Zemire

Zemire (also Zamire, Zamura) is the rain-and-fertility goddess of the old Kumyk pantheon, imagined as a tall, full-figured and powerful woman. Her name survives above all in the drought-time rite Zemire, performed by girls who processed through the village carrying a decorated effigy and singing for the rain to fall. Sources group her with the other water-element powers Sütqatın, Suvanası and Gudurbay, and the theonym Murgurek is reported as a synonym linking Zemire with Suvanası. Scholars regard her as one of the clearest survivals of a pre-Islamic Turkic fertility cult among the Kumyks.

Domains

• rain
• fertility

Powers

• sends the rain

Relations

• ally: Gudurbay
• ally: Suvanası
• companion: Sütqatın

Sources

• Obryady vyzova dozhdya v traditsionnoy kul'ture tyurkoyazychnykh narodov Prikaspiyskogo Dagestana (kumyki, nogaytsy, terekementsy). Cyberleninka.
• Seferbekov, R. I. (2015). Verkhovnye bogi (gromoverzhtsy) narodov Dagestana. Vestnik Instituta IAE, no. 3.