World-Watching Man
Khanty · deity · primordial · deity
The central Ob-Ugric intermediary, classed here as a deity (a divine son and mediator-hero). Khanty Mĭr šawijti xŭ ('the man who watches over the world'), Mansi mir-susne-xum; the corpus also carries the Mansi form (mansi_mir_susne_khum) per the tradition split. Youngest/seventh son of Num-Torum by Kaltes, he rides a winged horse on a daily circuit of the sky, watching humanity, granting fertility and fortune, and carrying prayers up to and the sky-father's word down from the remote upper heaven. Documented for the Khanty by Karjalainen and in the modern Encyclopaedia of Uralic Mythologies, with rich Mansi (Vogul) parallels in Munkácsi.
Parentage
Domains
- watching over the world
- intercession
- fertility and fortune
Powers
- rides daily around the world to oversee mankind
- carries human prayers up and the sky-father's word down
- takes bird and other shapes to move between the worlds
Epithets
- Mĭr šawijti xŭ
Relations
- father: Sky Father
- mother: Kaltes
- sibling: Golden Old Man
- equated with: World-Surveyor Man
- sibling: Lower Sky Lord
- sibling: World-Surveyor Man