Koyash

Bashkir · deity · Bashkir traditional religion; continuing · deity

Koyash is the Sun personified, one of the two luminaries wed to the sky-king Samrau. As his solar consort she is the mother of Humay, the radiant swan-maiden, and so passes her brightness into the heroic line through Ural's marriage. In Bashkir belief the Sun is broadly venerated as a life-giving power, and within the epic she takes shape as a named celestial wife and mother.