"Khalmer-funeral customs of the Nenets". Funeral and memorial rites of the peoples of the Far North Definitely no one will buy Olenin now

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In the far north there were several types of burials: air, above ground, underground and incineration. Here you can read about air, ground and combustion.

Above ground burials

Nenets cemeteries were located on elevated places, burials were carried out in above-ground wooden coffins-boxes of a quadrangular shape, fastened with a system of vertical and horizontal slats, significantly rising above the coffin. A horizontal strip was attached to the slats in the heads of the deceased, on which a bell was hung.

What is halmer

In common parlance, the Nenets often call coffins the same as the dead themselves - khalmers (Nen. khalmer 'nges'). The types of Khalmer coffins differ among the Nenets of northern and southern Yamal; in the Nadym region, the Komi-Izhemtsy influenced the funeral rituals of the Nenets; there are burial options among the eastern groups of Nenets.

By the way, a fairly well-known urban village in Komi is called Halmer-Yu:

"Halmer-Yu" translated from Nenets means "River in the Valley of Death." There is also such a translation option as “Dead River”. Nomadic Nenets reindeer herders considered Khalmer-Yu a sacred place where they took their dead for burial. Khal - Valley, Mer - death, Yu - river (translation from Nenets).

On December 25, 1993, the Russian government adopted a resolution to liquidate the mine. In the fall of 1995, it was planned to complete the liquidation of the village, and the government tried to carry out the process according to world standards, which required huge financial and material resources. As a result, riot police were used during the eviction. Doors were kicked in, people were forcibly forced into carriages and taken to Vorkuta.

After the closure of the village, the territory of the village is used as a military training ground under the code name “Pemboy”. On August 17, 2005, during strategic aviation exercises, a Tu-160 bomber, on board which was V.V. Putin launched three missiles at the building former home culture of the village of Halmer-Yu.

Actually, as the village was called, this was the fate that befell it. He became dead. Now it is quite a popular place to visit for tourists interested in abandoned cities and towns.

The Nenets’ choice of elevated places for establishing cemeteries was determined not so much by religious ideas, as some 19th-century researchers believed, but by practical considerations. The cemetery, like the sacred place, had to be seen from afar, not only so as not to disturb the peace of the ancestors when driving the herd across the tundra, but also so that the deer would not injure their legs on the coffins, overturned sledges, and the remains of their sacrificial brethren.

Cemeteries are often built on a high bank of the river, as, for example, in the village of Gyda, Tazovsky district, in the Tambey tundra in the north of Yamal, in the village of Nyda, Nadym district, on the river. Bolshaya Kheta tributary of the Yenisei. The old name of the village of Tazovsky - Khalmer-Sede - translated means “hill of the dead”. According to legend, the bank of the river. In the spring, the basin was washed away by water and the burials located there fell into the river.

Evidence of the former existence of family cemeteries among the Nenets are modern group family burials. Ordinary cemeteries near national villages are not limited territorially and occupy quite vast areas. In one place or another there are groups of two, three or more khalmer coffins standing in a row close to each other, which indicates the burial of relatives here. Similar burials are found in Yamal, on the Gydan Peninsula, and in the lower reaches of the Yenisei.

Khalmer coffins among most Nenets groups are traditional wooden rectangular boxes made of planed boards and fastened with wooden slats. A trochee pole, with which the deceased controlled deer during his lifetime, is often tied to the left rail in the heads of the deceased, or less often - an ordinary long stick. Sometimes the trochee is simply leaned against a horizontal rail. The absence of a trochee on the grave may indicate that the deceased was a fisherman and not a reindeer herder or lived in a village.

In the absence of bells, the Nenets often hang empty cans or other ringing metal objects on horizontal slats. There are different bells, from small modern bells to old coachman's ones, apparently bought at fairs. One of these bells had the date of manufacture (1897) and the inscription “Ringing amuses, makes haste to go.”

At the Tukhard cemetery, pots, teapots, and buckets are hung on some crosses or vertical slats, which indicates that women were buried here.

Also regarding funeral rituals, Nentsev and Dolgan say the following. The funeral traditions described above date back to Soviet and post-Soviet times, and there are cemeteries, so to speak, for a large circle of people and those that are revered by the local population so much that you can get a bullet from the bushes.

But this is primarily due to a misunderstanding of funeral customs, and an attempt to make them oblivious first Orthodox priests, and then by the Soviet government.

The main tradition was like this. The deceased was sent to the last Argish. And the more significant a person was, the longer his Argish was. It is believed that things in Argish need to be monitored and updated, which is why they contain both modern things and things from the time of the deceased.

Abandoned burials naturally become dilapidated and rearrange a bunch of all sorts of objects in one small area; unknowingly, strangers begin to collect these things, which is a severe desecration of the grave, since these things still serve the deceased.

Because the local population knows about the ignorance of strangers, then the real graves are hidden. There have been cases of reprisals for desecration, but such things are never widely publicized.

What is argish

Argish (among the Nenets - mud) - this is what the nomads of the North call a caravan or train consisting of several sledges, on which they transport all their simple belongings: things, food and even housing - chum. Everything that is difficult or impossible to live without in the tundra. They roam or roam with the help of transport reindeer harnessed to Various types Nart, and this continues not for a day or a year, but for a lifetime.

It’s hard to imagine how you can live in constant movement, carrying all your belongings and housing with you, regardless of the impassability of the road, in winter and summer, in any weather. Almost every day, after the next migration, we set up our home, move bedding into it, prepare food... and in the morning we hit the road again. But even rare multi-day stops tire tundra dwellers, although it is impossible without them. The sledges and harnesses need to be repaired, food needs to be prepared, and the women’s clothes need to be mended. Usually an argish consists of five to seven sledges. In summer - out of two or three.

The Evenks also have a broader concept - “argish”, which roughly translated means “path”. But this word has no less philosophical and literal meanings than the Chinese “tao”.

