Bichura

Also Known As: Tatar biçura, Cyrillic бичура; Bashkir bisura; the word may come from an old Turkic word for a monkey, though nobody has proved it
Region/Culture: Central Asia
Mythos: Tatar Mythology
Primary Type/Nature: Fairy Folk and Spirit Beings
Mythical Attributes: Bichura is a small house spirit that hides things, makes noise at night and drags sleepers about, and that can also make a household rich or give a person a rare skill.
Role in Mythos: Bichura is the uninvited lodger of Tatar and Bashkir belief, a spirit found only in some houses and quite separate from the proper guardian of the home.
Relation to Humans: Families who have a Bichura leave it a plate of food and several spoons at night, and some give it a room of its own. A family that wants it gone must take the house apart and build it somewhere else, or lead a bear indoors.

Somebody in the house has lost a spoon. It was on the shelf at dusk and now it is nowhere, and the search goes on until an older voice asks the old question: where has it gone, did the Bichura take it? The scholar Kayum Nasyri wrote that saying down among the Kazan Tatars in 1880, and it tells most of what a household needed to know. There was something small living in the house. It took things. And it would probably put them back somewhere else.

Nasyri’s account of its habits reads like a complaint from a tired tenant. The Bichura cries at night. It plays, it laughs, it makes jokes. It drags sleeping people from one place to another, so that a man who lay down by the wall wakes by the door with no idea how he got there. Things set down in one spot are found hidden in another. It opens the damper of a stove that was shut for the night, and the warmth goes up the chimney while the family sleeps. None of this does real harm. It is only very hard to live with.

The Tatars were careful to keep the Bichura apart from the true spirit of the house, the master of the home who lives in every dwelling and looks after it. The Bichura is not that. It is found in some houses and not in others, and it lives where people would rather not look: under the floorboards, on the ledge in front of the stove mouth, or out in the bathhouse.

People who saw one agreed that it was small. In the villages of the Kazan Tatars, and among the Tatars and Bashkirs beyond the Kama river, the Bichura is a tiny woman wearing a headdress of a kind that went out of use long ago, a little old-fashioned figure about the height of a child. The priest and folklorist Yakov Koblov, who published his study of Kazan Tatar belief in 1910, described her much the same way. The Bashkirs, who call the spirit bisura, saw something different. Their bisura are little people, men and women both, and every one of them wears a red shirt.

As for where it comes from, the Tatars had a plain answer. A house gets a Bichura when it stands too long without a stove and a family then moves in. A cold, empty building with no fire in it is an open invitation, and the first people through the door find they have company. The Bashkirs add that it favours houses where the family quarrels a great deal. They also know it as a creature of the deep forest, living in clearings far from any village and meeting the people who wander in.

Many families chose to keep the peace. In the evening they set out a plate of food and laid several spoons beside it, more than one, as if for guests. By morning the plate was clean. Some went further and gave the Bichura a whole room, shut and left alone, where the plate was carried in each night.

There was a reason to be so polite. The Bichura can make a house rich. Koblov records the story of a mullah who had one under his roof. Night after night it crept out and stole from the neighbours, coins from one house and oats from another, and carried everything home. The mullah grew wealthy. Then he decided he had enough, and that a holy man should not keep such a lodger, so he paid a sorceress to drive it out. The Bichura left. On its way it burned his house to the ground, and the flames did not touch a single neighbouring roof.

The Bashkirs tell of a closer bargain. A bisura may talk a person into living with it as a lover, and after that it becomes a patron, bringing money and helping its partner pile up wealth. Another strand of belief says the Bichura can give a person a skill beyond anything seen before, the kind of mastery in a craft that neighbours cannot explain. And the saying holds across both peoples that the spirit brings wealth to the house it lives in and poverty to the house it leaves.

Not every group took so mild a view. The Mishar Tatars counted the Bichura among the evil spirits. Some Tatars of western Siberia blended it with a spirit they called the yellow-haired one. The Bashkir forest bisura is worse than any house pest: it changes shape, appearing as a grieving old woman, a crying cow or a lost child, and it leads people away among the trees and clouds their minds.

Its powers follow from what it is, a small thief with the run of the house. It moves unseen at night, carries off objects and people alike, steals from one home to feed another, and repays an insult with fire.

Its limits are few, and they are expensive. Food and good manners keep it quiet but do not make it leave. To be rid of it for good, the whole house has to be pulled down, log by log, and put up again on new ground, which leaves the Bichura behind with the empty plot. The other cure is quicker. Bring a bear into the house. The Bichura cannot stand the animal and runs. Nobody wrote down how the family was meant to get the bear out again.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Bichura in Tatar mythology?

Bichura is a small house spirit in the folk belief of the Tatars and Bashkirs. It lives in some houses but not all, makes noise at night, hides household objects and moves sleeping people around. It is a different being from the guardian spirit of the home that every house is said to have.

What does Bichura look like?

Tatars describe Bichura as a very small woman wearing an old-fashioned headdress. Bashkirs, who call the spirit bisura, describe little people of both sexes dressed in red shirts.

Where does Bichura live?

Bichura lives under the floorboards, on the ledge in front of the stove or in the bathhouse. Some families gave it a separate room and left a plate of food and several spoons there at night. Bashkirs also say the bisura lives in clearings deep in the forest.

Is Bichura good or evil?

Bichura is mostly a nuisance and not a killer. It cries, laughs, hides things and drags sleepers about, but it can also make a household rich or give a person an unusual skill. The Mishar Tatars counted Bichura as an evil spirit, and one story tells of a Bichura that burned down a mullah’s house after he had it driven out.

How do you get rid of Bichura?

Tradition gives two ways to get rid of Bichura. The first is to take the whole house apart and rebuild it in a different place. The second is to bring a bear into the house, which makes Bichura run away.