Jalmauyz Kempir
Kazakh · numen · Kazakh traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
Jalmauyz Kempir, the 'devouring old woman', is the cannibal ogress of Kazakh magic tales, a hag who lurks at springs and fords to seize the unwary and swallow them whole. In many tellings she is monstrous and multiple-headed, sometimes counted seven-headed, and in others she guards the water so that the thirsty must yield a child before they may drink. Like the deathless sorcerers of neighboring traditions she may keep her life-soul hidden far outside her body, in an egg or a beast, so that she cannot be slain until the hero discovers and destroys it. She belongs among the underworld and wilderness adversaries whom heroes such as Er Tostik must outwit, the female face of the tale's devouring chaos.
Domains
- cannibalism devouring
- witchcraft sorcery
Powers
- devours those she captures
Epithets
- жеті басты Жалмауыз — seven-headed JalmauyzPotanin, Kazakh-kirgizskie i altaiskie predaniya (1917). (secondary)
Relations
- enemy: Er TostikThe devouring hag figures among the underworld adversaries the hero Er Tostik must overcome.Er-Tostik, in Kazakhskie narodnye skazki, ed. Institut literatury i iskusstva im. M. Auezova (Alma-Ata, 1971). (secondary)
Sources
- Jalmauyz Kempir is a cannibal ogress of Kazakh folk narrative, often depicted as a many-headed old woman who devours humans and whose soul may be kept hidden outside her body.: Qondybai, Kazakhskaya mifologiya (2005). (secondary); Potanin, Kazakh-kirgizskie i altaiskie predaniya, legendy i skazki (1917). (secondary)