Maaram

Maaram is the Oromo divinity of motherhood and fecundity, paired with Atete in the ritual life of women and, in some districts, treated as another name for the same feminine power. Oromo tradition describes her as a creation of the supreme Waaqa and gives her the title haadha boorraa, 'mother of the ocean'. She is invoked and praised at birth-rituals to help barren women conceive and to bring pregnant women safely through childbirth, and her care is understood to extend to the health of animals, crops and the natural environment as a whole. Under the long influence of Christianity her name has converged with that of Maryam, the Virgin Mary, yet the figure addressed in the women's feasts remains an indigenous mother-divinity of the Waaqeffanna tradition.

Parentage

• Waaqa

Domains

• motherhood
• fertility and fecundity
• waters and ocean

Powers

• to make barren women able to bear children
• to protect the wellbeing of people, animals and crops

Epithets

• haadha boorraa

Relations

• subordinate to: Waaqa
• companion: Atete

Sources

• Bartels, Lambert. Oromo Religion: Myths and Rites of the Western Oromo of Ethiopia — An Attempt to Understand. Collectanea Instituti Anthropos 8. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer Verlag, 1983.
• "Atete: A Multi-functional Deity of Oromo Women with Particular Emphasis on Human Rights and Conflict Resolution Management." Current Research Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities 2, no. 1 (2019): 15–30.