Magi's Homeland: The Moon

Annit
Northern Babylonian goddess who was superseded by Ishtar. Originally the ruler of the moon, Annit is portrayed as a disk with eight rays. She and Sin, a male god, come to the aid of mortals.

Arianrhod
Welsh moon goddess and one of several children of the mother goddess Don. Her home is in the constellation Corona Borealis.

Atremis
Moon goddess to both the Greeks and the legendary Amazons. Worshippers paid homage to her on nights of the full moon by revelling in the forest under the moon's light. She is associated with the waxing moon,

Artimpaasa
Scythian moon goddess

Athenesic
Native American moon goddess

Auchimaigen
Chilean moon goddess who served as protector of the Auracanians

Britomaris
Originally a Cretan moon goddess, later assimilated by the conquering Greeks. Britomaris would appear in the night sky to aid sea-going navigators.

Candi
The female counterpart to Chandra, ancient Hindu lord of the moon. The two were said to take turns: one month the moon would be Candi, the next Chandra.

Caotlicue
Aztec moon goddess and wife of the sun god. Sometimes called the lunar counterpart to the earth goddess Coatlicue.

Chandra (also Chandraprabha)
Hindu lord of the moon, born after his mother swallowed the moon. Chandra is often shown with multiple heads, or holding a hare, which is sacred to him. He is the ancestor of the Chandra-vansa, the lunar race, from which Krishna, the eighth avatar (incarnation) of the god Vishnu was descended. Chandra is associated with soma, the magical drink of the gods.

Chang-o (also Chang-wo, Heng-E, Heng-O)
Chinese moon goddess. According to legend, she is the wife of a famous archer to whom the gods had promised immortality. Chang-o stole her husband's magical potion, drank it and was forced to escape his wrath by fleeing to the moon in the shape of a frog. She is represented in the dark spots of the moon as a three-legged frog.

Dea-Soon
Korean moon goddess

Diana
Roman assimilation of the Greek moon goddess Artemis. Diana was often portrayed riding the moon, with a bow in her hands. She was frequently worshipped out in the open so she could look down at her faithful.

Europa
A Cretan goddess who had lunar attributes; her consort animal is a bull. Europe takes its name from her.

Gnatoo
Moon goddess of the Friendly Islands. Her portrayal, as a woman pounding out tapa, is a motif in Polynesian woman-in-the-moon myths.

God D
Mayan good of the moon and night sky, referred to in ancient manuscripts but given no name. Numerous Mayan 'letter gods', as the nameless are called, have been assigned letters by scholar Paul Schell. God D was portrayed as an old man with sunken cheeks, wearing a serpent headdress. He is sometimes identified with Kukulcan, god of mighty speech, or Itzamma, sky god and Mayan cultural hero.

Gwaten
Japanese Buddhist lunar goddess, one of the twelve Buddhist deities called Jiu No O, adopted from Hindu mythology. Gwaten is derived from the Hindu god Soma and is portrayed as a woman holding in her right hand a disk symbolising the moon.

Hanwi
Oglala moon goddess who lived with the sun god Wi. She was tricked by a woman into giving up her seat next to Wi and was shamed. She left Wi's home and went her own way, and as punishment she was forced to give up her rulership of dawn and twilight, and to hide her face when near the sun.

Hecate
Greek moon goddess who comes out at night carrying a torch and accompanied by dogs. She is said to frequent crossroads, where statues to her were erected. A triple goddess, she was sometimes pictured as having three heads of dogs, a horse and a serpent. Worshippers paid tribute on nights of the full moon by leaving offerings at her statues. As queen of the night, Hecate rules spirits, ghosts and infernal creatures such as ghouls. She is the patroness of witchcraft.

