Mid-day

Mid-day is one of the named Chukchi directional Beings (vaʼirgьt). Bogoras records the 'benevolent beings sacrificed to' (taaronyo vairgit) as inhabiting the twenty-two directions of the compass, with Dawn, the Zenith and Mid-day receiving the principal sacrifices; Mid-day, the Sun and the Pole-Star are 'often identified with the middle-crown' (ginon-kana'irgin), the being of the zenith. It is treated, like the other directional Beings, as a benevolent superior Being rather than a sharply biographied individual, and is classed here as a deity with no attested divine parent.

Domains

• noon direction
• benevolent direction

Powers

• receives the people's sacrifices at the noon (Mid-day) quarter
• is identified with the 'middle-crown' at the height of the sky

Relations

• companion: Zenith
• companion: Dawn

Sources

• Waldemar Bogoras, The Chukchee, Part II 'Religion' (Jesup North Pacific Expedition VII / Memoirs AMNH XI), 1907, pp. 303–304
• M. A. Czaplicka, Aboriginal Siberia (Oxford, 1914), Part III 'Religion,' ch. XIII
• Ülo Siimets, 'The Sun, the Moon and Firmament in Chukchi Mythology,' Folklore 32 (2006): 129–156