RITUALS OF OF HONORING FAMILY SPIRITS-PATRONS OF THE YUGAN KHANTS
DOI: 10.23951/2307-6119-2020-4-120-127
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
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Issue: 4, 2020
Series of issue: Issue 4
Rubric: ANTHROPOLOGY
Pages: 120 — 127
Downloads: 691