Bibi Seshanbe

Pamiri · numen · Pamiri traditional religion; continuing · numen

Bibi Seshanbe, the 'Lady of Tuesday', is the holy patroness of women, children and the home, revered throughout the Tajik and Pamiri world. Her devotion centres on a women's blessing rite held on Tuesdays, in which a small circle cooks special foods, kindles candles of cotton and animal grease, tells her story, and divines fortunes by sprinkling flour. The narrative attached to her is a Central Asian Cinderella: a mistreated girl is befriended by the Lady and lifted to wealth and a good marriage, and the rite is performed to secure the same turning of fate. Scholarship traces her, together with Bibi Mushkilkusho, to the pre-Islamic Iranian cult of a protective and fertile feminine being later clothed in the language of Muslim sainthood.

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