaning given to the world "society."

charles

Replies:

Posted By: gcle2003
Date Posted: 22-Nov-2008 at 20:36

Originally posted by charlesbrough

I notice that mostly male anthropologists discount the existence of a prehistory mother-goddess society.

I don't notice that, so I'd appreciate why you claim it. The earth-mother-goddess and sky-father-god dichotomy is very pervasive in early cultures (even in ones which are flexible enough to accomodate both, and I've never come across what opposition to the idea there is coming from males particularly.

Do you have some statistics?

Those who have proposed one have mostly been women. It seems to me this is the only field and the only subject that divides science up into gender!

The scientific consensus seems to be that there has never been a society ruled by women.

Look at the West Indies, or the culture of blacks in America. But anyway a society being ruled by women has nothing to do with whether there was a society that worshipped a mother-goddess. Men as well as women (in fact possibly men more than women) were initiates into the Eleusis cult of Demeter and Persephone for instance.

Taking a scattering of clues from a half dozen different social and natural sciences and with them, I have reason to believe that there was indeed a mother goddess society and that, as the consensus claims, women did not rule.

That is not a contradiction. To "rule" implies a formal hierarchy which we call "government." Governments did not exist in prehistory. People lived in communes. No one "ruled" but the women would have controlled public opinion. In that sense, they ruled. . .

No problem with that, except for the unjustified generalisation 'people lived in communes', if you mean by commune anything more than 'group'. I just don't see why you think of it as new. Graves wrote The White Goddess sixty years ago, and it wasn't new then (though his analysis was), and you'll find it in Frazer too.

In http://atheistic-science.com there is a description of the society---and, a concise meaning given to the world "society."

charles

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Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 22-Nov-2008 at 23:37

With respect to the Mother goddness idea, I believe that it is the core of the mythology of the Americas. "Mother Earth" is the most common and uniform religious belief and cosmology of allmost any group in here. The concept we live in the womb of Mother Earth, that she feed us, and that she is also the grave of our ancestors, it is so powerful and widespread here that I can't see how these can't be "Mother-godness" societies. And the idea is so powerfull that it has influenced European settlers, both in North and Latin America, since centuries ago.

That tendency could explain, also, why the adoration of the Virgin Mary (which is the figure catholics used to replace the figure of Mother Earth), or marianism, it is so important in the Americas south-of-the-border. If you look at the origin Virgin of Guadaloupe in Mexico, for instance, you will find the native godness of Mother Earth

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Posted By: Chilbudios
Date Posted: 22-Nov-2008 at 23:50

Do you have any good measure for this gender-based separation? I know several male scholars taking the mother-goddess mythology for certain (and going even further, identifying the cultural remnants of these old societies in the patriarchal societies which followed). I also read a lot of criticism addressing Gimbutas' theory but I can't say that all her ideas were wrong.

Posted By: charlesbrough
Date Posted: 23-Nov-2008 at 16:52

Originally posted by gcle2003

I'm sorry for being unable to give statistics or back this up. I did considerable research in anthropological works and all the authors were men who worked not with religions but with pottery "cultures." Gimbutas was different. I read a number of books on the mother goddess religion-bonded society and all were written by women. It seemed obvious to me that there was a male consensus and a female consensus. Up until perhaps 9,000 years ago, it was not even recognized that the male played any role in reproduction.

Let me please explain something here: I do not always use the same terminology as the social science consensus. I use key social science words functionally. I define "culture" as the physical heritage of a "society" and a "mainstream society" as the mass of people bonded together by a mainstream world-view and way of thinking ("religion"). I do this because we evolved through millions of years of evolution in small groups and are "innately" (social instinctively) geared to living that way. The social evolutionary function of world-view systems ("religion") is, therefore, to bond us into much larger groups than we are otherwise able to function in.

So, whether the men or women run a "society" depends upon the world-view system. If the men do, it is a patriarchal society. Who runs the society is determined by the ideological system. In our modern society, the secular doctrines have moved considerably towards the middle with women taking large roles while the old religion is increasing pressure to pull them back.

There are, as you say, groups and tribes that are matrilineal. There are some in which women dominate the home---partially because the men are never there any more. But my interest and focus is on social evolution and that occurs in "the mainstream." The "mainstream" moved out of Africa, dominated the Near and Middle East and China, spread to Europe and the rest of the Euro-Asian land mass, back to Africa, and then the New World. The Inca-Mayan civilization had a separate and somewhat later "mainstream."

So, I say that in the mainstream, the patriarchal-monogamous (sort-of!) religion-bonded societies appeared about 5,000 years ago in Sumer, Egypt, India and then China---all based upon a revolutionary Male-god plus modification of the mother goddess religion-based society age. What made the change necessary was that the huge mother-goddess religion-based society was made up of normal human hunting-gathering size irrigation-based communes---"communes" in the sense that there was no "government" and no "capitalism." With increasing congestion, there had to arise a world-view system that would enable them to organize into larger social entities that could still substitute for the small groups we are evolved to feel "right" in (to feel less stress).
The male-dominated word-view one, and one in which the women were rationed (monogamy), succeeded in doing that. When a need arises, as in all evolution, an adaptation generally follows that satisfies the need.

In the old mother goddess world-view system---as I describe it in my work (http://atheistic-science.com), I propose the men had no status at all. They likely lived mostly as "Hippies" and only a few of the more appealing ones were the "studs" who serviced the women in the various homes--which, themselves, were based on mother and children and grandchildren. This system later evolved "Temple Prostitution."

The male-dominated system that followed was a social revolution. There are a number of tribes and ethnic groups still in modern times that are matrilineal. I classify them as peripheral to the mainstream and to the direction of social evolution.

charles

Posted By: charlesbrough
Date Posted: 23-Nov-2008 at 17:29

I agree with Pinguin and Chilbudios that the mother-goddess influence on religion has survived a long evolution. The Patriarchal faiths represented the mother goddess as the snake---which as Gimbutas noted, was one of her symbols---in the form of an evil monster serpent they called "dragons" and which heroic male gods went out to slay. It survived in its strong appeal into the Orthodox icons of a grandiose Mother Mary holding up a tiny, pathetic looking insignificant Jesus in her lap---and modern Marionism. In Genesis, the snake that tempted Adam and Eve (monogamy) was symbolically the mother goddess.

World-view "religion" system evolve from each other in the mainstream. All have had ties to the past. World-view systems of the future will also have ties to our present secular-scriptural belief combination system.

charles
http://atheistic-science.com

Posted By: gcle2003
Date Posted: 23-Nov-2008 at 18:26

Originally posted by charlesbrough

Originally posted by gcle2003

So you missed out not only on Graves and Frazer but also on Malinowski, James, Parrinder, Lévi-Strauss ...? I'm not sure what you mean by 'pottery cultures'. Why should use of pottery have any connection with religious beliefs of a certain kind?

Gimbutas was different. I read a number of books on the mother goddess religion-bonded society and all were written by women.

But you'll find women writers (Benedict, Mead) who aren't particularly hung up on mother religions. What I think is true is that there has been a part of the post-1960s popular feminist movement that has concentrated on boosting the role of the goddess religions for what are essentially political reasons. Search Google for hymns to the goddess and you'll find lots of them in that vein, especially it would seem among Wiccans.

That's not so true of Gimbutas, who had a respectable career as an archaeologist, but I'm unaware that she did any significant work as an anthropologist. As a cult heroine however, possibly she does have more female than male followers, but she certainly has some male supporters.

Anyway her view is restricted to quite a small minority of the earth's peoples.

It seemed obvious to me that there was a male consensus and a female consensus. Up until perhaps 9,000 years ago, it was not even recognized that the male played any role in reproduction.

I'm not sure one can be that exact about a date for the first recognition that copulation leads to birth - Trobrianders seem not to be entirely convinced even now

- but undoubtedly it started sometime. What's not so obvious is that that should be particularly associated with male/female 'rule' (rather than tracing descent). The father-son relationship transforms to the mother's brother/sister's son one but that's the only universal result I'm aware of.

Let me please explain something here: I do not always use the same terminology as the social science consensus.

Which is a rather dangerous thing to do if you want to be misunderstood, but I accept you're now defining them.

I use key social science words functionally. I define "culture" as the physical heritage of a "society" and a "mainstream society" as the mass of people bonded together by a mainstream world-view and way of thinking ("religion"). I do this because we evolved through millions of years of evolution in small groups and are "innately" (social instinctively) geared to living that way. The social evolutionary function of world-view systems ("religion") is, therefore, to bond us into much larger groups than we are otherwise able to function in.

So, whether the men or women run a "society" depends upon the world-view system. If the men do, it is a patriarchal society. Who runs the society is determined by the ideological system. In our modern society, the secular doctrines have moved considerably towards the middle with women taking large roles while the old religion is increasing pressure to pull them back.

Rattray Taylor in Sex in History [1] distinguishes between patriarchal/matriarchal and patristic/matristic. Worth reading, though it concentrates rather on Europe.

[1] There is a pot-boiler of the same name by someone else that is well worth avoiding.

There are, as you say, groups and tribes that are matrilineal. There are some in which women dominate the home---partially because the men are never there any more. But my interest and focus is on social evolution and that occurs in "the mainstream." The "mainstream" moved out of Africa, dominated the Near and Middle East and China, spread to Europe and the rest of the Euro-Asian land mass, back to Africa, and then the New World. The Inca-Mayan civilization had a separate and somewhat later "mainstream."

So, I say that in the mainstream, the patriarchal-monogamous (sort-of!) religion-bonded societies appeared about 5,000 years ago in Sumer, Egypt, India and then China---all based upon a revolutionary Male-god plus modification of the mother goddess religion-based society age.

Which makes it all rather depend on what you mean by 'mainstream', which isn't very clear. However, under any definition I don't see a 'revolutionary Male-god' displacing Isis in Egypt except for a short few years. Isis wins out in the end. You may, offhand, have a better case in India, but I'd like to know a little more detail about what you're suggesting happened in Sumer and China.

What made the change necessary was that the huge mother-goddess religion-based society was made up of normal human hunting-gathering size irrigation-based communes---"communes" in the sense that there was no "government" and no "capitalism."

That's denying the case made by Graves and backed by Frazer's work. The Isis and Demeter religions weren't associated with humter-gatherers. Incidentally, again, there are two males promoting the mother-goddess religion.

With increasing congestion, there had to arise a world-view system that would enable them to organize into larger social entities that could still substitute for the small groups we are evolved to feel "right" in (to feel less stress).
The male-dominated word-view one, and one in which the women were rationed (monogamy), succeeded in doing that. When a need arises, as in all evolution, an adaptation generally follows that satisfies the need.

Monogamy is hardly a sign of male domination. Male domination is concerned with establishing male inheritance, which means enforcing female chastity, but polygamy and concubinage are both easily compatible with that.

In the old mother goddess world-view system---as I describe it in my work (http://atheistic-science.com), I propose the men had no status at all.

You ignore the mother's brother.

They likely lived mostly as "Hippies" and only a few of the more appealing ones were the "studs" who serviced the women in the various homes--which, themselves, were based on mother and children and grandchildren. This system later evolved "Temple Prostitution."

I agree that temple prostitution traditionally goes along with goddess worship. I'm not quite sure of the relevance though.

The male-dominated system that followed was a social revolution. There are a number of tribes and ethnic groups still in modern times that are matrilineal. I classify them as peripheral to the mainstream and to the direction of social evolution.

charles

So what you do is 'define out' counter-instances to your proposal? Doesn't that make the presentation of evidence somewhat pointless?

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Posted By: red clay
Date Posted: 23-Nov-2008 at 20:46

Why should use of pottery have any connection with religious beliefs of a certain kind?

Hoo boy! Graham, that isn't a question, that's a doctoral thesis all by itself.

In some cultures you might even be safe saying pottery was a religion.

It's not something I can respond to in just a few lines, just let it be said that pottery can have a religious connection.

The only easily recognized example I can think of quickly would be the Japanese Raku tradition.

I have several friends and quite a few acquaintances that are Anthropologists. Every one of them acknowledges the existence of the "sacred feminine". All of them are men.

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"Arguing with someone who hates you or your ideas, is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter what move you make, your opponent will walk all over the board and scramble the pieces".
Unknown.

Posted By: Chilbudios
Date Posted: 23-Nov-2008 at 23:34

Originally posted by charlesbrough

I agree with Pinguin and Chilbudios that the mother-goddess influence on religion has survived a long evolution. The Patriarchal faiths represented the mother goddess as the snake---which as Gimbutas noted, was one of her symbols---in the form of an evil monster serpent they called "dragons" and which heroic male gods went out to slay. It survived in its strong appeal into the Orthodox icons of a grandiose Mother Mary holding up a tiny, pathetic looking insignificant Jesus in her lap---and modern Marionism. In Genesis, the snake that tempted Adam and Eve (monogamy) was symbolically the mother goddess.

World-view "religion" system evolve from each other in the mainstream. All have had ties to the past. World-view systems of the future will also have ties to our present secular-scriptural belief combination system.

Maria Gimbutas had a significant contribution in anthropology, especially related to old beliefs and rituals and their survival in the patriarchal European societies, however I find it some of the links highly speculative. In this particular case, I'm not sure if the serpent in the Garden of Eden should be connected to a mother-goddess, I believe these are other metaphors behind the snake: that of monstruous creature, of "chaotic" creature bringing disorder in god's world, a prefiguration of Satan (in many cosmogonic myths there's this motif of opposition between creation and destruction, between order and chaos) and that of hiding, deceit, shame, lie, a creeping creature being a suitable metaphor for the corruption of that perfect world.

Much better cases for the survival of and "Old Europe" mother goddesses and priestesses are to be found in Greek mythology or in Christianity in syncretic accounts. I'll take, inspired by your example, few other instances of the motif of woman confronting the dragon/snake more or less directly (instead of passively waiting to be saved by a male hero):

- in several variants of the legend of St. George the dragon is killed only after a maid binds it (a remnant of an old powerful attribute associated with feminity - magic or perhaps even erotic magic; for the latter examples from European Antiquity are to be found in Pliny, HN, XXVIII, 23 or Plutarch, Mulierum virtutes).

- Jason can steal the golden fleece only with Medea's instrumental help, her magic can put the otherwise invincible dragon to sleep

- in French hagiography there's the legend of St. Martha binding the dragon Tarasque with her own chastity belt

- the Thracian treasure found at Letnitsa pictures some priestess taming or possibly even riding serpentlike beasts ( http://www.omda.bg/engl/history/letnitza_treasure.htm - http://www.omda.bg/engl/history/letnitza_treasure.htm )

As you can see, all these run the same motif of binding a dragon-like creature by a woman. I wonder if this can be traced back in prehistory to a general scenario of a priestess (woman with magical powers) fighting a destructive force of nature (a meteorologic spirit, for instance)

Posted By: edgewaters
Date Posted: 24-Nov-2008 at 07:14

Originally posted by charlesbrough

I notice that mostly male anthropologists discount the existence of a prehistory mother-goddess society. Those who have proposed one have mostly been women . . . I have reason to believe that there was indeed a mother goddess society and that, as the consensus claims, women did not rule.

That is not a contradiction. To "rule" implies a formal hierarchy which we call "government." Governments did not exist in prehistory. People lived in communes. No one "ruled" but the women would have controlled public opinion. In that sense, they ruled. . .

Most anthropologists (male or female) don't discount societies whose religions revolved around a mother-goddess, since it's hardly in dispute. There is dispute about whether these societies (eg Minoan Crete or the people at Catal Huyuk) were truly matriarchal. They definately did have authority structures and women definately did occupy some place in them, the question is just what exactly their place was - whether it was really the sort of authority we think of, or just something that looks like authority (for instance, the female figure on the leopard throne at Catal Huyuk looks like some sort of authority figure, but she could be anything - a sacrificial victim in the role of impersonating the deity before the big event, a sort of ritualized transvestite, who knows).

Allow me some total speculation here: I think that at the very dawn of the agricultural age, before you had big fields and organized agricultural labour, the gatherers (women) started growing little gardens - horticulture, not true agriculture. They built a home in one spot and probably 'ruled the roost' - seems a natural thing in many societies where you have women in charge around the home and men in charge outside the home, in society at large.

But at some point, for a very brief period (before the appearance of true agriculture) the home was probably the chief economic unit and centre of power, that's where all the food and luxuries were coming from. Also note that all the early crafts - weaving, pottery, jewellry, and so on - do seem to be home- and female-oriented. So at this point I think men were probably still dominant in terms of the territory as a whole (keeping other tribes out, hunting, and so on) but women would have had enormous influence by virtue of controlling the productive unit, the home.

The features of this age probably didn't die out overnight, but echoed down through the societies that followed, the early agricultural civilizations. That's what we're probably seeing in some of these early civilizations, legacy institutions of an earlier time. As the home diminished in economic and social importance - as fields and cities with plazas, markets and other public spaces emerged - women gradually, slowly, diminished in social influence, although the deities, the rituals, the icons, and so on probably hung around for a long time by virtue of tradition.

Posted By: gcle2003
Date Posted: 24-Nov-2008 at 11:09

Originally posted by red clay

Why should use of pottery have any connection with religious beliefs of a certain kind?

Hoo boy! Graham, that isn't a question, that's a doctoral thesis all by itself.

In some cultures you might even be safe saying pottery was a religion.

It's not something I can respond to in just a few lines, just let it be said that pottery can have a religious connection.

The only easily recognized example I can think of quickly would be the Japanese Raku tradition.

I didn't mean to assert that pottery couldn't have religious connotations in various ways. For instance, Khayyam uses pottery as a religious metaphor.

I meant to emphasise of a certain kind. That is, while pottery can be associated with religion, it seems to me it could be associated with pretty well any kind of religion.

I have several friends and quite a few acquaintances that are Anthropologists. Every one of them acknowledges the existence of the "sacred feminine". All of them are men.

That's what I would expect.

Incidentally I tend to think of anthropologists as people who study existing peoples and archaeologists as people who study extinct ones. I accept though that's a personal view, albeit one I think useful.

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Posted By: charlesbrough
Date Posted: 24-Nov-2008 at 15:58

Yes, not all anthropologists (and archeologists) deny the existence of a mother goddess society in prehistory and not all women anthropologists and other social scientists believe there was one.

My picture of prehistory is that until about 10,000 years ago, there existed a male-hunting weapon) technology based religion that encompassed (in variations) a large part of the Old World. It succeeded so well that the game herds declined---forcing women to pick up the slack. That is the beginning of agriculture. They began making female idols which, I suggest, represent the women's, fertility's, importance in their ideological system. The idols may well have mocked the "great male hunter" who came back from the hunt with a few rabbits.

As the importance of agriculture grew, it was reflected in a female point of view on everything. The Mother goddess demanded that the seeds be planted at a certain depth or she would keep them from sprouting. Since, IN THE MAINSTREAM, the male role in reproduction was still unknown, this meant the men had very little status left. Everything was either "female" or "profane." So, this successful system spread over much of the Old World, replacing the old hunting-technology religion and its society ("culture").

You see, I believe people always have an over-all common ideological system, always have. Ours is "old religion plus secular doctrines." The prehistory ones were wrapped up with their technology. They spread the technology as religions. Each such mainstream religion, in its variations, was a step forward, a progressive step, in human social evolution.

We are getting ready for another one, a new one, in modern times. . .

charles
http://atheistic-science.com

Posted By: Chilbudios
Date Posted: 25-Nov-2008 at 15:40

Arguably the male role in reproduction was known but often considered less important. And as we are it, it's worth checking the ancient Egyptian cosmogony where Nut was the mother goddess of the sky, while Geb was the male god of the earth ( http://www.tulane.edu/~danny/shu.gif - http://www.tulane.edu/~danny/shu.gif Geb and Nut separated by Shu, a god of air).

I agree at large with the above considerations on agriculture and woman's role, however that's only a part of that society. It was a society where magic (religion) played a big role, and in that respect women could easily compete with men (probably even often getting the upper hand, that text from Pliny deals mostly woman's menstruation and nudity)

Posted By: edgewaters
Date Posted: 25-Nov-2008 at 18:44

Originally posted by charlesbrough

Since, IN THE MAINSTREAM, the male role in reproduction was still unknown, this meant the men had very little status left.

That's a good observation and I think there's something to it. They didn't entirely misunderstand it ... they seemed to know men played some part ... but I don't think they understood the actual process, if you look at the religious beliefs (eg Dumuzi etc) it seems more like they thought males made women fertile, rather than directly pregnant. The latter seems to have been seen as something that happened by itself when women reached a sufficient level of fertility.

Posted By: Chilbudios
Date Posted: 25-Nov-2008 at 20:09

The ancients (I'm mostly refering mostly the ancient Egyptians and then the Graeco-Roman world, but I assume they didn't learn it all of a sudden) certainly did not have our understanding but knew enough about fertility and pregnancy

For instance contraception was known. The 2nd century AD Soranos of Ephesos suggested that pregancy can be avoided by having intercourse in certain periods (probably they didn't have our accuracy in determining it). A more common suggestion was that woman should not let the semen to get into her womb. Of course there were also potions, diets, inserting objects or lubricating with oils, balsamies, etc.

They probably didn't understood well menstruation but they certainly had it linked with fertility, based on direct observation if not also on other symbols and events (blood as a sign of life, the blood shed at childbirth etc.). But it is interesting to note that the menstrual blood was sometimes considered poisonous or having various devastating effects.

Posted By: edgewaters
Date Posted: 25-Nov-2008 at 20:30

Originally posted by Chilbudios

2nd century is ... about 8000 years after the transition to agriculture! It's closer to our time than it is to the very earliest agricultural groups, much closer.

Posted By: red clay
Date Posted: 25-Nov-2008 at 20:51

Originally posted by Chilbudios

I think they were much more accurate and knew more about the menstrual cycle than what we think.

One of the earliest counting tools found is a piece of bone found in a cave in S. Africa, It's dated to approx. 26,000 bce and is a record of and means of calculating the cycle.

Posted By: Chilbudios
Date Posted: 25-Nov-2008 at 21:27

Originally posted by edgewaters

2nd century is ... about 8000 years after the transition to agriculture! It's closer to our time than it is to the very earliest agricultural groups, much closer.

In physical time yes, in mentality who can say?

However, as I argued further and if I understand correctly RedClay too, menstruation is easy to notice (or perhaps even anticipate) and easy to associate with fertility. When the primitive man acknowledged that pregnancy is related to menstruation, then the fertility of women became a certainty as image, as symbol, as concept.

And as a side note, in agriculture shouldn't the seed get planted in a fertile soil for a good crop?

Posted By: gcle2003
Date Posted: 26-Nov-2008 at 15:18

It must be pretty obvious to women anyway that menstruation stops when pregnancy begins. Of course that may be one of the secrets that women kept to themselves, and men thought it would be dangerous to enquire into.

Prohibitions of or limitations on contact with menstruating women were common among primitive tribes (once again I'm referring to primitive tribes studied in modern times).

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Posted By: Chilbudios
Date Posted: 26-Nov-2008 at 15:46

I found an interesting hypothesis about the beginnings of symbolism in human history (a story happening in the Upper Paleolithic, long before the rise of agriculture, ) and ... menstruation:

http://www.radicalanthropologygroup.org/pub_knight_power_watts_big.pdf - http://www.radicalanthropologygroup.org/pub_knight_power_watts_big.pdf

This hypothesis may be or may be not viable, however I find worthy to note that menstruation was a signal anticipating fertility some 50,000 years ago. Which leaves us safe to assume that the neolithic farmers had the notion of feminine fertility.

