{"id":320,"date":"2008-10-22T10:33:00","date_gmt":"2008-10-22T10:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/omeoflittlefaith\/2008\/10\/afterlife-preview-the-death-deity.html"},"modified":"2008-10-22T10:33:00","modified_gmt":"2008-10-22T10:33:00","slug":"afterlife-preview-the-death-deity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2008\/10\/afterlife-preview-the-death-deity.html","title":{"rendered":"Afterlife Preview: The Death Deity"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s time for another <\/span>sneak preview of Pocket Guide to the Afterlife<\/span>, which releases next year from Jossey-Bass<\/a> (along with Pocket Guide to Sainthood<\/span> and a repackaged Pocket Guide to the Bible<\/span>). The following is one of the lists from the final chapter, which is helpfully titled “The Afterlists.”<\/p>\n

———–<\/p>\n

Seven Random Names and Descriptions of the Death Deity in Various Cultures<\/span><\/p>\n

1. <\/span>Ah Puch, <\/span>the bell-wearing, owl-headed, skeleton-bodied god of death (Mayan mythology).<\/p>\n

2. <\/span>Giltine,<\/span> a formerly pretty young thing who was trapped in a coffin for seven years and emerged as a horrible old woman with a long blue noise and freaky-lickin\u2019 poisonous tongue (Lithuanian paganism).<\/p>\n

3. <\/span>The Grim Reaper, <\/span>a black-hooded, gown-wearing, skeletal creep with a scythe (Western\/English pop mythology).<\/p>\n

4.<\/span> Izanami,<\/span> the maggot-infested goddess of death who takes 1,000 lives a day (Japanese mythology).<\/p>\n

5.<\/span> Joe Black,<\/span> the scruffily handsome character played by Brad Pitt in the 1998 film remake Meet Joe Black<\/span> (American cinema).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>6. <\/span>Marzanna,<\/span> an old woman in white clothes, carrying a green sprout (Slavic paganism).<\/p>\n

7. <\/span>Yama,<\/span> the green-skinned Lord of death who rides a water buffalo (Hindu mythology).<\/p>\n

————-<\/p>\n

Bonus Material:<\/span><\/p>\n

Most recognizable death deity? <\/span>The Grim Reaper.<\/p>\n

Most disgusting death deity?<\/span> Izanami.<\/p>\n

Most frightening death deity?<\/span> Yama, by far. That’s him at right.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Regular living person who may, in fact, actually be a death deity?<\/span> Keith Richards, who I’m pretty sure has been dead for a few years now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s time for another sneak preview of Pocket Guide to the Afterlife, which releases next year from Jossey-Bass (along with Pocket Guide to Sainthood and a repackaged Pocket Guide to the Bible). The following is one of the lists from the final chapter, which is helpfully titled “The Afterlists.” ———– Seven Random Names and Descriptions…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,46,44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lists","category-pocket-guide-to-the-afterlife","category-pocket-guides"],"yoast_head":"\nAfterlife Preview: The Death Deity - O Me of Little Faith<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2008\/10\/afterlife-preview-the-death-deity.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Afterlife Preview: The Death Deity - O Me of Little Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It’s time for another sneak preview of Pocket Guide to the Afterlife, which releases next year from Jossey-Bass (along with Pocket Guide to Sainthood and a repackaged Pocket Guide to the Bible). 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Follow him at twitter and jasonboyett.com.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/author\/jboyett"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/84"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}