Gudil is the name given to the personified rain in the drought-breaking procession of the highland Daghestani peoples, a rite well attested for the Lezgic communities among which the Tsakhur live. When a dry spring endangered the grain, a youth was swathed from head to foot in green branches, reeds, and grasses, or an effigy was assembled in the same fashion, and this figure was led from house to house while women poured water over it and gave gifts of food; the soaking of the leaf-clad being was understood to summon rain by likeness. Regional names for the figure vary, Gudil, Godey, and among Lezgins Peshapai, and sources differ on whether it was originally conceived as an independent rain-spirit or as a temporary vessel for the rain itself; ethnographers record it as one of the most tenacious of the weather-magic personifications.