Hina (also Ina)
Polynesian moon goddess. In Hawaiian mythology, her full name is Hina-hanaia-i-ka-malama, which means 'the woman who worked in the moon'. Various stories tell how she went there. In one story, she sailed her canoe to the moon. In another, her brother, angered by noise she making after a night of heavy drinking, threw her into the heavens. In Tahitian and Hawaiian myths she grew weary of beating out tapa and escaped her drudgery by felling to the moon. In another Hawaiian myth, a chief lured her up from a land under the seas, and from her gourd came the moon and the stars. Another myth credits her with creating the first coconuts with Te Tuna 'the Eel'.

Huitaca (also Chia)
Moon goddess to ancient Chibcha Native Americans who lived in what is now Columbia. Huitaca is depicted as an owl. Representing the spirit of joy and pleasure, she is constantly at odds with the male Bochica, who stand for hard work and a solemn approach to daily living. In some legends, Huitaca was the wife of Bochica, whom she had tried to ruin by destroying his believers by unleashing a great flood. He took vengeance on her by hurtling her into the sky and turning her into the moon.

Ishtar (also Ashdar, Astar, Istar, Istaru)
Babylonian goddess who rules the moon, derived in part from the Sumerian goddess, Inanna. In some accounts Ishtar is the daughter of the moon god Sin and sister of Shamash the sun god Sin and sister of Shamash the sun god. According to legend, on a trip to the underworld to find Tammuz, her dead lover, she had to shed her clothes, which caused the moon to darken. On her return trip, as she regained her clothes, the moon brightened again.

Isis
Egyptian goddess who is both the moon and the mother of the sun. She is depicted holding a papyrus sceptre and the ankh, which represents life.

IX Chel
Mayan goddess of the moon. Ix Chel and the sun were lovers, but because the sun was always jealous, it was a stormy relationship. The sun would routinely tell her to leave heaven, only to set off to find her again. Travelling the night sky, Ix Chel would make herself invisible whenever the sun approached.

Ix-huyne
Mayan moon goddess

Juno
Roman sky and moon goddess. The appearance of a new moon would bring out her women worshippers.

Khonsu
Egyptian moon god, the son of Amun, god of air, and Mut, a mother goddess. Khonsu, whose name means 'He-who-traverses-(the sky)', is depicted as a mummified youth holding a crook, a flail and a sceptre. On his head are representations of crescent and full moons. As a lunar god, he helped the god Thoth reckon time. Because of his influence, women conceived and multiplied their young. Khonsu was also an important god of healing, and is said to have healed Ptolemy IV of serious illness. Khonsu's principal temple was at Thebes.

Kuu
Finno-Ugric moon god.

Lalal (also Losna, Lucna)
Etrusvan moon goddess

Mah
Persian moon goddess, whose light makes plants grow.

Mama Quilla
Incan moon goddess who protected married women. Her most famous temple erected at Cuzco, seat of the Inca empire. She was portrayed as a silver disk with feminine features. It was said eclipses resulted when mama Quilla was eaten by a heavenly jaguar.

Mawa
African moon goddess, who ruled the heavens with her twin brother, Lisa.

Metztil
Aztec moon goddess. According to mythology, Metztli would leap into a blazing fire to give birth to the sun in the morning sky.

Pandia
Greek goddess associated with Selene, the Greek goddess of the full moon.

Perse (also Persea, Perseis)
Early Greek moon goddess

Pheraia
Little is known about this Thessalian goddess. Possibly, she was associated with the moon because she was depicted carrying a torch and riding a bull, a lunar animal.

Rabie
Indonesian moon goddess

Ri (also Re)
Phoenician moon goddess

Sardarnuna
Sumerian goddess of the new moon

Selene (also Mene, Selena)
Greek goddess of the full moon. Wearing wings and a crescent crown, Selene rode in a chariot pulled by two white horses.

Sin
The Sumerian Nanna, the moon. The chief astral deity, sometimes regarded as the son of Enlil and Ninlil; father of Utu-Shamash, the sun, and of Ishtar. He is lord of the calendar, fixing the seasons, and also a vegetation-deity and patron of fertility. With Shamash and Hadad he makes up the second triad of Mesopotamian gods. His chief temple was in Ur.

