Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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People reached Lake Baikal Siberia around 25,000 years ago. They (to Damien) were likely Animistic Shamanists who were also heavily totemistic as well. Being animistic thinkers they likely viewed amazing things in nature as a part of or related to something supernatural/spiritual (not just natural as explained by science): spirit-filled, a sprit-being relates to or with it, it is a sprit-being, it is a supernatural/spiritual creature, or it is a great spirit/tutelary deity/goddess-god. From there comes mythology and faith in things not seen but are believed to somehow relate or interact with this “real world” we know exists.

Both areas of Lake Baikal, one on the west side with Ancient North Eurasian culture and one on the east side with Ancient Northern East Asian culture (later to become: Ancient Northeast Asian culture) areas are the connected areas that (to Damien) are the origin ancestry religion area for many mythologies and religious ideas of the world by means of a few main migrations and many smaller ones leading to a distribution of religious ideas that even though are vast in distance are commonly related to and centering on Lake Baikal and its surrounding areas like the Amur region and Altai Mountains region.

“Lakes are often mysterious bodies of water, especially if they are very deep or surrounded by mountains. No wonder legends and mysteries thrive about them, including monsters that supposedly lurk in their bottomless depths.” ref

Lake Baikal

“Lake Baikal is a rift lake in Russia. It is situated in southern Siberia, between the federal subjects of Irkutsk Oblast to the northwest and the Republic of Buryatia to the southeast. At 31,722 km² (12,248 sq mi)—slightly larger than Belgium—Lake Baikal is the world’s seventh-largest lake by surface area, as well as the second largest lake in Eurasia after the Caspian Sea. However, because it is also the deepest lake, with a maximum depth of 1,642 metres (5,387 feet; 898 fathoms), Lake Baikal is the world’s largest freshwater lake by volume, containing 23,615.39 km³ (5,670 cu mi) of water or 22–23% of the world’s fresh surface water, more than all of the North American Great Lakes combined. It is also the world’s oldest lake at 25–30 million years, and among the clearest. Lake Baikal is home to thousands of species of plants and animals, many of them endemic to the region. It is also home to Buryat tribes, who raise goats, camels, cattle, sheep, and horses on the eastern side of the lake, where the mean temperature varies from a winter minimum of −19 °C (−2 °F) to a summer maximum of 14 °C (57 °F). The region to the east of Lake Baikal is referred to as Transbaikalia or as the Transbaikal, and the loosely defined region around the lake itself is sometimes known as Baikalia.” ref

“Baikal is one of the clearest lakes in the world. During the winter, the water transparency in open sections can be as much as 30–40 m (100–130 ft), but during the summer it is typically 5–8 m (15–25 ft). Baikal is rich in oxygen, even in deep sections, which separates it from distinctly stratified bodies of water such as Lake Tanganyika and the Black Sea.  Lake Baikal is rich in biodiversity. It hosts more than 1,000 species of plants and 2,500 species of animals based on current knowledge, but the actual figures for both groups are believed to be significantly higher. More than 80% of the animals are endemic. There are 236 species of birds that inhabit Lake Baikal, 29 of which are waterfowl. Although named after the lake, both the Baikal teal and Baikal bush warbler are widespread in eastern Asia. Fewer than 65 native fish species occur in the lake basin, but more than half of these are endemic. 

“The families Abyssocottidae (deep-water sculpins), Comephoridae (golomyankas or Baikal oilfish), and Cottocomephoridae (Baikal sculpins) are entirely restricted to the lake basin. The golomyankas are the primary prey of the Baikal seal and represent the largest fish biomass in the lake. Beyond members of Cottoidea, there are few endemic fish species in the lake basin. The lake hosts a rich endemic fauna of invertebrates. The copepod Epischura baikalensis is endemic to Lake Baikal and the dominating zooplankton species there, making up 80 to 90% of the total biomass. It is estimated that they filter as much as a thousand cubic kilometers of water a year, or the lake’s entire volume every twenty-three years. Among the most diverse invertebrate groups are the amphipod and ostracod crustaceans, freshwater snails, annelid worms, and turbellarian worms. More than 350 species and subspecies of amphipods are endemic to the lake. At least 18 species of sponges occur in the lake, including about 15 species from the endemic family Lubomirskiidae (the remaining are from the nonendemic family Spongillidae), which colonized the lake about 3.4 million years ago.” ref

“The Baikal area, sometimes known as Baikalia, has a long history of human habitation. Near the village of Mal’ta, some 160 km northwest of the lake, remains of a young human male known as MA-1 or “Mal’ta Boy” are indications of local habitation by the Mal’ta–Buret’ culture ca. 24,000 years ago. An early known tribe in the area was the Kurykans. Located in the former northern territory of the Xiongnu confederation, Lake Baikal is one site of the Han–Xiongnu War, where the armies of the Han dynasty pursued and defeated the Xiongnu forces from the second century BC to the first century AD. They recorded that the lake was a “huge sea” (hanhai) and designated it the North Sea (Běihǎi) of the semimythical Four Seas. The Kurykans, a Siberian tribe who inhabited the area in the sixth century, gave it a name that translates to “much water”. Later on, it was called “natural lake” (Baygal nuur) by the Buryats and “rich lake” (Bay göl) by the Yakuts.” ref 

“Little was known to Europeans about the lake until Russia expanded into the area in the 17th century. The first Russian explorer to reach Lake Baikal was Kurbat Ivanov in 1643. Lake Baikal was under the Anbei Protectorate of the Tang dynasty from 647 CE to 682 CE. Russian expansion into the Buryat area around Lake Baikal in 1628–58 was part of the Russian conquest of Siberia. It was done first by following the Angara River upstream from Yeniseysk (founded 1619) and later by moving south from the Lena River. Russians first heard of the Buryats in 1609 at Tomsk. According to folktales related a century after the fact, in 1623, Demid Pyanda, who may have been the first Russian to reach the Lena, crossed from the upper Lena to the Angara and arrived at Yeniseysk.” ref

Early Russian Pottery in Cisbaikal Kitoi culture 7,500 years ago, Samara culture 7,000 years ago, and Yamnaya culture 5,600–4,600 years ago, as well as Proto-Indo-European emergence

Ritual Mound Migrations: Kurgans, Dolmens, and later Pyramids likely all trace back to Siberia, helping show how Yeniseian languages, may have influenced Proto-Indo-European languages

Shell Mounds, Dolmens, Kurgans, Earth Mounds, Ziggurats, Mastabas, Pyramids: their origins, evolutions, and migrations

24,000 Years Old Proto-North Eurasian Language (Ancient North Eurasian) migrations? Became: Proto-Afroasiatic, Proto-Sino-Tibetan, Proto-Transeurasian, Proto-Indo-European, Proto-Yeniseian, Proto-Na-Dene, Proto-Caucasian, Sumerian, Proto-Austronesian, and the Basque language

Genetic Relations to Ancient North Eurasians: Zagros/Iranian, Anatolian, Eastern, Caucasus, Western, Scandinavian, and Iberian hunter-gatherers

“In archaeogenetics, the term Ancient Northern East Asian (ANEA), also known as Northern East Asian (NEA), is used to summarize the related ancestral components that represent the Ancient Northern East Asian peoples, extending from the Baikal region to the Yellow River and the Qinling-Huaihe Line in present-day central China. They are inferred to have diverged from Ancient Southern East Asians (ASEA) around 20,000 to 26,000 BCE.” ref 

“Siberian mythology and religion reflected a world in which humans depended on and respected animals, believing that the animals had spirits and could change form.” ref 

Siberian Spirits 

“The master-spirit of water is usually an ancient man who watches over the fish and lives in the waters. The Tungus have territorial master-spirits known as Territory Mothers (Dunne Enin). There are also master-spirits of the lower world who are shaman ancestors (See Siberian Shamans/Shamanism in Siberia).” ref

Mystical Baikal: Deities and Spirits of the Sea Lake

“The ancient land of the Baikal region and the waters of Baikal are unique repositories of centuries-old cults of the indigenous population who worshiped the Lake as a great deity. The unruly nature of the Lake-Sea (BURKHAN) protected its pagan deities, its spirits, sacred spells of shamanism. No one can say for sure when these shamanic idols and legends about them emerged. It is clear that we are telling the story about such remote past that we cannot rely upon any accuracy and consistency in the presentation of the blood relation between heavenly and earthly deities. Therefore, let us describe only the general picture of the shaman pantheon where Khukhe Munkhe Tengeri (Eternal Blue Sky) and Etugen (Mother Earth) are the leaders.” ref

“9 Sons of Heaven go after them. They are revered as the most ancient heavenly spirits, and are also considered the progenitors of all other spirits. Numerous Tengris finish the list of deities of the highest caste. They are responsible for natural phenomena, protection of human souls, patronage of tribes, clans, and crafts … The next stage in the hierarchy is presented by the sons and grandchildren of the heavenly Tengri (Khats, Naoins), and finally, the Great Ezhins of various rivers, lakes, and Baikal territories , for example, Olkhon. Any natural phenomenon, any representative of the living world, even any object is guarded by its own spirit. Their number cannot be counted, but spirits are definitely present everywhere, and they determine the fate of a particular person.” ref

Baikal region has long been the stronghold of traditional shamanism, and the Island of Olkhon has always been the generally recognized sacred place of the shamans of the northern world. The native inhabitants of Baikal have a legend telling that the Lake is a living creature, the spirit of the Lake is Burkhan that inhabits the island of Olkhon and can turn into an eagle, and its indispensable assistants are Ezhins. Some old men said that the bald eagle was the son of the Master of the Olkhon Island dwelling on the Burkhan cape. Others said that the Master of Olkhon had no sons born from his wife, so he adopted three eagles who later became the ancestors of the Olkhon shamans.” ref

“One of the most common cults in Siberia, and, respectively, in the Baikal region, is considered that of the sacred eagle. Moreover, Olkhon that is called the symbolic capital of all eagles where the mythical Eagle King lives. It happened so that the Eagle was called the Great Father of Olkhon, the first shaman who shared his gift with humans for their protection against dark forces. Worshipping the bald eagle as the ancestor of shamans is characteristic of the culture of the Buryat people. According to the materials of the Buryat mythology, shamanism appeared at the same time as the world was created, and the first shaman was the son of a celestial god who descended to Earth in the form of an eagle and created a shaman there. However, when we try to find out the details about this fact, national legends show us many different versions. According to one legend, an eagle flying between heaven and earth got a shamanic gift from heaven. It was difficult for him to have this shamanic gift, so he had to go down to the Earth and give it to an Evenk woman. She, in turn, presented it to her Buryat husband. And this couple gave birth to all the next generations of shamans.” ref

“Here is another version of the same tale. There were only gods at the beginning. They created people whose happy life was burdened by diseases and deaths sent by evil spirits. And then the gods sent the shaman-eagle to support people. Unfortunately, people did not understand anything, and the eagle who returned to the gods was instructed to give the shamanic gift to the first person he met. Coming down to Earth, the eagle saw a woman sleeping under a tree, then they had a common son who later become the “first shaman.” ref

“Finally, there is the following version. As a result of intimate relations with the eagle, a woman saw the spirits and became the first shaman herself. Therefore, eagles are still revered as deities who have descended from heaven; ancestral and personal gifts and sacrifices are presented to these birds. A common tradition among the Buryats was bowing to all eagle nests they saw, eagle feathers became shamans’ obligatory attributes that helped them to travel to other worlds, the pictures of eagles decorated the details of the Buryat traditional clothes. If an eagle coming at the camping ground grabbed an awkward animal, no one should be angry with the bird. But if a man killed, or even wounded an eagle, then this criminal was doomed to inevitable death.” ref

“The mythology of Buryats animates everything: animals, birds, forests, rivers, trees, stones … Their Ezhins must be appeased, fed, treated. Otherwise, people will have to deal with disfavor, troubles, diseases. The spirits cruelly revenge humans for their disrespectful attitude and are kind to those who show respect and reverence. By the way, the oldest tradition of the Buryat people remains inviolable until our days:  paying respect to local spirits led by Burkhan. That is why the coast of Baikal and the steppes around it are filled with sacrificial sites where people ask spirits to send them good catch, a smooth path, sunny days, family health, protection from misfortunes…A place for these offerings to the spirits is called “Barisa”. The spirits of the dead shamans appear and the local Ezhins reside at such places.” ref

“Therefore, all visitors to the holy places of Baikal should know that this land welcomes and accepts only those who believe in the power of Burkhan, care for Baikal, respect local traditions and come to the Great Lake with pure thoughts. A stele depicting the powerful Master of Olkhon and his sons – bald eagles – serves to remind people who are going to visit Olkhon about the above-mentioned traditions.” ref

The Connection between Water and Shamanistic Practices

“The Mystical Bond: Water’s Influence on Shamanistic Journeying. The Healing Power of Water: An Essential Element in Shamanic Practices. The Role of Water in Shamanistic Healing Rituals. Exploring the Sacred Significance of Water in Shamanic Traditions. Water, with its fluid and transformative nature, has long been regarded as a gateway to the spiritual realm. Across cultures, shamans have utilized water in various rituals and practices to establish a deeper connection with the spirit world. The utilization of water in shamanistic journeying offers numerous benefits, enabling practitioners to deepen their spiritual connection and gain valuable insights.” ref

“Water holds immense symbolism and significance in shamanism, serving as a metaphor for life, purification, and regeneration. Water acts as a psychic medium, amplifying intuitive abilities and enabling deeper exploration of consciousness. It serves as a conduit for receiving messages and visions from ancestral spirits and the spirit realm. The benefits of water in shamanistic journeying include enhanced intuition, emotional healing, improved spirit communication, and transformative experiences. By embracing water’s mystical bond, shamans can embark on profound journeys of self-discovery and spiritual enlightenment.” ref

“The Shaman and the Water Serpent is a book for children that demonstrates how ancient Puebloan peoples carried out their daily lives. Renowned children’s author Jennifer Owings Dewey writes about the Puebloan peoples’ relationships with animals, and Benton Yazzie recreates the rock art depictions of familiar animals: deer, antelope, and rabbits. Characters include the shaman, a man with supernatural power who provides insights into the mysterious world of gods and the spirits. Men and boys honor the animals they hunt by singing songs to their spirits, while the women, children, and old people wait hungrily back in the village. A drought has set in and the villagers wonder when the rains will return. As they hope for rain, the women and girls tend to the corn and the men sharpen their arrow points for the next hunt. The water serpent, a revered animal, travels along the riverbanks and is thought by the Puebloan peoples to be just the animal to coax the rain back onto their dry fields.” ref

Finno-Ugric religion – Mythology, Animism, Shamanism

“The most widespread account of the creation among the Finno-Ugric peoples is the earth-diver myth. In the north it is known in an area extending from eastern Finland to the Ob River, and in the south it is found, for example, among the Mordvins. This myth, which is well known in North America and Siberia, is fairly constant in form among the Finno-Ugric peoples. In the Mordvin variant, God sits on a rock in the middle of the primeval sea and spits into the water; the saliva begins to grow and God strikes it with a staff, whereupon the Devil comes out of it (sometimes in the form of a goose). God orders the Devil to dive into the sea for earth from the bottom; at the third attempt, he succeeds but tries to hide some of the earth in his mouth. While God scatters sand, the earth begins to grow and the Devil’s deceit is unmasked, and the earth found in his cheek becomes mountains and hills. The eastern Finnish myth contains an interesting detail: God stands on the top of a golden statue and orders his reflection on the water to rise, and this becomes the Devil.” ref

“Etiological (explanatory and expanding) continuations of the basic myth are common. The Devil demands for himself a piece of earth the size of the end of a stick, and from the hole that results vermin emerge—mice, fleas, mosquitoes, flies, and other such living things. Indo-Iranian influence has been seen in the dualism of the myth—setting God against the Devil—since religious dualism is most significant in Indo-Iranian religion. A water bird may be older than the Devil. It also occurs, however, without the dualistic emphasis. Thus, in an account by the Yenisey Khanty, the great shaman (a medicine man with psychic abilities) Doh glides above the primeval sea among the water birds, asks the red-throated loon to dive for earth from the bottom of the sea, and with the earth makes an island. A rarer, but apparently ancient, myth is found among the Mansi: the god of the skies lets earth come down from heaven and places it on the surface of the great primeval sea.” ref

“The world made from an egg is a myth best known in equatorial regions, though the most northerly points of its distribution are in Finland and Estonia. A water bird or an eagle makes its nest on the knee of Ilmatar, the virgin goddess of the air, who is floating in the water. It lays an egg, which rolls into the water, and pieces of it become the earth, the sky, the moon, and the stars. Myths concerning the creation of man are found in the north among the Mansi and in the south among the Volga Finns. The common element among all such myths is that man, on the brink of achieving perfection, had his hairy covering transferred to the dog by the Devil, whose spit blighted man and made him subject to disease and death. In Finland the variant of yet another anthropogonic (origin of man) myth has been found: a hummock rises from the sea, a tree stump thereon splits open, and the first human couple steps forth.” ref

“Finno-Ugric cosmographic (world-describing) concepts include the following well-known mythological themes: a stream or sea encircling the round world; a canopy of the heavens, the central point of which is the North Star (a kind of nail on which the sky rotates); a world pole supporting the sky; a world mountain and a world tree rising in the middle of the earth; animals carrying the earth; and the nub of the earth and the nub of the sea (an abyss that swallows ships). From these and from other materials, more or less coherent cosmographies have been formed in different places; the central components are the sky, the earth, and the underworld. Among the Ob Ugrians and the Nenets is found a myth of the seven- or nine-storied heaven.” ref

