Umai

Umai, addressed among the Altaians as Umai-ene or May-ene ("Mother Umai"), is the goddess of birth and the protectress of women and small children, her name deriving from an old Turkic word for the birth-caul or womb. She guards the newborn and its fragile life-soul, and her constant presence was believed to attend the child until it could walk, run, and speak clearly. When a child reached six months a kam was invited to perform a sacrifice to her, and a small model bow and arrow, understood as her weapon against the spirits that menace infants, was fastened to the cradle as a talisman. She is one of the most enduringly venerated figures of Altai belief and is continuous with the ancient Turkic goddess Umay attested in the Orkhon inscriptions.

Domains

• childbirth
• fertility

Powers

• guard newborns and the life-soul of children

Epithets

• Умай-эне — Mother UmaiA. V. Anokhin, Materialy po shamanstvu u altaitsev, Sbornik MAE IV(2), Leningrad: Izd. AN SSSR, 1924 (primary)

Sources

• Umai is the Altai goddess who protects women in childbirth, infants, and the cradle, honored with a sacrifice when a child reaches six months and symbolized by a miniature bow tied to the cradle.: L. P. Potapov, Umai — bozhestvo drevnikh tiurkov v svete etnograficheskikh dannykh, in Tiurkologicheskii sbornik 1972, Moscow: Nauka, 1973 (secondary); A. V. Anokhin, Materialy po shamanstvu u altaitsev, Sbornik MAE IV(2), Leningrad: Izd. AN SSSR, 1924 (primary)