Posted By: charles brough
Date Posted: 26-Nov-2008 at 17:37

My point was that the male role in reproduction was not recognized in any mainstream religion (hence, in public opinion) until sometime after the beginning of the mother goddess agricultural society some 11,000 years ago. It most likely arose among the herding people who developed their Gimbutas-described male-god, male-fertility religion more like 8,000 years ago. The patriarchal-monogamous (sort-of) societies that began some 5,000 years ago all recognized the male role!

charles
http://atheistic-science.com

Posted By: charlesbrough
Date Posted: 27-Nov-2008 at 13:40

Originally posted by Chilbudios

Arguably the male role in reproduction was known but often considered less important. And as we are it, it's worth checking the ancient Egyptian cosmogony where Nut was the mother goddess of the sky, while Geb was the male god of the earth ( http://www.tulane.edu/%7Edanny/shu.gif - http://www.tulane.edu/~danny/shu.gif Geb and Nut separated by Shu, a god of air).

My take on the prehistory is that the Egyptian, Mesopotamian, India civilizations were based on a new patriarchal system that had a balance of female gods as well as a sort of father god (sun god). I see it as resulting from the herders out in the land too dry for agriculture who adopted the male god concept and grew powerful on an all-male panthion. They grew strong enough to feudalize much of the mother goddes beliving system. This evolved into the religion-bonded societies of Egypt and the others.

I consider all belief including magic as part of their beliefs system and that includes its technology. The female god who they thought punished them if they planted seeds at the wrong depth was the whole bases for their technology. To them, it was the cause and effect of agriculture. In our time, scientific belief is the technology of our secular belief system (but merged---compromised by---the old religions).

charles
http://atheistic-science.com

Posted By: charlesbrough
Date Posted: 27-Nov-2008 at 13:50

Originally posted by edgewaters

Originally posted by charlesbrough

Since, IN THE MAINSTREAM, the male role in reproduction was still unknown, this meant the men had very little status left.

We can say that the idea of male fertility evolved. It appeared with animal husbandry but was subversive to the mother-goddess female-fertility system and the tight control it would have had on public opinion. Instead, it developed with the people who provided meat to the agricultural fem-fertility societies. These herding people were Gimbutas's "Kurgans" who developed the opposite idea to the female religion. They figured they produced babies and that the women just incubated them for them! This would be the logical extreme except also that the Alpha males had all the best women. The rest had none!

charles
http://atheistic-science.com

Posted By: gcle2003
Date Posted: 27-Nov-2008 at 14:16

I have a personal opinion, on purely aesthetic grounds, that 'earth mother' dominated religions are associated with cultures that develop in settled river regions where populations are (relatively) dense, while 'sky father' dominated religions develop in less inhabited regions, whether that results from a desert environment, a mountainous one or a nomadic one.

Of course you get mixtures, especially where sky father 'barbarians' invade and conquer earth mother 'civilisations' (only in their turn to be assimilated).

Anyone know a 'sky mother' or 'earth father' culture? Even the phrases sound odd to the ear.

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Posted By: Chilbudios
Date Posted: 27-Nov-2008 at 14:18

Originally posted by Charlesbrough

My take on the prehistory is that the Egyptian, Mesopotamian, India civilizations were based on a new patriarchal system that had a balance of female gods as well as a sort of father god (sun god). I see it as resulting from the herders out in the land too dry for agriculture who adopted the male god concept and grew powerful on an all-male panthion. They grew strong enough to feudalize much of the mother goddes beliving system. This evolved into the religion-bonded societies of Egypt and the others.

I consider all belief including magic as part of their beliefs system and that includes its technology. The female god who they thought punished them if they planted seeds at the wrong depth was the whole bases for their technology. To them, it was the cause and effect of agriculture. In our time, scientific belief is the technology of our secular belief system (but merged---compromised by---the old religions).

As I hope you noticed in my earlier reply, the Egyptian cosmology has the gender roles in reverse, the sky god is female while the chtonic god is male.

It's worth to note that the Egyptian Nile god, Hapi was somehow hermaphrodite: male with breasts (I assume the latter a symbol of fertility)

Posted By: gcle2003
Date Posted: 27-Nov-2008 at 14:48

Originally posted by Chilbudios

As I hope you noticed in my earlier reply, the Egyptian cosmology has the gender roles in reverse, the sky god is female while the chtonic god is male.

It's worth to note that the Egyptian Nile god, Hapi was somehow hermaphrodite: male with breasts (I assume the latter a symbol of fertility)

Nut was goddess of the sky, but then Diana was the goddess of the Moon (which is often seen as female, though not in Egypt). The dominant Egyptian sky figure is Ra, Nut's grandfather.

The major Egyptian divinity ultimately however is Isis, who fits the earth goddess role pretty perfectly, as I wold expect in a densely populated river culture.

'Chthonic', whatever its etymology, pertains to the underworld, not the earth. In Egypt the chief figure associated with the underworld is Osiris, who is male, but that is also common. He is certainly not an 'earth father'.

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Posted By: Chilbudios
Date Posted: 27-Nov-2008 at 15:05

Graham, I don't think I'm in mood to always engage with your personal and often misunderstood concepts (like you proved earlier in the thread with the anthropology). Chthonic pertains to the underworld and the earth (etymologically related to being in the earth, not just at the surface). Demeter or Gaia are also chthonic gods. If you really have read those scholars you listed earlier you should have known that.

Nut was a mother goddess, for she gave birth to all stars and to several important gods (Isis, Osiris, Set). The Nut and Geb couple is paralleled in Greek mythology with Uranus and Gaia. The Roman Diana was a virgin, a goddess of the moon, of the wild nature, of the hunt, but also of chastity, she has nothing to do with motherhood.

To hopefully anticipate and clarify other terminological issues, I''ll use an article accesible via JStor: Susan Tower Hollis, "Women of Ancient Egypt and the Sky Goddess Nut" in The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 100, No. 398, 1987. At page 497 it can be read "Nut is not envisioned as a chthonic deity as are virtually all mother goddesses".

Posted By: charlesbrough
Date Posted: 27-Nov-2008 at 15:36

Originally posted by gcle2003

I have a personal opinion, on purely aesthetic grounds, that 'earth mother' dominated religions are associated with cultures that develop in settled river regions where populations are (relatively) dense, while 'sky father' dominated religions develop in less inhabited regions, whether that results from a desert environment, a mountainous one or a nomadic one.

Of course you get mixtures, especially where sky father 'barbarians' invade and conquer earth mother 'civilisations' (only in their turn to be assimilated).

Anyone know a 'sky mother' or 'earth father' culture? Even the phrases sound odd to the ear.

The religions of Mesopotamia and Egypt had several thousand different gods each. The top Egyptian gods were sun gods. In some of the Mesopotamian lore, the old mother goddess was represented by the moon. After all, it revolved around a 28 day (menstrual) cycle! The name "Allah" came from the pre-Islamic goddess of the moon. That explains why the faith is represented by the star and crescent (moon). The most sacred Muslim temple is the Khaba and in its wall is the "black stone" which is revered above all and kissed by those who circle around it by the tens of thousands if not millions annually. It has a cleft in it that seems to have represented to the pre-Islamic people the female sexual cleft (vagina). That is why when the cleft enlarged and the stone broke into, they glued and wired it back together.

Remind me not to write this sort of thing about old religions! I have done it about Christianity, Judaism, and Hinduism as well. I make too many enemies! You ought see what I wrote about Marxism! Evil%20Smile

charles
http://athesitic-science.com

Posted By: Vorian
Date Posted: 27-Nov-2008 at 15:43

Originally posted by charlesbrough

[

The name "Allah" came from the pre-Islamic goddess of the moon. That explains why the faith is represented by the star and crescent (moon). The most sacred Muslim temple is the Khaba and in its wall is the "black stone" which is revered above all and kissed by those who circle around it by the tens of thousands if not millions annually. It has a cleft in it that seems to have represented to the pre-Islamic people the female sexual cleft (vagina). That is why when the cleft enlarged and the stone broke into, they glued and wired it back together.

You are mistaken there....the crescent was not an early Muslim symbol but was made so by the Turks who conquered a large chunk of the Muslim world.

And Allah was one of the important deities of pagan Arabia, made to the one God by Mohamed.

I don't have a clue about what you claim about Kaaba though. Care to provide a link or source?

Posted By: Chilbudios
Date Posted: 27-Nov-2008 at 15:46

Originally posted by Charlesbrough

In some of the Mesopotamian lore, the old mother goddess was represented by the moon. After all, it revolved around a 28 day (menstrual) cycle!

But moon and menstruation were related (even etymologically, int Latin menstruus, -a, -um was an adjective meaning 'monthly'), though not all moon goddesses were mother goddesses, being assigned later with this role (like I said earlier Artemis/Diana was a virgin!)

Posted By: edgewaters
Date Posted: 06-Dec-2008 at 22:08

Originally posted by Chilbudios

Originally posted by edgewaters

2nd century is ... about 8000 years after the transition to agriculture! It's closer to our time than it is to the very earliest agricultural groups, much closer.

In physical time yes, in mentality who can say?

And as a side note, in agriculture shouldn't the seed get planted in a fertile soil for a good crop?

I don't doubt they understood the menstrual cycle at all, but did they understand that semen was seed - or did they think it was more like watering the soil?

Posted By: Bernard Woolley
Date Posted: 07-Dec-2008 at 06:41

Originally posted by gcle2003

Anyone know a 'sky mother' or 'earth father' culture? Even the phrases sound odd to the ear.

Japan. Amaterasu is the sun goddess, and the head of the Shinto pantheon. I have to say, I'm not at all sold on the sky-male-husbandry/earth-female-agriculture dichotomy. It seems a little too clean and ideological a way of defining ancient societies.

Posted By: Chilbudios
Date Posted: 07-Dec-2008 at 14:26

Originally posted by Edgewaters

I don't doubt they understood the menstrual cycle at all, but did they understand that semen was seed - or did they think it was more like watering the soil?

I honestly do not know. But as in some ancient societies we find also male patrons of earth and even agricultural fertility, it may be that sometimes male's semen was regarded to be more than just watering.

And of course, we must not fall in the trap to consider all deities as purely human males or females. Sometimes gods were androgyne, hermaphrodyte, or only partially anthropomorphized.

Posted By: charlesbrough
Date Posted: 07-Dec-2008 at 14:35

Originally posted by Bernard Woolley

Originally posted by gcle2003

Anyone know a 'sky mother' or 'earth father' culture? Even the phrases sound odd to the ear.

I think it presents an accurate picture of the time because it was a way for them to explain agriculture which developed from "gathering" (hunting/gathering) and a woman-fertility thing.

It should been thought of as an ideology which explained agriculture to them; it was logical to them for what they knew then. Thus, it encased their major technology just as hunting and herding developed male-god ideologies that explained and hence encased their technology, that of hunting and/or herding. These were early ideological steps up in the chain of social evolution that has brought the human race to where it is today.

charles
http://atheistic-science.com

Posted By: edgewaters
Date Posted: 08-Dec-2008 at 06:09

Originally posted by Chilbudios

I honestly do not know. But as in some ancient societies we find also male patrons of earth and even agricultural fertility, it may be that sometimes male's semen was regarded to be more than just watering.

Well, most of these early agrarian civilizations with the cyclical deities are in flood plains, and usually the male fertility deities are associated with, of course, the flood. Enki, for instance. Note also that the Sumerian word for water - simply, "a" - is the same as the word for semen.

And of course, we must not fall in the trap to consider all deities as purely human males or females. Sometimes gods were androgyne, hermaphrodyte, or only partially anthropomorphized.

Well that's quite true, there are even some hermaphrodytic (or, more accurately, dual-gender) fertility deities. But it's possible that this is just an intermediate stage, as female fertility deities are transformed into male deities (case in point: Centeotl, who went from female, to dual aspect, to fully male)

Posted By: gcle2003
Date Posted: 09-Dec-2008 at 11:27

Originally posted by Chilbudios

Graham, I don't think I'm in mood to always engage with your personal and often misunderstood concepts (like you proved earlier in the thread with the anthropology).

Then don't. I was very careful to write "for purely aesthetic reasons". So if you want to criticise do so on aesthetic grounds.

Chthonic pertains to the underworld and the earth (etymologically related to being in the earth, not just at the surface). Demeter or Gaia are also chthonic gods. If you really have read those scholars you listed earlier you should have known that.

I don't agree that Demeter/Gaia were chthonic goddesses. Or, if you want to use chthonic in that broad sense, then you need another term for the gods and goddesses of the underworld - 'chthonic' in the normal sense.

If you want to claim Persephone as chthonic you have a better case.

Nut was a mother goddess, for she gave birth to all stars and to several important gods (Isis, Osiris, Set).

Agreed, but you miss the point. She was never the dominant figure in the Egyptian pantheon, the way Isis became.

The Nut and Geb couple is paralleled in Greek mythology with Uranus and Gaia. The Roman Diana was a virgin, a goddess of the moon, of the wild nature, of the hunt, but also of chastity, she has nothing to do with motherhood.

Which is exactly why I quoted her.

I don't have JSTOR. Hollis is noted for a feminist approach to interpreting subjects like sovereignty but that probably isn't relevant to this particular quote. I just think she isn't using 'chthonic' properly. There's a major distinction between gods/goddesses of the underworld and gods/goddesses of earth and fertility, and this use of 'chthonic' is failing to draw it.

-------------

Posted By: Chilbudios
Date Posted: 09-Dec-2008 at 14:17

Originally posted by gcle2003

Then don't. I was very careful to write "for purely aesthetic reasons". So if you want to criticise do so on aesthetic grounds.

There are no such approach on archaeology and anthropology like "aesthetic". They are scholarly fields, they are disciplines. Either you understand what they are about, or you don't.

Besides, scripta manent. You didn't write such a thing as you claim now (search the thread!), however you ludicrously claimed the following:

"That's not so true of Gimbutas, who had a respectable career as an archaeologist, but I'm unaware that she did any significant work as an anthropologist"

"Incidentally I tend to think of anthropologists as people who study existing peoples and archaeologists as people who study extinct ones. I accept though that's a personal view, albeit one I think useful."

Therefore my criticism is correct, you used a personal concept of yours ("personal view" in your own wording) which shows rather a misunderstanding. It may be useful for you, but this thread is not about you and how you understand things, but about mother goddesses.

You don't know what chtonic means, therefore you can't say what sense is normal or not. Demeter was also known as Chthonia!
See below for more scholarly references on chthonic.

Agreed, but you miss the point. She was never the dominant figure in the Egyptian pantheon, the way Isis became.

You're the one missing my point (it was my position which you attacked). Our dialogue was roughly:
Me: Nut was mother goddess
You: But she wasn't a dominant goddess.

Which is exactly why I quoted her.

And I argued that was irrelevant to the topic at hand. Nut was a mother goddess, Diana wasn't.

And I am sure you don't know what chthonic means. I didn't intend to draw such distinction (it was my remark, I know infinitely better than you what I meant), only to present the difference sky gods vs earth gods.
And if you have doubts that an author misses the point because of feminism, let's browse some more scholars, shall we?

http://books.google.com/books?id=4AKV1PK8bxcC&pg=PA301 - http://books.google.com/books?id=4AKV1PK8bxcC&pg=PA301
"die Chthonier - die Mächte der Erde und der Unterwelt"

http://books.google.com/books?id=YxKlRxXsY58C&pg=PA135 - http://books.google.com/books?id=YxKlRxXsY58C&pg=PA135
"Geb was the chief earth god and the mate of the sky goddess Nut. [...] Like other chthonic deities, Geb could be a terrifying god, responsible for destructive earthquakes"

http://books.google.com/books?id=_tMUAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA84 - http://books.google.com/books?id=_tMUAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA84
"According to the Hesiodean tradition the child-Zeus was brought up by Gaia who took him from Rhea and kept him in a deep cave. It does not seem necessary to insist that Gaia, being chthonic, and not Rhea, should be his real mother."

http://books.google.com/books?id=cvSiWE0KQsYC&pg=PA47 - http://books.google.com/books?id=cvSiWE0KQsYC&pg=PA47
"The Minoan god with whom the Hellenic Zeus was identified was doubtless a chthonic god of generation and fertility, the divine son and consort of the great Cretan earth-goddess"

http://books.google.com/books?id=bW9jMZwrsxEC&pg=RA3-PA274 - http://books.google.com/books?id=bW9jMZwrsxEC&pg=RA3-PA274
"in a chthonic, earth-related identification"

http://books.google.com/books?id=kWU33X4gPmUC&pg=PA164 - http://books.google.com/books?id=kWU33X4gPmUC&pg=PA164
"A majority of scholars agree that Saturn must at some time have been a chthonic deity, somehow connected with agriculture, and more specifically with the corn harvest. According to some of them his chthonic nature involved more gloomy aspects as well: connections with death and the underworld."

http://books.google.com/books?id=vcMUAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA73 - http://books.google.com/books?id=vcMUAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA73
"In matriarchal religion the [...] chthonic, Demetriac element predominates ..."
"All this was influenced by the female tendency towards adopting chthonic cults and insisting on the connection between woman and Mother Earth."

http://books.google.com/books?id=pSdaNuIaUUEC&pg=RA1-PA410 - http://books.google.com/books?id=pSdaNuIaUUEC&pg=RA1-PA410
"... worship of chthonic deities such as Mother Earth ..."
"Conversely, the chthonic deities frequently combine two functions in primarily agrarian cultures: they control the harvest, thus granting wealth, and they are also the masters of the dead who have been laid to rest in the earth."

http://books.google.com/books?id=Y-m7AeWlZDsC&pg=PA127 - http://books.google.com/books?id=Y-m7AeWlZDsC&pg=PA127
"For the Greeks, the dark chthonic ("of the earth") deities like Gaia and the Furies represent an older form of the law based on bloodguilt and kinship ties"

http://books.google.com/books?id=1-es5ErSgkUC&pg=PA146 - http://books.google.com/books?id=1-es5ErSgkUC&pg=PA146
"The worship of chthonic deities, especially the godess Demeter, by native wives was an important part of the societal melding in many Greek colonies and Cyrene was no exception. Chthonic divinites typically have a wide-range of agrarian and funerary interests"

http://books.google.com/books?id=Qm8lsx9L_coC&pg=PA90 - http://books.google.com/books?id=Qm8lsx9L_coC&pg=PA90
"Deities whose functions included the earth itself (such as agriculture), or whose functions involved the dead, were considered chthonic. Thus Demeter, too, had a chthonic aspect as a fertility goddess, since seeeds are planted in the earth and were seen as representing death and renewal (burial and rebirth), and so she was sometimes referred to as Chthonia. And deities who dwelled in the underworld and rarely ventured outside it are regularly referred to as chthonic."

From JStor, I will quote also from Arthur Fairbanks, "The Chthonic Gods of Greek Religion" published in The American Journal of Philology, 21.3/1900. Fairbanks tries to impose a more restrictive usage of the adjective "chthonic" to some "gods of the souls" (and I guess we can say he failed considering the scholarship I exemplified above), emphasizing the usage of the term in Greek poetry. However he makes a lot of interesting arguments and fair presentations e.g.
"The idea of chthonic gods starts with the epic division of the universe into what is above the earth and what is below the earth." and after browsing some testimonies from ancient Greek authors he concludes about the "two meanings of the term 'chthonic' as applied to the gods - (a) a poetic term to denote a god associated with the souls, and (b) a cultus term to denote a god of agriculture"

Not long after, in HSCP 19/1908, in a response to Fairbanks, J. W. Hewitt provided a new definition:
http://books.google.com/books?id=bnASAAAAIAAJ&q=chthonic&pgis=1 - http://books.google.com/books?id=bnASAAAAIAAJ&q=chthonic&pgis=1
"My definition of a chthonic god shall be the simplest possible. I employ the term to include all divine or semi-divine being supposed to dwell beneath the earth's surface, whether as gods of the dead or of the agriculture as the souls of the dead and such heroes as were conceived to dwell under the earth."

Now, let's review our positions:

You: 'Chthonic', whatever its etymology, pertains to the underworld, not the earth
Me: Chthonic pertains to the underworld and the earth (etymologically related to being in the earth, not just at the surface).

I think by now is obvious that I used the term properly and Hollis did too. It is obvious that we used the term "in the normal sense". The only abnormal, unreasonable, unjustifiable and arguably ignorant position was yours when you asserted that "chthonic ... pertains .... not [to] the earth".

Posted By: Chilbudios
Date Posted: 09-Dec-2008 at 14:38

Originally posted by Edgewaters

Well, most of these early agrarian civilizations with the cyclical deities are in flood plains, and usually the male fertility deities are associated with, of course, the flood. Enki, for instance. Note also that the Sumerian word for water - simply, "a" - is the same as the word for semen.

However, in some particular cases like Geb and even the Semitic Dagan, the metaphors seem more substantial, more "solid". Of Geb it was said that cereals grow from his ribs. True, I don't know if any of these relates directly to semen, but it's more than watering.

It is a possibility. Unfortunately we have little evidence from the "pre-history" of these male agricultural gods.

Posted By: gcle2003
Date Posted: 09-Dec-2008 at 18:59

Originally posted by Chilbudios

Originally posted by gcle2003

Then don't. I was very careful to write "for purely aesthetic reasons". So if you want to criticise do so on aesthetic grounds.

There are no such approach on archaeology and anthropology like "aesthetic". They are scholarly fields, they are disciplines. Either you understand what they are about, or you don't.

Either you have some feeling for aesthetics or you don't. Religion is specifically relevant to aesthetic appreciation.

Besides, scripta manent. You didn't write such a thing as you claim now (search the thread!),

Yes I did.

Originally posted by gcle2003 27-Nov-2008 at 15:16 CET - IP: 88.207.198.82

I have a personal opinion, on purely aesthetic grounds....

however you ludicrously claimed the following:

"That's not so true of Gimbutas, who had a respectable career as an archaeologist, but I'm unaware that she did any significant work as an anthropologist"

This particular subthread is one I raised. It's certainly relevant to mother goddesses. The whole concept of 'mother' in religion is an aesthetic concept.

I also fail entirely to see that my recognising something as a personal opinion (on how best to discriminate between the fields I would call 'anthropology' and 'archaeology') shows misunderstanding. That we should distinguish between studying extant live cultures and deducing social structures and beliefs from archaeological traces should surely be a given: to use the same word for both is therefore counterproductive.

You don't know what chtonic means, therefore you can't say what sense is normal or not. Demeter was also known as Chthonia!
See below for more scholarly references on chthonic.

I also wrote "whatever its etymology". (Same date, 15:48 CET if you feel like another challenge like the earlier one.)

Again the point is there is a need to distinguish between divinities associated with the underworld (i.e. the world of the dead) and those associated with the fertility of the earth. It's pure happenstance that the Greeks, inter alia, thought the dead dwelt somewhere underground: most religions don't believe that. To blindly use 'chthonic' for both groups is therefore to generalise what is a specifically Greek situation. Hades and Demeter don't fall into the same category.

Agreed, but you miss the point. She was never the dominant figure in the Egyptian pantheon, the way Isis became.

You're the one missing my point (it was my position which you attacked). Our dialogue was roughly:
Me: Nut was mother goddess
You: But she wasn't a dominant goddess.

So? And this didn't start with me attacking your position, it started with your objecting to my post introducing (to this thread) the concept of a dichotomy between sky father and earth mother.

Which is exactly why I quoted her.

