The
Moon Goddesses are important in many cultures around the world where they form a central role in mythology. The moon is associated with the divine femine as in many tribal societies the feminine cycles were linked to the phases of the moon. The Moon was important in ancient calendars, helping people to measure time and to determine when the best time was for planting and harvesting crops. This fertility aspect of the lunar Goddess is reflected in large numbers of the entries below.
Many of the lunar Goddesses, like Hecate and Cerridwen are also associated with magic and the intuitive nature of women.
Aega (Greek) - A beautiful moon deity. Her mother Gaia, the
ancient earth Goddess, hid her in a cave during a Titan attack on the
Olympic deities to prevent her from being taken away.
Aine(Celtic) - Goddess of love, growth, cattle and light.
The name of this Celtic Goddess means "bright" as she lights up the
dark. Celebrations to this Goddess were held on Midsummer night
Anahita (Persian) - A river Goddess who was also Goddess
of Venus and the moon. Her name means "pure" Or immaculate one" as she
represented the cleansing and fertilizing flow of the cosmos.
Andromeda (Greek) - Although today she is linked with the stars many scholars believe that Andromeda was a pre-Hellenic moon deity.
Anunit (Babylonian) - Goddess of the moon and battle.
She was also associated with the evening star and later became known as
Ishtar.
Arianrhod
(Celtic) - Goddess of the moon and stars, her name means “silver- wheel” the wheel of the year and the web of fate.
Artemis
(Greek) - The Greek Goddess of the hunt, nature and birth. This maiden Goddess is symbolized by the crescent moon.
Arawa (African) - Lunar Goddess of the Suk and Pokot
tribes of Kenya and Uganda. Her parents were the creator God Tororut and
his consort Seta.
Athenesic (Native North American) - A moon Goddess of several north central Native American tribes,
Auchimalgen (South American) - This moon Goddess was a Deity of divination and a protectress from evil spirits.
Bendis (Greek) - Bendis was the consort of the sun God
Sabazius. Her cult flourished in Athens during the fifth century BCE.
Britomartis (Crete) - In addition to her lunar attributes she was also the patron Goddess of Cretan sailors.
Candi (Indian) - The female counterpart to Chandra,
ancient Hindu lord of the Moon. The two were said to take turns: one
month the Candi would become the moon and the next Chandra fulfill the
role.
Cerridwen
(Celtic) - This crone, Goddess is most famous for her cauldron of
wisdom. She was the mother of the great bard Taliesin, and is deeply
linked to the image of the waning moon.
Chang- O (Chinese) - The Chinese Goddess who lived on the moon She is celebrated to this day on full moon night of the 8th lunar month.
Coyolxauhqui (Aztec) - Aztec moon Goddess, her name means
"Golden Bells." She was the daughter of the Earth goddess, Coatlicue and
the sister of the Sun god, Huitzilopochtli
Dae-Soon (Korean) - Moon Goddess
Diana
(Roman) -
Diana was the Goddess of the hunt and wild animals. She later
took over from Luna as the Roman Goddess of the moon, responsible for
fertility and childbirth.
Gnatoo (Japanese) - One of twelve Buddhist deities called the Jiu No O, adopted from Hindu mythology.
Gwaten (Hindu) - She is derived from the Hindu God Soma,
and is portrayed as a woman holding in her right hand, a disk
symbolizing the Moon.
Epona
(Roman/Celtic) - This horse Goddess was associated with the night and
dreams. In western Ireland,legends still abound of hearing the
hoof-beats of her horse as she rides west to escape the rays of the
rising sun. She was also a Goddess of magic, fertility and feminine
power.
Hanwi (Native North American) - Goddess of the Oglala
Sioux, she once lived with the sun God Wi. Due to a transgression, she
was forced by him to become a creature of the night.
Hekate
(Greek) - A crone Moon Goddess, deeply associated with the waning and
dark moons. She is depicted as haunting crossroads with her two large
hounds, and carrying a torch, symbolic of her great wisdom.
Hina Hine (Polynesian) - This Hawaiian Goddesses name
means 'woman who works the moon'. In her myths it is said that she grew
tired of working for her brother and fled to the moon to live in peace.
Hina-Ika ("lady of the fish") Once again we see the link between the lunar Goddess to the tides.
Huitaco (South American) - This Colombian Goddess was a
protectress of women as well as a deity of pleasure and happiness who
was always battling with her male counterpart Bochica, a God of hard
work and sorrow.
Ishtar (Babylonian) - Some myths say she is the daughter of the moon, others the mother.
