Episode 421: Bastet
/We’re starting the new year off right: With a goddess who is leading with both her cat face and her titties - Bastet! That’s how we all should enter the new year in my opinion.
Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about or mentions of sexual content, nudity, death, child death, animal death, poisoning, pregnancy, birth, and misogyny.
Housekeeping
- Recommendation: This week, Julia recommends not making New Year's Resolutions.
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Cast & Crew
- Co-Hosts: Julia Schifini and Amanda McLoughlin
- Editor: Bren Frederick
- Music: Brandon Grugle, based on "Danger Storm" by Kevin MacLeod
- Artwork: Allyson Wakeman
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About Us
Spirits is a boozy podcast about mythology, legends, and folklore. Every episode, co-hosts Julia and Amanda mix a drink and discuss a new story or character from a wide range of places, eras, and cultures. Learn brand-new stories and enjoy retellings of your favorite myths, served over ice every week, on Spirits.
Transcript
[theme]
AMANDA: Welcome to Spirits Podcast, a boozy dive into mythology, legends and folklore. Every week, we pour a drink and learn about a new story from around the world. I'm Amanda.
JULIA: And I'm Julia. and Amanda, welcome back to another episode of Denial isn't just a River in Egypt, it's what we've been doing by keeping an Egyptian mythology series from you on Spirits Podcast by Spirits Podcast.
AMANDA: By Spirits Podcast.
JULIA: It just— it never gets easier to say.
AMANDA: But ever more necessary, Julia, I would argue. I highly enjoyed the focus on titties and their adornment on bloodlust and on rage in our last episode of this series of Sekhmet, of course. And I am so excited to see who we're going to start the new year off.
JULIA: Yeah. It is a new year, and we are still plugging away at the Egyptian gods and goddesses. As you mentioned, Amanda, we finished last year with the goddess Sekhmet, the lion goddess. But I felt like, you know, in order to start off this new year right, we should focus in on another feline goddess, and that is the goddess Bastet.
AMANDA: Now, is she the goddess of a more domesticated cat, like perhaps the household kitty?
JULIA: She is kind of. So you might know her as Bast, Bubastis, Pasht, but she's also called the Lady of the East, the Goddess of the Rising Sun and the Sacred and All-Seeing Eye.
AMANDA: Okay.
JULIA: Amanda, you'll notice some ties and some references to previous goddesses that we've referred to, but before we get to all of that, let's talk about how we will recognize Bastet.
AMANDA: Julia, customarily, now I'm gonna need you, anytime we talk about a female goddess, to tell me if the titty is free, adorned, or demurely tucked away.
JULIA: Amanda, you did a fantastic job writing the description for the Sekhmet episode. I just want t—o I want to give a shout outs. I want to give props where props are due.
AMANDA: Oh, thank you. Thank you very much.
JULIA: I am typically the one that writes the descriptions, but Amanda was covering for me the week that the Sekhmet episode came out, and may I say, unhinged in the best way.
AMANDA: Thank you. I'm trying to bring that energy into 2025 where if I'm forced to exist in this world, y'all are gonna know exactly what it's like to be me. And so anytime that I can just put, like, titties above the fold in an episode description, I am going to go ahead and do that.
JULIA: Yes. And as well you should, Amanda. Whenever you're feeling motivated, come, and write the episode descriptions, because I'm more of the mind of like, "Oh, yeah, this episode means a description."
AMANDA: Gotta do that.
JULIA: Oops.
AMANDA: Yep.
JULIA: Uh-oh.
AMANDA: All right, no, I can do that.
JULIA: All right. Cool, cool, cool. I will say, Amanda, titties are usually out.
AMANDA: Okay. Love it.
JULIA: So she is pretty identifiable, as many of the Egyptian gods and goddesses are, to be fair. She is usually represented as a slender woman with a cat's head. Now, specifically, we are talking about like a domestic household cat. However, we'll talk a little bit about how that was not always her true form, I suppose. But she is often portrayed as wearing a breastplate. However, the breastplate goes below the titties.
AMANDA: Oh, it's like a corset.
JULIA: It's kind of like a corset. It's pushing the titties up.
AMANDA: Pushing them up?
JULIA: Pushing them up.
AMANDA: Love to hear it.
JULIA: I'm gonna share a picture just so you can see the titties being out.
AMANDA: Like a shelf bra? Is that what those are called?
JULIA: I don't know. I've never worn one of those.
AMANDA: Just a nice, little shelf to put them down on.
JULIA: Now, that titty, it'd be out.
AMANDA: Oh, oh. Yes, nope. This is— the titty is firmly out. Julia, this is less of a breast plate, where it's like a plate to protect the breast. This is which sometimes necessary.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: Or to provide them, if you're a drag artist. This is more a plate— like a serving platter for the titties to be presented—
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: —to the world and to rest on, that way you can just go forth into your day, cat face and titty leading into the unknown.
JULIA: I really do think everyone should lead with their cat face and their titties.
AMANDA: I try to do it every day.
JULIA: There we go. There we go. So she is wearing that breastplate, the titties are out. She's usually seen holding a sistrum, which is that ceremonial rattle that we've discussed in previous episodes, and also an ankh, which represents life and is sometimes referred to as the Key of Life.
AMANDA: Incredible.
JULIA: However, it is worth noting that Bastet only takes this half-human, half-cat hybrid form when she is among the other gods in the heavenly realms. When she is on Earth, in the land of the mortals, she almost always takes the form of just a cat.