“The cosmogonic (concerning the origin of the world) and cosmographic myths have had important ritual functions and have provided the basis for cosmology (the ordering of the world). When, in incantations and prayers, numerous natural, cultural, and social phenomena derive from these basic myths, it is not a matter of giving an explanation but of finding the connection with the decisive primeval events that gave the world its lasting order. A pillar representing the world pole has been worshipped by the Sami and the Ob Ugrians, especially as a symbol of the world order. The semantic elements “sky” and “god of the sky” are found to be so close in the terminology of certain of the Finno-Ugric peoples (for example, Cheremis Jumo, Finnish Jumala, Udmurt Inmar, Komi Jen, Nenets Num) that the association cannot be a recent phenomenon. The tradition of the god of the sky is many-layered, and the influence of monotheism, especially of Christianity and Islam, is widely exhibited. This influence was evidently preceded by that of ancient southern high cultures. Thus, the Cheremis Jumo has a real court with servants in his heaven, and these servants act as intermediaries between humans and the god of the sky.” ref

“This indicates a Turko-Tatar influence, which can also be seen in the Udmurt Inmar. Christian elements, however, are also found (Inmar’s mother is related to the Virgin Mary). “Great,” the most common epithet for Inmar and Jumo, reminds one of Allah. The Mordvin god of the sky (Škaj, “creator” or “birth giver,” among the Moksha people, and also Ńišké-pas, “the great inseminating god”) is the chief of the gods, all-knowing and all-seeing, who is not approached for trivial things. He appears, however, very concretely in a festival connected with the beginning of the spring plowing. In this festival an old man represents the god of the sky and from an attic or a tree answers questions put to him by people who pray about health, the grain harvest, the weather, and other matters. The gods of the sky of the Arctic Finno-Ugric peoples (Nenets Num; Khanty Num-Turom and Sängke; Mansi Num-Tarom; Sami Tiermes, Horagalles, and Radien) are the high gods of hunting and nomadic cultures, who sometimes appear in myths as creator gods and culture heroes (often as dei otiosi, or “inactive gods,” without a cult) and sometimes as venerated gods of the economy (as the promoters of fishing, hunting, and reindeer herding), especially as weather gods.” ref

“Originally, the Finno-Ugric peoples probably had no concept of a hierarchic family of gods with a supreme god at its head; the attribute found in many places, “lofty” or “high,” merely means “being above”—that is to say, a god appearing in the sky. The concept of a begetting sky is stressed in southern agricultural cultures, in which may be observed an increasing importance of the Earth Mother—no longer a mere local field spirit but rather in the role of a great birth giver. “The god of the sky is our father, and the Earth Mother is our mother,” say the Mordvins. The Earth Mother’s function is not limited to field sacrifices but also includes child giving; she is the begetter par excellence.” ref

The high gods are usually encountered in connection with a rite; they are distant, invisible, and do not make surprise visits. With the guardian spirits, however, matters are different. They are first and foremost supranormal beings that appear in definite visions, auditory experiences, and other such occurrences. They appear especially when a social norm involving a guardian-spirit sanction is broken. The guardian spirits, along with the spirits of the dead, are significant as regulating factors in daily behaviour and normally are solitary local spirits, believed to “govern” and “own” a particular area—a cultural locality (e.g., household spirits), a natural region (e.g., guardian spirits of forest or water), or a natural element or phenomenon (e.g., fire spirits or wind spirits). There are also special guardians (of man or of treasure) and various demonic beings that—though similar to the guardian spirits—are not worshipped.” ref

“The names of guardian spirits are normally compounds of words, the first element of which indicates the sphere of action and the second being a name such as “man” or “master,” as in Udmurt Korka-murt (“House-man”) or Vu-murt (“Water-man”); “old man” or “old woman,” as in Cheremis Pört-kuguza (“the Old Man of the House”) or Pört-kuwa (“the Old Woman of the House”); or “father” or “mother,” as in Mordvin Jurt-at’a or Jurt-ava. The system of social values is revealed by the system of guardian spirits: the house spirit protects the luck of the home; the cattle spirit watches over the cattle during the winter (in the summer the cattle come under the forest spirit); and the barn spirit looks after threshing luck. In representing these values, the spirit may appear in a number of roles. Thus, the Ingrian house spirit appears as “owner,” the original owner of the plot on which a house is built; “moralist,” punisher of crimes against norms that may endanger the luck of the house; and “sympathizer,” one who warns in advance of catastrophes threatening house or family. With some peoples—the Mordvins, for example—the guardian spirit system is very specific, and there are a very large number of spirits; with others, such as the Sami, the Nenets, and the Ob Ugrians, there are fewer of them, and Herr der Tiere (“Master of Animals”) game spirits predominate.” ref

“The oldest form of Finno-Ugric religion is thought to be ancestor worship. Some of the main terms (e.g., “grave,” “hades,” and “soul”) go back several millennia. The cult concerned only dead members of the family; other dead beings were experienced as restless haunters, and aggressive expelling rites were used to dispel them. The worship of ancestors must be understood as a family institution in which intercourse between the living and the dead is the internal activity of a social primary group. The dead belong to the family, and they have both rights and duties. They protect the happiness of the family, assist it in its means of livelihood, and receive their share of the produce. They are also considered to be counselors, moralists, and judges. The cult of the dead can be divided in the following manner: (1) rites at the moment of death; (2) funeral preparations (washing the corpse, attiring it, and watching by it; making the coffin); (3) the committal; (4) celebrations in memory of a single dead person; (5) annual memorial ceremonies for the dead; (6) offerings and prayers to the dead in connection with earning the means of subsistence; and (7) occasional rites (e.g., when moving to a new place or during illness).” ref

“The most important of the ritual ceremonies for a dead person are those that take place during the transition period, which may last for six weeks and may include addressing the departed euphemistically and in dirges. The departed person remains in the dwelling place, separated from his body; agreements are made with him about the distribution of property; he is given advice about how to live on the other side; he is invited to return for the celebration of his anniversary; and so on. The most important matter is the ensurance of harmony between the newly departed and his relations in the graveyard. Of central importance in the collective worship of the dead is the visit of the departed members to their old home; among the Eastern Finno-Ugric peoples this approximates with the Christian feast of Easter, and among the Western it is in late autumn (e.g., the Finnish Kekri, November 1, an ancient festival to celebrate the seasonal change). Living members of the family also visit the graves on the anniversary days of the departed. Customs among the Sami, the Nenets, and the northern Khanty differ somewhat from the above; among the Sami the departed person is represented by a clothed log and among the Khanty and Nenets by a doll-effigy that is kept for as long as three years.” ref

“The otherworld is viewed as two-storied and consists of, first, a graveyard hades, or underground village of the dead in a holy forest near the village, and, second, a distant hades, far in the north behind the burning stream (with an admixture of paradise concepts). Name-giving rites suggest continuity and reincarnation: a child is given the name of a dead relative, and the child thereby is believed to receive the personality of the deceased relation. If the result is unsuccessful, a name-changing rite can be performed.” ref

“In the “hunters’ religion” preserved among the northern Finno-Ugric peoples, bear ceremonies are central. The Khanty, Mansi, Nenets, Sami, Finns, and Karelians have all been acquainted with myths and rites connected with the bear. The myths recount that the bear is of heavenly origin and is the son of the god of the sky; it descends from heaven and, when it dies, returns there. There is also a story about a marriage between a bear and a woman from which a tribe of the Skolt Sami (in Finland) is said to be descended. The bear-killing ceremony is divided into two acts—the killing itself and the feast afterward. Killing a bear that was protected by a forest guardian spirit involved a complicated ritual, which ended with bringing the bear home. Women believed that they had to keep at a distance so that the bear would not make them pregnant. The feast to celebrate the killing of the bear lasted two days and was full of marriage symbolism. The bear was addressed euphemistically, and a young man or woman was chosen to be its mate. A large meal made of the meat of the bear was consumed. Finally, the skull of the bear was carried in procession to the branch of a pine tree on the top of a mountain. This was the custom in Karelia. A number of miniature dramas were connected with Ob Ugrian bear rites. Masked participants tell the bear that members of a strange tribe have killed it. There seems to be a historical connection among the bear ceremonies of Ob Ugrians, Karelians, Finns, and Sami. Nowhere else in the wide Arctic sphere have the bear songs and dramas taken such a prominent place as in this hunting ritual.” ref

“The exogamic patrilineal clans (involving marriage outside a particular group) of the Ob Ugrians are often known by animal names—“bear,” “falcon,” “frog,” or “dog.” The animal is regarded as the manifestation of the family guardian spirit and is not allowed to be killed or eaten. Evidence of totemistic systems, in which animals are associated with blood-related groups, has been found among the Sami and the Nenets. Some scholars consider the names of relations (animal names) found among other Finno-Ugric peoples, such as the Hungarians and Karelians, as evidence of a lost totemism. The male head of the family has long had a central role in leading different home and family cults. In the lud sanctuaries of the Udmurt, for example, worship was performed by members of the family; the head of the family had the responsibility of organizing the cult and the task was hereditary. Women also were able to supervise certain minor home rituals—such as those performed in connection with cattle breeding (offerings to the guardian spirit of the cattle shed and the forest).

“In hunting and nomadic cultures, the head man (e.g., the oldest of the hunting party or the reindeer chief) supervised the rites. The official authorities of the rites (i.e., the religious specialists) among the Finno-Ugric peoples were of the following types: shamans (among the Nenets and the Sami); seers (the counterparts of the shaman among southern peoples); sacrificing priests (the leaders of the annual rites, especially in cattle-breeding cultures and agricultural communities); guardians of the sanctuary (the protectors of holy groves, buildings, and other places and the controller of the rites); professional weeping women (the “vocalists,” especially of the cult of the dead but also of weddings, who were the verbal expressers of the content of the ritual); and the masters of ceremonies at weddings. The shaman had many and various tasks in Arctic regions, but farther south particular tasks were undertaken by various cult authorities: the seer (healing and counseling) and the weeping woman, or psychopomp (i.e., “conductor of souls”), guiding the soul to the other world. The two last-mentioned are verbal ecstatics; the task of the seer, especially in solving critical problems, was of the utmost importance. The task of the sacrificing priest was more of a routine affair, but among the Volga Finns and the Permians for example, the long and skillful prayers as well as the complex ceremonies performed by the priests required great professional competence.” ref

Exploring the Deep Symbolism of Water in World Mythologies

“Water, the source of life and a key element in many natural processes, holds a special place in the mythologies and spiritual beliefs of cultures around the world. Its symbolism is as deep and fluid as the element itself, representing ideas such as creation, transformation, and purification.” ref

“Water in its various forms–as salty ocean water, as sweet river water, or as rain–has played a major role in human myths, from the hypothetical, reconstructed stories of our ancestral “African Eve” to those recorded some five thousand years ago by the early civilizations to the myriad myths told by major and smaller religions today. With the advent of agriculture, the importance of access to water was incorporated into the preexisting myths of hunter-gatherers. This is evident in myths of the ancient riverine civilizations of Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, and China, as well as those of desert civilizations of the Pueblo or Arab populations.” ref

“Old stories can be divided into history, myths, and legends. History describes events we know actually happened, whereas myths and legends, though often repeated by generation after generation, were never actually proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. The difference between legends and myths is that legends, or saga, tell the stories of heroes and their heroic actions, whereas myths tell the stories of creatures, divine beings, and gods and how they came to be. In this sense, myths are more like fairytales told to young children. Water plays an important role in many legends and myths. There are mythological water beings and gods, stories of heroes that have something to do with water, and even stories of isles and continents lost below the surface.” ref

Terrifying Mythological Creatures that Live in Rivers and Streams

The cousin to the Kappa, Hyosube is a terrifying creature from Japan. A Shaman once created living dolls to assist him in the building of a shrine. Once the Shaman was finished with them, he dumped the dolls into the river and the Hyosube was born.” ref

“Many of our oldest collections of myths introduce the world as nothing but a vast salty ocean. The oldest Indian text, the poetic Ṛgveda (circa 1200 BCE or around 3,500 years ago), asserts: “In the beginning, darkness was hidden by darkness; all this [world] was an unrecognizable salty ocean [salila].” This phrase is frequently repeated by later Vedic texts with the mythic formula: “In the beginning there was just the salty ocean.” ref

“Mesopotamian mythology, in its Babylonian form, differs somewhat: there was both salty water and sweet water, which mingled to produce the gods. “When on high heaven had not been named … Nought but primordial Apsu [the watery abyss], their begetter, and Mummu-Tiamat, she who bore them all, their waters, commingling as a single body … then it was that the gods were formed within them.” ref

“Ancient Maya mythology, as recorded in the sixteenth-century Popol Vuh, reflects the same concept: “Only the sky alone is there … Only the sea alone is pooled under all the sky…. Whatever there is that might be is simply not there: only the pooled water only the calm sea, only it alone is pooled.” Or, according to the first chapter of the Hebrew Bible: “In the beginning the gods  created heaven and earth … and the spirit [ruah] of the gods  hovered over water.” The Christian King James Bible revised this to read: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth…. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” ref

“In ancient Egypt, in the book of overthrowing the dragon of the deep, Apophis,  the “Lord of All,” explains, “I am he who came into being as Khepri … I was … in the Watery Abyss. I found no place to stand.” Here and in the Biblical case, one or more deities predate the actual act of creation, a characteristic shared with other creation mythologies, such as with the Winnebago of Wisconsin: “Our father … began to think what he should do and finally began to cry and tears began to flow and fall down below him … his tears … formed the present waters.” ref

“Other Native American peoples agree, though not on all details. The Maidu of California, employing a motif that also appears in Siberian mythology, state: “In the beginning … all was dark, and everywhere there was only water. A raft came floating … in it were two persons.”  In all these examples, which primarily originate from north of the equator, the initial stage of a primordial ocean (or void) is followed by stages that lead to the emergence of the inhabitable world and finally the first humans.” ref

“The myths of sub-Saharan Africa (and Australia) are structured differently from those mentioned in that they stress foremost the origins of humans, not of the world.  Even then, rather exceptionally, the Boshongo in the Luanda area of Angola let the world begin with water and a preexisting deity: “In the beginning, in the dark, there was nothing but water. And Bumba was alone … he vomited the sun.” ref

“Bäckahästen means brook horse; this was the name of a mythological horse in Scandinavian folklore. She would appear near rivers in foggy weather, and whoever decided to ride on her back was unable to get off again. The horse would than jump into the river, drowning the rider. Celtic folklore describes shape-shifting horses called kelpies, and it is thought Bäckahästen may be a kelpie. A daughter of Gaia and Pontus, Ceto was a hideous sea monster in Greek mythology. She was considered the personification of the dangers of the sea. Her husband was Phorcys, and their children were called the Phorcydes. These include the Hesperides (nymphs), the Graeae (archaic water goddesses), the gorgons (female monsters with sharp fangs and hair of venomous snakes, such as Medusa), sea monster Scylla, and other water nymphs and sea monsters. Ceto eventually became the name for any sea monster.” ref

“Charon was a mythological old ferryman that ferried the dead into the Underworld, crossing the river Acheron (river of woe). He only took the soles of those buried properly with a coin in their mouths. The river was guarded by a hellhound that allowed no soles ever to leave the realm of the dead. In Greek mythology this was a three-headed dog by the name of Cerberus. In Norse mythology, this was a blood-drenched hellhound with four eyes by the name of Garm. Dragon Kings were believed by the Chinese to consist of four separate dragons, each of which ruled over one of the four seas in the north, east, south, and west. These Dragon Kings could shape-shift to human form, and lived in crystal palaces guarded by shrimps and crabs.” ref

“According to Scandinavian mythology, Fosse grim was a water spirit that played enchanted songs on the violin, luring women and children to drown in lakes and streams. However, in some stories he is depicted as a harmless creature, simply entertaining men, women and children with his songs. According to myth Fosse grim even agreed to live with a human that fell in love with him, but he supposedly left after some time because he could not live away from a water source too long. 
Kappas are presumably intelligent water spirits in Japanese mythology. They are monkey-like creatures with saucer-shaped heads, long noses, and a yellowish-green skin. Kappas are said to lure children to the water and pull them under, feeding on their blood. Their main weakness is that their heads are filled with water, and when this is spilled they lose their powers.” ref

“The Kraken is a legendary sea monster often mentioned in pirate myths. It was said to dwell off the coasts of Norway and Iceland. People thought the monster to be some sort of giant squid, living in the deep of the ocean and surfacing from time to time to attack ships. Some claim that islands that were seen from time to time and subsequently vanished may actually have been Kraken sightings. It is stated that some traits of the Kraken resemble undersea volcanic activity in the Scandinavian region, including bubbles and currents.” ref

“The Lady of the Lake is the name of a mythological aquatic spirit in several different legends, including the famous legend of King Arthur. She was said to have raised Sir Lancelot of the Lake, given Excalibur to King Arthur, and brought the King to Avalon after his death. Evidently, Viviane was Lady of the Lake in the beginning of King Arthur’s life, and Nimue later succeeded her. As Lancelot was raised he received a ring from The Lady that would protect him from all magic. In biblical mythology Leviathan was a sea monster from ancient Canaan, associated with Satan. The monster was usually portrayed as a twining sea serpent, which was applied as a symbol for chaos. Other religions generally portrayed Leviathan as a whale demon with seven heads, and he was believed to be king of lies, or king of fish. In Modern Hebrew, Leviathan simply means whale.” ref

“According to German myth the rock Loreley over the Rhine by St. Goar inhabited a beautiful virgin named Loreley. The river by the rock was very narrow, and hence it was a dangerous place for ships to sale. Myth tells us Loreley endangered shippers by singing, because they would look up and subsequently sale their ships onto the rocks. After the death of a nobleman’s son, soldiers were sent to take Loreley. She saw them and called upon the river to aid her. Consequently, the rocks flooded and Loreley was carried away overseas, never to be seen again.” ref

