Qorqyt Ata is the legendary bard and seer at the root of the Kazakh musical and shamanic tradition, the maker of the first qyl-qobyz and the archetype of the baksy and zhyrau who followed him. In the most famous legend he sought to escape a death foretold him in a dream, riding to the four quarters of the earth; but at each place he found men already digging a grave, and understood there was no flight from fate. Returning to the Syr Darya, he spread a carpet upon the water and played his kobyz without cease, so that death could not take him while the music sounded; only when weariness stilled the strings did a serpent bite him and end his life. His melodies are held to be the source of all kobyz music, and his domed mausoleum on the Syr Darya remains a place of pilgrimage.