AMANDA: I mean, kind of idea. Wouldn't you if you could? Lay in a sunbeam, bathe yourself with your own tongue? Just like, you know, curl up anywhere you can fit?
JULIA: I think everyone should approach adopting a cat, like, from a shelter or something like that, with the idea that any single one of these could be the goddess Bastet.
AMANDA: Exactly.
JULIA: And then treat that cat like the king or queen that they are.
AMANDA: It— like, so many hospitality gods and goddesses, you don't know which beggar is a God in disguise.
JULIA: Yes.
AMANDA: And so you just gotta be nice to all of them.
JULIA: Ooh, Amanda, there's a great story about that later.
AMANDA: Ooh, yay.
JULIA: For this reason, that the fact that she just is a cat when she's in the mortal lands, cats are very revered among the ancient Egyptians and we'll talk about that at the end of the episode, kind of what cat, quote-unquote, "worship" looked like in ancient Egypt.
AMANDA: Got it.
JULIA: But what is interesting and something that we have previously discussed in our Sekhmet episode, is that Bastet was not always a cat goddess. She was, once upon a time, a lion goddess, much like Sekhmet. So the earliest references to Bastet that we have are from around the second millennium BCE, which we see her being depicted on stone vessels as a woman with the head of a lioness, like distinctly it is a lioness. It is lacking the mane.
AMANDA: And how do we distinguish her from Sekhmet?
JULIA: That's a good question. It's mostly at this point by region, so worship of Sekhmet had not been spread up to the Lower Egypt, which, as you'll remember, Lower Egypt is north, Upper Egypt is south.
AMANDA: Don't know why that stuck with me into my adulthood and many other facts did not, but here we are.
JULIA: So as time went on, the iconography of Bastet changed as she began to be viewed as sort of a milder, kinder goddess than the other lioness goddesses. And there were other lioness goddesses besides Sekhmet and Bastet. It was, like, kind of like— you know how there's a lot of, like, bird gods?
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: You know, it's just like a recurring theme, I would say.
AMANDA: Much like a bird husband, Julia. Who wouldn't want a lion wife? That sounds great.
JULIA: Exactly. Exactly. So by the Middle Kingdom, she was more associated with the cat than the lioness, and it was by the New Kingdom that she was fully being depicted as the cat-headed woman that we know now. Now, as you can tell, it means that her worship has definitely changed and evolved throughout the history of ancient Egypt. So her worship seems to have developed, like I mentioned before, in Lower Egypt, near Memphis, before spreading to the city of Bubastis.
AMANDA: Once again, Amanda from the past, not Tennessee.
JULIA: Not Tennessee.
AMANDA: Still wild. Can't believe it. Not Tennessee.
JULIA: Not Tennessee, not Tennessee. So the how and the why, the spread of her worship happened is kind of up to interpretation of scholars and Egyptologists. But one theory is that in the early Third Millennium BCE prides of lions lived on the fringes of the Nile Delta, where it kind of bordered the desert, and this area was known to have these seasonal lakes that would develop, which became like an oasis for these packs of lions, these prides of lions.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: And so the theory is that, like, the Egyptians might have observed attacks by lions and lionesses during this time period, which then made this impression, like particularly the use of teamwork, used by lionesses hunting together.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: So it isn't really surprising that they were worthy of worship. However, the change occurred when kind of the domestication of cats happened, from wild cats to domestic cats and realizing how good domestic cats were for humanity.
AMANDA: That's amazing. Do you ever wonder about what is currently being, like, domesticated or made normal that we're going to develop focal around? Like, I think about just the complete difference over my individual lifespan of 32 years, from, like, having a small computer with me on my person, within arm's reach at all times to, like, that not even being a possibility. And I'm like, "What"— you know, that's too fast. That's way faster than an animal can be domesticated, or even a crop can be domesticated. So, like, what— what'll be the, you know, corn folklore or the cat folk lore around, like, the time before these little computers came to live in our homes?
JULIA: Yeah, that's really interesting. Like, you think about how quickly computer technology advanced in such a small amount of time.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: That, like, I don't think anything really, in the history of humanity, changed that quickly.
AMANDA: No. Like, I know I've said it before, Julia, but there is this scholar [9:43] that I read in my, like, media theory class in college, who was like, "Trains will warp our brains."
JULIA: Yes.
AMANDA: If you read on a train, they will— you'll bleed out of your ears, people." But there were a good several decades to get used to the thought of a train, and then the fact of a train, and then, like, trains being a normal part of everyday life.
JULIA: Yeah. I like the idea of, like, if you looked outside a window of a train and saw how fast you were going, you'd be driven insane.
AMANDA: The human body cannot move faster than horseback, it is known.
JULIA: It is known. It is known. Yeah, it's just wild. So the domestication of cats, not that quick, took a while.
AMANDA: Not that quick. Cats do love to lay on a smartphone. It's nice and warm, so I'll take that as my excuse for why I brought this up.
JULIA: There you go. There you go. So the transition from lioness to cat most likely happened during the 22nd Dynasty, which was around 945 to 715 BCE. And it was a change for a good reason. Cats, like I just mentioned, were extremely important to ancient Egyptian culture. They are creatures that are closely associated with protection because they act as pest control. They keep populations of rodents and snakes and other pests down. So these are, like, creatures that could cause harm to people through bites or the spreading of disease, and so cats helped ward off the spread of disease, as well as keeping pests away from important crops and humans in general.