“Melusine was a feminine spirit of freshwater in sacred springs and rivers in European mythology. She is usually depicted as a kind of mermaid, and may even have wings in some pictures. One story tells us she was born to the fay Pressyne and a common man, and taken to the isle of Avalon when she was little to grow up there. When she heard of her human father betraying her mother, she sought revenge on him. Her mother heard of this and cursed her to look like a serpent from the waste down. She supposedly got scaled arms and fins for hands, and could never change back to her old form. Many a myth represented merpeople as creatures having the head and upper body of a human, and a fishtail instead of legs. Female merpeople are known as mermaids, and male merpeople are known as mermen. They usually had great beauty and charm, and thereby lured sailor men to their deaths. Some stories include mermaids altering their form to resemble humans.” ref

“In Greek mythology, Nereids were the nymphs of the sea. They were daughters of Nereus the sea god, and his wife Doris. Unlike sirens, Nereids were depicted friendly folk, always helping sailors through rough storms. They mainly lived in the Mediterranean Sea. Dragons played an important role in Chinese mythology. They were often bound to the elements. Panlong were the water dragons, believed to inhabit the waters of the entire Orient (the Near, Middle, and Far East). 
Rusalka were female ghosts in Slavic mythology. They were thought to be souls of young women died in or near lakes that had usually been murdered. They were not violent, but mainly haunted lakes until their death was avenged. Some explained the Rusalka as women that died prematurely due to suicide or murder having to do with their loved ones had to live out their designated time on earth as a spirit. Other stated that water ghosts are unclean dead, such as unbaptized babies, and people that died from suicides.” ref

“In Greek mythology Sirens were sea nymphs that lived on the island Sirenum scopuli, and were daughters of Ceto the sea monster and Phorcys the sea god. They drew sailors to the rocks by their enchanted singing, causing their ships to sink. It is uncertain how many sirens there would be, as different tales vary their number between two and five. Some claim the sirens where playmates of young Persephone, daughter of Zeus and Demeter. As Persephone was abducted by Hades to become his queen of the Underworld, Demeter cursed the sirens to become monsters of lore. Sirens were often depicted as women with the legs and wings of birds, playing a great variety of musical instruments. However, they may also be depicted as half human, half fish (see picture). Consequently siren is often applied as a synonym for mermaid, because many believe sirens and mermaids are similar creatures. In German mythology, sirens were known as Nixes, and in Welsh and Breton mythology as Morgans.” ref

“In Polynesian mythology, a woman named Takua was once abducted by two evil spirits, and they stole the baby inside her. Than the sea rose, and the two spirits dissolved in a cloud. The boy, called Tahoratakarar, was raised by the sea itself. Other sea spirits built him a big boat that was tied to the Underworld. It sailed by night and stopped if someone died at sea, collecting his or her soul. The boat was known in myth as the Boat of Souls, or the Boat of the Dead. The myth resembles that of Charon in Greek mythology.” ref

“The Titans were twelve divine beings that ruled the earth in Greek mythology. They were associated with the primal concepts drawn from their names, such as ocean, moon and memory. Oceanus and Thetys, children of Uranus and Gaia, were the Titans that ruled over the sea. Oceanus was said to have the upper body of a man with a long beard and horns, and the lower body of a serpent. He ruled over the oceans. His sister Thetys ruled over the rivers, including the Nile and the Menderes. They married each other and had over 3000 children, known as the Oceanids. After the Olympians, the younger siblings of the Titans, eventually overthrew them, Poseidon (Neptune) and his unwilling queen Amphitrite ruled over the waters.” ref

“Uncegila was a mighty water snake in Native American (Lakota) mythology. She polluted rivers and subsequently flooded the land with salt water so nothing could grow. According to myth twins that hit the only fragile spot on her body eventually killed her. As the sun scorched her flesh it dried up the soils, and it is said this led to the development of the Nebraska and Dakota Badlands; a large desert area in the USA. These were water spirits in Slavic mythology that supposedly lived in underwater palaces made from sunken ships. They were depicted old men with long green beards, covered in hairs, scales and slime. It was said the Vodianoi were offended by the boldness of humans, and would therefore cause swimmers to drown. They took the drowned down to their underwater dwellings to serve as slaves, with the exception of millers and fishermen, whom they might befriend. Vodianoi were often married to Rusalka and like Rusalka, they may have been the spirits of unclean dead. Some thought they were able to transform into fish.” ref

“Nymphs are female nature entities that are bound to a particular location or land form. Naiads are water nymphs, and inhabit fountains, wells, springs, brooks, rivers, marshes, ponds and lagoons. The essence of a naiad was bound to the water body she inhabited. If a spring dried, the naiad within it died. In some stories naiads are depicted as dangerous creatures, because they could take men underwater when fascinated by their beauty, and these men were never to be seen again. Naiads were known by their jealous nature. A naiad that was once cheated by her husband is said to have blinded him in revenge. In Greek mythology naiads were friendly creatures that helped sailors fight perilous storms. They also had the power of foresight, and were said to make prophecies.” ref

“In the Greek legend, Achilles was a hero of the Trojan War. He appeared to be invincible, and no man seemed to be able to defeat him. Legend tells us this was because his mother, sea nymph Thetis, had tried to make him immortal after birth by dipping him the River Styx. She only forgot to wet the heel by which she held him, which became his vulnerable spot. In the Trojan War Achilles killed Hector, and eventually Hector’s younger brother Paris sought revenge upon him. As the fights continued, Paris killed Achilles by shooting an arrow through his heel.” ref

“Beowulf was a hero in an old Anglo-Saxon poem. He defeated two monsters living in a lake in an underwater cave. The monster Grendel had been torturing the people in Danish mead-hall Heorot for many years, and he had taken many a brave soldier for his dinner. When Beowulf and his army came, the people of Heorot could not believe they were capable of taking on the monster, but wanted to give them a chance nevertheless. Beowulf and his army waited for the monster in the hall, long after the residents had gone to sleep. As Grendel came it seemed at first Beowulf’s men would get the worst of it, because their swords did not have any effect upon the giant monster’s thick skin. Than Beowulf grabbed Grendel’s arm and would not let go. A long struggle followed, and eventually Beowulf managed to tear off the arm. Grendel returned to his mother, and bled to death. Next, Beowulf went to the underwater cave to kill the mother as well. He managed to do so with a sword present in the cave that had once belonged to Grendel. As his man stared into the water and saw blood flooding upwards, they thought their great leader had perished. But Beowulf swam up, greeted his men, and returned to Heorot a hero.” ref

“In Hindu mythology, Manu was a man that survived a great flood. One day as he washed his hands in the river, a fish swam into his hands and begged him to save his life. It was Matsya, an avatar (the bodily manifestation of a god). Manu put the fish in a jar, and as it grew bigger he subsequently placed in a tank, a river and than the ocean. Then, the fish warned him that soon a great flood would destroy all life. Manu built a boat and was towed onto a mountaintop by Matsya, thereby surviving the flood. In the bible, Noah and his family are mentioned as the sole human survivors of the Great Flood. Noah was of the tenth generation after Adam, and all peoples of the world would descend from his sons Shem, Ham and Japheth. According to Legend Noah was told by God to build an Arc to save himself and his family from the flood that would destroy all mankind. He brought two of every kind of animal with him in the Arc, one male and one female. After one hundred and fifty days the water receded, and the Arc washed onto the mountains of Ararat.” ref

“Noah built an altar there, and afterwards continued his life. It is said he lived to become 900 years old, and therewith was the last of the ancient peoples that were immensely long-lived. The story has many versions and in the flood myths of different Ancient Near-East countries, the flood survivor is given different names. Examples are Atrahasis, Ziusudra, and Utnapishtim in Sumerian mythology. The man in the Sumerian myth is saved from the flood by a warning of groundwater god Enki (see 4). This god was usually depicted covered with fish scales, with two streams of water originating from his shoulders, one being the Tigris, and the other the Euphrates. Another example of a different version of the legend of the Great Flood is that of Manu in Hindu mythology.” ref

Sacred waters

“Sacred waters are sacred natural sites characterized by tangible topographical land formations such as rivers, lakes, springs, reservoirs, and oceans, as opposed to holy water which is water elevated with the sacramental blessing of a cleric. These organic bodies of water have attained religious significance not from the modern alteration or blessing, but were sanctified through mythological or historical figures. Sacred waters have been exploited for cleansing, healing, initiations, and death rites. Ubiquitous and perpetual fixations with water occur across religious traditions. It tends to be a central element in the creations accounts of almost every culture with mythological, cosmological, and theological myths. In this way, many groups characterize water as “living water”, or the “water of life”. This means that it gives life and is the fundamental element from which life arises. Each religious or cultural group that feature waters as sacred substances tends to favor certain categorizations of some waters more than others, usually those that are most accessible to them and that best integrate into their rituals.” ref

List of Water Deities

“A water deity is a deity in mythology associated with water or various bodies of water. Water deities are common in mythology and were usually more important among civilizations in which the sea or ocean, or a great river was more important. Another important focus of worship of water deities has been springs or holy wells.” ref

“A water spirit is a kind of supernatural being found in the folklore of many cultures: African, Celtic, Germanic, Ancient Greek, Japanese, Mesoamerican, Oceanic, Roman, Slavic, and Thai.” ref

Water Dragon: A Monster from the Bottom of Baikal

 “The faith of the local population in some kind of ancient underwater creature was confirmed by rituals that were performed back in the first quarter of the 20th century. For instance, Mongolian warriors that were moving from south to north-west in the 12th-14th centuries killed the inhabitants of nearby settlements and threw their bodies to Baikal, thus offering bloody sacrifices to the Baikal monster. In exchange for the sacrifices, they hoped to achieve success in military affairs.” ref

Baikal’s Giant Ice Rings

“For several decades, scientists and astronauts observing Lake Baikal have noticed giant rings in the spring ice on one of the world’s oldest and deepest lakes. Russian researchers first spotted them in satellite images in the early 2000s, but it was after astronauts on the International Space Station photographed two ice rings in April 2009 that the phenomenon become a topic of international study and fascination.” ref

“While the rings have attracted speculation and a few conspiracy theories, decades of satellite data and field-based studies have shed light on why they form. “Results of our field surveys show that before and during ice ring manifestation, there are warm eddies that circulate in a clockwise direction under the ice cover,” explained Alexei Kouraev, a hydrologist at the University of Toulouse. “In the eddy center, the ice does not melt — even though the water is warm — because the currents are weak. But on the eddy boundary, the currents are stronger, and warmer water leads to rapid melting.” ref

“During fieldwork, Kouraev and his colleagues from France, Russia, and Mongolia drilled holes near ice rings and deployed sensors capable of measuring the temperature and salinity of the water column to a depth of 200 meters (700 feet). Typically the water in the eddies was 1 to 2 degrees Celsius (2 to 4 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than the surrounding water. They also found that the eddies have a lens-like shape, something that is common in the ocean yet rare in lakes.” ref

“The research team is still investigating what causes the eddies, but an analysis of meteorological and hydrological data suggests that they typically get going in autumn, before ice has covered the lake. They likely form because of persistent wind patterns and the inflow of water from certain rivers. The shape of the coastline and lake bottom also play a role in determining where the eddies form and move.” ref

“To better understand where and how often giant ice rings form, scientists mined all the available satellite imagery of Lake Baikal back to 1969 and identified dozens of rings. Most appeared in March or April and had diameters of about 5 to 7 kilometers (3 to 4 miles) — too big to recognize from the ground but easily seen from above. Some rings were ephemeral, lasting a day or two. Others persisted for weeks or months.” ref

“For a number of years, one of the most discussed theories in both the scientific community and the news media was that gas hydrates — an ice-like form of methane found at the bottom of the lake — may play a role. Work by Kouraev and colleagues suggests otherwise. When combing through Landsat and MODIS satellite image archives for evidence of rings, scientists identified several over shallow parts of the lake where conditions are not right for gas hydrates. They have also discovered giant rings in satellite imagery of Lake Hovsgol in Mongolia and Lake Teletskoye in Russia’s Altai Republic, both of which are shallower than Lake Baikal and are not known to have gas emissions.” ref

“Fire Ice” Supports Life in Lake Baikal

“Lake Baikal sits in the heart of Siberia so it’s not much of a surprise that it’s frozen over. The world’s deepest and oldest lake is used to the cold. Lake Baikal’s lakebed sometimes bubbles out methane – a highly potent greenhouse gas. Some of the bubbles freeze, which means part of Baikal’s ice isn’t ice at all. What appears to be common white ice sections in parts of the lake’s solid surface are actually frozen methane hydrates – compounds formed when the gas is trapped in a crystal structure of water. Sometimes called “fire ice,” methane hydrates can be burned. While the Lake Baikal worms can’t live on “fire ice,” methane itself, they can instead feed on bacteria that are capable of metabolizing the gas.” ref

Creation: fire and ice mythology

“According to Norse myth, the beginning of life was fire and ice, with the existence of only two worlds: Muspelheim and Niflheim. When the warm air of Muspelheim hit the cold ice of Niflheim, the jtunn Ymir and the icy cow Audhumla were created. Ymir’s foot bred a son and a man and a woman emerged from his armpits, making Ymir the progenitor of the Jotun. Whilst Ymir slept, the intense heat from Muspelheim made him sweat, and he sweated out Surtr, a jtunn of fire. Later Ymir woke and drank Audhumbla’s milk. Whilst he drank, the cow Audhumbla licked on a salt stone. On the first day after this a man’s hair appeared on the stone, on the second day a head, and on the third day an entire man emerged from the stone. His name was Bri and with an unknown jtunn female he fathered Bor, the father of the three gods Odin, Vili, and Ve.” ref

“When the gods felt strong enough they killed Ymir. His blood flooded the world and drowned all of the jtunn, except two. But jtnar grew again in numbers and soon there were as many as before Ymir’s death. Then the gods created seven more worlds using Ymir’s flesh for dirt, his blood for the Oceans, rivers, and lakes, his bones for stone, his brain as the clouds, his skull for the heaven. Sparks from Muspelheim flew up and became stars. One day when the gods were walking they found two tree trunks. They transformed them into the shape of humans. Odin gave them life, Vili gave them mind and Ve gave them the ability to hear, see, and speak. The gods named them Ask and Embla and built the kingdom of Middle-earth for them and to keep the jtnar out the gods placed a gigantic fence made of Ymir’s eyelashes around Middle-earth.” ref

“The vlva goes on to describe Yggdrasil and three norns. She then describes the war between the sir and Vanir and the murder of Baldr, Odin’s handsome son whom everyone but Loki loved. (The story is that everything in existence promised not to hurt him except mistletoe. Taking advantage of this weakness, Loki made a projectile of mistletoe and tricked Hr, Odin’s blind son and Baldr’s brother, into using it to kill Baldr. Hel said she would revive him if everyone in the nine worlds wept. A female jtunn – Thokk, who may have been Loki in shape-shifted form – did not weep.) After that she turns her attention to the future.” ref

The Weird Natural Rock Art of Lake Baikal

“Poetically known as Baikal Zen, this rare effect happens when a flat rock that has fallen onto the ice catches the spring sun and melts the ice underneath it. Only a thin pedestal supporting the rock remains. The pedestal is far enough from the sides of the rock that it escapes melting. At night, the water beneath the rock refreezes. This can occur on other frozen lakes as well, although the clear ice of Baikal seems important to its formation. No photos of Baikal Zen on white ice, which has mixed with air, seem to exist. The phenomenon also needs wind. If you want to do a deep dive into how this happens, some young physicists discuss it in a 40-minute video, complete with graphs and equations.” ref

“Physicists may have cracked the case of “Zen” stones balanced on ice pedestals. Visit the Small Sea of Lake Baikal in Russia during the winter and you’ll likely see an unusual phenomenon: a flat rock balanced on a thin pedestal of ice, akin to stacking Zen stones common to Japanese gardens. The phenomenon is sometimes called a Baikal Zen formation. The typical explanation for how these formations occur is that the rock catches light (and heat) from the Sun and this melts the ice underneath until just a thin pedestal remains to support it. The water under the rock refreezes at night, and it has been suggested that wind may also be a factor.” ref

“Now, two French physicists believe they have solved the mystery of how these structures form, according to a new paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences—and their solution has nothing to do with the thermal conduction of the stone. Rather, they attribute the formation to a phenomenon known as sublimation, whereby snow or ice evaporates directly into vapor without passing through a water phase. Specifically, the shade provided by the stone hinders the sublimation rates of the surrounding ice in its vicinity, while the ice farther away sublimates at a faster rate.” ref

“Many similar formations occur naturally in nature, such as hoodoos (tall, spindly structures that form over millions of years within sedimentary rock), mushroom rocks or rock pedestals (the base has been eroded by strong dusty winds), and glacier tables (a large stone sitting precariously on top of a narrow pedestal of ice). But the underlying mechanisms by which they form can be very different. The so-called “stone forests” common in certain regions of China and Madagascar. These pointed rock formations, like the famed Stone Forest in China’s Yunnan Province, are the result of solids dissolving into liquids in the presence of gravity, which produces natural convective flows. On the surface, these stone forests look rather similar to “penitentes“: snowy pillars of ice that form in very dry air found high in the Andean glaciers. Physicists have been able to recreate artificial versions of penitentes in the lab.” ref

“But penitentes and stone forests are actually quite different in terms of the mechanisms involved in their formation. The spikes of a stone forest are carved by flows, which don’t play a big role in the formation of penitentes. Some physicists have suggested that penitentes form when sunlight evaporates the snow directly into vapor (sublimation). Tiny crests and troughs form, and sunlight gets trapped within them, creating extra heat that carves out even deeper troughs, and those curved surfaces in turn act as a lens, speeding up the sublimation process even more. An alternative proposal adds an additional mechanism to account for the oddly periodic fixed spacing of penitentes: a combination of vapor diffusion and heat transport that produces a steep temperature gradient and, hence, a higher sublimation rate.” ref

