name, and are cognates with the Avestan name (). The name of the king Skuⁿxa might be related to the Ossetian term meaning "distinguishing oneself," and attested as () in the Digor dialect, and as ) in the Iron dialect. Religion Herodotus mentioned that the Massagetae worshipped only the sun god, to whom they sacrificed horses. This is seen to indicate the cult of the Iranian sun god Mithra, who was associated with the worship of fire and horses. When Cyrus attacked the Massagetae, their queen Tomyris swore by the Sun to kill him if he did not return back to his kingdom. However, Strabo recorded that the Derbices, who were either identical with the Massagetae or one of their sub-tribes, worshipped "Mother Earth," interpreted as the Earth and Water goddess Api. Marriage customs The Massagetae contracted monogamous marriages, although the wives could have sexual relations with other men. When a Massagetaean man wanted to have sexual relations with a woman, he would hang his gorytos outside of her tent, inside of which the couple would proceed to have intercourse. Edvard Westermarck, however, in The History of Human Marriage, suggested that Herodotus and Strabo, on whose writings this understanding of Massagetaean marriage customs is based, might have been mistaken, and that the relevant custom was instead one, said to be common in Central Asia, by which brothers shared a single wife. Funeral customs According to Herodotus, members of the Massagetae were sacrificed and cooked and eaten with the meat of sacrificial animals. Members of the Massagetae who died of illness were buried or left as food for wild animals. See also Zarinaea, queen of a Saka tribe which also had contact with the Medes Mount Imeon Indo-Scythians Getae Thyssagetae Footnotes <references> </ref> </ref> </ref> </ref> </references> Sources Massagetae Nomadic groups in Eurasia Tribes described primarily by Herodotus