Secrets of the Ancient Goddess

Secrets of the Ancient Goddess is a 1999 novel by Brenda Gates Smith, set in a village inspired by Çatalhöyük in Anatolia, around 5700 B.C in the Neolithic era. The story takes inspiration from archaeological and mythological writings by academics such as Marija Gimbutas, Joseph Campbell, and others. A sequel was published later the same year, Goddess of the Mountain Harvest.

Plot
Yana gives birth to a son, but his leg is deformed, and she must either give him up to death or leave the village and end her life with him. Shortly after, traders from the people of her father arrive asking for a priestess to help a poisoned woman. Eom, the father of Yana's child, goes instead of the head priestess. Yana dreams that she survives her suicide, and believes that her son is intended to live. Eom tells Yana the decision must wait until he returns from the trader's camp.

At the camp, Eom becomes attracted to Henne, and fails to save the dying woman Dala. He finds a copper amulet shaped like a bird in her clothing, and becomes convinced he must have it, believing it has powerful magic. At the same time, Yana is forced by Eom's mother to cut off her son Atum's toe, but is expelled from the village anyway. She catches up with Eom on his way back to the village, where Eom convinces her she must join the traders and help him acquire the amulet. Yana reluctantly agrees. She joins the group after Dala's funeral, and is given her daughter Isha to nurse. Yana is welcomed by the group quickly. During a ceremony to separate Dala's spirit from Tern, Yana has a strange experience where she acts as if she is possessed by Dala's spirit. Eom and Ledo begin tailing the group.

Dagron plans to leave Yana and Isha in the city of the Leopard People, as the elders of his village dislike foreigners. Yana is hurt by this news, and tells Dagron the secret of her birth, but Dagron does not tell her that her father Derk was a man of his village. Yana is told shortly after by Henne, who promises to petition for Yana. Yana bathes at a beach near the city, where she meets Eom. She tries to rebuff him, but they are interrupted by a raid of horsemen, who rape and capture the nearby bathing men. Yana tries to fight, but Henne is captured, Napore and Sente killed, and Linene raped. From this point, Yana and Henne's narratives are separate.

Henne
Eom finds that Ledo was killed by the horsemen, and is captured himself. Using his vulture-feather cape, he manages to impress his captors and is brought before Ralic, their leader. He is instructed by Ralic to tell the newly captured slaves that they must begin worshipping Ralic's Sky God.

Eom meets Henne before her presentation to Ralic, the Headman of the horse people, and conspires to release a snake while Henne performs a dance, to convince Ralic of the power of their Goddess. Ralic is impressed, and announces his intention to take Henne as his wife, giving Eom his wife Marne for breaking a prior agreement to give Henne to Eom. Henne is despondent, but Rea, an infertile slave woman, convinces Henne that she must be an advocate of the Goddess among the horse people. Henne visits Eom in disguise, trying to determine if he can be trusted, but he sees through her disguise and tries to rape her. He relents, and Henne asks for him to give her his power as a priest. She has ritualistic sex with Eom, and gives him the bird pendant he had originally been after, which he no longer cares about.

Soon after, Henne is married in a ceremony in which Ralic "abducts" her off a wooden platform and is chased by his men away from the camp. By a riverside, he rapes her, and she resolves to herself to take his power in the same way she did to Eom. The next night, they have sex in a similar ritualistic fashion, but she relents from taking Ralic's power. Afterward, she realizes Eom's jealousy of Ralic is putting him in danger, and tries to warn him, but instead exposes them to Ralic's suspicion. Henne realizes she is pregnant, but is unsure if the child is Eom's or Ralic's.

