Cry Havoc, and Let Slip the Gods of War! Quiz

Answer: Akan

The Akan people live in western Africa, in Togo, Ghana and the Ivory Coast. Ta Kora, aka Tano, is the Abosom of war in Akan mythology; Abosom are divine beings who assist humans on earth, and are similar to the Orisha of Yoruba mythology. Priests act as mediums between Abosom and people.

Ta Kora is associated with the Tano River, and is the son of Asase Yaa (Mother Earth) and Nyame (the Creator God). He is a shapeshifter who wields multiple weapons, including a pair of Akrafena (a curved sword, often with symbols on the blade) and a magic gun. He also has dominion over thunder and lightning, and is associated with baboons, fish (he sometimes appears as a huge bearded fish with cowrie shells on his back), elephants, crocodiles and goats. One of Ta Kora's favourite tactics is to disguise himself as a child and infiltrate the enemy's camp, before spreading pestilence among them.

Answer: Yoruba

Ogun is the Yoruba orisha of war, rum and metalwork, and also appears in Candomblé, Santería, Haitian Vodou and West African Vodun. In Yoruba religion, he is associated with dogs, due to them being hunting animals with a reputation for bravery, and spitting cobras. Hunters and blacksmiths will not eat spitting cobras or watch them mate, out of respect for Ogun. He is said to have cleared a path for the other gods using a metal axe, with a dog helping him.

Traditional sacrifices to Ogun include meat (from male animals in Candomblé tradition), palm wine, red palm oil, kola nuts, water and yams. Altars dedicated to him also feature iron objects, such as guns, knives or blacksmithing tools. Traditional Yoruba worshipers, instead of laying hands on a Bible, can kiss a piece of iron in Ogun's name when swearing to tell the truth, while drivers carry iron amulets to protect them from accidents.

Answer: Sumerian

Inanna, the goddess of war, fertility, love, beauty and the planet Venus, is one of the most famous Sumerian goddesses, and was also worshiped under the name of Ishtar or Ashtart by the Akkadians and Babylonians. (Contrary to popular belief, the festival of Easter has nothing to do with her.) She is associated with lions - various statues have depicted her wearing a war helmet and accompanied by a lion - and eight-pointed stars, and her husband is Dumuzid, god of shepherds. Her sukkal, or attendant, is the goddess Ninshubur.

A temperamental goddess, Inanna was depicted as having multiple lovers and a desire for conquest, even traveling to the underworld of Kur with a plan to conquer it. Ereshkigal, her sister, was the ruler of Kur and ordered Inanna to give up one of her items of clothing or jewellery each time she passed through one of the seven gates on the way. By the time Inanna arrived, she was naked and the Anna, the judges of Kur, turned her into a corpse. Ninshubur begged various gods to get Inanna back and Enki, the god of water and crafts, obliged by creating a pair of magical figures, who brought Inanna back to life.

In 'The Epic of Gilgamesh', Gilgamesh turns Inanna down and she gets revenge on him by ordering Anu, god of the heavens, to give her Gugulanna, the Bull of Heaven, which she sics on Gilgamesh and his friend Enkidu. They kill Gugulanna, sacrifice its heart to the sun god Shamash and feed its meat to the poor.

Answer: Aztec

Huitzilopochtli is the Aztec god of war, fire and the Sun, the patron god of both the Aztecs and the Mexica tribe, and the city of Tenochtitlan (which was in what is now Mexico City). He is one of four brothers, the others being Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent god of wind, the planet Venus, the Sun, arts and crafts, and knowledge; Xipe Totec, god of agriculture, the seasons (especially spring) and metalworkers; and Tezcatlipoca, the jaguar god of obsidian, night, hurricanes and conflict. Although several Aztec gods were associated with war - Xipe Totec was said to have invented war, and would flay himself to feed humanity (hence why he was often depicted with flayed skin) - Huitzilopochtli was the main Aztec war god. The animal most associated with him was the hummingbird.

As with many other Aztec deities, humans were sacrificed to Huitzilopochtli, particularly prisoners of war; Toxcatl was Huitzilopochtli's feast day. Humans who had died in battle, and women who died in childbirth, would serve him in his celestial palace. The month of Panquetazaliztli, which took place in November, was dedicated to Huitzilopochtli and it was customary to make a statue of him from amaranth seeds and honey, which would be divided among the people and eaten.

Answer: Hindu

Kali is the Hindu goddess of war, destruction, power and change, and is one of the Mahavidyas, the ten Tantric goddesses. She is often depicted with three eyes, a long tongue, dark blue or black skin, a tiger skin sari, and a belt and necklace made from human skulls. She was born from Durga, the goddess of strength and protection, emerging from her forehead when the demons Chanda and Munda attacked her and made her angry. In other myths, she is born from the goddess Parvati fusing with the god Shiva; Kali is sometimes depicted stepping on him. The reason for this is that Kali was overcome by bloodlust after defeating the demon Daruka, and Shiva pretended to be dead and lay under her feet to stop her (some sources say that Kali is sticking her tongue out because she is embarrassed).

Like many Hindu deities, Kali has multiple arms and carries various weapons, such as a trishula (trident) and sickle, and a kapala (a cup made from a skull, which collects the severed head's blood). Mahakali, an alternative form of Kali, has ten arms and ten heads. The festival of Kali Puja is dedicated to her; worshipers leave offerings of rice and lentils, and in some areas, they sacrifice animals, though this is a rare practice.