AMANDA: Thank you very much, kitties.
JULIA: Thank you, kitties. You know, that's just something that I think is part of why we domesticated cats in the first place. Not only are they adorable, but they were working creatures. They ate scorpions, they killed snakes. They ate the rats and the other, like, rodents that would come and try to destroy crops. They were incredibly important.
AMANDA: I know, philosophically, a cat is capable of taking down a snake, and that not all snakes are like the boa constrictors I grew up seeing on, you know, Animal Planet.
JULIA: Uh-huh.
AMANDA: But wow, will that never be normal to me.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: Of, like, a cat taking down a snake, holy shit.
JULIA: Yeah, it's wild. It's wild, right? So as such, the ancient Egyptians saw cats as protectors, and so Bastet shares many of these attributes. So she, going from lioness to cat, was seen as this great protector who kept both the gods and humans safe from the predators of the world, whether those were earthly or divine.
AMANDA: Wow. I'm hearing some of the eye then, that she is, like, looking out. She's looking over. She is taking care of, you know, our mortal safety.
JULIA: Yes, exactly. However, protection wasn't her only attribute. She was also associated with pleasure, fertility, and good health.
AMANDA: Oh.
JULIA: So she was called upon to protect homes from evil spirits and disease, much like cats ward off vermin. And while Bastet was also called upon to protect the homes of the common people, she was also seen as a protector of royalty and as the kind of, like, mild-natured mother and nurse figure.
AMANDA: We love a mild-natured mother and nurse figure.
JULIA: Exactly. And this is also— we're seeing a lot of the bleed here. Keep in mind that, like, Bastet comes from Sekhmet, sort of, and Sekhmet sort of comes from Hathor. So you're seeing these kind of ideas of, like, pleasure, fertility coming from Hathor. And then these, like, illness and health, and also this protection element. And so this is all kind of, like, bleeding together a little bit. You know what I mean?
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: So not only is she protecting the gods and mortal beings during their lifetimes, but she was also said to protect the deceased as well as seen in the Pyramid Texts. Now, Bastet was also sometimes seen as a goddess of the moon, and this is particularly tied to the fact that she is seen as one of the eyes of Ra, and that she is specifically like the Eye of Ra is like the sun and the moon. You know what I mean?
AMANDA: I am— I'm getting a sort of big sister, little sister vibe between Sekhmet and her.
JULIA: Oh, that's very interesting that you bring that up, Amanda, because I will talk about how, at one point, they were considered sisters.
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: So, again, this is all, like, a little confusing, but a lot of it has to do with how she is synchronized with Sekhmet and Hathor, and that association. And part of this also has to do with the fact that Bastet was portrayed as the daughter of Ra and was identified with him, known as the Cat of Ra, who, every day, was said to come together to protect Ra from the chaos serpent, Apep. Now, keep that in mind. However, that Bastet was definitely still considered this, like, milder, calmer aspect compared to Sekhmet and she later even became associated with motherhood and childbirth, specifically becoming a protector of women during pregnancy and birth.
AMANDA: Again, don't think anything is mild or sort of, like, watered down about the process of giving birth, but shout out all y'all.
JULIA: We'll talk about this a little more later in the episode. But this idea that, like, man, we've always been like, "Ah, women, fickle beasts."
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: There's a lot of that in the worship and talking about Bastet.
AMANDA: This feels like a wonderful topic to start the year with. I'm ready.
JULIA: Yeah. So again, there's this sort of duality to her, and that sort of protective nature that Bastet is supposed to represent is supposed to play the opposite side of the coin to the vengeful nature of Sekhmet. And there is a text from the 12th Dynasty that really sums it up well. It basically says that when the Egyptian king smites wrongdoers, he is like Sekhmet, and he is like Bastet when he protects his loyal subjects.
AMANDA: Sure.
JULIA: So this idea of like, yes, it is protection to smite down wrongdoers and remove them from society, but it's also like protecting your loyal subjects is a different aspect of protection, you know?
AMANDA: And you know what? All things considered, we love a ruler who can do both and I am in favor of lauding people, especially rulers for mercy, just as we do for, you know, keeping a hard line.
JULIA: Yes. Correct, correct. This is not a law and order podcast.
AMANDA: Well, it's on my brain at all times.
JULIA: And again, like, this is not to say that Bastet is only a protector. There are some texts, like, specifically, in the Coffin Texts and the Book of the Dead where, much like Sekhmet, she is associated with plague and illness, the, quote-unquote, "slaughters of Bastet" that are mentioned in those texts were said to inflict plague and cause other disasters. And there are even some, like, healing spells that evoke Bastet, saying that one of the ways to avoid plagues is by pretending to be, quote, "a son of Bastet."
AMANDA: You don't even want to make my mom mad like that. You don't.
JULIA: I don't think my mom, Bastet, the cat-headed goddess, would be really pleased to hear about this.
AMANDA: And you're like, "Oh, yeah. Nope. Not worth it, not worth it."
JULIA: Not worth it. But as much as she is sometimes referred to as causing these plagues, she's much more associated with protecting from the plague and natural disasters.
