Guardian deity of an ethnic group or political unit
A
national god
or
tribal god
is a
guardian deity
whose special concern is supposed to be the safety and well-being of an '
ethnic group
' (
nation
). This is contrasted with other guardian figures such as family gods responsible for the well-being of individual clans or professions, or personal gods who are responsible for the well-being of individuals.
Ancient gods
[
edit
]
In antiquity (and to some extent continuing today), religion was a characteristic of regional culture, together with language, customs, traditions, etc. Many of these ethnic religions included national god(s) in their pantheons, such as
In antiquity
[
edit
]
In antiquity, each ethnic group (
nation
) had its own pantheon, which may or may not have
overlapped
with that of neighbouring groups. Many of these religions had guardian figures, which then sometimes included national gods, who were considered responsible for the safety and well-being of the nation and of its people, with a special concern for the nation's ruler and guardian. These national gods stood alongside the personal gods (that is, the patron gods who took a special interest in an individual's personal well-being). Additionally, there were the family gods associated with the care of a clan or profession, as well as gods associated with specific situations or the protection thereof (fertility, health, war, contracts and so on).
This perception of divinity was common in the ancient world. Deities were often geographically localized by association to their main cult centers, and in the Ancient Near East were often
tutelary deities
of their respective
city-states
. Many of the individual ethnic groups also considered itself the progeny of its national gods. For example, in the region that is now Yemen, the
Sabaeans
, the
Minaeans
and the
Himyar
each perceived themselves to be the children of respectively
Almaqah
,
Wadd
and
Shamash
.
[15]
Similarly, in
Canaan
,
Milcom
held that role for the
Ammonites
, while
Chemosh
did so for the
Moab
.
Yahweh
's role as god of the
Kingdom of Judah
and the
Kingdom of Israel
is a key reason for that figure's adoption as the
monist
figure by the
Yahweh-only movement
of the 7th-century BC.
[
citation needed
]
Yahweh's subsequent exaltation as a supreme figure occurred not because national gods were necessarily heads of their pantheons (this was certainly not the case for the national gods of the peoples surrounding Israel),
[16]
but as a reaction to the changing political landscape, in which other national gods had previously become exalted in that fashion.
[17]
Because peoples were perceived to effectively worship the same gods, merely by different names (Smith (2008)
[17]
terms this "translatability"), Yahweh's function as a national god had previously automatically equated him with other national gods. Thus, with the rise of the multi-cultural
Assyrian Empire
in the 10th century BC, the concomitant rise of the Assyrian's nation god Assur to inter-cultural prominence influenced how national gods were generally perceived. Moreover, the political unification of the fractured nation-states under a single supreme head of state encouraged the idea of a multi-national "one-god" worldview as well.
[17]
By the 7th-century BC however, Assyria was in decline and the smaller nation-states began to reassert their independence. In this context, the development of a "one-god" worldview in 7th century BC
Kingdom of Judah
can be perceived as a response to the diminishing claims to cultural hegemony of the Assyrian "one-god" ideology of the time.
[17]
The process is evident in some parts of the
Torah
which predate the 6th century BC and thus preserve vestiges of the theology centered on a national god during the 10th-century BC
monarchic period
.
[18]
"The OT [=
Old Testament
] is still conscious of the fact that Yhwh, the national god of Israel, originally was one of the gods in the council of El." (
Deut
32:8-9*)
[16]
Modern period
[
edit
]
Philippine
[
edit
]
In search of a national culture and identity away from the Catholic religion imposed by Spain during its colonisation of the
Philippines
, those who instigated the
Philippine Revolution
proposed to revive
indigenous Philippine folk religions
and make them the
national religion
of the entire country. The
Katipunan
opposed the religious teachings of the Spanish friars, saying that they "obscured rather than explained religious truths." After the revival of the Katipunan during the
Spanish?American War
, an idealized form of the folk religions was proposed by some, with the worship of God under the ancient name
Bathala
, which applies to all supreme deities under the many ethnic pantheons across the country. However, the re-vitalization process of the indigenous faiths of the Philippines did not progress further as the Filipino forces were defeated by the Americans in 1902, which led to the second Christian colonization of the archipelago.
[19]
Christianity
[
edit
]
Christian missionaries
have repeatedly re-interpreted national gods in terms of the Christian God. This fact is reflected in the
names of God
in various languages of Christianized peoples, such as
Shangdi
or
Shen
among Chinese Christians,
Ngai
among a number of tribes of
Kenya
, etc.
In a modern context, the term of a "national god" addresses the emergence of
national churches
within Christianity.
[
citation needed
]
This tendency of "nationalizing" the Christian God, especially in the context of national churches sanctioning warfare against other Christian nations during
World War I
, was denounced as heretical by
Karl Barth
.
[20]
Germanic
[
edit
]
Carl Jung
in his essay
Wotan
(1936) identifies the Germanic god of the storm (leader of the
Wild Hunt
),
Wotan
, as the national god of the
German people
, and warns of the rise of
German nationalism
and ultimately the then-impending catastrophe of
Nazism
and
World War II
in terms of the re-awakening of this god:
- "But what is more than curious — indeed, piquant to a degree — is that an ancient god of storm and frenzy, the long quiescent Wotan, should awake, like an extinct volcano, to new activity, in a civilized country that had long been supposed to have outgrown the Middle Ages. [...] I venture the heretical suggestion that the unfathomable depths of Wotan's character explain more of National Socialism than all three reasonable factors [viz. economic, political, and psychological] put together. [...] This is a tragic experience and no disgrace. It has always been terrible to fall into the hands of a living god.
