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«EVERYONE IS AFRAID OF BEAR». FEAR OF BEAR ON VASYUGAN RIVER // Tomsk Journal of Linguistics and Anthropology. 2015. Issue 1 (7). P. 58-81

The people living along the Vasyugan river believe that the bear is a part of both the fauna and the supernatural sphere, and at the same time only a few bodily features differentiate it from man. The relationship between bear and man can be interpreted as a delicately balanced situation manifested not only in fear in man, but also in the bear. Fear produces legitimate and illegitimate behavioral patterns for man. Illegitimate behavior includes submission to fear, panic regarded as weakness or cowardice. Any behavior that suppresses panic is legitimate: respect for the bear, evasion, necessary caution, keeping the bear away, killing it, and even the jokes about bear adventures, the neglect of fear. Panic subordinates man to the hierarchy between bear and man, while the socially accepted patterns of action sustain or even reverse it. Not only man is afraid of the bear, the bear is also afraid of man, and not only man but also the bear thinks in terms of hierarchy. The hierarchy is also tested or assessed by the bear in an encounter with man, and it is also in the bear’s interest to maintain this hierarchy. The violation or neglect of the balance by the bear is also unacceptable behavior, and therefore both roving bears and man-eater bears are condemned and it is man’s duty to kill them; their carcasses are also treated differently from the rest of the bears: their flesh is never consumed. The balance between bear and man is the sign and precondition for social order: the bear as man’s supersociety punishes man for his sins, and man is enabled to kill the bear by some of the latter’s faults.

Keywords: Khanty, Siberia, Vasyugan, bear, cultural anthropology, behavior towards animals