AMANDA: Now, Julia, this is, you know, probably the 50th time you referred to the Book of the Dead on Spirits as a whole.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: And I'm just now realizing what a good gift it would have been for you, when we were kids, for me to make you like a slip cover that just said the "Book of the Dead" that you could fit around the many, like, girl pirate YA books that you were reading when we were young.
JULIA: Called out, but appreciative.
AMANDA: You're welcome.
JULIA: She's associated, again, as this protector and it is not surprising that she and cats in general were often used to evoke protection and were used on protection amulets. Amulets of cats and particularly litters of kittens were very popular gifts to give, especially around the New Year, because, as we kind of mentioned in the Sekhmet episode, the New Year was like a dark time—
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: —for the ancient Egyptians. It was scary. That's like when all the like the evil spirits came out and stuff like that. So being protected during that time period was extremely important.
AMANDA: Also, what a hack to spend the, like, darkest, you know, dreariest, scariest days of the year taking care of a bunch of new kittens in your house. Oh, my God.
JULIA: Kind of adorable. I kind of love that. You know?
AMANDA: Now, Julia, I've not seen you in person since the New Year, so, I mean, I'm— all I'm saying is that if I do show up at your house with a cardboard box full of kittens, I can't imagine any other way to deliver a litter of kittens in a cardboard box. You can't be mad.
JULIA: I will be super allergic, but I won't be mad, I guess. Can you also bring me a Costco-sized carton of Zyrtec?
AMANDA: Yes, that I could do.
JULIA: Great, awesome. Not sponsored by Zyrtec, by the way.
AMANDA: God, I wish.
JULIA: So what I really like about this, not only are we giving amulets and also literal kittens to people, but there is evidence that her image and name were inscribed on these small, little ceremonial, quote, "New Year's flasks" that you would fill with some sort of alcohol, and then you would gift to someone, and they were said to help protect against evil spirits that were said to appear around the end of the Egyptian year.
AMANDA: Incredible.
JULIA: That's also a good New Year's gift to me, just saying, like a little—
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: —Bastet flask would be great.
AMANDA: Or, like, imagine a tiny, little, like a beer cozy, but instead, it's for one of those, like, itty-bitty bottles of Spirits.
JULIA: Hmm. It's really cute, like the airplane-sized ones?
AMANDA: Cute.
JULIA: The little nips?
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: Yeah. That's nice. I like that. Also a fun little amulet of Bastet, usually given to encourage fertility, to people or couples who were trying to get pregnant. We do get an image of what Bastet worship looked like, albeit from the Greek historian Herodotus, so take it with a Greek grain of salt. I know what a Greek grain of salt is, but I kind of like it. It's fun to say.
AMANDA: That's a big one, Julia, and it's shaped like dolmus.
JULIA: Oh. Cool. I like that.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: So I do love a direct quote, though. So we have this from 450 BCE from Herodotus. It is describing a festival of Bastet. So here's how—
AMANDA: Great.
JULIA: —Herodotus describes it. Quote, "Now, when they are coming to the city of Bubastis, they do as follows. They sail, men and women together, and a great multitude of each sex in every boat. And some of the women have rattles and rattle them." That's the system we mentioned earlier.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: "While some of the men play the flute during the whole time of the voyage, and the rest, both women and men, sing and clap their hands. And when, as they sail, they come opposite to any city on the way, they bring the boat to land. And some of the women continue, as I have said. Others cry aloud and jeer at the women of— in that city. Some dance, and some stand up and pull up their garments. This they do by every city along the river bank, and when they come to Bubastis, they hold festivals celebrating great sacrifices, and more wine of grapes is consumed upon the festival than during the whole of the rest of the year. To this place, so say the natives, they come together year by year, even to the number of 70 myriads of men and women, besides children."
AMANDA: Now, even if this is highly exaggerated, the idea of—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: —essentially a Mardi Gras parade happening on a barge down the River Nile, with some ladies being like, "I'll clap this time," and then other ladies being like, "Whoa." I love this.
JULIA: Titties out. Titties out, respecting the goddess.
AMANDA: Yes. Everyone is— everyone's on board, and the women on the shore like, "Heh." And they do their own flashing, maybe. I don't know. I'm all for it.
JULIA: Well, modern scholars, based on the description that Herodotus gave us, believe that these festivals were fertility festivals, and the celebrants were basically exploring their fertility and sexuality in their lives as a way of honoring the goddess. So personally, I love that this goddess, who is perceived as this kind of, like, gentle nature to the wildness of Sekhmet, like the two sides of the coin, still includes worship that allows— the ladies worshiping her to explore their wild sides.
AMANDA: It is absolutely tied to their fertility, which is not, you know, how we define womanhood or, you know, our value as people assign women at birth, but that is— that's still great. And I think my feminism, Julia, can in— can be inclusive of all people give birth and those who don't, and flashing your titties from a boat.
JULIA: Uh-hmm. Flashing your titties. It's also like genitals in general.
AMANDA: Hell yes.
JULIA: Which I think is kind of fun. So sometimes a little bit of pussies out, sometimes titties, who can say?
AMANDA: A balanced meal.
JULIA: Balanced meal. Jesus Christ. All right, we're gonna talk a little bit more about Bastet and her stories, but we need a refill after that.
AMANDA: Let's go.
