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<\/a>The Hittites are old: like Bible old. Their empire was concurrent with the Assyrian Empire. They were forerunners of the Iron Age during the Bronze Age. Their chariot tech impressed the Egyptians and they sacked Babylon. These people were around almost 4,000 years ago. This means that when we talk about the Hittite Earth Mother, we are getting a glimpse of something very, very old.<\/p>\n
I can hear you saying that the Greeks are old too, right? Yes, but they lasted longer. That means there was more evolution of their goddesses. One thing that you learn by studying history is that the gods change. They change because the climate changes, or the people worshiping change, or the people think new thoughts and their gods reflect that. By learning about the Hittite Earth Mother we get a glimpse into something that is very old and didn\u2019t have time to change.<\/p>\n
The Hittite Earth Mother was called Hannahannas. What we know of her is fragmentary at best, but we do have a story to consider. The tale goes that the Storm God\u2019s favorite son is missing. His son is the God of Agriculture, Telepinu, who plows the earth and plants the seed. According to the ancient glyphs, He has had a giant temper tantrum and has wandered off. This is unfortunate, since he\u2019s the god of growing things, and when he wanders off, people start getting hungry.<\/p>\n
When this happens the Sun God steps up and offers a feast. He is the ally of the Storm God, who is clearly the boss in these parts. Unsurprisingly, that wonderful spread of high energy plasma and light isn\u2019t very filling and the Storm God complains. So the Sun God sends out his eagle to search for the prodigal son, Telepinu. The eagle searches high and low, spying all with his clever eagle\u2019s eye, but alas, no Telepinu.<\/p>\n The Storm God is clearly miffed at this point and does what he should have done in the first place. He goes to the Mother of All, Hannahannas. The Mother of All agrees to help, and like most mothers, probably gives him that look that makes adult children feel totally inept. At any rate, she sends out her sacred animal, the bee, to search for her grandchild Telepinu. Of course, the bee finds him. Then the bee begins to sting his hands and feet, and then wipes his eyes and his hands with beeswax.<\/p>\n After stinging her grandson into submission like an old woman beating a thief with a handbag, she gives her son, the King of Gods, some good advice to pay the bride-price for the Sea Gods daughter to wed Telepinu, because what is better to settle down a cranky young God of Agriculture than a lovely young Goddess? Grandma knows best.<\/p>\n Entertainingly, it\u2019s not just the young folk who have been known to wander off in a fit of pique. There is a tale told of Hannahannas\u2019 anger as well. We don\u2019t know what happened to cause her to become enraged, but we do know that she wandered off too. Maybe she got tired of fixing everyone\u2019s problems; maybe it just runs in the family.<\/p>\n While she\u2019s gone sheep and cattle begin to die off, and mothers no longer take care of their children. This time, however, her anger is banished to the Dark Earth and she returns full of joy. I\u2019m sure that her children were very grateful for the improvement of her mood. We aren\u2019t told how this banishment of anger was achieved, but another method is to burn brushwood and let the vapors enter her.<\/p>\n So we know a couple of things from all of this. We know she is the mother of gods, connected to mothers, sheep, and cattle, and her sacred messenger is the bee, an insect that provides sweet honey and is connected with agriculture. The bee is also connected with Demeter, whose priestesses are called the Melissae, or the bees.<\/p>\n It seems likely that Hannahannas is a reflex, or has evolved from the earlier proto-Indo-European cow goddess. The Indo-European cow goddess has been reconstructed through linguistic detective work and appears to be a goddess of plenty and generosity. *Gwouinda is a created name that linguists think might have been the real name of the prehistorical cow goddess of the pastoralists that became the progenitors of many of the languages we speak today including English, French, Greek and Hindi. All of these languages have a common root through these crazy horse riding, cow grazing, wagon toting ancient peoples. So, by trying to understand the commonalities between them we understand our own beginnings, and we also find out that kick ass old grandmas have been around for a very, very long time.<\/p>\n I think I will keep putting her first in my rituals. I don\u2019t know that she would wander off and need some refreshing vapors to put her right, but it can\u2019t hurt.<\/p>\n Dandelion Seeds<\/em> is published on monthly on the first and third Wednesday. Subscribe via\u00a0RSS<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0e-mail<\/a>!<\/p>\n Please use the links to the right to keep on top of activities here on the Agora<\/em><\/a> as well as across the entire Patheos Pagan<\/a> channel.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" One thing that you learn by studying history is that the gods change. They change because the climate changes, or the people worshiping change, or the people think new thoughts and their gods reflect that. By learning about the Hittite Earth Mother we get a glimpse into something that is very old and didn\u2019t have time to change.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2262,"featured_media":9101,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[330,1539,13],"tags":[1582,1581,1583,1003,1580,569,25,26],"class_list":["post-9092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columns","category-dandelion-seeds","category-history","tag-agriculture","tag-bees","tag-cow-goddess","tag-earth-mother","tag-indo-european","tag-myth","tag-pagan","tag-paganism"],"yoast_head":"\n
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