Sea Gods - Under the Sea Theme

As we tread along on our voyage Under the Sea this month, Quizmaster Andi invoked four gods of the sea! She found four pantheons across the globe and a description of each of the rulers of the depths. However, one of them is an imposter! She completely made it up! See if you can fish out the real gods or goddesses from the fake one along with hosts Tanner and Sups! 

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Transcript

Tanner 0:01

If she made that name up, she's really swinging for the fences cuz that is woo

Sups 0:06

masterpiece

Andi 0:09

my liver. I left that back on the island. We have to go back. So the jellyfish took the monkey back and the monkey was like, bye, I'm He runs a fowl of Maui. Oh,

Tanner 0:20

Oh no. probably Yeah.

Sups 0:22

the Rock Johns. That's the only connection

Tanner 0:26

Yeah, You're

Andi 0:27

welcome. Hello and welcome to this episode of the I Should Have Known podcast, the trivia podcast that can't be trusted each week. Ay master presents you with four big facts on a topic, but one of those facts is a lie. We are under the sea this month and I will be your host this week. I'm Andy I'm doing a find the fake episode of See Gods. So I will present you with four. See Gods, but one of them I made up. So join our other hosts, soups and Tanner in figuring out which one is the lie. of them are from actual pantheons from cultures around the world. The one I made up this one is entirely invented. But the Pantheon exists.

Sups 1:11

All right?

Tanner 1:11

got it. So

Andi 1:12

We're gonna start with. The low hanging fruit. Okay. In the Greek tradition, who is the Olympian? God of the sea? And what is the name of his Roman counterpart?

Tanner 1:21

Greek one is Poseidon.

Andi 1:23

Mm-hmm.

Tanner 1:23

And the Roman one is the same as the planet

Sups 1:26

Neptune

Andi 1:26

yeah. Yeah. So Poseidon is Greek and Roman is Neptune. And specifically that is the Olympian god of the sea And they are like basically two sets of Gods. Where there are the primordial gods who were overthrown by Zeus and his siblings who became the Olympian gods on Olympus. So there are a ton of primordial gods of the sea in the Greek tradition, but they were all usurped and killed, or. ton away with Yeah. When Poseidon became the

Sups 1:55

I mean, he's the one who prevailed.

Tanner 1:57

Right? That's kind of cool.

Andi 1:58

yeah, that's Greek and Roman.

Tanner 1:59

Mm-hmm.

Andi 2:00

Yeah,

Tanner 2:00

So we're not gonna talk about the Greek Roman ones today?

Andi 2:03

just in the low hanging fruit. God, number one, jibu the mite God of the Red Sea.

Tanner 2:12

Well that's a mouthful.

Sups 2:14

It's got some Egyptian God or.

Andi 2:16

so it's mite who were an ancient, people who lived in Southwest Arabian Peninsula, which is now Yemen. Okay. They were known to the Greeks. They called them the Homer Rights. Mm-hmm. Maybe you've heard of Homer rights. It's the same people. Yeah. So MK was an empire in this region. Mm-hmm. much of their territory was on the coast of the Red Sea. Mm-hmm. I was looking at this one because I was like, Arabia is famously a desert. So I was like, do they have sea

Tanner 2:43

What's the sea God in the desert? Yeah.

Andi 2:45

Yeah. So this is the God of the Red Sea. this is from pre Islamic Arabian tradition. So there are several cultures. on the Arabian Peninsula who had kind of a. Sort of shared, but also different pantheons of gods that they worshiped before Islam. Mm-hmm. And the human rights call him a man. So he is a tutelary god.

Tanner 3:07

tutelary

Andi 3:07

Tutelary means a protector. Oh. So he's a benevolent God. Mm-hmm. And he's also the personification of the Red Sea. So not a lot is known about this religion because not a lot of texts remain. but there were shrines to him, On the coast, and we assume that you would give an offering if you were gonna go out to sea, Usually these offerings were goat shaped. And yeah. So you'd wish for good luck,

Tanner 3:35

Mm-hmm.

Sups 3:35

That's a weird choice of animal for a sea water. God. Yeah. You know?

