Sam, the Vegetation God
Lani doesn’t want me to call Sam a Vegetation God. She says it makes him sound like broccoli. But that’s what he is (a vegetation god, not broccoli). Harvest God isn’t right because he’s sacrificed before the harvest. Dying God makes it sound like that’s all he does. He’s a Resurrection God, but I don’t want any grief on any religious front. Basically, he’s one of dozens of gods in myths and religious who dies for his people and is reborn, a life-death-rebirth deity. Who’s also a king.
Not all gods in Mesopotamia were kings, but all kings were gods. Mesopotamians (actually many different tribes and civilizations that lived in the Fertile Crescent; the word “Mesopotamia” comes from the Greeks) didn’t have any concept of free will. They were born to serve the gods, and the god in front of them was the king (although they didn’t get him confused with the Big Guys Upstairs; he was a son of the city god).
But in Sam’s slice of Mesopotamia–a fairly small city state that we made up, located in the uppermost reaches of the Crescent in what is now southern Turkey–they went a little farther. Their king was a consort of the goddess of life and she sacrificed him every summer solstice and raised him every winter solstice, thus making sure he was home for the holidays. Sam’s myth is basically a fertility rite, some of which date back to the Neolithic period. It’s based on the idea that, as the Wikipedia reports, ” it was necessary to sacrifice part of the harvest (sow it) and let it spend winter under ground before it is “reborn” as next year’s harvest.” The summer solstice, the longest day of the year, was also the time when the heat began to blast every thing (Or as the Wikipedia puts it, “Beginning with the summer solstice came a time of mourning in the Ancient Near East as in the Aegean: the Babylonians marked the decline in daylight hours and the onset of killing summer heat and drought with a six-day “funeral” for the god.”)Â Many cultures, although not Mesopotamia, didn’t have to put quotations around “funeral;” they sacrificed animals and sometimes humans because the sacrifice’s blood had power; after the sacrifice, it was spattered on walls, statues, priests, worshippers, and anything else in splashing distance. That should be a nice detail for the scene where Sam gets . . . oh, wait, spoiler.
We’re still discussing how gross to make the sacrifice–trust me, dying king sacrifices in historical records are not anything you want to read before lunch–and how far to spatter Sam’s blood, but we know it’s only about a month before the solstice when Sam hits Summerville, so even as he rises, he’s getting ready to descend. Technically, Sam doesn’t die, he’s supposed to be just hanging out in the underworld among the truly dead until Kammani calls him back, but I decided he sleeps for those months. Because that was easier, that’s why. Which is also why Sam’s city state is far away to the north in a rural area because you know how those isolated communitied can get, you read “The Lottery,” you saw “Deliverance.”
Making your own mythology is hell, I’m telling you.
But when you start messing with myth, you’re going to have to deal with it in your story. At least, I am. Carl Jung argued the vegetation god or goddess was an archetype, found in all cultures because it was part of the collective unconscious, the subconscious memory that all human being share. That gives Sam a fairly powerful impact–one of the reasons I’m making him such an uncomplicated guy–and I’m finding that much of what he believes makes him an archetypal hero in that he willingly dies again and again for the good of his people, going to sleep in hell and returning in time to bring spring and hope. So as a man in the modern world, he demands to be treated like a king, but in return, he’s hardworking and self-sacrificing, so he probably deserves to be treated like a king.
Sam has a lot of brothers and sisters in the death-and-resurrection business: Julunggul and Wawalag for the Aboringines; Tammuz/Adonis and Ishtar for the Akkadian/Mesopotamians; Phoenix in Arabian myth; Quetzalcoatl and Xipe Totec for the Aztecs; Cernunnos and King Arthur in Celtic myth; Jesus in Christianity; Zalmoxis in Dacian myth, Isis and Osiris for the Egyptians; Atunis for the Etruscans; Adonis, Cronus, Cybele, Dionysus, Orpheus, and Persephone for the Greeks; Trimurti, Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva in Indian myth; Heitsi in Khoikhoi mythology; Itzamna and Ix Chel for the Mayans; Odin, Balder, and Gullveig for the Norse; Mithras for the the Persians; Attis in Phrygian myth; Aeneas, Bacchus, and Proserpina for the Romans; Veles and Jarilo for the Slavs; Damuzi and Inanna in Sumerian/Mesopotamian myth; and many, many more (this list courtesy of Wikipedia). But Sam’s our guy. He’s brave, he’s strong, he saves puppies, and he looks kind of like Russell Crowe in Gladiator.
