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A vegetation deity is a nature deity whose disappearance and reappearance, or life, death and rebirth, embodies the growth cycle of plants. In nature worship, the deity can be a god or goddess with the ability to regenerate itself. A vegetation deity is often a fertility deity. The deity typically undergoes dismemberment (see ''sparagmos''), scattering, and reintegration, as narrated in a myth or reenacted by a religious ritual. The cyclical pattern is given theological significance on themes such as immortality, resurrection, and reincarnation.〔Lorena Stookey, ''Thematic Guide to World Mythology'' (Greenwood Press, 2004), p. 99.〕 Vegetation myths have structural resemblances to certain creation myths in which parts of a primordial being's body generate aspects of the cosmos, such as the Norse myth of Ymir.〔Stookey, ''Thematic Guide to World Mythology'', p. 100.〕 In mythography of the 19th and early 20th century, as for example in ''The Golden Bough'' of J.G. Frazer, the figure is related to the "corn spirit," "corn" in this sense meaning grain in general. That triviality is giving the concept its tendency to turn into a meaningless generality, as Walter Friedrich Otto remarked of trying to use a "name as futile and yet pretentious as 'Vegetation deity'."〔Walter F. Otto, ''Dionysus: Myth and Cult'', translated by Robert B. Palmer (Indiana University Press, 1965), pp. 7–12.〕 ==Examples of vegetation myths== In the Mesopotamian tradition, during the journey of Inanna or Ishtar to the underworld, the earth becomes sterile, and neither humans nor animals are able to procreate. After confronting Ereshkigal, her sister and ruler of the underworld, Inanna is killed, but an emissary from the gods administers potions to restore her to life. She is allowed to return to the upper world only if someone else will take her place. Her husband, the vegetation god Dumuzi, agrees to spend half the year in the underworld, during which time vegetation dies off. His return bring regrowth.〔Stookey, ''Thematic Guide to World Mythology'', p. 99.〕 In ancient Egyptian religion, the cultural achievements of Osiris among the peoples of the earth provokes the envy of his brother Set, who kills and dismembers him. Osiris's wife Isis makes a journey to gather his fourteen scattered body parts. In some versions, she buries each part where she finds it, causing the desert to put forth vegetation. In other versions, she reassembles his body and resurrects him, and he then becomes the ruler of the afterlife.〔 In European folklore, a woman's fertility has an influence on farming.〔(Gimbutas, The gods and goddesses of Old Europe, p. 201 )〕 Vegetation goddess figurines from the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture have a lozenge and dot pattern that represents a sown field and female fertility. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Vegetation deity」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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