Indigenous societies in northern Eurasia share many similar myths and ritual processions, as well as a common animistic worldview. These can be traced back to structured cultural landscapes based on traditional orality, mode of subsistence and ecological conditions (Siikala, 2002, p. 19; Zvelebil, 1997, 1999). The act of hunting is not only important as a means of subsistence, but the pursuit of game and human-animal relations alike are understood as social relations where personhood is assigned to both human and non-human agents such as spirit-animals, ancestral spirits, etc. (e.g. Hallowell, 1960, pp. 20, 22; Hill, 2014).

In the traditional cosmologies of north Eurasian communities, game such as the bear presents itself as wanting to be killed, since the spirit of the animal in question is seen as being capable of returning back to its hunting grounds if the hunt and the ceremonial veneration afterwards has been carried out to its satisfaction (e.g., Pentikäinen, 2007; Ingold, 2000, p. 67).

In the words of Finnish scholar Anna Leena Siikala, “the return of the animal’s bones and other body parts to its guardian spirit in order to promote its rebirth diverges in terms of its underlying motivation from sacrifice proper, even if these two types of ritual may be very similar in terms of formal features. In fact, this ancient legacy of hunting rituals later survived in the context of sacrificial ceremonies. Rituals known from northern Eurasia to North America which ended by returning the bones of slaughtered animals, were repeated whenever a large or rare game animal was killed (Paproth 1976).” (Siikala, 2002, pp. 25, 26).

Article was published in the Hexenkunde Magazine Winter Issue 2022/23

The term ‘Evenki’ is used to describe an indigenous people in Siberia with various subgroups and cultural differences, who live near the Olenyok River and the Baikal region in eastern Siberia. Today, there are three distinct cultural differences. Orochon Evenki base their subsistence on reindeer pastoralism, while the Tungus engage predominantly in fishing and the Murchen domesticate and raise cattle (Safonova, 2016, p. 59). The Evenki, whose mode of subsistence is based on hunting and gathering, reside on the Olenyok River in Yakutia, Sakha Republic. The Evenki hunters do not eat their own domesticated reindeer, they instead use them for transportation to distant places and they also serve as a status symbol for wealth within the clan’s designated territory (Shirokogoroff, 1935, p. 406).

The Evenki forest hunters consume the meat of wild reindeer, elk and moose during winter, while living off of birds and fish during the summer (Shirokogoroff, 1929, p. 26). The cultural landscape of the Evenki is deeply interwoven with the land itself, including all wildlife and sacred spaces. Evenki hunter- gatherers maintain an animistic connection with nature. While examining the cosmological aspects of Evenki mythology, there are three worlds on the world tree that are inhabited by gods (ajyy), demons (abaahy), spirits (itchi) and the spirits of ancestors and animals (üör) (Afanasieva, 2016, p. 2299). The Universe itself is tripartite, consisting of the Upper (Ugu Buga), Middle (Dulin Buga) and Lower realms (Hergu Buga). The mistress of the world is called Buga Musin, and is depicted as a female elk and an older woman who is in charge of human and animal spirits (Afanasieva, 2016, p. 2300).

The Evenk mistress of wild game, ruler of the Taiga, is called Bugady Enintyn and is portrayed variously as an elk or wild deer. Bugday Enintyn is said to live under a tree designated to the local clan, called a Turu. The tree points toward the entrance of the Underworld and has significance to the shaman of the Evenki. Likewise, the concept of Bugday appears to be shown on several examples of rock art on cliffs along the upper and middle Lena river, particularly near sites marked by specific stones or trees that demonstrate a belief in restorative, generative sacred places, the cycles of birth, death and regeneration under the rule of the animal mother (Jacobson, 1992, p. 212). The concept of shapeshifting between a woman and an elk or deer has a significant function in Evenk Spring and Fall rites, one of them being called shingkelevun, a rite of death and rebirth. This deer mother is referred to in deer stones and, mythologically speaking, the animal’s transformation into a goddess (Jacobson, 1992, p. 242).