Kind of.
And he dies like a god, too. What more could any romance heroine want?
Oh, right. A soulmate who lives.
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Apart from the nobleness/extreme fertility thingo of all things Sam…I keep thinking of using blood and bone on the garden..(really powers up the plant growth although a little stinky)…especially when splatters are mentioned, although Sam’s sacrifice cycle is also the ultimate in recycling too.He’s a pretty green type of guy on many levels.
Jenny, you’re writing about pagan gods and you don’t think you’ll have grief on a religious front?
Methinks the folks who have trouble with Harry Potter are not exactly going to be pleased with idolatry as a source of sympathetic characters …
Anyway, isn’t Tammuz and his like also called a Fertility Deity?
Male fertility - bestowing life through their “death”.
I could say something about spurting here, but I won’t.
Since nobody worships Sam, and since they actively refuse to worship Kammani, I’m hoping we don’t upset anybody. But the parallels between myths are always an uh-oh. I used to teach mythology, and after about the second or third culture with a flood myth, some kids would start to get that look in their eyes. I don’t mess with faith, but sometimes education messed with rigid interpretations.
All of which is to say, this is not a book about religion or really even myth, so I’m hoping that it won’t upset anybody.
Yes, I know denial is not just a river to the south of Mesopotamia.
Hey, controversy, big sales. Bring it on!
But Russell Crowe? Especially incarnate in your chosen photo? So no.
There just aren’t a lot of guys who can pass for gods these days. They weren’t gentlemen, you know.
What about what’shisname, the guy from “300,” who’s now in that new, “P.S., I Love You” movie? He had the whole god-king thing going on in the former, and I think he dies in the latter. Not that I have a problem with Russell Crowe, mind you, but there you go.
Yes, let’s organize a book burning for D&G, that should get them to the NYT Best Seller list.
Spurting, yes. Rain gods were called “ba’al” in Semitic - same as “owner”, “husband”, and “intercourse”. The earth, the passive recipient.
Today, like Yoda, I write.
Well, if you want a guy who dies like a god, then you don’t want Russel Crowe, you want the big blond dude who sacrifices himeslf in Gladiator. /;+) And he was NO gentleman, too. Either?
“…she sacrificed him every summer solstice and raised him every winter solstice, thus making sure he was home for the holidays…”
Now that sounds ideal, but I bet we’d get in trouble if we did it today. “Honest Your Honor, it’s part of my religion. He’ll come back in the fall. Really.”
Courtney- Gerard Butler, the hottie boomalottie also found in Dear Frankie and as Eric, the Phantom, in Phantom of the Opera. I think that’s who I’ll be picturing as Sam as well (more pleasant associations).
I should do more myth reading. I like reading myths. I liked it enough to minor in anthropology and I think I will lurv this book for the myth aspects. And the authors. And goddesses and dogs.
A little controversy can be good for sales. Just look at what it did for A Certain Writer of Thrillers.
(-: I have to smile at the “hope we don’t upset anyone.” As soon as you start messing in anything that has to do with the supernatural, the nuts start crawling out of the woodwork — both the religious kinds, and the “I believe in it all, Jenny!” kooks. So I would say Don’t Worry about other people’s reactions to the religious bits. If it squicks any of the three of you out, then there could be a problem. But don’t limit yourselves because of what a bunch of unbalanced readers may or may not think.
And you’ve got Bob, who can probably offer a few security tips for the house, phone and mailbox.
That said, I’ve been living on a farm for the past 12 years. A little bit further north of your latitude, but I think my experience is still valid. And darlin, NOTHING is getting sacrificed at the summer solstice. You’re lucky if the corn is knee high yet. You’re busy fighting weeds, and hauling water, and maybe adding some extra nutrients.
Sacrifices start with the wheat harvest, in late July or early August in my area. Then it’s time to party. Traditionally, I think it’s Halloween (Samhain) when the big guy bites the dust. He’s just too busy before then to die. He does go into a bit of a decline, though.
Maybe he could be the god that goes through his mid-life crisis at Solstice?
(-: Just my two cents. I’m sure if you love it, you’ll make it work.
“It,” of course, being the Death at Summer Solstice.