through a prayer, and she was believed to bring her son back to life in the form of a ram, a he-goat, or a male black lamb, as the incarnation of the male principle renewed, and the reborn Zagreus was represented as a male youth wearing seven ram skins. The Bendideia The Bandideia was a festival held in honour of the goddess and was associated with warriors and the goddess in her huntress form. The Bendideia was also an initiation rite for young Thracian men, who during the festival showed their skills in mounted torch races. During this rite, the youth were "born" as men and warriors through the passing of burning torches from one to another. A similar custom was practised by the ancient Greeks of Athens, where horse races were held in honour of the city's patron goddess Athena during the Panathenaic Games. During the festival, a procession marched till a sanctuary to the Nymphs, where a sow, the sacrificial animal of , was sacrificed to the goddess as a fertility-stimulation ritual. The Bithynian spring festival The Bithyni honoured the goddess in Spring, when she was conceptualised as a huge woman spinning thread and nurturing pigs, likely because of the goddess's multi-faceted nature. Customs Shamanism Shamanism was also present in Thracian religion, and is attested in the myth of the life of the Thracian Orpheus, which symbolised the initiatory process: his singing represented the use of oral transmission in archaic religion, his behaviour included aspects of gender transformation, he descended into and returned from the underworld, and his body was dismembered and the pieces thrown into a river, with his bones being more important than his flesh. The wide open eyes depicted on Thracian helmets were also symbols of inner sight which was attainable only through secret knowledge acquired by shamanistic initiation into the mysteries given to men by Orpheus/. Symbolic representations of shamanism appear on a series of ancient Thracian helmets and biconic cups found at Agighiol and the Iron Gates. The cups are decorated with the images of horses, goats, birds, and stags. The helmets are adorned with the image of a composite creature combining the horse, goat, bird, and stag, that is the same animals depicted on the cups, and has eight legs: eight-legged creatures are inherently linked to shamans either as their helpers or foes in myths, as is seen in the form of