Water spirit

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A water spirit is a kind of supernatural being found in the folklore of many cultures:

Contents

African

Water Spirit mask from the Igbo people (Brooklyn Museum) Brooklyn Museum 79.115.1 Water Spirit Mask Igbo.jpg
Water Spirit mask from the Igbo people (Brooklyn Museum)

Some water spirits in traditional African religion include:

Celtic

In Celtic mythology:

Germanic

In Germanic mythology:

Ancient Greek

In Greek mythology:

Japanese

In Japanese folklore:

Turkic

In Turkic mythology:

Mesoamerican

South American

Filipino

Oceanic

In the mythology of Oceania:

Roman

In Roman mythology:

Slavic

In Slavic mythology:

Nordic

Merman pictured in the coat of arms of Vora Voyri-Maksamaa.vaakuna.svg
Merman pictured in the coat of arms of Vörå

In Finnish mythology, the water folk (vedenväki) are a group of creatures living under water and their magical power. According to the Kalevala , there are many spirits in the water, including water goblins (vesihiisi), water elves (vetehinen or näkki ), mermaids and small men rising from the sea, who sometimes appeared to help people with great power. Anyone who was afraid of water or behaved inappropriately near water could incur the wrath of the water folk and become ill. The water folk also included individualized and named water spirits, such as Ahti, Vellamo and Iku-Turso. [5]

Thai

Jain

Apakāya ekendriya is a name used in the traditions of Jainism for Jīvas that were reincarnated as rain, dew, fog, melted snow and melted hail. [6]

References

  1. Drewal, Henry John (2008). "Introduction: Charting the Voyage". In Drewal, Henry John (ed.). Sacred Waters: Arts for Mami Wata and other divinities in Africa and the diaspora. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ISBN   978-0-253-35156-2., p. 1.
  2. "Serving Two Masters: The Case of the Self-Confessed Christian and Priestess of the Water Goddess". Daily Sun (Nigeria). 2007-07-30. Archived from the original on 2010-02-07. Retrieved 2018-04-28.
  3. MacPhail, Malcolm (1896). "Folklore from the Hebrides". Folklore. 7 (4): 400–04. doi:10.1080/0015587X.1896.9720386.
  4. Burnakov, Aleksei Venariy (2013). "Вода в традиционном мировоззрении хакасов: образ и символ (конец XIX — середина XX в.)". Türk Dünyası (36).
  5. Suomen kansan vanhat runot (in Finnish). Finnish Literature Society. 1908–1948.
  6. University of Calcutta: Department of Letters (1921). "Journal of the Department of Letters". Journal of the Department of Letters. 5. Calcutta University Press, originally from University of Chicago: 352.