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God 3

Our most familiar image of God 3 is as wizard-magician, but he appears in many other forms: doctor, teacher, cratsman, innkeeper, cook, patron of travellers, the Great Hunter, Master of Animals, sea god, fisherman, fire god, smith, giant or dwarf. Some of these functions naturally derive from his original role of shaman, possessor of all wisdom. Others require a little explanation--for instance, Master of Animals, to understand which we must remember that not only does he guide the Wild Herd of initiates, but is thought to have special powers to lure animals to the hunter’s bow and teach prayers to make them accept death willingly.
He is fire god and smith because fire, both as invention and in nature (where volcanoes existed) was thought of as subterranean. With the age of metal smelting, Vulcan naturally became a smith, and in some parts of the world--Africa and the Caucasus, for instance--smiths still play a priestly as well as a craft role.
His character as innkeeper comes from the descent of the inn from the original men’s house or kiva, site of secret rituals, some pre-initiatory. As innkeeper he is patron of travellers. As cook he is sacrificer, killing the victim and preparing the sacrificial meal in his sacred cauldron.
Giant and dwarf, abnormal human forms, naturally belong to the otherworld; but the dwarf form may, as in the orient and Mesoamerica, be confused with the ‘baby’ since winter is the season not only of old men--”the winter of his age”--but of the young and the babies they began as, solarly speaking, at the winter solstice.
And this god often appears with children as their teacher and protector. On the other hand, since he may also be a sacrificer of children (see ACTION) he may also turn up as the bogeyman.
He does not, as a rule, shift his shape from old to young as often as Goddess 3, but he is a shapeshifter all the same, able to transform himself into bird or animal. And there are aged Fools as well as young ones, like the Fool in the first illustration for Goddess 1
Note, in what follows, the similarity of emblem as well as function: staff, hat, cup, feline, snake, bird, and the number 3.


Nergal, from the prehistoric Sumerian pantheon: lord of the dead, “man of the river” and boat of the underworld, patron, as Melek, of the sea; god of fire, disease and wise counsel. And it was said of him that, old in winter, he regained his youth in spring. He carries two lion-headed sceptres, since God 3 like Goddess 1 and 3, is associated with felines.


“The Old One”, Mesoamerican god of fire, from Monte Alban. He holds a cup (for incense) not shown here. Note hat.

Siva, the Hindu ‘destroyer’, who combines almost all the facets of a third stage god. He is ruler of the underworld, of fire, of disease and healing, and can bring children. He may also appear in dwarf form. He too holds a cup along with a spear, a trident, and the jester’s bells. He is accompanied by underworld dog, wears a tiger skin (see ANIMALS, underworld) and has a necklace of skulls. In other paintings--this one is from about 1820 in Kangra style--he may also carry club and noose (knot) and his throat, under his skull necklace, or his whole body, may be painted blue. (See COLOR). He rides a parrot, a bird such as other shamans often wear on their heads.


Neptune-Poseidon, from a Tunisian mosaic. He too carries the three-pointed trident (see NUMBER) and drives his sea-horses.


The river god Pentheus. Instead of trident he carries a horn (cup) as does Neptune in his aspect as Triton. (Roman mosaic)

Thoth, extending the ankh to King Sethos I in a mural from the chapel of Osiris at Abydos, 19th dynasty. Thoth, whose head is a bird and a blue one at that, is god of the underworld, magician, and like Nergal a man of boats. He plays a priest role in both the sacred marriage (see ACTION) and the baptism of the Pharaoh. His name means ‘thrice great’, like that of Hermes Trismegistos and the ‘three’ appears again in his triple-pointed staff like Neptune’s and Siva’s tridents. The staff is also entwined like those of Mercury, Hermes and Aesculapius, though it is not clear here whether the twiners are in fact snakes.

Third stage gods are often part animal, symbolizing their domination over the wild: wise centaurs, teachers of the young. Above, a faunlike creature with serpent legs, an antefix of the Villa Giulia Etruscan museum in Rome, winged like a bird; and the statue of a faun with child and fruit, a double metaphor.

Serpent legged also is this three headed limestone sculpture from the Hecatompedon, time of Solon. Compare him with the river serpent Achelous with his horn of plenty in ANIMALS, Snake. The emblems he carries include sparks (fire) and a bird.