Argish is everything life path An Evenk who passed through his life, allocated by fate, side by side with a deer. This is a whole cycle of actions from getting ready for the road, on a long nomadic camp, to arriving at the next winter hut, these are thousand-kilometer treks of a northern man and his closest friend, the deer, through the endless snow-covered forest-tundra in search of a new cozy place where they can stop, put up a tent, live for a while, and then - again into an endless argish.

Among the Evenks it is not customary to visit cemeteries, however, some who have adopted Russian in their own way Orthodox custom, commemorations are performed at the cemetery on the 9th and 40th days. At the same time, a fire is lit in the cemetery, the spirits are fed, and tobacco is broken at the grave of the newly deceased relative.

The Evenki family cemeteries are located in the taiga. Funeral argish (caravans) carrying the luggage of the dead through the forest, consisting of so-called “natural models” - wooden images of riding horses with a saddle and the head of a sacrificed deer - is not a sight for the faint of heart. Adults are buried in the ground, with a cross and a “natural model” of a riding deer placed at the burial site; children’s coffins are placed on trees.

The Evenks avoid cemeteries and abandoned warehouses, however, the fear of shamanic places and objects is many times stronger. Often the attitude of the Evenks towards material monuments its culture is expressed by the short word “ekel” - “you can’t”, “don’t touch”, “don’t touch”. Because of “ekel”, artifacts are doomed to rot in the taiga and disappear without a trace from the human heritage.

Air burials

There were also such burial options: in half of the boat, in the ground, children were buried suspended in trees. Previously, cemeteries were family cemeteries. In Linevsky’s “Sheets of the Stone Book,” by the way, it is precisely described how the mother buried the baby, hanging him in a bag on a tree:

“The child was buried without any ceremony. The mother carefully wrapped him in the skin of a moose calf, carried him into the forest to a birch tree she had chosen in advance and hung her burden on a branch. But if no one shed a tear during the burial of the old woman, here, by the old tree, a lot was shed tears.

Only after they buried the dead did the women go to the seaside. The catch today was no better than yesterday. Maybe that night someone, having fallen asleep quietly, will never wake up again. Death from hunger is easy - it comes quite unnoticed during sleep."

Adults were buried in the ground, placing a cross and a “natural model” of a riding deer at the burial site; children’s coffins were placed on trees.

To the question “why aren’t dead babies buried in the ground?” the usual answer was “that’s how it should be.” Some responded with the question: “How will the soul of a weak baby get out of the ground?”, another explained: “It is important that the birds sit on the baby’s coffin - the birds will take away the child’s soul.”

There are two main reasons for air burials. Firstly, a harsh winter, which, combined with permafrost, for most of the year turned the earth into a solid monolith of ice, in which it was not so easy to dig a grave. At the same time, the very low population density and the presence of huge forests made it possible to place rare burials in them without any sanitary problems, which literally “sank” in the taiga.

The second reason for the air funeral was the surviving pagan traditions, which existed then not only on the territory of modern Yakutia and not only among the ancestors of the current Sakha. They were practiced in the adjacent taiga territories by many northern, north- eastern peoples all the way to the Mongols.

Not everyone knows today, but the distant ancestors of the European Slavs and their neighbors once, even before funeral pyres, buried their dead in a similar way. This is where Russian folk tales come from, for example, about a princess sleeping in a crystal coffin suspended on chains. And if we remember from this angle the description of the “hut on chicken legs” and “Baba Yaga - a bone leg”, whose “nose is against the ceiling, her head is against the wall, her legs are against the door,” then it becomes clear that we are talking about the air burial. Then the superstitious fear that grips good fellows in front of an accidentally discovered and seemingly harmless forest “hut” is also understandable.

To build an arangas, the Sakha (as well as Evenks, Yukaghirs, Evens) selected four trees standing next to each other, sawed off their tops and connected them with crossbars at a height of about 2 meters. The coffin, which was a hollowed-out log of two halves of a solid and fairly thick trunk, was placed on these crossbars. Special clamps and wedges tightly pressed the upper part of the deck to the lower one and fixed the entire coffin on the platform. Sometimes, to make tree roots rot less, they were exposed by removing the turf on top and really turning them into “chicken legs.” Samples of such burials can be seen in the Museum of Friendship under open air in the village Sottintsy Ust-Aldan ulus.

With the advent of the Russians and Orthodoxy, priests began to demand “Christian burial” from their flock. The arangas were also seen by the Soviet authorities as “barbaric” and dangerous from the point of view of spreading epidemics. So burial in the ground was finally legalized.

But since shamans were the main exponents of traditional culture, the tradition of air burial continued for them until the first years of Soviet power. Therefore, having discovered an ancient arangas in the taiga today, one can assume with almost one hundred percent certainty that it belongs to the Oyuun or Udaganka. However, shamanic graves require respect regardless of what type of burial is used.

Some arangas have survived to this day also because there was a fairly strict ritual for the reburial of shamans, especially great ones. The remains of each of them lay in the arangas until it collapsed naturally. However, Siberian larch is unusually durable; it can hold arangas for more than a century. In such cases, the descendants performed the reburial ceremony exactly 100 years later. By word of mouth they passed on the necessary information to the next generation so as not to miss important date. The second time the shaman was reburied again after 100 years, or earlier if the arangas was destroyed. For the third time, the remains were interred. The descendants of the shaman carefully monitored the condition of the air burial, each time bringing gifts. At the same time, they tried not to disturb him unnecessarily. Each time the shaman performed ancient ritual. Arangas was built by nine young men who had not yet known a woman. A black stallion with a white muzzle was sacrificed.

In response to such care, the shaman continued to protect his descendants and provided assistance in difficult situations. To get the help of a shaman, they came to his grave and asked the ancestor out loud or mentally. Sometimes they knocked softly on an arangas or a gravesite in the form of a house.

