While demons, the Grim Reaper, and Hades are universally known, there are countless other culturally specific conceptions of death. In case you have never heard of them, here are ten of death’s most intriguing manifestations.

10. The Mictlantecuhtli—Aztecs

Among the many Aztec deities associated with death, Mictlantecuhtli oversaw the lowest level, Mictlan, the domain of the dead located in the north. He shared animal associations with other Aztec gods, namely spiders, owls, and bats. His appearance was that of a skeleton covered in blood and adorned with a necklace made of human eyeballs.The Aztec god Quetzalcoatl sought the remains of the dead in order to bring new life into existence; yet, he could not do so without them. Upon creation of the world, Mictlantecuhtli and his wife Mictecacihuatl were sent to the underworld. After first agreeing to offer them to Quetzalcoatl, they decided to keep the bones he was looking for safe. The god of the dead, Quetzalcoatl, tried to keep the god of creation in the underworld when he journeyed there to retrieve the bones. People appear in many sizes and shapes because Quetzalcoatl fractured a few bones on his escape, even though he managed to get away with the bones.The priests of Mictlantecuhtli would often consume human flesh in and around the temple as part of their ceremonial cannibalism.

9. Subsip

Ukhu Pacha, the Incan deity of death and the underworld, was known as Supay. Although the Incans associated death with the underworld and the demon king Supay, the underworld was not always seen as a negative thing. The Inca had great reverence for Supay and the underworld because they thought that underground springs served as a connection between the living and the dead.

Since Supay resembled Satan so closely, the Christians who immigrated to South America also began to associate his name with Satan. Despite his respect, the Inca held Supay in high esteem; as a result, they performed a number of ceremonies to implore him not to do them harm. The Quechua people of South America still adhere to this tradition. Mamacha Candicha (“The Flame Virgin”) is a two-week long festival where they take part, and the focus is virtually exclusively on dancing. In homage to Supay, people don vibrantly coloured masks and costumes.

8. Dear Thanatos

The Greek god of peaceful death, Thanatos, stood in opposition to the Roman god Mars in Roman mythology. Slaughter and illness were embodied by his sisters, the Keres. The gods of Mount Olympus, who are immortal, despised him just as much as mortals. The mortals anticipated his arrival at some point, usually in their twilight years. Supposedly, he showed up out of the blue. Typical depictions of him were a bearded man with wings, wielding either a sword or a torch, much like a Christian angel.In The Iliad and other ancient Greek writings, Thanatos was mentioned by Homer. He may be outmanoeuvred and even tricked into letting someone live forever by preventing him from dying. In order to save himself, Sisyphus ensnared Thanatos in a bag, and this is what happened. Since Thanatos was rendered helpless in these fights, the god of war, Ares, grew enraged that no one was losing their lives. To carry out Zeus’s punishment—to continually wheel a rock up a hill only to have it roll back down with each attempt—Ares intervened, liberated Thanatos, and handed Sisyphus over to the god of death.

7. Donn

The Irish ruler of seclusion and mortality was Donn. Tech Duinn, the House of Donn, off the southwest coast of Ireland, was his Otherworldly home. Legend has it that in order to bring more souls into his realm, Donn would concoct storms to wreck ships.Intriguingly, Donn was not a deity but rather a mortal man named Milesius’s son. He and his three brothers attempted to conquer Ireland, but they were all killed in combat. He lived in the spot where he had died and oversaw the gathering of souls after he had died at sea. “According to popular belief, the dead would linger in this world as’shades’ after death until Samhain, when the horn of Donn summoned them to Teach Duinn, and from there they would cross the sea to the Otherworld.”

6. Xiao Bo

Meng Po is known as the Lady of Forgetfulness in Chinese mythology. She is an ordained minister in China’s afterlife domain, the Di Yu. When a soul is prepared to be reborn, it is Meng Po’s job to make sure it forgets its past life and its stay in Di Yu. She makes a unique blend of tea called the Five-Flavored Tea of Forgetfulness and gives a cup to every spirit in order to aid in forgetting. In order to continue their journey into a new earthly incarnation, the soul is instantly awarded permanent amnesia.Even while it lacks the language skills to convey its confusion, a resurrected spirit can nevertheless feel the animal’s agony and suffering when it is killed. This is why a lot of people try to stay away from Meng Po’s tea. The ability to talk upon birth is said to be a result of the soul residing in the body having managed to evade the watchful eyes of the Hellish guardians and not partake in the Broth of Oblivion, according to tales of miraculous births.

