Lioness Tattoo Meaning

The hunter, fierce motherhood, feminine power, and ferocity that makes no apology.

The lioness is the hunter and the fierce mother — the true engine of the pride, who hunts, provides, and raises the young, and who becomes the most dangerous of all when her cubs are threatened, the embodiment of feminine power and ferocity that makes no apology. To carry the lioness is to carry the hunter, fierce motherhood, and feminine power — the huntress who sustains the pride, the mother whose ferocity in defense of her young knows no limit, the concentrated power of the divine feminine, fierce and unapologetic.

In ancient Egypt the lioness was the primary form of the most powerful and dangerous of the goddesses — the embodiment of divine feminine power at its most concentrated and fierce. Sekhmet, the terrifying goddess of war, destruction, and healing, was depicted as a woman with the head of a lioness; Mut, the great mother goddess; Bastet in her fierce aspect; and Tefnut, goddess of moisture — these and other powerful goddesses took the lioness form. The image of the lioness-headed goddess was the very picture of the fierce, dangerous, and mighty divine feminine.

Sekhmet above all embodied the lioness's terrible power: her name means 'the powerful one,' and she was the goddess of war and vengeance, so fierce that she nearly destroyed humanity in her rage, the burning, devastating power of the divine made female and leonine. The lioness-headed goddesses represented the divine feminine not as gentle or nurturing alone but as fierce, powerful, and dangerous — the concentrated, formidable power of the goddess in her most awesome and terrible aspect. The Egyptian lioness is the form of the fierce goddesses, the divine feminine at its most powerful and dangerous. The Egyptian lioness is the form of the fierce goddesses — the primary form of the most powerful Egyptian goddesses (Sekhmet the war goddess, Mut the great mother, Bastet in her fierce aspect, Tefnut), the lioness-headed figure being the image of divine feminine power at its most concentrated and dangerous, embodied above all in Sekhmet ('the powerful one'), goddess of war and vengeance so fierce she nearly destroyed humanity, the burning leonine power of the divine feminine in its most awesome and terrible aspect.

In lion prides, lionesses do approximately 90% of the hunting — they coordinate pursuit strategies, communicate with each other during the hunt, and make the kills that feed the group. The male lion's mane makes him conspicuous and therefore a liability in hunting; the lioness's tawny coat and leaner build are adaptations for predation. The lioness raises cubs communally — females in a pride often give birth around the same time and nurse each other's young. In Egyptian iconography, the lioness-headed goddesses (Sekhmet, Mut, Tefnut, Bastet) represent the most active and dangerous aspects of the divine feminine — healing, war, moisture, and protection respectively. The sphinx (with a lion's body) in the feminine form — the criosphinx and hieracosphinx — connects lioness power to mystery and threshold-keeping.

Lioness across cultures

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