The Philistine name for the fish-tailed White Goddess was Atargatis. Her Syrian name was Astarte. Her Babylonian name was Ishtar. At Der,she was called Derceto,“Whale of Der,”the great Fish-mother who swallowed the phallic god Oannes,prototype of the biblical Jonah. Even Judeo-Christian scriptures admit that Jonah’s whale was female,and he spent three days in her womb (not her stomach) prior to his rebirth.
The myth of the swallowing was really a sexual allegory. The fish was a common symbol of the yoni,as Egyptian Isis took a fish-form in the guise of Abtu,the Abyss,to swallow the penis of Osiris and give him rebirth. While Atargatis and similar manifestations of the goddess were worshipped as fish-tailed mermaids,they were also dreaded as instances of the ubiquitous castration figure ever apparent in men’s dreams and myths:the vagina dentata (toothed vagina),worldwide emblem of make sex fears. It,or she,could swallow up man or god,root and branch,as the sea swallowed the lightning bold and never let it out again.
This goddess figure tended to evoke the dominance of the female over the male. It was he,no she,who was “eaten”or “devoured.”Ancient writings speak of the male sexual function as “putting forth,”or “being taken ,”as opposed to the modern patriarchal terminology. In many primitive languages,the words for “copulate,”and “eat,”are the same;the male is the one who is eaten. Men of Malekula say women’s genitals have a spirit,“which draws us to it so that it may devour us.”Chinese sages claimed that women’s genitals are gateways to immortality,as well as “executioners of men.”It is a well-known principle in psychiatry that both genders fantasize a vulva as a mouth.
In addition to the vagina dentata,another common symbol of the devouring female was the goddess’s spider incarnation,whom the Greeks called Arachne. The revisionist myth says Arachne was only a mortal maiden,turned into a spider by a jealous Athena because she could spin better than Athena herself. Earlier,however,Arachne-the-spider was simply another manifestation of Athena as the goddess who spun the web of fate,and caught souls as a spider catches flies.
Like Atargatis,the Princess of Wands might be regarded as a mysteriously dark,irresistible power,possibly representing a compulsion fraught with peril. She stands for a great force which might be misused or misunderstood. As the symbol of a personality,she is one who would be a valuable friend,but a dangerous enemy.
(Excerpted from The Secrets of the Tarot,Origins,History,and Symbolism,by Barbara G. Walker,(c) 1984,Harper &Row,Publishers.)