Dwellings and campsites of the Evenki are regarded as ‘centers of the world’, an attitude reflected in their ritual- myth complex (Grøn & Klokkernes, 2008, p. 60). The motif of the world tree is also central to the mythology of the Evenki. The Upper world belongs to unborn souls who reside in the sky in anticipation of their reincarnation, while the Underworld is where deceased people must go first after death.

Just as the world tree contains three different levels, so do human souls, and in some instances, the souls of animals that have been deeply integrated into the cultural landscape of the Evenki (Vasilevich & Smolyak, 1963). This mythological idea is common and widespread for most of northern Eurasia.

As Danish archaeologist Ole Grøn (2003; 2005) writes in his numerous papers about the culture and ecology of the Evenki communities, there is a strong belief that humans have three souls as well as certain animals, who receive specific ritualistic processions after their death. These processions form a part of very specific spatial rules that maintain and balance the dependence of the Evenki people to their environment and especially their game.

When a reindeer or elk is killed after a hunt, the genitals of the animal are hung on a tree in order for the animals’ fertility to be passed on, i.e., to reincarnate again from the upper worlds of the world tree and maintain a healthy population of the animal being killed. Sometimes the Evenki hunters cut out the tongue and the eyes, so that the animal may not tell other animals about the kill, or so that it may not know what caused its death (Grøn & Klokkernes, 2008, p. 43).

These processions take place in order to honor the spirit of the slain animal, and to ensure its reincarnation back to the Evenki hunting territories. By honoring and pleasing the animal’s spirit, it may decide to reincarnate from the worlds of the world tree back into the clan’s territory, and thus maintain and ensure its population for the future. This cycle is dependent on many factors, including the spirits of the land and ancestors who have lived on this land before.

Similar processions take place during the Evenki bear feast, where the skull is attached to a tree with its paws on the ground. The Evenki also cut the eyes of the bear out and put them into a hollow crack in the tree (Grøn, 2005; Grøn & Klokkernes, 2008, pp. 69, 70, 75). Since the bear is regarded as kindred to the Evenki, the bear is told that he was not killed on purpose but by accident.

The spirit of the bear is honored in the hope that he may reincarnate back again. The highly specific disposal of the remains have been further elaborated upon by Hans Joachim Paproth (1976), as well as A. Irving Hallowell (1926) and portrays a relationship of dependency and respect between Evenki tribal members and animal spirits. It may be that the first human shaman emerged from venerating such animal-spirits, as we shall see later.

As ethnographer Anisimov points out, it is the duty of every Evenk clan member to participate in the ceremonies. However, every clan member does have equal access to the tools and the equipment that may be necessary during the ceremonies in order to maintain the animal’s rebirth to the hunting grounds (Anisimov, 1963, p. 116). Such rituals do not always incorporate a shaman or a centralized figure who officiates the ceremony.

The concept surrounding this belief portrays an animistic cultural landscape, where wild animals may likewise engage in ritualistic activity and exchange information with humans. The concept of peredniki is assigned to wild animals and humans that entertain social relationships in a communicative network across the Taiga forest.

The perednik of a wild animal may, for example, warn and communicate with an Evenki by manifesting in dreams and other channels of communication. (Simonova, 2018) . Likewise, certain animals possess a stronger ‘onnir’ such as the bear and certain reindeer, while others do possess little or no onnir and thus cannot engage in ritualistic activities that may affect humans.

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These animals may engage in ritualistic activity themselves. The bear may ask humans how to treat him by his offering to humans. Likewise, other wild animals such as the bear and wolves may seek revenge upon humans who have not treated the slain animal properly by killing the herd of an Evenki herder (Lavrillier, 2012, pp. 119, 120).