And I argued that was irrelevant to the topic at hand. Nut was a mother goddess, Diana wasn't.

http://books.google.com/books?id=4AKV1PK8bxcC&pg=PA301 - http://books.google.com/books?id=4AKV1PK8bxcC&pg=PA301
"die Chthonier - die Mächte der Erde und der Unterwelt"

http://books.google.com/books?id=bW9jMZwrsxEC&pg=RA3-PA274 - http://books.google.com/books?id=bW9jMZwrsxEC&pg=RA3-PA274
"in a chthonic, earth-related identification"

Now, let's review our positions:

There seems to be agreement that the word is used in two senses. That's what I'm objecting to. If no-one was doing it, I wouldn't be objecting. Using the same term to cover two different categories simply because of an accident in how the Greeks happened to view the underworld is confusing and should be avoided no matter who is doing it.

(I accept of course that the reverse of my position - using 'chthonic' to refer to fertilitiy divinities and not to underworld ones - would be just as logical. It's confusing the two that is, well, confusing.)

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Posted By: Chilbudios
Date Posted: 10-Dec-2008 at 00:08

Originally posted by gcle2003

Either you have some feeling for aesthetics or you don't. Religion is specifically relevant to aesthetic appreciation.

But not the topic at hand which is a discussion about mother goddesses, and certainly not the points I was making and you were replying to.

Yes I did.

No, you did not write on the difference between anthropology and archaeology "on purely aesthetic grounds", you did not write about how to understand the 'chthonic' "on purely aesthetic grounds" and this is to what I referred when I said "I don't think I'm in mood to always engage with your personal and often misunderstood concepts". It seems you're unable to track a simple discussion of few replies, let alone discuss something more serious.

This particular subthread is one I raised. It's certainly relevant to mother goddesses. The whole concept of 'mother' in religion is an aesthetic concept.

I did not reply to that 'subthread' of yours but now since you brought it up, I must say I find it a groundless, stupid statement. However I'll wait until we settle (if we will) the current issues, before addressing it in more detail.

It is certainly not counterproductive, as the wealth of anthropological research shows. If you feel this 'need', perhaps it is your own failure of understanding (and perhaps that's also why you 'fail entirely to see'). James Frazer, a name you dared to brag about (probably unknowing much of him and his work), researched long ago dead cultures (read The Golden Bough for instance). However he's an anthropologist, not an archaeologist. I don't think one can read Frazer and then affirm that he tends "to think of anthropologists as people who study existing peoples and archaeologists as people who study extinct ones".

So? And this didn't start with me attacking your position, it started with your objecting to my post introducing (to this thread) the concept of a dichotomy between sky father and earth mother.

Before your reply addressed to me on 27 Nov, I was discussing with Charlesbrough and Edgewaters, not with you. My post was about the reversed roles in Egyptian cosmology and was addressed to Charlesbrough. Your reply to me was about Nut not being a dominant god and other dominant Egyptian gods (irrelevant), about Roman Diana (irrelevant) and a complete misunderstanding of the term 'chthonic'.

I also wrote "whatever its etymology". (Same date, 15:48 CET if you feel like another challenge like the earlier one.)

Perhaps you need to improve your reading skills because in the same post you replied to I said: "You: 'Chthonic', whatever its etymology, pertains to the underworld, not the earth". I also instructed with "see below" (I noticed for a long while that you often reply before you actually finish reading).

There was not such a need in my discourse and certainly not in the bunch of scholarly works I quoted from. The term 'chthonic' is already traditional in scholarship, it is not blindly used, on the contrary it is properly defined (some of my quotes were actually definitions). Hades and Demeter fall in the same category that of gods of the Earth. In particular Demeter was also known as Chthonia ( http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/secondary/SMIGRA*/Chthonia.html - http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/secondary/SMIGRA*/Chthonia.html ). The term 'chthonic' means more or less 'earthly', most religions have 'earthly gods', i.e. deities living in the earth, under earth's surface.

It is confusing for you, because you don't understand. The word is not used in two senses, but only one, referring to those gods (also in extension demigods, heroes, etc.) who live under the earth. A good part of the scholarly terminology is derived from Greek and Latin. 'Chthonic' comes from Greek, but 'religion' comes from Latin. They are mere words, but their meanings cover worldwide phenomena, unbounded by some Mediterranean focus.

Your objection is ultimately irrelevant as long as it comes from someone manifesting deep ignorance and unfamiliarity with the relevant scholarship. The world does not revolve around you, it will never will. I and also the most of the scholars will use the term 'chthonic' as we see fit, no access of aggressive misunderstanding will change that.

Posted By: gcle2003
Date Posted: 10-Dec-2008 at 13:50

Originally posted by Chilbudios

Originally posted by gcle2003

Either you have some feeling for aesthetics or you don't. Religion is specifically relevant to aesthetic appreciation.

But not the topic at hand which is a discussion about mother goddesses, and certainly not the points I was making and you were replying to.

Mother goddesses have nothing to do with religion?

Yes I did.

No I didn't. But that isn't what you challenged me on.

It seems you're unable to track a simple discussion of few replies, let alone discuss something more serious.

This particular subthread is one I raised. It's certainly relevant to mother goddesses. The whole concept of 'mother' in religion is an aesthetic concept.

Just avoid the stupid comments. Of course I've read Frazer.

researched long ago dead cultures (read The Golden Bough for instance). However he's an anthropologist, not an archaeologist. I don't think one can read Frazer and then affirm that he tends "to think of anthropologists as people who study existing peoples and archaeologists as people who study extinct ones".

It's laughable you accuse me of not having read Frazer, and then come up with such a ridiculous assertion. The Golden Bough is rife with examples from existing cultures (existing in his time anyway). He talks about the Bagabos of Mindanao, of African tribes like the Bunyoro, and on one page alone (picked pretty well at random - 70 in the Wordsworth Reference version of the abridged version) he mentions current practices in India (Poona), southern and western Russia, Armenia, North Africa, different parts of the Celebes and the Caucasus.

Moreover, there's another point, Frazer was not a field worker anyway. As wikipedia correctly puts it "His prime sources of data were ancient histories and questionnaires mailed to missionaries and Imperial officials all over the globe." Those questionnaires were about current practices in the various areas.

Along with the 'ancient histories' that raises the question of how studying at second-hand affects the 'extinctness' of the culture being studied. If by reading Malinowski or Leach or Lévi-Strauss as they describe happenings in Melanesia or Burma or South America I am being an anthropologist, then is not that the same as reading Servius or Plutarch or Juvenal describing happenings in Italy or Greece?

Contemporary descriptions are fieldwork (maybe not that rigorous of course) no matter when they were written. And Frazer is essentially a theorist basing himself on other people's fieldwork.

Of course there are people who may want to disqualify Frazer therefore as an anthropologist: there is a case for that I suppose. But that doen't mean the distinction between anthropology and archaeology isn't important.

So? And this didn't start with me attacking your position, it started with your objecting to my post introducing (to this thread) the concept of a dichotomy between sky father and earth mother.

I also wrote "whatever its etymology". (Same date, 15:48 CET if you feel like another challenge like the earlier one.)

Yes. Bad habit. However you're losing the thread. There wasn't much point in arguing that 'chthonic' etymologically would mean 'earthen' or something similar - as you do below - , when I'd indicated I already knew that, and thought the etymology irrelevant.

You steadfastly ignore the point. It so happens that in Greek mythology the dead are supposed to live in caverns underground. I don't think that's a unique belief but it's rare. However many religions have the belief in an afterlife, and some divinity (possibly several)that rule over those souls. It's also fairly common to find divinities associated with the fertility of the earth. The distinction between the divinities of the afterlife and the fertility divinities is an important one. The distinction between divinities who happen to have some connection with the earth (including being underneath it) and those who don't is trivial.

It's the function of the divinity that is important, not its attribute.

As I said before and as you repeat below I don't really mind which of the two groups 'chthonic' is used to refer to: my main objection is to using it in two different senses, which is confusing no matter who is doing the confusing.

It is confusing for you, because you don't understand. The word is not used in two senses, but only one, referring to those gods (also in extension demigods, heroes, etc.) who live under the earth.

Well that's not what your authorities said (between them). They said two senses. Moreover you've now restricted it to living under the earth, whereas earlier you used it to mean 'associated with the earth'. Demeter for instance doesn't live in the underworld: if she did the tale of Persephone would be nonsense.

It's not me failing to understand. There's an important distinction here you seem incapable of seeing, though I suspect it's because you don't want to admit it.

A good part of the scholarly terminology is derived from Greek and Latin. 'Chthonic' comes from Greek, but 'religion' comes from Latin. They are mere words, but their meanings cover worldwide phenomena, unbounded by some Mediterranean focus.

Your objection is ultimately irrelevant as long as it comes from someone manifesting deep ignorance and unfamiliarity with the relevant scholarship.

At least I've read The Golden Bough.

It might interest you to know that after Managers and Magic in the early '70s I was shortlisted for the new job of Director of the Royal Anthropological Institute, and interviewed by a panel headed by Edmund Leach, a fan of my book. (I didn't get the job: in fact they decided against having a full-time director.

The world does not revolve around you, it will never will. I and also the most of the scholars will use the term 'chthonic' as we see fit, no access of aggressive misunderstanding will change that.

I may have gone to the wrong university but I'm still partial to lost causes, precision being sadly one of them.

-------------

Posted By: Chilbudios
Date Posted: 10-Dec-2008 at 20:23

Originally posted by Gcle2003

Mother goddesses have nothing to do with religion?

But I didn't say such a thing. Not everything you say of religion is valid for each aspect or component of it. Not all the points of the view valid in general are also valid in particular.

No I didn't. But that isn't what you challenged me on.

Oh yes, that was exactly my challenge. Read entirely our exchange of replies, not just bits from a sentence. I hope this summary will close the issue:
1) I argued you're using some personal flawed concepts, particularly when defining anthropology (as opposed to archaeology) and when defining what 'chthonic' is
2) You replied to my first example and you defended yourself claiming that you were careful to add 'for purely aesthetic reasons' and if I want to criticize I must do it on 'aesthetic grounds'
3) I replied that we can't discuss about the difference between anthropology and archaeology on aesthetic grounds given these are disciplines in their own merit, and besides there're no such claim from your side, and I proceeded to show what you actually wrote of archaeology and anthropology. If for you it's not as obvious as it's for me, then I take blame for not being repetitive enough to add in each sentence from that text that I was talking about your concepts I found wrongly defined, not about whatever other claims.

Just avoid the stupid comments. Of course I've read Frazer.

Apparently not well enough. Even below you somehow avoid his work on ancient cultures and eventually resort to Wikipedia quotes to characterize his work. Were you to be a thoughtful reader I'd expect a direct summary of his work or quoting some other scholars (and yes, he's often referenced, though sometimes only for his pioneering work if not for the intrinsec value of his ideas).

It's laughable you accuse me of not having read Frazer, and then come up with such a ridiculous assertion. The Golden Bough is rife with examples from existing cultures (existing in his time anyway). He talks about the Bagabos of Mindanao, of African tribes like the Bunyoro, and on one page alone (picked pretty well at random - 70 in the Wordsworth Reference version of the abridged version) he mentions current practices in India (Poona), southern and western Russia, Armenia, North Africa, different parts of the Celebes and the Caucasus.

Frazer's work (The Golden Bough too) is rife with examples from extinct cultures (and peoples) and apparently you're not aware of that (IIRC one chapter from The Golden Bough is about Demeter and Persefone). That inept taxonomy would qualify Frazer also as an archaeologist!

However the studies of modern scholars on ancient Greeks or Romans through the accounts of that time make the former anthropologists, not the latter (though some of them are viewed as pioneering in anthropology, well mostly ethnography). And sometimes the modern anthropology does not study only what the testimonies say about others, but the testimonies/narrators themselves! The written acounts are also sometimes epigraphic records (Frazer, for instance, builds interpretations from Egyptian or Mesopotamian inscriptions). However anthropology studies the human behavior, beliefs, etc. even when no written accounts are available, but from the perspective of archaeology, of comparative religions and of course often it draws from multi-disciplinary premises (e.g. the religious beliefs of the Neolithic populations, to name something relevant to this thread). For someone bragging with his achievements as an anthropologist, you're amazingly unknowing of what anthropology really is. Let's check

scholarship:

http://books.google.com/books?id=zQOOlvTx8poC&pg=PA3 - http://books.google.com/books?id=zQOOlvTx8poC&pg=PA3
"anthropology, the study of man from a number of aspects" (plus multiple other considerations, read those pages)

universites:

http://anthropology.tamu.edu/ - http://anthropology.tamu.edu/
"Anthropology is the study of humankind over the entire world and throughout time. Anthropologists study existing cultures and human behavior (cultural anthropology), traditions (folklore), prehistoric cultures and lifeways (archaeology), the biological makeup and evolution of humans (physical anthropology), and the origin and nature of language (linguistics). "

http://www.anthro.ucsd.edu/ - http://www.anthro.ucsd.edu/
"Anthropology is the study of all things human. It is concerned with the past, the present, and the future, and is the nexus between the natural sciences, the humanities, and the social sciences. Anthropology provides students with a comparative, theoretical, and global understanding of human culture and society from evolutionary, historical, and contemporary perspectives. "

professional associations:

http://www.aaanet.org/about/WhatisAnthropology.cfm - http://www.aaanet.org/about/WhatisAnthropology.cfm

"Nothing human is alien to anthropology. Indeed, of the many disciplines that study our species, Homo sapiens, only anthropology seeks to understand the whole panorama — in geographic space and evolutionary time — of human existence.

Though easy to define, anthropology is difficult to describe. Its subject matter is both exotic (e.g., star lore of the Australian aborigines) and commonplace (anatomy of the foot). And its focus is both sweeping (the evolution of language) and microscopic (the use-wear of obsidian tools). Anthropologists may study ancient Mayan hieroglyphics, the music of African Pygmies, and the corporate culture of a U.S. car manufacturer."

Not only that none of these agree with your definitions, some of them are plainly contradicting it "throughout time", "concerned with the past, the present, and the future", "the whole panorama - in [...] evolutionary time - of human existence"

To me seems rather clear that one claiming he tends "to think of anthropologists as people who study existing peoples and archaeologists as people who study extinct ones" proves he knows next to nothing of what anthropology is. Maybe as you say, you went to the wrong university, but why then don't you correct your views? There are many universities out there able to provide an outline on anthropology and probably also some operative definitions.

Perhaps, but certainly there's none to qualify Frazer as an archaeologist, while your unthoughtul taxonomy suggests he's one.

You miss again my point. I am not arguing that chthonic etymologically means 'earthen', I argue that chthonic means 'earthen' in studies of comparative religion, anthropology, etc. 'chthonic' means 'earthen' in current language, 'chthonic' means 'earthen' in my post which you objected to. I provided definitions from modern scholarship, not from a lexicon of Ancient Greek (do you know what 'etymology' means?)

It's the function of the divinity that is important, not its attribute.

But there's no point. There's such distinction already: some are gods of the agriculture, some are gods of the dead (and some are gods of both). If you want one word descriptions you can qualify the former as agrarian, the latter as funeral (or infernal, or some other suitable one-word epithet). That doesn't change the fact both type of gods can be 'chthonic' if their manifestation and/or habitat is sub-terranean. And with this meaning this word is used in modern scholarship. A god of the dead dwelling in a palace in the clouds and receiving the souls in some celestial paradise is not chthonic! A god of agriculture hidden in clouds and responsible only for watering the crops with beneficial rains is not chthonic! What part of the syntagm 'in the earth' is unclear to you?

And as I said before your objection is irrelevant as long as it fails to draw from some serious references. It is confusing for you, not for me, not for those I quoted.

Well that's not what your authorities said (between them). They said two senses.

You didn't understand what they said. They all agreed the 'chthonic' gods are gods of the earth, which is only one sense. No one suggested that 'chthonic' does not pertain to earth as you erroneously claimed and refused to concede.

Moreover you've now restricted it to living under the earth, whereas earlier you used it to mean 'associated with the earth'. Demeter for instance doesn't live in the underworld: if she did the tale of Persephone would be nonsense.

You miss my point, I am not enforcing any restriction. Demeter "lives" under the Earth when she causes the buried seeds to give birth to plants (one of those references even describes her chthonic aspect like that!). Demeter is both chthonic and olympian. The two categories are not mutually exclusive. Why don't you actually read carefully my references before jumping to conclusions?

It's not me failing to understand. There's an important distinction here you seem incapable of seeing, though I suspect it's because you don't want to admit it.

Since you failed to provide any serious argument or reference to argue that "chtonic [...] pertains [...] not [to] the earth" the only reasonable conclusion is that you are the one lacking understanding. I provided more than enough references to support my view, and absolutely none of them argued that, well, the term 'chthonic' fails to distinguish gods of the soul of those of agriculture, thus we must change its meaning because we lack a necessary distinction. You set a false dilemma, that's why I am incapable of seeing.

It might interest you to know that after Managers and Magic in the early '70s I was shortlisted for the new job of Director of the Royal Anthropological Institute, and interviewed by a panel headed by Edmund Leach, a fan of my book. (I didn't get the job: in fact they decided against having a full-time director.

Actually I'm not intersted at all in that. Incompetence, shallowness, tentatives, compromises, half-measures exist everywhere and besides I am not sure how a glance in the world of secretaries, accountants, marketeers etc. (I admit to have not read your book, just browsed some half-dozen refernces to it, so if my assessment is incorrect I'll expect a rebuttal) gives you competence or authority to argue about general topics in anthropology or comparative religion.
You remind me of some other member of the forum who bragged recently about his PhD after he exposed some really crazy theories refuted by virtually all his opponents. No one cares about such braggings when they are not backed up properly by discourse, skills, knowledge, bibliography. The level of discourse and understanding (of my own messages if not of deeper topics) is poor, the bibliography is quasi-absent, pending between vague (enumerating names), obsolete (Frazer, a good guy, but hey! we're in the 21st century), and trivial (Wikipedia), the knowledge displayed is arguably lacunar and often ends up contradicting with mainstream scholarly opinions, on no other grounds than personal views, needs and similar unreliable criteria. Are you to be a scholar you first will impress with intelligence and knowledge, and afterwards you are welcome to brag with credentials if you think they'll crown the opus.

I may have gone to the wrong university but I'm still partial to lost causes, precision being sadly one of them.

I would disagree with this self-assessment of yours. I used the term 'chthonic' awfully precise, yet it failed to provide satisfaction.

Posted By: gcle2003
Date Posted: 10-Dec-2008 at 21:31

Originally posted by Chilbudios

Originally posted by Gcle2003

Mother goddesses have nothing to do with religion?

But I didn't say such a thing. Not everything you say of religion is valid for each aspect or component of it. Not all the points of the view valid in general are also valid in particular.

No I didn't. But that isn't what you challenged me on.

Oh yes, that was exactly my challenge. Read entirely our exchange of replies, not just bits from a sentence. I hope this summary will close the issue:

What follows is a complete fudge. Just quote the quotes don't make up 'summaries'. It started with my putting forward a proposition based as I said on aesthetic grounds. And it wasn't until some time later that I drew the distinction between (as i like to use the terms) 'archaeologists' and 'anthropologists'.

1) I argued you're using some personal flawed concepts, particularly when defining anthropology (as opposed to archaeology) and when defining what 'chthonic' is
2) You replied to my first example and you defended yourself claiming that you were careful to add 'for purely aesthetic reasons' and if I want to criticize I must do it on 'aesthetic grounds'
3) I replied that we can't discuss about the difference between anthropology and archaeology on aesthetic grounds given these are disciplines in their own merit, and besides there're no such claim from your side, and I proceeded to show what you actually wrote of archaeology and anthropology. If for you it's not as obvious as it's for me, then I take blame for not being repetitive enough to add in each sentence from that text that I was talking about your concepts I found wrongly defined, not about whatever other claims.

Just avoid the stupid comments. Of course I've read Frazer.

Apparently not well enough. Even below you somehow avoid his work on ancient cultures and eventually resort to Wikipedia quotes to characterize his work.

Nuts. You denied that Frazer studied existing cultures. I quoted directly from the book to show that he did. There's no point in quoting other sources whn I can quote from the book itself. It sits in the bookcases behind where I'm now typing, and has done for years, so if you want more quotes I can provide them.

You on the other hand are in a completely indefensible position because you're claimiing he never did things he did all the time. Here is what you actually said

James Frazer, a name you dared to brag about (probably unknowing much of him and his work), researched long ago dead cultures (read The Golden Bough for instance).

The implication is heavy that that was all he did (otherwise why bother bringing it up?) and that is flat out wrong, and displays a great deal of ignorance on your part.

Were you to be a thoughtful reader I'd expect a direct summary of his work or quoting some other scholars (and yes, he's often referenced, though sometimes only for his pioneering work if not for the intrinsec value of his ideas).

I quoted from his book, if not directly. I assumed since you pretend to all this knowledge you would have looked up the references themself in the index. In case that's a problem for you, I've posted the page I was referring to at http://www.cleverley.org/luxtheatre/frazer.html - http://www.cleverley.org/luxtheatre/frazer.html

If that's not enough the whole book is available at Gutenberg.

What's the point of quoting other people about what he did when you have the book itself?

At least I can spell Persephone (and so could Frazer). The very first chapter - the whole concept of the search Frazer undertakes in the book - is concerned with the ancient world. Everybody knows that, even tyros who've only read references to the book and don't actually know for themselves what it is about.

However, had you read the rest of the post before replying to part of it, you would have noted what I said about Frazer being an anthropologist because he studied the workd of anthropologists, even ones that were long dead. The key difference here, as I keep trying to point out, is between people who study and write about things they see for themselves or tales they themselves are told by other people, as against people who deduce things from artefacts and other relics, including of course human remains.

That inept taxonomy would qualify Frazer also as an archaeologist!

No it wouldn't. Frazer doesn't study inanimate things and draw conclusions from them (except insofar as you class books and letters from missionaries and such as 'inanimate').

Of course the Golden Bough is concerned with ancient cultures as well as excisting ones. In fact, given how long ago it was written, probably none of the cultures involved exist now.

However the studies of modern scholars on ancient Greeks or Romans through the accounts of that time make the former anthropologists, not the latter (though some of them are viewed as pioneering in anthropology, well mostly ethnography). And sometimes the modern anthropology does not study only what the testimonies say about others, but the testimonies/narrators themselves! The written acounts are also sometimes epigraphic records (Frazer, for instance, builds interpretations from Egyptian or Mesopotamian inscriptions). However anthropology studies the human behavior, beliefs, etc. even when no written accounts are available, but from the perspective of archaeology, of comparative religions (e.g. the religious beliefs of the Neolithic populations, to name something relevant to this thread) and of course often it draws from multi-disciplinary premises.

I'd like to see how you're drawing trhe line that means there are no Roman anthropologists (assuming that a degree in the suvject isn't a necessary qualification). But at least you take my point that Frazer is an anthropologist even though he studies at second-hand, and he studies records of past as well as present (or late 19th or early 20th century) cultures.So that's a start.

For someone bragging with his achievements as an anthropologist, you're amazingly unknowning of what anthropology really is. Let's check

Everything blurs in the face of this kind of status-grabbing: you end up with philosophy, history, anthropology, ... all meaning the same thing because they mean studying eveything or anything. Suddenly Shakespeare is an anthropologist. And so at the other end of the spectrum is Steve Martin. It's pointless.

scholarship:

universites:

professional associations:

http://www.aaanet.org/about/WhatisAnthropology.cfm - http://www.aaanet.org/about/WhatisAnthropology.cfm

Not only that none of these agree to your definitions, some of them are plainly contradicting it "throughout time", "concerned with the past, the present, and the future", "the whole panorama - in [...] evolutionary time - of human existence"

It seems you rather missed the point of the joke. Get someone to explain it to you.

There are many universities out there able to provide an outline on anthropology and probably also some operative definitions.

Perhaps, but certainly there's none to qualify Frazer as an archaeologist, while your unthoughtul taxonomy suggests he's one.

