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: GudurbayThe harvest power Gudurbay is bound to the rain-goddess Zemire in the agrarian cycle.Vestnik Instituta IAE (2015), no. 3, on the linkage of the fertility deity Gudurbay with the rain deity Zemire. (secondary)
• ally: SuvanasıGrouped among the water-element deities; the name Murgurek is reported as a synonym uniting the two.Ethnographic reports that the theonym Murgurek links Zemire with Suvanası as water-element deities; Cyberleninka, Kumyk rain rituals. (secondary)
• companion: SütqatınPaired with Sütqatın in the rain-calling songs.Obryady vyzova dozhdya v traditsionnoy kul'ture tyurkoyazychnykh narodov Prikaspiyskogo Dagestana. Cyberleninka. (secondary)

Sources

• Zemire is a rain-goddess of the old Kumyk pantheon, imagined as a tall, full-bodied and powerful woman, invoked in the drought rite of the same name performed by girls.: Obryady vyzova dozhdya v traditsionnoy kul'ture tyurkoyazychnykh narodov Prikaspiyskogo Dagestana (kumyki, nogaytsy, terekementsy). Cyberleninka. (secondary)
• Zemire is grouped with Sütqatın, Suvanası and Gudurbay among the water-element deities of the Kumyk pagan pantheon; Murgurek is reported as a synonym.: Seferbekov, R. I. (2015). Verkhovnye bogi (gromoverzhtsy) narodov Dagestana. Vestnik Instituta IAE, no. 3. (secondary)