Lake Baikal’s Frozen Ice Shards

“Lake Baikal is beautiful all year round, but in winter it’s transformed into an icy spectacle. The lake freezes over and pressure combined with methane gasses causes the ice to crack and large shards of it protrude up. Huge cracks and intriguing methane circles can be seen in the ice. The famous Lake Baikal in Siberia is the oldest and deepest lake in the world. It’s about 600 km long and in certain parts, it’s 1.6 km deep. When the Siberian winter hits, the lake freezes over and gets covered in ice between 1.5 to 2 meters thick. It’s enough to bear the weight of a car or a bus. What makes this frozen lake so dramatically beautiful is that the very clear water makes the ice a magnificent turquoise color. But it has more to offer, methane gasses rising from the lake’s floor create unique circular patterns in the ice, sometimes pushing up shards of it at odd angles. Photographers flock to the lake to capture these amazing sights. Lake Baikal is extremely chili in winter. Temperatures can go as low as -30 degrees Celsius. These low temperatures are experienced during the day as well. ” ref

“Mal’ta boy” (MA-1) 24,000 years ago, basal Y-DNA R* and mt-DNA U. Ancient North Eurasian (ANE) similar to the Mal’ta–Buret’ and Afontova Gora lived near Lake Baikal. A people similar to MA1 and Afontova Gora were important genetic contributors to Native Americans, Siberians, Europeans, Caucasians, and Central Asians, with smaller contributions to Middle Easterners and some East Asians. A cline of ANE ancestry was across the east-west extent of Eurasia, as observed among Paleolithic Siberian populations and their direct descendants, developed from a sister lineage of Europeans with significant admixture from early East Asians.” ref

The Enchanting World of Siberian Mythology

“Central to Siberian Mythology are beliefs in the interconnectedness of all things, the power and influence of spirits and deities, and the cyclical nature of life and the universe. The perception of a spiritual realm, the existence of both benevolent and malevolent forces, and the significance placed on rituals and ceremonies are fundamental aspects of Siberian Mythology. Furthermore, Siberian Mythology encompasses the concept of animism, where all natural elements, animals, and objects hold spirits or souls. This belief system emphasizes the sacredness of the Earth and the harmonious coexistence between humans and the natural world. Gods and Goddesses hold prominent positions within Siberian Mythology, representing various aspects of life, nature, and the cosmos.” ref

“They personify cosmic forces, natural phenomena, and human attributes. These divine beings are revered as intermediaries between humans and the spiritual realm, facilitating communication, guidance, protection, and blessings. The gods and goddesses in Siberian Mythology portray a diverse range of characteristics and roles, from tricksters and guardians to creators and healers. They play vital roles in the formation of the world, the establishment of societal norms, and the preservation of balance and harmony.” ref

“One of the most notable features of Siberian mythology is the importance of animals in its stories. Many of the gods and goddesses are associated with particular animals, such as the bear, wolf, or eagle. These animals are often seen as sacred and are believed to have special powers and abilities that are passed on to the gods and goddesses that they are associated with. Another fascinating aspect of Siberian mythology is the role that shamanism plays in the belief system. Shamans are spiritual leaders who are believed to have the power to communicate with the gods and goddesses and to act as intermediaries between the spirit world and the physical world.” ref

Lord and Lady of the Waters

“Another important nature spirit in Siberian mythology is the Lord of the Waters. This spirit was believed to be the ruler of all bodies of water, including rivers, lakes, and oceans. The Lord of the Waters was often depicted as a powerful and fearsome creature, with the ability to control the tides and currents of the sea. In addition to these nature spirits, Siberian mythology also features a wide variety of sacred animals, such as the bear, the wolf, and the reindeer. These animals were believed to be messengers of the gods, and were often seen as symbols of strength, wisdom, and resilience. Overall, the stories of nature spirits and sacred animals in Siberian mythology provide a fascinating glimpse into the beliefs and values of the people who lived in this region for thousands of years.” ref

“Ajysyt is a goddess of healing and is often depicted as a wise old woman. She is believed to have the power to cure illnesses and to protect people from harm. Ajysyt is also associated with water and is said to have the ability to control the flow of rivers and streams. In Siberian mythology, goddesses and female spirits are revered for their unique powers and abilities. They are often called upon for protection, guidance, and healing, and are an essential part of the spiritual landscape of the region. Siberian mythology features a diverse range of goddesses and female spirits, each with their unique characteristics and roles. Many of these entities play vital roles in the formation of the world, the establishment of societal norms, and the preservation of balance and harmony.” ref

Gods in Siberian Mythology

“Kutkh is a mischievous and shape-shifting deity known as the Trickster God in Siberian mythology. He is often depicted as a trickster raven or a hare and is associated with both creation and chaos. Kutkh embodies the unpredictable and transformative forces of nature, introducing change and challenging the established order.” ref

“Erlik is the formidable God of Death and the Underworld in Siberian mythology. He rules over the realm of the dead and is responsible for the souls’ journey into the afterlife. Erlik is depicted as a powerful deity with a dark and imposing presence, embodying the mysteries and fears surrounding death.” ref

“Ulgan is revered as the God of the Sky and Weather in Siberian mythology. As the deity in control of atmospheric phenomena, Ulgan influences the elements and determines the patterns of weather. He is often depicted as a powerful figure with the ability to bring rainstorms, thunder, and lightning.” ref

“Irkuiem is the beloved Goddess of Beauty and Fertility in Siberian mythology. She represents the essence of feminine allure and is associated with the abundance of the natural world. Irkuiem is often depicted as a radiant and nurturing deity, bestowing her blessings upon the land and its inhabitants.” ref

“Buga holds the prominent role of the God of Hunting and Wildlife in Siberian mythology. He is revered as the protector and provider of the animal kingdom, ensuring the balance and harmony between humans and nature. Hunters and gatherers often seek the favor of Buga before embarking on their expeditions.” ref

“Anapel is revered as the goddess of love and relationships in Siberian mythology. She holds the power to foster love, ignite passion, and promote harmonious connections between individuals. Worshippers seek her guidance and blessings in matters of the heart, seeking to deepen their emotional bonds and find enduring love.” ref

“Ajysyt is the compassionate goddess of healing and protection. She possesses the ability to bring physical, emotional, and spiritual healing to those in need. Devotees seek her aid in times of illness and turmoil, trusting in her guidance to restore health and provide a shield of protection against negative forces.” ref

“Nga is the revered goddess of water and rivers, holds immense significance in Siberian mythology. She is associated with the life-giving properties of water and is believed to bring abundance, fertility, and purification. Worshippers seek her blessings for prosperous harvests, plentiful water sources, and emotional cleansing.

“Otshirvani is the goddess of wisdom and knowledge, is revered for her profound intellect and vast understanding of the world. Devotees turn to her for guidance, seeking clarity, insight, and intellectual growth. She empowers her followers with wisdom, encouraging the pursuit of knowledge and personal enlightenment.” ref

“As-Iga the goddess of nature and earth, is deeply connected to the natural world. She embodies the nurturing and life-giving aspects of the earth, fostering harmony and balance. Worshippers seek her blessings for abundance, fertility, and protection of the environment, honoring her as a guardian and caretaker of the natural world.” ref

A woman, a lake spirit, and a skull: A Chukchee (northern Siberian) story of the animus

“Yang appears first in the collective unconscious (the ocean). Then Hina sought a more conscious (dry land) relationship with yang. A girl refused to be married at the behest of her father. “To whom do you want to be married? You do not consent to be married to a man. Perhaps to a ke´lẹ you want to be married.” She paid no attention (to her father’s words). At the same time, every evening she would sing outside of the tent, “From the lake, O penis, come out!” After that she would enter (the house). Her father heard this, and said to his wife, “Oh, this daughter of ours, when we try to persuade her to marry, she quarrels with us; but to whom is she married? She is married to a ke´lẹ of the lake.” They said nothing to her.” ref

“Evening came. She went to the lake. Then she began to sing on the lake-shore. “From the lake, O penis, come out!” Then a [mere] penis appeared. She sat down upon it, and she herself copulated with it. At the dawn of the day she went home. The woman refused to obey her father’s wish that she continue normal life. Because her connection to her father was injured, her connection to a future mate was complicated. She could not have remained within collective consciousness, thinking and doing as her parents did, finding her mate just as her parents had done. Collective consciousness opposes individual consciousness. In Jung’s view, to be contained within collective consciousness is to be unconscious of one’s individuality. The woman had to be more individual. She bonded to a penis alone.” ref

“The penis in the lake is like King Arthur’s sword which also emerged from a lake. In that story yang emerges from the collective unconscious (the Great Mother) with the help of woman (the lady of the lake). Hindu myth says the same. A South Indian carving shows the kundalini serpent emerging from Shakti’s yoni. This represents the ‘Tantric belief that kundalini serpent energy (whose movement up the spine leads to enlightenment) is already active in women. Through prayer, worship of the woman’s body as that of the Goddess, and finally sexual union, a practitioner may merge with the Goddess, or life force, herself’ (Austin, The Heart of the Goddess p. 116). ‘The pre-Aryan Dravidian culture, which persists in South India, included a cult of the Mother Goddess which is expressed today in Shaktism and Tantrism’.” ref

“There are related images in Polynesian myth: Maui and Tuna (Tuamotu islands). In: Maori Myths and Tribal Legends. Hina was living with Tuna in his land beneath the sea; but she became tired of her eel-husband, also of the coldness there. One day she said to eel Tuna that she was going out to fetch food for them. Then she travelled far away, to find a new man for herself. She came to the land of the Tane tribe. When she saw those husband-people Hina sang her chant about what she wanted: Inland eel here–manly thing! Eel of the sea there–watery thing! I here am a woman for the eel-shaped one, I have come to find him …. Eventually Hina marries the trickster-hero, Maui. Tuna then comes to challenge Maui and Maui kills him. Again yang appears first in the collective unconscious (the ocean). Then Hina sought a more conscious (dry land) relationship with yang.” ref

“Once emerged, yang needs differentiation. This is shown in a story from Mangaia, population 700, a coral atol in the Polynesian Cook Islands: A young woman, Hina-moe-atu (Hina-sleeping-with-a-god) bathed in a fresh-water pool beneath a coral cliff. An eel came from beneath the rocks, slid under her and gave her pleasure with its tail. The same thing happened many times. Then, while Hina gazed at it, the eel became a handsome young island man. Many times he came to her house and they made love. Then he told her he would leave forever and what she should do. There were torrential rains. When the water rose to the threshold of her house, the eel came and laid its head in her doorway. She cut of its head with her ancestor’s sacred adze and buried it behind her house. She visited that place every day to see what would happen. A green shoot grew and became two coconut palms. The coconut palm provides food and many raw materials for the island’s technology and this is how it was created.” ref

“Technology is yang. When a physical relationship with yang was sacrificed, a spiritual relationship replaced it. Raw material from the palm was crafted for conscious purposes. There are similar images in a Winnebago (native american) myth: Folkloristics: an Introduction, Robert A. Georges, Michael Owen Jones, Indiana University Press (September 22, 1995) page 240. Because of its huge size, Trickster carried his penis on his back coiled up in a box. A group of women were bathing on the other side of the lake and he dispatched a penis across the water, where it lodged in the vagina of a chief’s daughter. Only an old wise woman’s repeated stabbings with an awl could dislodge the penis. Trickster laughed as he watched from across the lake but regreted the old woman’s interference. “Why does she do that when I am trying to have intercourse?” he asked. “She has spoiled the pleasure.” ref

“Later he sent his penis to catch a taunting chipmunk. He probed for it in the hollowed-out part of a tree. When he pulled his penis out he saw that the chipmunk had bitten off pieces and made it smaller. He captured the chipmunk, found the half-chewed fragments, and transformed them into useful things like potatoes, turnips, artichokes, and rice. Fragments of the trickster’s penis became new human technologies. All of these stories – from several unrelated cultures – show that yang, when differentiated, expands conscious knowledge. Our Chukchee story also repeats (below) that sacrifice is required for a more conscious relationship between yang and yin.” ref

“The story of Adam and Eve is another parallel. As in the Polynesian story Hina and the Eel (above), a woman was in union with a man/serpent within a pristine unconscious world. Then they acquired knowledge from the tree (technology), were expelled from Eden (unconscious union severed), and were ashamed of their nakedness (became conscious of desire). Patriarchal cultures suppress female sexuality; the union between serpent and Eve is implied in the Bible but disguised. Hina and the Eel makes clear what the Bible disguises. All of the above stories symbolize psychological developments in the feminine which (the feminine) is an aspect of men as well as women. The stories also show how a heroine’s journey differs from a hero’s, and thus show how a woman’s individuation may differ from that of a man.” ref 

“Both yang and the seductive aspect of yin emerge from original unity; the lady of the lake, Shakti, Hina, and Eve all represent the anima. The emergence of yang and the anima makes possible consciousness, a semi-independent position from which can become aware of and related to the unconscious. The alchemical image of the inner marriage, much discussed by Jung, symbolizes a conscious relationship between yin and yang.” ref

“The Chukchee story continues: Then her father said to her, “Go and fetch some wood!” She obeyed. Meanwhile they went to the lake, he and his wife, and they deceived it (by this song): “From the lake, O penis, come out!” Then from the lake a penis was thrust out. They caught it and cut it off. Thus they killed it. The collective opposed her unconventional liaison. To become more conscious was to betray the old order and the old order was threatened and defensive. Paradoxically, its actions served only to push the woman further into her individual path.” ref 

“The wood-carrier came home. Evening was approaching. The girl quickly cooked food. Evening came. Then again she went out to the lake. Then she was secretly watched. Again she began to sing, “From the lake, O penis, come out!” Nothing appeared. Another time, “From the lake, O penis, come out!” After that she even began to cry. “Oh, how strange!” Then again, “From the lake, O penis, come out!” Nothing (appeared). Then she cried. She sorrowed much for the penis. Her house-mates were secretly watching her. Oh, oh! but it was not there. She finished crying, and again (sang), “From the lake, O penis, come out!” She cried much, as if she were sorrowing for a dead (husband). At last she came home. She could not do anything.” ref 

“The woman’s loss and grief are emphasized here because they represent a crucial change, the beginning of consciousness. Because she suffered so much she became aware of what was happening to her and her inner life began to develop. Inner work usually begins with sharp or severe suffering, with physical hurt, or perhaps illness or severe frustration, or loss, grief, betrayal, humiliation, shame, or guilt. On the next day she went to the open country and found a bare skull. Once upon a time there was an old man and his wife. They were three in the family. Their daughter was the third. The daughter was a girl unmarried, without a husband. This daughter had a separate sleeping-room. They had two sleeping-rooms. That of the daughter was separate. She was sleeping all by herself. The parents were sleeping together.” ref 

“The girl’s lonely sleeping suggests her absorption into an unconscious union with yang. Her father and mother were in a semi-unconscious union (semi-unconscious because marital strife develops consciousness; Nancy Reagan maintained the image of a strife-free marriage in which she appeared to be unconscious) but theirs was a collective state, lived in human relationship, which supports collective life. Their state we call collective consciousnesswhich is something of a contradiction in terms. The girl could not accept their half asleep/half awake state which is the norm and so pursued a lonely path, seeking more.” ref 

“Once upon a time the (young) woman went out and was walking about there. Then she found a bare skull lying in the wilderness. She put it into one leg of her breeches and took it home, this human skull. She carried it into her sleeping-room. There she concealed it. She made a cap, puckered (along the border). With that cap she covered the skull. Then every evening, as soon as the sleeping-rooms had been put in order, the woman sets the skull near the rear wall, then she laughs at it. And that bare skull also laughs a little. In the wilderness, walking about, means that there is no direction provided. She has to find her own way. The woman had abandoned the collective pattern and so had to search here and there, allowing chance to offer her some other way. Her lack of direction might have lead to creative development, or it might have lead to frustration and emptiness. Though her situation was dangerous, nevertheless it is the only way for an individuation journey: there can be no blueprint.” ref

“This was the plaything she had taken into her bed. It would not create new life with her – she could not conceive from it – but it (such thoughts) entertained her and made her laugh. Since the bed is a place of warmth and sometimes sex, the cold skull was the more sterile and deathly by contrast. The skull also hints at a possible development, from the purely physical penis to a phallic power that is more symbolic, more located in awareness. It suggests that, for her, yang might evolve into a higher level of consciousness. But first she had to deal with the destructive tendency of her mind.” ref 

“By crafting a cap for the skull, the woman was playing a game, as with a doll. Together with her laughter, her game suggests that she had begun symbolic play, a repetition which confirms the possibility that the skull might lead her towards symbolic thought. Symbolic thought is necessary for a relationship with the unconscious, hence for consciousness, and hence for psychological individuation. “Hm!” Her mother heard it, and said, “What may she be laughing at, this one?” “I am laughing only at a cap, newly made and adorned.” Thus she deceives her mother. Then every time when she awakes in the morning, she puts the skull in the bottom of the bag, lest they should find it. Her deception of her mother also shows that she had left the collective: she no longer was guided by her mother’s experience; she kept her inner life secret, as she had to if it was to grow. Again these are repeated hints that she was on a path to individuation.” ref 

“Once, when the girl was again walking outside, her mother took out the contents of her daughter’s bag-pillow.1 She was looking for something, and therefore searched in the bag-pillow of her daughter. Suddenly she caught that skull by the mouth and took it out. She was startled. “Oh, oh, oh, horror! horror!2 What has become of our daughter? How very strange! Our [quite] unmarried daughter has become a ke´lẹ, she has become an abomination, an object of fear.3 Oh, wonder! what is she now? Not a human being. In truth, she is a ke´lẹ.” The collective hates and fears individuation, seeing it as a violation of the natural order, not seeing that it is a part of what nature intends. he father presently said, “Oh, let us leave! No need of her. You speak to her to-morrow, and invite her to a walk outside with you.” ref 