Three-headed like him is the figure above, from the Gallehus Cup, a sacred vessel found in a bog in Denmark and which dates from the early centuries AD. He carries a priest’s crook, and the wild animal he has on a leash symbolizes his role as tamer of the wild initiates. (Many other examples of this idiom will be found in SACRED LANDSCAPE, Tree). The Gallehus Cup also shows us a centaur.


Tlaloc, Aztec god of rain and, therefore, plenty, who is also linked to water and snakes. We have already seen Tlaloc in the first section as carrier, indiscriminately, of pitcher and sack. Aztec iconography is so stylized we cannot always at first be sure just what we are seeing; but here his pitcher-sack seems to be hanging at his waist, his bow-staff ends triply like a trident; his heron feather crown (cf Thoth) is triple. He carries the sacrificer’s single-bladed ax like Esus of Gaul, and his face, though not here, is often black or blue. Characteristic of him are the goggle eyes which are also found (see HATS) on death god Masau’u of the Hopi==goggles which are often formed of serpent coils.
But Tlaloc has two other significant associations: he is god of volcanoes, i.e. fire; and he is linked, albeit in the sinister sense, to children. Babies not yet weaned were sacrificed to him at his autumn festival.


Kokopelli, his parallel farther north, also may be shown with sack, which may contain either seeds or children. Sometimes the sack is combined with the god so that he is shown hunch back. Like so many of the gods above, Kokopelli appears with snakes, or bird-headed; and he is at once magician, trickster, rain priest and like Odin, patron of travellers. Like Odin too he has a big hat. Kokopelli, however, has a distinct God 1 form as well, in which he is a noted seducer of maidens.

Another god of children, ”AA of Hawaii, Tangaroa of Polynesia, always shown with babies. Tangaroa is a ‘kindly snake’, a god of the ocean and the underworld but also of fire, since he is said to have set fire to the earth he created before being banished below.


Yet another god with children, T’sai-shen of China, whose pointy-capped children could pass for dwarves or elves as well. Note his bonnet, the purse with triple top which he carries, and the fan, which is also an emblem of the Chinese “Old Boy” Lao-Tse. T’sai-shen is a god of wealth, i.e. plenty; and he usually has attendants carrying his horn. He replaced in China an earlier god of wealth, Chao Kung-ming, who rode a tiger (feline) and who was seer and god of blacksmiths as well as of plenty.


Daikoku, one of the Japanese gods of luck, sitting on his rice bag (sack) as symbol of plenty, sometimes nibbled at by that underworld animal the rat. There are seven of these Japanese gods of prosperity: all are old, four are bald and three have cowled heads, five are associated with water, two are teachers, four carry staff and one keys; of the seven, six are dwarfish. (Museum fur Volkerkunde, Vienna)

A dwarf, from an early Brazilian Indian vase now in the University of Philadelphia Museum. Note hate and magician’s rattle; however what identifies him definitely as a third stage god is his hunchback, a deformation almost universally understood as having a sack in, rather than on the back, like Kokopelli or Tlaloc. The hunchback, always considered lucky, was king’s companion in Mesopotamia as well as in Europe.

Hunchback and ‘baby god’ are sometimes almost indistinguishable from the bald dwarf gods of plenty, and in fact they can symbolize both ages, since the old man of winter is also, simultaneously, a baby growing up. Consider, for instance, Lao-Tse, “the Old Boy” reverenced in China, who is so called not only because he is old but because he was born with white beard and hair after 80 years in the womb.

The figures below come from a Mesoamerican (Las Bocas) ceramic now in the Metropolitan Museum, and from a late Egyptian figure of Harpocrates, the baby Horus.

Joseph on the Flight into Egypt, by Master Bertram of Germany, 1345-1415. The red and green colors he wears are significant of the underworld; he wears purse and key, carries a flask, and of course is accompanied by a baby: Jesus, not shown here. Notice, however, how this old man holds a vessel of some kind to his mouth, almost like the baby above.

Illustration of Santa

UPPERWORLD AND UNDERWORLD    UNDERWORLD   PERSONNAGES    GOD 1    TWINS    GODDESS 1    GOD 2    GODDESS 2    GOD 3    GODDESS 3    NUMBERS    HATS ETC.    ACTIONS    ANIMALS    LANDSCAPE    COLOR