5. The Sedda

Sedna is a goddess of the sea and the underworld in Inuit mythology. Sedna and her father used to dwell on a beach when she was a lovely mortal woman. Even though her mother had passed away, she and her father had coexisted peacefully for the majority of her life. A lot of guys tried to win Sedna over with their charms and allure, but she was too beautiful for them.An avian fulmar swooped down from the ice sheet one year, serenading Sedna with a song that promised to lead her to a realm of “never hunger, where my tent is made of the most beautiful skins,” when the ice shattered. Rest your weary bones on plush bearskins. After Sedna agreed to the courtship, she and her new boyfriend set sail across the ocean. She reached her new home to find it a barren wasteland populated by fish scales, wind, and snow, and that the bird had been deceiving her the whole way.It took a year of Sedna’s misery in her new home for the ice to break for her father to come to her rescue. He returned to his boat with his daughter after killing the gull out of anger over how she had been handled. The gull’s pals wept upon learning of his death, and they still weep over their loss today. A huge storm erupted from the waters after they ascended to the skies, where they discovered the escaping boat. In an effort to save her life, Sedna’s father gave his daughter to the gulls, but she clung to the boat’s railing instead. Her father was not happy and amputated her fingers’ first joints; the fingers then swam away like whales in the ocean. They swam away like seals in the ocean as soon as he severed their next joints.As soon as the birds took flight, Sedna’s father rescued her and returned her to the boat, assuming she had perished. After they reached land, she let her dogs chew on her sleeping father’s feet and hands out of her anger over what had happened. Upon regaining consciousness, he swore at Sedna, the dogs, and even himself for what had transpired. Subsequently, the Earth ploughed open and engulfed everyone. They have been in Adlivun ever since, the underworld, where Sedna is still the land’s mistress.

4. Dear Ankou

The Breton people of northwest France held the belief that Ankou embodied death. The responsibility of guarding the cemeteries and the spirits housed within fell on him, and he was shown in both human and skeletal forms. Each year on December 31, a new soul replaces the previous one, and in some tribes, Ankou is thought to have been the first son of Adam and Eve. In other cultures, though, he is considered to have been the last man to die.The name Ankou translates to “Reaper of the Dead,” suggesting that he served as a model for the Grim Reaper, at least in appearance and personality. As night fell, Ankou would gather the souls of the dying and ill by driving a cart pulled by skeletal horses around the countryside. When Ankou’s cart was full, he would bring it to the underworld ruler, Anaon. It was believed that one may avoid death by escaping their home during the day, as Ankou would only appear when the Moon was dark and daytime had ended. His intended listeners were often the terminally ill, therefore this was obviously not feasible for them.

3. The Giltine

Prior to her seven-year slumber in a casket, Giltine was a beautiful young woman. By the time she managed to get away, she was an elderly, hideous sight with a long, blue nose and a deadly tongue that she licked onto the bodies of the condemned. She was the embodiment of death and the goddess of death herself; in later myths, she assumed the role of the Grim Reaper. She had the power to assume the form of anything she wanted, be it a snake or a piece of wood. According to legend, she could save the life of a dying person by appearing at the foot of their bed, but if she arrived at the head of the bed, death was inevitable. Even though she decreed that physicians may not challenge her authority, legend has it that she was the one who really created medicine.While it was day, she would scavenge cemeteries in her white shroud, licking tombs to get the poison she used to murder living things. In addition to her poisoned tongue, Giltine was not above resorting to other methods of murder, such as strangulation or suffocation. Even when she’s captive, she can fool others into thinking they’re alive for a little while longer. Giltine will find you in the end, no matter what you do.

2. Masaw

The Hopi people had a guardian and companion in the afterlife named Masaw, but they called him Skeleton Man. Tuwaqachi, meaning “World Complete” in Hopi mythology, is the Fourth World in which we find ourselves at this very now. Masaw, who was officially known as head caretaker, was in charge of the previous Third World. After he became conceited and forgot his place in Taiowa’s eyes, the god of death and the underworld deprived him of his title. The deity of fire and death who bestowed fire onto mankind, Masaw also became lord of the dead and king of the underworld.Following the destruction of the Third World, Taiowa granted a second opportunity to all people everywhere, including Masaw, by creating the Fourth World. He appointed Masaw to be the watchman, defender, and carer of the Fourth World. Everywhere he went, he imparted knowledge of farming, the value of permanent settlements after migration, and the way to subsist only on the land.

1. Ita

Aita was the name of the demon with the wolf’s head in the Etruscan mythology. The dead would be taken by Aita to the underworld, where he would rule over them.As a bearded man donning a wolf skin cap, he has been shown on the sides of funeral urns. Into the underworld he guides the souls whose ashes are contained in the urn. Aita is a lot like Hades in many ways. The Greeks have Hermes and the Etruscans have Turms, two messengers who help them. In a same vein, Hades has Persephone as his wife or spouse, while Aita has Phersipnei.Such parallels are typical of civilizations that were subsequently assimilated into Roman culture. To facilitate assimilation, the Romans frequently adopted the religious practices and tenets of the cultures from whom they conquered. This is the fundamental explanation for the abundance of similarities among the pantheons of the Etruscan, Greek, and Roman civilizations. Because of their shared characteristics, the many gods were unified into a pantheon that the Romans, Greeks, and Etruscans could all worship.

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