Soma
Soma is a very difficult deity for many outside of India to comprehend. He works on numerous levels, all of which are tied together rather strangely. Soma is firstly a plant. He is also an intoxicating drink which was brewed from that plant. As the blood of animals and the sap of plants, Soma courses through all living things. He is Inspiration to those who seek it, and so is the god of poets. He is also the god of the moon. He is the dwelling place of the venerated dead, as well as the divine cure for evil. The ancient Hindus did not differentiate between these divergent aspects; all were the god Soma.

Tapa
The Polynesian goddess of light, wife of the moon-god Marama. She is the daughter of the old, blind earth-god Kui. She lives in the sky in daytime, when her husband is rarely visible. Ina makes tapa (bark cloth) from the trees that grow on earth. As soon as a piece of bark cloth is well beaten she hangs it out on the blue sky where it sits like a cloud, white and grey. The pieces are fixed with large stones and when she removes a piece the stones roll away, causing thunder. She also taught the women the art of plaiting baskets. Her daughter is Aroture. On Samoa she is called Sina.

Tecciztecatl
'Old moon god'. An Aztec moon god who represents the male form on the planet, even its rising from the ocean. Tecciztecatl is an old man who carries a large white seashell on his back.

Teczistecatal
Ancient Mexican moon goddess.

Thoth
Thoth was also a lunar deity, and whatever form he took he wore a lunar crescent on his head. Some Egyptologists think that the Egyptians identified the crescent moon with the curved beak of the ibis. It is also suggested that the Egyptians observed that baboon was a nocturnal (i.e. lunar) animal who would greet the sun with chattering noises each morning.

As he was messenger of the gods Thoth was identified by the Greeks with their own god Hermes. For this reason Thoth's centre of worship is still known to us today as Hermopolis.

Thoth is the name given by the Greeks to the Egyptian god Djeheuty. Thoth was the god of wisdom, inventor of writing, patron of scribes and the divine mediator. He is most often represented as a man with the head of an ibis, holding a scribal palette and reed pen. He could also be shown completely as an ibis or a baboon.

Titania
Epithet for Diana, Roman moon goddess

Tlazolteotl (also Tiaculteutl)
The Aztec earth and mother-goddess, and goddess of sex. may have had lunar associations. Tlazolteotl was also called "the eater of filth", and she got this name from the legend that at the end of a man's life she comes to him and he more or less confesses and she cleanses his soul, eating it's filth. She was also the mother of childbirth.

Tsuki-Yomi
Japanese Shinto moon god, born when the primeval creator god, Izanagi, washed his right eye. Tsuki means moon and Yomi means counter of the months; thus Tsuki-Yomi is a time-keeping god. At his shrines all Ise and Kadono are mirrors in which the god is said to manifest himself.

Ursula (also Horsel, Orsel)
Slavic moon goddess, who was feasted on October 21. Later she became St Ursla.

Yellow Woman
Huntress goddess of the Keres, a Pueblo tribe. Yellow Woman is similar to the Romans' Diana and also appears to have lunar associations; her name is evocative of moonlight. In myths that seem to explain phases and the moon's occasional daytime appearances, Yellow Woman is killed at night and her brother Arrow Youth, searches for her with the help of Great Star. Arrow Youth wants her to be alive during the day. He is told by the chief of spirits that she will stay away four days. He is to search for her among melon rinds, symbols of her crescent moon. Then her heart is found, and head is washed. She puts on a dress and is seen during the day.

Yemanja
Ocean goddess of Brazilian Macumba. Yemanja also has lunar associations. She is portrayed as the crescent moon.

Yohuaticeti
Moon goddess of ancient Mexicans

Yolkai Estsan
Navajo moon goddess. made from abalone shell, Yolkai was the sister of the sky goddess Estsatlehi.

Zarpandit
Babylonian goddess worshipped nightly at the appearance of the moon

Zirna
Etruscan moon goddess. She was depicted wearing a half moon around her neck.