Turkic Pantheon

Aisyt, the Milk-Giving Mother

The Milk-Giving Mother

The White Offering

Aisyt, white mother who carries the golden book of lives, you who come to the birthing house and stay three days, accept this white food from a small altar. Write for me a kind page. Guard the young, the newly born, and the newly loved. Where you have passed, the milk is sweet and the herd increases.

Offer white food — milk, cream, or koumiss — with the right hand, sprinkling three drops toward the hearth first.

Ideas for Offering

  • Sprinkle milk toward the fire and the four directions before drinking any yourself
  • Tie a white or pale-blue ribbon to a birch branch
  • Keep a small bowl of cream on the altar for three days after a birth or a beginning
  • Offer butter to the flame of a candle in place of a hearth fire

Accepted Offerings

  • Milk, cream, butter, and koumiss (fermented mare's milk)
  • White horsehair and pale ribbons
  • Birch branches and birch bark
  • Cheese, curds, and unsalted white bread
  • Small carved wooden bowls and ladles

Offering Taboos

  • No blood offerings and no blades near her altar
  • Never pour her milk onto a dirty floor or into a waste drain
  • Do not speak of death, miscarriage, or ill fortune before her
  • Men traditionally kept from the birthing rites; keep her three days undisturbed