The religious beliefs of the Pistrix are so deeply rooted in the daily lives of their people that they have no name and, at times, aren't even classified as religious. There is no division of beliefs into different religions, or different branches of the same religion, but rather basic beliefs shared by almost everyone and a myriad of traditions tied to the place where the cult is practiced.
This is henotheism (from the Ancient Greek εἷς/heîs "one" and θεός/theós "god"), a type of religion that differs from true monotheism because it accepts the presence of other deities, in addition to the principal one, but categorizes them as generally unworthy of worship or at least inferior to the greater deity around which the entire cult is built.
Thalassa
Known locally by a myriad of names (or even no name at all), Thalassa is the principal deity of the Pistix religious cult, and represents the ocean itself.
Thalassa has no mortal body, but is the water itself in which creatures live, sentient, knowing, and older than any other deity, which she herself gave birth to. She can reproduce both by parthenogenesis and through a special process called "the Dream," in which its inhabitants give her their thoughts as raw material from which to draw the forms of imagined creatures.
Thalassa gives rise to both aquatic and land-based life; the latter was created specifically to harness the power of the Sun (one of the deities Thalassa gave birth to) to create food and resources that will ultimately return to the water. Wood, for example, a material that comes from the earth, is considered a product of the Sun.
Thalassa is also called: the Mother, Sea, Tethys, Ocean, or simply She in colloquial speech.
Curiously, Thalassa is also the name of an ancient deity in the human world: in Greek mythology, θάλασσα1, literally "sea," is a divine female personification of the collective salt waters. Her name may be of pre-Greek origin and connected to the name of the primordial Mesopotamian sea goddess Tiamat.
The Roman mythographer Hyginus (c. 64 BC – 17 AD), in the preface to his Fabulae, calls Mare (another name for Thalassa, as we have already mentioned) the daughter of Aether and Dies (day), and therefore the sister of Terra and Caelus (Sky).
It is extremely interesting to note that the words for this ancient deity are the same for humans and pistrix, although this is likely a loanword from human languages, which the pistrix have voluntarily assimilated in their attempt to appear as human as possible.
Minor Deities
In pistrix religious practices, not all individuals worship minor deities, limiting themselves (but not always) to acknowledging their existence.
Some of the most widely recognized children of Thalassa appear to be:
The Sun (also known as the Great Light or Helios). Elder pistrix communities, living at greater depths, tend not to recognize him as a major deity, but as one of Thalassa's minor children, albeit one of the mother's most beloved. The Sun is credited with creating the shipworm, or turu (Teredo navalis). Since the turu is a protandrous hermaphrodite, it is believed that the Sun is also a protandrous hermaphrodite, but that its cycle of transformation from male to female repeats itself every year, thus explaining the temperature difference between winter and summer.
Frozen Waters, also known as Sedna (a name borrowed from Inuit cultures, where she is known as ᓯᑦᓇ Sitna, ᓯᐊᑦᓇ Siatna, ᓴᑦᓇ Satna, or ᓴᓐᓇ Sanna), is the personification of low temperatures and the collective of creatures that thrive in such conditions. Among the indigenous people of Canada, Sedna is known as "the one far below," or as the woman of the depths or the one who does not want a husband. For the Pistrix, Frozen Waters is depicted as a pale seal with large, icy eyes. It is sometimes accompanied by a school of Channichthyidae, or icefish.
Dead Waters, curiously a representation of freshwater, areas where pistrix cannot venture. Although full of life, freshwater frightens pistrix: the danger is almost invisible, death comes relatively quickly. Dead Waters is generally depicted as a naga with an extremely emaciated body, a completely black face, and white eyes. Sometimes it is drawn with "green threads," probably a way to represent grass, a type of plant with which pistrix are not very familiar with.
The Storm God, also known as Dagon, is one of the least influential deities in the lives of pistrix, concerned only with rain and wind, phenomena that interact with the surface of the sea, but not with the depths where pistrix reside. He is often depicted as a huge fish-man, with the upper body resembling that of a deep-sea predator, and the lower body resembling human legs. He is sometimes depicted with arms, and one of his attributes is monoliths, through which he controls the weather.
Ryūjin, the Dragon God, whose dominion is not uniformly recognized: some populations believe he has power over the changing of the tides, others over medicine, still others that he is simply one of the sons of Dead Waters, and as such is weaker, and less important, than the deities born directly from Thalassa. He is depicted as a dragon with a long, thin body, a blue body, a red crest, and three fingers on each hand. His rage is said to be capable of destroying immense areas, but he is not often enraged, and he normally sleeps in his coral
Certain actions are considered blasphemous by the pistrix against Thalassa and are met with disdain by society. One of the most serious blasphemies is referring to a creator deity with male pronouns, or even with a male name, as the very concept of creation (as well as, obviously, that of childbirth) is connected to the concept of femininity.
The implication of the existence of male sea deities, such as Poseidon, is considered blasphemy of the highest order.
Thalassa does not directly punish blasphemies in those who practice them, but simply "withdraws" her protection from the blasphemer, leaving them to wander the sea in a condition the pistrix define as "naked," meaning alone against all the creatures that live in the oceans, disconnected from the inner cycle of life and death, destined to become nothing more than prey in desperate flight. Blasphemous individuals are not supported and helped by pistrix society, a way for them to show their naked condition, deprived of the immense grace of Thalassa.
Gallery of images (Click to enlarge!)
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