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JULIA: Hey, it's Julia, and welcome to the refill. Happy New Year, ConSpiriters. We are so glad that we get to spend another year making Spirits because of support from you, our listeners, and a particular thank you to our newest patrons, Gunnar and MC Jabberwocky. Thank you so much for supporting us at patreon.com/spiritspodcast. And you too can join the ranks of Gunnar and MC Jabberwocky, as well as our supporting producer-level patrons, Uhleeseeuh, Anne, Hannah, Jane, Lily, Matthew, Captain Jonathan MAL-uh-kye Cosmos, Scott, Wil and AE (Ah), as well as our legend-level patrons, Bex, Chibi Yokai, Michael, Morgan H., Sarah, and Bea Me Up Scotty. Go to patreon.com/spiritspodcast today to check out our cool rewards, like recipe cards for every single gosh darn episode, ad-free episodes and much, much more. Check it out. My recommendation for you here on the New Year, the day that the New Year is starting is, hey, I don't believe in New Year's resolutions and you shouldn't feel pressured because it's the start of a new year to do self-improvement unless you want to. So don't feel the pressure of having to, like, create a project for yourself or make yourself better in some way. I think you're pretty great the way you are right now. Just saying. Also, hey, have you checked out Wow, If True? Wow, If True is your one stop internet culture shop explaining how, what's happening online actually shapes the real world, and they're the internet experts and real-life besties to unravel it. Tech culture journalist, Amanda Silberling and science fiction author/former attorney, Isabel J. Kim Esq. More importantly, they're the only podcast that will mention Neopets and also horizontal mergers in the same episode. They're asking and answering your burning questions about the internet, like, who is Bigolas Dickolas? Why are Silicon Valley Bros. biohacking their mouths? Why are YouTubers locking people in grocery stores? And just how many secret babies does Elon Musk have? Elon Musk has so many secret babies. So check out Wow, If True wherever on the internet you find your podcasts. New episodes every Wednesday. And this episode is sponsored by Calm and with the start of every new year, a lot of the talk of resolutions kind of starts to creep into our lives. Like, these goals are healthy, of course, but what about a realistic plan for how to achieve your goals. Without a plan, well-intentioned resolutions can lead to just frustration and anxiety. So this year, I recommend trying a new approach with Calm, focus on growth, rather than hitting these rigid goal posts. In just a week, you can build a strong foundation for 2025 and gain confidence along the way. Calm is the number one app for sleep and meditation, giving you the power to calm your mind and change your life. And hey, like everyone faces really difficult challenges in their day-to-day lives and mental health is not always like a super cookie cutter, works for everyone kind of thing. And so Calm offers a wide range of content and programs. They have meditations, they have sleep stories, sleep meditations, calming music, grounding exercises, expert-led talks. I've actually really been liking the grounding exercises, especially for when I'm really feeling overwhelmed. There are these short-guided sessions that use sensation and movement and breath work to kind of help you relax and reset. And sometimes that's something I need in my life. And Calm puts those tools you need right in your pocket and can help you dedicate just a few minutes each day to live a happier and healthier life. Stress less, sleep more, and live better with Calm. For listeners of our show, Calm is offering an exclusive offer of 40% off a Calm premium subscription at calm.com/spirits. Go to C-A-L-M,. com/spirits for 40% off, unlimited access to Calm's entire library. That's calm.com/spirits.
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JULIA: And now let's get back to our show.
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JULIA: Amanda, we are back. And there is a popular cocktail that is called the Black Cat, but nothing about it appeals to me.
AMANDA: What is in it traditionally?
JULIA: It is Coke, vodka, cherry brandy, and cranberry juice.
AMANDA: Sounds like a thing we would have drank too much of once when we were 15 and then never again.
JULIA: Yes. No, not for me. No, thank you. Sorry. So I give you instead, Amanda, The Cat's Pajamas.
AMANDA: What's in her?
JULIA: This is a ginger and Pisco cocktail that's got a little bit of bite, but also some sweetness from honey.
AMANDA: Oh, my God. I— Pisco may be my favorite spirit. Like, I— there's a lot— Mezcal is really close, but, like, good God, do I love Pisco.
JULIA: It's really good. It's really, really good. And I also think this is a very apropos drink for a goddess who is kind of like two sides of the coin. She's both protector and destroyer in a lot of ways. And I think, as many cat owners will tell you, there is a fine line between a cat showing you affection and then swatting you away. And that's what this cat reminds me of.
AMANDA: I also love the medicinal ties of ginger, and I think that's a really lovely thing to include in this drink.
JULIA: And honey. Honey extremely important in terms of medicinal value to the ancient Egyptians.
AMANDA: Incredible.
JULIA: All right. With these in hand, let's get back to it. We're going to talk a little bit about Bastet and how she fit among the ancient Egyptian deities. Now, keep in mind, this changes depending on what time period we're referring to and who is telling these stories. So, again, there is very little, like, set canon in ancient Egypt, as opposed to something like ancient Greek, which, like, those stories did also change over time, but there is more of, like, a established canon because we have more surviving texts.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: So Bastet was, at one point, considered both the daughter and the consort of Atum Ra, which we know is another term used for the sun god Ra. In some stories, she is specifically the daughter of Ra and the goddess Isis. Now, she was mostly seen to be, specifically, the daughter of Ra, not necessarily Isis.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: But was said to be by his side day and night. She was also on that kind of, like, party boat that Ra crossed the sky with every morning.
AMANDA: But only flashing once a year. It's just once a year or else it's not special.