“Just as before (the mother) filled her bag-pillow and closed it in the same manner. The girl came back, it grew dark, and they lay down to sleep. Again she set (the skull) in the evening before herself, and laughed at it, “Hi, hi!” And the other answered, “Hm!” “How wonderful you are, O woman! Why are you laughing so, being alone, quite alone in your sleeping-room?” — “No, indeed! I am only laughing at a cap, newly made and adorned.” On the next day the mother said, “Let us go and fetch fuel.” They gathered fuel, cut wood, and broke off (branches of) bushes. Then the mother said, “The wood-binding is too short. I will go and get some more. Surely, I shall be back soon.” — “No, indeed, I will go.” — “No, I.” — “Ah, well, go and get it.” ref 

“So the mother went home. When she came home, her husband had broken camp and loaded a boat. He loaded the tent on the boat. They were setting off for the opposite shore. They left their daughter and cast her off. When they had almost finished, the girl could not wait any longer; therefore she went to look. She was moving along the steep river-bank when she saw that boat loaded, and (her father’s) work finished. Oh, she ran on and rushed to them. Just as she came, they went aboard and her father pushed off. The girl held on to the steering-paddle, but her father struck her with a paddle4on the wrist. So she let go of the steering-paddle. They left her, and set off far away for the other shore.” ref

“The parents tricked, betrayed and abandoned the child. We are more accustomed to stories in which the child sets off on a journey abandoning the parents. Perhaps this is characteristic of nomads – the collective pattern is for the family move on. But the image also has symbolic meaning. It conveys the remorseless energy of the collective; it is wrongheaded, offtrack, but it continues hellbent and abhors anyone who will not go along. So we have foolish wars and the relentless destruction of our ecosystem. The daughter was left quite alone at the camp-site. Even though a house had been there, there was now nothing at all, no house. Therefore she began to weep, and put that bare skull outside. Then she pushed it with her foot, and said, weeping, “This one is the cause5 of (it) all. What has he done, the bad one? They have left me, they have cast me off. Oh, dear!” ref 

Then the bare skull been to speak, “You make me suffer, indeed. Do not push me with your foot. Better let me go and procure a body for myself, only do not push me so. Go and make a wood-pile, make a fire, then throw me into the flames.” — “Oh, all right! Then, however, I shall quite alone. I can talk with you at least.” — “Obey me, indeed. You are suffering, quite vainly we suffer together. I shall procure a body for myself.” Oh, she made a fire. It blazed up. Then the skull spoke to her again, and said, “Well, now, throw me into the fire! Then stay with head drawn back into the collar of your dress, in this manner, and do not look up. Indeed, no matter who may look upon you, or what voices you may hear, do not look up!”

She obeyed, threw (the skull) into the fire, then staid with head drawn back and bent down. Thus she remained. Then the fire blazed up with a noise for a long time. Then it went out. Of all chemical processes with which we are familiar, fire is perhaps the most dramatic. ‘Earth’ is completely transformed into ‘air’. That which seems cold and dead suddenly becomes mercurical, illuminating and quickening life all around it. Fire symbolizes passionate affect: passion blazes up in us and may lead us into irrevocable action.

“She remained with her head bent down, then she began to hear a noise, a clattering of runners; then also, “Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh!” from a herd; loud voices, “Ah, ah, ah; ah, ah, ah!” and whistling. Then a caravan clattered by, still she continued to sit with head bent down. The clattering came nearer, and the cries, “Waġo´, yaġo´!” Then a man called her from the front. “Well, there, what are you doing? Oh, she looked up. A large caravan was coming. The herd was quite big. The man, her husband, was standing in front of her, clad in a shirt made of thin furs, in the best of skins. They built a camp, and put up the tent. He was quite rich in reindeer. Then, in truth, she began to feel quite well. The skull had transformed into a whole potent man. Why did this woman achieve such a positive transformation when, in a parallel tale, a woman’s involvement with a skull ended so badly? That woman longed to rejoin her people but she never could: instead she became the first spider (click here for The woman who became a spider on this website).” ref 

“The woman who became a spider did not first copulate with a penis-spirit and she only talked and laughed with the skull; she did not make toys for it. She was passive, a couch potato. After her father skewered the skull through one eye and threw him out, she argued with him, calling him foolish and mistaken, expressing thoughts more than feelings, then left, promising never to return. Thus she she did not engage her parents with feeling but instead acted out by abandoning them. She expressed no feeling at leaving her parents and not much feeling about the skull either: when the skull/man refused to rejoin her she quickly abandoned him too. She was stubborn, refusing to listen when he warned her that the route she had chosen would preclude her ever returning to earth: she lacked a reverent attitude towards the unconscious. When later she had sex with the moon-spirit she was passive; it was all his initiative.” ref 

“In the present story, the woman was related to her body, her passion, and her creativity. She began by taking the initiative to copulate repeatedly with the lake spirit; then, when it was killed, she grieves bitterly. She created a cap for the skull and played creative games with it – related to it actively – she was not a couch potato. She helped her mother gather fuel and tried to hold onto her parents – fought for relationship – when they paddled away. When her parents abandoned her she wept, grieved, and got angry at the skull. She also listened to the skull and, after protesting, followed its directions: thus she had a reverent attitude towards the unconscious. In all these ways this woman was like Hinauri in How Hinauri found her second husband, like Hina in Rona Long-teeth (both on this website) and like Hina in Hina and the Eel (see above) each of whom also achieved a fertile relationship with the animus. So, in the present story, it was the woman’s positive attitude, her full-blooded engagement in life, and her willingness to sacrifice the skull to fiery passion, which led to a good end.” ref 

“In the beginning of the cold, early in the fall, (the parents of the woman) saw smoke rising. “Come, say, what settlement have we noticed just now? Come, let us go and visit it.” They crossed with a boat, her parents, the father with the mother, “Oh, sit down in the outer tent. I shall cook some food for you.” She prepared for cooking, and filled the kettle with meat and fat. While she was cooking, she broke some thigh-bones to extract the marrow. When the meal was finished, she gave them the marrow (with the bone splinters). “Eat this marrow!” They ate the marrow, but the thigh-bone splinters stuck in their throats and pierced them. Thus she killed them, and they died. Finished. I have killed the wind. The woman killed the parents who would exploit her. This is a repetition which confirms my interpretation about the woman’s active attitude. She engaged them again, fiercely and decisively.” ref 

AS-IGA – the Khanty River God (Siberian mythology)

“As-Iga is a benevolent old water god who lives in the River Ob in Siberia. He provides blessings and benefits to the Khanty (formerly Ostyak) people of that region. These are mainly fish-related.” ref 

“Amemasu (rain trout) is a giant whale- or fish-like creature from North Japanese Ainu folklore, known for capsizing boats, creating earthquakes, and causing other natural disasters. Able to take on a human appearance, usually of a beautiful woman, in order to lure young men to their deaths. The skin of an amemasu is said to be cold and clammy, much like fish skin, which is how they can be identified when they are in human form. The inhabitants of Hokkaido believed that large amemasu held up the Earth. Sometimes, the fish would get tired and this could cause earthquakes, similar to the namazu. In the middle of Hokkaido island there is Lake Kussharo, said to be home to a large amemasu, whose head resembled a rock and whose tail stretched to the Kushiro River. An Ainu hero, Otashitonkuru, took a harpoon, determined to poke out the eyes of the amemasu. However, the fish started fighting back. Desperate to hold on to the harpoon, Otashitonkuru held on to a rock and the struggling amemasu pulled so hard that the rock became the island in the middle of the lake.” ref

The Religion of the Indigenous People of Siberia?

“Spirits are ancestors (ancestral cult) or animated nature (plants, animals, etc.) as well as natural phenomenons (sun, moon, stars, fire, water, etc.); animism. Some sort of magic, witchcraft, and sorcery are also part of many nature religions; for example, to heal diseases and illnesses or if people are convinced that a neighbour has put a curse on their families. The access to religion is in most cases based on actions: only powers/spirits that are able to help and also willing to help will experience worship. The concept of a supreme god (heaven god) as creator of the universe may be found in numerous of their narrations (myths and epics); these deities do play an important role also in different cultures, such as “The creation of the world”. Today the designation “nature religion” is not used any more in the field of ethnology; instead, there is made a distinction between shamanism, animism, ancestral cult, etc.” ref

Shamanism

“These indigenous Siberian peoples do have their original understanding of traditional religions in a cultural point of view in common; they share the belief in animated nature as well as the existence of entities in all natural objects with their owner spirits, distinguished into heaven and earth-water spirits, and a supreme heaven god (Tengri). Shamans contacted them by traveling to them, by sending these souls to them or by allowing them access to their bodies. When this happened, they were in a state of ecstasy, visualized by means of ritual-like dances and drum sounds, the whole event originally supported by intoxicating herbs such as juniper and toadstool (only recently there has also been used alcohol for this means). Yer su (Gazriin Ezen) are earth-water spirits that live in a particular mountain, lake, river, rock, tree, etc. Chotgors are responsible for physical as well as psychological diseases and illnesses. Otsoors are suld souls of ancestors living in nature. Ongons (Totems) – ancestral spirits that now live in a place or house assigned especially to them. They may also live in figures carved from wood (fetish) or simply in jewelry (lucky charms, amulets). Burkhans are very powerful and dangerous spirits that are rather hard to control.” ref

Siberian Mythology involves:

• Chukchi Mythology
• Ket Mythology
• Mansi Mythology
• Samoyedic Mythology
• Yukaghir Mythology ref

Chukchi Mythology

“Creation of the World: The Chukchi believe that Raven created the world from a drop of water. He first created the land, followed by plants, animals, and finally humans. He taught humans essential survival skills such as hunting, fishing, and building shelters. The Battle of the Deities: This story revolves around the rivalry between Raven and Numequq. In a battle for supremacy, they fight each other using their magical powers. The story symbolizes the eternal struggle between the sky and the sea. The Journey of the Soul: The Chukchi believe that after death, the soul embarks on a journey to the underworld. The soul must overcome numerous obstacles, such as crossing a narrow bridge and avoiding dangerous animals, before reaching Jieglan’s domain. To appease deities and ensure their favor, the Chukchi people make sacrificial offerings. For instance, they may offer reindeer to Akhpakva for the well-being of their herds or food to Numequq to ensure successful marine hunts.” ref

“One of the unique beliefs of the Chukchi people is the existence of ke’lets, supernatural beings that can shape-shift into animals or humans. Ke’lets are often considered dangerous, capable of stealing human souls or causing misfortune. Chukchi shamans, known as ilgich, are believed to have the power to communicate with these beings and ward off their malevolent intentions. Another noteworthy belief is the concept of “double-souled” individuals. The Chukchi people believe that some individuals possess two souls, one of which may leave the body and transform into an animal. These individuals are believed to have exceptional powers, such as the ability to control weather or communicate with spirits. Chukchi shamans, or ilgich, perform various rituals to communicate with spirits, heal the sick, or protect the community from malevolent forces. Shamanic rituals often involve drumming, dancing, and chanting to enter a trance state that allows the shaman to interact with the spirit world.” ref

“Koryaks are an Indigenous people of the Russian Far East, who live immediately north of the Kamchatka Peninsula in Kamchatka Krai and inhabit the coastlands of the Bering Sea. The Koryaks are culturally similar to the Chukchis of extreme northeast Siberia. The Koryak language and Alutor (which is often regarded as a dialect of Koryak), are linguistically close to the Chukchi language. All of these languages are members of the Chukotko-Kamchatkan language family. They are more distantly related to the Itelmens on the Kamchatka Peninsula. All of these peoples and other, unrelated minorities in and around Kamchatka are known collectively as Kamchadals. Neighbors of the Koryaks include the Evens to the west, the Alutor to the south (on the isthmus of Kamchatka Peninsula), the Kerek to the east, and the Chukchi to the northeast. The name Koryak was from the exonym word ‘Korak’, meaning ‘with the reindeer (kor)’ in a nearby group Chukotko-Kamchatkan language. Cultural and some linguistic similarity exist between the Nivkh and the Koryak. The origin of the Koryak is unknown. Anthropologists have speculated that a land bridge connected the Eurasian and North American continent during Late Pleistocene. It is possible that migratory peoples crossed the modern-day Koryak land en route to North America.” ref

“Koryaks believe in a Supreme Being whom they call by various names: ŋajŋənen (Universe/World), ineɣitelʔən (Supervisor), ɣət͡ɕɣoletənvəlʔən (Master-of-the-Upper-World), ɣət͡ɕɣolʔən (One-on-High), etc. He is considered to reside in Heaven with his family and when he wishes to punish mankind for immoral acts, he falls asleep and thus leaves man vulnerable to unsuccessful hunting and other ills. Koryak mythology centers on the supernatural shaman Quikil (Big-Raven), who was created by the Supreme Being as the first man and protector of the Koryak. Big Raven myths are also found in Southeast Alaska in the Tlingit culture, and among the Haida, Tsimshian, and other natives of the Pacific Northwest Coast Amerindians.” ref

“The Nivkh, or Gilyak, are an Indigenous ethnic group inhabiting the northern half of Sakhalin Island and the lower Amur River and coast on the adjacent Russian mainland. Historically, they may have inhabited parts of Manchuria. The Nivkh are believed to be the original inhabitants of the region, and to derive from a proposed Neolithic people that migrated from the Transbaikal region during the Late Pleistocene. The Nivkh practice shamanism, which is important for the winter Bear Festival. The origins of the Nivkh are hard to discern from current archaeological research. Their subsistence by fishing and coastal sea-mammal hunting is very similar to the Koryak and Itelmen on the Kamchatka Peninsula. The rigging of dog-sledges is also similar to these Chukotko-Kamchatkan groups. Nivkhs may be related to the Susuya, Okhotsk, and Tobinitai culture that reached Hokkaido and met the Satsumon culture.” ref

“Spiritual beliefs are similar to those of the Northwest Coast Indians of North America, whose ancestors migrated from this area.  The Nivkh are physically and genetically different from the surrounding peoples, and scholars believe they are the Indigenous inhabitants of the area. The current archaeological model suggests that a sub-Arctic microlithic culture originating from the Transbaikal region migrated across Siberia and populated the Amur and Sakhalin region during the Late Pleistocene, or perhaps earlier. Scientists believe that people of this culture were the first to migrate eastward into the Americas. The microlithic culture was technologically adept in the harsh climate of Siberia during the last ice age. After the ice receded, Tungusic peoples from the south pressed into the warmer northern areas, soon dominating the settled peoples. The Nivkh are considered the last surviving ethnic group able to adapt to the warmer climate and not be assimilated or squeezed out by the newcomers, hence the Nivkh isolate language. The earliest archeological radiocarbon dating for Northern Sakhalin as of 2004 is the Neolithic Age Imchin Site 2, dated to 4950–4570 BCE or around 6,950 to 6,570 years ago near the Tym’ River estuary on the west coast.” ref

“Nivkh’s traditional religion was based on animist beliefs, especially via shamanism, and Nivkh animists believe the island of Sakhalin is a giant beast lying on its belly with the trees of the island as its hair. When the beast is upset, it awakens and trembles the earth causing earthquakes. Nivkh have a pantheon of vaguely defined gods (yz, yzng) that presided over the mountains, rivers, seas, and sky. Nivkhs’ have extensive folklore, songs, and mythos of how humans and the universe were created, and of how fantastic heroes, spirits and beasts battled with each other in ancient times. Fire is especially venerated. It is the symbol of the unity of the clan. Fire is considered a deity of their ancestors, protecting them from evil spirits and guarding their clan from harm. An open flame would be “fed” a leaf of tobacco, spices, or a tipple of vodka in order to please the spirits for protection. Nivkhs would also frequently offer items to the deities by ‘feeding’. The sea would be “fed” an item of importance in order that the sea god protects the travellers. Shamans’ (ch’am) main role was in diagnosing and curing disease for the Nivkh. The rare shamans typically wore an elaborate coats with belts often made of metal. Remedies composed of plant and sometimes animal matter were employed to cure sickness. Talismans were used or offered to patients to prevent sickness. Shamans additionally functioned as a conduit to combat and ward off evil spirits that cause death. A shaman’s services usually were compensated with goods, quarters, and food.” ref

“Nivkh Shamans also presided over the Bear Festival, a traditional holiday celebrated between January and February depending on the clan. A very similar ceremony, Iomante, is practiced by the Ainu people of Japan. The bear was considered a sacred earthly manifestation of Nivkh ancestors and the gods in bear form (see Bear worship). Bear worship (also known as the bear cult or arctolatry) is the religious practice of the worshipping of bears found in many North Eurasian ethnic religions such as among the Sami, Nivkh, Ainu,  Basques, Germanic peoples, Slavs, and Finns. There are also a number of deities from Celtic Gaul and Britain associated with the bear, and the Dacians, Thracians, and Getians were noted to worship bears and annually celebrate the bear dance festival. The bear is featured on many totems throughout northern cultures that carve them. In an article in Enzyklopädie des Märchens, American folklorist Donald J. Ward noted that a story about a bear mating with a human woman, and producing a male heir, functions as an ancestor myth to peoples of the northern hemisphere, namely, from North America, Japan, China, Siberia and Northern Europe. Bears were the most worshipped animals of Ancient Slavs. During pagan times, it was associated with the god Volos, the patron of domestic animals. Eastern Slavic folklore describes the bear as a totem personifying a male: father, husband, or a fiancé. Legends about turnskin bears appeared, it was believed that humans could be turned into bears for misbehavior.” ref, ref

