the porcelain gods

It's Thursday, a long week is nearly done, too many long weeks preceded it, and I'm feeling quite brisk for having consumed three beers, a piña colada and a bottle of hard cider last night. So I'm in the mood for a lighthearted, cheery, goofy sort of post today. And if it involves John Barleycorn, so much the better.

Step up, step up, it's time for Theology of Alcohol 101.

There are two cultural benchmarks you can always count on finding amongst any group of humans, from the most technologically advanced city to the most primitive tribe. Small or large, urban or pastoral, superstitious or pragmatic, violent or peaceful, black or white: whoever they are, they'll have invented two things, right from the get-go.

...religion and booze.

They're universal. It's impossible to have any kind of organized society without them. Any culture, no matter where it stands on the spectrum of cultural achievement, will unfailingly possess a way of explaining the world they live in, and a way of coping with said explanation.

...religion and booze, respectively.

Moreover, each of these separate cultural institutions supports the other with near-perfect synergy. Booze provides a welcome escape from the constant worry involved in toeing the line between vengeful gods and bloodthirsty demons, and the maddening dichotomy of good and evil. Religion is fueled by the battle against temptation, overindulgence and immodesty. The preachers preach, the lushes drink, and everyone stays happy. God claps His hands and Satan sharpens his knives.

But far from justifying each other's existence, religion and booze have gone as far as to cross the demarcation line and merge as one. Booze has become so integral to some cultures that it has elevated itself to divine status. Many of the world's peoples possess, or once possessed, a "drink of the gods" or "divine liquor" available only priests or chieftains, and which was used only during the most holy of liturgical practices. Thereby the drinking of liquors became not only sanctified, but sacred.

Some cultures took this even farther and worshiped a god or goddess devoted solely to the creation, promulgation and enjoyment of liquor.

W.C. Fields, eat your heart out.

I've listed a few of these deities here in this post. For your consideration...

DIONYSUS & SILENUS (Greece)

Probably the most well-known pair in the Boozer Pantheon. Dionysus was widely acknowledged in Ancient Greece as the god of the grape harvest, wine, wine-making, and (some accounts have it) "ritual madness and ecstasy." (Indeed, a number of old carvings have him and his followers engaging in drunken orgies.)

If wine and craziness seem like trivial things for a god to watch over, think again. Wine was so important to the Ancient Greeks that Dionysus is often listed as one of the Twelve Gods of Mount Olympus, who were basically in charge of the entire universe.

The Greeks liked their booze.

Dionysus was the most well-traveled god after Hermes. After growing up amongst the rain-nymphs of Mount Nysa, Dionysus discovered the science of wine-making, but Hera struck him with madness and forced him to wander the world. Dionysus knocked around for a bit until he bumped into Rhea (Zeus's mother), who cured him. Then Dionysus went gallivanting all over Asia teaching people how to make wine. He brought these teachings with him upon his triumphant return to Greece. Most people embraced them and worshiped Dionysus as a god. Some princes opposed him, however, and the "madness and ecstasy" that wine brought upon humanity. Today we call it such madness "drunkenness," ecstasy "drunk sex," and people like the princes "temperance societies."

His sidekick, tutor, mentor and drinking buddy was a fellow named Silenus. There are conflicting stories about his appearance. Some sources describe him as a demigod with the ears and tail (and in some cases, legs) of a horse; some say he was a full-blown satyr. Some say he was just a man, or perhaps a minor deity, a foster father to Dionysus who tutored him in the ways of wine. All the reports agree on one thing, however: Silenus was a roaring, red-faced, falling-down, grass-eating drunk. He was always blitzed. In fact, he needed hooch like most people need food, water, or air: none of his godly powers would work when he wasn't off his gourd. Only when intoxicated, it was said, did Silenus possess the powers of prophecy and divination. Routinely, he would get so schnockered that he couldn't even walk. He had to be carried by his satyr subalterns, or thrown onto the back of a donkey. C.S. Lewis's representation of Silenus in The Chronicles of Narnia has him doing just that, sitting on the back of a donkey in Pan's cavalcade, ceaselessly calling for "Refreshments! Time for refreshments!"

