Kaftar
Tabasaran · numen · Tabasaran traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
Kaftar, fully Kaftar-zhanavar ('Kaftar the beast'), is a graveyard demon best preserved among the Tabasarans of the upper Tabasaran highlands. She is imagined as a fearsome one-eyed old woman as large as a foal, so dreadful that a person who sees her dies of terror. Her principal office is the guarding of the cemetery: she assails only those who profane the graves, and she is believed to dig up and devour the corpses of children buried too shallowly. She belongs to the pan-Caucasian Kaftar hag-type, elsewhere identified with the hyena, and forms with Al and Iri bab the trio of hostile old-woman demons of Tabasaran lower mythology.
Domains
- cemetery guardian
Powers
- guards the graves and punishes their defilers
- digs up and devours shallow-buried dead
Sources
- Among the Tabasarans, especially of the upper districts, Kaftar (Kaftar-zhanavar) is a one-eyed old-woman demon the size of a foal, so terrible that whoever sees her dies of fright; she guards the cemetery, attacks those who desecrate graves, and digs up and eats the shallow-buried corpses of children.: R.I. Seferbekov, Traditsionnye religioznye predstavleniya tabasarantsev (Makhachkala, 2000) (secondary); R.I. Seferbekov (2001), On the Demonology of the Tabasaranians: Typology and Description (Internet Archive) (secondary)