Andi 3:40

dunno why

Sups 3:41

Yeah. Goat, that's like a Capricorn

Andi 3:42

thing, I guess. I don't know.

Sups 3:43

Okay.

Tanner 3:44

goat. Yeah. What

Andi 3:45

What does he look like Humans. So we don't have any like specific. stories of him doing activities. but there's the story of his creation. So their highest federation is for the goddess of the sun the moon and Venus. Okay. so Venus and the Moon were male, and Shams was the son goddess. She's the patron God of MK to these people that we're talking about. And she gave birth, I don't know exactly to who, but it said that the blood from her birth, Flowed and became the Red Sea. Oh. Because the Red Sea has like red algae in it. Okay. So it kind of looks like blood in the fall. or in other traditions? It's Kanya Jibu who is giving birth. Oh. And that's blood. So The gender switch.

Tanner 4:35

Mm-hmm. It makes sense though why it's connected with that water. Mm-hmm. Because it's the Red Sea. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Hmm, interesting. I don't know much about the Red Sea or this area in general. But I, I have never heard of this culture.

Sups 4:48

yeah. I haven't, I mean, I know about this empire Yeah. But it's the first time I'm hearing about this

Tanner 4:53

Yeah. I'm kind of. Skeptical of it, partly because I've never heard of it, but I'm sure I'm not going to have heard of any of these. But like I've Never heard of these people.

Sups 5:03

Yeah. The other thing that stands out to me, if this were to be fake the name itself so that's where I could like, you know. Okay. This could be fake, like, this is the name that you made up.

Tanner 5:14

If she made that name up, she's really swinging for the fences cuz that is woo

Sups 5:19

masterpiece Okay. But we're only down God number

Tanner 5:23

Yeah.

Andi 5:24

God number two is Rubin, the Shinto Dragon, king of the Sea.

Tanner 5:28

Okay. So we're in

Sups 5:29

Japan. This one is Japan.

Andi 5:30

Yes, we are in Japan. so yeah, Shinto is like the traditional religion of Japan before Buddhism. is a dragon. like literally a dragon. Mm-hmm. And he lives on a palace of red and white coral at the bottom of the sea. Oh, He is also to toula God. He is considered the guardian of the sea and a benevolent God.

Sups 5:53

Mm-hmm.

Andi 5:54

He controls the tides using the tide jewels. Sure. There are a lot of stories about

Tanner 6:00

are there depictions? Does he look like the stereotypical Chinese dragon

Andi 6:04

where yes, he is the East Asian style dragon, long, skinny serpent, esque, but then has like a almost lion headed

Tanner 6:12

face mm-hmm. kind of thing with

Andi 6:13

He is credited with singing a Mongolian flotilla sent by Kuan and also for defeating the Korean fleet. When Japan went to Invade Korea, Uhhuh, he used his Thai jewels to help Japan win

Tanner 6:29

Oh, he is very protective.

Sups 6:31

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Andi 6:31

And he's of course also considered to be an ancestor of the I Japanese Imperial family. Oh, wow. Because they're descendant. They all are. Yeah.

Sups 6:39

of course.

Tanner 6:39

the dragon king. Can you tell us about the Shinto pantheon a little bit. It Is he at the head of it?

Andi 6:44

there isn't as like clear of a pantheon on the Shinto religion it's more individualized. So you would have like a specific God who is like your idol that you would worship to. And there are many shrines all over mm-hmm. To Eugene

Tanner 6:59

Oh.

Andi 7:00

you would go and ask favors whatever particular God you wanted to. a lot of the myths around him are animal related, there's kinda a famous Japanese myth of how the jellyfish lost its bones. Yeah, he's the dragon king who tasks the jellyfish with trying to get a monkey liver, but the jellyfish gets tricked by the monkey. So It captures a monkey from the island, and the jellyfish is bragging. Like, I've got the monkey, I'm gonna get the liver for the dragon king. And the monkey's like my liver. I left that back on the island. We have to go back. So the jellyfish took the monkey back and the monkey was like, bye, I'm not coming back in the water. And so the story goes that as punishment, Eugene removed all of the jellyfishes bones, either magically or by. beating. the out of it,

Sups 7:45

Okay.