Now if he don't qualify to be the god of drunks, I don't know who would. There's a god I could get behind, folks. At least he had fun and didn't worry about all that existential crap.

MAYAHUEL (Mexico)

She's the most versatile goddess you never heard of. Mayahuel was the goddess of maguey among several Mesoamerican cultures in Central Mexico during the Postclassic pre-Columbian era.

What's maguey, you ask?

It's a plant. Agave, as luck would have it. Agave americana, also known as American aloe. Today it's cultivated worldwide as an ornament for window or table, but it's more than just a pretty plant. Today it's used to make agave syrup, a sugar substitute with a low glycemic index (which I've used many times in my cocktails, to great effect).

The Mesoamericans, the Aztecs among them, cultivated maguey for its fibers (which were useful in embroidering cloth) and to (what else?) make booze.

By cutting the stems of the maguey plant and fermenting the liquid that oozed out (called agua miel, or "honey water"), the Mesoamericans created a drink called pulque, a thick, milky beverage vital to the heritage and history of Mexico. Though today it's been outclassed by beer, pulque is still consumed by all sorts of people. Back in pre-Columbian times, however, pulque was so sacred that it could only be drunk by special, privileged folk, and was only used in ceremonial rituals.

So where does Mayahuel fit into this?

Well, she's the goddess of the maguey plant. Pulque is thought to be her blood. Just in case you thought Mayahuel might be a hot Latina whom you'd love to get drunk with, hold your horses. As the personification of the plant and all that it represents (nourishment, drunkenness, and fertility) Mayahuel therefore had dozens of breasts with which to suckle her children, the Centzon Totochtin (400 Rabbits). 

That's right, I said rabbits. Four hundred of 'em. You know how rabbits breed. And Mayahuel is a fertility goddess. Rabbits must represent mischief in Mesoamerican culture, too, because the Centzon Tonochtin were thought to be the bringers of drunkenness. Some people see pink elephants when they get smashed; if you were an Aztec weaving your way home from the bloodletting and you saw a rabbit in the street, you'd know who was responsible. And who to thank for your hangover in the morning.

ÆGIR (Scandinavia)

His name means "sea" in the Old Norse language. He was a sea giant, the god of the ocean in Norse mythology, and king of the sea beasts (including the ferocious Kraken).

He also hosted the best parties. Seriously.

Like most sea-gods, he was feared by all, particularly sailors. Norsemen believed that Ægir occasionally rose up from the depths to take ships, sailors and their cargo down to replenish his halls on the bottom of the ocean. Sacrifices were made to appease him before voyages (and when I say "sacrifices" I mean that prisoners-of-war were tied up and thrown overboard).

He's also the god most associated with booze in the Norse pantheon, because one of the other things he was known for was throwing the craziest parties this side of Valhalla. The man was an immaculate host and was always cooking up lavish galas for his fellow Æsir. On top of this, he was a home-brewer. The old engravings show Ægir and his nine daughters brewing ale in a pot the size of an Abrams tank. (Well, I take that back: they show his daughters making the beer, buck naked, while Ægir just sits around in a toga and looks contemplative. The old pervert.)

Ægir's origins are unclear, as is his demise, but it can be presumed that he and his wife Ran (the rain goddess) died in the apocalyptic war known as Ragnarök. At least we can be sure that he had a few drinks in him when he kicked.

OSIRIS (Egypt)

Osiris has a...complicated history. He's the Egyptian god of the underworld, and how he got the job is an epic in itself.