No it doesn't. I would have thought that was obvious by now.

Don't be childish.

I'm saying the definitions you quoted indicate (iondeed say outright) that the word is used in two senses, and I am objecting to that on the ground that it is obfuscatory. What the word meant in Greek is totally irrelevant to that point. And the fact that it is used in two senses is exactly the point I am making and that I'm complaining about. There's not much point telling me that people do what I'm complaining they do.

It's the function of the divinity that is important, not its attribute.

And as I said before your objection is irrelevant as long as it fails to draw from some serious references. It is confusing for you, not for me, not for those I quoted.

Whether I give references or not has nothing to do with its relevance, though it may have to do with its effectiveness. To quote you, do you know what 'relevant' means? (And yes, I know that's childish of me, I'm just making the point.)

Well that's not what your authorities said (between them). They said two senses.

I don't see any reason to say Demeter 'lives' under the earth. In that case, how does snatching Persephone away to live under the earth make any difference to Demeter? In all the versions I've seen, Demeter lives on the earth or on Olympus. (Take Graves' account in chapter 24 of The Greek Myths for instance.) Demeter doesn't even descend into the earth to seek Persephone but waits at Eleusis for her return. If not on Olympus she lives in places like cornfields and sacred groves and wanders the surface of the earth but not under it.

Again it's not me that's showing unfamiliarity with the subject.

It's not me failing to understand. There's an important distinction here you seem incapable of seeing, though I suspect it's because you don't want to admit it.

Read the book.

gives you competence or authority to argue about general topics in anthropology or comparative religion.
You remind me of some other member of the forum who bragged recently about his PhD after he exposed some really crazy theories refuted by virtually all his opponents. No one cares about such braggings when they are not backed up properly by discourse, skills, knowledge, bibliography. The level of discourse and understanding (of my own messages if not of deeper topics) is poor, the bibliography is quasi-absent, pending between vague (enumerating names), obsolete (Frazer, a good guy, but hey! we're in the 21st century), and trivial (Wikipedia), the knowledge displayed is arguably lacunar and often ends up contradicting with mainstream scholarly opinions, on no other grounds than personal views, needs and similar unreliable criteria. Are you to be a scholar you first will impress with intelligence and knowledge, and afterwards you are welcome to brag with credentials if you think they'll crown the opus.

I may have gone to the wrong university but I'm still partial to lost causes, precision being sadly one of them.

I would disagree with this self-assessment of yours. I used the term 'chthonic' awfully precise, yet it failed to provide satisfaction.

-------------

Posted By: Chilbudios
Date Posted: 10-Dec-2008 at 23:55

Originally posted by gcle2003

What follows is a complete fudge. Just quote the quotes don't make up 'summaries'. It started with my putting forward a proposition based as I said on aesthetic grounds. And it wasn't until some time later that I drew the distinction between (as i like to use the terms) 'archaeologists' and 'anthropologists'.

You're confused. You first drew the distinction between archaeology and anthropology (on page 1, I quoted from your posts from 23 and 24 Nov.) and you made another post some days after (on 27 Nov) arguing on aesthetic grounds, a post which I have not addressed and consequently I find it irrelevant.

I said about Frazer that he "researched long ago dead cultures" which is true. I have not denied that he studied existing cultures. Your faulty logic and failure to understand the language are none of my concerns.

Some people use books to catch flies, don't give me the "I have a big bookcase behind me" line.

You on the other hand are in a completely indefensible position because you're claimiing he never did things he did all the time.

Where do you get the "he never did things" from my quote? I only referred to some things he did.

The implication is heavy that that was all he did (otherwise why bother bringing it up?) and that is flat out wrong, and displays a great deal of ignorance on your part.

You're barking at the wrong tree, I brought him up to prove your definition wrong, not to claim (to what purpose?) that all he did was to research ancient cultures.

That's a cheap attack, in my native language her name is spelled Persefona like in many other languages where ph is casually spelled f (e.g. in Italian her name is Persefone). Gloat on my misspellings (or bad grammar, I'm sure you'll find enough material), that's the least you can do.

That Frazer deals (also!) with the ancient world was my argument.

No it wouldn't. Frazer doesn't study inanimate things and draw conclusions from them (except insofar as you class books and letters from missionaries and such as 'inanimate').

But at least you take my point that Frazer is an anthropologist even though he studies at second-hand, and he studies records of past as well as present (or late 19th or early 20th century) cultures.So that's a start.

No it doesn't. I would have thought that was obvious by now.

My demonstration was all along that Frazer while being obviously an anthropologist he also researched extinct cultures. And yes, your definition makes him also an archeaologist, read it: "archaeologists as people who study extinct ones [peoples]". Was Frazer studying extinct cultures (in his time)? Yes or no?

I regard anyone who claims that his subject covers everything as silly, and statements to that effect as pretentious and obfuscatiing. You might as well argue that history is the study of everything that has happened or might have happened as accept some of the definitions here.

Everything blurs in the face of this kind of status-grabbing: you end up with philosophy, history, anthropology, ... all meaning the same thing because they mean studying eveything or anything. Suddenly Shakespeare is an anthropologist. And so at the other end of the spectrum is Steve Martin. It's pointless.

So you actually don't understand what anthropology is. I suspected that from a while, but now having confirmations I won't insist in the future. Perhaps that's also why you had to resort to that punk dichotomy between anthropology and archaeology.

It seems you rather missed the point of the joke. Get someone to explain it to you.

No, I did not miss the joke, I paraphrased it to suggest you some serious research. In vain you have a book case if you don't know how to use it. In vain you try to pose in an intellectual if you can't even browse a university site to get the basic description of a discipline studied there.

I'm saying the definitions you quoted indicate (indeed say outright) that the word is used in two senses, and I am objecting to that on the ground that it is obfuscatory. [...] And the fact that it is used in two senses is exactly the point I am making and that I'm complaining about.

You're saying it, but it's untrue.

What the word meant in Greek is totally irrelevant to that point.

That's what I've said, that I am not extracting the definition from Greek. You're the one bringing the etymology issue, not me. You accused me of things I haven't done, of "arguing that 'chthonic' etymologically would mean 'earthen' or something similar"

There's not much point telling me that people do what I'm complaining they do.

But I didn't, I repeated that the word is given with one single meaning: 'in the earth' (or well, under the earth, under the earth's surface and similar variants). Not two.

If you don't know what 'relevant' means in this discussion, then shouldn't you quit it?
References are very important to relevance as long as we try to argue scholarly. If you can't give me references for your dubious definitions and concepts I'll discard them from start. I'm not interested to live in Graham's mind.

I don't see any reason to say Demeter 'lives' under the earth. In that case, how does snatching Persephone away to live under the earth make any difference to Demeter? In all the versions I've seen, Demeter lives on the earth or on Olympus. (Take Graves' account in chapter 24 of The Greek Myths for instance.) Demeter doesn't even descend into the earth to seek Persephone but waits at Eleusis for her return. If not on Olympus she lives in places like cornfields and sacred groves and wanders the surface of the earth but not under it.

Again it's not me that's showing unfamiliarity with the subject.

You don't show only unfamiliarity but real ignorance. In the early pantheon (Homer) Demeter was not among the Olympian gods, this status she acquired only in the later myths. But Demeter was celebrated also as a chthonic deity in the Greek cult (have you read that account from Pausanias?). She was thought to act at the root of the plants (in the earth) but not only, in the Eleusinian mysteries she was also regarded (IIRC a Homeric Hymn mentions it) as a protector of her followers after death (thus in the earth). She is also often depicted accompanied by a snake, a typically chthonic animal.
The manifestation of Demeter under earth's surface is what gives her a chthonic aspect. That's how she lives underground. The Greek gods acted themselves, they had no remote controls!

Graves gives a selective account of some Greek myths. If you take that as an absolute reference (so that you deny the chtonian aspects of Demeter just because your slim bibliography doesn't contain it), it's obvious you have no clue what scholarship means in this regard.

And now really, who would you believe? A dancer or http://books.google.com/books?q=chthonic+demeter - http://books.google.com/books?q=chthonic+demeter ?

Read the book.

Considering what I already know of the author, I doubt I'll waste money on it. When it will be available online I might browse it in a boring afternoon.

Posted By: gcle2003
Date Posted: 11-Dec-2008 at 16:14

Originally posted by Chilbudios

Yes, it seems I did introduce that dichotomy (which I referred to as a personal preference, by the by - I don't see why I can't have what personal preferences I like: the important thing is to establish what I mean when I write something) on Nov 4. I got confused because what started this whole current debate was my post of Nov 27 - the 'aesthetic grounds' post. That post was not a response to anything else and introduced a completely new thought. It was later that you challenged me on the anthropology/archaeology thing, which is what I got confused.

Incidentally I have no idea why you say 'which I have not addressed'. The very next post in the thread has you contradicting my position - I don't mind being contradicted, but it's a bit much having the contradiction denied. I note your later edit of the post, which makes me think you may only have referred to mine as an afterthought - the original posting time being so closely after mine.

Some people use books to catch flies, don't give me the "I have a big bookcase behind me" line.

You're being silly again.

You on the other hand are in a completely indefensible position because you're claimiing he never did things he did all the time.

Where do you get the "he never did things" from my quote? I only referred to some things he did.

The implication is heavy that that was all he did (otherwise why bother bringing it up?) and that is flat out wrong, and displays a great deal of ignorance on your part.

You're barking at the wrong tree, I brought him up to prove your definition wrong, not to claim (to what purpose?) that all he did was to research ancient cultures.

It isn't me that boasts about 'scholarship'.

That Frazer deals (also!) with the ancient world was my argument.

No it wasn't. Your argument was that my definition of an anthropologist as someone who studies existing cultures would have excluded Frazer. It could only have excluded Frazer if Frazer did not study existing cultures. What else he may have studied is totally irrelevant, so the fact that he also studied extinct ones (but see below) is immaterial. You were obviously under the mistaken impression (because it is becoming obvious you haven't read the book in question) that Frazer ONLY studied extinct cultures. Which of course is totally false.

You now, as a result of my quoting him, and no doubt of having done some looking around yourself, realised how wrong you were and are seeking straws to clutch at.

You're in the position of someone who, told that the definition of an English international footballer is that he playxed football for England, retorts 'Then Denis Compton was not an English international footballer because he played cricket for England'. In other words you have egg all over your face.

No it wouldn't. Frazer doesn't study inanimate things and draw conclusions from them (except insofar as you class books and letters from missionaries and such as 'inanimate').

No it doesn't. I would have thought that was obvious by now.

If you are childish enough to insist on a yes or no answer then the answer has to be no because Frazer didn't actually study any cultures at all.

From a more adult point of view, Frazer qualifies as an anthropologist because he studied the works of actual anthropologists - people who wrote about, and therefore to some degree studied, cultures that existed in their time, irrespective of whether their time corresponded to his or not. As I explained at some length in my earlier expansion of the original definition.

Anthropology is whatever the person using the word considers it to be: For meaningful discussion to take place a joint working definition is necessary, which is why I explained mine. So I understand very well what anthropology is, but I don't agree with the definition of it you are using and quoting, because I think it is pointlessly vague and all-embracing..

It seems you rather missed the point of the joke. Get someone to explain it to you.

I can browse the site. I don't have to agree with it. In fact it would be rather more interesting to discover how, say, the medical or theological or history faculty define anthropology. I doubt very much that they would include medicine, theology or history as subjects for the 'anthropology' department to handle, whatever the etymology.

And I think it's very obvious, including from what you say now, that you didn't and don't see the joke. You cetainly didn't paraphrase it.

You're saying it, but it's untrue.

Then you're denying your own sources. You quoted this yourself

after browsing some testimonies from ancient Greek authors he concludes about the "two meanings of the term 'chthonic' as applied to the gods - (a) a poetic term to denote a god associated with the souls, and (b) a cultus term to denote a god of agriculture"

What the word meant in Greek is totally irrelevant to that point.

Well, on what other ground would you argue that 'chthonic' means 'of the earth' or something like that? It's not as though it is always used that way in English: you only have to type "chthonic definitions" into google and you'll get a whole swathe of sites saying it refers in English to the underworld, including all the dictionaries. But that's only normal usage of course.

There's not much point telling me that people do what I'm complaining they do.

But I didn't, I repeated that the word is given with one single meaning: 'in the earth' (or well, under the earth, under the earth's surface and similar variants). Not two.

Same rebuttal. You quoted people giving two definitions.

As I thought, you don't understand what 'relevant' means. You think it means 'reliable' or'important' or something similar. It doesn't. If I were now to introduce here a discussion of a recent performance of Handel's Messiah, that would be irrelevant. If I were to support my comments with a thousand scholarly references to the origin of the piece, the musical style, various other performances and so on that would STILL be irrelevant.

On the other hand if I were to produce an example of a dominant deity that goes completely against my suggested earth mother/sky father classification (which I could do because there is a glaringly obvious example) that would be relevant even if produced no 'scholarly' references at all.

After all I can type a couple of words into a google book search and copy out the results just as easily as you can.

I don't see any reason to say Demeter 'lives' under the earth. In that case, how does snatching Persephone away to live under the earth make any difference to Demeter? In all the versions I've seen, Demeter lives on the earth or on Olympus. (Take Graves' account in chapter 24 of The Greek Myths for instance.) Demeter doesn't even descend into the earth to seek Persephone but waits at Eleusis for her return. If not on Olympus she lives in places like cornfields and sacred groves and wanders the surface of the earth but not under it.

Again it's not me that's showing unfamiliarity with the subject.

You don't show only unfamiliarity but real ignorance.

Are you claiming Demeter went into the underworld to seek Persephone?

In the early pantheon (Homer) Demeter was not among the Olympian gods, this status she acquired only in the later myths.

So? I quoted a chapter that makes that clear. Moreover I actually wrote 'if not on Olympus...' to indicate my awareness that she was not always an Olympic deity.

But Demeter was celebrated also as a chthonic deity in the Greek cult (have you read that account from Pausanias?). She was thought to act at the root of the plants (in the earth) but not only, in the Eleusinian mysteries she was also regarded (IIRC a Homeric Hymn mentions it) as a protector of her followers after death (thus in the earth). She is also often depicted accompanied by a snake, a typically chthonic animal.

You're just continuing to use the word 'chthonic' with your meaning. Of course she is celebrated as an earth deity. But not an underworld one. Plant roots don't grow in the uinderworld. Living people can dig up roots. And while a snake is sometimes associated with the earth, not unreasonably, it isn't always so. It can represent wisdom as in Asclepius' rod or other magical powers as with the caduceus or kingship as with the uraeus: and neither Asclepius nor Hermes nor living Egyptian royalty are associated with the earth or the underworld.

The manifestation of Demeter under earth's surface is what gives her a chthonic aspect. That's how she lives underground. The Greek gods acted themselves, they had no remote controls!

They didn't cast thunderbolts? Raise winds?
Your argument boils down to Demeter is a chthonic deity because she is associated with the earth. She must be associated with the earth because she is a chthonic deity.

I don't deny that Demeter is an earth goddess. I will even accept if pushed that there may be some myths that have her associated with the roots of plants, even though everything I find has her living on the earth (or, later, on Olympus if that's not on the earth). My point is that she is not associated with the underworld - i.e. in Greek myth that ruled over by Hades, or in Egyptian by Osiris - and therefore not chthonic except in your overbroad sense of the term.

The 'underworld' as a concept in religious belief does not have to be under the earth. It is still chthonic in presnet-day common usage.

And now really, who would you believe? A dancer or http://books.google.com/books?q=chthonic+demeter - http://books.google.com/books?q=chthonic+demeter ?

What on earth do you mean - 'a dancer'? Is that something like spelling Persephone wrong? Graves was a poet. And yes when considering the meaning of words I will take a poet over an anthropologist any time. Incidentally using your techique for finding references, you get more if you type in 'sky Demeter'. You get many many more of course if you type 'earth Demeter'. But Demeter's association with the earth is not in question.

Read the book.

Considering what I already know of the author, I doubt I'll waste money on it. When it will be available online I might browse it in a boring afternoon.

Your loss. Let me know when you publish, I'll look out for it.

-------------

Posted By: Chilbudios
Date Posted: 11-Dec-2008 at 18:13

Originally posted by gcle2003

Incidentally I have no idea why you say 'which I have not addressed'. The very next post in the thread has you contradicting my position - I don't mind being contradicted, but it's a bit much having the contradiction denied. I note your later edit of the post, which makes me think you may only have referred to mine as an afterthought - the original posting time being so closely after mine.

I said it once, I repeat it, I did not reply to you, but to Charlesbrough. Thus I did not address that post of yours you keep harassing me with.

It isn't me that boasts about 'scholarship'.

On the contrary, you bragged with your own "achivements" while I'm more modest, I defer scholarship to the real experts in the field.

You have a rich imagination, a weak reasoning and your conclusions are consequently faulty. My argument was that your definition would have made Frazer an archaeologist, not that would have excluded him from being an anthropologist.
I never claimed (or had the impression for that matter) that "Frazer studied ONLY extinct cultures". My affirmations can be verified above in the thread and I already rejected these idiotic accusations.

And who has read Frazer and who has not is clear enough from what we understand by anthropology.

Your analogy doesn't hold because unfortunately for your petty case, scripta manent. You described "archaeologists as people who study extinct ones [peoples]" and this is one of the things Frazer did, however without being an archaeologist.

If you are childish enough to insist on a yes or no answer then the answer has to be no because Frazer didn't actually study any cultures at all.

Hilarious, except for decoration what other use you found for Frazer's books?

That's a more stupid point of view if anything. The Egyptian and Mesopotamian inscriptions studied by Frazer are not "the works of actual anthropologists".
I can't follow any definition of yours which is not properly fundamented.

No Graham, we're not living in your imagination but in a real world. For any of your definitions to be operative you must provide proper references. You can claim anthropology is a three-legged locust wearing blue jeans, it doesn't mean that's what anthropology is, or that you understand what it is. You can claim a lot of crap, you can't back it up, I'm not interested in it. As simple as that.

However, you don't have any competence in anthropology and I referred you to proper authorities. If you want to enlarge the research, please do it. Perhaps for one first time in this discussion you'll write something useful.

And I think it's very obvious, including from what you say now, that you didn't and don't see the joke. You cetainly didn't paraphrase it.

I actually did, and given your chronic incapacity of understanding my points, I doubt you can say anything obvious about me.

Then you're denying your own sources. You quoted this yourself

I wrote an entire paragraph on that view and the argument was that chthonic is 'what is below the earth' (in the same paragraph, the first part of the sentence you ineptly massacrated). The term chthonic, in that author's view, is applied on two categories of gods, hence those two meanings. However, two meanings actually are joined in a single one: 'what is below the earth'. Which is full agreeement with all the other sources. Other authors find even more categories of chthonic divinites (see the definition below where besides the two types of gods, there are also heroes).

Well, on what other ground would you argue that 'chthonic' means 'of the earth' or something like that?

I told you that several times already, this is the current operative definition of the term, this is how the scholars define it. Let's recheck one of the definitions, because obviously you have missed most of them when you rejected them en masse:
"My definition of a chthonic god shall be the simplest possible. I employ the term to include all divine or semi-divine being supposed to dwell beneath the earth's surface, whether as gods of the dead or of the agriculture as the souls of the dead and such heroes as were conceived to dwell under the earth." (Hewitt)
As such I'm not relying on etymology.

It's not as though it is always used that way in English: you only have to type "chthonic definitions" into google and you'll get a whole swathe of sites saying it refers in English to the underworld, including all the dictionaries. But that's only normal usage of course.

Of course, it is, it only shows your brittle grasp on the semantics of English language. Underworld, according to a "whole swathe of sites" means "under the earth"
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/underworld - http://www.thefreedictionary.com/underworld
http://www.answers.com/topic/underworld - http://www.answers.com/topic/underworld
2. A region, realm, or dwelling place conceived to be below the surface of the earth.
4. Greek & Roman Mythology The world of the dead, located below the world of the living; Hades (this definiton arguably means the same thing, because in the Greek and Roman mythology the world of the dead was 'below the surface of the earth', thus contrary to some stupid claims you made, pertains to the earth).

No, that's not what I think. We're not talking about appreciations of art here, but about well-established definitions and concepts. Which can be relevant only when properly refered (by a dictionary, by a lexicon, or if also a technical term - like 'chtonic' - by scholarship). Your made-up definitions are useless. I don't care about them, I don't care how you choose to understand things, as long as you fail to follow an well-established track. It's not that I consider them unreliable or unimportant, but simply irrelevant.

It was never about dominant deities.

Are you claiming Demeter went into the underworld to seek Persephone?

No, I am claiming what followed in that paragraph you chose to tear apart and misunderstand.

So? I quoted a chapter that makes that clear. Moreover I actually wrote 'if not on Olympus...' to indicate my awareness that she was not always an Olympic deity.

Not really, I was talking from a diachronic perspective, while your perspective was synchronic.

It's not "my meaning", it's a meaning enforced by lots of scholars. Plant roots grow under the earth's surface which is in the underworld. The snake is a chthonic beast (virtually all scholars of comparative religion hold that). Asclepios and Hermes are chthonic deities. The ignorance is reeking from your posts.

They didn't cast thunderbolts? Raise winds?

Yes, and they did it themselves and these were considered manifestations of those gods. There's also a chthonic Zeus associated with the world of the dead, with thunderbolts shaking the earth, etc.

What on earth do you mean - 'a dancer'? Is that something like spelling Persephone wrong? Graves was a poet.

No, my unwitty companion, you're the dancer!

And yes when considering the meaning of words I will take a poet over an anthropologist any time.

Because you're ignorant about anthropology.

Incidentally using your techique for finding references, you get more if you type in 'sky Demeter'. You get many many more of course if you type 'earth Demeter'. But Demeter's association with the earth is not in question.

You misunderstood my technique, it only proves the concept is well established. I already said that olympian and chthonic are not mutually exclusive, therefore the rest of the comments are misguided (since I haven't claimed 'chthonic' is the most popular aspect of Demeter or anything similar to that)

Your loss. Let me know when you publish, I'll look out for it.

I can't see how I can be at loss when not buying books by unreliable, idiosyncratic and arguably intelectually repulsive authors, and also without proper recommendations. Especially when there are so many materials out there I'd read before it.

As for me, I certainly won't brag. Maybe I already published, but trust me, you'll never know.

Posted By: Chilbudios
Date Posted: 11-Dec-2008 at 19:02

Oh, I skipped some remarks.

My point is that she is not associated with the underworld - i.e. in Greek myth that ruled over by Hades, or in Egyptian by Osiris - and therefore not chthonic except in your overbroad sense of the term.

But I already proved you wrong on that, because in her mysteries she was also protector of the dead.

The 'underworld' as a concept in religious belief does not have to be under the earth. It is still chthonic in presnet-day common usage.

A celestial paradise is not 'chthonic'.

Posted By: Some
Date Posted: 11-Dec-2008 at 20:04

Some one might have allready mention this. But there signs that been shown that the picts soceity and megalith in scandinavia might have been female based societies.

All love :)

Posted By: gcle2003
Date Posted: 11-Dec-2008 at 20:39

Originally posted by Chilbudios

Oh, I skipped some remarks.

But I already proved you wrong on that, because in her mysteries she was also protector of the dead.

Asserting something is not proving it. Demeter protects those initiated into her rites after they die. As indeed she protects them in other ways while still alive: cf Apuleius. Similarly Christ protects the souls of those who believe in him. That's somewhat different from being an underworld deity. Christians pray to saints for intercession on behalf of the dead: that doesn't make saints underworld figures.

