Teyri is the supreme deity of Karachay-Balkar religion, the personified sky whose name continues the ancient Turkic Tengri. He stands at the head of the pantheon, and the patron powers of the hunt, the herd, the threshing floor and the storm are understood to act under his dispensation. Prayers, oaths and rain rituals are addressed to him, often coupled with his thunder-aspect Choppa, and the invocation of Teyri by the sky survived long into the Islamic period as a fixed formula of blessing and cursing.