Enekan Togo — 'grandmother-fire' — is the personified spirit of the household fire in Evenki belief. The vital force animating the hearth was called togo musunin, placing fire among the beings that possess musun, the motive energy of all living things. Though addressed with a feminine, grandmotherly name, the fire-spirit was often understood as androgynous. She was treated as a living member of the household: given the first and best portion of each meal, consulted for omens read in the crackle and sparks of the flames, and relied upon to purify the dwelling and expel harmful spirits. A dense web of prohibitions guarded her — one must not spit into the fire, cut it or strike it with iron, or point a knife-blade at the flames, an act understood as putting out the grandmother's eyes. Ethnographers describe her as the hearth-level representative and most honoured helper of the celestial grandmother Enekan Buga, making the family fire the everyday link between the household and the sky.