Temu, Master of the Water
Nanai · numen · Nanai traditional religion; continuing · numen
Temu — also Temu edeni or Mue Edeni, 'master of the water' (mue, 'water', plus edeni, 'master') — is the Nanai master-spirit of the river world, the third of the great owners of the world-zones beside the masters of the taiga and the earth. For a people whose life turned on the salmon runs of the Amur, the water-master was among the most important spirits a fisherman could encounter: he was prayed and sacrificed to, offered food, and guarded against offence, for on his goodwill the catch depended. The cult of the water-master is shared across the lower-Amur peoples (Nanai, Ulchi and others) and is documented in the ethnographies of Lopatin and A. V. Smolyak.
Domains
- rivers and fresh water
- fishing and the catch
Powers
- to rule the water world and its fish
- to receive offerings and sacrifices for a good catch
Epithets
- Mue Edeni
Sources
- A. V. Smolyak, 'Nanai', in P. Friedrich & N. Diamond (eds.), Encyclopedia of World Cultures, Vol. VI: Russia and Eurasia/China, trans. Lydia T. Black, Boston: G. K. Hall, 1994.
- Ivan A. Lopatin, The Cult of the Dead among the Natives of the Amur Basin, Central Asiatic Studies VI, The Hague: Mouton & Co., 1960.