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The Water Delusion

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Cultural Dynamics of Water in Iranian Civilization

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Abstract

This chapter examines some traditional rituals and customs, which revolve around water and its footprint even in the deepest corner of the Iranians’ collective unconscious. The chapter tries to come up with some interpretations on why and how water has manifested itself in the rituals of Iran’s local communities.

This chapter recounts some rain-claiming ceremonies that are a significant part of what we call intangible water culture. Those ceremonies are expressive of the cosmology of local people on the one hand, and of their relationship with water on the other hand. All those rain-claiming ceremonies fall into four categories: defiance, supplication, appeasement and combined actions. The notion behind all ceremonies is an omnipotent phenomenon like a supernatural master that mysteriously wields power over rain. Local people may take different strategies to align the rain master with their own needs. Sometimes locals consider the rain as a right that has been withheld from them at the time of drought. Hence, they do something weird in defiance of social, moral or even religious norms in order to put pressure on the rain master so he relents and gives the rain back to them. Sometimes they entreat the rain master to have mercy on them and compassionately quench their thirst, or they may appease him by throwing him a sop. In some other ceremonies, defiance, supplication and appeasement may be practiced in combination.

This chapter examines “qanat (Qanat is a gently sloping subterranean canal, which taps a water-bearing zone at a higher elevation than cultivated lands.) marriage” and its socio-economic function as well. In some regions of Central Iran the locals used to hold a wedding ceremony for their qanat (water gallery) when it came to dry up. They asked a widow in the village to become the wife of qanat and dwell in a house built just close to the qanat exit. The villagers treated the qanat’s wife as a real bride, and all the customs were observed the same as that of a real wedding. This chapter also explains why a qanat was considered a male being capable of marrying humans, and why the locals took such a custom seriously.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Tepe Hissar was populated between the fifth and the second millennium BC.

  2. 2.

    Nader Shah Afshar was one of the most powerful kings in Iranian history and of course bearded, ruling from 1736 to 1747.

  3. 3.

    Suq al-thamānin is believed to be the first settlement that Noah established at the base of Mount Judi, the place where his Ark descended after the Great Flood (Haj Manoochehri 2010, p. 699).

  4. 4.

    Ghadir was an area between Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia, where the caravans of Muslim pilgrims stopped by to drink from a pond named Ghadir. This pond was filled with rain water, which was a boon to the thirsty pilgrims crossing the desert. This pond is of great value to Shia Muslims, because they believe that at that place Prophet Mohammad proclaimed Ali his successor.

  5. 5.

    In Arabic: Ma’ Onsā.

  6. 6.

    In Arabic: Ma’ Zakar.

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  1. UNESCO ICQHS, Yazd, Iran

    Majid Labbaf Khaneiki

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Labbaf Khaneiki, M. (2020). The Water Delusion. In: Cultural Dynamics of Water in Iranian Civilization. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58900-4_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58900-4_6

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