The budalaala are the mountain guardians of wild game in Dargin belief. According to the tradition, children stolen by demons were carried up to the summit of Mount Kilimeger, the 'Saddle-mountain', and there turned into budalaala, thereafter serving as protectors of the animals of the heights. In this role they parallel and complement the hunting-god Abdal, patrolling the boundary between the human world and the wild and enforcing the sanctity of the game. They belong to the master-of-animals complex that the Dargins share with other Daghestani highlanders.