Rağ

In the folk religion of the Lezgic peoples, including the Tsakhur of the upper Samur and the Zaqatala–Qax slopes, the sun is a living, feminine power whose warmth ripens grain and orchard and whose return is marked by the spring calendar. She appears as the elder sister in the pan-Caucasian tale that explains the dark markings of the moon: angered by her brother's insolence, she flings a lump of dough, or in other tellings dirt or mud, at his face, and the stain remains visible to this day. The cult is attested chiefly through calendar festivals, oaths sworn by the sun, and the taboo against pointing at or defiling the luminary; sources differ on how far the personification was elaborated beyond these rites.

Domains

• sun light
• day time

Powers

• ripen crops and warm the earth

Relations

• sibling: VarzSun and Moon are cast as sister and brother in the shared Caucasian etiology of the lunar markings.Мифы народов мира. Энциклопедия. М., 1980, ст. «Кавказско-иберийских народов мифология» (secondary)

Sources

• The sun is a personified and venerated luminary in Lezgic folk religion, addressed in calendar and agrarian rites and figuring in the widespread sibling myth of Sun and Moon.: Мифы народов мира. Энциклопедия / Гл. ред. С. А. Токарев. М., 1980 (secondary); Булатова А. Г. Традиционные праздники и обряды народов горного Дагестана в XIX – начале XX в. Л.: Наука, 1988 (secondary)