A tutelary (; also tutelar) is a deity or a Nature spirit who is a guardian, patron, or protector of a particular place, geographic feature, person, lineage, nation, culture, or occupation. The etymology of "tutelary" expresses the concept of safety and thus of guardianship.
In late Greek and Roman religion, one type of tutelary deity, the genius, functions as the personal deity or daimon of an individual from birth to death. Another form of personal tutelary spirit is the familiar spirit of European folklore.
Ancient Greece
Socrates spoke of hearing the voice of his personal spirit or
:
The Greeks also thought deities guarded specific places: for instance, Athena was the patron goddess of the city of Athens.
Ancient Rome
Tutelary deities who guard and preserve a place or a person are fundamental to ancient Roman religion. The tutelary deity of a man was his Genius, that of a woman her Juno.
[Nicole Belayche, "Religious Actors in Daily Life: Practices and Beliefs", in A Companion to Roman Religion (Blackwell, 2007), p. 279.] In the
Roman Empire, the Genius of the
Roman Emperor was a focus of Imperial cult. An emperor might also adopt a major deity as his personal patron or tutelary,
as
Augustus did
Apollo.
Precedents for claiming the personal protection of a deity were established in the
Roman Republic, when for instance the
Roman dictator Sulla advertised the goddess Victory as his tutelary by holding public games
(ludi) in her honor.
Each town or city had one or more tutelary deities, whose protection was considered particularly vital in time of war and siege. Ancient Rome itself was protected by a goddess whose name was to be kept ritually secret on pain of death (for a supposed case, see Quintus Valerius Soranus).[ (originally published in German 2001)] The Capitoline Triad of Juno, Jupiter, and Minerva were also tutelaries of Rome.
The Italic towns had their own tutelary deities. Juno often had this function, as at the Latin town of Lanuvium and the Etruscan city of Veii,[ who cites ] The tutelary deity of Praeneste was Fortuna, whose oracle was renowned.[.]
The Roman ritual of evocatio was premised on the belief that a town could be made vulnerable to military defeat if the power of its tutelary deity were diverted outside the city, perhaps by the offer of superior cult at Rome.[ who cites ]
A town in the Roman province might adopt a deity from within the Roman religious sphere to serve as its guardian, or syncretism its own tutelary with such; for instance, a community within the civitas of the Remi in Gaul adopted Apollo as its tutelary, and at the capital of the Remi (present-day Rheims), the tutelary was Mars Camulus.
Tutelary deities were also attached to sites of a much smaller scale, such as storerooms, crossroads, and granaries. Each Roman home had a set of protective deities: the Lares of the household or familia, whose shrine was a lararium; the Penates who guarded the storeroom (penus) of the innermost part of the house; Vesta, whose sacred site in each house was the hearth; and the Genius of the paterfamilias, the head of household.[ cited by ] The architecture of a granary (horreum) featured niches for images of the tutelary deities, who might include the genius loci or guardian spirit of the site, Hercules, Silvanus, Fortuna Conservatrix ("Fortuna the Preserver") and in the Greek East Aphrodite and Agathodaemon.
The Lares Compitales were the tutelary gods of a neighborhood (vicus), each of which had a compitum (shrine) devoted to these.[John Bert Lott, The Neighborhoods of Augustan Rome (Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 14, 34–38 et passim; and Richard C. Beacham, Spectacle Entertainments of Early Imperial Rome (Yale University Press, 1999), pp. 55–56; with reference to a ban on collegium referred to by Cicero ( In Pisonem 8) that was extended to suppress the Compitalia.]
Austronesian
Buddhism
Chinese folk religion
Chinese folk religion, both past and present, includes myriad tutelary deities. Exceptional individuals, highly cultivated sages, and prominent ancestors can be deified and honored after death. Lord Guan is the patron of military personnel and police, while
Mazu is the patron of fishermen and sailors.
