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ARCHAIC REPRESENTATIONS AND RITUALS RELATED TO ANIMALS IN THE LEGAL AND REGULATORY CULTURE OF THE MONGOLIAN PEOPLES // Tomsk Journal of Linguistics and Anthropology. 2018. Issue 4 (22). P. 98-104

Legal and regulatory culture is an important part of the cultural heritage of any people. Mongolian and wider – the Turkic-Mongolian peoples have ancient traditions of legal consciousness, which were formed in the context of the traditional culture of hunters, nomadic pastoralists, warriors. A special layer of the traditional legal and regulatory culture of nomads and hunters, impregnated with shamanistic views are magical devices and sacred objects. The totality of such items is quite wide and diverse – it included meteorites ("celestial arrows"), revered animals and parts of their bodies, different types of weapons. The complex of traditional representations, prohibitions, customs and rituals can be described as measures aimed at combating offenses and contributing to the protection of interests in the dispute of the parties. This article focuses on magic techniques and tools aimed at combating theft in a nomad environment. This offense was the most common in the nomadic tradition. In the cases of unauthorized by an official investigation and a public court of offenses magical methods were often used. Having lost hope for voluntary recognition, the victims publicly announced the performance of the rite. As a rule, fear of supernatural forces, exposed the criminal. Thus, religious beliefs had a significant impact on the current customs of the traditional legal system of the Buryats in the 19th century. The existence of this form of justice could be a consequence of the process of regressive development of law with the fall of the Mongolian empire, when many archaic ideas and rituals came to life. On the other hand, on the periphery of the Mongolian state, the magic in the regulatory and legal system could not lose its significance.

Keywords: customary law, religious beliefs, theft, revered animals, wolf

FEATURES OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF REPRODUCTIVE CULTURE OF THE TURKIC-MONGOLIC PEOPLES OF INNER ASIA // Tomsk Journal of Linguistics and Anthropology. 2019. Issue 4 (26). P. 128-138

The main purpose of human in any culture, including the culture of the nomads of Inner Asia, is procreation. The standard of traditional society was the life of its members in the family, surrounded by children and grandchildren. This article attempts to accumulate known material reflecting the features of the reproductive culture of the Turkic-Mongolic peoples of Inner Asia, representatives of predominantly nomadic culture, its development right up to the beginning of the 20th century. Research interest focused on basic ideas and actions that program the future family well-being of nomadic society young members. Attention was also focused to the problem of extramarital relations of maidens and women among the Turkic-Mongolian peoples of Inner Asia, as an important category of reproductive culture. A comparative historical and comparative typological analysis of the worldview, the ritual sphere and the legal culture of nomads revealed a common ideological layer, which formed the idea of the need for marriage and the sinfulness of loneliness. People who did not marry, or those who remained childless, became outcasts of society. They were associated by a number of negative ideas and will accept, including the views of the transformation of unmarried childless women after death into evil spirits that harm women and children. The study of the problem of chastity in the nomadic environment shows the divergence of views and customs of the traditional society with the ethical standards reflected in the legal culture of the Mongolian empire and its successors. The laws of the Mongol Empire differed most rigorously. In the process of further development of the Mongolian law, there is a softening of punishments for illegal sexual relations, along with the growing loyalty of society to extramarital relations and the birth of illegitimate children. The reason for this situation was, in our opinion, a gender imbalance that developed in a nomadic society by the 17th – 19th centuries, a high mortality rate among women of reproductive age and children. In this regard, the scenario of reproductive behavior in the culture of the Mongolic peoples has become focused on the birth of children without any restrictions.

Keywords: Inner Asia, Turkic-Mongolian peoples, reproductive culture, traditional worldview, extramarital affairs

MILK FOOD OF THE NOMADS OF INNER ASIA: MEANING, FUNCTION AND SYMBOLISM // Tomsk Journal of Linguistics and Anthropology. 2021. Issue 1 (31). P. 206-219

The aim of this work is to analyze the practical and symbolic significance of milk food in the culture of the nomads of Inner Asia. The chronological framework of the work covers the late 19th — mid of 20th centuries. The research is based on historical, ethnographic and folklore materials. Comparative-historical and comparative-typological analysis of the worldview, economic practices, ritual sphere of nomads associated with the food complex, made it possible to identify a general worldview layer that formed the idea of the practical and sacred significance of dairy food, its functions of socio-normative regulation of society. The high importance of milk in the food complex and its white color predetermined the sacredness of milk and substantiated a wide range of its ritual use. The study of the daily practices of obtaining, processing, storing and consuming dairy food among the nomads of Inner Asia on a long chronological cut and in a wide territorial framework shows that dairy food has always had the status of “ritual”, and not only in situations of a sacred order. The sacred status of white food as a symbol of abundance determined the system of special restrictions and prohibitions accompanying the receipt of milk, its processing and storage. Milk food is the closest to the concept of “food norm” is most closely related, embodied in various forms. Unlike other main food of nomads — meat, milk food was intended to unite society, making the rich and the poor, insiders and outsiders equal. It was revealed that in the Buryat culture, one of the types of dairy food, the fermented milk product of kurunga (Buryat. kürenge), is one of the key markers of social community — the clan along with the ancestral fire, tamga, with which ideas about the power of the clan and its well-being are associated.

Keywords: Inner Asia, Turkic-Mongol peoples, food complex, milk, ritual, social functions, simbolizm