It seems Osiris had a jealous brother named Set who murdered him, stuffed him into a chest, and threw him into the River Nile. The chest drifted downriver for some days, washed ashore and (somehow) got lodged in a tree trunk. Isis, Osiris's wife (and the goddess of the sky) found the chest and retrieved the body. Accounts vary, but some say that Isis used a secret spell to bring Osiris back to life so he could impregnate her. (The Egyptians were okay with necrophilia as long as it produced results, I guess.) Then Osiris died again. Set, the persistent cuss, located Osiris's body and chopped it up into pieces. He scattered these nasty bits all around Egypt. Iris, bless her, wouldn't stand for it. She and her sister Nephthys found the pieces and stuck 'em back together. The gods were so impressed by the women's devotion that they resurrected Osiris. But they could only resurrect his spirit, which could not remain in the land of the living, so they sent Osiris down to be god of the underworld. 

Isis later gave birth to Horus, the falcon-headed god of the sky, warfare, and divine protection. (Seems like the only negative side-effect of necrophilia is that your offspring might have animal parts.)

The Egyptians invented zombies before the Haitians institutionalized them. In the ancient carvings, Osiris is invariably depicted as a green-skinned, partially mummified man with a pharaoh's beard and the symbolic crook and flail in his hands. Osiris, Isis and Horus became great and noble gods, loved by Egyptians. Set was eventually demonized, going from the god of deserts, storms and foreigners to the god of evil and chaos. He was given the head of some strange animal with a curved snout, angular ears, a forked tail, and a big mouth. Years later Robert E. Howard would cast Set as the driving force behind many evil sorcerers and dastardly plots in his Conan mythos, making him an inhuman monster of a god, associated with snakes, worshiped with sick, gory rituals by depraved and bestial humans in temples with unspeakable names.

Osiris became a (merciful) judge of the dead, and was also responsible for all that went on underneath the Earth, including ground water, the flooding of the Nile, and growing crops. Among those crops was barley, which was used to make beer.

Beer was fundamental to Egyptian society, even more so than it was for the Aztecs and other Mesoamerican cultures. It was used as currency. The workers who built the pyramids at Giza were paid two jugs of beer a day. Critics have considered this to be a most base tactic: get your slaves hooked on a controlled substance (which simultaneously nourishes them and puts them to sleep at night) and you can control their actions, prevent uprisings, etc. From what I heard, the pyramids were built voluntarily, people. The Egyptians deified their rulers, so anybody who built a pyramid felt honored to be involved in the construction of a god's final resting-place.

NINKASI (Sumeria)

The fact that Ninkasi is the only key player in Sumerian mythology to have her name given to a brewery (in Eugene, Oregon) should tell you something right off the bat. Defined by Wikipedia as "the Sumerian matron goddess of the intoxicating beverage" (i.e., beer; they didn't exactly have any Chablis back then), Ninkasi was depicted as a die-hard home brewer and a rather important personage. She was one of the eight deities born to Enki, the god of crafts. Each of those eight deities represented a part of the human body; Ninkasi, unsurprisingly, represented the mouth.

She, and the beverage she brewed daily, were great friends to the little guy. Ninkasi and her sudsy creation sated the hearts and soothed the souls of humankind. You could always count on her to sling you a brew and help you forget about your hard day. And in Ancient Sumeria, there were plenty of hard days; the task of inventing writing, agriculture, religion, and art and thereby kick-starting civilization as we know it weighed heavy upon the average Sumerian's shoulders.

MBABA MWANA WARESA (Southern Africa)

Somehow it seems like most gods in pantheistic religions must always do double-duty. Mbaba Mwana Waresa (hereafter referred to as Mbaba) was the Zulu goddess of fertility. "Fertility" in the old days meant a lot of things: not just sex and childbearing, but also farming, weather, crops, harvests, and whatnot. Mbaba governed rainbows, rain, agriculture, and...beer. Without her, rain did not fall, crops did not grow, beer did not get brewed, and (coincidentally) kids did not get born. She was very important in Zulu culture, and probably had some mighty good festivals thrown in her honor during both planting and harvesting seasons.

The link the Zulus made between crops, beer, and childbirth is intriguing, to say the least. Do you suppose that the tribesmen of South Africa discovered the concept of beer goggles thousands of years before Europeans did...?