Andi 7:46

depending on think it's

Sups 7:48

Yeah.

Andi 7:48

That's a pretty famous Japanese myth.

Tanner 7:50

Okay. I've heard this story dragons fit with Japanese culture. I don't see many areas where this could be a lie.

Sups 7:57

Between the first and the second. I think this is more believable,

Tanner 8:00

Yeah. Just cuz it's more familiar.

Sups 8:02

yeah, I think I'm fairly confident

Tanner 8:04

I'm leaning towards believing that one, but we're only halfway done.

Andi 8:07

Okay. God. Number three. The Inuit Goddess of the Sea and Queen of the Dead.

Tanner 8:14

Oh, interesting. The Inuit.

Andi 8:17

So the Inuit people, if you don't know, are various peoples of the far North north America, Greenland, but also in Finland and Northern Russia. Mm-hmm. It's the Arctic. So Sedna is kind of the famous name, but different groups of Inuit. People have different names in Greenland, she has a different name. and the myths vary a little bit, but they all agree on a couple key things. So one is that sedna is not nice.

Sups 8:42

Mm,

Andi 8:43

Sedna is mean.

Sups 8:45

Mm-hmm. Oh,

Tanner 8:46

no.

Andi 8:46

She is typically depicted as Aron. So an old woman. Mm-hmm. Sometimes she's shown as kind of a mermaid. sometimes a walrus

Tanner 8:57

I was, gonna ask what an ice mermaid would be. And I guess a walrus really

Andi 9:01

fits. Yeah. Yeah. So she's a, walrus. she has long flowing black hair and no fingers. she has no fingers.

Tanner 9:09

It's not frostbite is it?

Andi 9:10

No, it's related to her origin myth. So Sedna was a, beautiful young maiden once, and there's a whole bunch of things about whether she would marry at all or she gets seduced by a bird spirit or where she spites her father by shunning all of his suitors and marrying a dog some stories. She just is just hanging out with her family. But what happens is they're all on a kayak or a boat of some kind, and there's a storm. And her father tosses her overboard. So as she tries to climb back onto the boat and grasps the edge of the boat,

Tanner 9:45

Oh no. She

Andi 9:46

chopped her fingers off and she sank it to the sea and her fingers became sea animals. Oh, so the first seals or lots of other kinds of sea animals, especially big mammals. So then she sank into the bottom of the sea and now it rolled over ad Levon, which is the unreachable ice Palace. She rules

Tanner 10:06

at the bottom of the sea

Andi 10:07

the

Tanner 10:07

the

Sups 10:07

guys. Nice. Cool. that's an awesome story.

Andi 10:09

Yeah, yeah, So if you want to gain her favor, you have to comb her hair Because she has no fingers to do it herself.

Tanner 10:16

yeah.

Sups 10:17

Uh, that's so cute. Okay.

Tanner 10:19

Gain her favor.

Andi 10:20

Little mermaid.

Tanner 10:21

Yeah. oh my goodness. So she's also the goddess of the

Andi 10:26

Mm-hmm.

Tanner 10:26

queen dead. Queen of the dead because she rules where the dead go. Mm-hmm. Huh. So she's not like the devil where she's totally bad. No,

Andi 10:34

No, she's just mean, she's has a lot of similarities with Hades or Pluto. Yeah. In the Greek Pantheon where she is Queen of the dead rules over the dead kind of goth and angry, but like isn't exactly evil like a

Tanner 10:48

Right? Right.

Andi 10:49

okay,

Tanner 10:49

Okay. pretty creative if she made

Sups 10:53

it up. That's, I, I like the whole part about like the dad just going crazy

Tanner 10:58

cho her fingers off her fingers.

Sups 11:00

I mean, that's origin. Yeah. Yeah.

Tanner 11:02

And then the creation of all the animals

Sups 11:04

Right. Right. I think that's, very Andy revealed that this is fake. Like I think one yes. But that's cool

Tanner 11:12

I would think that the Inuit people would have a god of the sea they go out on the water all the time.

