In the folk religion of the Lezgic peoples, including the Tsakhur of the upper Samur and the Zaqatala–Qax slopes, the sun is a living, feminine power whose warmth ripens grain and orchard and whose return is marked by the spring calendar. She appears as the elder sister in the pan-Caucasian tale that explains the dark markings of the moon: angered by her brother's insolence, she flings a lump of dough, or in other tellings dirt or mud, at his face, and the stain remains visible to this day. The cult is attested chiefly through calendar festivals, oaths sworn by the sun, and the taboo against pointing at or defiling the luminary; sources differ on how far the personification was elaborated beyond these rites.