Bibi Seshanbe

Yaghnobi · numen · Yaghnobi traditional religion; continuing · numen

Bibi Seshanbe ('Lady Tuesday'), addressed also as Bibi Seshanbe Ona ('Mother Lady-Tuesday'), is a patroness of the household, of women and of children venerated throughout Tajik Central Asia, the Yaghnob valley among them. Her rite, kept by circles of women on a Tuesday, centres on special foods, the lighting of candles and divination in scattered flour, and is bound to a Cinderella-type tale in which a poor and mistreated girl is raised up through the saint's favour. Scholars trace her beneath the Islamic surface to the Avestan water- and fertility-goddess Arədvī Sūrā Anāhitā and to a still older stratum of feminine shrine veneration.

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