Legends record cases when, during conflicts or physical confrontations with aggressive strangers, the injured descendant of the shaman received help. A black whirlwind took off, scattering the offenders and their belongings in all directions. It happened that overzealous guests were struck by lightning and hail, and they often went crazy. Sometimes the help was not expressed so clearly outwardly, but was of a creative, humanitarian, healing nature. But not all shamans became intercessors of their descendants. This is typical for shamans who served the forces of light, writes Kondakov.

But if the relatives themselves forgot to rebury the ancestor or disrespected his memory, he himself reminded them of himself, appearing in dreams or visions. If this did not have any effect, repressions ensued against the Oyuun’s own clan.

And, of course, shamans continue to guard their graves with all accessible ways from strangers. Let's move on to examples, most of them described by journalist and writer Vladimir Fedorov.

The oldest burial place of a shaman on the territory of Yakutia is located in the area of Rodinka in Kolyma. It was discovered by archaeologist S.P. Kistenev. All finds were handed over to the institute, and the bones were sent to Saint Petersburg for radiocarbon analysis, which showed that the remains of the shaman are 3.5 thousand years old.

And in conclusion, a quote from Vladimir Kondakov: “Let the ancient secrets be kept, let no one imagine himself omniscient and omnipotent. Ancient secrets, including shaman’s graves, if treated blasphemously and disrespectfully, are very dangerous and are not to be trifled with.”

Burning the dead

The customs of the Koryaks, prescribed to them by the raven creator Kutkynyak, before he flew to heaven:

“I want to talk about the rules that Kutkinachu allegedly bequeathed to them before his fiery departure, since these rules are the main basis of their life and without their observance nothing can be started or accomplished.

Everyone can have as many wives as he wants and as many as he can support. But before taking a wife, he must serve and work for her for some time; when it seems to him that he has worked enough for it, he is allowed to take it. If he wants to take another second wife or more, he is obliged to obtain consent from his first wife and work for her in the same way. Moreover, his work is considered payment for raising a girl and replaces the bride price.

It is necessary to make sacrifices from what was obtained from the hunt to the sun, moon, fire, and sacrifices to water in the form of a piece of alder wood.

It is not allowed to cut off anything from one’s dwellings and stairs, nor to hit them, and if someone outside, namely a foreigner, hits them, then everyone must dance around the fire and prepare a masher.

Adultery and debauchery are punishable by death, and whoever does this is betrayed shameful execution. If both offenders are free, then they must get married, unless their parents give their consent.

If someone dies, they cut a hole in the yurt in the place where the deceased lies, and through this hole they pull him out head first with all his clothes, bow and arrows and burn...

Stillborn children are buried, and if a pregnant woman dies, her stomach is cut open, the child is taken out, and both are then burned.

If someone is drowning, he is not allowed to be saved, but is allowed to drown; if his corpse is found later, it is also burned.

If someone hangs himself or ends his life in any other way, then his body is also burned.

The bear enjoys the greatest respect among them. But if a bear is killed, its bones are sacrificed to the idol tablet (?) Kalita, or Toelitoe, the ovary (testicula - lat.) - water, and the head is hung on a tree - as a sacrifice to the sun.

Before any activity - hunting, whale catching - in the months of Tuddjan and Leipajoel, one should crack an idol tablet - Toelitoe over the fire.

You should abstain from sexual intercourse with a woman in labor for a month after childbirth, and equally with a woman during her monthly cleansing.

These are the rules that were bequeathed by Kutkinachu. But after him, the Koryaks received other rules from their shamans, which I will mention when describing each of their activities.”

Since ancient times, people have performed special rituals to escort the dead to the Land of the Dead. A certain sequence of actions, as a rule, was aimed at making the deceased’s stay in the next world more convenient and pleasant. Ancient people put weapons and food in the grave, later noble people began to be sent to the next world, accompanied by their wives and servants, and with the spread of religions, clergy began to conduct funeral rites, asking God through their prayers for paradise gardens for the deceased.

In any case, throughout the history of mankind, there have been and continue to exist special actions that people carry out for the deceased after his death. We will tell you in this article what features distinguished the funeral rites of the peoples of the North.

Ostyaks and Samoyeds.

These peoples (modern names - Khanty and Nenets) lived in the lower reaches of the Ob. They buried their dead in special boxes - holmers. Inside there was a semi-boat coffin, where the deceased was placed with his feet facing south, downstream of the river. Equipped a man in last way thoroughly - oars, skis, and a bow and arrows were placed on the holmer or next to it. Idols were left inside the box - temporary vessels for the soul and other religious attributes. And inside the boat, directly next to the body, there were small objects - a knife, an ax, dishes, metal plaques.

Nanai people.

They determined death using a bird feather - they brought it to a person’s face, and if the feather remained motionless, then the person was dead. The body was placed on the floor near the bunk, the arms were placed along the body, and the legs were tied with white braid. A stone was placed at the heels so that the deceased would not push the souls of the living out of the home. They made a funeral bib for him with a schematic representation of the intestines so that the soul could be nourished. Food and drink were placed at the head of the bed.

The funeral was always done by strangers (digging the grave, taking it out of the house, burying it) so that the deceased would not return from the grave to the family. The funeral attire included an odd number of torn items. The rest of the deceased’s property was laid out in the yard, and then partly distributed as souvenirs to relatives, partly burned. The remains of clothing and household items were placed in the coffin.

Nganasans.

This people lived in the north of Taimyr. The peculiarity of their burials was that the deceased was taken on sledges to the tundra and left there. If a bear ravaged such a grave, it was considered good sign. In any case, it was forbidden for the living to approach the Narts, since according to their beliefs, all the best of a person goes to the world of the dead, which is located underground, behind seven layers of ice, and the bad remains at the grave. Children were buried in trees so that they were closer to the sky.

