Siberian Federal University

Issue

Journal of Siberian Federal University. Humanities & Social Sciences. 2016 9 (10)

Authors

Vasilev, Valerii E.

Contact information

Vasilev, Valerii E.:Institute for Humanities Research and Indigenous Studies of the North SB RAS 1 Petrovskogo Str., Yakutsk, Russia, Sakha Republic (Yakutia), 677027, Yakutsk; E-mail:

Keywords

shamanism; totemism; the mother-beast cult; commercial hunting; fertility; shamanic attributes; bow; tambourine; kobyz

Abstract

All the peoples of a vast northern part of Eurasia and the Arctic, in particular, have known the idea of sacredness of the feminine origin of mother-goddesses, giving birth to all life on earth, since the Paleolithic and Neolithic ages. It is probably that time that Siberian shamanism originates from. It is based on the animistic ideas on the cycle of souls of fur-bearing animals, birds and revered people who were buried the same way inside damp caves. This can be clearly seen in the bear feast, the genesis of which is observed in Eurasian ancient monuments. In their ethnographic past the peoples of Siberia had the custom of the totem birds’, beasts’ and shamans’ bones burial on the tree branches or in the tree hollows. More developed animism forms led to the construction of sarcophagi and air burials on poles. The fetishes, associated with totemism and the cult of ancestors, have been widely used in Siberian shamanism until recently. Sometimes they are found in their relic and transformed form in the ceremonies of modern holidays as well as in urban “shamans’” and psychics’ practice. However, the fact that remains unchanged is that tambourines and stringed instruments have always been one of the most important attributes, the instruments prototypically running back to hunting bows and bags for storage of their ancestors’ spirits. In a more rigorous understanding of this phenomenon the fetishes in archaic societies served as ancestral shrines and turned into musical instruments much later

Pages

2531-2537

Paper at repository of SibFU

https://elib.sfu-kras.ru/handle/2311/26385

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0).