JULIA: Yes, but she was extremely important because she was one of the people who was protecting Ra as he pulled the sun across the sky. And it was said that at sunset, she was one of the people who would do battle with the chaos serpent Apep.
AMANDA: I do just want to offer to any of our gender-expansive listeners out there, chaos serpent as your gender identity.
JULIA: Pretty good, pretty nice, pretty solid.
AMANDA: Just offer it to you. If it fits, I'd love that for you.
JULIA: In some stories, before Bastet and Sekhmet were truly separated as goddesses, it was said that Bastet's husband was Ptah, who you might remember, was also the husband of Sekhmet, and she was also the mother of the lion god Maahes, who we also mentioned in the Sekhmet episode. However, as Sekhmet and Bastet became separate, the two became not the same goddess, but rather sisters, as I mentioned before, Amanda, that you kind of called right at the top there.
AMANDA: It sounds very, like, talking about my dad's many cousins, where it's like one of them is married to the other one, and like there's some kids, and, you know, they're all— they all go to the same Christmas. So it doesn't matter how the actual lines shake out.
JULIA: Exactly, exactly. Sekhmet, when they began to separate, stayed vengeful and bloodthirsty, while Bastet, as we mentioned before, became softer. She kind of shifted to the role of helper and friend, peaceful and benevolent.
AMANDA: The duality of women.
JULIA: Ah, women. And that separation actually leads to our first story, which is a story that we know quite well at this point, the story of the distinct goddess. This is the kind of Sekhmet origin story that we've talked about many a time. Ra sends down his eye to get revenge on those who tried to rise up from him, only to have her not return to the task. Now, in this story, Bastet as the eye, she quarrels with her father and retreats into the desert. Similar to one of the endings that we saw in the Sekhmet episode as well.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: In the desert, she becomes known as the Nubian cat, being portrayed as having the body of a spotted cat, but the head of a Nubian woman.
AMANDA: Oh, okay.
JULIA: So kind of opposite.
AMANDA: See, like, we're talking about.
JULIA: We're sphinxing a little here.
AMANDA: Right? And again, titty could be there, or titty could be just in the cat part. I don't know.
JULIA: Could be, could be. Cats, they have titties, you know?
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: We just don't— we don't see them too good.
AMANDA: That's right.
JULIA: So it is eventually the god Thoth who travels into the desert to find Bastet and eventually persuades her to return to Egypt, where she is transformed into the— as the source that I read it said, compliant and fertile divine consort to serve Ra.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: The patriarchy's dream.
JULIA: Yes. So this version of the story is actually really interesting, because some scholars see it as a myth about taming female sexuality, and we see the kind of freeing of those sexual restraints in that annual festival that Herodotus described earlier. And so this is like a big festival around, like, drinking and dancing and music, and, of course, flashing them titties. So freeing the female sexuality that was tamed by Ra.
AMANDA: Yeah. And, you know, again, just growing up in, like, such a Puritan culture myself, it really— I'm really torn between, like, appreciating that they— as you know, many and most ancient folklores acknowledge the sexuality of women and of all people, and also frustrated that this is meant to be, you know, as you're saying, or at least, I see this story as, you know, attaining and sort of, like, putting into the— your childish past sexuality as a grown person, and making sex not compatible with, you know, softness or care, or living an adult life or a partnered life, or a life with responsibilities, you know, most of which I think we've come to deconstructing in the modern era. But a reminder that this has always been a concern on the minds of, specifically, men.
JULIA: Well, Amanda, that actually brings us very interestingly into our next story about Bastet, because this also kind of deals with her erotic reputation.
AMANDA: Okay. That is a fabulous way to refer to your track record.
JULIA: I agree. I no longer— what's the one that they always use? The—
AMANDA: People say body count and I don't recognize that.
JULIA: Yes. I was gonna say, I don't like body count. I think we should start talking about erotic reputation.
AMANDA: Because that very much prizes experience in the holistic way over quantity, which is the patriarchal, you know, Love Island USA's version of tracking the stuff.
JULIA: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm. Yeah. Even though all those men say, "Oh, it doesn't matter to me," and that it totally does matter to doesn't matter to them.
AMANDA: It does matter to them, yeah.
JULIA: Uh-hmm. All right, so this is the story, Amanda, of Prince Setna. Now, Prince Setna was rich and powerful but also corrupt.
AMANDA: Oh, shit.
JULIA: He was also very disrespectful of the gods and the dead.
AMANDA: No.
JULIA: Which is something you don't do in Egyptian mythology.
AMANDA: No, no, no.
JULIA: He was said to have stolen a magic book from a tomb in order to basically ensure further riches.
AMANDA: Don't do that.
JULIA: Yes. Even the inhabitants of the tomb, the dead themselves, said, "Don't do that." And he ignored them.
AMANDA: I love that they're in this story and they were like, "I promise you, this is gonna be worse for you than it is for me. Like, please don't do this."
JULIA: Uh-hmm. But he does, and goes on with his life, right? It takes a little bit for him to get his comeuppance, but trust me, he does get his comeuppance. So the story goes that Prince Setna, one day encountered Taboubu who was a beautiful daughter of the priest of Bastet. And immediately is just full of lust for her upon seeing her.
AMANDA: Sure.
JULIA: Maybe falls in love, but mainly just lust. Let's be honest with each other. So when he confesses his feelings to her, saying that he's never seen a more beautiful woman in his life, he sends her a note like, "Hey, I'll go ahead. I'll give you 10 gold pieces if you come to bed with me."