Ob Ugurs.

The customs of this people include a special ritual of “treating” - before burial, the deceased lay at home, and those who came to honor his memory brought special food and tobacco. The guests, in turn, took food lying next to the deceased and tobacco from his pouch. The ceremony ended with the creation of a set of food and things that were placed in the coffin, as well as the naming of the deceased with a posthumous name.

Evens.

In the customs of this tribe, the deceased person is dressed in his best clothes, placed in a hollowed out log and placed on special pillars. The coffin and pillars were doused with the blood of sacrificial deer, and the deceased’s belongings were placed under the coffin. It was believed that after death, Even would go to the east, so they buried him with his head to the west. Funeral clothing was specially sewn and did not have knots, as it was believed that they could prevent the soul from freeing itself from the body.

Read more about various rituals, funeral and memorial traditions, phenomena, unusual facts you can find out in the section

3.5 Funeral ritual

The Nenets imagined Death, the spirit of death, to be very large, he has black hair on his body, and he looks like a person. His dwelling is an underground plague, and he collects the dead. With death, a person begins another life, but there everything is the other way around. Funerals and wakes are held in the evening, since the earthly day in the Lower World is night, and night is day for them. The burial ceremony is performed

It lasts while the rays of the sun (life) fall on the earth, then the time will come for those who meet the deceased in the underground camp. So by the evening it ends active work among people in the tundra. Children should not play with dolls, as dead children begin to play at this time. It is believed that the underground world is very cold, probably due to the fact that there is permafrost underground. Therefore, the dead are always dressed in warm winter clothes. The deceased, fully clothed, is placed on his sleeping place in the opposite direction, with his feet against the wall. The deceased is offered his tea cup with tea, tea is poured on his toes and on the door. At the burial site, the head of the deceased was turned to the west or east. Vorozheev was buried face down so that he would not frighten his relatives; or a hole was drilled in the coffin of the “seer” near the head so that he would have a way out and could protect his loved ones. In the funeral rite, the east-west direction is strictly observed: east is the side of the living, from there the day appears; West is the side of the dead, sunset, the day goes there. A piece of beaver or otter skin is placed in the hands of the deceased, used in the purification ritual. If he has nothing in his hands, he can “take” someone’s soul with him. Residents of the Lower World meet the deceased with the words: “What did you bring us?” - and he gives them the objects placed in his hands. The deceased is dressed in the best clothes. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

The eyes and heart are covered with metal plates or the face is covered with a cloth mask with the lines of the face marked with beads. It was believed that if this is not done, then the deceased will not find, “will not see” the road to the afterlife, and this may portend imminent death any of the relatives. The deceased is wrapped in half of the chum covering. When carrying out the deceased, not through the door where living people walk, for this purpose the tent canopy is raised on the other side. The clothes and tools of the deceased are placed in the coffin. Things become unusable - the tip of sharp objects is broken off, clothes are cut, matches are placed in a mitten, and sulfur is burned on them. A holey cauldron and an overturned, broken sledge are left near the coffin. A trochee is stuck into the crossbar of the coffin, a bell is hung on the crossbar, and a table with a cup is left nearby.

The Nenets know at least five ways of sending things beyond the Middle World:

1. Breaking (for example, pricking a vessel, cutting off a piece of clothing, breaking off the tip of an arrow or knife).

2. Giving a thing an unnatural position (turning the vessel upside down, leaving the sledge with the runners up at the grave)

3. Burying in the ground

4. Sticking something into the ground (knife, spear, chorea, etc.)

5. Place at height (burial of miscarriages)

To reach the Lower World, the deceased is provided with a means of transportation. Reindeer in a harness “taking care of the owner” (killed); if the funeral is held in winter, the reindeer are left undressed - as if they were going in harness. The owner and his dog are sent for, in addition to the sled reindeer, the reindeer is slaughtered for a treat.

In funeral rituals, it was strongly emphasized that the living and the dead have different paths that should not coincide. When escorting a person to another world, one cannot remain silent, one must talk. You can't cry; the dead person will have a headache. You can't turn around. Women let their hair down as a sign of mourning.

When people return from the grave, the reindeer are not unharnessed until everyone has set fire to the fur of the riding reindeer on the neck; people also set fire to the wool on their clothes.

After burial, it is desirable that ties between the deceased and his relatives cease; this is a feature of the Nenets tradition. Mourning decides psychological task, kills the living’s memories of the dead, softens the pain of loss.

Conclusion

The purpose of the work was to study the culture of the Nenets ethnic group. Preservation and promotion of traditional culture and art of the peoples of the North is one of the leading trends in the activities of cultural institutions of the district. The forms of work aimed at implementing this task are designed to promote deepening of knowledge and ideas about the history of the indigenous peoples of Yamal, familiarization with their customs and traditions, rituals and holidays, familiarization with the origins folk wisdom peoples of the North.

Bibliography

1. Benjamin, Archimandrite (Smirnov) “Mezen Samoyeds” Bulletin of the Geographical Society 1855 Part 14

2. Verbov G.D. “Nenets fairy tales and epics” Salekhard 1937

3. Khomich L.V. “Traditional education of children among the peoples of the North” Leningrad 1988

4. Khomich L.V. “Nenets essays on traditional culture” St. Petersburg 1995

5. Yadne N.N. “I come from the tundra” Tyumen. 1995

6. Turutina P.G. “On the paths of my ancestors” Ekaterinburg 2000

Glassary

Vainuta - one of the sons of Numa who laid the foundation for the line of the Nenets people

Wark - bear

Vesako – old man – Cape Bolvansky

Ilebts – wild deer

Ilebyam, Pertya - a myriad of deer

Inucida - a spirit that deprives a person of reason

Mal,te Nga is a mythical creature without a mouth or anus,

having only a sense of smell.