Yahweh
was no exception to this rule, and the Philistines, Edomites, Amorites and the rest, who were outside the Yahweh experience, must certainly have found it
exceedingly disagreeable
. The
Semitic
experience of
Allah
was for a long time an extremely
painful affair
for the whole of Christendom. We who stand outside judge the Germans far too much, as if they were responsible agents, but perhaps it would be nearer the truth to regard them, also, as victims."
[21]
Hindu
[
edit
]
One of the primary ancient
Vedic deities
in
Hinduism
is
Indra
. He is the king of
Svarga
(Heaven) and the
Devas
(gods). He is associated with lightning, thunder, storms, rains, river flows and war. Indra's mythology and powers are similar to other Indo-European deities such as Jupiter, Perun, Perk?nas, Zalmoxis, Taranis, Zeus, and Thor, suggesting a common origin in
Proto-Indo-European mythology
. Starting in the late late 19th century,
Bharat Mata
, a divine personification of
India
(
Bharat
), came into existence after the
Indian Rebellion of 1857
against the British and is seen as the goddess of India and the
Indian people
by
Hindus
,
Jains
, and some
Buddhist
.
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Nakamura, Konoyu (2013).
"Goddess Politics: Analytical Psychology and Japanese Myth"
.
Psychotherapy and Politics International
.
11
(3): 234?250.
doi
:
10.1002/ppi.1307
.
ISSN
1556-9195
.
- ^
LaFontaine, Bruce (2002).
Gods of ancient Egypt
. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications.
ISBN
0-486-42088-4
.
OCLC
54772442
.
- ^
Nguyen, Trung (2015-09-29).
Is There a God?
. EnCognitive.com.
ISBN
978-1-927091-16-6
.
- ^
a
b
c
Lurker, Manfred (2015-04-29).
A Dictionary of Gods and Goddesses, Devils and Demons
. Routledge.
ISBN
978-1-136-10628-6
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
Stern, Ephraim (2001).
"Pagan Yahwism: The folk religion of ancient Israel"
.
Biblical Archaeology Review
.
27
(3 ed.). Washington: 20?29.
ISSN
0098-9444
.
ProQuest
214913086
.
- ^
Smelik, Klaas A. D. (2013-01-24),
"Chemosh"
,
The Encyclopedia of Ancient History
, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.,
doi
:
10.1002/9781444338386.wbeah24051
,
ISBN
978-1-4443-3838-6
, retrieved
2021-05-09
- ^
Bhattacharyya, Tarapada (1970).
"THE AVESTA, ?GVEDA AND BRAHM? CULT"
.
Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute
.
51
(1/4): 31?50.
ISSN
0378-1143
.
JSTOR
41688672
.
- ^
Nardo, Don; Currie, Stephen (2014-11-11).
Aztec Mythology
. Greenhaven Publishing LLC.
ISBN
978-1-4205-0922-9
.
- ^
Dandekar, R. N. (1950).
"V?TRAH? INDRA"
.
Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute
.
31
(1/4): 1?55.
ISSN
0378-1143
.
JSTOR
44028390
.
- ^
Steele, Paul Richard; Allen, Catherine J. (2004).
Handbook of Inca Mythology
. ABC-CLIO.
ISBN
978-1-57607-354-4
.
- ^
Abusch, I. Tzvi (2020-08-28).
Marduk
. Brill.
ISBN
978-90-04-43518-6
.
- ^
Leick, Dr Gwendolyn (2002-09-11).
A Dictionary of Ancient Near Eastern Mythology
. Routledge.
ISBN
978-1-134-64102-4
.
- ^
Haavio, Martti (1967).
Suomalainen mytologia
(in Finnish). Porvoo Helsinki: WSOY.
- ^
RYCKMANS, JACQUES (1989).
"LE PANTHEON DE L'ARABIE DU SUD PREISLAMIQUE: Etat des problemes et breve synthese"
.
Revue de l'histoire des religions
(in French).
206
(2): 151?169.
doi
:
10.3406/rhr.1989.1830
.
ISSN
0035-1423
.
JSTOR
23670844
.
- ^
Doniger, Wendy, ed. (1999), "Arabian religions",
Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of World Religions
, Merriam-Webster,
ISBN
978-0-87779-044-0
.
- ^
a
b
van der Toorn, K.; Becking, Bob; van der Horst, Pieter Willem, eds. (1999), "King",
Dictionary of deities and demons in the Bible
, Brill, p. 485,
ISBN
978-90-04-11119-6
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
Smith, Mark S. (2008),
God in Translation: Deities in Cross-cultural Discourse in the Biblical World
, Forschungen zum Alten Testament, vol. 57, Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, p. 19,
ISBN
978-3-16-149543-4
.
- ^
Smith, Mark S. (2003),
The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel's Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts
, Oxford University Press, pp. 155?163,
ISBN
978-0-19-516768-9
.
- ^
L. W. V. Kennon (August 1901).
"The Katipunan of the Philippines"
.
The North American Review
.
17
(537). University of Northern Iowa: 211, 214.
JSTOR
25105201
– via
Jstor
.
- ^
Barth,
Ethnics
, ed. Braun, transl. Bromiley, New York, 1981, p. 305.
- ^
First published in
Neue Schweizer Rundschau
(Zurich) (March, 1936), 657-69. Republished in
Aufsatze zur Zeitgeschichte
(Zurich, 1946), 1-23. English translation by Barbara Hannah,
Essays on Contemporary Events
(London, 1947).
|
---|
Development
| |
---|
By type
| |
---|
Organizations
| |
---|
Related concepts
| |
---|