“During the festival, the bear would be dressed in a specially-made ceremonial costume. It would be offered a banquet to take back to the realm of gods to show benevolence upon the clans. After the banquet, the bear would be sacrificed and eaten in an elaborate religious ceremony. Dogs were often sacrificed as well. The bear’s spirit returned to the gods of the mountain ‘happy’ and would then reward the Nivkh with bountiful forests. The festival typically would be arranged by relatives to honor the death of a kinsman. Generally, the Bear Festival was an inter-clan ceremony where a clan of wife-takers restored ties with a clan of wife-givers upon the broken link of the kinsman’s death.” ref

“The Ainu are an ethnic group of related indigenous peoples native to northern Japan, including Hokkaido and Northeast Honshu, as well as the land surrounding the Sea of Okhotsk, such as Sakhalin, the Kuril Islands, the Kamchatka Peninsula, and the Khabarovsk Krai; they have occupied these areas known to them as “Ainu Mosir” (Ainu: アイヌモシㇼ, lit. ‘the land of the Ainu’), since before the arrival of the modern Japanese and Russians. Ainu toponyms support the historical view that the Ainu people lived in several places throughout northern Honshu, mostly along the western coast and in the Tōhoku region. There is also evidence that Ainu speakers lived in the Amur region through Ainu loanwords found in the Uilta and Ulch languages. The Ainu are traditionally animists, believing that everything in nature has a kamuy (spirit or god) on the inside. The most important include Kamuy-huci, goddess of the hearth; Kim-un-kamuy, god of bears and mountains; and Repun Kamuy, god of the sea, fishing, and marine animals. Kotan-kar-kamuy is regarded as the creator of the world in the Ainu religion.” ref

“A kamuy (romanized: kamui) is a spiritual or divine being in Ainu mythology, a term denoting a supernatural entity composed of or possessing spiritual energy. In concept, kamuy are similar to the Japanese kami but this translation misses some of the nuances of the term (the missionary John Batchelor assumed that the Japanese term was of Ainu origin). Kamuy can refer to spiritual beings, including animals, plants, the weather, and even human tools. Guardian angels are called Ituren-Kamui. Kamuy are numerous; some are delineated and named, such as Kamuy Fuchi, the hearth goddess, while others are not. Kami (Japanese: 神, [kaꜜmi]) are the deities, divinities, spirits, mythological, spiritual, or natural phenomena that are venerated in the Shinto religion. They can be elements of the landscape, forces of nature, beings and the qualities that these beings express, and/or the spirits of venerated dead people. Many kami are considered the ancient ancestors of entire clans (some ancestors became kami upon their death if they were able to embody the values and virtues of kami in life). Traditionally, great leaders like the Emperor could be or became kami. In Shinto, kami are not separate from nature, but are of nature, possessing positive and negative, and good and evil characteristics. Personified deities of Ainu mythology often have the term kamuy applied as part of their names.” ref, ref

“The Ainu legend goes that at the beginning of the world, there was only water and earth mixed together in a sludge. Nothing existed except for the thunder demons in the clouds and the first self created kamuy. The first kamuy then sent down a bird spirit, moshiri-kor-kamuy, to make the world habitable. The water wagtail bird saw the swampy state of the earth and flew over the waters, and pounded down the earth with its feet and tail. After much work, areas of dry land appeared, seeming to float above the waters that surrounded them. Thus, the Ainu refer to the world as moshiri, meaning “floating earth”. The wagtail is also a revered bird due to this legend. Once the earth was formed, the first kamuy, otherwise known as kanto-kor-kamuy, the heavenly spirit, sent other kamuy to the earth. Of these kamuy was ape-kamuy (see also kamuy huchi, ape huchi), the fire spirit. Ape-kamuy was the most important spirit, ruling over nusa-kor-kamuy (ceremonial altar spirit), ram-nusa-kor-kamuy (low ceremonial altar spirit), hasinaw-kor-kamuy (hunting spirit), and wakka-us-kamuy (water spirit). As the most important kamuy, ape-kamuy’s permission/assistance is needed for prayers and ceremonies. She is the connection between humans and the other spirits and deities, and gives the prayers of the people to the proper spirits. Originally, it seems kamuy yukar was performed solely for religious purposes by the women who took on the role of shamans. The shamans became possessed and recanted the chants, possibly explaining why kamuy yukar is performed with a first-person narrative.” ref

Ket Mythology

“Kets or Ket people are a Yeniseian-speaking people in Siberia who were strictly organized patriarchal social system. The Ket people share their origin with other Yeniseian people and are closely related to other Indigenous people of Siberia and Indigenous peoples of the Americas. They belong mostly to Y-DNA haplogroup Q-M242. According to a 2016 study, the Ket and other Yeniseian people originated likely somewhere near the Altai Mountains or near Lake Baikal. It is suggested that parts of the Altaians are predominantly of Yeniseian origin and closely related to the Ket people. The Ket people are also closely related to several Native American groups. According to this study, the Yeniseians are linked to the Paleo-Eskimo groups. The Ket language has been linked to the Na-Dené languages of North America in the Dené–Yeniseian language family. The Kets have a rich and varied culture, filled with an abundance of Siberian mythology, including shamanistic practices and oral traditions.” ref

“The shamans of the Ket people have been identified as practitioners of healing as well as other local ritualistic spiritual practices. Supposedly, there were several types of Ket shamans, differing in function (sacral rites, curing), power, and associated animals (deer, bear). Also, among Kets, (as with several other Siberian peoples such as the Karagas) there are examples of the use of skeleton symbolics. Hoppál interprets it as a symbol of shamanic rebirth, although it may also symbolize the bones of the loon (the helper animal of the shaman, joining the air and underwater worlds, just like the story of the shaman who traveled both to the sky and the underworld). The skeleton-like overlay represented shamanic rebirth among some other Siberian cultures as well.” ref

“Vyacheslav Ivanov and Vladimir Toporov compared Ket mythology with those of speakers of Uralic languages, assuming in the studies that they are modeling semiotic systems in the compared mythologies. They have also made typological comparisons. Among other comparisons, possibly from Uralic mythological analogies, the mythologies of Ob-Ugric peoples and Samoyedic peoples are mentioned. Other authors have discussed analogies (similar folklore motifs, purely typological considerations, and certain binary pairs in symbolics) may be related to a dualistic organization of society – some dualistic features can be found in comparisons with these peoples. However, for Kets, neither dualistic organization of society nor cosmological dualism have been researched thoroughly. If such features existed at all, they have either weakened or remained largely undiscovered. There are some reports of a division into two exogamous patrilinear moieties, folklore on conflicts of mythological figures, and cooperation of two beings in the creation of the land, the motif of the earth-diver. This motif is present in several cultures in different variants. In one example, the creator of the world is helped by a waterfowl as the bird dives under the water and fetches earth so that the creator can make land out of it. In some cultures, the creator and the earth-fetching being (sometimes called a devil, or taking the shape of a loon) compete with one another; in other cultures (including the Ket variant), they do not compete at all, but rather collaborate.” ref

“According to Ket legend, the past had seen many floods that cleansed the earth. During each deluge, people and animals survived by clinging to bits of turf floating in the frothy torrent. In the future, another, final flood will resurrect great Ket heroes of the past such as Doh, Alba, and Balna. Underpinning the diverse facets of traditional Ket conceptualizations of central Siberian geography is a multiple analogy involving horizontal north-to-south space, vertical space, horizontal east-to-west space, the river in contrast to the forest, and even the procession of past, present, and future time. Because the Ket oriented themselves along the north-south axis of the Yenisei, the north represented downriver and the south upriver.” ref

“The upriver south was a source of positive energy, goodwill, and economic benefits, as was the sky itself. The downriver north was a realm of cold, ill will, and death that merged with conceptions of the underworld. The east, the point of the rising sun, was likewise a source of life, whereas the west, where the sun disappeared, was associated with extinguishment of life. The river’s edge was a source of summer bounty, while the forest – the setting for the group’s more austere winter hunting treks – was a place of comparative danger and lack. Time itself was conceptualized as an everrepeating cycle of birth and rebirth in which the future – unseen though predictable – existed behind the present, ever repeating the past. Superimposed on these conceptions of space and time was the personal geography of Ket family and ethnic space.” ref

“As is typical of many peoples, the Ket regarded the sky as a sacred realm and considered the mysterious underworld to be an abode of the dead. Both sky and underworld contained seven layers. Between these stood the tangible world inhabited by humans, which the Ket referred to as ilbang, or ordinary earth, as opposed to the extraordinary realms of the heavens and the underworld. The earth itself was believed to float upon a vast sea, with seven seas surrounding its perimeter on all sides. The underworld was a mysterious place, only fuzzily conceptualized. Among the Ket, a kind of medicine man called the bangos professed a special connection with the earth and its nether regions. The mole and the bat, thought to be among the underworld’s few living denizens, were his helpers, as were the myriad ilbangdeng, or earth spirits, whom the bangos alone could perceive and harness.” ref

“Conversely, Ket shamans (senang) possessed a special connection with the sky and with certain birds. The sky itself was the abode of Es, the all-powerful male creator deity, who tended to keep aloof from humans on earth. It was assumed that the sky contained rivers and lakes and mountains mirroring those of the earth. The stars and planets were regarded as the roots of heavenly trees. In Ket graphic design, black was the color associated with the land, whereas red symbolized the sky (Ivanov and Toporov 1997). Domestic dogs or reindeer sacrificed to the earth had dark fur, while those sacrificed to the sky were white. The Ket believed that the polar star was anchored to the earth in the precise vicinity of where they camped and roamed by a sort of cosmic umbilical cord. Humans too were believed to have developed their navels from a similar connection with the earth.” ref

“Legend has it that the first humans created by Es were not subject to death. When one man became old and tired and lost consciousness, Es sent down his son to instruct the Ket to place the body on a platform raised above the ground and leave it undisturbed until it revived. The son mixed everything up and told the people to bury the body in the ground. As punishment, Es turned his son into the first dog, doomed ever after to serve humans and eat the scraps they left behind. As for the people, they began to die and return to the earth. Ket sky burials, on raised wooden platforms, came to be reserved for shamans, while most people were simply buried in the ground. Dead newborns were laid to rest inside a cavity in a tree trunk or stump. Burial grounds were traditionally set inland, away from campsites.” ref

“The Ket had seven souls, unlike animals, who had only one. The seventh human soul was immortal and thought to return in the body of a child born soon after the person’s death. This endless process of reincarnation continued humanity, linking underworld with earth in a temporal-geographic union symbolized by the person’s navel. The navel and umbilical cord were symbolic of the connection between mortal humans or animals and Mother Earth. When a person died, the oldest woman in the family group stripped the leather cords from the deceased’s clothing, reserving them for incorporation into clothing made for the next child born. These strips of reindeer hide symbolized the umbilical connection between the body and its earthly life force, or ulvej, thought to be immortal. Both were renewed and reinvigorated through the earth in the cycle of dying and rebirth. The earth was the source of both life and death for all living beings. The cosmic connection between underworld, earth, and sky was also conceptualized in the form of a giant tree.” ref

“Images of this World Tree appear on the backboard of a woman’s snow sled. Trees in general were regarded as powerful forces. In the Ket language, tree words belong to the masculine noun class, usually reserved for positive, useful, or powerful objects as well as for male humans and animals (Vajda 2004). Trees were anthropomorphized to some degree and even thought to possess their own language. The crown of branches was the ‘head’. The thinner bark on the south-facing side was referred to as the tree’s ‘stomach’, while the opposite, northfacing bark was called the ‘back’. Trees that grew on higher land, such as the Siberian pine (Pinus sibirica, commonly referred to as ‘cedar’), the larch, and the white birch were the most revered. The alder or aspen, as trees that grew in low swampy areas, were thought to be closer to the underworld and associated with negative forces.” ref

“Alderwood was called ‘blood wood’ and an alder branch could be used to disperse evil spirits when entering an abandoned dwelling. The most beloved and most useful tree was the birch. Its wood and bark, which cannot become waterlogged, provided covering for the qu’s, a type of conical summer tent constructed on a frame of poles. A young birch was cut and stood near the tent as an offering tree upon which were placed scraps of cloth and other small sacrifices. After the camp was broken, this tree was carefully laid away from areas where it might be trampled. Birch branches provided a favorite perch for benevolent spirits. Evil spirits preferred to nestle in spruce and fir (Anuchin 1914: 18). Pinewood (i.e., cedar wood) provided all of the shaman’s wooden attributes as well as most images of the allel, or Ket family guardian spirit doll. These dolls were usually about 6 inches long and clothed in scraps of cloth or fur, with beads for decorations. Allels were carved out of living trees so they would be ‘alive’. “Cedar” wood was also used for coffin planks. In certain key rituals, trees were even transformed into spirits and other beings.” ref

Mansi Mythology

“The menk is part of the Siberian oral tradition. These beliefs were retained by the Khanty and Mansi people, even though they became, or were compelled to become Russian Orthodox Christians in the 17th and 18th centuries. In the Khanty epics, the menk are presented as “formidable forest spirits”. The Hero-Prince typically inflicts many “pseudo-deaths” on a menk until he is able to inflict a “total death”. Menk are protected by gods who intervene to prevent their deaths, however the laws of the gods can be bypassed by humans. In the epics, menk occur in sevens, such as seven menk from one mother, or seven menk with one soul. According to the mythology, menk’s eyes cannot look down, so the Hero-Princes often attack them from below while fighting in rivers. In Khanty mythology, local people of Por ancestry are aligned with menk, who they believe to be “just like humans, only spirits of the parallel forest world.” ref

“The Mansi share many similarities with the Khanty people and together they are called Ob-Ugric peoples. Their languages are closely related but also clearly distinct from each other. A notable part of the traditional Mansi religion is the bear cult. A bear celebration is held in connection with the bear hunt (a similar concept to the Finnish peijaiset); it lasts for several days and involves songs, dances and plays. Mansi folklore also includes mythical and heroic stories and fate songs, which are biographical poems. An example of the traditional material culture of Ob-Ugric peoples is ornamenting leather clothing and birchbark objects with mosaics. The majority of Mansi men carry haplogroup N, which is commonly found among Uralic-speaking peoples. 60 percent of them carry its subclade N1b-P43 and 16 percent belong to subclade N1c. The maternal lineages among Mansi are more heterogeneous. The most common mitochondrial DNA haplogroup for Mansi is U, as about one in four has it. Most of them (16.6%) belong to its subgroup U4.” ref

“Other haplogroups include C (18.6%), H (15.1%), J (13.1%) and D (12.6%). According to a 2019 study, in addition to having a high level of East Eurasian-like ancestry, the Mansi have also West Eurasian admixture. Their admixture can be modelled to be about 60 % Bronze Age Baikal Lake-like and 40% Srubnaya-like, or about 54% Nganasan-like and about 38% Srubnaya-like, with additional ANE-related admixture. In a 2018 study, Mansi samples showed variation in the amounts of West and East Eurasian admixtures. Some of them clustered with the Khanty, while outlier samples had additional West Eurasian admixture, making them closer to Uralic-speakers from Volga-Ural region. The Mansi are one of the closest linguistic relatives of modern Hungarians. Genetic data by Maroti et al. 2022, revealed high genetic affinity between Magyar conquerors and modern day Bashkirs, with both could be modeled as ~50% Mansi-like, ~35% Sarmatian-like, and ~15% Hun/Xiongnu-like. The admixture event is suggested to have taken place in the Southern Ural region at 643–431 BCE or around 2,643 to 2,431 years ago.” ref

Samoyedic Mythology

“The Samoyeds and others still have a sun god, a moon cult, and many spirits. For many Central Asians, the world was held up by a giant whose feet were in Hell. Hell was a place populated by spirits who sent evil to the world. Little is known of pre-Buddhist, pre-Muslim Central Asian mythology. But from shamanistic practices remaining among several groups—for example, the Samoyed and Buryat peoples—it seems clear that there were stories of spirits in both Heaven and Hell with whom shamans (see Shamanism) could communicate in order to practice certain cures. One myth—again judging from such peoples as the Samoyeds and Buryats—would seem to have been an earth-diver creation (see Earth-Diver Creation) in which an animal is sent by the creator to find an earthly substance in the depths of the primal waters. Often a devil figure assists the creator in this venture and sometimes tries to usurp his position in the universe. There also seem to have been myths of the separation of sky and earth and the resulting loss of direct communication between humans and gods. The indigenous peoples of Siberia possess complex pantheons and creation stories and, like most Central Asians, are shamanistic.” ref

“The principal Nentsy deity is Num, the creator of the world, of human beings, and of inanimate objects. His role is ambiguous: in general, he distances himself from human beings and abstains from interference in their affairs except when they call on him explicitly for help in the struggle against Nga, the god of evil, death, and hell. In Nenets’ religion, Nga is Num’s son, but this father-son duality is not found among other Samoyed groups, in which the high benevolent gods and their opposites are considered to be independent of one another. Sacrifices are made to Num twice a year, at the beginning of winter and again in the spring. These sacrifices are either bloody, involving the killing of dogs or reindeer; or bloodless, involving the offering of money, clothing, and food. The Samoyeds also recognize an earth mother deity who is sympathetic to humans, especially to women in childbirth. The Nentsy are reported to worship stones and rocks. Properly speaking, this finding means that certain mountains and rocks, as well as some rivers and lakes, were considered to have individual spirits deserving reverence. The Nganasani are said to have believed that some artifacts of human manufacture could understand human language. The Nganasani grouped supernatural beings into a hierarchy of three classes: benevolent master spirits associated with fire, water, forests, hunting, and fishing; evil anthropomorphic spirits; and the shaman’s auxiliary spirits, who were mostly zoomorphic.” ref

