B. Their Names
i. We speak first of Those whom the Samothracians call Great Gods, and whom the
Books of the Augurs call the Mighty Gods, for they did not dare to mention Their
terrible names. Indeed, their awful-sounding names were kept secret for untold
ages, until they were revealed by Mnaseas: Axieros, Axiokersa, Axiokersos and
Kasmilos (or Kadmilos). Isopsephia gives the numbers of Their names: 986,
1007, 1276, 571 (or 375). Some say the first three are a Holy Triad, Father,
Mother and Daughter; others say They are two Gods [Axieros, Axiokersos]
attendant on a Goddess [Axiokersa]. The fourth is the Messenger, who completes
the Quaternity; He carries the unmentionable Basket, into which only Initiates
may peer and retain their sanity. Servius says Kasmilos' name is Etruscan,
others say it is Hittite.
ij. Nigidius Figulus, who knew the gorey secrets of Etruscan soothsaying and
magic, swore that it was sacrilege to reveal Their unhallowed story, but some
say the Great Ones came to earth in a flaming star, which shattered the rocks
when it crashed into the island of Samothrace; there the Great Gods made Their
home. They are Lords of the Terrifying Tempest. Their dance is the bedlam of
spears rattled against oxhide shields.
iij. Those who are initiated into the Mysteries of the Great Gods are granted
the Purple Sash and the Magnetic Iron Ring. In this way Initiates stay in
contact with the Great Gods. Artemidorus said that these same Mysteries are
held on an island near Britain.
iv. The Romans were under the protection of the Great Gods, for the Romans were
descended from Aeneas, who came from Troy, and the Trojans were descended from
Dardanos, who came from Samothrace. Dardanos brought sacred images of the Great
Ones with him, and these same images were taken to Rome by Aeneas; this was the
origin of the Roman Great Gods, the Penates, who protected the state for more
than one thousand years.
v. The Samothracian priests who celebrated the frenzied rites of the Great Ones
were called Sai, but Servius said that when their cult was brought to Rome, the
maniacal dancers for the Great Gods were named Salii. These, twice twelve in
number, donned ancient armor and the peaked Phrygian cap. On their left arms
they held the mysterious figure-of-eight shields that had fallen from heaven;
their right hand held the sacred staff, which they beat against their shields,
performing inscrutable ritual gestures. They sang the Carmen Saliare, the
incomprehensible syncopations of which were unintelligible to even the earliest
Romans; all but a few maddening fragments of these unholy verses have been
consigned to the flames.
vi. Some say the Kabeiroi are the same as the Samothracian Great Gods, but They
are Chthonian Crab-Beings said to be descended from Hephaistos, who was raised
in an undersea grotto, and from Kabeiro, who was a daughter of Proteus. Some
say They are Demons who serve Rhea. The principal Kabeiroi are Kabeiros and
Kabeiria, from whom came the three male Kabeiroi, who with Kabeiros are the
Astral Semina (Star Seeds), and three female Kabeirides, who with Kabeiria are
the Elemental Semina (Material Seeds); together They continually recreate the
world. Philo Byblius, who called Them the Children of Sudek (or Saduk), says
They were the first scribes of Thoth, and recorded the dark secrets He divulged
to Them.
vij. Their unutterable names are dark and potent; the youngest He-demon was
named Esmounos (Isopsephia = 1035). These Crabs [Karkinoi] walk cockeyed like
their father, and like Him live in the sea as well as on land; their claws are
like tongs for working metal [karkinoi].
viij. Though Cambyses destroyed the unspeakable sanctuaries of Their worship in
Memphis and other places, Strabo said They were still worshipped in desolate
areas, the Corubanteion in Hamaxitia and the Korubissa in Skepsia. Nonnus told
of two Kabeiroi, Alkon and Eurumedon, transformers of metal, who stood upon the
terrible fire-sprouting rock of Lemnos and brandished blazing bolts; streams of
sparks issued from Their eyes, like the smokey, ruddy glow of Their father's
furnace.
ix. The Idaian Daktuloi are Alchemists and Sorcerers (Goetes), especially
skilled in Drugs and Musical Magic, who dwell on Crete and serve Adresteia of
the Mountains (who is Rhea). They are in two tribes, the thirty-two of the
Left, who are evil Sorcerers, and the twenty of the Right, who banish Spells.
Names of the Daktuloi include Kelmis, Damnameneus and Akmon. They dwell with
Rhea, the Mother of the Gods, some say in the region of Troy; from Her They
learned to transform metals [i.e., alchemy], and She entrusted Zeus, Father of
Gods and Men, to Their care.
x. They are associated with the Kouretes, who danced to protect Zeus and hold
the bottomless Cretan cave where Zeus was born. They came from Their cave in
Mt. Ida in Phrygia to the Cave on Mt. Ida in Crete, for the two are connected.
