ON BĀBĀ-YE DEHQĀN – AN IRANIAN PATRON OF AGRICULTURE

Анотація

The text discuses Bābā-ye Dehqān, i.e. a mythological figure of ritual nature whose cult, related to the beginning and the end of field work, has been reported among sedentary communities of Central Asia. He is believed to be the first tiller who taught his profession to mankind. His story refers to some apocryphal versions of the Islamic cosmogonic myth that were combined with some elements of Iranian mythology represented by Mašē and Mašyānag, Gayōmard and Gāw-ī ēwdād, or Ǧamšid and the three magical objects used by him to broaden the earth. Bābā-ye Dehqān’s work was ceremonially re-performed by an honourable man whose role consisted of scheduling as well as initiating field work, in particular tillage and sowing in the spring, and harvesting and threshing in the autumn. Around the Nowruz a local Bābā-ye Dehqān with a pair of oxen made a few furrows and threw a few handfuls of grain. Only then could the other tillers start their work. Bābā-ye Dehqān represents thus a cultural phenomenon called the fertility complex which is related to the annual cycle of germination→growth→harvest. This complex is base in the general idea that the macrocosm is reflected in the human body as the microcosm and vice versa. Such approach must have made farmers to recognise the analogy between the corn seed germinating in the field and new life growing in the uterus. In the collective mind of a farming community, the woman symbolically merged with the earth. The woman accepting the semen and storing the foetus creates a new life just like the earth accepting the corn seed and crops. To better understand the nature of Bābā-ye Dehqān, one can also refer to Dumézilʼs trifunctionalism. It is obvious that this patron, even if non-central, represents the spirituality of the Iranian common people and the third function in Dumézilʼs system, i.e. productivity