Al pab
Tabasaran · numen · Tabasaran traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
Al, called Al pab ('Al the woman'), is the Tabasaran demon of the childbed, an unambiguously hostile female being who preys on pregnant women, mothers in labour and the newly born. She is said to steal the infant from its mother's womb and to visit sickness and death upon mother and child alike; against her the household hung amulets and talismans and set out iron, whose presence she cannot abide. She belongs to the widespread Caucasian and Turkic Al / Albasty type of birth-demon, and stands as the clear antagonist to the kindly house-spirit Rukh bav within the Tabasaran lower mythology.
Domains
- childbirth affliction
Powers
- assails women in labour and the newborn
Sources
- Al (Al pab) is the Tabasaran female demon hostile to pregnant women, women in childbirth and newborns, able to steal the child from the womb and to bring disease and death, against whom iron and many amulets were used.: R.I. Seferbekov, Personazhi nizshei mifologii narodov Dagestana (Institute of History, DFRC RAS) (secondary); R.I. Seferbekov (2001), On the Demonology of the Tabasaranians: Typology and Description (secondary)