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Zhukova L. Rites of Fishing Magic and Archers in the Petroglyphs of the Lena, Angara Rivers and Lake Baikal

Lyudmila Zhukova
Institute for Humanitarian Studies and North Indigenous Peoples Problems
Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Yakutsk, Russian Federation
ORCID: 0000-0003-1645-8043
E-mail: zjukova@mail.ru

 

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ABSTRACT. Rock compositions depicting archers and ungulates are considered in order to identify the specific semantic content of the ancient fishing rituals, which information can be obtained from the structural analysis of the drawings. In Eastern Siberia, in the rock drawings of the Lena River basin in the Neolithic — Early Iron Ages, the most common rituals were magical “hunting” for ungulates; in the ethnography of the peoples of Yakutia, similar hunting rites were preserved among the forest Yukaghirs and the South-Yakut Evenks of the Orochons. It is assumed that in the Bronze Age on the Lena River, with newcomer tribes fishing rites appeared with a different external design — magical “dances in front of the beast” also using a bow. At the same time, the semantic content of the two variants of rituals remains the same, these are pagan petitions for hunting luck. There are few compositions with foot archers in the Baikal-Angara region, the drawings also demonstrate the presence of two variants identified on the Lena. A comparative analysis of both traditions in the synchronous and diachronic ranges is given. A hypothesis is put forward that the plot with the “chase” belongs to the early aboriginal cultural layer, the “dance” in front of the elk's head was brought from the steppe southern regions. An aboriginal plot with the “chase” along the outline of a simple bow with a smaller or larger kibiti in the form of an arc gravitates towards Transbaikalia. In contrast to it, the Angarsk compositions of the “dance before the beast” include the outline of a bow of the Scythian type, which served as one of the reasons for recognizing the tradition as alien.

 

KEYWORDS: Yakutia, Baikal-Angara region, rock drawings, fishing magic, plots and rituals, aboriginal and newcomer tribes

 

FOR CITATION: Zhukova L. Rites of Fishing Magic and Archers in the Petroglyphs of the Lena, Angara Rivers and Lake Baikal. Kunstkamera. 2023. 3(21): 170–182. (In Russian). doi 10.31250/2618-8619-2023-3(21)-170-182 

 

* The study was carried out according to the program of the scientific project of the Institute for Humanitarian Research and Problems of Indigenous Peoples of the North of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Yakutsk), project number 0297-2021-00 “Adaptation strategies and ethno-cultural development of the population of Yakutia in antiquity, the Middle Ages and modern times”.

 

DOI 10.31250/2618-8619-2023-3(21)-170-182
УДК 398.94(=554)

 

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