Isis
(Egyptian) - This powerful and widely worshipped Goddess was not only a moon deity, but a Goddess of the sun as well.
Ix Chel (Mayan) - A Central American moon Goddess and
the lover of the sun. Poisonous snakes were her totem animal. She was
also Goddess of childbirth
Izanami (Japanese) - This Goddess controlled the tides, fishing, and all destructive sea phenomena
Jezanna (Central African) - Goddess of the moon and healing.
Juna
(Roman)- A Goddess of the new moon . She was worshipped mainly by women
as she was the Goddess of marriage, pregnancy and childbirth. Her
Greek equivalent was Hera.
Jyotsna (Indian) - A Hindu Goddess of twilight and the autumn moons.
Komorkis (Native North American) - The Blackfoot tribe celebrated her as the Goddess of the moon.
Kuan Yin (Chinese) - A Buddhist Goddess. Modern feminist
Pagans believe she far pre-dates Buddhist origins. She was a Goddess of
the moon, compassion, and healing,
Lasya (Tibetan) - A Goddess of the moon and beauty who carried a mirror.
Lucina (Roman) - A Goddess of light with both solar and
lunar attributes. She was Christianized as St. Lucia, a saint still
honored at Yule in many parts of Europe.
Luna (Roman) - An ancient moon Goddess, the namesake for
the Latin word luna meaning 'moon'. Her name also forms the root of the
English words 'lunar' and 'lunatic'.
Mama Quilla
(Inkan) - As the Goddess of the moon she was the protectress of married
women. A large temple to her was erected at the Inkan capitol of Cuzco.
She was associated with the metal silver. Eclipses were said to occur
when she was eaten and the regurgitated by the Jaguar Woman.
Mawu (African) - She ruled the sky with her twin bother, the sun God Lisa. To her people she symbolized both wisdom and knowledge.
Metzli (Aztec) - In Aztec mythology mother moon leapt into a blazing fire and gave birth to the sun and the sky.
Rhiannon (Celtic) - A Goddess of fertility, the moon, night, and death. Her name means 'night queen'. She is also known as Rigantona.
Sadarnuna(Sumerian) - Goddess of the new moon
Sarpandit
(Sumerian) - Goddess of moonrise. This pregnant Goddess's name means
"silver shining" referring to the reflective quality of the moon.
Sefkhet (Egyptian) - According to some myths this lunar
Goddess was the wife of Thoth. She was also the deity of time, the
stars, and architecture.
Selene
(Greek) - A mother Goddess linked to the full moon. She is widely worshipped by Pagans today,
Sina (Polynesian) - This moon Goddess was the sister of the sun God Maui. She was sometimes called Ina.
Teczistecatl (Aztec) - A Goddess of sex, symbolized by the four phases of the moon: dark, waxing, full, and waning.
Xochhiquetzal (Aztec) - This magical moon Goddess was the
deity of flowers, spring, sex, love, and marriage. She was the wife of
storm God Tlaloc. She is also the patroness of artisans, prostitutes,
pregnant women and birth.
Yemanja (Native South American) - She was the Brazilian
Goddess of the oceans symbolized by a waxing crescent moon. Yemanja was
also considered to represent the essence of motherhood and a protector
of children.
Yolkai Estsan (Native North American) - A Navajo moon
deity fashioned from an abalone shell by her sister Yolkai, the Goddess
of the sky. She was the Navaho Goddess of the earth and the seasons, and
is also known as White Shell Woman.
Zirna (Etruscan)- A Goddess of the waxing moon. She is
always depicted with a half-moon hanging from her neck, indicating that
she was probably honored at the beginning of the second quarter phase of
the moon.
Source
Another list,
here
Allah
One of the favourite arguments of the Christian missionaries over many years
had been that Allah of the Qur'an was in fact a pagan Arab "
Moon-god"
from pre-Islamic times. The seeds of this argument were sown by the work of
the Danish scholar Ditlef Nielsen, who divided the Semitic deities into a triad
of Father-Moon, Mother-Sun and Son-Venus His ideas
(esp., triadic hypothesis) were used uncritically by later scholars who came
to excavate many sites in the Near East and consequently assigned astral significance
to the deities that they had found. Since 1991 Ditlef Nielsen's views were given
a new and unexpected twist by the Christian polemicist Robert Morey. In a series
of pamphlets, books and radio programs, he claimed that "Allah" of
the Qur'an was nothing but the pagan Arab "Moon-god". To support his
views, he presented evidences from the Near East which can be seen in "
Appendix
C: The Moon God and Archeology" from his book
The
Islamic Invasion: Confronting The World's Fastest-Growing Religion and it was subsequently reprinted with minor changes as a booklet called
The Moon-God Allah In The Archeology Of The Middle East.
