Aal Luuk Mas- Sakha LocationLocation · Landmark"The Great Tree"

Root, Trunk, Crown

The Aal Luuk Mas rises from the center of the Middle World. Its roots plunge into the Lower World where the abaahy spirits dwell: dark, tangled, reaching into the realm below. Its trunk stands in the Middle World where humanity lives, so vast that eight men cannot encircle it. Its crown pierces upward into the Upper World and spreads eight great branches among the aiyy deities (Oyunsky, Nyurgun Bootur the Swift, opening cantos; Ergis, Ocherki po yakutskomu folkloru, 1974).

The olonkho describes it in passages of elaborate formulaic verse. Its bark gleams with an inner luminosity. Sap of supernatural potency courses through its wood. Its shade covers an immense expanse of the Middle World, and the temperature beneath it is perpetually mild, a pocket of warmth in the otherwise brutal Siberian landscape. In Oyunsky's text, the hero Nyurgun Bootur grows up in its shadow, and the tree's presence sanctifies the ground on which the epic's action unfolds (Oyunsky; Seroshevsky, Yakuty, 1896).

The Eight Branches

Eight branches spread from the crown into the Upper World, and the aiyy deities take their positions among them. From these branches they observe the Middle World below and decide when to intervene. When Aiyysyt descends to attend a birth, the journey begins here. When Dyesegei Aiyy sends his influence to the horse herds, it passes down through the crown and along the trunk. The number eight carries cosmological weight in Sakha thought, expressing the fullness of the divine order above (Oyunsky, cantos describing the Upper World; Ergis, 1974).

The Shaman's Climb

For the Sakha oyuun, the Aal Luuk Mas was not a story but a route. During shamanic rituals, the oyuun ascended the World Tree to reach the Upper World and petition the aiyy deities on behalf of the community. The climb was dangerous. Hostile spirits inhabited the spaces between the worlds, and the Lower World pulled at the shaman from below. The trunk served as both path and protection (Alekseev, Shamanism of the Turkic-Speaking Peoples of Siberia, 1984; Seroshevsky, 1896).

A shaman who reached the branches, delivered the petition, and returned with an answer had proved their power. A shaman who could not make the climb could not heal, could not recover stolen souls, could not restore what the abaahy had broken (Alekseev, 1984; Ksenofontov, Uraangkhai-Sakhalar, 1937).

The Birch Below

In daily Sakha practice, the birch tree served as the Aal Luuk Mas in miniature. A birch planted near a dwelling connected the household to the Upper World the way the cosmic tree connected the three realms. Offerings to Aiyysyt and Ieyiekhsit were placed at its base. Prayers sent upward through its white bark reached the aiyy deities above (Seroshevsky, 1896; Alekseev, 1984).

At the yhyakh summer festival, birch branches decorated the ceremonial space. Young birch trees were erected alongside the serge, the sacred hitching post, to create ground the aiyy could reach. White bark, white light, the Upper World brought down to the alaas meadows for the length of the celebration (Seroshevsky, 1896; Jochelson, The Yakut, 1933).