Babi
Also called Babai, Bapho, Bebon, Baba, Bebi, the Master of Darkness.
Babi is a fierce baboon god of darkness, virility, and the dead, named in Egyptian funerary texts and echoed in later Greek incantations concerning the afterlife.
At a glance
- Tradition
- Egyptian mythologyGreek mythology
- Region
- Egypt (place of origin)
- Trait family
- The Threshold-Keepers
- Symbols
- Ape
Near this figure
Symbols
Judged against the description by a model. Meanings are our own paraphrase.
- Ape is The ape denotes mimicry, lust, conceit, and cunning in European and Christian traditions, but Hindu symbolism instead associates it with Hanuman’s benevolence and gentleness.
why
Babi is a fierce baboon god of darkness, virility, and the dead, named in Egyptian funerary texts and echoed in later Greek incantations concerning the afterlife.
Traits
Read from the figure's description, which a model wrote. Open "why" for the sentence a trait came from.
Behaviour
- Devours hearts of the unworthy dead
why
Extended narrative episodes about Babi are sparse next to his listed names and associations, but the character that survives is a ferocious one: sources connect him with rage, sexual potency, and the eating of the entrails or hearts of the unjust dead, and he is named among the powers a deceased person had to be warded from or aligned with.
Roles
Judged from the works' own entries, not from the description. Carries: the figure holds the role. Meets: the role is in its stories, held by something it meets.
- Death carries
4 citations
- Carol Rose, Spirits, Fairies, Leprechauns, and Goblins, s.v. "Baba."
- Jeremy Black and Anthony Green, Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia, s.v. "Baba."
- Damiana L. Eugenio, Philippine Folk Literature: The Myths, p. 275.
- Theresa Bane, Encyclopedia of Beasts and Monsters in Myth, Legend and Folklore, s.v. "Baba."
- Shadow carries both readings
4 citations
- Carol Rose, Spirits, Fairies, Leprechauns, and Goblins, s.v. "Baba."
- Jeremy Black and Anthony Green, Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia, s.v. "Baba."
- Damiana L. Eugenio, Philippine Folk Literature: The Myths, p. 275.
- Theresa Bane, Encyclopedia of Beasts and Monsters in Myth, Legend and Folklore, s.v. "Baba."
- Father meets
4 citations
- Carol Rose, Spirits, Fairies, Leprechauns, and Goblins, s.v. "Baba."
- Jeremy Black and Anthony Green, Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia, s.v. "Baba."
- Damiana L. Eugenio, Philippine Folk Literature: The Myths, p. 275.
- Theresa Bane, Encyclopedia of Beasts and Monsters in Myth, Legend and Folklore, s.v. "Baba."