“The Samoyedic peoples (sometimes Samodeic peoples) are a group of closely related peoples who speak Samoyedic languages, which are part of the Uralic family. They are a linguistic, ethnic, and cultural grouping. Traditionally, Samoyedic languages and peoples have been divided into two major areal groups: Northern Samoyedic (Nenets, Yurats, Enets, Nganasans), and Southern Samoyedic (Selkups) with a further subgroup of Sayan-Samoyedic (Kamasins, Mators) named after the Sayan Mountains. This classification does not reflect linguistic relations, being purely geographical, based on the fact that the two groups were separated by a belt of the land of Ugric peoples.” ref

“Analyses of autosomal and Y-chromosome data reveal high differentiation of the Siberian groups. The Siberian populations have a large proportion of their genome in ROH and IBD segments. Several populations (ie, Nganasans, Evenks, Yukagirs, and Koryaks) do not appear to have experienced admixture with other Siberian populations (ie, producing only positive f3), while for the other tested populations the composition of mixing sources always included Nganasans or Evenks. The Nganasans from the Taymyr Peninsula demonstrate the greatest level of shared shorter ROH and IBD with nearly all other Siberian populations. Autosomal SNP and Y-chromosome data demonstrate that Samoyedic populations differ significantly in their genetic composition. Genetic relationship is observed only between Forest and Tundra Nentsi. Selkups are affiliated with the Kets from the Yenisey River, while the Nganasans are separated from their linguistic neighbors, showing closer affinities with the Evenks and Yukagirs.” ref

“Genomic study of the Ket: a Paleo-Eskimo-related ethnic group with significant ancient North Eurasian ancestry. Researchers investigated connections between the Kets and Siberian and North American populations, with emphasis on the Mal’ta and Paleo-Eskimo ancient genomes, using original data from 46 unrelated samples of Kets and 42 samples of their neighboring ethnic groups (Uralic-speaking Nganasans, Enets, and Selkups). Establishing that Nganasans, Kets, Selkups, and Yukaghirs form a cluster of populations most closely related to Paleo-Eskimos in Siberia (not considering indigenous populations of Chukotka and Kamchatka). Kets are closely related to modern Selkups and to some Bronze and Iron Age populations of the Altai region, with all these groups sharing a high degree of Mal’ta ancestry.” ref

“Palaeo-Eskimo genetic ancestry and the peopling of Chukotka and North America. Much of the American Arctic was first settled 5,000 years ago, by groups of people known as Palaeo-Eskimos. They were subsequently joined and largely displaced around 1,000 years ago by ancestors of the present-day Inuit and Yup’ik. The genetic relationship between Palaeo-Eskimos and Native American, Inuit, Yup’ik and Aleut populations remains uncertain. Here we present genomic data for 48 ancient individuals from Chukotka, East Siberia, the Aleutian Islands, Alaska, and the Canadian Arctic. We co-analyse these data with data from present-day Alaskan Iñupiat and West Siberian populations and published genomes. Using methods based on rare-allele and haplotype sharing, as well as established techniques, we show that Palaeo-Eskimo-related ancestry is ubiquitous among people who speak Na-Dene and Eskimo-Aleut languages. We develop a comprehensive model for the Holocene peopling events of Chukotka and North America, and show that Na-Dene-speaking peoples, people of the Aleutian Islands, and Yup’ik and Inuit across the Arctic region all share ancestry from a single Palaeo-Eskimo-related Siberian source.” ref

“The Paleo-Eskimo (also pre-Thule or pre-Inuit) were the peoples who inhabited the Arctic region from Chukotka (e.g., Chertov Ovrag) in present-day Russia across North America to Greenland prior to the arrival of the modern Inuit (Eskimo) and related cultures. The first known Paleo-Eskimo cultures developed by 2500 BCE or around 4,500 years ago, but were gradually displaced in most of the region, with the last one, the Dorset culture, disappearing around 1500 CE. According to Pavel Flegontov: “Paleo-Eskimo archeological cultures are grouped under the Arctic Small Tool tradition (ASTt), and include the Denbigh, Choris, Norton, and Ipiutak cultures in Alaska, and the Saqqaq, Independence, Pre-Dorset, and Dorset cultures in the Canadian Arctic and Greenland. The ASTt source has been argued to lie in the Syalakh-Bel’kachi-Ymyakhtakh culture sequence of East Siberia, dated to 6,500 – 2,800 years ago.” ref

“The relatively rapid spread of Paleo-Eskimos from Alaska as far as Greenland and Labrador may have been helped by their use of the bow and arrows. They are credited with introducing this technology to populations in Eastern Canada by 2000 BCE around 4,000 years ago. Using fragments of hair 4,000 years old and additional collaborating scientific institutions sequenced nearly 80% of a Paleo-Eskimo man’s genome. The man was found in Greenland and is believed to be from the prehistoric Saqqaq culture. Based on the genome, the scientists believe there was a distinct, separate migration of peoples from Siberia to North America some 5,500 years ago. They noted that this was independent of earlier migrations, whose descendants comprised the historic cultures of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, as well as of the later migration by the Inuit. By 4,500 years ago, descendants of this migration had reached Greenland. The remains used for analysis were found in a Saqqaq culture area.” ref

“A 2017 study identifies Paleo-Eskimo ancestry in Athabaskan and in other Na-Dene-speaking populations. The authors note that the Paleo-Eskimo peoples lived alongside Na-Dene ancestors for millennia. The authors believe that this represents new evidence of a genetic connection between Siberian and Na-Dene populations mediated by Paleo-Eskimos. According to these scholars, in general, the Paleo-Eskimos had large proportions of Beringian (which includes Chukotko-Kamchatkan and Eskimo-Aleut), Siberian, and Southeast Asian ancestry. Furthermore, some geneticists and archaeologists, such as David Reich, have hypothesized that the Paleo-Eskimos spread the Na-Dene languages into the American continent, which would in fact make the Paleo-Eskimos cultural and linguistic relatives (if not ancestors) of Na-Dene peoples. In 2019, scholars concluded that the Palaeo-Eskimo people were the ancestors not only of modern Na-Dene-speaking peoples, but also of the Eskimo-Aleut speakers. But this contribution did not come directly; rather, there was a ‘Neo-Eskimo’ intermediary.” ref

“According to Flegontov et al., the later Old Bering Sea archaeological culture came as a result of back-and-forth migrations across the Bering Strait by the tribes associated with the Arctic Small Tool tradition, or their descendants (Old Whaling, Choris, Norton culture, from 3,100 to 2,500 years ago). These peoples were mixing with the Chukotko-Kamchatkan speakers of Siberia. Eventually, the Old Bering Sea archaeological culture became the ancestor of the Yupik and Inuit, the speakers of Eskimo–Aleut languages. A genetic study published in Science in August 2014 examined the remains of a large number of Paleo-Eskimos and Thule people. Paleo-Eskimos were determined to have largely belonged to the maternal haplogroup D, while Thule people largely belonged to the maternal haplogroups A. The evidence suggested that the ancestors of the Paleo-Eskimos migrated from Siberia to North America in a distinct migration c. 4000 BCE or around 6,000 years ago, after which they remained genetically largely isolated. By 1300 CE, the Paleo-Eskimos had been completely replaced by the Thule people (the ancestors of the Inuit), who were descended from people of the Birnirk culture of Siberia.” ref

“Inuit religion is the shared spiritual beliefs and practices of the Inuit, an indigenous people from Alaska, northern Canada, parts of Siberia and Greenland. Their religion shares many similarities with some Alaska Native religions. Traditional Inuit religious practices include animism and shamanism, in which spiritual healers mediate with spirits. Traditional stories, rituals, and taboos of the Inuit are often precautions against dangers posed by their harsh Arctic environment. Among Canadian Inuit, a spiritual healer is known as an angakkuq in Inuktitut or angatkuq in Inuvialuktun. The duties of an angakkuq include helping the community when marine animals, kept by Takanaluk-arnaluk or Sea Woman in a pit in her house, become scarce, according to Aua, an informant and friend of the anthropologist Knud Rasmussen. Aua described the ability of an apprentice angakkuq to see himself as a skeleton, naming each part using the specific shaman language.” ref

“The homelands of the Netsilik Inuit (Netsilingmiut meaning “People of the Seal”) have extremely long winters and stormy springs. Starvation was a common danger. While other Inuit cultures feature protective guardian powers, the Netsilik have traditional beliefs that life’s hardships stemmed from the extensive use of such measures. Unlike the Iglulik Inuit, the Netsilik used a large number of amulets. Even dogs could have amulets. In one recorded instance, a young boy had 80 amulets, so many that he could hardly play. One particular man had 17 names taken from his ancestors and intended to protect him. Tattooing among Netsilik women provided power and could affect which world they went to after their deaths. Nuliajuk, the Sea Woman, was described as “the lubricous one”. If the people breached certain taboos, she held marine animals in the basin of her qulliq an oil lamp that burns seal fat. When this happened the angakkuq had to visit her to beg for game. In Netsilik oral history, she was originally an orphan girl mistreated by her community. Moon Man, another cosmic being, is benevolent towards humans and their souls as they arrived in celestial places. This belief differs from that of the Greenlandic Inuit, in which the Moon’s wrath could be invoked by breaking taboos.” ref

“The Inuit believed that all things have a form of spirit or soul (in Inuktitut: anirniq meaning “breath”; plural anirniit), just like humans. These spirits are held to persist after death—a common belief present in most human societies. However, the belief in the pervasiveness of spirits—the root of Inuit worldview—has consequences. According to a customary Inuit saying, “The great peril of our existence lies in the fact that our diet consists entirely of souls.” Since all beings possess souls like those of humans, killing an animal is little different from killing a person. Once the anirniq of the dead animal or human is liberated, it is free to take revenge. The spirit of the dead can only be placated by obedience to custom, avoiding taboos, and performing the right rituals. The anirniit are seen to be a part of the sila — the sky or air around them — and are merely borrowed from it. Although each person’s anirniq is individual, shaped by the life and body it inhabits, at the same time it is part of a larger whole. This enabled Inuit to borrow the powers or characteristics of an anirniq by taking its name. Furthermore, the spirits of a single class of thing — be it sea mammals, polar bears, or plants — are in some sense held to be the same and can be invoked through a keeper or master who is connected with that class of thing. In some cases, it is the anirniq of a human or animal who becomes a figure of respect or influence over animals things through some action, recounted in a traditional tale.” ref

“Some spirits have never been connected to physical bodies. These are called tuurngait (also tornait, tornat, tornrait, singular tuurngaq, torngak, tornrak, tarngek) and “are often described as a shaman’s helping spirits, whose nature depends on the respective angakkuq”. Helpful spirits can be called upon in times of need and “[…] are there to help people,” explains Inuit elder Victor Tungilik. Some tuurngait are evil, monstrous, and responsible for bad hunts and broken tools. They can possess humans, as recounted in the story of Atanarjuat. An angakkuq with good intentions can use them to heal sickness and find animals to hunt and feed the community. They can fight or exorcise bad tuurngait, or they can be held at bay by rituals; However, an angakkuq with harmful intentions can also use tuurngait for their own personal gain, or to attack other people and their tuurngait. Though once Tuurngaq simply meant “killing spirit”, it has, with Christianisation, taken on the meaning of a demon in the Christian belief system. Shamans (anatquq or angakkuq in the Inuit languages of northern parts of Alaska and Canada) played an important role in the religion of Inuit acting as religious leaders, tradesmen, healers, and characters in cultural stories holding mysterious, powerful, and sometimes superhuman abilities.” ref

“There is no strict definition of shaman and there is no strict role they have in society. Despite this, their ability to heal is nearly universal in their description. It has been described as “breathing or blowing away” the sickness but there is not set method any one shaman or groups of shamans perform their deeds. Even though their methods are varied, a few key elements remain in virtually all accounts and stories. Below is an incomplete list of Inuit deities believed to hold power over some specific part of the Inuit world:

• Agloolik: evil god of the sea who can flip boats over; spirit which lives under the ice and helps wanderers in hunting and fishing
• Akna: mother goddess of fertility
• Amaguq/Amarok: wolf god who takes those foolish enough to hunt alone at night
• Anguta: gatherer of the dead; he carries them into the underworld, where they must sleep for a year.
• Ignirtoq: a goddess of light and truth.
• Nanook: (Nanuq or Nanuk in the modern spelling) the master of polar bears
• Pinga: the goddess of strength, the hunt, fertility and medicine
• Qailertetang: weather spirit, guardian of animals, and matron of fishers and hunters. Qailertetang is the companion of Sedna.
• Sedna: the mistress of sea animals and mother of the sea. Sedna (Sanna in modern Inuktitut spelling) is known under many names, including Nerrivik, Arnapkapfaaluk, Arnakuagsak, and Nuliajuk.
• Silap Inua or Sila: a personification of the air
• Tekkeitsertok: the master of caribou.
• Tarqiup Inua: lunar deity
• Pukkeenegak: Goddess of domestic life, including sewing and cooking.” ref

Inuit Creatures and spirits

• “Ahkiyyini: a skeleton spirit
• Aningaat: a boy who became the moon; brother to Siqiniq, the sun; sometimes equated to the lunar deity Tarqiup Inua
• Aumanil: a spirit which dwelled on the land and guided the seasonal movement of whales
• Qallupilluit: monstrous human-like creatures with that live in the sea and carry off disobedient children.
• Saumen Kar: also called Tornit or Tuniit are the Inuit version of the Sasquatch or Yeti myth. They may be the people of the Dorset culture who were said to be giants.
• Siqiniq: a girl who became the sun; sister to Aningaat, the moon
• Tizheruk: snake-like monsters.” ref

Yukaghir Mythology

“The Yukaghirs, or Yukagirs, are a Siberian ethnic group in the Russian Far East, living in the basin of the Kolyma River. Genetically, Yukaghirs exhibit roughly equal frequencies of the Y-DNA haplogroups N1c, Q1, and C2 (Haplogroup C-M217, also known as C2 and previously as C3) The Y-haplogroup C2 for the most part, is the same subclade that’s also found in Koryaks. The Yukaghir are one of the oldest peoples in North-Eastern Asia. Originally they lived over a huge territory from Lake Baikal to the Arctic Ocean. The head of every clan was an elder called a Ligey Shomorokh. His was the final word in all aspects of life. Hunting leaders were Khangitche, and war leaders were Tonbaia Shomorokh (“the mighty man”). Women and teenagers had equal voices with men. The internal life of the community was under the control of the older women. Their decisions in those matters were indisputable. Horses are known among the Yukaghir as “domestic reindeer of Yakuts.” ref

“They are unclassified languages: their origin and relation to other languages are unknown; some scholars consider them distantly related to the Uralic languages, but this classification is not accepted by the majority of specialists in Uralic linguistics. Alongside Russian Orthodox beliefs, Yukaghirs still practice shamanism. The dominant cults are ancestral spirits, the spirits of Fire, Sun (Pugu), Hunting, Earth, and Water, which can act as protectors or as enemies of people. The most important is the cult of Pugu, the Sun, who is the highest judge in all disputes. The spirits of the dead go to a place called Aibidzi. Every clan had a shaman called an alma. After death every alma was treated as a deity, and the body of the dead alma was dismembered and kept by the clan as relics.” ref

“Yukaghir legends say that earlier the Yukaghirs had very strong shamans. In some of the stories there are traces of the past cult of ancestor shamans: they tell about the origin of the sacred shamanic trees associated with the name of a particular shaman. In the folklore of the Upper Kolyma Yukaghirs, stories and legends about shamans are widespread. Yukaghir legends say that earlier the Yukaghirs had very strong shamans. In some of the stories there are traces of the past cult of ancestor shamans: they tell about the origin of the sacred shamanic trees associated with the name of a particular shaman. Recorded by V.I. Yokhelson, such stories still live in folklore.” ref

“So, according to one legend, a young hunter shot a damn girl sitting in a tree, and she, out of fright, threw his soul into the Lower World. To return the young man’s shadow to the ground, the shaman ordered to make a wooden girl and plant her on a tree. In memory of those events, the tree is called “Old”, as the shaman was called, and offerings are made to him. In folklore, there are stories that tell about the deeds of shamans as intermediaries between people and the Master of the Earth. The participation of a shaman is especially necessary when it comes to fishing for a large taiga animal – the elk.” ref

“The Yukaghir shamans were also engaged in the treatment of people – the records of V.I. Yokhelson shamanic rituals of healing. There is a legend about how the Old shaman saved his relatives from the Great Disease by sacrificing dogs and putting them at the entrance to the house into which the Disease entered. This narration reflected the peculiarities of Yukaghir shamanism and life realities. The dog was usually sacrificed in shamanic rites. Under the Big Disease, in the guise of a terrible old woman, the memory of a terrible disease – smallpox, which decimated entire Yukaghir tribes – remained in folklore. There are interesting stories about the rivalry of shamans among themselves. In them, good and evil, insidious shamans appear in all the variety of their zoomorphic spirits-assistants, their extraordinary abilities and capabilities amaze the imagination.” ref

“During the last few decades, animism has escaped the attention of scholars of comparative religion. Animism, however, still represents a very important concept both in the worldview and the shamanism of Northern Siberian peoples.” ref 

Animistic Mythology in Shamanism

“Among peoples with the hunting and fishing lifestyle, the daily interactions with their natural environment formed a unique world-view, the starting point here is that not only human beings, but all the animate and inanimate things of the world also have souls. The belief-system of Siberian peoples thus categorizes the knowledge of the world in a short of “nature-animism” (Paulson 1964). In this form of thinking the environment is of primary importance, in other words: the ecologically-minded mythological world-view provides shamanism with a unique background, or more exactly, it helps us understand the concept of shamanic spirit helpers deriving from this attitude. I am therefore going to quote a few less-known examples from Siberian folklore. One such idea is that of spirit owners.” ref