The 'underworld' as a concept in religious belief does not have to be under the earth. It is still chthonic in presnet-day common usage.

A celestial paradise is not 'chthonic'.

Well yes it is. Loook up the definition of 'underworld' anywhere and you'll find it defined as the place where the dead go in the afterlife. It isn't necessarily below ground. It doesn't mean 'a place under the earth' except in Greek myth and probably a couple of other systems which I can't be bothered to check. ('World' in 'underworld' doesn't in fact mean 'earth' at all, but is equivalent to French 'monde' or Russian 'mir' not French 'terre' or Russian 'zyemlya': the 'world of people' if you like, to be distinguished from the 'under' world of the supernatural and the dead.)

You seem to have a fundamental lack of understanding of basic concepts in English, not just in anthropology, that, coupled with your refusal to admit the possibility you might be wrong, makes it very difficult to converse with you.

'Chthonic' = associated with the underworld. 'Underworld' = where the dead go to.

'Chthonic" = associated with the regions that the dead go to.

That's English. It has nothing to do with Greek (nor is it limited to use in Greek mythology).

Google returns for underworld:

Hell: (religion) the world of the dead; "No one goes to Hades with all his immense wealth"-Theognis
http://www.google.com/url?sa=X&start=2&oi=define&q=http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn%3Fs%3Dunderworld&usg=AFQjCNFFhEAZxyRaUVYD-vvJ9YQtovMy0g - wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

In the study of mythology and religion, the underworld is a generic term approximately equivalent to the lay term afterlife, referring to any place to which newly dead souls go. In most cultures the term refers to a neutral or dystopic realm of the afterlife, instead of a heavenly one.
http://www.google.com/url?sa=X&start=4&oi=define&q=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underworld&usg=AFQjCNEJ1iA7Fuaj2Ze4pwjBjF0FOT4CuA - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underworld

-------------

Posted By: gcle2003
Date Posted: 11-Dec-2008 at 20:56

Originally posted by Chilbudios

If you are childish enough to insist on a yes or no answer then the answer has to be no because Frazer didn't actually study any cultures at all.

Hilarious, except for decoration what other use you found for Frazer's books?

I can't resist responding to this idiotic comment, though the rest may have to wait till tomorrow if I feel like it. But you're getting to be very tiresome indeed.

That Frazer did not study any societies at first-hand is a matter of simple fact. If you have facts that say otherwise then present them. I've presented the whole text of the abridged version on my side.

He hmself never claimed to have done so, so this as it stands it simply just another piece if evidence that you have no real knowledge of his work at all, though I've no dooubt you've now done a few inadequate searches around the web and gleaned some mistaken impressions.

Don't you know anything?

-------------

Posted By: Chilbudios
Date Posted: 11-Dec-2008 at 22:03

Originally posted by gcle2003

But I did not merely assert it, I provided you a direct source (a Homeric Hymn), plus you'll find more on this in several of those books you haven't read about Chthonic Demeter.

The analogy with Christ is irrelevant as long as his kingdom is not sub-terranean.

Well yes it is. Loook up the definition of 'underworld' anywhere and you'll find it defined as the place where the dead go in the afterlife. It isn't necessarily below ground.

If ignorance would hurt, you'd be on morphine.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/underworld - http://www.thefreedictionary.com/underworld

2. A region, realm, or dwelling place conceived to be below the surface of the earth.

4. Greek & Roman Mythology The world of the dead, located below the world of the living; Hades.

This is a nice self-portrait of yours.

'Chthonic' = associated with the underworld. 'Underworld' = where the dead go to.

'Chthonic" = associated with the regions that the dead go to.

Chthonic means 'under the earth' and I provided more than enough resources to prove it. Your sophisms and inabilites won't change it. Gaia, Hades, Persephone, Demeter, Hermes, Hephaistos, Asclepios, even Zeus himself are deities having (also) a chthonic nature. Anyone at least familiarized with comparative religion knows that.

You misrepresent Frazer if anything.

He himself never claimed to have done so, so this as it stands it simply just another piece if evidence that you have no real knowledge of his work at all, though I've no dooubt you've now done a few inadequate searches around the web and gleaned some mistaken impressions.

Don't you know anything?

I know more than your narrowmindedness can ever understand. Read it (perhaps for the first time in your life): http://www.sacred-texts.com/pag/frazer/ - http://www.sacred-texts.com/pag/frazer/

and after you'll be done with it, archive.org has a lot of him:

http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=creator:frazer+AND+%28creator:j.g+OR+creator:james.george%29 - http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=creator:frazer+AND+(creator:j.g+OR+creator:james.george) )

I won't bother to go in details, since you proved often enough inept in understanding my previous points. I'll tell you only that Frazer studied languages, rituals, beliefs, institutions, religions, behaviors, etc. in other words cultures and peoples. Thus my point stands while yours betrays an illiterate aggresivity.

http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext03/bough11.txt -

Posted By: Spartakus
Date Posted: 11-Dec-2008 at 22:21

Please, stop throwing "intellectual" axes to each other. It gets very tiring.

-------------
"There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them. "
--- Joseph Alexandrovitch Brodsky, 1991, Russian-American poet, b. St. Petersburg and exiled 1972 (1940-1996)

Posted By: gcle2003
Date Posted: 12-Dec-2008 at 10:22

Originally posted by Spartakus

Please, stop throwing "intellectual" axes to each other. It gets very tiring

True.

So I'll shut up. However, I can't resist this last point:

Originally posted by Chilbudios

If ignorance would hurt, you'd be on morphine.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/underworld - http://www.thefreedictionary.com/underworld

2. A region, realm, or dwelling place conceived to be below the surface of the earth.

4. Greek & Roman Mythology The world of the dead, located below the world of the living; Hades.

I'll accept that the missing definitions (1,3 and 5) are irrelevant[1] However, note that 4 simple says the world of the dead, located below the world of the living in Greek and Roman mythology. The more accurate definition wouldbe the world of the dead, located beneath the earth in Greek and Roman mythology, the point being that the underworld is only related to the earth in G&R (and some other) mythologies.

The 'underworld' is always the world of the dead (and is a usage similar to that of the 'hidden world' of spiritualism - it means 'undercoverworld'). It may or may not be related to the physical earth. Similarly of course the 'world' may or may not be related to the physical earth as I went to some pains to point out.

Since Chilbudios oddly thinks statements are irrelevant unless accompanied by the results of his hurried searches of the internet:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/underworld - http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/underworld

underworld

< name=entry =/dictionary method=post>One entry found.

< = value=Dictionary name=book> < = value=underworld name=quer> < = name=jump> < = value=va:1,0,0,0|underworld=157626481 name=list>

Main Entry:: un·der·world javascript:popWin%28/cgi-bin/audio.pl?underw09.wav=underworld%29">
Pronunciation:: \-ˌwərld\
Function:: noun
Date:: 1598

1: the place of departed souls : http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hades - hades

2 archaic : http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/earth - earth

3: the side of the earth opposite to one : http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/antipodes - antipodes

4: a social sphere below the level of ordinary life <the town's seedy underworld> ; especially : the world of organized crime

http://dictionary.reverso.net/english-synonyms/underworld - http://dictionary.reverso.net/english-synonyms/underworld

1 criminal element, criminals, gangland, gangsters, organized crime

2 abode of the dead, Hades, hell, infernal region, nether regions, nether world, the inferno

http://dictionary.die.net/underworld - http://dictionary.die.net/underworld

underworld
     n 1: (in various religions) the world of the dead; "he didn't
          want to go to hell when he died" [syn:  http://dictionary.die.net/hel - Hel ,  http://dictionary.die.net/hell - Hell ,  http://dictionary.die.net/hades - Hades ,
            http://dictionary.die.net/infernal%20region - infernal region ,  http://dictionary.die.net/netherworld - netherworld ,  http://dictionary.die.net/scheol - Scheol ]
     2: the criminal class

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)

Underworld \Un"der*world`\, n.
   1. The lower of inferior world; the world which is under the
      heavens; the earth.

            That overspreads (with such a reverence) This
            underworld.                           --Daniel.

   2. The mythological place of departed souls; Hades.

   3. The portion of the world which is below the horizon; the
      opposite side of the world; the antipodes. [R.]

            Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail, That
            brings our friends up from the underworld.
                                                  --Tennyson.

   4. The inferior part of mankind. [R.] --Atterbury.

or, as oddities, but still making the general point that the underworld can be anywhere:

http://ardictionary.com/Underworld/1137 - http://ardictionary.com/Underworld/1137

http://www.experiencefestival.com/a/Underworld/id/196135 - http://www.experiencefestival.com/a/Underworld/id/196135

[1] Because they have nothing to do with the subject, not because they have no references to back them up. Under Chilbudios' peculiar definition of relevance however all the definitions here would be irrelevant because they have no references to back them up.

-------------

Posted By: Chilbudios
Date Posted: 12-Dec-2008 at 10:57

Originally posted by gcle2003

However, note that 4 simple says the world of the dead, located below the world of the living in Greek and Roman mythology.

World of the living which is on the earth, consequently the world of the dead is below earth.

Not really, in all religions 'world of the living' is on the physical earth (well, when we'll have religions on Mars, we may need to expand our terminology, but until then ...). The world of the dead can be below earth (and then is chthonic) or some place else. Please note in Christianity there are basically two worlds of the dead: the hell (chthonic) and the paradise (celestial, ouranic) (however, in Christianity the latter are not really dead, but live forever)

Since Chilbudios oddly thinks statements are irrelevant unless accompanied by the results of his hurried searches of the internet

That's a misunderstanding. I require reputable references, not Internet results. I'm giving you Internet references so you can consult them yourself. I can quote articles from many materials unavailable online (at least, I don't know of them to be), e.g. The Encyclopedia of Religion (Mircea Eliade ed., 1987).

but still making the general point that the underworld can be anywhere

Not really, they all suggest Hades (below earth), inferior (below), nether (below). However, searching for 'oddities' (after all you can post on your own site a definition that underworld can be anywhere) is missing the point, because we're talking here about these words as commonly understood, you focused on dictionary definitons, while I focuses on comparative religion scholarship. Reverting to our initial point of debate, you won't find scholarship claiming 'chthonic' describes a world of the dead which is not below ground. You won't find scholarship claiming the 'kingdom of heaven' is chthonic. But you will find a lot of scholarship claiming gods of agrictulure, gods, spirits or actions manifesting in earthquakes, volcano eruptions or simply mythical accounts (like Hermes being a courier between the upper world and underworld) as 'chthonic'.

Under Chilbudios' peculiar definition of relevance however all the definitions here would be irrelevant because they have no references to back them up.

Not really, a reputable dictionary is a reference by itself. A reputable scholar is a reference. Multiple concording scholars form a well-established view.

Words have meanings if they are acknowledged as such by many people using a language - be it natural language or just a technical language specific to a discipline. If you will come up with a definition with no reference it will be irrelevant because well, you may be the single person in the world understanding the concept in that way. Thus corrective attempts are only intrusive actions, of imposing some idiosyncrasies on the world, on how other people think and express themselves. Let's not forget that I used first the word 'chthonic' and you criticized it. I provided more than enough references to justify my choice of meaning, while you came up with some misunderstood dictionary definitions.

Posted By: gcle2003
Date Posted: 12-Dec-2008 at 14:07

Originally posted by Chilbudios

Originally posted by gcle2003

However, note that 4 simple says the world of the dead, located below the world of the living in Greek and Roman mythology.

World of the living which is on the earth, consequently the world of the dead is below earth.

In Greek mythology, yes. Otherwise not necessarily. The earth after all is round: what's below it? Australia?

Not really, in all religions 'world of the living' is on the physical earth (well, when we'll have religions on Mars, we may need to expand our terminology, but until then ...).

We have religion on a spherical earth already. Moreover Mars, the sun and the galaxies are already part of the world of the living, wiothout our having reached them.

Even some Greeks thought of the earth as spherical. Plato's heavenly solids surrounded the earth: they weren't above or below it.

Modern Christians (in English) refer to the 'underworld' - they don't mean some place beneath the earth.

The world of the dead can be below earth (and then is chthonic) or some place else. Please note in Christianity there are basically two worlds of the dead: the hell (chthonic)

I agree Hell is chthonic. However it isn't below the earth (a meaningless phrase in our current cosmology). So chthonic doesn't mean (any more) under or on or about the earth. Which was my original point.

and the paradise (celestial, ouranic) (however, in Christianity the latter are not really dead, but live forever)

The 'dead' aren't 'really dead' in most mythologies including the Greek. We wouldn't be talking about where they are supposed to live otherwise.

Since Chilbudios oddly thinks statements are irrelevant unless accompanied by the results of his hurried searches of the internet

Whats odd about your belief is that it relates 'relevance' to 'sources' and 'references' whereas relevance is solely a matter of the relationship of a comment to a subject. You'r mixing up concepts like 'weightiness' or 'validity' or 'well-foundedness' or 'important' or something.

Something can be relevant even though it is trivial, unfounded, unsourced and for that matter completely wrong. And something can be irrelevant no matter how well references or sound or important it is. If people are discussing relativity theory and someone shouts out 'Fire! Run for your lives!' that is irrelevant whether justified or not.

but still making the general point that the underworld can be anywhere

Of course. If you look for common understandings you look in dictionaries, not in obscure works of scholarship, which pretty well by definition are not common understandings.

Anyway why is it OK for you to quote dictionaries and not me?

Reverting to our initial point of debate, you won't find scholarship claiming 'chthonic' describes a world of the dead which is not below ground. You won't find scholarship claiming the 'kingdom of heaven' is chthonic. But you will find a lot of scholarship claiming gods of agrictulure, gods, spirits or actions manifesting in earthquakes, volcano eruptions or simply mythical accounts (like Hermes being a courier between the upper world and underworld) as 'chthonic'.

Under Chilbudios' peculiar definition of relevance however all the definitions here would be irrelevant because they have no references to back them up.

Not really, a reputable dictionary is a reference by itself. A reputable scholar is a reference. Multiple concording scholars form a well-established view.

That has nothing to do with relevance. A view can be well-established and totally irrelevant. It can be relevant and not be established at all. You wuite obviously still don't have any idea what 'relevance' means.

That doesn't make it irrelevant. Same point.

Thus corrective attempts are only intrusive actions, of imposing some idiosyncrasies on the world, on how other people think and express themselves. Let's not forget that I used first the word 'chthonic' and you criticized it.

True. At least I criticised the use of it in that way.

I provided more than enough references to justify my choice of meaning, while you came up with some misunderstood dictionary definitions.

I came up with dictionary definitions that demonstrated I was correct. You provided references to people who make the same mistake you do (which is not simply using the word to mean 'of the earth' but in using it in the dual sense of referring to both the 'of the earth' meaning and the 'of the underworld' meaning: a source of confusion which this exchange has made abundantly obvious).

Of course you reject the dictionary definitions as 'misunderstood' when you disagree with them, no matter how clear and unambiguous they are.

Disagreeing with you is after all your criterion for deciding something should be immediately rejected.

-------------

Posted By: Chilbudios
Date Posted: 12-Dec-2008 at 16:54

Originally posted by gcle2003

In Greek mythology, yes. Otherwise not necessarily. The earth after all is round: what's below it? Australia?

We have religion on a spherical earth already. Moreover Mars, the sun and the galaxies are already part of the world of the living, wiothout our having reached them.

Even some Greeks thought of the earth as spherical. Plato's heavenly solids surrounded the earth: they weren't above or below it.

Modern Christians (in English) refer to the 'underworld' - they don't mean some place beneath the earth.

That's nuts. When earth is regarded as spherical there's no below, nor above. "below earth" means 'under ground' (read it as 'below the surface of the earth')

The common representation of the chthonic Hell is as an abyss, an underground place. Other representations of the Hell which are not involving the sub-terranean are simply not 'chthonic'.

You don't understand my beliefs. I don't argue against comments, but against made-up definitions. And the last sentence of yours is exactly what you are doing. Imagine someone will interrupt this thread by saying "Kinley is a chthonic water!". Between his claim (and his consequent definition of 'chthonic') and yours there is no qualitative difference, they are both idiosyncractic, unreferenceable and thus irrelevant for discussing comparative religion.

To claim a definition you need at least one valid reference (the more, the better). Otherwise you're just imagining things. Since we don't discuss about how you (or anyone else) imagines things, and moreover since you claimed a correction on how others use the term (you even dared to argue that reputable scholars 'blindly' use it), not bringing references throws this position of yours in irrelevance.

Of course. If you look for common understandings you look in dictionaries, not in obscure works of scholarship, which pretty well by definition are not common understandings.

Most scholars I quoted are rather famous (A. Fairbanks, Hewitt, Ugo Bianchi, H. S. Versnel, Daniel Ogden, Apostolos Athanassakis - for his edition of Hesiod which I used it for source and last at not at least Mircea Eliade, and if you' have access to that encyclopedia you'll find articles signed a by many other famous scholars). If you're not familiar with comparative religion, classical philology and other relevant disciplines it doesn't mean they are obscure. In other words qualifying such scholars to be 'blind' or 'obscure' only reveals who you are, it says nothing about them.

Anyway why is it OK for you to quote dictionaries and not me?

Where do you get that from? I simply suggested you not to search for 'oddities' but for reliable references. The dictionary definitions you quoted speak about inferior worlds, worlds below, nether worlds, which when related to the world of living (the surface of the earth) give the "below the earth" meaning I argued all along. The ultimate proof that my interpretation is correct is that virtually all scholars use this term as such. The ultimate proof that your interpretation is wrong is that you couldn't so far summon any scholar to argue otherwise (e.g. to describe the 'kingdom of heaven' as 'chthonic').

I didn't say that "well-established views are always relevant to anything". I wonder if you can understand anything from English language which is more complicated that a simple SVO sentence.

That doesn't make it irrelevant. Same point.

Of course it does. You can't give words meanings based on your moods or misunderstandings.

I came up with dictionary definitions that demonstrated I was correct.

False, all dictionary definitions suggested 'chthonic' pertains to the underworld which is below earth, in the earth.

You provided references to people who make the same mistake you do (which is not simply using the word to mean 'of the earth' but in using it in the dual sense of referring to both the 'of the earth' meaning and the 'of the underworld' meaning: a source of confusion which this exchange has made abundantly obvious).

I provided references from reputable scholarship. You have no qualifications whatsoever to assess their work, and you failed to provide any references. There's no 'dual sense' nor confusion neither for these schoalrs, nor for me, only for you. If you're confused, then you have understanding issues. A fact I remarked in our discussion all along.

Of course you reject the dictionary definitions as 'misunderstood' when you disagree with them, no matter how clear and unambiguous they are.

Understanding English language is obviously not among your strengths. I claimed that you misunderstood those definitions, not that they are 'misunderstood' in themselves. At most I could qualify them to be vague and thus misleading the unknowing people in error, like you prove with your interpretations.

Disagreeing with you is after all your criterion for deciding something should be immediately rejected.

Actually this is you, Graham. I provided a pile of references (so, contrary to your distorted view, it's not about me, but also about Eliade, Bianchi, Hewitt, etc.), you provided nothing but some groundless fallacies based on your flawed readings.

Posted By: gcle2003
Date Posted: 12-Dec-2008 at 20:08

Originally posted by Chilbudios

Originally posted by gcle2003

In Greek mythology, yes. Otherwise not necessarily. The earth after all is round: what's below it? Australia?

We have religion on a spherical earth already. Moreover Mars, the sun and the galaxies are already part of the world of the living, wiothout our having reached them.

Even some Greeks thought of the earth as spherical. Plato's heavenly solids surrounded the earth: they weren't above or below it.

Modern Christians (in English) refer to the 'underworld' - they don't mean some place beneath the earth.

That's nuts. When earth is regarded as spherical there's no below, nor above. "below earth" means 'under ground' (read it as 'below the surface of the earth')

I know it's nuts. That why I pointed it out. Incidentally 'underground' and 'underworld' are totally different things: there's a word for 'underground' in most languages I know anything of (e.g. 'souterrain' in French) but rarely is there one for 'underworld' that has any conncêction with the word for 'earth'. The closest French gets is 'les enfers' AFAIK - though there are plenty of French words for 'underworld' in the criminal sense.

German of course, like I assume other Germanic languages, shares with English 'unterwelt' and 'untergrund' as corresponding pairs, but that's the same 'world'-'earth' distinction again.

Apart from possibly Stephen King I'm not aware of anyone thinking that the dead live in the underground.

However, there are universes of discourse in which 'below the earth' does have a sensible meaning, even with modern cosmology: it applies with extradimensional views of the totality of worlds in which different worlds are on different planes, some higher, some lower than others.

'Lower' and 'under' do not necessarily mean physically beneath.

The common representation of the chthonic Hell is as an abyss, an underground place. Other representations of the Hell which are not involving the sub-terranean are simply not 'chthonic'.

All you are doing is ceaselessly repeatingthat that is how you and others use the word. I agree that you do. I've never said that you didn't. I am simply saying that you are wrong, or at least misguided, to do so. because two different types of deity are getting confused. There is an important distinction to be made between gods 'of the underworld' - which may not be uinder the ground - and fertility earth divinities who, like Demeter, don't have anything to do with the underworld even though some of their activities may affect the roots of crops which are under the surface of the earth.

The dead don't live, even in Greek mythology, among the roots of the cornfield.

They may well be idiosyncratic and unreferenceable. However that you say they are therefore irrelevant just shows you don't know what the word means. You just use it to mean you don't want to discuss it: that isn't what it means.

To claim a definition you need at least one valid reference (the more, the better).

Which is why I gave several. However, in your system when you quote a dictionary it counts as a reference: when someone who disagrees with you quotes a dictionary it's irrelevant or misunderstood and can be ignored.

That you may have some petty kingdom of you own where you do have such powers is entirely possible of course, and that could account for a lot.

Otherwise you're just imagining things.

So what? It does appear, I admit, that you lack any imagination, which may be why you are quick to suppress it in others. All theories, right or wrong, start in the imagination. If we don't discuss imaginings life becomes unbearably prosaic.

Just as counting up references as scoring points leads away from any true understanding od anything into a dull world of a kind of academic accountancy.

Since we don't discuss about how you (or anyone else) imagines things,

Yes we do. You may not but the rest of us do.

and moreover since you claimed a correction on how others use the term (you even dared to argue that reputable scholars 'blindly' use it), not bringing references throws this position of yours in irrelevance.

Again a position is relevant or not dependent on its subject matter, not its correctness or value. Sice you would dismiss as irrelevant or misunderstood or otherwise non-viable and dictionary definition I might quote, why don't you look one up for yourself?

I'm sure anyone else would, but they're probably not as convinced of their own superiority as you are.

And there are incidentally plenty of eminent scholars around who are (metaphorically) blind on many issues. A very common way in which that occurs is when academics get carried away with jargon, ignoring how words are used in common usage. So, yed, I plenty willing to 'dare' criticise them for it, just as I would dare criticise them for drunken driving if I saw them do it.

Of course. If you look for common understandings you look in dictionaries, not in obscure works of scholarship, which pretty well by definition are not common understandings.

Famous is in the eye of the beholder. Being known by people in your own field is not being 'famous'. Frazer is famous, Graves, Lévi-Strauss, Mead, Benedict, Malinowski are famous. Of rhe ones you just listed the only one deserving the epither is Eliade.

Anyway why is it OK for you to quote dictionaries and not me?

Where do you get that from?

You happily quote disctionary definitions at me, but then ignore or dismiss dictionary definitions I provide: indeed you even criticise me for relying on them.

I simply suggested you not to search for 'oddities' but for reliable references.

