2025 Jun 19: Em-Nitir, the Graceful Giver

Em-Nitir is perhaps the oldest, and most graceful benefactor of mortals, as her first gift to them was wheat. She also taught them how to farm, and how to make bread. The demons upon hearing this captured and killed her, burying her underground. Thankfully one of the Underworld deities, Etim-Naqtar, fell in love with her, and agreed to restore her to life. So now she spends half of the year up in the world of the living to help grow crops, and half in the Underworld with her new husband. For this reason, she is also the messenger between the gods of the sky and the gods of the Underworld, and thus she is also the patron of messengers and travellers who walk uncertain roads. She also helps lost souls find their way to the Underworld when she makes her yearly voyage down there. 

Her holy days are the various harvest festivals in autumn, when wheat is cut and collected. These vary in their precise timing from place to place, and there are a few pilgrimage routes set up, where the faithful can travel from festival to festival going through multiple cities.

Her holy symbols are a sickle cutting wheat, a boat she uses to sail to the Underworld, and a lantern, which she uses to guide the souls of the lost.

She is usually depicted as an older woman holding wheat and/or a lantern, usually with a boat. 

 Image by Stephanie Hirschbrich