The pari, from the Persian parī, are beautiful winged spirit-beings adopted from Iranian belief into Uzbek folk religion, imagined chiefly as radiant women able to fly and to take bird-form. Ambivalent in nature, a pari may seize a mortal and inflict sickness, possession, or love-madness, or descend to marry a human as in numerous folktales. Above all they are the tutelary spirits of the Central Asian shaman: the parikhon, literally 'pari-caller', summons his or her pari in the curing seance to identify and expel the demons troubling a patient, so that the same beings who afflict may also heal.