AMANDA: What was her reaction?
JULIA: She was like, "Hmm, not a bad deal. Here's the thing, I want you to meet me at the Temple of Bastet in the city of Memphis. And if you do that, you will get everything you desire."
AMANDA: Tough. And I see the man like having, like, Wile E. Coyote legs and just like disappearing out of the frame.
JULIA: Yeah, pretty much. He agrees, the two meet. They meet in this temple. They get a private room, basically, in this temple. And he immediately is like, "All right, let's get it on."
AMANDA: Oh, no.
JULIA: And before she will sleep with him, though, she makes Prince Setna, who is a rich and powerful man, sign a deed that gives her all of his possessions.
AMANDA: Oh. And he does?
JULIA: And he's like, "Fine, sure. I'll sign that, whatever." And then he goes to embrace her again. She's like, "No, no, no, no." I'm just picturing, like, putting a hand to someone's forehead and being like, "No, no, no, no. Not yet, not yet."
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: And so she tells him that he has to send for his children and then also sign a document that says, "This is all legal."
AMANDA: I see, "I promise no one is pressuring me. Hmm, yes, I promise."
JULIA: He agrees again. He sends for his children. She disappears into another room for a little while, while he's signing these papers. And then when she returns, she is wearing a linen dress so sheer that he can, quote, "see" every part of her body through it.
AMANDA: Great. The titties are adorned and visible.
JULIA: He is mad with lust. Mad with lust, you know?
AMANDA: I mean, sure.
JULIA: Documents are signed. He goes to get it on once again, and she makes a third demand. She says, " Setna, you will have to kill your children so that they do not try to fight a legal battle against me and the documents that you just signed."
AMANDA: If you're gonna commit, commit, I guess, but damn.
JULIA: So Setna, the worst man you've ever met, immediately agrees, has his children murdered and their bodies tossed into the street.
AMANDA: Bummer. Hate that. No.
JULIA: Hate that. Really bad. Finally, Setna takes off his clothes, goes to embrace Taboubu and the moment he takes her into his arms, she disappears. He finds himself alone, naked, and transported to the middle of a public highway.
AMANDA: Wow. That's great.
JULIA: Now, the Pharaoh happens to come by just as Setna is out there with his dick out.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: And he tells the prince that his children, thankfully, are still alive and well, and that everything that he just experienced was an illusion.
AMANDA: Oh.
JULIA: So Setna understands that he has been punished by Bastet and quickly returns the book that he stole from the tomb.
AMANDA: And presumably his wife and kids are like, "Haha. This is the same as before."
JULIA: "Yeah. This is all fine." So the implication of the story is Taboubu was actually Bastet herself.
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: Who manifested as this sort of irresistibly tempting woman as a way of punishing Prince Setna. And this really fits her role as this, like, punisher of humans who have offended the gods. This version of her as the Eye.
AMANDA: Not to mention ill-gotten riches from, you know, plundering from the dead.
JULIA: Exactly. And I love that she kind of does it all without bloodshed.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: Technically, you know? I mean, he does agree to murder his children. He does think that he does that even though they're actually fine. And I love that for her.
AMANDA: I love that the sheer negligee was so important to the story that it has survived three millennia.
JULIA: They're like she put that on, you can see everything.
AMANDA: You can see every part, baby.
JULIA: Everything. I got one more story for you. I mentioned earlier that Bastet is often seen fighting off Apep in order to protect Ra. And I have, like, a tiny, little story about that before we wrap things up. But Bastet was said to fight Apep in her cat form. And one terrible night, Apep seems to be winning against Bastet, and so Ra himself takes the form of what— the source that I was reading in full capital went, "THE GREAT TOMCAT."
AMANDA: Oh.
JULIA: So he takes this form in order to fight off Apep inspired by his daughter. And so they are fighting under the sacred Ished tree, which is the Tree of Life in ancient Egyptian mythology. And during the battle, Ra slices Apep in two, and in doing so, actually splits the Ished Tree in two as well, which creates the two twin trees of the horizon.
AMANDA: Wow.
JULIA: Really beautiful imagery there. You know?
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: We talked about in the Hathor episode, how, like, everything was milky and cosmic, and that was beautiful. But I love this, like—
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: —The Twin Trees of the Horizon. That's extremely beautiful as well.
AMANDA: And I know this happens in other environments, but to me, the desert will always have that kind of, like, mirroring effect on the horizon where the heat, you know, makes it wavy and, like, "I'm not sure what I'm seeing."
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: And, you know, again, thinking from The Wild Thornberrys that oases would be a much bigger part of my adult life, just sort of through the world. But for now, I'll take that twin image of the trees on the horizon. Very nice.
JULIA: I think the problem is we just didn't live in a desert, and so much of cartoons take place in either jungles or deserts.
AMANDA: I was preparing fully for both, knowing what to do in quicksand, knowing what to do—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: —if I found an oasis, how to, like, not keep running after the pavement falls way beneath me after a cliff.
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: It was very acme [41:23] coded.
JULIA: Yeah, yeah. We really had to unlearn a lot of that.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: So in this story, it sort of finishes with— when they defeat Apep, Ra and Bastet are reunited, and they go on to, basically, birth the lion god Maahes, who I mentioned before. And it was this story that associated Bastet with that image of fertility and motherhood, having, basically— this is when we see her in a lot of imagery, suckling many kittens, and also human children.
