Abdal is the god of the hunt and lord of wild animals shared by the Dargins with neighbouring Daghestani peoples, the Avars, Tsakhurs and Laks (the last calling him Avdal). He owns and shepherds the game of the mountains, herding and milking the wild goats and deer, and he enforces a code of restraint upon hunters: those who kill more than their due he punishes severely, and his manifestation as a white animal or a white man was read as a warning of coming misfortune. Scholars connect his name and function with the Georgian hunting goddess Dali, whose cult is thought to have spread among the Daghestani highlanders, making Abdal a Caucasian master-of-animals figure preserved on the Dargin side of the range.