Umai, addressed among the Altaians as Umai-ene or May-ene ("Mother Umai"), is the goddess of birth and the protectress of women and small children, her name deriving from an old Turkic word for the birth-caul or womb. She guards the newborn and its fragile life-soul, and her constant presence was believed to attend the child until it could walk, run, and speak clearly. When a child reached six months a kam was invited to perform a sacrifice to her, and a small model bow and arrow, understood as her weapon against the spirits that menace infants, was fastened to the cradle as a talisman. She is one of the most enduringly venerated figures of Altai belief and is continuous with the ancient Turkic goddess Umay attested in the Orkhon inscriptions.