Mando, Yara – Enets sand hills

Mando, Neva - head of the Enza

Mando, seda – Enets hill

Minley is a mythical bird with seven wings on each side, the son of Num, responsible for the change of seasons, day and night, etc.

Madna - evil spirit, people and animal deformities

Na – spirit of illness and death

Nakosniki - decoration for women's hair

Nebya hehe - mother spirit

Nev, se, e - head of the hill - genus Yadne

Neshau - Nenets

Nuv, padar - Num's paper, similar to the book of life among Christians

Nuv - God's Heavenly Lake

Nuv, nyan - the upper world

Num - heaven and heavenly God

Nev, honeycomb – Hill of heads, hill of heads

Nyadangs - clan Nyadangs

Pyri, then - Lake Shchuchye

Pe, mal hada - Mount Minisey in the Urals (Konstantin's stone)

Sarmik – animals (in the broad sense of the word)

Sitting-hehe, salya - two idols hill, Bely Island

Si, iv seda – Seven Hills

Siirtya - tundra aborigines

Sote, I am the Yar family

Sote I am myad, pukhutsya hebidya, I am the sacred place of the mistress of the plague

Sero, Iriko – White Grandfather

Syuhney, hehe, I am the sacred place of Syuhney

Syabta, sebe, e (Syabty hill) - from the Nyarui clan

Sit down - an idol representing a spirit

Tusidi, hehe, I am the sacred place of Tusida

You are a domestic deer

Teri Namge - spirits in the form of various underground creatures

Habcha minrena - an evil spirit that brings disease

hadako – grandmother (women's sacred place)

Halev, but - the island of seagulls.

Hansoshiada - an evil spirit that takes away the mind

Hantei no – clan of Yapto ne

Harv, Pod - larch thicket, road in it. Kozmin

Copse

Kharyuchi - one of the sons of Num who laid the foundation for the family of the Nenets people

Files: 1 file

Atlases and maps remain an invariable means of obtaining extensive, complex and detailed information. The data was used extensively in writing the work.

On modern stage, in the process of writing the work it was impossible not to use the data of the World Wide Web, which has accumulated a large amount of material about the funeral and memorial rites of the peoples of the Far North.

Thus, in the course of writing the course work, extensive material was used, presented by scientific, educational, methodological, journalistic, cartographic sources, materials from the Internet, which allows us to call the work scientific, information-attractive, and the content of maps and illustrations makes it visual and convenient for perception.

Indigenous funeral rites

Far North

Recently, residents of the Far North have begun to accept the Christian faith, but among the Chukchi, Evenks, Eskimos, etc. there are still many pagans. Their religion is a system of beliefs that the Earth is inhabited by various spirits - the masters of things, phenomena and elements. The northern peoples do not have any “central” deity, and the models of the world, including the afterlife, differ only in small details. According to their concepts, there are several afterlife worlds: for good people, for bad people and suicides, as well as the world in which God and angels live, it’s so interesting that paganism is intertwined with Christianity in these beliefs. These peoples believe that after death a good person will go to a place where there is no hunger, no poverty, but where there are a lot of deer and fish. What’s most interesting is that even pagans condemn suicide and consider the souls of people who commit suicide “unclean.” The customs associated with burial among the peoples of this region are different.

Chukchi

All kinds of precautions and safety spells during funerals among the Chukchi are of particular importance in the cycle of funeral and memorial rituals. The fear of the dead and the need to take various precautions for their return are deeply rooted in the consciousness of the Chukchi.

A dead body is considered harmful; particles taken from a dead body are used to create damage and disease. A person walking along the tundra and seeing a corpse is in danger of incurring misfortune; if he returns or goes back, the corpse will follow him, soon overtake him and block the road. Then the Chukchi will not be able to escape.

Immediately after death, all clothing, including necklaces and amulets, is removed from the deceased and placed in an inner canopy. Two skins serve as bedding and cover. It is considered indecent to expose a dead body to daylight. The inhabitants of the tent are removed from the canopy.

The funeral ceremony takes place the day after death. At night, two people should remain near the corpse before the funeral.

The Chukchi had two methods of burial: burning a corpse at the stake and leaving it in the tundra (Fig. 1). The dead were dressed in funeral clothes, often made of white skins. When a corpse was left in the tundra, they killed deer (among the deer) or dogs (among the coastal Chukchi), believing that the deceased was using them to make his way to the land of the dead. The funeral was accompanied by numerous magical rites.

Farewell circle around the body of the deceased. People once walk around the body lying on the skins, while stepping over the legs of the deceased, kicking them, as if pushing him out of this world - so that he does not linger here and at the same time making sounds similar to the growl of a bear, in order to so that the deceased person cannot call or take anyone present with him on the road. At the head of the table there is a wooden dish with dried meat, everyone who makes a circle takes it - then the deceased in the upper world will not starve.

Until the body of the deceased is placed on the fire, it is believed that the evil spirit “kele” can penetrate the fire and interfere. The fire pit is first guarded by two women with grass bands on their sleeves and on their belts - the crow people. Any person who stands in this place becomes a raven and protects this place from spirits. It should stay in place and make sounds like crows make. Then for the kele he will only be a bird, and not a person.

At a Chukotka funeral, there are people who watch how the deceased burns and there are men who make sure that the fire is evenly distributed. Their task is to add firewood and ensure that the fire does not collapse.

It is not customary to feel sad at a Chukotka funeral. To make it easy for a deceased person in the upper world - people and deer - on earth he is seen off with fun and games. in this case, they take ashes from the fire (but not from the funeral fire, but from the one where they boiled water for tea), smear their hands with it - and the chase begins. The task of the attackers is to catch up and smear their faces with ash, while those running away are to hide it or simply run away.

One of the last ritual rites - upon returning to the entrance of the house, all those present at the funeral are cleansed with water - each person is given a sip from a ladle, and then the back and head are poured (Fig. 2).

