Variations on Ancient Themes

In ancient Babylon, gods of the provinces were local figures that were represented by elaborate idols. The god was tied to the province through the idol sort of like a high school mascot represents people in a school district in the United States. Just as a high school mascot might be stolen or defaced by a rival town, the Babylonian idols might be destroyed or stolen in war, or the god might be renamed and the cult realigned with the new ruler.

Another necessarily localized form of worship is ancestor veneration. A family can be more like a small polity complete with a priesthood and a ruler and a territory.

Local gods and local cults potentially disrupt imperial designs, and centralized authority. In the succession of imperial schemes that shaped the western world, local gods and ancestor worship transformed multiple times.

Sainthood in the catholic church seems a lot like a variation on the theme of deification of Caesars, which in turn, was a variation on ancestor worship plus aristocratic privilege. The imperial monotheist cults thoroughly erased the idea of local gods from the consciousness of people in the western world. Maybe the only thing similar to local gods are corporate icons, sports teams or cults of political figures.