ETCETERA~
What's all this La Bona Dea Stuff?

Before we took on the name Knickertwist's, we did our witchery under the name "La Bona Dea" or, The Good Goddess. Here is some information about Bona Dea.

Translated, Bona Dea means "Good Goddess". She is most often referred to as a Roman goddess of fertility, virginity and women, though she also has ties to agriculture and healing. She was also called by Fauna by some and still others believed that her true name could not be spoken.

Her sacred rites were celebrated in December (an 'invitation only' event hosted by the wife of the senior magistrate of Rome at a location other than her temple) and her public festival was observed on May 1. These celebrations were attended by women only and even pictures of men and male animals were considered a sacrileges. At these events it was also forbidden to say the words "wine" and "myrtle" because she had been beaten by her father with a myrtle stick after getting drunk. As wine was an important part of any celebration or rite, the word "milk" was used instead.

Bona Dea is often depicted with snakes. Some sources say that this is because of her association with healing and medicine and others argue that this has to do with the snake being a phallic symbol and she being a fertility goddess. She is also pictured with herbs as her priestesses grew medicinal herbs and tended to the sick in the gardens of her temple. Many images of her show her sitting on a thrown, holding a cornucopia. Her image can be found on many Roman coins. The image on this page is called "Peace" and has Bona Dea crowned with corn to symbolize plenty, sitting with a lion to represent majesty, underneath the star of divinity.

I first came across the name Bona Dea when I was pregnant and obsessively looking up baby names. It had occurred to me that if I was going to have a baby girl that I might name her in honour of the goddess. This was the only name that ever came up in those "name your baby" searches when I typed in "goddess". The name popped up a few more times and I became intrigued and did a little bit of research. Unfortunately information regarding Bona Dea has become blurred. The information stated above is just a quick overview of the basic facts that most sources seem to agree upon. Rather than steal the information someone else has take the care and effort to compile, I have provided links to several valuable resources on the internet pertaining to Bona Dea.

Encyclopedia Mythica
http://www.pantheon.org/articles/b/bona_dea.html

Suppressed Women's Histories
www.suppressedhistories.net/secret_history/roman_persecution.html

http://abacus.bates.edu/~mimber/Rciv/bonadea.htm

http://efts.lib.uchicago.edu/cgi-
bin/eos/eos_page.pl?DPI=100&callnum=DG16.P72&ident=85

http://www.stoa.org/diotima/anthology/wlgr/wlgr-religion412.shtml#des

http://www.dl.ket.org/latin3/mores/religion/bonadea.htm

http://www.sacredspiral.com/Database/rome/rome05.html