According to the Chukchi, in the kingdom of the dead best places for habitation were provided to people who died a voluntary death. Voluntary death was widespread among the Chukchi. A person who wanted to die declared this to his relative, and he had to fulfill his request, that is, strangle him or kill him with a spear. Most often, old people preferred voluntary death, but often the reason for it was a serious illness, severe grief, or resentment.

Nenets

The funeral rite of the Nenets can be conditionally divided into three main cycles: 1) actions related to the fact of death and the preparation of the deceased for burial; 2) burial itself; 3) funeral rites.

Immediately after the death of a person, the Nenets began to prepare boards for the coffin. The coffin should become a second home for the deceased, the space in which he will now live. The Nenets also buried their dead in half boats, logs, or a structure resembling half a boat.

The desire to make the deceased more comfortable is also explained, in part, by the expansion of the burial space preserved in the funeral rite by constructing a low log house. The Nenets think that a deceased person after burial has the same needs and activities as during life. Therefore, they put household items in the grave, and next to it a sleigh, a spear, set up a fireplace, bring a cauldron, knife, axe, firewood and other utensils with which the deceased can get and prepare food. Both during the burial and several years later, the relatives of the deceased sacrifice deer.

They try to hold the funeral as quickly as possible, usually the day after death, unless there are good reasons for postponing it. In the latter case, they can take place two or three days after death, and this is not condemned. The dead person is not left alone. The Nenets had a fire burning during the night while he was in the plague. An ax was placed on the outside of the door of each tent, and a piece of coal on the inside. The next morning, the young men of the camp go to get boards for the coffin. Before cutting down a tree for a coffin, the Nenets sacrificed a deer. As soon as the material was brought to the tent, another deer was immediately slaughtered. After the meal, they began building the coffin.

They begin to prepare the deceased for the funeral the next day and leave him in the clothes in which he died. The Nenets did not wash the body of the deceased. The custom of washing among the Bolshezemelsky and Taimyr Nenets spread under the influence of the Russians. The Yamal Nenets adopted it from the Bolshezemelsky Nenets and Komi-Zyryans.

Baptized Nenets held funerals Orthodox rite. The Nenets laid the deceased in full clothing with his head towards the door, feet towards the wall. A piece of cloth was placed on the face of the deceased. Sometimes the entire head was sewn into a cloth bag. After this, the corpse was wrapped in a chum-muiko covering, after which it resembles a mummy in its appearance.” They tied it with ropes.

As soon as the body was ready for burial, the Nenets carried the deceased out through a hole near the sleeping place, head first. Opposite the place where the deceased was, they broke poles and tore apart the plague covering.

Among the Nenets, the body of a deceased man was transported on men's passenger sledges. The body was attached to the sledge with a rope. A bell was hung from the bar on the right. The funeral procession consisted of three sledges, each of which was carried by a separate deer. Things that were intended for the deceased and boards for the coffin were transported on separate sleds.

When the deceased was taken out of the house, all residents took measures to block the entry of the soul of the deceased into their home. To do this, the Nenets put a flint into the tip of the mitten. They let dogs in and chased the deer around the chum clockwise for three circles. At this time, those in the tent closed all entrance holes and were not supposed to sleep until those who had left returned from the cemetery. The funeral procession made a farewell detour around the tent against the movement of the sun. As soon as the procession left the camp, the remaining reindeer were gathered together. And again the dogs were released, which drove the deer around the chum clockwise for three circles. These are magic circles for protection: for example, to prevent an attack or protect the chum from invading evil spirits and the spirit of the deceased. After saying goodbye to the deceased, those remaining in the camp began the ritual of purification.

During the journey, it was forbidden to board the sledge with the deceased and his property. Arriving at the cemetery, the old women cut the straps on the sledges with which the deceased was bound, and at the same time made holes in his clothes. Among the Nenets, funeral participants walked around the grave three times counterclockwise, each of them struck a bell or a chain suspended on a wooden plank. After the women remove the belts, the deceased is placed in a prepared log house. The body was usually laid on its left side, with its eyes to the west, as if they wanted to show that a person’s life disappears behind the grave, like the sun behind the horizon.

The deceased was placed in the coffin with his arms extended along his body. If the deceased was a man, then men laid him in the coffin, women laid him in the coffin.

The coffin was placed in the cemetery, oriented from east to west. All the things that he used during his life were placed in the coffin with the deceased. After the deceased was arranged and all things were laid nearby, it was covered with boards and covered with a piece of birch bark or fabric on top.

The Nenets tradition chose the only reliable form of marking hereditary land holdings - khalmer, i.e. traditional burials of ancestors, were of a tribal nature. If a person died far from his ancestral places, then his relatives had to bury him in the family cemetery, if this was his will.

The shaman was buried separately, a stage was built from logs, fenced from above on all sides against the invasion of wild animals; they were buried in their best clothes, and their bow, quiver, ax, etc. were placed next to him; then they also tie a deer - one or two, if the deceased had them during life, and thus leave these animals on a leash.

Explorers and travelers of the 18th - early 20th centuries. Different burial methods were noted among the Nenets. The funeral rites of the Nenets, including types and variants of burials, have some analogues with the details of the funeral structures of a number of northern peoples: Ents, Evenks, Evens, Nganasans. The Nenets are characterized by above-ground burials (Fig. 3).

Dead children were buried in a hollow tree or log, literally returning to the womb that “gave birth” to them, as they were considered sinless.

The design of the burial structure is basically the same for all groups of Nenets.

After all the steps have been completed, a fire is lit near the grave, where fragrant plants are thrown in order to fumigate not only the grave, but also those present in the cemetery. Then, near the burial place, the deer on which the deceased was brought is killed. Animals were killed at the grave by stabbing with stakes, hitting the head with a butt, etc.