Sups 11:16

They,

Tanner 11:16

Yeah, for sure.

Sups 11:18

Mm-hmm.

Tanner 11:18

All right. Last one.

Andi 11:20

God, number four. Te tuna, the Polynesian God of eels.

Tanner 11:26

we know this is a seafaring culture. They definitely would've a god of the sea.

Andi 11:29

So I say Polynesian because several different cultures within this region have different myths related to this. God, he is not only God of eels, he is a giant eel. Oh, Yeah. Awesome.

Sups 11:44

by this

Tanner 11:44

region you mean the Pacific?

Andi 11:46

Yes. So the islands of the Pacific. most of what I have is from the Tahitian tradition and the Maori,

Tanner 11:52

Cool.

Andi 11:52

yeah. So he's a giant eel.

Tanner 11:53

Oh my God.

Andi 11:55

And he either is married to or attracted to hee or heena, who is a goddess. And He runs a fowl of Maui. Oh,

Tanner 12:07

Oh no. probably Yeah.

Sups 12:10

the Rock Johns. That's the only connection

Tanner 12:13

Yeah, You're

Andi 12:14

welcome. Yeah, precisely. Yeah. So Maui is one of the main characters in Moana. Mm-hmm. the Tahitian tradition, his wife leaves him because she's like, I don't wanna be with a giant eel anymore. And. she like tries to hook up with these other guys and they're all afraid of Her ex, except Maui, he does not fear. Tauna. So they get into a dual. The rules of the dual are that can't hit the other one on the outside. So you have to kill them from the inside.

Tanner 12:45

Well, that's a weird rule.

Andi 12:47

Yeah. Well, so then Maui the story goes that he shrink himself down. And then got into Tuna's head and went normal size and

Tanner 12:55

it again. Yeah. Tauna was never gonna win that

Andi 12:57

Yeah. That was stupid. Yeah. So depending on, again, on your tradition in the Tahitian tradition, HEK and Maui buried the pieces of Tuna's head and from it sprung the coconut tree.

Tanner 13:10

Oh.

Andi 13:10

So he's also a god of coconuts.

Tanner 13:12

Well, that's

Sups 13:12

Uh, is, is that's why coconuts are hard outside and soft inside

Andi 13:17

Maybe. I don't know. Maybe. Okay. I like

Tanner 13:20

figured it out.

Andi 13:21

the Maui version, I don't like as much. It's pretty rapy. Oh. But Maui kills him in that as well. And the pieces become various fish, especially eels. So it's a little different. In the Maori tradition yeah, you can imagine what a giant eel God would represent or be symbolic of

Tanner 13:40

Is he good or mean or No,

Andi 13:43

seen as kind of like a monster. cuz usually when you hear of myths about Maui, it's like he's the hero. The pre, he's a kind of like a Hercules Hercules character. He's the kind of hero. He goes out, he has to do a bunch of different tasks in order to redeem himself one of them is killing

Tanner 13:59

Okay. The

Andi 14:00

eel. So

Tanner 14:01

he's like the nian lion.

Andi 14:02

Yeah. Okay. So he's kind of more of a monster. Yeah. Than like a true god, but I just thought he was cool. He's a giant eel,

Tanner 14:08

pretty cool.

Sups 14:09

Okay.

Tanner 14:10

Hmm. God of eels.

Sups 14:12

Yeah. I mean, this one sounds right. Yeah,

Tanner 14:15

I could imagine that these cultures have a god of eels. Sure.

Sups 14:18

not? Sure.

Tanner 14:19

it's also pretty out there. Like none of the other ones were a monster. Like I guess a dragon, but

Sups 14:24

not

Tanner 14:25

you want someone to destroy it.

Sups 14:27

Yeah. What I really liked about these four gods is that they're all in a spectrum.

Tanner 14:31

Mm-hmm. They all

Sups 14:32

have like of

Tanner 14:34

right? Yeah. You got the benevolent. the protectors of a certain culture, but also kills monkeys. You have Yeah. All, different

Sups 14:41

yeah.

