Baba Daýhan
Turkmen · numen · Turkmen traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
Baba Daýhan, the 'Farmer-Elder', is the Turkmen patron spirit of tillers and cultivation. Tradition names him as the first to dig an irrigation channel and lead water onto the fields, thereby founding settled agriculture. Farmers invoke his blessing over sowing and harvest, pairing him with Burkut Baba, the rain-pir, in the tutelary economy of the oasis peasantry. Like other Central Asian agrarian patrons, he preserves under an Islamic guise a pre-Islamic guardian of the cultivated land.
Domains
- agriculture
- irrigation
Powers
- open the first irrigation canal
Epithets
- daýhanlaryň piri — the pir of farmers'Su Kültünün Türkmen Kültüründeki İzleri', DergiPark article-file 4860334. (secondary)
Sources
- Baba Daýhan is the Turkmen patron of farmers, remembered as the one who first dug an irrigation canal to water the fields.: 'Su Kültünün Türkmen Kültüründeki İzleri' (Traces of the Water Cult in Turkmen Culture), DergiPark, article-file 4860334. (secondary); Snesarev, G. P. Relikty domusul'manskikh verovanii i obriadov u uzbekov Khorezma. Moscow: Nauka, 1969. (secondary)