A characteristic feature of the Nenets funeral rite is the participation of a shaman, although his presence was optional. Before leaving the cemetery, the Nenets shoot three arrows at the “dead person” so that the deceased does not return to the human world. Mounted animals were previously removed from the cemetery at a great distance. They tried not to look back, so that the deceased would not steal someone’s shadow, that is, the soul.

Upon returning from the funeral, they began to fumigate themselves with deer fat or beaver hair. Before unharnessing the reindeer, the fur of the riding animals on the chest was set on fire. The plague remained in the old place only one night after the “burial”, and then was transferred to another place. At the site of the plague, three sticks 1.5 meters high were installed, which were covered with cloth or fur. They strangled a deer as a sacrifice and smeared this symbolic plague with blood, and poured the rest on the ground nearby. The head and hooves of the deer were left, but the meat and skin were taken. At the same time they said: “Here is your plague, do not follow our footsteps from this plague, here is your victim.”

The Nenets do not have special days of remembrance. The cemetery is visited on occasion: on the days of funerals or “whenever after that you have to drive past a grave.” We tried to arrange a visit in the spring, before the leaves bloomed. It is not customary to take care of graves for a long time. The graves were not corrected or updated. This is explained by the fact that the body of the deceased has long since decomposed, turning into a “si” beetle, and the graves are overgrown with grass. There is no trace left of the body.

After the funeral, relatives observed mourning. In the first days of mourning, it was forbidden to make noise, laugh, sing, or speak loudly. During mourning, it was forbidden to do anything with sharp objects - a knife, a pick, a shovel, a needle, etc., or to do household chores - do laundry, wash floors, throw out garbage. At this time, men are not allowed to cut down trees or cross water; for women - to sew or repair things, to visit. Among the Nenets, as soon as a deceased person appeared in the plague, women let down their hair, untied ties, belts, men removed metal chains from their necks until the “soul of the deceased” was transferred to the world of shadows.

Description of work

Relevance. The indigenous peoples of the Far North are an integral part of the ethnocultural diversity of world civilization. IN modern world There are almost no single-national states; communities exist everywhere small peoples, making a unique contribution not only to regional but also global development. Therefore, an urgent task is to find ways to preserve and develop the traditional culture of northern ethnic groups, including a careful attitude towards nature and its gifts.

Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………
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Research methods……………………………………………………………….
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Literature review………………………………………………………
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Funeral and memorial rites of the indigenous peoples of the Far North……………………………………………………………….

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Chukchi……………………………………………………….
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Nenets ………………………………………………………………………………
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Evenks…………………………………………………………...
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Eskimos………………………………………………………..
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Aleuts…………………………………………………………...
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Khanty……………………………………………………….
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Burial of a shaman………………………………………………………
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Conclusions ………………………………………………………………………..
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Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………
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List of used literature and sources……

Fire, air, water and earth are not only the main elements of our world. Having said goodbye to the deceased forever, you can leave his body to the wind, cremate, bury or throw him from a ship into the sea. All these burial methods have been well known to mankind since pagan times. And although now the remains of the dead are most often buried, many peoples of Russia have not buried their dead in graves since ancient times, following a variety of traditions and rituals.

Air burial

The pagans believed that it was easier for the human soul to get to the afterlife by air. Therefore, the dead were either hung from trees or left to lie away from the roads. At the same time, sometimes a kind of crypts or platforms were built where the corpses of people were laid. Senior researcher at the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences Georgy Yuryevich Sitnyansky studied in detail this topic in his scientific article “On the origin of the ancient Kyrgyz funeral rite”, which was published in the “Central Asian Ethnographic Collection” (issue IV, Moscow, 2001 publication).

According to the scientist, the ritual of air burial was practiced by residents of the Iberian Peninsula, the Caucasus, the Urals, Siberia, Altai, Tien Shan, the Arctic coast of Eurasia, as well as some Indian tribes of North and South America. There is an opinion among ethnographers that approximately 25-26 thousand years ago on the territory of Siberia a certain community of people was formed who are the ancestors of many modern peoples. Then small groups of representatives of this ancient tribe left in search better life. Some went west, reaching the Caucasus and even the Pyrenees, while others went east to leave Eurasia and reach Alaska over the frozen Bering Strait ice.

“Later, representatives of this community settled over vast territories of Eurasia and North America, and even later were assimilated by representatives of other linguistic communities, passing on to them, in turn, among other ethnocultural features, an unusual funeral rite, which survived in many areas until modern times, and in some places - almost to this day,” wrote G. Yu. Sitnyansky. It is not surprising that the tribe, which lived for a long time in Siberia, buried their dead by hanging their remains on trees. Still, these people were surrounded by almost impenetrable taiga. Representatives of many nations consider air burial to be the only correct method. The Kets have an interesting legend about this. According to legend, a certain messenger of the supreme god Yesya (his son or his dog - exists different variants myth) appeared on earth and taught people to bury the dead in the ground. AND human souls Having returned from the other world, they could not find their bodies. So people forever lost their former immortality.

Who buried like that

If we leave aside the funeral traditions of the Basques, Mongols and Iroquois, and focus on the peoples of Russia who practiced air burial, the list will be impressive. It includes: Altaians, Baraba Tatars, Buryats, Itelmens, Kets, Nganasans, Nenets, Selkups, Tuvinians, Khakassians, Shors, Evenks, Yakuts and representatives of some other indigenous peoples of Siberia.

In addition, the inhabitants of the Caucasus entrust their dead to the elements of air: Adygeis, Kabardians, Circassians, Shapsugs, Abazas. The Italian missionary Arcangelo Lamberti spent 18 years among the highlanders - from 1635 to 1653. In his book “Description of Colchis and Mingrelia” (Naples, published in 1654), the traveler depicted a funeral ritual that was surprising to him.

