Among the animals the deer was considered to be the mediator "par excellence" between the worlds of gods and men; thus at the funeral ceremony the soul of the deceased was accompanied in his/her journey to the underworld (Tamag) or abode of the ancestors (Uçmag) by the spirit of a deer offered as a funerary sacrifice (or present symbolically in funerary iconography accompanying the physical body) acting as psychopomp. A late appearance of this deer motif of Turkic mythology and folklore in Islamic times features in the celebrated tale of 13th century Sufi mystic Geyiklü Baba (meaning "father deer"), of Khoy, who in his later years lived the life of an ascetic in the mountain forests of Bursa – variously riding a deer, wandering with the herds of wild deer or simply clad in their skins – according to different sources.