English

Noun

tutelary deity ‎(plural tutelary deities)

1. (religion, chiefly paganism) A deity or spirit serving as a guardian, patron or protector of a place, geographic feature, person, lineage, nation, culture, or occupation; a tutelar, a tutelary.
   • 1778, W[illiam] Hutchinson, A View of Northumberland: With an Excursion to the Abbey of Mailross in Scotland. By W. Hutchinson Anno 1776, volume II, Newcastle: Printed by T. Saint, for W. Charnley and Messrs Vesey & Whitfield, OCLC 680452579, page 126:

     Where had then beene the church of Durham, and the devotion of Kings to his ſepulchur? Where had then beene the tutelarie Deity against the Scotts, and the lande of the church called St. Cuthberts patrimony? How then should his holywarke folk be freed from tribute and ſervice in warre, and the Monkes of Durham fed ſoe many yeares with eaſe and fatt revenues, if now their Saint had beene entombed in the ſea, and erected his eſpicopal ſeate among the fiſhes?

   • 1836, [Algernon Herbert], “Chapter II”, in Britannia after the Romans; being an Attempt to Illustrate the Religious and Political Revolutions of that Province in the Fifth and Succeeding Centuries, volume I, London: Henry G[eorge] Bohn, 4, York Street, Covent Garden, OCLC 773024913, footnote, page 63:

     The identification of the Bardic Crist Celi with the Bardic Moses, with a view to blending both religions in one scheme of magic, has been illustrated in the just cited pages of the Neo-Druidic Heresy. […] The words Gwledig Moysen shew us that the Moses of this spurious Israel was himself its tutelary deity; and he is not different from the Crist Gwledig. But that epithet designates the Being spoken of, in respect of his local tutelarity, and not of his more general attributes as a Person of the Trindawd.

   • 1963, G[william] I[wan] Jones, “The Eastern Delta State at the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century”, in The Trading States of the Oil Rivers: A Study of Political Development in Eastern Nigeria, London: Published for the International African Institute by Oxford University Press, OCLC 1193785; reprinted as The Trading States of the Oil Rivers: A Study of Political Development in Eastern Nigeria: New Introduction by John C. McCall, 2nd edition, Hamburg: LIT Verlag; London: James Currey Publishers by arrangement with the International African Institute, 2000, ISBN 978-3-8258-4778-4 (Germany); ISBN 978-0-85255-918-5 (UK), page 70:

     The Okrika war deity was Fenibcso who was regarded as the spirit of a warrior who feared neither god nor man. The Nembe war deity was also its tutelary deity Ogidiga. Kalabari differed from all the other states in having a female tutelary deity, Owame Akaso, who prohibited homicide within her community. Her cult thus provided a very powerful sanction against civil disturbances.

   • 1973, Jampal Kunzang, “The Life of the Great Physician-Saint gYu-thog the Elder”, in Tibetan Medicine: Illustrated in Original Texts: Presented and Translated by the Ven. Rechung Rinpoche Jampal Kunzang, Berkeley; Los Angeles, Calif.: University of California Press, ISBN 978-0-520-03048-0, page 192:

     Your son, Khyuṅ-po rDo-rje, is the son of the Medicine Buddha, and therefore he should know the Medicine Buddha as his tutelary deity and pray to him deeply, and his achievements will be great.

   • 1991, [John] Gregory McMahon, The Hittite State Cult of the Tutelary Deities (Assyriological Studies; 25), Chicago, Ill.: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, ISBN 978-0-918986-69-6, page 39:

     There are some tutelary deities of this type in the Festival for All the Tutelary Deities who are unique to that text. A subset of this type of tutelary deity is attested in the one occurrence of ^dLAMMA URU-lim-ya "and the Tutelary Deity of the City". This may refer to the Tutelary Deity of Hatti, although it may also have meant the tutelary deity of some particular city mentioned earlier in the text.

   • 2003, Damian Walker, “Medium of the Message: Shamanism as Localised Practice in the Nepal Himalayas”, in Neil S[tuppel] Price, editor, The Archaeology of Shamanism, London; New York, N.Y.: Routledge, ISBN 978-0-415-25254-6, page 112:

     Possession of a drum performs the symbolic function of representing physically the dhāmi-jhākri’s mastery of particular spirits. More specifically, it indicates the nature of the dhāmi-jhākri’s relationship with his tutelary deity, the ban-jhākri. […] This idea of the drum as the physical embodiment of the dhāmi-jhākri’s relationship to his tutelary deity also accounts for why the drum is periodically fed with blood on specific occasions (guru-pūjā).

Synonyms

• tutelar ‎(noun)
• tutelary ‎(noun)

Hyponyms

• daimon, demon
• genius, genius hominis, genius loci, genius locorum
• household deity, household god
• lar

Translations

See also

• patron saint