Kurŋ (also rendered Kurn or Kur) occupies the summit of Nivkh religion. Lev Shternberg, the foundational ethnographer of the Gilyak (Nivkh), emphasized that the same word kurŋ names the visible universe, the sky and its weather, and a personal human-like god, so that cosmos and supreme deity are conceptually fused. The Nivkh addressed him with short prayers rather than an elaborate cult, and regarded him as the maker of all that exists. In an Amur Nivkh legend the god condemned humans who copulated like animals to remain beasts forever, an origin ascribed to the tiger and snow leopard. Kurŋ stands above, and is distinct from, the elemental spirit-masters (yz) of mountain, sea, sky, and fire who administer particular realms.