I didn't search for 'oddities', they just turned up and I thought someone might be interestied in them. I called them 'oddities' partly because they weren't terribly germane to the subject at hand, though interesting nevertheless: I don't just write thes posts for you, you know.

The dictionary definitions you quoted speak about inferior worlds, worlds below, nether worlds, which when related to the world of living (the surface of the earth) give the "below the earth" meaning I argued all along.

Only because you can't see the difference between 'world' and 'earth'. How about 'mundus' and 'terra'? Is that better?

Once more with feeling: 'underworld' and 'underground' are not the same thing. That confusion seems to be at the heart of all this.

The ultimate proof that my interpretation is correct is that virtually all scholars use this term as such. The ultimate proof that your interpretation is wrong is that you couldn't so far summon any scholar to argue otherwise (e.g. to describe the 'kingdom of heaven' as 'chthonic').

Because 'chthonic' has only recently become a frequently used term in anthropology as opposed to literature. The word doesn't appear anywhere at all in The Golden Bough for instance. However, you could consider Jung's concept of the chthonic phallos as contrasted with the solar phallos, illustrating how 'chthonic' in the past has tended to mean 'dark' as opposed to 'light' - the underworld as opposed to the world.

It's basically an unnecessary term as well as a confusing one, since the important distinction (at least an important distinction) is between underworld deities and earth deities, and 'underworld' and 'earth' are words enough. The difference between divinities connected in any way with the earth and others is trivial: in fact pretty pointless because deities who have no connection at all with the earth are pretty uncommon. Even Uranus, the archetypal sky father god, ruled over Tartarus, deep below the earth, and imprisoned his children there. Poseidon, who rules the sea, also governs earthquakes.

If even Uranus and Poseidon have chthonic attributes what's the point of using the word 'chthonic'?

I didn't say that "well-established views are always relevant to anything".

And I didn't say you did. I was trying and failing of course to explain 'relevance' to you. It has nothing to do with how well arguments are founded or backed up or referenced. One day that may I suppose get through to you, though as I said I went to the wrong university.

I wonder if you can understand anything from English language which is more complicated that a simple SVO sentence.

Don't be an idiot more than you can help.

That doesn't make it irrelevant. Same point.

Of course it does. You can't give words meanings based on your moods or misunderstandings.

Maybe not, but that has nothing to do with relevance. You really should check what the word means.

I came up with dictionary definitions that demonstrated I was correct.

False, all dictionary definitions suggested 'chthonic' pertains to the underworld which is below earth, in the earth.

The underworld is NOT necessarily below under or in the earth. The world is not the earth. I don't know what language you do speak but it surely isn't English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Latin or Russian.

I understand the situation very clearly, though I seem to be alone in doing so in this debate. 'Chthonic' is used by you and others to refer to deities like Hades, and also to deities like Demeter. Doing that inserts a meaningless distinction in place of a meaningful one. That they are both connected with the earth is trivial. The important categoriastion is triune (plus one if you include the sea): heavenly world, human world, underworld - sky, earth and under the earth in Greek terms. Distinguishing on the basis of being connected to the earth or not is pointless.

Of course you reject the dictionary definitions as 'misunderstood' when you disagree with them, no matter how clear and unambiguous they are.

Understanding English language is obviously not among your strengths. I claimed that you misunderstood those definitions, not that they are 'misunderstood' in themselves.

That would be more impressive if you hadn't just show your own lack of ability to understand the language (from my ability in which I have, incidentally, earned my living for much of my life). If I misunderstood the definitions, then they were misunderstood. If you claimed that I misunderstood them, then you claimed that they were misunderstood. I asume you speak a language that doesn't have a passive aspect?

'Misunderstood in themselves' doesn't make sense.

At most I could qualify them to be vague and thus misleading the unknowing people in error, like you prove with your interpretations.

Disagreeing with you is after all your criterion for deciding something should be immediately rejected.

I could just as well retort that you were putting forward groundless fallacies based on your flawed readings.

What I was putting forward was the criticism that you and the people you were quoting were misguided and mistaken in using 'chthonic' the way you and they do. I wasn't basing that only on my readings, flawed or otherwise: it follows from your readings too.

We both agree about the content of what you are saying. I am not misniterpreting that unless you are too. The difference between us is that I think you and they are wrong. And my case is purely a taxonomic and linguistic one. There really is no point in your giving dozens of examples of people doing what I'm criticising them for doing. I know they do it or I wouldn't be criticising.

What you are specifically NOT doing is giving any kind of counter argument except to say 'all these people do it so it must be right'. You even gave up on the possible argument based on the word's etymology.

-------------

Posted By: Chilbudios
Date Posted: 12-Dec-2008 at 22:59

Originally posted by gcle2003

I know it's nuts. That why I pointed it out. Incidentally 'underground' and 'underworld' are totally different things: there's a word for 'underground' in most languages I know anything of (e.g. 'souterrain' in French) but rarely is there one for 'underworld' that has any conncêction with the word for 'earth'. The closest French gets is 'les enfers' AFAIK - though there are plenty of French words for 'underworld' in the criminal sense.
German of course, like I assume other Germanic languages, shares with English 'unterwelt' and 'untergrund' as corresponding pairs, but that's the same 'world'-'earth' distinction again.

But I didn't equate underworld with underground, however I argued that the world of the living is on the surface of the earth, as such the underworld beneath is by necessity is under the surface of the earth. The 'below'/'under' have meanings only when in reference to the surface (or other references which we can 'horizontal'), not to the entire globe.

Apart from possibly Stephen King I'm not aware of anyone thinking that the dead live in the underground.

I'm aware of plenty such conceptions, from the ancient Greeks to modern representations (literature, movies, etc.). Arguably in the rural or underdeveloped areas there are people today believing that (in the relative recent Romanian folklore there are such beliefs, I guess it's the same in other areas).

And you ceaselessly repeated that, without proving that anyone else but you gets confused, which makes it your misunderstanding, you being wrong. I don't see why words should change their meanings simply because you're confused. Perhaps you should change something about yourself ...

There is an important distinction to be made between gods 'of the underworld' - which may not be uinder the ground - and fertility earth divinities who, like Demeter, don't have anything to do with the underworld even though some of their activities may affect the roots of crops which are under the surface of the earth.

But 'chthonic' does not address this distinction. The gods of fertility are called in many ways (I already suggested 'agrarian'), the gods of the dead are called din many ways (I already suggested 'funeral', 'infernal' - only for the 'chtonic' ones, for those from the underworld). You just have a poor grasp on technical terminology, no one else but you needs the distinctions you claim.

The dead don't live, even in Greek mythology, among the roots of the cornfield.

The dead and the roots are in earth, which is the chthonic realm by definition. However this doesn't mean they are crowded all together in a cubic centimeter.

But you don't know what I am saying. A made-up definition cannot be relevant to a subject which is not about how people make up definitions.

You know nothing of me, and prove yourself quite illiterate given I repeated my positions several times facing with your aggresivity. I agreed with all your definitions but none of them proved your point. Learn to read what I write before replying.

Surprising though it may be to you, you don't actually set the rules for debate here: it isn't up to you what should be discussed here or not, and it is certainly not up to you to determine what is right and what is wrong.

That you may have some petty kingdom of you own where you do have such powers is entirely possible of course, and that could account for a lot.

You're hallucinating, I did not try to impose anything, at most I'm suggesting you an attitude which arguably will lead to a constructive discussion.

No, my unwitty companion, scholarly theories start with the reality. 'Chthonic' is a term reflecting a certain dimension of Greek religion (and eventually was expanded to other religions), it is not a concept imagined by some people bored of a prosaic life.

Yes we do. You may not but the rest of us do.

Do you have multiple personality?

Again a position is relevant or not dependent on its subject matter, not its correctness or value.

I agree. A made-up definition cannot be proven to have any relation to a subject of comparative religion.

Sice you would dismiss as irrelevant or misunderstood or otherwise non-viable and dictionary definition I might quote, why don't you look one up for yourself?

And yet I didn't dismiss them.

You seem to forget (or rather not to know) that 'chthonic' is a technical term, the common usage was taken from the academic world, not viceversa.
That scholars can be blind, yes, it is possible. But in this case it is outside your competence to see that.

That only shows your ignorance. All the scholars I quoted are known outside their field. On one hand I'm no anthropplogist or historian of religions or anything like that, nor comparative religion is my foremost interest and yet I know of them. On the other hand, most of them I've found out reading history, linguistics, or even more general topics, as such topics not directly connected with religion. Of some of them I discussed with friends, which also are not professionally related to this field.

You happily quote disctionary definitions at me, but then ignore or dismiss dictionary definitions I provide: indeed you even criticise me for relying on them.

Learn to read, I did not ignore nor dismiss any definition, on the contrary I argued they all agree with what I hold. I criticized only that tendency to search for 'oddities'.

Only because you can't see the difference between 'world' and 'earth'. How about 'mundus' and 'terra'? Is that better?

It's not about any world, it's about the world of the living and that of the dead. The world of the living is on the surface of the earth (nowhere else). The underworld which is below this one where is it? Come on, it is really simple.

Because 'chthonic' has only recently become a frequently used term in anthropology as opposed to literature. The word doesn't appear anywhere at all in The Golden Bough for instance.

Not really, you're just ignorant, the term 'chthonic' was used in scholarship even at that time. At least two of my references are from that period, and some other of my references even shed some light on the historiography of the concept.

There are a lot of materials on religion not using the term 'chthonic'. A century ago and now. But this doesn't show the word doesn't exist.

However, you could consider Jung's concept of the chthonic phallos as contrasted with the solar phallos, illustrating how 'chthonic' in the past has tended to mean 'dark' as opposed to 'light' - the underworld as opposed to the world.

You obviously haven't read Jung on that, you only used Wikipedia's article on chthonic as a source. The opposition dark/night/under-the-surface vs light/day/above-the-surface is correct. But Jung's concept does not reflect how the word was used in the past. Just referring to my previous list, Fairbanks and Hewitt wrote their articles long before Jung wrote on 'chthonic'.

It's confusing and pointless only for you ('agrarian' or 'funeral' are not words enough?). If you'd be familiarized with scholarship you'd knew "what's the point of using the word 'chthonic'. Actually I already told you few times.

I was trying and failing of course to explain 'relevance' to you. It has nothing to do with how well arguments are founded or backed up or referenced.

But you don't explain anything, you don't even understand what I'm saying. I never said it has "to do with how well arguments are founded or backed up or referenced". I was not even talking about arguments, but about definitions and concepts.

Maybe not, but that has nothing to do with relevance. You really should check what the word means.

It has everything to do with it. If you come in this thread and talk about how you drink 'chthonic' water is utterly irrelevant. If come in this thread and talk about how 'chthonic' does not pertain to earth is equally irrelevant. If you want to make it relevant, refer to a word someone else but you can understand. Refer to a word legitimated by a source (no, those dictionary definitions do not hold the meaning you have claimed).

It's not about any world, but about our world which incidentally is on earth, more accurately on the surface of the earth. I know several of those languagues and some of them even better than you.

Your claims of understanding are ludicrous given your manifested ignorance. 'Me and others' are virtually all people but you, because except you I found no one to deny that Demeter is a chthonic goddess.

Demeter is both chthonic and ouranian. Demeter is agrarian, Hades is an infernal god. There are lots of distinctions, but you don't know of them or simply don't understand them. Chthonic is not a term to distinguish the gods of the dead from the rest of the other gods. Just because you choose to misuse a term it doesn't mean you have a point by doing it.

That would be more impressive if you hadn't just show your own lack of ability to understand the language (from my ability in which I have, incidentally, earned my living for much of my life).

That's no warranty you understand the language properly, a lot of people earn their living though they are incompetents to a smaller or larger degree. And you certainly didn't earn your living in understanding me or most of the topics we debate. I know for a fact that you misunderstand me constantly, chronically. Sometimes it's a rushy reading (a bad habit you admitted yourself), some other times I'm just too subtle. As for my alleged lack of ability, the accusations that I misunderstood someone's sayings are rather rare, like this one, but let's see what is it about.

If I misunderstood the definitions, then they were misunderstood. If you claimed that I misunderstood them, then you claimed that they were misunderstood. I asume you speak a language that doesn't have a passive aspect?

That's exactly what I said (and you prove to be yourself once more ignorant, Romanian has a passive aspect). However you earlier said that I "reject the dictionary definitions as 'misunderstood' when I disagree with them, no matter how clear and unambiguous they are". But in my previous message which you replied to, I did not refer to the dictionary definitions (as you wrongly understood), but on how you interpret them. So I actually my understanding of English is fine, while yours is lacunar. Perhaps I should be more repetitive, use shorter sentences preferably of SOV type and try to cleanse my discourse of my native Romance influence.

I could just as well retort that you were putting forward groundless fallacies based on your flawed readings.

And you would prove yourself an ignorant, because I quoted clear-cut definitions which I did not interpret:
""My definition of a chthonic god shall be the simplest possible. I employ the term to include all divine or semi-divine being supposed to dwell beneath the earth's surface, whether as gods of the dead or of the agriculture as the souls of the dead and such heroes as were conceived to dwell under the earth." (Hewitt)
while no definition you use doesn't hold your ludicrous claims that chthonic does not pertain to earth or that 'kingdom of heaven' is 'chthonic' (I see you avoided to bring a scholarly reference on that, I know you won't because there's none). You reached these conclusion only by sophisms and misinterpretations.

The criticism is actually a claim made by you, a nobody, who fails to 'distinguish', who fails to see a 'point'. Your linguistic case was a misinterpretation. Your taxonomic case was a false dilemma. Probably you don't want the word to have that meaning. And this is, like I said, irrelevant, a moody, made-up definition.

The foremost argument is that they invented it. It is a Greek word brought into modern languages by anthropologists, by scholars of religion (historians, scholars of comparative religion, etc.). Then they gave it weight by creating a scholarly tradition and using it. And when the word became famous enough, it was taken by dictionaries, by other authors from other disciplines.

If I'm a mathematician and I say a triangle is a polygon with three corners (angles), it would be irrelevant and stupid for someone to claim my definition is flawed, that it fails to distinguish, that the corner of the room shows three angles or other similar claims showing misunderstandings and misguided criticisms.

Posted By: Chilbudios
Date Posted: 14-Dec-2008 at 17:18

Since for the moment I don't have to address clowneries and defend my opinions against ill-directed misunderstandings, I decided to add some supplementary serious information on 'chthonic'.

The word is not listed in Elisha Coles' English Dictionary from 1717 (explaining the difficult terms that are used ind divinity, husbandry, physick, philosophy, law, navigation, mathematicks, and other arts and sciences, containing many thousand of hard words, etc.), nor in Nathan Bailey's Universal Etymological English Dictionary from 1756, nor in Johnson and Walker's Dictionary of the English Language from 1828, nor in Noah Webster's American Dictionary of the English Language from 1828, nor in the newer editions or abridgements of these latter dictionaries from the following decades. My search was certainly not exhaustive, my conclusions follow only from my findings. I don't know which is the first English dictionary to have this word registered, the earliest I found is Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary from 1913 ( http://machaut.uchicago.edu/?resource=Websters&word=chthonic&use1913=on&use1828=on - http://machaut.uchicago.edu/?resource=Webster%27s&word=chthonic&use1913=on&use1828=on ): "Pertaining to the earth; earthy; as, chthonic religions". The later definitions (as already exemplified in the thread) refined this sense only to the underworldly side of the earth, of the sub-terranean.

The word 'chthonic' first was employed in the modern languages as an untranslateable epithet of the Greek gods. For instance, in Recherches Historiques et Critiques sur Les Mystères du Paganisme published in 1817 ( http://books.google.com/books?id=d4QBAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA287 - http://books.google.com/books?id=d4QBAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA287 ) 'chthonic' (chthonien, chthonienne) is an epithet of Mercur (Hermes), Iacchus (Dionysos), Proserpina (Persephone), Hecate, Ceres (Demeter).

However in the 19th century, the comparative religion and in particular the study of Greek mythology flourished, especially with the precious contribution of German scholarship. The concept of 'chthonic gods' was born (or properly shaped, I don't really know who coined this concept), in the works of Karl Otfried Müller (e.g. his comments in his edition of Aeschylus' Eumenides from 1833), in Ludwig Preller's Demeter und Persephone (1837) ( http://books.google.com/books?id=CmUOAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA183 - http://books.google.com/books?id=CmUOAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA183 ), in H. D. Müller's Mythologie der griech (1857), Hermann Diels' Sybillinische Blätter (1890), Paul Stengel's Die griech (1898). Perhaps the most famous of them would become Erwin Rohde's Psyche (1894). I'll use a recent English edition to get some relevant passages:
http://books.google.com/books?id=EsVTr_6c7E0C&pg=PA158 - http://books.google.com/books?id=EsVTr_6c7E0C&pg=PA158

"The chief new feature revealing itself to comparative study in the development of religion in the post-Homeric period is the worship of chthonic deities, that is, of deities dwelling in the interior of the earth."

"They are the gods of a settled, agricultural, inland population. Dwelling beneath the soil they guarantee two things to their worshippers: they bless the cultivation of the ground and ensure the increase of the fruits of the soil to the living; they receive the souls of the dead into their underworld. In certain places they also send up from the spirit-world reveleations of future events.
The most exalted name we met with among these dwellers below the earth is that of Zeus Chthonios. This is at once the most general and the most exclusive designation of the god of the lower world; for the name 'Zeus' had in many local cults thus preserved the generalized meaning of 'god' in combination with a particularizing adjective. The Iliad also once speaks of 'Zeus of the lower world' though by this is meant none other than the ruler of the distant realm of the dead, Hades. Hades too, in the Hesiodic Theogony is once called 'Zeus the Chthonian'. But the agricultural poem of Hesiod bids the Boeotian contryman, when preparing his fields for sowing, pray for a blessing to the Chthonic Zeus. Zeus Chthonios was also sacrificed to in Mykonos for the 'fruits of the earth'."

As such, all the dictionary definitions only attest and reflect this usage of the term in scholarship. When a dictionary defines 'chthonic' as 'of underworld' (which in turn can be defined as lower world, nether world, etc.), it refers to a sub-terranean world, under the world inhabited by men, by life. Further evidence for that are the clear references to scholarship and Greek mythology (e.g. in the Webster from 1913 the usage is illustrated with a quote from Max Müller, while in most dictionaries the 'underworld' is defined in partial synonymy with Hades, the sub-terranean realm of the dead in Greek mythology).

I already provided a consistent bibliography and I don't find necessary to add a large number of references which eventually they'll end unread by most viewers. I'll use just few texts I find relevant in understanding the meanings and the limits of this concept. From Mircea Eliade's Encyclopedia of Religions (1987), from the article "Zalmoxis" (authored by I. P. Coulianu and C. Poghirc):

"On this basis Paul Kretschmer compared the metathetical form Zamolxis with the Phrygian zemelen ("barbarian slave"; Gr. barbaron andrapodon) with Zemelo, the name of a Thraco-Phrygian earth goddess (compare the Greek Semele), and with the Slavic zemlja ('earth') and thus explained Zamolxis as meaning 'lord of men' (for -xis, compare the Avestan xshaya-, 'lord, king'). Hence was developed (mainly by I. I. Russu) the theory of the chthonic character of this god, which led to the ongoing dispute over his real functions." (p. 551-552)

"One the false problems connected with Zalmoxis that has received much attention from scholars is whether the god — if he was a god at all — ought to be interpreted as a chthonic or as a heavenly divinity. In fact, from the perspective of the history of religions, this is not a logical contradiction, since divinities of the sky can be strongly connected with the earth, and vice versa. Furthermore, even in Greek religion, which is usually the model according to which Zalmoxis is interpreted, such heavenly divinities as Zeus and Apollo were worshiped in caves, whereas such a typically chthonic divinity as Persephone was associated very early with heavenly immortality. Pythagoras himself. who was apparently connected with Apollo of Hyperborea, is also the character who descends to the underworld and who exhibits important features that establish his relationship with a chthonic goddess, or 'great mother'. Zalmoxis' "Pythagorean' structure connects him with both the earth and the sky." (p. 553)

"The chthonic side of Epimenides is revealed by his dwelling in a cave and by his relationship with the nymphs. In the legends of Pythagoras and Zalmoxis this chthonic side is revealed by a detail that has only recently received a consistent interpretation. Walter Burkert (1972) has shown that Pythagoras was probably viewed as a representative of the chthonic goddess Demeter, a hypothesis confirmed by the tradition that Pythagoras once exhibited a "golden thigh". This probably means that the legend attributed to Pythagoras a tattoo on his thigh, which was the mark, or seal, of the Anatolian great goddess. At the same time it was an indication that Pythagoras could travel to Hades (Burkert, 1972, pp. 160-161)." (p. 553)

The bibliographical reference on Burkert is on Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism (1972), which I don't have nor found online. However, there's online an English edition (1987) on his book on Greek Religion. On 'chthonic':
http://books.google.com/books?id=ekqJUZHVTzsC&pg=PA199 - http://books.google.com/books?id=ekqJUZHVTzsC&pg=PA199 (endnotes: http://books.google.com/books?id=ekqJUZHVTzsC&pg=PA428 - http://books.google.com/books?id=ekqJUZHVTzsC&pg=PA428 )

"On the one side are those who belong to the earth, chthonioi, and on the other the heavenly gods thus it has become usual to speak of the Olympian as opposed to the Chthonic."

"It is not only the dead who belong to the earth - there are also chthonic gods. Admittedly these gods are mentioned only with misgiving and usually only by the way of allusion. The rulers of the dead, Hades and Persephpone, are well known and openly recognized through the Homeric poems; but they are not alone. There are powers which bring only dangers and evil, powers which it is best not to name and which must be turned away be appropriate sacrifice in order be rid of them. In one place the Iliad names the Titans and in another place the Erinyes beneath the earth. They are invoked in oaths and their terrible power is harnassed to curses and harming magic, when one's adversary is delivered up to the uncanny gods in the defixio.
But the terror of destruction is only one side of the chthonic power. For as long as the land has bien tilled, it is been known that food and hence life grows from the depths of the earth: 'the corn comes from the dead'. Hades is also Pluto, the guardian and giver of wealth in corn; and the corn mother Demeter is in a very special sense the Chthonia in whose care the dead too are hidden. In Hermione the Demeter festival is called simply Chthonia. Pausanias describes the procession and the uncanny cow sacrifice inside the closed temple: he points out that the flowers woven into the garlands worn by the children in the procession signify mourning, and he also alludes to secret rites in the ancient stone circle. In the mysteries the crop-giving goddess makes death lose its terror. The secret of mysteries also surrounds the chthonic Dionysos, the son of Persephone. Chthonic is also found as an epithet of Hecate, the goddess of nocturnal sorcery who is able to enter the underworld; and naturally it is an epithet of Hermes, the escort of souls who crossed the boundary with the underworld. But the god who is mentioned most frequently is the chthonic Zeus, the other Zeus, a sub-terranean counterpart to the sky father. The other Zeus, the Zeus of the dead may simply be another name for Hades; but nevertheless it is from him that the growth of the crops is expected. When sowing the seed the farmer prays to chthonic Zeus and pure Demeter and sacrifices 'for the fruits' are made to the 'chthonic Zeus and the chthonic Earth'."