[2]
It can justifiably be said that this book lies at the heart of missionary propaganda
against Islam today. The popularity of Morey's ideas was given a new breath
of life by another Christian polemicist Jack T. Chick, who drew a fictionalised
racially stereotyped story
entitled
"Allah Had No Son".
Morey's ideas have gained widespread popularity among amenable Christians,
and, more often than not, Muslims find themselves challenged to refute the 'archaeological'
evidence presented by Morey. Surprisingly, it has also been
suggested
by some Christians that Morey has conducted "groundbreaking research on
the pre-Islamic origins of Islam." In this article, we would like to examine
the two most prominent evidences postulated by Morey, namely the archaeological
site in Hazor, Palestine and the Arabian "Moon temple" at Hureidha
in Hadhramaut, Yemen, along with the diagrams presented in Appendix C of his
book
The Islamic Invasion: Confronting The World's Fastest-Growing
Religion (and booklet
The Moon-God Allah In The Archeology Of The Middle East) all of which he uses to claim that Allah of the Qur'an was a
pagan "Moon-god"
Source
The religion of Islam has as its focus of worship a deity by the name of "Allah." The Muslims claim that Allah in pre-Islamic times was the biblical God of the Patriarchs, prophets, and apostles. The issue is thus one of continuity. Was "Allah" the biblical God or a pagan god in Arabia during pre-Islamic times? The Muslim's claim of continuity is essential to their attempt to convert Jews and Christians for if "Allah" is part of the flow of divine revelation in Scripture, then it is the next step in biblical religion. Thus we should all become Muslims. But, on the other hand, if Allah was a pre-Islamic pagan deity, then its core claim is refuted. Religious claims often fall before the results of hard sciences such as archeology. We can endlessly speculate about the past or go and dig it up and see what the evidence reveals. This is the only way to find out the truth concerning the origins of Allah. As we shall see, the hard evidence demonstrates that the god Allah was a pagan deity. In fact, he was the Moon-god who was married to the sun goddess and the stars were his daughters.
Source
The
crescent moon symbol of Islam is a remnant of ancient pagan
moon worship
Muhammad grew up worshipping many pagan gods in the Kabah including the moon, either called
Hubal and Allah.
After his conversion to monotheism, through the influence of
Christians, Muhammad stopped worshiping the moon. The same is true for
all Muslims since, down to the present day. However, the crescent moon
is the universal symbol of Islam. Muslims will argue that there is no
archeological evidence for the crescent moon symbol being used in Islam
for the first few centuries after Muhammad. Yet Muslims also claim that
Koran in its completed form existed in the time of Muhammad, yet there
is no archeological evidence for this claim either. What we can be sure
of, is the moon worship was more prevalent in Arabia than any other part
of the world and that the symbol of the crescent moon has been used by
the Arab religions as far back as the time of Abraham. It is a
falsification of history to think there is no connection with the
history of the crescent moon symbol of pagan moon god worship and Islam.
The fact remains that most Arab/Muslim countries today still use the
crescent moon symbol on their flags and atop of their mosques. The
connection is so powerful that only the blind would reject any
connection.
"
Sin.—The
moon-god occupied the chief place in the astral triad. Its
other two members, Shamash the sun and Ishtar the planet Venus, were his
children. Thus it was, in effect, from the night that light had
emerged....In his physical aspect Sin—who was venerated at Ur under the
name of Nannar—was an old man with along beard the color of
lapis-lazuli. He normally wore a turban. Every evening he got into his
barque—which to mortals appeared in the form of a brilliant crescent
moon—and navigated the vast spaces of the nocturnal sky. Some people,
however, believed that the luminous crescent was Sin's weapon. But one
day the crescent gave way to a disk which stood out in the sky like a
gleaming crown. There could be no doubt that this was the god's own
crown; and then Sin was called "Lord of the Diadem". These successive
and regular transformations lent Sin a certain mystery. For this reason
he was considered to be 'He whose deep heart no god can penetrate'...
Sin was also full of wisdom. At the end of every month the gods came to
consult them and he made decisions for them...His wife was Ningal, 'the
great Lady'. He was the father not only of Shamash and Ishtar but also
of a son Nusku, the god fire." (
Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology, 1960, p 54-56)
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