Bibi Seshanbe
Bibi Seshanbe, 'Lady Tuesday', is a patroness of women venerated across the Tajik and neighbouring Uzbek populations of Central Asia. Her cult centres on a vow-rite: a woman seeking a husband, a child, cure, or relief from want pledges to hold the 'meal of Bibi Seshanbe' on a Tuesday, at which women gather, share a simple dish of flatbread and grain, and recite a hagiographic tale in which the lady rewards a poor but pious woman with sudden fortune. Soviet ethnographers such as Sukhareva and Snesarev documented her among the plains Tajiks and read her as an Islamised survival of an older female divinity of water, spinning, and household increase. Sources differ on whether she should be identified with the pre-Islamic goddess Anahita, with the Islamic figure of Fatima, or treated as an autonomous folk patroness.
Domains
- womens domestic cult
- fortune provision
Powers
- grant blessing and plenty to women
Epithets
- Бибӣ Сешанбе — Lady TuesdaySukhareva, O.A. 'Perezhitki demonologii i shamanstva u ravninnykh tadzhikov.' In Domusul'manskie verovaniya i obryady v Srednei Azii, 5-93. Moscow: Nauka, 1975. (secondary)
- Момо — GrandmotherSnesarev, G.P. Relikty domusul'manskikh verovanii i obryadov u uzbekov Khorezma. Moscow: Nauka, 1969. (secondary)
Relations
- companion: Bibi MushkilkushoThe two patronesses of women's vow-rites are frequently invoked in the same domestic ceremonies.Snesarev, G.P. Relikty domusul'manskikh verovanii i obryadov u uzbekov Khorezma. Moscow: Nauka, 1969. (secondary)
Sources
- Bibi Seshanbe is a female patron figure of Tajik and wider Central Asian women's domestic ritual, honoured with a Tuesday votive meal.: Sukhareva, O.A. 'Perezhitki demonologii i shamanstva u ravninnykh tadzhikov.' In Domusul'manskie verovaniya i obryady v Srednei Azii, 5-93. Moscow: Nauka, 1975. (secondary)
- Ethnographers connect her cult to a pre-Islamic female deity of water and fertility surviving beneath an Islamic saintly guise.: Snesarev, G.P. Relikty domusul'manskikh verovanii i obryadov u uzbekov Khorezma. Moscow: Nauka, 1969. (secondary)