Posted By: Chilbudios
Date Posted: 14-Dec-2008 at 22:40

I'll abuse this period of peace to address another issue and possibly prevent further exposures of ridiculous ignorance. It was ludicrously claimed that Jung's usage of 'chthonic' was reflecting a different past (sic!) meaning of the word 'chthonic'. One making such a claim obviously hasn't read Jung. I'll use the Notes of the Seminars (Princeton ed.) to quote Jung on 'chthonic' (I'll focus on contexts where the 'earthly' dimension is clearly expressed, sometimes even the associations with fertility)

Visions, 1930-1934, vol. II:

"That time was characterized by earthly beauty and power, empire, great conquests, etc., all of a chthonic nature" (p. 727)

"Then the black snake with the green pattern would go very well with the earth because all serpents are chthonic, That she has the chthonic attitude, that she is just earth, say in the very beginning of spring, would be the best interpretation according to my idea, because we are right at the beginning of the mandala psychology."
(p. 822)

"That idol was a goddess of the interior of the earth, an exceedingly chthonic figure; all the chhtonic goddesses have that element of incomprehensibility, grotesqueness, absurdity , and so on. [...] If you have read Der Tote Tag by Barlach, a sort of mythological drama, you will remember a figure there with the grotesque name Steissbart; he is also the dwarfish gnomelike mind of the mother. This figure is a most characteristic chthonic god. There were plenty of such divinities in the later syncretistic times also, in the Ptolemaic period. And the gods in primitive tribes usually look absurd and paradoxical, because they express the earth element." (p. 962)

"It is the same primitive deity that we met in another form in the vision before, the earth mother, the earth itself taking possession of civilized cultural consciousness - the conscious personality partially overcome by the chthonic unconscious." (p. 970)

"The Kundalini serpent corresponds to the dragon, but with us it would be the devil because we consider the thing coming up from the earth as chthonic, as spiritus immundus, an unclean spirit." (p. 1041)

"The Indian squaw is the female principle, and being chthonic, she is obviously a personification of the earth mother. And inasmuch as the Mexican image is made of earth or gold or whatever it is, its stuff derives from the earth mother; but its meaning, its spirit, is the spiritual or Logos principle, the oppposite of the woman's principle, Eros. But those particular terms are not really appropriate in this case; here one would say, rather, that the Mexican image is a spiritual principle in contrast to the chthonic principle of the earth mother." (p. 1052)

"When Dionysus appeared on earth he was persecuted by Titans and in order to escape their power, the power of fate that is, he transformed into all sorts of beings. Finally he changed into a bull, and in that form they caught him and dismembered him and ate him. Titanic means chthonic - the powers of the earth seized and god and killed and ate him." (p. 1127)

Nietzsche's Zarathustra, 1934-1939, vol II:

"Also keep in mind that the snake represents the chthonic mana of the ancestors that have gone underground; the snakes bring it up, and taking the snakes in their mouths means that they are eating their mana, one could say. It is a communion with the mana, the power, left by the ancestors. It is at bottom of course a magic fertility ritual, for purpose of increasing the fertility of the earth, as well as the fertility or the power of man. The idea is that life is strengthened by uniting oneself to those underground chthonic forces. Like the giant Antaeus in Greek mythology, who was powerful as long as he had his feet on the earth; in order to conquer him, Hercules had to lift him off the ground. So the ancient Greeks apparently had very much the same idea of the chthonic powers." (p. 1282)

"Yes, they had a basket containing the snake on the communion table, and they made it crawl over the bread they were to use in communion, the host. They celebrated communion with the bread which had been magically endowed with power by the chthonic snake. Then it contained the proper nutritive quality, then it was right for use; it was what Christians called the panis immortalis, the food of immortality. It is the same idea that chthonic powers bring fertility, health, duration, strength, and so on." (p. 1283)

Therefore, here we have C. G. Jung joining the 'blind scholars' using 'chthonic' to refer to the divine forces under the earth's surface, gods of the underworld but also of agriculture and fertility.

Posted By: edgewaters
Date Posted: 15-Dec-2008 at 16:17

The dead don't live, even in Greek mythology, among the roots of the cornfield.

Oh but they do ... Aeneas and Vigil both enter the Underworld at the Aornos Cave, the Necromanteion is situated underground, and so on. There are real-world sites associated with this, that are quite literally under the ground!

Or, to quote Strabo: "The Akheron has been so named by virtue of its close relation to Haides; for, as we know, not only the temples of Demeter and Kore [Persephone] have been held in very high honor there, but also those of Haides, perhaps because of 'the contrariness of the soil,' to use the phrase of Demetrios of Skepsis. For while Triphylia brings forth good fruit, it breeds red-rust and produces rush; and therefore in this region it is often the case that instead of a large crop there is no crop at all."

Posted By: gcle2003
Date Posted: 17-Dec-2008 at 11:07

The entrance to the underworld in Virgil does not take you into the roots of the cornfields. I was looking for a phrase that indicated the parts of the world of the living - the upper world if you like - that are underground. That quite evidently includes the bits you can dig up, just as it includes silver mines and the like. Living people can exist underground without being part of the underworld.

Again I have to emphasise that the 'underground' and the 'underworld' are different concepts: one is in fact scientific, observed, while the other is metaphysical, hypothesised. Just as the psychological (and practical) motives that lead people to hypothesise deities that control the earth's fertility - the living earth's fertility - and deities that control life after death are different.

The underworld is not fertile. And the dead do not live in fertile soil (the 'roots of the cornfield').

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Posted By: Chilbudios
Date Posted: 17-Dec-2008 at 11:17

Originally posted by gcle2003

Again I have to emphasise that the 'underground' and the 'underworld' are different concepts. Just as the psychological (and practical) motives that lead people to hypothesise deities that control the earth's fertility - the living earth's fertility - and deities that control life after death are different.

In Greek mythology and in many other mythologies and systems of beliefs they are the same realm, refer to Burkert (and his reference, a Hippocratic treaty) for "the corn comes from the dead". Moreover earth's fertility and the dead were often connected in myths and rituals. Many gods (some already exemplified) had both functions.

The underworld is not fertile. And the dead do not live in fertile soil (the 'roots of the cornfield').

Mythologically the entire earth is fertile, not just a shallow layer of it.

And as a nit-pick, the dead are usually buried in the fertile soil (there's widespread legendary laitmotif of trees or plants growing from a dead body)

Posted By: edgewaters
Date Posted: 17-Dec-2008 at 15:13

Originally posted by gcle2003

The entrance to the underworld in Virgil does not take you into the roots of the cornfields.

No, but it does take you under the ground and into the land of the dead.

The underworld is not fertile. And the dead do not live in fertile soil (the 'roots of the cornfield').

Well, according to Strabo, not fertile soil, no ... rather un-fertile soil.

Posted By: gcle2003
Date Posted: 17-Dec-2008 at 15:24

Originally posted by edgewaters

Originally posted by gcle2003

The entrance to the underworld in Virgil does not take you into the roots of the cornfields.

No, but it does take you under the ground and into the land of the dead.

And out of the land of the living. The idea that even the ancient Greeks thought that the underworld started an inch or less beneath the surface is faintly ridiculous.

If the underworld was simply the underground, why would it need special entrances? For that matter why would it need the Styx as a border? The underworld doesn't start until the other side of the Styx, and the 'roots of the cornfield' are most definitely on this side of the Styx: you don't need to pay Charon to get there.

The underworld is not fertile. And the dead do not live in fertile soil (the 'roots of the cornfield').

Well, according to Strabo, not fertile soil, no ... rather un-fertile soil.

The dead don't actually live in any kind of soil. Dead bodies may lie in soil, but dead bodies don't go to the underworld.

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Posted By: gcle2003
Date Posted: 17-Dec-2008 at 15:52

Originally posted by Chilbudios

In Greek mythology and in many other mythologies and systems of beliefs they are the same realm, refer to Burkert (and his reference, a Hippocratic treaty) for "the corn comes from the dead".

The corn comes from dead bodies, not the souls of the dead. Surely that at least is a distinction you can see?

Moreover earth's fertility and the dead were often connected in myths and rituals. Many gods (some already exemplified) had both functions.

And as I pointed out almost all deities had some connection with the earth. Even Aeolus lived in a cave.

Originally posted by Ovid

"Swiftly within the Aeolus’ cave he locked the North Wind..."

"Protinus Aeoliis Aquilonem claudit in antris..."

Metamorphoses I:262

Many deities in most religious systems have varying and mixed attributes, especially over time and space. Osiris is a figure with both fertiliy and underworld aspects. Poseidon controls not only the sea, but earthquakes and horses.

However, of the multiple purposes of magic and religion, controlling the fertility of the earth is one, and dealing with personal after-death survival is a different one. So earth fertility divinities have a very different role to those of underworld divinities.

The underworld is not fertile. And the dead do not live in fertile soil (the 'roots of the cornfield').

Mythologically the entire earth is fertile, not just a shallow layer of it.

Depends what you mean by 'entire earth'. And 'fertile' I suppose. I'd like to see a quote that the 'entire earth' is 'fertile' to get some idea of what you mean. Even to the ancient Greeks the idea must have been nonsense.

And as a nit-pick, the dead are usually buried in the fertile soil (there's widespread legendary laitmotif of trees or plants growing from a dead body)

I can only point out again, in some despair, that a dead body is not the living dead. The underworld is where the shades of the dead live, not their bodies. Can you really not tell the difference between a dead body and an immortal soul?

Dead bodies exist in the world of the living not the world of the dead. Nobody would have been more familiar with that than the Greeks.

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Posted By: Chilbudios
Date Posted: 17-Dec-2008 at 15:54

One other epithet of Demeter was Anesidora which according to a gloss in Hesychius meant "she who sends up the fruits/gifts".

According to the Hippocratic treaty De Victu (though originally in Greek, this is how is known traditionally by scholarship, for text I'm using the bilingual edition Littré 1849, vol. VI, p. 659):

"c'est des morts que viennent les nourritures, les croissances et les semences"

Posted By: gcle2003
Date Posted: 17-Dec-2008 at 16:27

Originally posted by Chilbudios

One other epithet of Demeter was Anesidora which according to a gloss in Hesychius meant "she who sends up the fruits/gifts".

So? What has that to do with the underworld? You don't get fruits and gifts from the underworld?

Don't you think that the Greeks were perfectly familiar with the idea that, e.g., silver miners 'sent up' what they dug up?

You can go down without going into the underworld and you can go up without coming from the underworld.

The Underworld is not the Underground.

According to the Hippocratic treaty De Victu (though originally in Greek, this is how is known traditionally by scholarship, for text I'm using the bilingual edition Littré 1849, vol. VI, p. 659):

"c'est des morts que viennent les nourritures, les croissances et les semences"

Again I have to make the same point again and again and again... nourishment comes from dead bodies, not their souls. Souls live in the underworld. Dead bodies don't. Dead bodies whether they get burnt or buried contribute their elements to the nitrogen cycle and so on.

A dead body is not a soul. You find souls of the dead in the underworld. You find their bodies in cemeteries.

It really leave me agape that you can't tell the difference between a dead body and a soul.

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Posted By: Chilbudios
Date Posted: 17-Dec-2008 at 16:45

Originally posted by gcle2003

The corn comes from dead bodies, not the souls of the dead. Surely that at least is a distinction you can see?

I can see the distinction, but you don't know the text (in the aforementioned edition the Greek text is at p. 658, the French translation at p. 659). It is not about corpses, but about the dead.

And as I pointed out almost all deities had some connection with the earth. Even Aeolus lived in a cave.

Which is their chthonic aspect.

Not really. As illustrated by several of my references, some gods had both functions (in relatively the same moment of time and place in space). The death and the (re)birth were closely related in many mythologies.

I provided plenty of references for that from Jung to various scholars of comparative religion. Let's not forget this thread is about Mother-Earth, the gendered concept of fertile divine earth in entirety (not just in the garden, or in the shallow strata).

Dead bodies exist in the world of the living not the world of the dead. Nobody would have been more familiar with that than the Greeks.

Dead bodies rot in the world of the living, but in some mythologies (including the Greek one) they continue their existence in a somehow embodied form though they otherwise have a shadowy existence. In Greek mythology they are ocassionaly described as shadows, but they perform physical actions like holding the coin in their mouth to be taken by Charon, they suffer physical torments - Tantalus enduring endless hunger and thirst, Ixion on a burning wheel bitten by poisonous snakes, Sisyphus working in vain to roll a rock on a steep hill. There are also several mythical episodes involving arguably physical actions between those from the world of the living and those from the world of the dead.

Posted By: Chilbudios
Date Posted: 17-Dec-2008 at 17:00

Originally posted by gcle2003

So? What has that to do with the underworld? You don't get fruits and gifts from the underworld?

It has to do with an earlier erroneus claim that Demeter was not "living" in the earth, that Demeter is not chthonic.

[/QUOTE]

Are you bothering to follow this thread at all? I said Demeter DID live in the earth but not in the UNDERWORLD. And therefore she was not 'chthonic' because she is not particularly associated with the UNDERWORLD, which is what 'chthonic' MEANS. Of COURSE she is an EARTH goddess, and if you'd simply call her that it would be fine.

If you keep coming up with ridiculously erroneous versions of what I'm sayingm, there's not much point in my saying anything.

Don't you think that the Greeks were perfectly familiar with the idea that, e.g., silver miners 'sent up' what they dug up?

Living creatures can enter the underworld, sometimes go even beyond Cerberus.

But not routine run of the mill silver miners. You're avoiding the point again, since it's so obvious you were wrong.

Incidentally Hades (more accurately Pluto, I'm not sure if in the older myths the original Hades was) was also the god of mining (he was also generally a god of wealth - be it from crops, mining or whatever else "goods of the earth"). Care to guess why?

The Romans mixed up their existing god of mines with the Greek god of the underworld, maybe partly because the Greek word for 'wealth' is Plouton, and because they didn't originally have a god of the underworld themselves?

Like I pointed out, Poseidon is the god of the sea and also of earthquakes. Care to guess why?

You can go down without going into the underworld and you can go up without coming from the underworld.

The Underworld is not the Underground.

In Greek mythology yes, the underworld and the underground were part of the same realm (for us today, having access to different mythological underworlds, no, it is not). Both the gods of the dead, and the gods raising vegetation and plants from the ground were called explicitely by the Greeks 'chthonoi'.

We're discussing - or at least I am - the appropriate use of the word 'chthonic' in modern English, in which it was first recorded late in the 19th century. I think your claim that the Greeks though the uinderworld and the underground were part of the same realm is false, but even if true it misses my point, which is not how the ancient Greeks used the word, but how we should. We have a hell of a lot more religions to take into account that the Greeks did.

You make an erroneous point (and making it again won't make it right), because neither the Greek word, nor the French one do not semantically suggest it's about bodies.

What do you mean by 'semantically' there?

Of coure 'mort' in French includes the meaning of dead body. In my Larousse the very first meaning given to 'mort' is 'cadaver, corpse, dead body'. In fact if 'mort' didn't mean a body there's be no need for the phrase 'les morts vivants'.

'La mort' (feminine) means 'Death' as an abstract concept, and canniot be plural. What we have here is 'le mort' (masculine) which primarily means a dead body; 'la morte' (feminine) similarly primarily means a dead female body.

Check http://www.le-dictionnaire.com/definition.php?mot=mort - http://www.le-dictionnaire.com/definition.php?mot=mort ('cadaver' is the second definition there) though I know you only accept dictionary evidence when it appears to agree with you.

I recommend you to read the entire text (which is about dreams, by the way). And also Walter Burkert's account on chthonic gods.

You find their bodies in cemeteries.

If the body was burnt you find ashes. If the body was buried (and not embalmed) some years ago you find bones. Well, if you look for fresh inhumations, maybe you have a chance

Somewhere else I said buried or burned. However, your response would be cleverer if you had said they also find bodies on battlefields. Of course you find bodies in cemeteries. You may also find beercans and all sorts of unmentionable objects, but you certainly find bodies.

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Posted By: edgewaters
Date Posted: 17-Dec-2008 at 17:02

Originally posted by gcle2003

If the underworld was simply the underground, why would it need special entrances?

Who said it was simply the underground? Its an underground otherworld, not just any old subterranean place. The underworld is a mythological abstraction of the underground; it is under the ground, but you can't merely burrow into the earth to get there. It is a realm of sacred mystery, not a mundane realm.

The dead don't actually live in any kind of soil. Dead bodies may lie in soil, but dead bodies don't go to the underworld.

That does very little to address the quote of Strabo. Hades was directly associated with "soil", specifically "contrary" soil.

I could point to alot of other traditions: for instance, the myths of Ireland, which associate the Aos Si or Sidhe (otherworlders, essentially a race that had 'crossed over') with a subterranean existance in passage tombs. Or the wuya kachinas of Hopi myth, who dwell beneath mountains - sometimes in an underground "Lake of the Dead" - and provide the waters for crops:

There are many others, worldwide.

Posted By: gcle2003
Date Posted: 17-Dec-2008 at 21:06

Originally posted by Chilbudios

Originally posted by gcle2003

The corn comes from dead bodies, not the souls of the dead. Surely that at least is a distinction you can see?

I can see the distinction, but you don't know the text (in the aforementioned edition the Greek text is at p. 658, the French translation at p. 659). It is not about corpses, but about the dead.

Then provide the text. The bit you quoted is quite obviously talking about dead bodies. It's a poetic conceit common to many cultures to dwell on the way new life comes from dead flesh. But all that happens in the world of the living, not the world of dead souls.

I guess someone might also way a little poetic about how intellectual sophistication grows from the thoughts of people now dead - Newton standing on the shoulders of giants. But you still can't cook and eat dead souls, or use them as fertilisers.

And as I pointed out almost all deities had some connection with the earth. Even Aeolus lived in a cave.

Which is their chthonic aspect.

Then it's a useless word, whihc was my point originally. There's no significant connection between Aeolus and, say, Chiron, just because they both lived in caves. Even the fact that they are both male is probably more significant.

Mythical and religious figures are important because of the role they play in the life of believers, not because of their incidental attributes: using 'chthonic' the way you are doing meakes no more sense than talking about gods being 'bearded' or 'blond' or 'one-eyed'. What use is a classification or categorisation to which everyone belongs - from Hades to Demeter to Poseidon to Zeus to Artemis and on and on?

Death and rebirth are part of the cycle of life. This is fundamental to Frazer: as the corn dies and returns so must the Corn King. The shades in Hades are not reborn: the individual is not reborn. That's why the earth, where the cycle of death and rebirth takes place, is different from the underworld where there is no rebirth.

I grant you readily, in fact I already referred to some examples, that the same nominal figure can be given a role in more than one magico-religious function: this in fact is how monotheism evolves. I'm not arguing that a god cannot be both 'of the underworld' and 'of the earth': Osiris is: Ameratsu is sun goddess, but also locks herself in a cave, and also is sometimes water-born; in addition she invented the cultivation of rice and wheat.

What I'm arguing is that if you refer to both functions as 'chthonic' then you are losing an important distinction, even if it is sometimes a distinction between different roles of the same divinity.

I know it's about mother earth - that's why I objected to the use of 'chthonic' in the first place because it brings in concepts of the underworld.

You still seem unable to distinguish between 'world' and 'earth'.

Dead bodies exist in the world of the living not the world of the dead. Nobody would have been more familiar with that than the Greeks.

Dead bodies rot in the world of the living, but in some mythologies (including the Greek one) they continue their existence in a somehow embodied form though they otherwise have a shadowy existence.

That would make the Greeks insane. Of course the Greeks knew the difference between dead bodies and 'dead' souls. If you kill someone his body stays where it is - it doesn't go off somewhere. Even the death-obsessed Egyptians with their mummifications knew that the bodies didn't go anywhere, any more than the ornaments they packed around them never went anywhere.

You don't seem to have any idea of how people actually think.

In Greek mythology they are ocassionaly described as shadows, but they perform physical actions like holding the coin in their mouth to be taken by Charon,

You don't think the Greeks thought the actual physical coin was taken doe to the Styx do you? They were quite capable of digging up a body and observing the coin still there. Again it's much the same as tomb robbing in Egypt: the robbers knew what they were stealing hadn't gone anywhere, and so did the rest of the populaton including the priesthood - otherwise tomb-robbing wouldn't have been a crime.

Again you seem unable to feel for how people actually think.

they suffer physical torments - Tantalus enduring endless hunger and thirst, Ixion on a burning wheel bitten by poisonous snakes, Sisyphus working in vain to roll a rock on a steep hill.

Yes the Greeks believed that dead souls could suffer much the way humans do while alive. So do Christians and Muslims. Like Christians and Muslims the Greeks could still tell the difference between a dead body and a freed soul though.

There are also several mythical episodes involving arguably physical actions between those from the world of the living and those from the world of the dead.

Of course. We already talked abouit Persephone.

However you were claiming that the Greeks believed that crops grew from dead souls. Where you got the idea from that they used souls as fertilizer I have no idea.

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Posted By: Chilbudios
Date Posted: 17-Dec-2008 at 21:42

Originally posted by gcle2003

Certainly I won't provide the text, and that is for three reasons. One is that the text is ridiculously easy to be found (you just copy from here and paste in Google!). Two is that you argued without knowing, just to maintain your view. Three is that by the time you wrote this reply I already hinted that is a text about dreams (and not about agriculture, fertilizers or whatever you unknowingly assume).

And the bit I quoted it doesn't obviously "talk about dead bodies". On the contary, for one familiar with mythologies, it talks about the wealth coming from earth which is also home of the dead.

The "shoulders of giants" were a syntagm used by many intellectuals along centuries and referred to the ancient Greek and Roman scholars whose knowledge was highly regarded. What Newton held was a paraphrase altered by time of Bernard of Chartres's saying (reported by John of Salisbury) "we are dwarves sitting on shoulders of giants, and that's why we can see further than the ancients". It's a metaphor not related to dead bodies in any way.

Of course it is not useless like I already proved with many enough scholarly references. If it's useless for you, then speak only for yourself!

But that's what 'chthonic' shows, the role they play in the life of the believers. In Greek religion the chthonic gods had chthonic cults. Why do you argue ad nauseam without reading the materials I provided?

But you miss the point, it's not the death and the rebirth of the same thing, of the same entity. Some die, some others get born. Hades also is a protector of agriculture (some scholars even argued that Hades is behind the 'chthonic Zeus' invoked by farmers for their crops).

What I'm arguing is that if you refer to both functions as 'chthonic' then you are losing an important distinction, even if it is sometimes a distinction between different roles of the same divinity.

I already refuted that, 'chthonic' does not address this distinction. Even if you need one word, nothing really stops to use 'agrarian' and 'funeral' (or whatever other synonyms).

You'll never prove your points by repeating them.

I know it's about mother earth - that's why I objected to the use of 'chthonic' in the first place because it brings in concepts of the underworld.

Underworld which is in the earth. I already justified by choice of meaning. You have no justification whatsoever but your own preferences and stubborness (not to call it otherwise).

You are barking at the wrong tree. I haven't denied such a difference, I was discussing the nature of the dead in the underworld.

You don't seem to have any idea of how people actually think

I guess I know better than you ... , after all you fail repeatedly in figuring out what I think and keep accusing me in every reply of things I don't believe in or say.

Again you seem unable to feel for how people actually think.

Oh noes, it was a shadowy coin in a shadowy mouth. Again, I guess I'm much more able than you.

You don't reply to my text. Do shadows push rocks? Do they need water to drink (Tantalus was standing in a pool of water, not in a pool of shadowy water)?

Of course. We already talked abouit Persephone.

I also talked about Hermes, about which you unknowingly claimed he's not connected with the underworld. Aeneas, Odysseus, Hercules, Orpheus, there are so many ....

However you were claiming that the Greeks believed that crops grew from dead souls. Where you got the idea from that they used souls as fertilizer I have no idea.

I'm not claiming such a thing. Again, you don't seem to have any idea of how people actually think.

What I said was that underground and the underworld are a part of the same realm. From the same realm the crops grew, in the same realm the underworld was. This realm was 'chthonic', it was the interior of the earth.