Andi 14:42

I

Tanner 14:42

I think it

Andi 14:43

speaks to the duality of the sea, Is that to humans, the sea is both this life sustaining place. Mm-hmm. But also a very dangerous and unpredictable place, and so it makes sense that Gods would be, Similarly unpredictable

Sups 14:58

anthropological statement. I love it. I love it. Okay. Well, so we have to guess one of the gods that you made up. But before we do, you just remind us of the four gods?

Andi 15:11

Yeah. God, number one. The mite God of the Red Sea God, number two. Eugene, the Shinu dragon, king of the Sea, God. Number three, The Inuit goddess of the sea and Queen of the dead and God. Number four, Tauna, Polynesian, God of eels. One of those is fake.

Tanner 15:45

Wow. you did a really good job, because none of them jumps out as fake to me.

Andi 15:50

Well, I will remind you all the pantheons are real.

Sups 15:53

Yes. Right. It's a god. I think. It's between two and three.

Tanner 15:58

Okay.

Sups 15:59

I'm leaning more towards three. The innovate God. Yeah. this sit now, Hmm.

Tanner 16:04

Mm-hmm. I have a this. I really like that story. Yeah. I feel like there were some parts where I was like, this sounds like a story she would make up,

Sups 16:12

Which one were you thinking?

Tanner 16:13

be honest, I'm still kind of stuck on the first one. Okay.

Sups 16:17

But

Tanner 16:17

I. Feel like the second one is in there to

Sups 16:19

Mm-hmm. Hmm. Yes.

Tanner 16:21

it's very easy for me to believe that. Yeah. But maybe it's from Dragon ballsy. Maybe it's

Sups 16:26

Yeah, I know, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

Tanner 16:28

I think it's the

Sups 16:29

drink okay? I think it's number three.

Andi 16:31

Okey doke. Yeah. The fake God is unfortunately for me, Kaji, Yara God, number one.

Tanner 16:40

No

Andi 16:40

As far as I could tell, there are absolutely zero sea gods in the pre-Islamic Arabian mythology. And if you know Arabic.

Tanner 16:51

I was wondering if the name was Arabic,

Andi 16:53

you might notice. I kind of butchered it a bit, you know, I'm sure. But, Ka Jibu roughly means I should have known in Arabic.

Tanner 17:02

why it's Oh

Sups 17:03

Yeah.

Andi 17:04

Wow.

Sups 17:06

Well played, Well played, Wow. Yeah.

Andi 17:09

It's a rough translation, Should have done my

Sups 17:12

my lingo lesson for Arabic this

Andi 17:15

yeah. So the submitted cultures, which many of these groups are considered part of pre Judaism mm-hmm. pre Christianity and pre Islam, they worship the stars. stars are most important to them. So, so that was true. The moon, the sun and Venus are usually considered the. Top gods and goddesses in that mythology. But yeah, it's mostly the stars that they care about.

Tanner 17:42

So Gods have short names. Mm-hmm. How can you pray to Kahari, bk.

Sups 17:47

yeah.

Tanner 17:48

too

Andi 17:48

long. You know? this

Tanner 17:49

just too long of a

Sups 17:50

God Yeah.

Tanner 17:51

Yeah.

Andi 17:51

but I thought it sounded kind of God-like

Tanner 17:52

It definitely

Andi 17:53

but also her name is longer than Shams. That's just the short version.

Tanner 17:56

okay.

Andi 17:56

Oh, I made up the, origin story that was entirely invented the Red Sea is red, it looks like blood. I was like, oh, that's from birth. Mm-hmm. Actually a lot of cultures refer to, the water breaking in birth that's where the waters come from, or like, it's kind of a common theme. So water goddesses are also often. Related to fertility. So I was like, oh yeah, it's blood from giving birth.

Tanner 18:16

Wow. I made that up. That's great.

Sups 18:18

what I should have known

Tanner 18:19

I should have known.

Andi 18:21

for listening to this episode of the I Should Have Known podcast. We'll be continuing with our under the Sea theme for the rest of the month, and as always, thanks for listening.

Sups 18:32

I want a monkey.