Anthologica Universe Atlas / Forums / Department of Creativity / Post your goddess/god! / <!>Post your goddess/god! (2014-09-08 06:33:54)
Okay. Posting spree continues. Let's see if I can dredge up enough interest in another Lilitic deity... hmm... who... Oh, yeah. Múrekíha has been on my mind a lot lately. Be warned: this post is more or less a summary of several ways in which the Lilitai are less than perfect.
The Goddess of Sadism, Múrekíha, is a Dútéan1 deity like Alestéa,2 but is more of a clear-cut negative force with few if any redeeming values. In Sarthía's epic Faltúbilis, Ítossífa! she gets involved with the Lilitai by being drawn to the vacuum of energy and misery caused by the death of the old gods in the first chapters, appearing alongside Dútéa (the Weeper) and Telméa (the Twister of Minds), two other powerful negative forces.
Múrekíha is generally regarded as the Mother of Nightmares, and violent sleepwalkers are believed to be possessed by her (via special dreams called bístoai.) From an external perspective, bístoai constitute a culture-bound psychosis (one of many that can be found among the Lilitai) which spreads quite contagiously as a result of unconscious fears of experiencing the same thing. An entire order of priestesses devoted to Múrekíha and Ighokhéa3 eventually sprung up to combat these outbreaks, whose duties were primarily concerned with waking the sleepwalkers.
The Cult of Múrekíha was slow to develop, and it is not clear when the bístogalsai (the sleep-aides) started to be infiltrated and replaced by múrekídai, true devotees of Múrekíha who had been seduced by the stories of others describing their nightmares.4 Múrekídai are infamously the subjects of many scandalous and threadbare stories both about the Lilitai and about certain undesirable groups within the Lilitai (such as the previously-mentioned Mitradzhethíasa and also kadzhírai and kadzhíríquai, those unable to put slavery behind them), as many of their rites are intensely opaque, deal with dark and terrible subjects that would be considered Satanic by Christian standards, and often involve the consensual drinking of blood, a detail that later led to mythological cross-pollination with vampires. The same word is used for actual hematolagniacs,5 which simply makes matters more awkward.
The goddess herself is perhaps a little uninteresting—a little like the devil, she is assumed to punish the wicked, but as many of the Lilitai carry heavy consciences they are quick to assume she would only be too happy to take strips out of their flesh with her instruments. Her capacity for cruelty is believed to be limitless, and if she relents, it is only because she thinks allowing hope to grow will give her more to destroy. (Fortunately, there are other supernatural powers that keep her in check.) As a result of her choice of clothing—a black leather leotard, which has rather horrifying implications for a species with no livestock, and gloves and boots of white and black stripes—certain patterns of black and white banding are often considered distasteful for certain applications, a superstition that has at times gone so far that line-art illustrations in religious or children's stories are often coloured differently just to avoid the appearance.
The Goddess of Sadism, Múrekíha, is a Dútéan1 deity like Alestéa,2 but is more of a clear-cut negative force with few if any redeeming values. In Sarthía's epic Faltúbilis, Ítossífa! she gets involved with the Lilitai by being drawn to the vacuum of energy and misery caused by the death of the old gods in the first chapters, appearing alongside Dútéa (the Weeper) and Telméa (the Twister of Minds), two other powerful negative forces.
Múrekíha is generally regarded as the Mother of Nightmares, and violent sleepwalkers are believed to be possessed by her (via special dreams called bístoai.) From an external perspective, bístoai constitute a culture-bound psychosis (one of many that can be found among the Lilitai) which spreads quite contagiously as a result of unconscious fears of experiencing the same thing. An entire order of priestesses devoted to Múrekíha and Ighokhéa3 eventually sprung up to combat these outbreaks, whose duties were primarily concerned with waking the sleepwalkers.
The Cult of Múrekíha was slow to develop, and it is not clear when the bístogalsai (the sleep-aides) started to be infiltrated and replaced by múrekídai, true devotees of Múrekíha who had been seduced by the stories of others describing their nightmares.4 Múrekídai are infamously the subjects of many scandalous and threadbare stories both about the Lilitai and about certain undesirable groups within the Lilitai (such as the previously-mentioned Mitradzhethíasa and also kadzhírai and kadzhíríquai, those unable to put slavery behind them), as many of their rites are intensely opaque, deal with dark and terrible subjects that would be considered Satanic by Christian standards, and often involve the consensual drinking of blood, a detail that later led to mythological cross-pollination with vampires. The same word is used for actual hematolagniacs,5 which simply makes matters more awkward.
The goddess herself is perhaps a little uninteresting—a little like the devil, she is assumed to punish the wicked, but as many of the Lilitai carry heavy consciences they are quick to assume she would only be too happy to take strips out of their flesh with her instruments. Her capacity for cruelty is believed to be limitless, and if she relents, it is only because she thinks allowing hope to grow will give her more to destroy. (Fortunately, there are other supernatural powers that keep her in check.) As a result of her choice of clothing—a black leather leotard, which has rather horrifying implications for a species with no livestock, and gloves and boots of white and black stripes—certain patterns of black and white banding are often considered distasteful for certain applications, a superstition that has at times gone so far that line-art illustrations in religious or children's stories are often coloured differently just to avoid the appearance.