Rice Mother and Krala, and watch your attributions

From: Loren Miller <loren_at_hops.wharton.upenn.edu>
Date: Tue, 6 Dec 1994 10:16:30 -0500 (EST)


Peter Metcalfe writes:
> Replying to Loren Miller.
> >But evidently, the Rice Mother _isn't_ the local Grain Goddess, which
> >GoG assures us is Krala. There's no very clear information about their
> >relationship, though I'd suspect Krala was the more overtly agricultural,
> >with the Rice Mother being a rather vaguer, "social" goddess of the
> >peasants, based on the other things she's creditted with.

That wasn't me. That was Alex the tall and obstreporous Scots.

> I think Krala is the Land Goddess (despite what GoG says) and the Rice
> Mother is the Grain Goddess of Rice. Given Krala's relative lack of
> importance compared to Dendara^H^H^H^H Den Xi and the Rice Mother, I
> believe that Krala is actually a diety of the Shan Shan Hsunchen.

Rice Mother's identity doesn't affect my MGF so I don't really care one way or the other. Is Rice Mother a rice goddess at all? Alex says no, she is a social goddess of the peasants and Krala is the actual rice goddess. Peter says yes, Rice Mother is a rice goddess and Krala is the goddess of the land. If I were to be forced to take sides I'd agree with neither. Rice Mother is a rice goddess, and since peasants are nothing if not industrious producers and consumers of rice she is also their goddess of plenty, of celebrations, of life and death and famine, etcetera. In other words Rice Mother is the peasant goddess. Krala, on the other chopstick, is the overarching goddess of the earth, similar to Ernalda in central Genertela. Krala is the wife of the ruling sun deity, she is the patroness of life and birth and riches and death for the non-peasant classes. The peasantry ignore her because she isn't particularly concerned with those who scrabble in her flesh for a living. But they acknowledge that she is the mother and lawful ruler of their Rice Mother, and as such she is an ancestor too and worthy of worship.

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