-
Tudigong (Earth Deity) is the tutelary deity of a locality, and each individual locality has its own Earth Deity.
-
Chenghuangshen (City God) is the guardian deity of individual city, worshipped by local officials and locals since imperial times.
Christianity
A similar concept in
Christianity would be the
patron saint example of
Archangel "Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, etc."
or to a lesser extent, the
guardian angel.
Germanic
Hinduism
In
Hinduism, personal tutelary deities are known as
ishta-devata, while family tutelary deities are known as
Kuladevata.
Gramadevata are guardian deities of villages or regions. Devas can also be seen as tutelary.
Shiva is patron of
and renunciants. City gods and goddesses include:
- Kuladevis include:
Indonesian folk religion
Influenced by the religion of
Islam,
Indonesia people believe in
jinn, particularly on the island of Java. Those jinn who adhere to the religion of Islam are generally benevolent, however, non-Muslim jinn are considered to be mischievous. Some of them guard graves. If a pilgrim approaching the grave has evil intentions, they would cause severe illness or even death.
[Woodward, Mark. Java, Indonesia and Islam. Deutschland, Springer Netherlands, 2010.p. 87]
Some of the prominent tutelary deities:
-
Nyai Roro Kidul, Queen of Southern Sea
-
Dewi Lanjar, Queen of the Northern Sea
-
Dewi Sri, goddess of rice and fertility, popular among Javanese, Balinese and Sundanese
Judaism
Spirits called
shedim are mentioned twice in the
Hebrew Bible. In both of these instances (Psalm 106:37 and Deuteronomy 32:17) the
shedim are associated with
child sacrifice or
animal sacrifice.
[W. Gunther Plaut, The Torah: A Modern Commentary (Union for Reform Judaism, 2005), p. 1403 online][Dan Burton and David Grandy, Magic, Mystery, and Science: The Occult in Western Civilization (Indiana University Press, 2003), p. 120 online.] The term "
shedim" is believed by some to be a
Loanword from the Akkadian
shedu, which referred to a spirit which could be either protective or malevolent.
[ Encyclopedia of Spirits: The Ultimate Guide to the Magic of Fairies, Genies, Demons, Ghosts, Gods & Goddesses. Judika Illes. HarperCollins, Jan 2009. p. 902.][ The Encyclopedia of Demons and Demonology. Rosemary Guiley. Infobase Publishing, May 12, 2010. p. 21.]
Korean shamanism
In
Korean shamanism,
jangseung and
sotdae were placed at the edge of villages to frighten off demons. They were also worshiped as deities.
Seonangshin is the patron deity of the village in Korean tradition and was believed to embody the
Seonangdang.
Meitei
In
Meitei mythology and religion (
Sanamahism) of
Manipur, there are various types of tutelary deities, among which
Lam Lai are the most predominant ones.
Native American
-
Tonás, tutelary animal spirit among the Zapotec.
-
, familial or clan spirits among the Ojibwe, can be animals.
Philippine folk religion
In Philippine
animism,
Anito or
Lambana are deities or spirits that inhabit sacred places like mountains and mounds and serve as guardians.
Shinto
In
Shinto, the spirits, or
kami, which give life to human bodies come from nature and return to it after death. Ancestors are therefore themselves tutelaries to be worshiped.
Slavic Europe
Some tutelary deities are known to exist in Slavic Europe, a more prominent example being that of the
Leshy.
Thai folk religion
-
Thailand provincial capitals have tutelary Lak Mueang and palladiums. The guardian spirit of a house is known as Chao Thi (เจ้าที่) or Phra Phum (พระภูมิ). Almost every traditional household in Thailand has a miniature shrine housing this tutelary deity, known as a spirit house.
Turkic mythology
Although they are not necessarily subject to worship, İye are tutelary spirits which empower and protect from harm, in the legends of the
Turkic peoples.
Vietnamese folk religion
In Vietnamese folk religion, Thành hoàng are gods who protect and bring good things to the village.
See also