AMANDA: Sure.
JULIA: And this is also— this story, for some reason, ends with a warning to Egyptian men.
AMANDA: This could be anything.
JULIA: Telling them that women are like a friendly cat when you give them what they want and are like a raging lioness when you cannot.
AMANDA: Sure.
JULIA: Amanda, it's kind of hilarious. We've been doing this weird-gendered comedy for so long. It sounds like a fucking—
AMANDA: You know, you're right.
JULIA: —'90s joke setup.
AMANDA: You're right, Julia. It's like that graffiti of Pompeii that may or may not be apocryphal. That's like for a good time call whoever, you know?
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: I just— we've been people for so long, man.
JULIA: We've been people for so long, man. We've just been weirdly gendered about shit for so long. We gotta stop.
AMANDA: It makes me feel so okay. It makes me feel like, "Ah, yes, that warm nostalgia of gender essentialism."
JULIA: Ah, it's just always been that way.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: It's just always been that way. It sucks. It sucks. Anyway—
AMANDA: Yeah, but it's not novel, and somehow that makes me feel better.
JULIA: Yeah. All right, Amanda, I'm gonna finish off this section with— I don't really have a poetry corner for you this episode.
AMANDA: Okay.
JULIA: But what I do have instead is spell corner.
AMANDA: Ooh.
JULIA: So these are spells that called upon Bastet to do a bunch of different things, but these three specific spells that I'm gonna read for you were about healing cats.
AMANDA: Oh, if anybody's a sick kitty, this goes out to you.
JULIA: There you go. All right. So here's our first one, which is, "Felt and constrained for her, has been that poison of any male or female snake, any scorpion or any crawling thing that is in any limb of this cat that is suffering. Look now that Isis has spun and Nephthys has woven against that poison. This bandage shall be strong, and this magic shall work through what the Sun Harakhti, the great god at the fore of the Dual Shrines has said, 'You bad poison that is in any limb of this cat that is suffering, come, come down."
AMANDA: Aw.
JULIA: Basically calling out the poison if in case this cat got bit by, like, a snake or a scorpion or something.
AMANDA: Yeah. In the line of duty, brave little guy.
JULIA: Brave little soldier. All right, here's our second one, which is, "Sun, come to your daughter. Shu, come to your wife. Isis, come to your sister. Save her from that bad poison that is in any limb of hers. Oh, you, gods, come and fell that bad poison that is in any limb of this cat that is suffering."
AMANDA: Oh.
JULIA: Really nice, right? All right. And then finally, we have, "Don't fear, don't fear, Bastet, powerful of mind at the fore of the sacred Marsh. You shall have control of all of the gods, and no one shall have control of you. Come out after my speech, you bad poison that is in any limb of the cat who is suffering." I'm realizing now that they're all about cats getting bitten by snakes and scorpions.
AMANDA: I mean, it makes sense, given the role you were describing. But now I'm like, "Oh, my God, like this scourge of poor, millennia—"
JULIA: Are you okay?
AMANDA: "—old cats getting poisoned."
JULIA: Luckily, Amanda, my final section here that we're going to talk about is the idea of cat worship.
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: And I think cat worship is something that a lot of people think of when they think of ancient Egypt, and I think it's worth expanding upon, because keep in mind, the Egyptians didn't specifically worship cats, but rather, they understood that the cats in the mortal world represented the goddesses that were associated with them, like Bastet, or even could be the physical manifestation of the goddess on the mortal plane. With that in mind, when we see art of the seated cat or a cat with kittens in ancient Egyptian art, this art is done either to represent or dedicated to the goddess Bastet.
AMANDA: Nice.
JULIA: We also know— and I think I talked a little bit about this in our, like, framing of ancient Egyptian religion episode that we did at the beginning of this series. But we know that cat mummification was extremely popular in ancient Egypt. There have been a huge number of cat mummies found in Egypt, and they were often used as either, like, religious offerings or were included in the tombs of mortals, humans that died. This is kind of adorable. They were often placed in either small bronze or wooden sarcophagi of their own, which is extremely cute and extremely sweet.
AMANDA: Cute. I hope that, like, people got, you know, coins and food and wine. Cats got little toys.
JULIA: Amanda, Amanda, so usually these little sarcophagi were placed next to the main occupant of the tomb.
AMANDA: Sure.
JULIA: And there have been several tombs, Amanda, discovered where small bowls were left out for the mummified cats that scholars believed had offerings of milk or cream that were left for them. So they're living the life of luxury even in death, and we love that for them.
AMANDA: Let's absolutely go.
JULIA: It's very sweet. It's very sweet. I love it so much. Amanda, that is— that's what I've got for you for the goddess Bastet.
AMANDA: Incredible.
JULIA: I hope you enjoyed it. And we've still got lots more to go with Denial ain't just a river in Egypt. It's what we've been doing by keeping an Egyptian mythology series from you on Spirits Podcast, by Spirits Podcast.
AMANDA: By Spirits Podcast.
JULIA: Stick with us as we head into 2025. Keep a lookout. We usually do these once a month, so you'll be looking forward to another Egyptian mythology next month in in February. But until then, Amanda, remember that when you are leaving out a little bowl of cream for your mummified kitty and taking those titties out—
AMANDA: Stay creepy.
JULIA: —stay cool. Later, Satyrs.
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