“Among other customs of this people, it is remarkable that they do not bury or burn the body of the deceased, but place the corpse in a hollowed-out tree trunk, which serves as a coffin. The latter is prayerfully tied with a vine to the highest branch of some larger tree. They also hang the weapons and clothes of the deceased,” Arcangelo Lamberti told his readers.

A similar description is contained in the book “The Travels of Johann Schiltberger through Europe, Asia and Africa from 1394 to 1427” (Mainz, published in 1475). The German warrior Johannes Schiltberger, captured by the Turks, wandered around for a long time. different countries- from Greece to Central Asia - has not yet returned to his homeland. Talking about the traditions of the Circassians, the author wrote: “They have a custom of placing those killed by lightning in a coffin, which is then hung on a tall tree. After that, neighbors come, bringing food and drinks with them, and begin to dance and have fun, slaughter bulls and rams and distribute most of the meat to the poor. This they do for three days, and repeat the same thing every year until the corpses are completely decayed, imagining that a person struck by lightning must be a saint.”

If we talk about the Finno-Ugric peoples, ethnographers have noted the ritual of air burial among the Mansi, Khanty and Moksha, who are representatives of one of the ethnic groups of the Mordovians. In ancient times, these people also hung the bodies of the dead on trees. These burials were called “Urksprya” (or “Urlya”).

Then the Moksha people began to bury the dead differently: log houses were built from the trunks, which were installed on high stumps. The ancestors of the Mordovians rested in such wooden crypts with roofs. These structures were built in the forest, they were called “Kalmakuzha” (“Kalmakuzhat”). Only after the adoption of Christianity did the Moksha people begin to bury their dead in the ground. Until the twentieth century, the Kalmyks maintained an ancient nomadic custom: the bodies of the dead were simply left in the steppe, away from roads. Residents Ancient Rus' criminals, suicides, drowned people, buffoons and people who died were not allowed into cemeteries violent death. Since ancient times, the Slavs worshiped not only warrior gods, but also the female fertile force of nature, which was called “Mother of Cheese Earth.” The Russians did not want to desecrate this element with “unclean” corpses. Such dead people were usually left in the thicket of the forest or in the ruins of houses, covered with stones. It is noteworthy that the legendary hero Dobrynya Nikitich, according to the epic, hanged the Serpent Gorynych, whom he had defeated, “on a damned aspen.” This is not surprising, since the villain-antagonist does not deserve to be treated differently even after death.

Who was buried like that?

Air burial was not used for all dead people. But if the Russians did not bury the criminals, then representatives of other nations held opposing views on the funeral rite. The indigenous inhabitants of Siberia, for example, believed that people who had somehow tarnished their honor were not worthy air element. G. Yu. Sitnyansky in his scientific work pointed out that the Altai people buried in trees people who died as a result of a lightning strike, as well as representatives of the fair sex who did not live to see the wedding for one reason or another. But the Teleuts and Shors hung the bodies of dead children on trees. Sometimes the infant corpse was placed in a hollow, covered with bark on the outside, so that no one could see such a grave. Khakass, Baraba Tatars, Nenets, Evenks, Itelmens, and Selkups also arrived. Of course, the burial depended on the age of the deceased child. Teenagers were usually placed in wooden coffins or wrapped in birch bark and then tied to a tree. Another category of dead to whom air burial was applied were the shamans of the northern peoples. In particular, the Yakuts and Tuvans adhered to this tradition until the twentieth century. The corpses of ancestor cult ministers were left on special platforms built high in the trees. The Buryats also laid the deceased shamans on wooden floorings, which were installed in the branches of cedar, larch or pine. Most researchers believe that initially the ritual of air burial was used in relation to all deceased representatives of the indigenous peoples of Siberia, and then only children, shamans and respected old people began to be buried this way. Representatives of the Abkhaz-Adyghe peoples also honored with air burial only the venerable dead, noble people, as well as those who died as a result of a lightning strike.

Cremation

Consigning a corpse to fire is another one ancient look funeral rite, which was common among representatives of many peoples of the world. To this day, in some countries, most deceased people are cremated. And then the ashes are either buried in special urns or scattered to the wind. Doctor of Historical Sciences Maria Vsevolodovna Dobrovolskaya wrote a scientific article “On the methodology for studying cremation materials,” which was published in the collection “ Brief messages Institute of Archeology" (issue 224, 2010 publication). The author explained the ubiquity of this funeral rite by the archetypal attitude of people to the cleansing power of fire. Many pagans believed that the human soul, freed from earthly burdens and sins, rises into the sky with the smoke of the funeral pyre. If we talk about the peoples of Russia, then the Slavs have used this method of funeral since ancient times. For example, the famous publicist and writer Vladislav Vladimirovich Artemov in his book “Slavic Encyclopedia” (Moscow, published in 2011) indicated that the inhabitants of Ancient Rus' believed that the souls of their ancestors were in heaven along with the supreme deities. Such respected deceased grandfathers and great-grandfathers could help their descendants with the weather. People had no doubt that the souls of their ancestors were capable, for example, of dispelling fog or causing rain or snowfall.

Water burial

Another ancient method of burial is associated with the water element. Basically, it was used by peoples living near large bodies of water - seas and oceans. For example, the Vikings sent their comrades on their last journey on small boats, providing the deceased with everything they needed the afterlife. Residents of Ancient Rus' believed that the souls of the deceased must cross the Smorodina River, which separates our world from the abode of the dead. Therefore, the coffins of the Slavs often resembled boats. As V.V. Artemov wrote in his book, some Rus tribes floated corpses along the river on special rafts, after setting them on fire. This funeral rite combined the traditions of fire and water burial. Similar rituals were practiced in pagan times by the descendants of the Vikings who settled on the White Sea coast. Subsequently, they mixed with the inhabitants of the Russian North and gradually lost their original traditions.

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