Untul ebel

Унтул эбел, the Mother of the Diseases, is the darkest of the four personified Mothers, the bringer of epidemic and fever. Belief pictured her as a naked child whose body was hard and rough like tree-bark, a form marking her as a creature of the lower mythology rather than a beneficent power. As the others govern earth, water and wind, she governs sickness, sending and withholding the plagues that swept the mountain villages. Scholars group her with her sisters as a splitting-off of a single ancestral mother-creator, her benevolent maternal aspect here inverted into affliction; propitiatory and apotropaic customs sought to turn her away from the household.

Domains

• disease pestilence

Powers

• sends and withdraws sickness

Relations

• sibling: Rak'ul ebelOne of the four personified Mothers held to descend from a single mother-creator.Халидова М.Р. Мифологические образы в устной прозе народов Дагестана. Махачкала, 1984. (secondary)
• sibling: Ladal ebelOne of the four personified Mothers held to descend from a single mother-creator.Халидова М.Р. Мифологические образы в устной прозе народов Дагестана. Махачкала, 1984. (secondary)
• sibling: Gorol ebelOne of the four personified Mothers held to descend from a single mother-creator.Халидова М.Р. Мифологические образы в устной прозе народов Дагестана. Махачкала, 1984. (secondary)

Sources

• Унтул эбел (Mother of Diseases) is a personified demonological figure of Avar tradition, appearing as a naked child with a hard bark-like body, counted among the four 'Mother' figures derived from an original mother-creator.: Сефербеков Р.И. «Персонажи низшей мифологии народов Дагестана». Махачкала: ИИАЭ. (secondary); Халидова М.Р. Мифологические образы в устной прозе народов Дагестана. Махачкала, 1984. (secondary)