Apoe Miyeh, rendered in reformed orthography as Aqpoeq Miqyaer and glossed by scholars as the Supreme Ancestral Creator, is the highest power of Akha religion. The creation poem attributes to this being the making of sky and earth and the simultaneous origin of all the peoples of the world, each of whom received a book of custom; the Akha book, inscribed on buffalo hide, frames the tradition's oral transmission. Apoe Miyeh stands at the summit of the patrilineal genealogy as its mythical apical ancestor, from whom the long chain of forefathers descends. Sources differ on the creator's gender: some accounts present Apoe Miyeh as a male forefather-creator, while ethnographers who record a female 'Heavenly Spirit' treat the supreme creator as feminine, and Morton preserves the ambiguity by glossing the figure as 'Creator/Creatress'. Though supreme, Apoe Miyeh receives little direct cult, the practical work of blessing being sought from the nearer ancestors.