RADEGAST (Czechoslovakia)

Early writings name him as a god worshipped by the Lutician culture, but his influence grew until he came to be considered the Slavic god of hospitality.

And what's an essential part of any kind of hospitality?

Booze.

Indispensably, booze.

You offer your guests a drink when they come in the door. You serve wine with dinner. You have a beer around the barbecue with the guys. You get crazy tropical cocktails with corny names when you're at the beach. You even offer your enemies a martini (shaken, not stirred). In business terms, "hospitality" means restaurants, hotels and bars, all of which serve liquor. Unless you're a health nut, a teetotaler or a Mormon, someone's going to offer your an alcoholic beverage by way of welcome or thanks.

That's where Radegast comes in. His name can be liberally translated to mean "Dear Guest." He became emblematic of the rural European idea of hospitality: you usher your visitors in out of the cold, plonk 'em down by the fire, start cooking dinner, and (in the meantime), shove a beer in their direction.

"Radegast" is now a brand of Czech-made beer, in fact.

For being the god of hospitality and having the coolest effing name on this list, Radegast scores way up there on the booze-god spectrum.

RAUGUPATIS & RAGUTIENE (Lithuania)

Not quite as universal as Radegast but still Slavic in origin are this husband-and-wife pair from Eastern Europe. They weren't major gods in the pantheon, but they were still divine. Raugupatis (sometimes simply Ragutis) and Ragutiene are, simply put, the god and goddess of beer. Ragutis, bless his heart, is sometimes named as the god of beer, vodka, and mead, all in one. If that doesn't make him a straight-up, hands-down booze god, I don't know what does.

I don't really know how important R & R really were, however. The Lithuanians, it seems, had gods and goddess for everything back in their pagan days. Austheja was the goddess of bees; Sznejbrato was the god of birds and hunting; Polengabia was the goddess of fireplaces; Usparinia watched over land borders; and so on, and so on. The Lithuanians are the only culture I know who retained both a god of war and a god of thunder (both of whom were still only minor deities, mind you). They even had one goddess, Budintoja, who was responsible for waking up sleeping people. The Lithuanians must've taken a flipping age and a half to say grace before dinner.

Raugupatis and Ragutiene get sort of lost in the shuffle. Nonetheless I'll bet many a bearded Lithuanian raised a mug to them as he took his first draught after a hard day of doing whatever the hell Lithuanians do.

INARI (Japan)

This person has the same nebulous connection to hooch that Osiris does. Inari was a Shinto kami ("kami" being Japanese for "god/deity/spirit"). Somewhat androgynous, he/she/it has been represented as male/female/hermaphroditic, depending on who you talk to. He/she/it may even be a combination of four or five kami who were in charge of similar stuff. Inari was in charge of fertility, rice, agriculture, foxes, industry, and worldly success.

What is it with booze gods having really strange animals in their entourage? First Mayahuel and her four hundred rabbits, and now Inari and foxes.

Now, hold on a moment. Let me explain something here. Foxes (kitsune in Japanese) are special beings in Shinto. They are intelligent creatures, clever, able to assume human form, renowned for their trickery and cunning, which manifests itself in everything from harmless pranks to downright evil. Most often, though, they are portrayed as faithful guardians, friends, lovers, and wives. Having one on your side can bring you good luck, which explains their inclusion on a list like the one above. Industry and a good kitsune can bring you worldly success.

And rice, as you'll remember, is the main ingredient in brewing saké. So, indirectly, Inari became a poster boy for the Shinto take on alcohol and its trammels. If you overindulge on the rice wine, some of Inari's foxy servants might come to you and play some jokes on you.

Inari is very popular in Japan and his/her/its shrines can be found all over the place. Offerings of rice and saké are left on the altars to appease the kitsune who might be waiting to jump unsuspecting pilgrims.

And now, I shall leave you with a joke. One of Martin Luther's friends stopped him in the street and asked him if he wanted to go have a few beers. Luther said "No thanks, I'm on the Diet of Worms."

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