Aiyysyt- Sakha GodDeity"Khotun (Lady)"

The Kut from Above

Every person's life-force, the kut, came from the Upper World. It had three parts: the iye-kut, the mother-soul and essential life principle; the buor-kut, binding a person to the physical earth; and the salgyn-kut, tied to breath and consciousness. Aiyysyt carried the kut down from the realm of the aiyy deities and placed it in the newborn at the moment of birth. Without her, the infant was flesh and nothing more (Seroshevsky, Yakuty, 1896; Jochelson, The Yakut, 1933).

She came every time. No family was too poor, no birth too unremarkable. Whenever a woman labored in the Middle World, Aiyysyt descended (Jochelson, 1933).

The Birthing Chamber

Her arrival had markers the attending women watched for: a sudden warmth filling the room, the scent of fresh grass or summer meadow, a calm settling over the laboring woman. When these signs came, the women knew she was present and the birth would go well.

The space was prepared for her. The area near the hearth was arranged to receive a divine visitor. No loud noises, no quarreling, no men in the room. Anything that broke the atmosphere might drive Aiyysyt back to the Upper World before she had placed the kut. In difficult births, a shaman (oyuun) was called to speak with the spirits above and draw her down (Seroshevsky, 1896; Jochelson, 1933).

The Birch and the Offerings

Butter and kumiss were the offerings placed for her, at the hearth or at the base of a birch tree near the dwelling. Butter from cattle, kumiss from horses: the two substances Sakha families valued most. Prayers accompanied the gifts, addressing her as Khotun, Lady, appealing to her compassion. After a successful birth, further offerings followed in gratitude (Seroshevsky, 1896; Jochelson, 1933).

Aiyysyt descended along the white trunk of the birch, using it as a bridge between the Upper and Middle Worlds, a household echo of the great Aal Luuk Mas at the center of the cosmos. A birch planted near a dwelling marked the home as a place the aiyy deities could reach (Jochelson, 1933; Alekseev, Shamanism of the Turkic-Speaking Peoples of Siberia, 1984).

Nelbey Aiyysyt

Regional Sakha traditions also name her Nelbey Aiyysyt (Нэлбэй Айыысыт), a name that emphasizes what her presence felt like rather than what it accomplished. The warmth, the grass-scent, the calm: this was the nelbey, the sensation of the goddess at work.

Her care extended beyond human births. She was sought for the health and increase of cattle and horse herds. Spring, when the animals birthed their young and the alaas meadows greened, brought her closest. At the yhyakh, the great summer solstice festival, kumiss flowed communally in thanksgiving to the aiyy deities for fertility and abundance. The same offering poured for one woman's labor was shared among the whole people (Seroshevsky, 1896; Alekseev, 1984).