Answer: Gaulish

Fans of 'Asterix' might remember the little Gaulish warrior and his friends exclaiming, "By Toutatis!" Toutatis, or Teutates, was a genuine god (as was Belenos, a god of healing), a Gaulish war god and protector of Gaulish tribes, although some historians believe that 'Toutatis' may have been a generic name for tribal protector gods rather than a specific god. The Gauls were said to sacrifice humans to Toutatis, as well as the thunder god Taranis and another god, Esus; while the Aztecs cut out the hearts of the people they sacrificed, the Gauls were thought to have drowned sacrifices to Toutatis.

Because of the Roman occupation of Gaul, Toutatis was sometimes syncretised with Mercury and Mars. Toutatis was also worshiped in Celtic Britain. Silver rings with 'TOT' inscribed on them, believed to be a reference to Toutatis, have been found at archaeological sites in Britain, mainly in Lincolnshire.

Answer: Ancient Egyptian

Sekhmet is the ancient Egyptian goddess of war and medicine, depicted with the head of a lioness. In some myths, she is an alternative aspect of Hathor, the goddess of the sky, who was depicted with either the head of a cow or a headdress with cows' horns. She is the daughter of Ra, the god of the Sun, and the sister of the cat goddess Bastet; later myths conflated the two feline goddesses, with Sekhmet being the more powerful and aggressive side, and Bastet being the gentler side. Sekhmet was married to Ptah, the creator god of craftsmen and architects, and they had a son, Nefertem, who was associated with lotuses; in some myths she has another son, Maahes, a lion-headed war god.

Similar to Kali, Sekhmet had a tendency to go on bloody rampages. In one myth, Ra sent her to attack mortals and she nearly destroyed the world, and was only stopped when Ra tricked her into drinking beer dyed red, which she mistook for blood. Sekhmet was so drunk, she stopped fighting. In some versions, she abandoned Egypt in revenge for Ra tricking her, although Thoth, the god of the moon and writing, managed to talk her into coming back. The ancient Egyptian would honour the goddess at a festival early in the year by getting drunk on wine and dancing, a homage to the original myth.

Answer: Irish

The Morrigan, also known as Anu, is the Irish goddess of war and fate, although she is sometimes depicted as a triple goddess; her three aspects, Badb, Macha and Nemain, are known collectively as the Morrigna. Both the Morrigan and the Badb are associated with crows, and would take the form of a crow during a battle, where the Badb would favour one particular side by causing fear and confusion among the other side. Like the banshee, the cries of the Badb foretold death. Macha was associated with horses, and appeared in various forms; in one myth, where she was married to a farmer called Cruinniuc, she put a curse on the men of Ulster after Cruinniuc bragged that she could outrun the king's horses, with her then being forced to run in a race against the horses while heavily pregnant. Nemain, meanwhile, represented the havoc caused by war.

The Morrigan appears in 'The Cattle Raid of Cooley', where she warns the bull Donn Cuailnge that Queen Medb is plotting to steal him. She offers her love and help to Cú Chulainn, but he repeatedly refuses her, and she attacks him in the form of an eel, a wolf and a cow, although he injures her each time. She later appears as an old woman and gives him milk to drink three times; each time he blesses her, one of her wounds heals. (Of note, the Morrigan is a completely separate being from Morgan le Fay of Arthurian legend, with their names coming from different languages.)

Answer: Armenian

Anahit is one of the more obscure deities in this quiz, and is an ancient Armenian goddess of war, who later became a goddess of water, fertility and healing. She bore some similarities to Anahita, an Indo-Iranian goddess associated with rivers. She was the daughter of Aramazd, the creator god of Armenian Zoroastrianism and equivalent of Ahura Mazda, and formed a triad with him and Vahagn, the god of war, thunder and the Sun. King Artaxias I of Armenia, the founder of the Artaxiad Dynasty, worshiped Anahit and had statues built to honour her.

One of Anahit's main temples was in the city of Erez, now known as Erzincan, in what is now Turkey; every year, the King of Armenia would make a pilgrimage to the temple to offer tribute. In the Armenian calendar, the first month of Navasard began with a festival honouring Anahit, where the sick would visit temples and pray for healing. Because of Anahit's association with water, celebrations honouring her would take place on the banks of rivers such as the Murat.

Answer: Ancient Greek

Ares is the ancient Greek god of war and one of the Twelve Olympians. His Roman counterpart was Mars. While his sister Athena was associated with strategy and battlefield tactics, Ares was associated with violence and the bloodier side of war. His twin sister Eris was the goddess of spite and discord, and the one who caused the Trojan War by bringing a golden apple marked 'To the Fairest' to the wedding of Thetis and Peleus. Ares took the side of the Trojans in the war at Aphrodite's persuasion, while Athena sided with the Greeks, who went on to win.

Ares was Aphrodite's lover and Hephaestus, her husband, caught them in bed together and trapped them in a metal net. Ares and Aphrodite's daughter Harmonia was the goddess of peace and harmony; in some myths, he also fathered Eros, god of love and sex. His sons Phobos and Deimos respectively represented panic and terror, and the two moons of the planet Mars were named after them; he was also the father of the Amazonian queens Penthesilea and Hippolyta. As befitting a war god, Ares had a very nasty temper; in one myth, he grew jealous of Aphrodite's human lover Adonis, and sent a boar to gore him to death (in an alternative version, Ares turned into a boar and killed Adonis in revenge for Adonis raping Erinoma, a human girl).