Esege Malan

Before there was a sun to climb over the water, there was a single fist of wet earth and a god deciding what to do with it. Nothing else existed. No light, no sound, no horizon to walk toward, only Esege Malan in the unbroken dark. He closed his hand around the clod, squeezed until the moisture ran out, and from that water he made the bright disc of the sun. He made the moon the same way. The long blackness that had been everything finally had edges, and the first morning belonged to a god whose name means Father Bald-Head.

What he did next reads less like magic than like work. He set out the plants. He made the living things that would move among them. Then he split the world into East and West and handed it down to the highest order of gods, the way a chief parcels out grazing land to those beneath him. This is the heart of how the Buryats around Lake Baikal understood him: not a trickster who conjures, but a maker and an administrator of the sky, the one who decides who gets which direction and then expects the arrangement to hold.

His hall sits at the top of the tenger, the layered sky, and from there he governs the western horizon. The Buryats counted the sky-powers in two camps, the benevolent ranged to the west and the harsher ones to the east, and Esege Malan stands as chief over the bright side. When he wants the lesser spirits gathered, he calls them to council, and the stories name the meeting places plainly: in the Pleiades, and on the moon. There is a particular cold to that image, the thin air of the upper sky, the cluster of stars used as a hall, the gods drifting in from their stations to hear what the old one has decided.

He did not rule alone in every telling. Some versions give him a wife, Ehe Ureng Ibi, beside him at the beginning, and the myths agree he fathered nine sons. Those sons quarrelled over inheritance before the world was even settled. The four elder declared they would succeed their father; the four younger refused and claimed the succession for themselves. It is a strikingly human squabble to find at the dawn of creation, gods arguing over who comes next while the paint on the world is barely dry. Chief among his children stands Solobung Yubin, the morning star, the one to whom herders still offer sacrifice in the hope of fuller granaries and fatter herds.

The strangest surviving story turns on a request he could not easily grant. After the making was done, Mother Earth came up to visit him, and they passed several days together. When she made ready to leave she asked for the sun and the moon to take with her. Esege Malan, who had pulled both out of a wet handful of soil, found he could not simply hand them over. So he sent for the hedgehog called Esh, reckoned the wisest of creatures though he had no feet, and the small spined thing made its way up through the layers of sky to the dwelling of the highest god to be consulted on the problem. The footless hedgehog climbing to heaven to advise a creator is the kind of detail no one invents on purpose. It is the texture of a living folk tradition, where wisdom can wear quills and the supreme god still asks for help.

His powers follow from what he is. He pulls light and life out of raw matter, commands the spirits of the air, sets the directions of the world, and routes prosperity to mortals through his morning-star son. They are the abilities of a first cause, broad and structural rather than flashy. His limits follow just as cleanly. He works at a distance, through intermediaries, through the hedgehog and the son and the shaman who carries offerings upward. The sun-and-moon episode shows even him stumped by a plain question. The bickering of his nine heirs shows that the order he laid down was never quite absolute, that succession and authority were contested in the sky as on the steppe. Even a creator can be stumped by a simple request.

What endures of him is thin in the way that orally preserved gods often are, a handful of episodes, a name, a place in the western sky. The Buryats kept him at the summit of their world all the same, the bald old father who reached into the dark, wrung water from a clod of earth, and decided there should be a sun.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Esege Malan?

Esege Malan is the supreme creator sky-god of the Buryat Mongols around Lake Baikal in southern Siberia. His name means “Father Bald-Head,” and he is regarded as the maker of all living things and the chief of the sky-spirits who rules the western horizon.

How did Esege Malan create the world?

According to Buryat myth, in the beginning everything was dark and silent, with only Esege Malan present. He took up a handful of wet earth, squeezed the moisture from it, and made the sun from that water, then made the moon the same way. He went on to create all plants and living things, and divided the world into East and West, giving it to the highest order of gods.

Who are the children of Esege Malan?

Esege Malan had nine sons, who quarrelled over which group would succeed their father, the four elder against the four younger. His most important child is Solobung Yubin, the morning star, who rewards the Mongol people with greater harvests and prosperity when offered sacrifices.

What is the story of the hedgehog and Esege Malan?

After creation, Mother Earth visited Esege Malan and asked him for the sun and the moon, but he found he could not easily give them to her. He sent for the hedgehog called Esh, considered the wisest of creatures despite being footless, who climbed up through the sky to his dwelling to be consulted on the matter.

Why is Esege Malan important in Mongolian and Siberian belief?

Esege Malan sits at the top of the Buryat sky as the first cause and orderer of the cosmos, the source of light, life, and the world’s structure. As chief of the benevolent western sky-powers, he is approached through shamans and through sacrifice, and his son the morning star is petitioned for harvests and prosperity.

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