Some of the Kouretes and Karikines (Kabeiroi) came with the Phoenicians to
Brittany, whence They spread like a plague to Cornwall and Iberia. The rural
folk still fear these dwarfs, and call Them the Korreds or The Old Ones. They
have deep-set, red eyes and shaggy dark skin, and They brought the Dolmen Stones
to these lands. They still dance in circles so ferociously that the grass
ignites beneath Their feet. They live in various caverns and caves, but always
below sea-level.
xi. Likewise the Koroubantes made a sound so hideous and danced so demonically
that even the Titans were driven away from this cave. Tzetzes says They are
Demon Attendants of Rhea, who established their foul grotto on the Samothracian
mountain called Saon. There, in an infernal cave, dwells Zerunthos, a
gargantuan, abominable serpent, splotched in color, with scales horny like the
fingernails of a shriveled corpse. Therein dogs are slaughtered to fulfill
obscene rites.
xij. The Telkhines are seal-people descended from Tartaros and Nemesis
(Damnation and Vengeance) and were great Sorcerers, especially skilled in the
Evil Eye, by which They could transform anything, and They were experts in Craft
and Alchemy. Rhea gave Them Poseidon to be raised, and They made His barbed
trident as well as the viscous sickle by which Ouranos was so cruelly unmanned.
They fought the Gods and were so repugnant to Zeus that He blasted Them with His
thunderbolt, submerging and overturning Their island. They also inhabited
Rhodes before there were people.
xiij. The Telkhines are related to the Bakkhulides and those most frightening
Dead Ones, the Keres, those completely Evil Spirits, shaped like unearthly birds
of prey, who pollute everything and bring blindness and other terrifying
diseases; They inflict horrible death and disaster.
xiv. No Demon is more frightening than Him whom the Etruscans called
Tukhulkha,
a Beast with writhing snakes, vulture's beak, enormous tongue, long ears and
lipless snarl. He pursues poor wretches even after they have died.
xv. Kharun was the Etruscan name for another hideous demon, who has a hooked
nose, obscene pointed donkey ears, flaming eyes [in Greek, kharon means Bright-
or Fierce-eyed], a goatee, vicious wolf-fangs, a monkey face, revolting
greenish-grey skin, wings (sometimes) and terrifying serpents for hair.
He uses
his mallet to smash the skulls and splatter the brains of the dead and dying.
There are several Kharuns (whom the Italians call Caronte), including Kharun
Khunkhulis and Kharun Hut's. Kharun and Tukhulkha (whom we see on the walls of
the
Tomba dell'Orco
in Tarquinia), both have winged feet, which shows they are
Angels of Death.
xvi. Do not forget the Dioskouroi.
xvij. The Kimmerioi (Assyrian Gimirri), upon whom the Sun never shines, likewise
dwell around foul-smelling, bottomless Lake Avernus, which is a Gate to the land
of the Dead Ones. In
Book I of The Janid of Apollonius the Adept
we read:
The Sibyl led a band not far away,
To Baiae, where they found Avernus Lake,*
[*mod. Lago Averno, a water-filled volcanic crater]
Exhaling hellish airs in gloomy woods,
A lake whose roots reach down to Tartaros.
A giant cavern, Orcus' maw, they took
As their abode, a dark and sunless realm.
The people, called Kimmerioi, put therein
Their smithies, forging famous wares of bronze,
And Orgullae* they named their buried homes.
[*an obscure word that may refer to earthen or clay vessels]
Where flow the vapors and the waters black
From Aita*, there the Sibyl placed her shrine, [*Hades]
Delivering oracles with raving mouth.
Aeneas and Odysseus, wandering each
From Illium, saw the crone, much shrunk with age*.
[*c. 1175 BCE; she would have been in her 80's]
Sources
Arrowsmith, Field Guide, 65-8, 92-3.
Betz, Greek Magical Papyri.
Bonnefoy, Grk. & Egyp. Myth., 85-6.
Bonnefoy, Rom. & Eur. Myth., 41-2.
Cole, Theoi Megaloi, 2-3, 29-30, 100-2.
Gantz, Early Greek Myth, 147-9.
Lewis, Samothrace: Anc. Lit. Sources, 69-73, 75-82, 87.
Luck, Arcana Mundi, 163-75.
McCown, Ephesia Grammata, Trans. Am. Phil. Assoc., Vol. LIV, 1923.
Nonnus, Dionysiaca, XIV.17-22, XXIX.193-96, 213-14, XXXIII.326.
Oxford Classical Dictionary, s.vv. Cabiri, Carmen Saliare, Cimmerians,
Curetes, Idaean Dactyls, Keres, Magic, Salii, Telchines.
Pagel & Winder, "The Eightness of Adam and Related 'Gnostic' Ideas in the
Paracelsian Corpus," Ambix, Vol. XVI (1969).
Pallottino, Etruscans, 283, 290; pll. 45, 83.
xv. Kharun was the Etruscan name for another hideous demon, who has a hooked
nose, obscene pointed donkey ears, flaming eyes [in Greek, kharon means Bright-
or Fierce-eyed], a goatee, vicious wolf-fangs, a monkey face, revolting
greenish-grey skin, wings (sometimes) and terrifying serpents for hair.
He uses
his mallet to smash the skulls and splatter the brains of the dead and dying.
There are several Kharuns (whom the Italians call Caronte), including Kharun
Khunkhulis and Kharun Hut's. Kharun and Tukhulkha (whom we see on the walls of
the
Tomba dell'Orco
in Tarquinia), both have winged feet, which shows they are
Angels of Death.
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