Question about Badaga Goddess

[shadefell]

Several years ago I took a really cool ethnography class on India, Pakistan, and Ceylon. The professor had traveled extensively and taken lots of notes on local folklore. He mentioned one goddess named "Hete" or "Hette" who had 3 ages: maiden, mother, and crone or child/unmarried woman, married woman/mother, crone/widow. She was associated with

Comments

[jadeprince]

Maybe Hekate? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hecate

[kayt_arminta]

Maybe it's another incarnation of the fates? That's how they appear, the maiden, the mother and the crone

[omizu]

It sounds like you're referring to the Indian goddess Parvati. She's known by about a hundred different names depending on where you're at in India.

[wordsofastory]

The maiden/mother/crone set is really common with goddess all across the world. I don't remember hearing of one named Hete, though, sorry.

[felis_ultharus]

I did find this dictionary:

A Badaga-English dictionary.

It describes Ette/Hette as a term meaning grandmother, or a term of respect for an older woman. It describes Ette/Hette as an ancestral goddess - prusmably derived from the term you'd use to address a grandmother. It mentions Ma:si Hette - a title meaning moonlike Hette.

Another source I found googling mentions her as a consort of the ancestral god Hiriodea, who is sometimes described as an aspect of Shiva - again as an ancestral goddess of the Badaga. I also learnt she has temples dedicated to her.

This page has a general overview of Badaga religion.