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RITUALS OF OF HONORING FAMILY SPIRITS-PATRONS OF THE YUGAN KHANTS // Tomsk Journal of Linguistics and Anthropology. 2020. Issue 4 (30). P. 120-127

The paper is devoted to the current state of the tradition of honoring family and ancestral spirits-patrons — one of the main ceremonial practices of the Yugan Khants. The materials for the article were obtained during a complex expedition to the Surgut district of the Khanty-Mansi autonomous region. The article deals with the current ceremonial and religious situation on the Bolshoy and Maly Yugan rivers, and shows the differences in attitude to traditional beliefs on the part of the inhabitants of both rivers. The object of research was the rites of honoring of the spirit of Evut Iki and the daughters of Pugos Anki, recorded in the vicinity of the Achimov yurts on the Maly Yugan river. When fixing the rites, the method of included observation was used: members of the expedition participated in both rituals on an equal basis with local residents. The article discusses in detail both rituals-preparation for the rite, the appearance and internal arrangement of the sacred places, actions with ritual figures (washing, dressing, feeding spirits), offering gifts to the spirits, setting the table for the ritual meal and prayer, and the completion of the rite — the distribution of old headscarfs to participants. The place of these spirits in the Khanty Pantheon and the semantics of names are considered separately. The author makes a comparative analysis of the two rites in order to identify common and distinct features in the structure of both sacral places and rituals. The conclusion is made about the traditional character of both rites and the stability of the tradition of honoring of family and ancestral spirits-patrons at Malyi Yugan at present. It is considered promising to compare the recorded rites with the materials of the expeditions of the 1980s and 2000s recorded in the same area by members of the same family. The article introduces an extensive new field material into scientific circulation and may be of interest to ethnologists, religious scholars, and folklorists.

Keywords: ritual, spirits-patrons, sacred place, Yugan Khants, current state

RITUAL USE OF FLY AGARICS BY MODERN KORYAKS // Tomsk Journal of Linguistics and Anthropology. 2022. Issue 3 (37). P. 142-148

The article discusses the current use of fly agaric mushrooms in rituals among the Koryaks, a native people of the Russian Far East. It provides a review of previous research on the subject, including the Second Kamchatka Expedition (1733–1743) and rock paintings found in the Pegtymel River region of Chukotka. The article also examines the role of fly agaric and other mushrooms in the cultures of Siberia and the Russian Far East. It describes the main occasions, both sacred and secular, in which fly agaric mushrooms are used, and presents new field material collected by the author during an expedition to the Olyutorsk region of the Koryak Autonomous Area in 2004. This material includes accounts from informants of their own experiences with fly agaric mushrooms and those of their friends and relatives, as well as folklore texts known as “fly agaric songs” and “fly agaric tales” that were recorded after the use of the mushrooms. The author concludes that there are two parallel traditions of fly agaric consumption in Kamchatka – sacral and ritualized on the one hand, and common drug addiction (mostly in the city) on the other hand. The article introduces a vast new field material and may be of interest to ethnologists and folklorists.

Keywords: fly agarics, ritual use, ritual, the Koryaks, current state

A Rare Photo (Ket Photos and Film Chronicles) // Tomsk Journal of Linguistics and Anthropology. 2023. Issue 4 (42). P. 115-126

The article is dedicated to the visual record of the traditional culture of the Kets, one of the numerically small peoples of the Krasnoyarsk region. The history of drawings (using the example of an illustration from the book by I. G. Georgi) and photographic records of the Kets is considered, beginning with the expeditions of V. I. Anuchin (1905–1909) and F. Nansen (1913) and ending with the expeditions of A. P. Dulzon (1950s–1960s); references are given to the holdings in archives and online collections of museums where photo collections are kept. Fifteen films and videos about the Kets, shot between 1978 and 2021 and found in open sources and archives, are described and analyzed from the perspective of visual anthropology. The filming locations, the first and last names of the Ket language speakers who appear on screen, the video and audio sequence of the films, the characteristics of the direction, and the author’s position on the prospects of the development (or extinction) of the Ket language and traditional Ket culture as a whole are analyzed. The author’s video footage taken during his expeditions to the Ket in 2004–2005 is also considered. All the films examined are presented in a table that includes the year of release, the date, the name of the directors and the name of the studio that produced the film, the language (Russian, Ket), and a link to the film or its trailer or synopsis in open sources on the Internet. The author concludes that the Ket culture has maintained its representation on screen despite its relative neglect by filmmakers compared to neighboring peoples (Nenets, Evenks, and Selkups). The conclusion is that the photographic and video records devoted to the Ket language and culture need to be further studied from the perspective of visual anthropology, including data from the informants’ personal photo and video archives. The article may be of interest to ethnologists, folklorists, and specialists in visual anthropology.

Keywords: photography, filmmaking, videography, Kets, visual anthropology

Visual Folkloristics: From Video Recording to Complex Research // Tomsk Journal of Linguistics and Anthropology. 2024. Issue 4 (46). P. 143-152

The article is dedicated to the methodological problems of visual folkloristics. The article justifies the necessity of its separation into a sub-discipline of visual anthropology and classical folklore studies. According to the author, the language of cinema is the semiotic system capable of capturing such a complex cultural phenomenon as a folkloristic work as completely, adequately, and accurately as possible. The importance of the non-verbal and extra-musical aspects of the performance, which are lost in text or audio recordings, is emphasized. The article is based on the field material collected by the author during folkloristic-ethnographic expeditions in different regions of Siberia. Examples are given of video recordings of such complex rituals as the Bear Festival and the honoring of family patron spirits among the Khanty, shamanic initiation among the Buryats, and the Altai calendar ritual Jazhyl bӱr (‘Green Leaves’). Practical recommendations are given for the choice of this or that recording method in different situations. The relevance of recording rituals with two cameras and the continuous recording method is justified. The problem of subsequent editing of the filmed material – various editing options depending on the task and target audience and the analysis of the existing video material from the point of view of various scientific disciplines (ethnography, linguistics, folklore, musicology, choreography) is considered separately. The author believes that the joint viewing of folklore videos with informants can serve as a “catalyst” for the creative activity of performers and can be used for this purpose in field research. The end result of a visual folklorist’s work can be a folklore film, a multimedia disk, a database stored online, illustrations for articles and academic reports, and educational materials for school and university students. Another issue is the copyright of the video material, which should be clarified at least through a verbal agreement with the informant, respecting all his wishes regarding confidential information. The author concludes that only integrated digital video and audio recordings can provide the necessary level of completeness and adequacy to capture such a multidimensional phenomenon as folklore and that audiovisual folklore has already developed its own tasks and methods to solve them, moving from the level of recording the performance of a folkloristic work to the level of its complex interdisciplinary study.

Keywords: visual anthropology, visual folkloristics, ritual folklore, video recording, methodology, video editing, authenticity