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Petrosyan E., Hovsepyan R. Yezidi Rain-Making and Rain-Stopping Rituals in Armenia: Semantics of Mythological Motifs

E. Petrosyan
Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography NAS
Yerevan, Armenia
ORCID: 0000-0002-3468-1372
E-mail: emma.petrosyan34@mail.ru

 

R. Hovsepyan
Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography NAS
Yerevan, Armenia
ORCID: 0000-0002-7004-1145
E-mail: roman.hovsepyan@gmail.com

 

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ABSTRACT. The paper examines the semantics and the reconstruction of Yezidi rain-making and rain-stopping rituals in the light of Indo-European mythology. It draws on the ethnographic materials collected in the Yezidi villages in Armenia. In these rituals, Buka Barane (the rain’s bride), presented as a ritual doll, is interpreted as a bride and the personification of Mother-Earth, and the Rain-Mamarash is the personification of the Thunder-Bearer. The ritual involves singing a procession song damning the rain, which tore off the bride’s veil; the song also mentions the wedding that started on Friday but did not continue on Saturday as it was supposed to. According to the texts of these songs, the bride was punished for some action and drowned in the river; therefore, the “heavenly wedding” was canceled. In the rain-stopping ritual, the namesake boys drive an iron stake into the ground with a wooden hammer to disperse the clouds. These boys personify the divine twin blacksmiths; their actions stem from the idea of the cosmic intercourse of heaven and earth. The twin blacksmiths’ narrative also corresponds to the “sons of heaven” notion in the creation myth. According to Yezidi’s beliefs, not only the Thunder-Bearer god controls the weather but also his opponent from the world beyond. This is a dead man or his fetish, a tombstone. The Thunder-Bearer’s relationship with its opponent corresponds to the mythologem “the duel between the God of Storm and its Antagonist.” The game of kele-mele imitates thundering (the acoustic code): the players strike sparks by hitting two stones against each other. Young males play the game on cloudy days, in the evenings, to induce rain. The characteristics and the mythical-poetic complex of the Yezidi rain-making and rain-stopping rituals allow us to conclude that all mythologemes correspond to the scheme of the central Indo-European myth of the creation of the world.

 

KEYWORDS: ritual, Rain’s Bride, Thunder-Bearer, Opponent, twins, “heavenly wedding”

 

DOI 10.31250/2618-8600-2023-2(20)-139-162
УДК 398.33

 

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