The Chuvash are a Turkic-speaking people living mainly in the Chuvash Republic, Tatarstan and Bashkortostan in Russia. Their language is the only living member of the branch that once included Bulgar and Khazar, which is why Chuvash tradition matters for reconstructing early Turkic religion. Contact with Islam and Christianity has shaped the older belief for centuries, and the record varies by region Encyclopedia.com, Chuvash Religion. Several spirit names are loans from Tatar, Persian or Arabic, and this page keeps to figures with published support.
Deities and Spirits
Tură is the central figure of the traditional pantheon. The name derives from Old Turkic Tängri, which meant both "god" and "sky". Chuvash keeps the idea in the expression for thunder, which uses the root aśa-, "father, grandfather, God". Tură is also called the creator (Śuratakan), and the same word names the God of Muslims and Christians in Chuvash Encyclopedia.com, Chuvash Religion. Chuvash university researchers cite a folk song, recorded by Ashmarin, in which Tură is still addressed as the sky and the weather Chekushkina et al., Ethnopedagogical Potential of the Chuvash Culture (IJASOS 2021).
Ama ("mother") is a great mother goddess, the counterpart of the Turkic Umay. She appears most often in prayers. One recorded by the Chuvash scholar Nikolai Ashmarin addresses her as the one who gave birth to the whole world and thanks her for what she made. Ama was also linked with fire as Vut ama, "fire mother", and the Chuvash term for the Virgin Mary, Tură amăšĕ, builds on her name Chekushkina et al., Ethnopedagogical Potential of the Chuvash Culture.
Other figures in the encyclopedia record show how Islamic and other neighbouring influence entered the system. In some places Xărpan received a white ram as a sacrifice; his name or role may come from the Islamic sacrifice qurbān. Pixampar, lord of the wolves that guard sheep, takes his name from the Persian word for prophet. Šuytan is an evil spirit with an Arabic name, and the angel of death is Esrel or Masar Puśě, "ruler of the cemetery" Encyclopedia.com, Chuvash Religion. The Chuvash also made offerings to the "father of water" and "mother of water" so that they would not frighten bathers or send disease to animals Chekushkina et al., Ethnopedagogical Potential of the Chuvash Culture.
Myths and Stories
Why the sky is far away
A Chuvash legend says that at the start of human history the sky hung close to the earth. People could reach up to heal their wounds, and God could hear them easily. A careless woman wiped her child's dirty cloth on the sky, and God withdrew upward, out of reach Chekushkina et al., Ethnopedagogical Potential of the Chuvash Culture.
Two ducks and the making of the earth
According to creation songs summarized on Wikipedia, two grebes (chămka kăvakal) dived into the ocean and brought up silt, and the earth that one duck spat out became mountains and hills. In the same account Tură shapes the first man, Atăm ("clay"), from earth, water, wind and fire, while his rival Yĕrĕkh makes a crooked figure from which the first woman, Yăva, comes. The article draws on modern compilations, so treat the names as one published version Wikipedia, Vattisen Yaly.
The fate of Yĕrĕkh and the kiremet
The same article presents Yĕrĕkh in some groups as the first son of Tură, whom people killed at the urging of Evil. The shrines called keremet are linked to him, and it was forbidden to make noise or quarrel in them Wikipedia, Vattisen Yaly. A Mari scholar reports a similar Chuvash belief that Keremet was the elder brother of the god Suldy-Tora, killed by people who then worshipped him to ask forgiveness Toidybekova, The Character of Keremet in the Mari Mythology (Folk Belief Today).
Creatures and Spirit Beings
The most respected of the spirits is the kiremet. According to the encyclopedia entry, it is the soul of a dead person, in some groups of someone wicked or violently killed, and it lives beneath the earth. Every locality has its own, and clearings, meadows, cemeteries, hills or brooks may be fenced off as sites of worship where sacrifices are made. In northern Chuvashia some kiremets are said to live in trees and to have a keeper, the kiremet ketüśi. The word is probably borrowed from Arabic karāmah, "miracle" Encyclopedia.com, Chuvash Religion. Toidybekova reports that Chuvash sources describe the kiremet both as a hungry spirit that sends misfortune and demands sacrifice, and as a sacred place Toidybekova, The Character of Keremet in the Mari Mythology.
Wikipedia's article on Vattisen Yaly lists other beings, including the household and hearth spirits Yĕrĕkh (a clay doll kept in a basket in the house) and Khertsurt, the forest spirit Arzyuri, the ghoul Vubăr, and Albasta, a woman with four breasts whose name is of Tatar origin. The list gives no individual sources, so these names should be treated as indicative rather than definitive Wikipedia, Vattisen Yaly.
Worldview, Specialists and Practice
Chuvash healers called yumśă may be men or women. They treat illness, find lost animals and attend weddings and births. Scholars once equated them with shamans, but the encyclopedia entry notes they lack trance, otherworld journeys, special costume and sacred drum. One incantation describes a pillar at the centre of the world holding up the sky, and the lower world as four forests: leafy, spruce, poplar and juniper Encyclopedia.com, Chuvash Religion.
Chuvash treat the land as alive. During akatuy, in this account, the land is "married" to the plough, and the water prayer šïv čükĕ is made to the water Chekushkina et al., Ethnopedagogical Potential of the Chuvash Culture. Prayers and sacrifice face east, the dead are buried with the head to the west, and in northern Chuvashia the funeral rite includes a plank "bridge" over which the soul crosses to God Encyclopedia.com, Chuvash Religion.
Today
The traditional religion is called vattisen yăli, "custom of the ancestors", and today is a living revival with several organisations. Groups differ: some stress Tură with Ama and a reborn god, others a single god Tură, and others a nature-centred approach Wikipedia, Vattisen Yaly. Modern Chuvash writers continue to draw on Ama, the sky and the sacred earth and water in literature and teaching Chekushkina et al., Ethnopedagogical Potential of the Chuvash Culture.