Al Basty (
Turkish
Turkish may refer to:
*a Turkic language spoken by the Turks
* of or about Turkey
** Turkish language
*** Turkish alphabet
** Turkish people, a Turkic ethnic group and nation
*** Turkish citizen, a citizen of Turkey
*** Turkish communities and mi ...
: ''Albastı'';
Tatar
The Tatars ()[Tatar]
in the Collins English Dictionary is an umbrella term for different ,
Kyrgyz Kyrgyz, Kirghiz or Kyrgyzstani may refer to:
* Someone or something related to Kyrgyzstan
*Kyrgyz people
*Kyrgyz national games
*Kyrgyz language
*Kyrgyz culture
*Kyrgyz cuisine
*Yenisei Kirghiz
*The Fuyü Gïrgïs language in Northeastern China
...
,
Kazakh: ''Албасты'',
Chuvash: ''Алпастă'', az, Albasdı,
Russian: ''Албасты́'') or Al Kardai is an ancient female spirit, the personification of
guilt, found in
folklore
Folklore is shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. This includes oral traditions such as tales, legends, proverbs and jokes. They include material culture, ranging ...
throughout the
Caucasus
The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, mainly comprising Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and parts of Southern Russia. The Caucasus Mountains, including the Greater Caucasus range, have historically ...
mountains, with origins going as far back as
Sumerian
Sumerian or Sumerians may refer to:
*Sumer, an ancient civilization
**Sumerian language
**Sumerian art
**Sumerian architecture
**Sumerian literature
**Cuneiform script, used in Sumerian writing
*Sumerian Records, an American record label based in ...
mythology
Myth is a folklore genre consisting of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not objectively true, the identification of a narrat ...
.
''Al'' means red, and ''bastı'' means pressure or pressing in
Turkic languages
The Turkic languages are a language family of over 35 documented languages, spoken by the Turkic peoples of Eurasia from Eastern Europe and Southern Europe to Central Asia, East Asia, North Asia (Siberia), and Western Asia. The Turkic languag ...
.
Other languages
* Bashkort: ''Албаҫты''
* Uzbek: ''Албасты́''
* Altai: ''Алвасти́''
* Turkmen: ''Албассы''
* Kyrgyz: ''Албарсты́''
* Nogai: ''Албаслы́''
* Kumyk: ''Албаслы́''
* Balkar: ''Алмасты́''
* Tajik: ''Албасти''
* Lezgian: ''Алпаб''
* Chechen: ''Алмазы''
* Yaghnobian: ''Албасты''
* Çuvaşça: ''Алпастă''
* Sogdian: ''Олбасты''
* Russian: ''Албасты́''
Caucasian and Middle Eastern folklore
Sumerian folklore
A variation of the Al Basti myth stretches back into Sumerian times as one of the names given to
Lilith.
[Ann, Martha and Imel, Dorothy Myers. ''Goddesses in world mythology''. ABC-CLIO, 1993. , p 336] In later Rabbinical interpretations of the Talmud, she was regarded as the first wife of
Adam
Adam; el, Ἀδάμ, Adám; la, Adam is the name given in Genesis 1-5 to the first human. Beyond its use as the name of the first man, ''adam'' is also used in the Bible as a pronoun, individually as "a human" and in a collective sense as " ...
, cast out of
Paradise
In religion, paradise is a place of exceptional happiness and delight. Paradisiacal notions are often laden with pastoral imagery, and may be cosmogonical or eschatological or both, often compared to the miseries of human civilization: in paradis ...
for her willfulness and independence. In this form much of the mythology surrounding Lilith has also been ascribed, in different accounts, to Al Basti, though with local regional variances taken into account.
Turkic folklore
In Turkic folklore Al Basti has been often confused as both a
Mare
A mare is an adult female horse or other equine. In most cases, a mare is a female horse over the age of three, and a filly is a female horse three and younger. In Thoroughbred horse racing, a mare is defined as a female horse more than four ...
, a
Succubus, as well as any number of Middle Eastern female spirits which are told to enter a man's erotic dreams. However, the difference in the Al Basti legends is that she is not a sexual spirit, she rather visits those ''“who have guilty souls”''
[Littleton, C. Scott, ed., Gods, Goddesses & Mythology. Tarrytown: Marshall Cavendish Corporation, 2005, page 245] and ''“come from families that have committed bloody crimes that have gone unpunished.”''
This spirit is mostly known as ''Al Karısı'' in
Turkic folklore
Turkic may refer to:
* anything related to the country of Turkey
* Turkic languages, a language family of at least thirty-five documented languages
** Turkic alphabets (disambiguation)
** Turkish language, the most widely spoken Turkic language
* ...
. It is believed that she mostly haunts women in their
postpartum period
The postpartum (or postnatal) period begins after childbirth and is typically considered to end within 6 weeks as the mother's body, including hormone levels and uterus size, returns to a non-pregnant state. The terms puerperium, puerperal perio ...
which causes emergence of
phycological problems. Therefore, traditional practices applied for 40 days for these women as a part of
postpartum care
Postpartum care or postnatal care is a service provided to individuals in the postpartum period, to help with postpartum recuperation and restoration.
Traditional postpartum care
Many traditional forms of postpartum confinement exist throughout ...
.
According to scholar
Özhan Öztürk those who Al Basti visits are said to wake up in ''“an intense fever ... She is also known to steal horses, who are found sweating and exhausted in the morning, and unable to provide a full day's work. Due to her torments, she is also known as the 'red mother'.”''
Armenian folklore
There is a further version of Al Basti, referred simply as Āl, a ''“demon of childbirth who blinds unborn children and causes miscarriages and stillbirths to women who have committed crimes that have gone unpunished.
[Coulter, Charles Russell and Patricia Turner, eds. ''Encyclopedia of Ancient Deities''. Oxford University Press, 2000. , page 212] In this form she appears as spirit of flame, with snake-like hair, brass fingernails and iron teeth ...
hehides in damp places.”''
[Ann, Martha and Imel, Dorothy Myers. ''Goddesses in world mythology''. ABC-CLIO, 1993. page 316] According to Ann and Imel there is a similar legend found in
Afghanistan
Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...
.
References
{{Reflist
Turkish folklore
Chuvash folklore
Mesopotamian deities
Turkic demons
Female legendary creatures