| SATI (1), SUTTY: Hindu, daughter of Daksha, one of the lords of creation. In spite of her father's opposition, she fell in love with and married Shiva; she is one of the aspects of PARVATI. Said to have cast herself on the sacrificial fire - hence the practice, and the name, of suttee, the burning of widows on their husbands' funeral pyres. (Cf. SITA.) SATI (2), SATIS, SATET: ('To Sow Seed') Egyptian goddess of fertility and love; cult centre the island of Siheil, near the First Cataract; personified the life-giving inundation. Soon replaced HEKET as wife of creator god Khnum. Sometimes daughter of Ra, sometimes of Khnum and ANUKET, her partner-guardian of the cataracts. Later a goddess of hunting. Called Princess of Upper Egypt and (in the New Kingdom) Queen of the Gods. Depicted with a vulture headdress and the white crown of Upper Egypt flanked by antelope horns, and carrying a bow and arrows, which symbolized the speed and force of the cataract current. SATI (3): Egyptian. A serpent goddess who lived in the Underworld and preyed on the dead. SATIA: A medieval witch goddess name, doubtless implying 'satisfaction'. SATYABHAMA: Hindu, the third wife of Krishna. SCATHACH: ('The Shadowy One' or 'She Who Strikes Fear') Irish. Warrior woman and prophetess, living in Albion (in this case Scotland), who taught the martial arts to Cuchulainn. Also, like her daughter Uathach ('The Very Terrible') his lover. 'It is clear that the women can provide their initiation into magic and warfare only when there are sexual relations between the pupil and the "mistress", in both senses of the word' (Markale, Women of the Celts, p.242.) 'A marriage between the apprentice and his vocation' (Rees and Rees, Celtic Heritage, p.257). Anne Ross (Pagan Celtic Britain, p.291) refers to the type as 'the warrior goddess, who is also a mother figure'. Three other women are named in the story of Cuchulainn's training: Dornoll ('Bigfist'), whose sexual advances he refused, Aoife ('Reflection'), whom he married for a year and who bore him a son, and Buannan ('The Lasting One'). It is Scathach, Uathach and Aoife who are repeatedly named together in the Táin Bó Cualgne as his warrior teachers. SCHALA: Wife of Adad, the Assyro-Babylonian storm god. SCOTA: Irish, wife of Milesius, leader of the final (Gaelic) invasion of Ireland in the mythological cycle, and mother of the bard Amergin. Daughter of the Pharaoh of Egypt, Necbetanus. Said to have died in the invasion and to be buried near the dolmens on Sliabh Mis in Co. Kerry. Origin of the name 'Scoti' for the Irish, which finally became the name of those Irish who settled in Scotland. Graves (The White Goddess, p.132) thinks she may be a confusion with SCOTIA: 'The Milesians would naturally have brought the cult of the Sea-goddess... with them to Ireland, and would have found the necessary stone-altars already in position.' Another tradition makes Scot a daughter of the Pharaoh Smenkare, and wife of another Milesian, Niul. SCOTIA: ('The Dark One') Greek, a sea-goddess of Cyprus. See SCOTA. SCYLLA: ('Render') Greek. CIRCE, jealous of Scylla's love for the fisherman Glaucus, turned her into one of two female monsters guarding the Northern entrance to the Straits of Messina. Depicted as a beautiful woman from the hips up, her lower parts were three hellhounds; she brandished the helms of wrecked ships. But in the Odyssey she had six fanged heads on long necks, which devoured six of Ulysses' men. Scylla sat on (and was identified with) a rock; the other monster was Charybdis ('Sucker-Down'), a whirlpool which sucked in water and belched it out again three times a day. It was difficult to avoid one without being trapped by the other. Both still exist - one a 200-foot rock by the town of Scilla on the Italian side, the other a whirlpool 200 to 300 yards off the Sicilian shore by Cape Peloro. Till the earthquake of 1783 shifted the sea bed, they were far more hazardous to shipping than they are today; but small craft still hug the shore by Scylla to keep well clear of Charybdis. (Read Ulysses Found, by the classical scholar and skilled small-boat navigator ErnIe Bradford, on his personal experiences of this and many other Odyssean themes, such as the SIRENS.) SEDNA, ARNAKNAGSAK: Eskimo goddess of the food-providing animals. Lives in the sea but began her career as the goddess AVILAYOQ living on dry land. Seals, whales and polar bears are descended from her fingers, which were cut off by her father. If not propitiated, she prevents these animals leaving their homes, so that there is no food for man. Depicted as huge and one-eyed. She receives the spirits of those who die from natural causes into her undersea kingdom. SEFKHET-SESHA T, SESHA T SEFEKH-AUBI: Egyptian stellar and Moon goddess, one of those mentioned as a wife of Thoth. Worshipped from the earliest dynasties. A time-measuring, temple-planning, record-keeping goddess, patroness of architects; and, with Thoth, deity of scribes and inventor of writing. In the Underworld, she provided a house for the spirit of the dead. Depicted crowned with a star inscribed with a reversed crescent, surmounted by two straight plumes; later the crescent became two down-pointing horns. Her various names include allusions to horns, to mystery and to the number seven; her hieroglyph includes a seven-pointed star. SEKHET-HETEPET: The Egyptian Elysian Fields, and the goddess personifying them, the Lady of Winds. Life there was a close replica of life on Earth, with families reunited and a similar agricultural economy, but without Earthly problems. (See also UNEN-EM-HETEP.) SEHU: ('Maize') Amerindian, Cherokee. Corn goddess, sister of Earth goddess ELIHINO and Sun goddess IGAEHINVDO. Wife of Kanati, the Hunter. Visualized as an old woman; the corn, 'greatest plant giver of life', is the woman reborn. The late summer Green Corn Festival is the Cherokees' most important festival. SEKHMET: ('The Powerful') Egyptian lioness-goddess, Eye of Ra who was her father. Wife of Ptah as goddess of the Memphite triad, and mother of Nefertum, god of the setting Sun (later replaced by Imhotep). A goddess of war. Personified the scorching, destructive power of the Sun, and also defence of the divine order. She was placed in the uraeus on Ra's brow and spat flames at his enemies. When mankind rebelled against the ageing Ra, he sent her to quell them, and she became uncontrolled, wanting to destroy them all. Ra had to trick her with beer mixed with pomegranate juice, which she mistook for human blood and got too drunk to continue. Her characteristics were the opposite of HATHOR's, yet Hathor was also called the Eye of Ra, and the same story was told of her; Sekhmet was thus in a sense the dark aspect of Hathor. This slaughter was commemorated annually on Hathor's feast day, the 12th of the month Tybi (27 November), by brewing 'as many jugs of the philtre as there were priestesse5 of the Sun'. The priests of BAST tried to identify Sekhmet with her, but popular belief distinguished between the kindly Bast and the fierce Sekhmet. Also associated with MUT (another Eye ofRa). Usually depicted as a lion-headed woman crowned with the solar disc and uraeus, but sometimes with a crocodile or udjat (Eye of Ra) head. She may hold a knife in her upraised hand. Festival: 7 January. [BACK] [NEXT] This document can be re-published only as long as no information is lost or changed, credit is given to the author, and it is provided or used without cost to others. ©1987 Janet & Stewart Farrar |
