Sun Goddess & Petroglyphs

The Bear stars had guided peoples up north and the Pole star was their still centre of the universe. The Ursa Major was seen as a great source of celestial powers. She was the image of the source of life. The Bear Mother thought to bear her cubs parthogenetically, because she emerged from the hibernation cave with her cubs, alone and after being in there for months. The Great Bear was seen as a great avatar of resurrection, of life after death, as her cubs were born in the winter cave miraculously. Clearly at Nämforsen, with its great number of petroglyphs portraying elk cows and spirit boats with elk cows heads, the elk cow was the original Mother animal who gave shamanic powers to the ancestral mother of the clan. It was the ancient Mother of the animals, the Birthing sky and earth Mother, who was honoured and communicated with here.

Further north in Sweden from Nämforsen and near Umeå there is another great river called Norrforsen. Some sixty or so petroglyphs were discovered there as late as 1984. It was only when archaeologists dragged a torch along the rocks, where they guessed such images might be found, that they were discovered. Perhaps they were meant to be seen during moonlit rituals? These images are younger and from ca. 2100 BCE. Here the elk cows appear as if X-rayed and the ships no longer have elk cows heads on their prows. Here was a major summer camp for salmon fishing. What strikes me at Nämforsen and especially at Norrforsen is that the elks are carved on great red-coloured boulders where there are fissures looking like vaginal clefts, and it is as if the elks are born out of the living menstrual rock. [Above - Nordic Sun Goddess & petroglyphs]

In the Paleolithic Ice Age caves there are vulva-like red ochre chasms where painted murals are to be found of animals, often pregnant. Below the chasms there is the whispering and roaring of the waters in the Underworld. Did the ancient peoples communicate at such numinous places with the spirits of the dead, both animal and human, as well as those about to be born? Animals were our equals in early Shamanic cultures. Did the Ancestors speak from the watery depths through shamans, women and men? All waters were sacred to the Mother and water remembers. Blood-waters flow in our bodies and brains: our menstrual cycle corresponds with the tides and lunar changes. Mind was surely born as ancient women studied the lunar movements across the skies.

Petroglyphs

Nearly all Siberian peoples have common names for the woman shaman or Shamanka, which indicates how ancient it is, and the word for woman shaman relates to the Mongol word for Earth Goddess. In different Altaic and Finno-Ugric tribes (such as the Saami) the woman shaman was named after the two Bear constellations Ursa Major and Ursa Minor. The Great Bear Mother or Ursa Major was seen of supreme importance to all Arctic peoples. She was the great Shaman Goddess who later became known as Artemis/Diana and was brought by horse-riding Amazon women from the Russian steppes. These Amazon women warriors, who ever since the Bronze Age fought to defend the ancient rights of the Mothers, founded many cities such as Ephesus in Turkey, where their great temple of the many-breasted Diana was one of the wonders of the ancient and classical worlds. Originally She was the Great Mother of the wild animals that had survived from the Paleolithic age. She also took the form of a great Elk cow.

Did the people who painted the petroglyphs in the great rivers communicate with the animals born from the womb of the great Elk Mother? Were they atoning for the hunt to follow? Surely they knew that the clefts in the rocks or cliffs were gateways between the world of the living and that of the dead. I have come across, in both north and south Sweden, huge cleft boulders that give the impression of having been used as sacred sites of death and rebirth. One such boulder in Skåne down in the south reveals walls of purple crystal within its vulva-like passage. The story goes that it broke in half when thrown by a giant or troll. Sick children would be pulled through natural clefts made by tree trunks or branches in the belief that the power or life force of the tree would heal. [Above - Petroglyphs]

I spent a magical night at the time of midsummer, when the sky stays luminous all through the night in the north, with a small group of women at Nämforsen. We had decided that we wanted to communicate with the ancestors that dwell there. We borrowed a boat and rowed out to one of the small islands in the river where there is a mass of spectacular carvings on a sheer cliff-face just above the waters. A few of us started to rhythmically play or tap the rock and entered into a trance state while doing so. It just “happened” and it felt powerful and right, as if we were enacting an ancient ritual.

Was this how the petroglyphs were used? The very powerful energies of that night, as well as the sheer beauty of the sky as it reflected the light in the lakes amongst the dark trees of the forest surrounding the river, has stayed with me ever since. It inspired the painting “Nordic Mother of the Animals” [reproduced on first page of this article]. Was the great Elk or Bear Mother also seen as the ancestress or creator of the humans, as well as the animals who are our sisters and brothers?

This article is taken from the book “The Norse Goddess” by Monica Sjöö [Dor Dama Press, 2000. Details from Meyn Mamvro Publications, 51 Carn Bosavern, St.Just, Penzance, Cornwall TR19 7QX.]

Paintings by Monica Sjöö.