Soon after, Ralic's son Enak suggests raiding a nearby village for supplies and women. Ralic allows it, but Henne becomes angry and rebuffs Ralic, who strikes her, and Eom saves her from further beating. Ralic becomes regretful, but cannot stop the raid he has suggested. Henne and Eom accompany them, but during the raid, Henne jumps off her horse to save a child, causing a commotion, and Eom falls off his horse. Ralic moves to defend him, but is cut by one of the villagers. The raiders return to their camp, devastated by Ralic's mortal injury. Ralic retires to a healing tent, and Rea warns Henne that she must escape with Eom the night Ralic dies, as when the Headman dies, his wife is sacrificed with him to accompany him in death. Henne watches Marne attend Ralic, and when he is weak, suffocates him.

After escaping with Eom, the two flee for many days, and Eom plots to take Henne to a cave where they will spend the winter, rather than the city of the Leopard People. She realizes this, and rebuffs him, telling Eom she will never love him like Ralic. The next day, they separate to search a river for a shallow crossing, but Eom is found by Enak and his men. Eom refuses to give up Henne's location and is killed. Henne finds his corpse, and moments later is found by Lokuitum. They take her to the city, where she spends the winter.

Despite being heavily pregnant, Henne leaves in spring, and is nearly ready to give birth as she approaches her home village on horseback.

Yana
Yana attends the public funeral for the victims of the raid, where their beheaded bodies raised on platforms for vultures. In private ceremonies the heads are placed before the bucranium wombs of Goddess idols. At the ceremony to make her part of the Leopard people, she attempts to give Atum and Isha to Dagron's people or the leopard people, so she can complete her original suicide, believing her bad luck caused the abduction of Henne. She is convinced to instead go with Dagron's people back to their village. On the way to Dagron's village, Tern and Yana begin falling in love with each other, but Dagron is unable to convince the elders of the village to allow Yana entrance, decreeing that she must live away from the village and leave after the end of winter.

In autumn, Dagron arrives to take Isha to her grandmother Nachem. Yana is furious and enters the village to confront the elders. There she discovers that they are grievously deformed, with a blind man, a man with a clubfoot, and a woman with a withered arm. Yana pleads but does give up Isha. Some time later, the female elder visits Yana with Nachem and Isha. Afterwards, the elder offers to adopt Atum into the tribe, and also offers the same to Yana. Tern objects as the adoption ceremony would be deadly to an adult. Tern resolves to convince Yana to take Atum back to the Leopard People and live there with him. They secretly marry, but Yana becomes more attached to the feeling of family she has gained with Galea, Dagron, and others. During the winter, she divorces Tern, saying she can't bear to separate him from his mother and daughter. As winter comes to an end, Tern comes to Yana to say his goodbyes. Yana reveals that she has chosen not to leave, but undergo the adoption ceremony, enraging Tern as he sees it as suicide.

During the adoption ceremony, Yana is drugged and taken to a cave. When she awakens, the poor light and lingering effects of the drug cause Yana to believe the animals are real, and that she has been taken into the womb of the Goddess. Following the elder priestess' advice to "become a child again", she follows the footprints of what she believes are spirit children, which lead her to a small tunnel in the cave. She attempts to go through, but eventually the passage becomes too small for an adult. Finding herself unable to turn back, she passes out due to fear and hunger, but is able to wriggle backward when she awakes. She searches for another way out, but is unable to find any, and her lantern goes out. Yana at first rages, but soon falls asleep. Awakening, she has a change of heart and gives herself up to the Goddess' will. At the same time, Tern gives up his two day vigil at the exit of the cave, believing Yana must have died. Instead, she enters a dreamlike state, in which she dives into the spring in the cave, swimming through an underground tunnel. She emerges from the sacred spring of the village, shocking the people, who attribute her survival to a miracle. The elder priestess declares that Yana has been marked for greatness and will become the Mother Priestess when she herself dies. At the same time, Henne appears on the horizon riding her horse.

Epilogue
Rea, near the end of her life, now called "Grandmother", tells the children of a city a myth in which the Sky God and the Goddess fight, but come to love each other and have many children, but their male and female children war. The Sky God and the Goddess have another child, which they hide from the others, who will be a god of peace. She counsels Melkezda, the future king of the city they live in, that if a man speaks of a god not defined by idols, and encompassing everything, to bless him and be blessed by him, and that his time will have the potential of new beginnings.

