The White Old Man, Ak-Sagaan Öwaa, is the benevolent master-spirit of the earth, its waters and its animals, and a giver of long life, fertility and prosperity. Depicted as a white-bearded elder leaning on a dragon-headed staff, he presides over the game of the forest and the herds of the pasture as an earth-lord, the cher eezi in personified form. Though his classic elaboration is Mongolian, where he is the Cagan ebugen of 'white' shamanism blended with Tibetan Buddhism, he is venerated among the Tuvans as well, invoked for the increase of livestock and the health of the land and honored in the observances of the lunar New Year, Shagaa. Sources treat him as a syncretic figure standing at the meeting point of shamanic earth-veneration and the Buddhist pantheon.