There is
one ubiquitous feature that manifests itself in every mythological
pantheon in the world. Almost crucial to the classification
of mythology itself, are the divinities- the gods. Sometimes,
they are not omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent, but powerful
enough to suspend their followers in awe. These gods become
the key actors in the stage of mythology, be it through creation,
through fighting evil or just in jostling amongst themselves.
And yet,
there is heavy division within the pantheon of the gods. Many
cultures possessed a supreme god, who ruled over the rest. Such
is the way of the Greeks, with Zeus, and the Norse with Odin.
The Chinese had the Jade Emperor, the Mesopotamians had Anu,
the Egyptians had Osiris, and the list just goes on.
Some other
cultures had a few principle gods instead of an isolated supreme
being. Indian Mythology, for one, describe three supreme gods,
who form a triad, made up of Brahma, the creator, Shiva, the
destroyer, and Vishnu, the preserver.
In those
of Greek and Norse, the gods were further wedged into two groups.
The Greeks had the Titans and the Olympians, two classes of
gods who came in respective order. The Norse had the Aesir,
the sky gods, and the Vanir, the earth gods, who granted unequal
rights until a war broke out.
Of course,
the gods were not the only members of the supernatural beings
that evaded the mortal eyes of man. There were the spirits,
who inhabited the forest and the rivers and the demons, who
ravaged the world in their quest against the gods. Similar structural
divides existed in the spiritual and demonic worlds, but were
less pronounced.
The trait
that fundamentally separated the gods from the spirits and demons
was immortality. Spirits and demons were often vulnerable and
transient. But, all the same, the supernatural beings were slotted
into various posts in the cosmos. Some became river gods to
be worshipped by the farmers, whilst some became home spirits
to be appeased by the owner of the home.
The supernatural
beings obtain a sense of purpose, with their roles, and in turn
gave the various goals physical embodiments. One prominent example
is fertility, which was widely worshipped, especially among
the shamanistic civilizations, such as the Aztec, the Mayan
and the Africans. Egypt saw the river Nile as a source of fertility,
and worshipped the god Osiris, the controller of the Nile and
its fertile alluvial soil which was so essential to them in
the barren desert.
In the eastern
mythologies, the Japanese believed that every region, village
and house was inhabited by individual spirits, and even trees
and rocks had their own supernatural residents. The Chinese
echoed this idea of residing spirits, and further developed
this idea to incorporate into their mythology, the existence
of spirits and demons who were derived from animals such as
the snakes and foxes. These lower beings often sought to climb
the ladder of immortality..
Gods of
war are another important divinity, in the ancient world where
wars over territory were frequent and pivotal to a civilization's
success. The Valkyries in Norse mythology are an excellent illustration
of this aspect, who scoured the battlefields and brought back
the better warriors into 
Odin's
hall named Vallahala. The Irish believed in the goddess Moriggan,
who had the ability of shape shifting. The Greeks worshipped
the gods Ares and Athene, while the Mesopotamians worshipped
Ishtar, who ironically was both the goddess of love and war.
A Babylonian
myth tells of the King Nimrod who tried to build a tower to
reach heaven and to make war on the supreme god. The god in
retaliation sent angels to confuse the workers, who eventually
led to abandonment of the building. It is generally accepted
in most cultures that gods exist on a higher altitude than humans.
It is interesting though how different cultures grappled with
the actual abode of the gods.
The Norse
believed in a world tree, whence humans lived below the tree's
canopy whilst the gods lived in the branches. The majestic Mount
Olympus was thought to have been the home of the gods to the
Greeks. With the Chinese, heaven has no exact location, but
rather exists in a dimension quite beyond human accessibility,
a theme common to other cultures.
Another
class of beings that are worth some mention is the primeval
gods and creatures. This is largely comprised of gods who came
before and after creation itself, when the world had yet to
take on fixed form or genders. As such, these beings are generally
sexless. This can be seen in the example of the giant Pangu,
in Chinese creation. The giant was born out of a cosmic egg,
and he grew for many millennia before dying, then his body parts
became the world. This idea is repeated in Norse mythology,
and in one version of Egyptian creation.
One may
expect that the only natural things about the world were the
humans, animals, plants and non-living things. To primitive
people, supernatural forces seemed reasonable enough to be considered
natural. After all, the gods, the spirits and the demons were
all part of their mythological pantheon, which they used to
explain the natural world.
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Mythical
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