Bibi Seshanbe
Yaghnobi · numen · Yaghnobi traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
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.
Domains
- protection women
- home hearth
- fortune
Powers
- shelter the household and its women
- raise the poor and mistreated
- reveal fate in scattered flour
Epithets
- Бибӣ Сешанбе Она — Mother Lady-TuesdayT. Emelyanenko, 'Rite in Honor of Bibi Seshanbe', Kunstkamera, 2022. (secondary)
Relations
- companion: Bibi MushkilkushoPaired patroness of women, invoked in the same devotional cycle.Comparative study of rituals of the cult of Bibi Seshanbe and Bibi Mushkilkusho (oaji.net, 2015). (secondary)
- companion: Bibi FotimaBoth stand within the women's protective devotional complex.On the shared Central Asian sacred-feminine complex of women's patronesses (medanthro.ru, 'Fertility and the sacred feminine in Central Asian healing'). (secondary)
- enemy: OlAs guardian of women she stands against the birth-demoness.P. Delaini, 'Traditional medicine in the Yaghnob Valley: notes on body therapy, pregnancy and birth care' (protective patronesses opposed to the childbirth demon). (secondary)
Sources
- Bibi Seshanbe is a patroness of home, women and children whose weekday rite is kept across Tajik Central Asia including the Yaghnob valley.: T. Emelyanenko, 'Rite in Honor of Bibi Seshanbe Among the Tajiks of Samarkand', Kunstkamera, 2022. (secondary)
- Scholars derive her from the Avestan goddess Anahita and an older stratum of feminine shrine veneration.: Comparative study of the cult of Bibi Seshanbe (oaji.net, 2015): pre-Islamic Iranian roots, prototype in Ardvi Sura Anahita. (secondary)