Aan Alakhchyn Khotun- Sakha GodDeity"Earth Mother"

The Warm Navel

Aan Alakhchyn Khotun lives at the base of the Aal Luuk Mas, the great world tree. While Ürüng Aiyy Toyon reigns in the ninth heaven at its crown, the Earth Mother inhabits the roots and the earth beneath. The Sakha called her dwelling the warm navel of the earth: a fertile interior where life-giving heat concentrates even as winter temperatures plunge to lethal cold above. From the base of the tree flows a white liquid, milk or ambrosia, her gift to everything that grows.

She sits within this warmth as a mother sits in her home. Her force rises through the soil, through roots and waterways, into every living creature on the surface. To damage the land, to scar it or pollute its waters, was to injure her directly. Hunters left portions of their kill for the earth. Those who harvested birch bark spoke to the tree before cutting and explained their need.

The Birch and the Birth

The birch tree is sacred to Aan Alakhchyn Khotun. Its white bark echoed the purity of the aiyy spirits, and its early spring growth, among the first signs of life after the Yakutian winter, signaled her annual renewal of the land. Sakha tied ribbons of horsehair to birch branches as offerings and poured kumiss at the roots. Birch groves were not cut without ceremony and apology.

When a woman labored, shamans appealed to the Earth Mother at birch trees, pouring milk onto the ground. She guarded newborns in the moments after birth, when their souls were vulnerable to abaahy spirits. Of a person's three souls, the buor-kut belonged to her: the earth-soul that bound each person to a place and a people. When death came, it returned to the ground.

The Yhyakh

During the Yhyakh summer solstice festival, Aan Alakhchyn Khotun receives offerings alongside Ürüng Aiyy Toyon. The sky god is honored with libations thrown upward. The Earth Mother is honored with kumiss poured onto the ground, soaking into the earth. The festival grounds are set among birch trees, and the kumiss that flows freely echoes the milk that flows from the world tree's base.

In the ohuokai circle dance, participants join hands and move in a great ring among the birches. Midsummer, when the midnight sun never sets, is the peak of her power: the land at its most fertile, the herds at their strongest.

In the Olonkho

In the olonkho epics, Aan Alakhchyn Khotun sustains the aiyy heroes through their trials. When warriors lie broken after battle with abaahy champions, it is her power, channeled through sacred springs and healing herbs, that restores them. In the epic Nyurgun Bootur the Swift, the hero's returns to the earth's surface between battles are renewals: each time he touches the Middle World's ground, the Earth Mother's strength flows back into him. She does not fight. She makes fighting possible.