Posted By: Chilbudios
Date Posted: 17-Dec-2008 at 21:53

In my research from last week I ran into many sites about 'chthonic' as word or as scholarly concept, here is an illustrative one:

http://www.alphadictionary.com/goodword/word/chthonic - http://www.alphadictionary.com/goodword/word/chthonic

(here is the author, in case you doubt his competence: http://www.alphadictionary.com/about/robert_beard.html - http://www.alphadictionary.com/about/robert_beard.html )

Meaning: 1. Dwelling in or under the earth. 2. Related to the underworld of ancient gods and spirits who tend to be evil.

In Play: You can find many places in conversations for the literal sense of today's Good Word: "Since my workshop is in the basement, I remain in close contact with several little chthonic creatures that co-inhabit my house." Its metaphorical undertones require a bit more subtlety: "Mickey is an affable enough fellow but I sense a chthonic layer in his humor that makes me uneasy."

Graham, improve your vocabulary!

Posted By: gcle2003
Date Posted: 17-Dec-2008 at 21:56

Originally posted by edgewaters

Originally posted by gcle2003

If the underworld was simply the underground, why would it need special entrances?

Who said it was simply the underground? Its an underground otherworld, not just any old subterranean place. The underworld is a mythological abstraction of the underground;

No it isn't. It's the place dead souls go to. Even in Greek mythology it has mountains and sky and birds flying around (pecking livers if nothing else). Some people locate it under the earth some people don't, but 'under the earth' is NOT part of the meaning of 'underworld'. 'World' does not mean 'earth' and 'under' doesn't always mean the same thing either - check undercoat, underclass, underprivileged, underwritten, undersold.

it is under the ground, but you can't merely burrow into the earth to get there. It is a realm of sacred mystery, not a mundane realm.

That's true. And that's one reason it is totally different from the earth.

The dead don't actually live in any kind of soil. Dead bodies may lie in soil, but dead bodies don't go to the underworld.

That does very little to address the quote of Strabo. Hades was directly associated with "soil", specifically "contrary" soil.

Hades insofar as etymology is relevant, comes from 'unseen', 'invisible'. The 'underworld' is the hidden, unseen world. (Because we quite literally cannot see it.)

There are many others, worldwide.

There's no more point in doing that than in my pointing to traditions like the 'Isles of the Blessed' or the 'Pure Land' or the Egyptians seeing the underworld as across the western desert. Or indeed Christianity and Islam.

Certainly some people believe the underworld lies beneath the world of the living, which is then associated with the surface of the earth and its tillable, mineable or just habitable understructure. Other people believe it doesn't.

My point is that if 'chthonic' is used both to mean 'associated with the earth' and 'associated with the underworld' it is a confusing usage that masks an important distinction. A word that can refer to both Satan and Demeter is pretty useless from the point of view of religious study, particularly taxonomy.

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Posted By: gcle2003
Date Posted: 17-Dec-2008 at 22:02

Originally posted by Chilbudios

In my research from last week I ran into many sites about 'chthonic' as word or as scholarly concept, here is an illustrative one:

http://www.alphadictionary.com/goodword/word/chthonic - http://www.alphadictionary.com/goodword/word/chthonic

(here is the author, in case you doubt his competence: http://www.alphadictionary.com/about/robert_beard.html - http://www.alphadictionary.com/about/robert_beard.html )

Meaning: 1. Dwelling in or under the earth. 2. Related to the underworld of ancient gods and spirits who tend to be evil.

You make exactly my point for me. That is EXACTLY what I have been saying all along and you steadfastly denied. The word is used to refer to beings dwelling in or under the earth AND to beings reklated to the underworld and evil spirits.

That is what I am complaining about. It's very irritating that you don't even read what I write. But once and for all

'CHTHONIC' IS USED IN TWO SENSES - TO REFER TO BEINGS RELATED TO THE EARTH AND TO BEINGS RELATED TO THE UNDERWORLD AND EVIL - 'DARK POWERS'. THIS IS BAD AND CONFUSING.

Now unless you can come up with something that relates to that point, instead of chasing all around the houses making me reiterate the same point again and again I give up.

No point in talking to someone who doesn't listen.

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Posted By: edgewaters
Date Posted: 17-Dec-2008 at 22:10

Originally posted by gcle2003

But Satan isn't really chthonic - the Christian Hell isn't underground, it's just a debased (and therefore lower) existance. The gods that gave rise to the Christian concept of Satan may have been chthonic, but they're not really taxonomically incompatible with Demeter and the rest.

Posted By: Chilbudios
Date Posted: 17-Dec-2008 at 23:53

Originally posted by gcle2003

That is what I am complaining about. It's very irritating that you don't even read what I write. But once and for all

'CHTHONIC' IS USED IN TWO SENSES - TO REFER TO BEINGS RELATED TO THE EARTH AND TO BEINGS RELATED TO THE UNDERWORLD AND EVIL - 'DARK POWERS'. THIS IS BAD AND CONFUSING.

Now unless you can come up with something that relates to that point, instead of chasing all around the houses making me reiterate the same point again and again I give up.

No point in talking to someone who doesn't listen.

Chthonic is used in two senses only by this dictionary (which is not making the point that the underworld in those ancient mythologies was under the earth), not by the scholars or dictionaries quoted before (which held either 'underworld' or 'under the earth').

Moreover, you denied all along that this word can mean 'under the earth', you said it fails to distinguish, you said it is confusing and all this started with an idiotic criticism from your side which claimed "chthonic does not pertain to the earth".

Posted By: Chilbudios
Date Posted: 18-Dec-2008 at 01:23

Originally posted by gcle2003

Are you bothering to follow this thread at all? I said Demeter DID live in the earth but not in the UNDERWORLD. And therefore she was not 'chthonic' because she is not particularly associated with the UNDERWORLD, which is what 'chthonic' MEANS. Of COURSE she is an EARTH goddess, and if you'd simply call her that it would be fine.

If you keep coming up with ridiculously erroneous versions of what I'm sayingm, there's not much point in my saying anything.

I was about to miss this reply of yours because for some reason you decided to edit my post and not to reply to it. Whatever ...

Yes I'm following the thread quite closely. But you don't and you also don't seem to have a good memory. But no worries, scripta manent:

Originally posted by gcle2003

I don't see any reason to say Demeter 'lives' under the earth. In that case, how does snatching Persephone away to live under the earth make any difference to Demeter? In all the versions I've seen, Demeter lives on the earth or on Olympus.

Perhaps in Grahamian "lives on the earth" should be read as "lives in the earth" ...

But not routine run of the mill silver miners. You're avoiding the point again, since it's so obvious you were wrong.

I already asked half-jokingly if should I write to you only simple SOV sentences but this time I am dead serious: do you have the ability to read and understand a simple text?
My text was formed from two sentences (I can't prove it now, because you edited it). The first sentence was a digression, showing that living creatures can inhabit the sub-terranean world, even travel to the underworld. However, the second sentence addressed your point, it was about mining. If the first sentence was uninteresting why didn't you move directly to the second one? And if you can't follow my posts why do you even bother to reply (for other reason than disrupting the discussion)?

Leaving your speculations aside (but as you noticed Plouton was a Greek name of Hades!), the fact is that a god of the underworld was also the god of mining. Which should answer many questions about those miners ...

Like I pointed out, Poseidon is the god of the sea and also of earthquakes. Care to guess why?

Similarity between waves and earthquakes. What are the similarities between mining and dying?

But is very important how the ancient Greeks used the word, because this is how we understand their 'chthonic' gods and cults, and this is how the modern word was born. From scholars studying Greek mythology, Greek religion. They eventually expanded it to other religions and mythologies because they found it useful, operative, helpful in creating a narrative and understanding (there are a lot of materials about 'chthonic' dimension in religion).
For how we should use the words I provided a load of definitions from scholars and dictionaries. You provided some yourself. Almost all referred to Greek mythology and absolutely none denied the earth relation (on the contrary, some of them affirmed it explicitely).

What do you mean by 'semantically' there?

Of coure 'mort' in French includes the meaning of dead body. In my Larousse the very first meaning given to 'mort' is 'cadaver, corpse, dead body'. In fact if 'mort' didn't mean a body there's be no need for the phrase 'les morts vivants'.

'La mort' (feminine) means 'Death' as an abstract concept, and canniot be plural. What we have here is 'le mort' (masculine) which primarily means a dead body; 'la morte' (feminine) similarly primarily means a dead female body.

Check http://www.le-dictionnaire.com/definition.php?mot=mort - http://www.le-dictionnaire.com/definition.php?mot=mort ('cadaver' is the second definition there) though I know you only accept dictionary evidence when it appears to agree with you.

I mean the text (in Greek and in French) does not enforce nor suggest we should read 'dead body'. And you're wrong, 'dead body' is not the primary meaning of 'mort' (in your link the first meaning is 'personne qui a cessé de vivre'). 'Fête des morts' is a celebration of the dead or of the dead bodies? And let's not forget our text is not about fertilizers in agriculture, but about the wealth of the earth (which in Greek mythology is also the home of the dead) and the influence the dead have (like I said, it is a text about dreams).

In the Greek text there's an active participle. In text you'll find the aorist, in dictionaries you should look for "apothnesko" which means basically "to die" (Liddell-Scott: to die, to die off, to die away, to be dying). Long story short: the English word should be 'dead'.

However, your response would be cleverer if you had said they also find bodies on battlefields.

Considering what I know of you, I certainly don't want to be called 'clever', but 'blind' or 'silly'. Only then I'll know I'm on the right track

Posted By: Chilbudios
Date Posted: 18-Dec-2008 at 01:58

Originally posted by gcle2003

Hades insofar as etymology is relevant, comes from 'unseen', 'invisible'. The 'underworld' is the hidden, unseen world. (Because we quite literally cannot see it.)

Hidden under the ground.

If Hades is connected with aides, then let's note that in Greek aidoia are the genitals (the hidden parts, for both men and women) and aidomai is "to be ashamed" (probably covering the meaning "to hide")

Posted By: Chilbudios
Date Posted: 18-Dec-2008 at 04:37

Incidentally I was browsing some dialogues of Plato researching for some other thing and I ran into it (Cratylus, for our discussion 403-404 are most relevant):

http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/cratylus.html - http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/cratylus.html

Pluto gives wealth (Ploutos), and his name means the giver of wealth, which comes out of the earth beneath. People in general appear to imagine that the term Hades is connected with the invisible (aeides) and so they are led by their fears to call the God Pluto instead.

So here you have a coordinate for Hades as god of wealth: Greece (probably Athens), early-mid 4th century BC

And looking more carefully at Graham's claims I found he said "Romans mixed up...". He's mixed up, if anything

And if I'm at re-reading carefully, the Greek word for wealth should be given as ploutos, not plouton (check Liddell Scott and Greek grammar). And by misreading I also over-estimated him when I said he noticed Plouton to be an epithet of the Greek god, because he actually didn't.

And one more edit: perhaps it should be also mentioned that Ploutos was another Greek god of (agricultural) wealth, a son of Demeter

Posted By: gcle2003
Date Posted: 18-Dec-2008 at 15:39

Originally posted by edgewaters

Originally posted by gcle2003

But Satan isn't really chthonic - the Christian Hell isn't underground, it's just a debased (and therefore lower) existance.

But again you're taking 'chthonic' as though it necessarily related to underground. It refers in common parlance to the underworld, which as you yourself say here is a 'debased (and therefore lower) existence'. Hence Satan is chthonic.

I gave dictionary references to that effect earlier. But try for example http://www.yourdictionary.com/chthonic - http://www.yourdictionary.com/chthonic

chthonic (t̸hän′ik)

adjective

http://www.yourdictionary.com/chthonian - chthonian
dark, primitive, and mysterious

chthonic Usage Examples

WriteColloDisclaimer();

Modifies a noun

http://www.yourdictionary.com/power - power : Masked figures, representing gods, ancestors or chthonic powers may appear to the novices in grotesque, monstrous or beautiful forms.
http://www.yourdictionary.com/god - god : It may be remarked in passing that Harlequin is an ancient chthonic god.

Main Entry:: chthon·ic javascript:popWin%28/cgi-bin/audio.pl?chthon01.wav=chthonic%29">
Pronunciation:: \ˈthä-nik\
Variant(s):: also chtho·ni·an javascript:popWin%28/cgi-bin/audio.pl?chthon02.wav=chthonian%29"> \ˈthō-nē-ən\
Function:: adjective
Etymology:: Greek chthon-, chthōn earth — more at http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/humble - humble
Date:: 1882

: of or relating to the underworld : http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/infernal - infernal <chthonic deities>

Or you can just type definitions chthonic into google and see what you get.

The gods that gave rise to the Christian concept of Satan may have been chthonic, but they're not really taxonomically incompatible with Demeter and the rest.

I'm not sure what gods you believe gave rise to Satan, but a contender must be Ahriman, and he is most definitely incompatible with Demeter. Demeter has no connection with the underworld at all, apart from losing her daughter to it half the time.

Another contender is probably Baal (or the family of Baals) but there again Satan's main role is as the antagonist: he is only relegated to the underworld once monotheism becomes established, at which point he loses the control over fertility that distinguishes Demeter.

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Posted By: Chilbudios
Date Posted: 18-Dec-2008 at 15:49

Originally posted by gcle2003

Demeter has no connection with the underworld at all, apart from losing her daughter to it half the time.

The problem is not only ignorance but also the unwillingness (or the inability) to learn. You were shown in this thread that Demeter was a protector of the dead in her own cult (therefore she's also connected with the underworld). Your unfamiliarity with Greek religion is no excuse.

Or you can just type definitions chthonic into google and see what you get.

But we already did, here are some picks from the thread:

- A region, realm, or dwelling place conceived to be below the surface of the earth.
- Greek & Roman Mythology: The world of the dead, located below the world of the living; Hades
- Dwelling in or under the earth.
etc.

Insisting on some definitions which are vague or metaphorical (like that "dark, mysterious") is missing the point. In ancient mythologies (in Greek one, too) most underworlds were under the earth. Harlequin is a chthonic character because he inherits other chthonic characters like Hercules. Not because he's dark, primitive or mysterious ...

And about what 'common parlance' are you talking about? I provided a large number of texts where 'chthonic' is used with the meaning I claim, you failed to provide a single text to illustrate this usage you claim. I asked you few times already to provide a reference for a 'chthonic' heavenly underworld.

Posted By: gcle2003
Date Posted: 18-Dec-2008 at 16:14

Originally posted by Chilbudios

Incidentally I was browsing some dialogues of Plato researching for some other thing and I ran into it (Cratylus, for our discussion 403-404 are most relevant):

http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/cratylus.html - http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/cratylus.html

So here you have a coordinate for Hades as god of wealth: Greece (probably Athens), early-mid 4th century BC

And looking more carefully at Graham's claims I found he said "Romans mixed up...". He's mixed up, if anything

Don't be silly. You asked me to guess, so I guessed. What do you think a 'guess' is?

And Plato is well after the emergence of the Roman pantheon.

I note incidentally, which you of course failed to point out, that I was right about the origin of Hades (more accurately, Plato agrees with what I said).

And if I'm at re-reading carefully, the Greek word for wealth should be given as ploutos, not plouton (check Liddell Scott and Greek grammar).

No quibble. Why is it important? You misspelt Persephone and got very uptight because I mentioned it.

And by misreading I also over-estimated him when I said he noticed Plouton to be an epithet of the Greek god, because he actually didn't.

And one more edit: perhaps it should be also mentioned that Ploutos was another Greek god of (agricultural) wealth, a son of Demeter

That makes sense.

And another Pluto (however spelt) was in fact a goddess, mother of Tantalus and offspring of Chronus and Rhea (however spelt) or of Oceanus (however spelt) and Tethys (however spelt). Reading too much into the relationships and attributes of the Greek mythological figures is a confusing pastime, êven for the obsessive collector of such things.

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Posted By: Chilbudios
Date Posted: 18-Dec-2008 at 16:32

Originally posted by gcle2003

Don't be silly. You asked me to guess, so I guessed. What do you think a 'guess' is?

You're the silly one. I asked you to guess, not to expose your ignorance. A "I don't know" is a good enough answer.

And Plato is well after the emergence of the Roman pantheon.

A ridiculous claim, the Roman pantheon was in the making even in the late Empire.

However you erroneously claimed it was a Roman mix up ....

I note incidentally, which you of course failed to point out, that I was right about the origin of Hades (more accurately, Plato agrees with what I said).

No, you weren't. You said "The Romans mixed up their existing god of mines with the Greek god of the underworld", but Plato testifies for no mix up, but for two names of the same god, of which one was preferred for obvious reasons.

No quibble. Why is it important? You misspelt Persephone and got very uptight because I mentioned it.

I mispelled it (ph and f encode the same sound!) in English because of the other languages I know and read. You misused the word in Greek because of your ignorance on this language. And it is important because in dictionaries you find "go" not "went", you find "dog" not "dogs" or "dog's" (it's hard to show this in English, in inflectional languages it's quite clear if one has clues about that language or if he reproduces verbatim whatever he found in Wikipedias or other similar unthoughtful resources)

Reading too much into the relationships and attributes of the Greek mythological figures is a confusing pastime, êven for the obsessive collector of such things.

On the contrary, my ignorant companion, it's not at all confusing (again, it's only your confusion!), it helps understanding. You may seek visual reprsentations (usually vases) of Ploutos and Plouton, you may want to read Greek authors (for Ploutos, Aristophanes would be a good start) and understand this topic you are so stubborn to disturb, even though you're rather illiterate in it.

Posted By: gcle2003
Date Posted: 18-Dec-2008 at 16:37

Originally posted by Chilbudios

Originally posted by gcle2003

Demeter has no connection with the underworld at all, apart from losing her daughter to it half the time.

And I pointed out - and you of course simply ignored without replying - that all sorts of divinities in all sorts of religions are prayed too for intercession on behalf of the dead. Demeter's protection is for her initiates: she protects them insofar as she can everywhere. But she has to plead with Hades for them: she doesn't have any powers in the underworld.

Zeus has contact with the underworld: he can send people to Tartarus. I'd bet that any devotee of a particular figure would pray to that figure for intercession with Hades. Again, following your type of logic would lead to all divinities being associated with the underworld, if only because it is possible to mention them in the same sentence.

Or you can just type definitions chthonic into google and see what you get.

But we already did, here are some picks from the thread:

Somtimes I wonder if you can read. Those are definitions of the underworld. And they are very carefully selected. The commonplace understanding of 'underworld' is where the dead reside and where the powers over the dead and their servants and demons have their abode. SOME people see that as under the earth.

Insisting on some definitions which are vague or metaphorical (like that "dark, mysterious") is missing the point.

And so you casually dismiss yet another reputable dictionary (it's from Webster) because it doesn't agree with you. How do you justify this ssumption of superiority over the dictionary compilers? That 'chthonic' has connotations of darkness and mystery (and similar moods) IS the point, it's not missing it.

In ancient mythologies (in Greek one, too) most underworlds were under the earth. Harlequin is a chthonic character because he inherits other chthonic characters like Hercules. Not because he's dark, primitive or mysterious ...

We are discussing the appropriate use of 'chthonic' in modern English, not in ancient Greek (where it isn't even a word, in fact). That it originally derives from a Greek term meaning 'earth' is immaterial. It may surprise you, but the common English meaning of testes is not 'witnesses': you would, operatinig in your fashion be presumably embarrassed when being asked to produce your witnesses in court.

Paper is not papyrus; a table is not a board for writing things on; a skiff is not a ship; a demand is not a request. And so on and so on.

And I explained the problem. I rest with the dictionaries: you yourself have provided several references showing the term has two disctinct meanings. I'm not going to scramble through the works of the likes of Stephen King or H.P.Lovecraft just looking for references for you.

Common parlance has a lot more to do with the writings of popular novelists than it has to do with the essays of academics carried away with their little piece of esoteric knowledge of etymology.

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Posted By: Chilbudios
Date Posted: 18-Dec-2008 at 16:59

Originally posted by gcle2003

And I pointed out - and you of course simply ignored without replying - that all sorts of divinities in all sorts of religions are prayed too for intercession on behalf of the dead.

And? If it's a case, such a divinity could be called 'chthonic'.

Demeter's protection is for her initiates: she protects them insofar as she can everywhere. But she has to plead with Hades for them: she doesn't have any powers in the underworld.

But of course she has, even the mere fact that she can persuade Hades (though I for the moment I can't think of such a Greek text) is such a power.

But there was a chthonic Zeus, there was a cult of this chthonic Zeus (sometimes identified with Hades himself)!

It's not about the same sentence, but about manifesting under earth. I know, for you is just too confusing ...

Somtimes I wonder if you can read. Those are definitions of the underworld.

You certainly can't read nor understand much of I write. The third definition was of 'chthonic'. True, the first two definitions were of the underworld and it was my choice to pick them because that dictionary gives of 'chthonic' = 'or and of related to the underworld' and 'chthonian' = 'having to do with the underworld', rather meaningless definitions if we don't know what underworld is. Therefore chthonic is something of that, related to that, having to do with that. Add "related to" in front of them and you have the exact definition, it's not really that complicated.

And they are very carefully selected. The commonplace understanding of 'underworld' is where the dead reside and where the powers over the dead and their servants and demons have their abode. SOME people see that as under the earth.

But the definition of 'chthonic' is not about whatever underworlds, but about a specific sub-terranean underworld. That some dictionaries are vague, it's not really my fault. You can anytime resort to scholarship which is from where the word was taken from and read about this concept in detail.

And so you casually dismiss yet another reputable dictionary (it's from Webster) because it doesn't agree with you. How do you justify this ssumption of superiority over the dictionary compilers?

With a heap of scholars (and I already did). While arguably most dictionary compilers have no competence in comparative religion. And I did not dismiss it, it has two meanings, one 'chthonian' (a link which you failed to follow) which pertains to underworld, and the second one, rather metaphorical (if you disagree, please quote a scholar using that term with this meaning for a god or a cult!)

That 'chthonic' has connotations of darkness and mystery (and similar moods) IS the point, it's not missing it.

This is a thread about mother goddesses and consequently comparative religion, not about how various people find ancient gods mysterious because they do not know much about them.

A mysterious sky god of lightning is chthonic???

Paper is not papyrus; a table is not a board for writing things on; a skiff is not a ship; a demand is not a request. And so on and so on.

Why don't you learn to read? I'm not talking about Greek language, but about Greek mythology. Can you make the difference between the two?

You explained nothing. Some dictionaries hit the nail, some are rather vague. If you'd rest with the dictionaries, you'd have to deal with a heap of them claiming the word means 'related to the earth', 'living in the earth', etc.

Scholars give detailed accounts, which you, out of anti-intellectualism and cecity keep rejecting. That your ultimate source is fantasy literature only proves my point, that the meaning you want to enforce is moody, metaphorical (and for this topic a made-up and irrelevant one). This is a thread about religion, not about Lovecraft's fictional universe.

Common parlance has a lot more to do with the writings of popular novelists than it has to do with the essays of academics carried away with their little piece of esoteric knowledge of etymology.

For ignorants, yes (you testify to be one by calling the academic knowledge "esoteric", quite a hopeless one considering you also describe it with unjustified superiority as a "little piece"!).

However this is a thread about religion, not about modern literary fiction, and 'chthonic' is a technical term from comparative religion. The dictionary compilers did not fish for this term in the works of Lovecraft, but in the works of Rohde.

Posted By: medenaywe
Date Posted: 31-Aug-2013 at 01:18

First agricultural societies were all Great Mother societies.Ex. hunter&gatherers for the first time had been depended of Earth's mercy(we also!) so that they worshiped it as sa God&Goddess.