Balumain the Festival-Bringer
Kalash · demigod · mythic; returns each winter solstice · Recorded classification
Foregrounded demigod culture-hero. Chaumos is the great Kalash midwinter festival; Tsiyam (tsíam) the ancestral homeland. The 'budulak' shepherd-boy figure of Chaumos is connected to his cult.
Domains
- festival and rite
- fertility and fortune
Powers
- teaches the people how to keep the Chaumos festival
- returns each year from the homeland Tsiyam like Indra reborn
Epithets
- Balumain the Chaumos visitor-hero, a form of IndraA. Witzel, 'The Religions of the Hindukush' (secondary)
Relations
- sibling: IndrIn the reported Indrunkot account.Michael Witzel, Kalash Religion, extract from The Ṛgvedic Religious System (2004), §§1.5.1–1.5.3, pp.3–8 and n.4 (secondary)
Sources
- Balumain (Balimain) is the Kalash culture-hero/demigod who taught the people the Chaumos winter-solstice festival; cheated by Mahandeo at the Shawalo meadow he retired to the homeland Tsiyam and returns yearly on horseback, a pattern Witzel likens to the reborn Vedic Indra.: Witzel, M. (2004). Kalash Religion. Groningen: Forsten. (scholarship); Jettmar, K. (1986). The Religions of the Hindukush, vol. 1: The Religion of the Kafirs. Aris & Phillips. (scholarship)