Loha Pennu (the Iron-god / War-god)
Kondh · deity · Kondh traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
Loha Pennu, the Iron-god, is the war-god of the Kondh and one of the most vividly described of the second-rank deities. In the account given by Macpherson and repeated by Tylor he is the personified spirit of tribal war: he enters into all weapons so that from instruments of peace they become instruments of war, giving edge to the axe and point to the arrow. His name joins the Indo-Aryan loanword loha, 'iron', to the Kui penu, 'god'; his token is the iron and the iron weapons buried in his sacred grove, which stood near each group of hamlets and served as the focus of his cult. He ranks among the children of the Sun-god and the Earth-goddess.
Parentage
Domains
- war and weapons
- metalworking iron
Powers
- to enter weapons and give edge to the axe and point to the arrow
Sources
- Loha Pennu is the iron-god and war-god of the Kondh, who enters weapons and whose emblem is iron buried in a sacred grove.: E. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol. 2 (London: John Murray, 1871), ch. 17. (secondary); S. Charteris Macpherson, 'An Account of the Religion of the Khonds in Orissa,' Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland 13 (1852), pp. 216-274. (secondary)