Rice Mother
Akha · numen · Akha traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
The Rice Mother is the personified guardian of the rice to whom the Akha address the round of rituals that punctuate the agricultural year. In Akha thought rice, like people, has a soul, and the flight of that soul brings sickness and dearth; the rites of the Rice Mother recall the wandering soul and secure the fertility and health, the blessing, on which the household depends. Though the supreme creator stands higher in the cosmic order, it is the Rice Mother, alongside the ancestors, who receives the more constant and elaborate cult.
Domains
- agriculture rice
- fertility and blessing
Powers
- holds and returns the soul of the rice
Epithets
- Rice Mother — mother of the riceC. A. Kammerer, 'Akha', Encyclopedia of World Cultures vol. 5 (1993). (secondary)
Sources
- Akha rice rituals are directed to the Rice Mother; both people and rice are held to have souls whose flight causes disease, and the Rice Mother is more often the object of formal worship than the supreme creator.: C. A. Kammerer, 'Akha', Encyclopedia of World Cultures vol. 5 (1993). (secondary)