Golden Woman (Zolotaya baba / Zlata baba)

No indigenous origin myth for the Golden Woman survives in the brief early modern European record surveyed here. The figure appears in European sources as an established local cult image: Maciej Miechowita (1517) reports a "great idol Zlota baba" beyond Viatka which neighboring peoples worship and before which travelers make offerings; later authors compiled by Giles Fletcher (1591) cite reports and maps placing a "Slata Baba" in northern regions and recount an example near the Ob River where local people use a rock resembling a woman in ritual practice. These external accounts present the Golden Woman as a longstanding localized cult object rather than providing an origin narrative from native informants.

Descriptions in the surviving sources are brief and differ on material specifics. Miechowita (1517) calls it a "great idol Zlota baba," identifying it as an image in the shape of an old woman (the name itself meaning "golden old woman"). Giles Fletcher (1591), summarizing various travel reports and maps, likewise describes a "Slata Baba, or the golden hagge, an idol in the shape of an old woman," and additionally records a report of a natural rock "of shape resembling a ragged woman bearing a child in her hands" at the Ob River. Thus the figure is consistently rendered as an aged female form, prominent in the landscape; some accounts treat it as a carved or set idol, while at least one report treats it as a sacred natural rock resembling a woman.

The sources do not ascribe overt supernatural powers in modern terms but record ritual functions in human practice. Miechowita states the idol is venerated and that passersby—hunters and travelers—do not pass it empty-handed, making offerings (from noble gifts down to a skin or a hair) and bowing in reverence. Giles Fletcher reports that some authors describe the Slata Baba as serving "as an oracle for indigenous priests," and he relays a report that Obdorian Samoyeds used a rock-form resembling a woman "in their pagan sorcery." These attestations present the Golden Woman as a locus of obligatory propitiation and, in some accounts, a mediatory/oracular focus for ritual specialists.