BANDUE
Revista de la Sociedad Española
de Ciencias de las Religiones
Review of the Spanish Association
for the Sciences of Religions
Who is Bandue?
Bandue is a pre-Roman Hispanic divinity of which around 50 documentary testimonials remain. One of these is that which forms the logo of our magazine, a silver patera of unknown origin (probably from ancient Lusitania) which forms part of the Calzadilla Collection of Badajoz (Spain). The divinity is represented as a crowned goddess in a natural setting, in a typically Roman representation and she is named as Band in the top left-hand part of the plate. In the majority of testimonies the divinity appears as masculine. 
We are to think that perhaps, in the imaginary of his or her cult followers over the course of time, Bandue may have been considered as both a god and a goddess. Sive deus, sive dea, sive mas, sive femina was a Latin formula used when the gender of the supernatural being evoked was undefined, unknown, irrelevant or referred to a principle which could not easily be reduced to a determined option. 
There is no agreement on the functions of Bandue (which in other acceptations is knows as Bandi or Bandua). Depending on the disciplinary  or theoretic position of those considering this divinity, various possibilities and etymologies have been considered, from the Celtic (in general) to the Galician or Lusitanian. Some assert that the name simply means god or goddess. Others that it refers to an aquatic divinity. Other possibilities are that it has a functional specialisation in war, protection or  tutelage. An interpretation which is interesting for a multidisciplinary group such as that characterised by the Spanish Society for Religious Sciences is that it refers to a divinity of links (or bonds, an english word related with one of the possible etymologies of Bandue), which ties and interconnects, even that in its verbalized function it is equivalent to the Latin term religare which forms one of the etymologies of the complex context to which those of us who make up the SECR dedicate our studies. Another interesting hypothesis considers Bandue to be a divinity of the thresholds, of limits, both real and magic, of limina, of transitions, of passages. This liminal nature is another of the characteristics of the diffuse disciplinary field dedicated to the study of religion, in particular in Spain. 
To summarise, so much indecisiveness converts Bandue into a symbol of union in difference and her (or his or it) imaginary protection could have the totemic value of underpinning that collective effort which is the determination to consolidate a scientific periodical publication. 
To find out more: 
There is an ample bibliographic collection on the so-called band- group of divinities. As an example: J.M. Blázquez, Religiones primitivas de Hispania, Madrid/Roma: CSIC, 1962, 51-61 in which he presents a first synthesis and a compilation of the documentary material which he has updated in numerous later works. A redefinition of the documentation is presented in B.M. Prósper, Lenguas y religiones prerromanas del occidente de la Península Ibérica, Salamanca: Universidad de Salamanca, 2002, 257-281.