Veznt
A small village in Anatolia. Ruled by a head priestess and her subordinate priestesses, they believe that deformity brings bad luck, and sacrifice deformed infants when they are born.
 * Yana, a girl who refused to let her second son be put to death for his deformity. Her mother eloped with a foreign man during an important religious ceremony, but died in childbirth, leaving Yana an outsider in her own community.
 * Atum, Yana's second and only surviving son, born with an extra toe and a slightly bowed leg.
 * Eom, the priest of the Vulture Goddess, Yana's mate at the beginning of the novel, and father of her first two sons.
 * Ledo, an old male hunter who accompanies Eom.
 * The Head Priestess, mother of Eom and leader of the village.

Dagron's People
A village ruled by a council of elders. They do not abhor deformity, and adopt children with mild deformities from other villages as their own. They are very suspicious of outsiders otherwise, and do not allow them to settle in their village. They also hide their women from the view of outsiders.
 * Dagron, a traveling trader.
 * Henne, a red-haired woman, Dagron's sister.
 * Tern, a member of Henne and Dagron's travelling group, adopted into Dagron's family from another tribe as a young boy.
 * Dala, a young woman married to Tern, she dies of a snake bite. Possessed deformed fingers.
 * Isha, Dala and Tern's infant daughter, she is nursed by Yana after Isha's death.
 * Derk, Yana's father and uncle of Dagron and Henne.
 * Galea, sister of Derk and Mother of Dagron. Supports Yana's integration into the tribe.
 * Nachem, mother of Dala, takes Isha into her household. Initially opposes Yana's integration, but becomes her supporter.
 * Niam, a woman similar in appearance to Yana. Engaged to Dagron. Supports Yana's integration.
 * Lolim, middle-aged and oldest woman of the of the group, married to Dak.
 * Dak, middle-aged and oldest man of the group, married to Lolim.
 * Napore, a young woman, married to Sente. Killed by the horse people.
 * Sente, a young man, married to Napore. Killed by the horse people.
 * Amoon, Duues, and Seke, unwanted boys collected to join Dagron's village.
 * The elders, who are grievously deformed, one female elder having a withered arm, a male blind in both eyes, and a male with a clubfoot. The female elder allows Yana to attempt the adoption ceremony into their village.

The Leopard People
Inhabitants of a large city modelled off of Çatalhöyük. They have hereditary trades such as weaving and baking, and distribute food in a communistic system where all participate in agriculture and receive equal shares of the harvest. They do not recognize marriage, rather men visit the homes of women they wish to to stay with, for variable lengths of time. They welcome foreigners to their city openly. Their dwellings are accessed via doors set in the roofs of the buildings.
 * Lokuitum, a tall handsome man, hunting priest of the Leopard People.
 * Nago, a hunter and friend of Loikuitum.
 * Loron, a woman intimate with Loikuitum.
 * Linene, a young woman who attends to the women of Dagron's group.
 * The twin priestesses, one named Mira, who lead the Leopard People.
 * The grandmother of the twin priestesses, who counsels both Yana and Henne.

The Horse People
A foreign group who ride horses, speak a different language from the Goddess worshippers, worship a sky god instead of the Goddess, and take slaves.
 * Ralic, the Headman of the horse people. Muscular and intelligent, he wears a copper disk depicting the sun on his neck.
 * Rea, a woman enslaved by the horse people, who due to her infertility was never given to a specific man.
 * Marne, Ralic's former wife, given to Eom after his marriage to Henne.
 * Gath, a large man and one of Ralic's advisors.
 * Enak, son of Ralic and Marne. He becomes Headman after Ralic.
 * Rene, a girl born generations later when the Horse People rule a city.
 * Melkezda, born generations later, the future king of the Horse People.