What we can see here is a non-anthropocentric view of the world: the human being is not the center of this world nor above nature. There are other, more powerful beings living side by side with humans. The first shaman, according to Evenki cosmology, wasn’t a human being either. More importantly, myth and ritual is deeply reflected by the mode of subsistence and ecology of the local hunting and/or pastoralist Evenki community.

This becomes especially apparent, if we look at the cultural hero of the Evenki, the celestial hunter called Mangi. Mangi is the first shaman in the cosmologies of the Evenki. The term ‘shamanism’ is Kunstbegriff, artificially constructed, although the word ‘shaman’ derives from an Evenki term that belongs to the Manchu-Tungus languages. Mangi in Evenk means bear and ‘spirit of ancestors’. Mangi the hunter eventually hunts the female celestial elk Kheglen. Among the Tutur Evenki, the Milky Way is the ski track of Mangi and Ursa Major reflects the legs of the slain celestial elk (Anisimov, 1963, pp. 163, 164).

The dual nature of Mangi, being both half-man and half-animal, combined with his being the ‘first ancestor’, highlights his importance and underlies his powers that restore nature and even provide the Evenki with the game that is ecologically and economically so central to their subsistence. These relations with animals are important to their livelihood and ensure that human interactions with these animals remain generative for generations to come (Shephard, 1985, p. 66; Konakov & Black, 1994). Mangi, the bear hunter became a guardian and giver of life and light (Anisimov, 1959, pp. 12, 13). By ascending the world tree Turu, his celestial hunt will release the spirits of unborn animals.

In that sense, Mangi is not only the first ancestor but also the first shaman who enacts and brings change in this world in seasonal revival rites such as Sinilgen and the Ikenipke that correspond to the Evenki cosmic-hunt myth (Anisimov; 1959, p. 19; Kovtun, 2014; Balzer, 2016). In this sense, it becomes understandable why Evenki shamans are said to have a ‘bear spirit’ and why a bearskin was placed on a tree during shamanic rituals, an act noted especially among the Chinggan Evenki. It is also commonplace that a shaman’s grave will be marked by a wooden bear statue (Naeher, 2004, p. 185).

The boundaries between human and bear became fluid, the latter being regarded as above and as more capable as humans. (Barbeau, 1945, p. 2; Grøn & Kutznetsov, 2003, p. 209). This leads us to the widespread motif of the ‘cosmic hunt’ that also influences seasonal revival rites of the Evenki. It is a myth that is projected onto several star constellations, where a hunt takes place that restores nature and the rebirth of game. What is particularly interesting is that among the Angara Evenki, it is the human shaman together with all participants who chases the celestial deer after it appeared out of the shamanic river (the engdekit), in order to slay the game in the upper world tyman itki. This Spring hunt festival is known as ikenipke and is practiced west of the Lena-Olekma-Amur region. Potentially, it is a festival that demonstrates how shamanistic concepts were introduced into a hunting ritual (Vasilevich, 1963).

Russian researcher Olga Maltseva writes about the sacred landscapes in the Amur region that in the 1970s, ‘Amur shamans bear-like vessels for their water and earth spirits and that the shamanic rituals recreate this multidimensional space that comprises heaven, the middle world and underworld’. (Maltseva, 2018, p. 62). She further explains how the Taiga and local sites were ruled under the powers of the Taiga and the Water bear. In other words, the bear spirit controlled both the spirits of the Taiga and the sacred spaces and was thus venerated as the Master of active forces in nature. Seen from this perspective, we can conclude that the cosmology of the Evenki places a heavy emphasis on balance with nature and exceptional powers that humans tried to acquire from the animal and spirit- world, either to maintain a balance with natural forces and to keep game populations healthy, and also to both heal sicknesses and protect them from negative forces and spirits.

To be continued as an on-going research project.

Special thank you go to Maria Bereltueva from Ulan-Ude who is a native Evenki and who has kindly answered many of my questions regarding Evenki culture.

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