left behind. An old she-wolf with a sky-blue mane named Asena finds the baby and nurses him. She later gives birth to half-wolf, half-human cubs who are the ancestors of the Turkic people. Shamanism Ethnologist Ivar Lissner theorised that cave paintings of beings with human and non-human animal features were not physical representations of mythical shapeshifters, but were instead attempts to depict shamans in the process of acquiring the mental and spiritual attributes of various beasts. Religious historian Mircea Eliade has observed that beliefs regarding animal identity and transformation into animals are widespread. Animal spirits In Melanesian cultures there exists the belief in the tamaniu or atai, which describes the animal counterpart to a person. Specifically among the Solomon Islands in Melanesia, the term atai means "soul" in the Mota language and is closely related to the term ata, meaning a "reflected image" in Maori and "shadow" in Samoan. Terms relating to the "spirit" in these islands such as figona and vigona convey a being that has not been in human form The animal counterpart depicted may take the form of an eel, shark, lizard, or some other creature. This creature is considered to be corporeal, and can understand human speech. It shares the same soul as its master. This concept is found in similar legends which have many characteristics typical of shapeshifter tales. Among these characteristics is the theory that death or injury would affect both the human and animal form at once. Psychiatric aspects Among a sampled set of psychiatric patients, the belief of being part animal, or clinical lycanthropy, is generally associated with severe psychosis but not always with any specific psychiatric diagnosis or neurological findings. Others regard clinical lycanthropy as a delusion in the sense of the self-disorder found in affective and schizophrenic disorders, or as a symptom of other psychiatric disorders. Modern therianthropy Therians are individuals who believe or feel that they are non-human animals in a non-biological sense. While therians mainly attribute their experiences of therianthropy to either spirituality or psychology, the way in which they consider their therian identity is not a defining characteristic of therianthropy; as long as a person identifies their sense of self as being that of a non-human animal, they can be considered a therian. The animal which a therian identifies as is known by the community as a "theriotype", and this can refer to either the animal they