“A. Alekseev, a prominent specialist of the folk beliefs of Siberian Turkic peoples published his comprehensive monograph in 1980, describing the early forms of religion of these nations, and one chapter of this work, “The Deification of Nature and Elemental Forces” deals with animism. In this chapter he writes about the spirit owners of fire, water, mountains and forests, stating that “…in the consciousness of those who believed in them, the majority of spirit owners totally merged with the things they owned”. Names (aazi, or in Yakut, icci) and the respective natural phenomena were completely identical.” ref

“According to the beliefs of Southern Altaic peoples, every mountain, every lake or river has its own spirit owner, which owns the place, and is in command of the animals and birds living there. It could protect people who lived there or crossed the area. Spirit owners were believed to be able to understand human speech, and the myths associated with them say that, like people, they also had children, and one could obtain their goodwill with prayers, supplications and sacrifices” (Alekseev 1980: 63). Gogolev mentions them in his work on Yakut mythology thus: “According to Yakut beliefs, the icci is a unique category of being, present in certain specific objects and natural phenomena as a mysterious inner force. Among the icci there is a higher category equal to the gods. These beings do not belong to the categories of either ayi or abasi. If certain rules are observed, they can be helpful to human beings in various life situations, people can regard them as protectors… For all the icci bloodless sacrifices were made. Among the icci a special place was accorded to the spirit of Mother Earth, Aan Doydu iccite.” (Gogolev 1994: 42).” ref

“The spirit of Mother Earth was regarded as Important and worthy of a special respect by peoples throughout Siberia (as well as by North American Indians). Prayer and invocation are special forms of speech acts which do not exist and lose their meaning outside the ritual context. They are validated not only by the text, which, aside from certain phrases, is mostly improvised, but also by being spoken, by the act itself.” ref

“The Shors believe in the existence of mountain spirits (tag-azi) and water spirits (shug-azi). Every clan had its own clan mountain and its mountain spirit, who protected the members of the clan. Every three years sacrificial ceremonies were held on that mountain. To express their respect, every Shor threw a libation the spirit owner of the mountain or river, when he or she was near the mountain or river… The spirit owner of the waters was imagined as a long-armed naked woman by the Kumandines… The Tuvans used to believe in the spirit owners of the waters. They made an ovaa of stones and dry branches for her, too, on the riverbanks, and near the fords. This looked like a hut, and they placed the sacrificial objects in it: stones, rags, horsehair etc. Before crossing the river they usually performed a sacrifice.” (Alekseev 1980: 72-73).” ref

“Among the Tuvans the cult of springs (arzhan), especially that of medicinal springs was intertwined with the cult of the trees growing around the springs. This was especially true of the trees whose growth or shape differed from the usual – for instance, they had a double trunk, or their fronds consisted of branches grown irregularly. Trees of this kind were called “shaman trees.” I took a picture of one such tree in Yakutia in 1990 (Hoppál 1995: 227) – if such a tree stood near a spring, under the tree shamans made their ceremonies.” ref

“Passers-by usually stopped – and even today, they stop their cars – at these special trees, and place some money, tie a little piece of their clothes or handkerchiefs on it branches, put a comb or some other personal belongings. They attribute special powers to these trees, and they maintain that the trees bring good fortune in travelling, and that they protect people from accidents. This belief is a sign of unconditional trust in the power of nature, of a conviction which supposes the powers of nature to be so strong as to control human destiny as well.” ref

“When the Yakut hunter is getting ready to hunt, he turns to the forest spirit: above all he tries to win its favor, therefore he pours some oil on the fire. Then he gets down on his knees, puts his hand over his heart, bows towards the fire and says an alghis (a prayer asking for blessings). Having started out he is not allowed to look back.” ref

“Before the start they sometimes hung a sacrifice (salama): they stretched a rope between two trees at arm’s height, the length of which was “seven little fathoms,” on this they hung a hare’s pelt, and horsehair taken from the mane of a white horse, and they tied woodpecker feathers on it. This sacrifice was intended for Bayanay. They asked for a rich quarry in their prayers performed for the spirit of dark forest. In the old times a white shaman did the ceremony: the shaman of the ayii dieted. He poured butter mixed with q’umis or sorat on the sacrifice from a hamiyah (large wooden ladle). On the occasion of the alghis the priest, shouting ‘Uruy!’, also sprinkled some q’umis on the hunter.” (Gogolev 1994: 23).” ref

“The Turkic peoples, however, were not the only ones who knew about and respected the spirit owner of forests, so did the hunter tribes living further north. The Finnish researcher Toivo Lehtisalo visited the Yurak Samoyeds already in 1912, gathering valuable folklore data. Among the forest Yuraks, who belong to the Uralic group of peoples, the existence of an animistic world-view was still obvious in those times. The forest spirit, the parnee, for example, is such a category: an invisible, malicious being, who can even kill people. It was believed to be a female being, who lives underground in a decayed tree-trunk, and, according to some accounts, has a human exterior, and possesses wings (Lehtisalo 1924: 41).” ref

“Uno Harva prepared a comprehensive study of Finno-Ugrian mythology in the first decades of this century, dedicating several chapters of his work to animistic ideas. In some chapters he described forest and water spirits, the spirits of the weather (sky and wind), mother of fire, and the spirit places of plants and of the Earth (Harva 1927: chapters XI-XV.). Among the Selkups, who live among the river Ob, one can still find animistic beliefs, thus S. M. Malinovskaya (1990) recounts that in order to ensure the success of fishing, one should give a gift or a sacrifice to the spirit owner of the water (utkim-loz).” ref

“Among the Nenets, who live in Northern Siberia, animistic beliefs are still alive today. This was the subject of M. Ya. Barmich’s lecture at a 1990 Helsinki conference, the main theme of which was Circumpolar and Northern Religions. “The Nenets people have always been conscious of the existence of spirits (in Nenets tadebtso) living side by side with them. The Nenets are confident that good spirits protect them from evil spirits, and provide them with a fortunate life. Custom and taboo are the two aspects of their spiritual life – positive and negative. Thus the custom of feeding the fire reveals the traits of a good attitude towards the fire spirit. This custom has survived up to the present time. When sitting down to dinner, a senior person, if not all the persons are present at the dinner, is sure to throw a piece of foodstuff, pour some soup, tea or alcohol to the fire.” ref

“The taboos connected with the cult of fire are aimed not to hurt or pollute fire which gives pure warmth and to life property, so that the people are forbidden to pour water on fire hastily, throw any unclean sweepings to the fire, or to spit into the fire. It used to be forbidden to stir up fire with sharp metal objects, otherwise the hostess of fire might be wounded. Women and girls are forbidden to step over the fire, since they are considered unclean and may pollute the fire.” (Barmich 1990: 1-2). The Samoyeds also believed that fire was a living being, notably an old woman. The licking flames of the fire are her movements, and She is the guardian of the tent, who immediately gets angry if someone throws trash or trodden wood shavings, or spits into the fire, or hits it. When children lost their teeth, they told them to throw the teeth into the fire, so that ‘Old Grandmother Fire’ could give them new ones instead. They where awed by fire, and respected its power so much that their swore by it, saying “May I be devoured by Old Grandmother Fire if I am guilty!” (Lehtisalo 1924: 103).” ref

“Among the Turkic peoples of Siberia the Tuvans held the compulsory family holiday “fire-feast,” which meant that under the direction of the most powerful shaman they sacrificed a lamb or a calf to the fire. They were feeding the fire with oil and butter, so that then following year the spirit would provide the family members with the health and happiness (Kenin-Lopsan 1993: 31). The Yakuts categorised the spirit owner of fire (Uat iccite) among the most revered spirits, elevated to the rank of a deity.” ref

“For the Yakuts of the old beliefs this god was a grey-haired, loquacious, old man in perpetual motion. What he chatters and twaddle’s is intelligible only to the few: shamans understand him, also the tiny babies whose ears are still not used to the comprehension of human speech. The fire, burning in the family heart, however, understands brilliantly what is being said and done around him. Hence the warning that it would be dangerous to insult the fire. It was thought of as a living being, wherefore it was not advisable to poke at fire with iron. Housewives always attempted to keep the fire satisfied, and they gave him a piece of everything they cooked or baked. Similarly he got some from the results of a lucky hunting expedition.” (Gogolev 1994: 19).” ref

“The Tungus of the Far East also personified fire and gave its spirit food and drinks (Tugokulov 1978: 425). The majority of Uyghurs live today in China. Zhong Jinwen, are researcher of Yellow Uyghur (Yoghur) shamanism, studied the cult of the Sun, the Moon and the heavenly bodies in Uyghur folk tales. As a starting point he stated that Yoghur shamanism is permeated with the idea that everything in nature possesses a soul. One interesting example he brought was the sun. Quoted as follows: “Sun and fire are originally the one and the same god in the same god in the thinking of primeval man, they become divided into two deities in a later stage of social development only. The sun-god fosters and supports all beings, the fire-god, however, exists for the benefit of man only.” (Zhong 1995: ).” ref

The Spirit Helpers of the Shaman

“As we have seen, the animistic mythology of Siberian shamans, which is full of spirit beings, provides an ideological context to serve as a basis for the formation of the idea of spirit helpers. This whole paper aims to prove that point. Two things follow from animism as a world view: one is the ideology of totemism, the other is the idea of helping spirits. I am not discussing totemism in the present paper, because I have already given analysis of the interface of shamanism and totemism in an earlier one (Hoppal 1975).” ref

“Eliade has already pointed out the central role of spirit helpers, which can even become the shaman’s alter ego. Notably, that is how the shaman’s need for identification with the spirit helpers can be understood. In this case the shaman ventures to the soul-flight in the shape of the animal. All comprehensive studies mention these animal-like helpers (see Perrin 1995: 38-39; Vitebsky 1995: 66).” ref

“…spirit guides are perceived as crucial to the shaman’s resolve and power – literal embodiments of his psychic and magical strength. There are two basic types of spirit guide. Firstly there are spirits which are substantially under the shaman’s control and which serve as his familiars. But there are also other spirits – though of more as guardians or helpers – who are available when he needs to call on their aid. These may be minor deities, or the spirits of deceased shamans: entities who maintain a certain independence in their particular realm, and who are not automatically subject to the control of the shaman. Siberian shamans generally have animal helpers like bears, wolves and hares, or birds like geese, eagles and owls. Yakuts, for example, view bulls, eagles and bears as their strongest allies, preferring them to wolves or dogs – the spirits of lesser shamans.” (Drury 1994: 27-28).” ref 

“The idea of spirit helpers of an animal shape can be supposed to derive from its ancient character, from the age when for human beings animals represented both idols and inscrutable force, which they could only scarcely control, and then only with the help of magic. The era goes back to the Palaeolithic, when animals were generally looked upon as superior and sacred, which is why they were portrayed with preference in ancient petroglyphs, rock art, and cave paintings. Human figures – representing the first shaman or magical – appeared only later (see Hoppal 1995: 37; Vitebsky 1955: 28-29). It is therefore perfectly natural that shamans wanted to identify themselves with powerful, strong, and intelligent animals.” ref

“Shamans, however, possessed not only animal helpers, since it follows from animism that all phenomena of nature can serve as spirit helpers. Even today, one of the most crucial problems of anthropology is how far a researcher is able to penetrate the culture being under examination, how much he/she is able to comprehend the worldview and the language of a given culture. Language skills of native level are of utmost importance in the examination of mythology and, within that, soul beliefs. Luckily, is Siberia today we can find many native ethnographers and folklorists working, who publish authentic data and descriptions. Such is M. Kenin-Lopsan, an expert of Tuvan shamanism, who is Tuvan origin.” ref

“Kenin-Lopsan differentiated among five categories of shamans, starting from the Tuvan belief that only persons inheriting shamanhood can be become true shamans. Kenin-Lopsan categorised Tuvan shamans in the following five groups, according to the origins of their powers: Shamans who directly descend from previous shamans, or shaman ancestors. It is noteworthy that these shamans called upon their ancestors or mentioned their abodes in their abodes in their invocation before their rituals.” ref

“Shamans who originate themselves from earth and water spirits (in Tuvan: cher sug öazinden hamnaan hamnar). The members of this group have obtained their shamanic powers from the host spirits of water and earth. The existence of these is without doubt connected to the animistic beliefs of the local Turkic peoples, since one of the characters of animistic mythology was Yer-Shub, the God of Water and Earth.” ref

“The members of the third group descend from the sky, their name was tengri boo (sky shaman). They had a relationship with rainbow: it related powers to them, or it gave a sign for them to perform their shamanic rituals. Shamans in this category chanted in their songs about various natural phenomena – storms, thunder and lightning; what is more, a man struck by lightning was to become a really powerful shaman. We can suppose that through their animistic spirit helpers this group of Tuvian shamans was responsible for the weather.” ref

“Shamans originating from the evil spirit called albis (albistan hamnaan hamnar). This evil spirit, which can manifest either as a man or a woman, steals the soul of the shaman-to-be, who falls ill with a really serious sickness (for example, epilepsy or temporary insanity). If he/she gets cured, such a shaman will be called a “sexless shaman” (uk chok hamnar). This category contained some very powerful shamans. The last group also acquired abilities from evil spirits, from a devil-like spirit called aza. This kind of shaman always invites his/her spirit helpers to the session to fight sickness (spirits of sickness). It would seem that fighting diseases was the chief function of this group of shamans. (Kenin-Lopsan 1993: 1-5).” ref

“The activities of the “free-spirit” of the shaman are made in accordance with the various animal shapers of the spirit helpers. This means that during the trance, the soul flight, as fish they would swim to the underground waters, to the domain of the dead, as birds they would soar to the sky gods of the Upper World, while in the form of reindeer stags or bulls they would fight other shamans’spirit helpers or evil spirits on the ground. The helpers of Tungus – Nanai and Udekhe – shamans, as I have confirmed drink my own field work – are members of the family, and influential shamans strive to collect all the spirits that belonged to other family members, relatives and earlier shamans to serve and strengthen themselves. Among the shamans of the Oroch people there were some who had as many as fifty such spirit helpers (Qui Pu 1989).” ref 

“Buryat shamans formed a very intimate relationship with their spirits helpers, as we learn from R. Hamayon’s interpretation – they could even enter into sexual relationships. The whole shamanic session, with its increasing speed of drumming, consist of symbolic motions altogether comparable to sex (Hamayton 1995: 454-491). Helping spirits and the symbolic meanings attached to them lead us to a hitherto quite neglected field, towards something we could call the semiotics of shamanism.” ref

“Here we should begin with the well-known fact that in a culture everything can be understood as a sign, according to the theories of ethnosemiotics (Hoppal 1996: ). We live in the world of signs and symbols, and this has always been the case with religious phenomena, and Siberian shamanism is no exception to this. We may declare that all the paraphernalia and ceremonies of shamanic rituals have been symbolic. Let us quote first Wilhelm Radloff, the linguist and traveller of the last century, who visited the lands of the Altaic Turks, and published his travel notes under the title Aus Siberien, in which a particularly rich description of shamanic ritual appears, beginning with the human-shaped spirit owner of the drum: “Inside the drum, on the longitudinal axle of the frame there is a grip shaped like a stick, usually representing a man standing with outstretched hands, who is called the master owner of the drum (tüngür asi). A round head is carved onto the inner end of the handle, with button-shaped eyes on the head, with an iron stick symbolising the hands. On this and the handle red or blue ribbons were attached, which symbolised the ancestors of the shaman, recalling their memory.” ref

“The enlivening of the drum was followed by the first element of the ritual – Radloff’s authentic description tells the story of a horse sacrifice – the invocation of the spirit helpers. Almost all the deities and spirit beings of the shamanistic pantheon are invited, “because without their help the shaman would be unable to make the journey, which is done during the ritual in the Upper World of the sky” (Radloff 1884: 31).” ref

“The shaman’s costume was in its totality as well as in its details a carrier of symbols throughout Siberia (Hoppal 1995: 108-121). Uno Holmberg-Harva (1922) perfectly summed up the main types, when he stated that types of ‘bird’, ‘reindeer’ and ‘bear’-costumes could be differentiated. In his opinion all kinds of shamanic costumes in all their constituent parts represented whatever real or imagined animal was regarded as the helper of the shaman, which, trough its powers and abilities gave supernatural powers to the shaman who wore the costume. All these ideas gain their explanation from the animistic roots of shamanism (Alekseev 1984: 275).” ref

“In the case of Tuvan shamanism, a really powerful shaman never worked without his/her drum and costume, only weaker shamans relied solely on metal mirrors (küzüngü), or Jew’s harp (khomuz) (Kenin-Lopsan 1993). While in these case of Tuvans the presence or absence of an object could signify the symbolic power of the shaman, among the Yakuts it defines two opposing categories of shamans. Less well known is A. M. Zolotarev’s monograph (1964) on the dualistic social structure and the similarly dualistic mythological structures of Siberian peoples. He quotes data from Yakut shamanism, where the main accessory of black shamans was the gown, while the symbol of white shamans was the drum. White shamans did their rituals in the daytime, while black ones chose dark nights without the moon for theirs. White shamans served the sky spirits, the black shamans chose dark-coloured animals.” ref

“It is obvious, that this series of mutually opposing symbols, which also explain each other, from a coherent world-view. This world-view means a way of thinking, or to use an appropriate expression coined by Juha Pentikainen, “a grammar of mind” (Pentikäinen 1995: 266). In language we put words into an order with the help of grammar, we build a world from words to create meanings. In other words, we are conscious of the meaning of things from their mutual relationship. Understanding comes from revealing the inherent interdependence of things.” ref

“Beliefs in spirits in animism and in shamanic symbolism mutually suppose each other. I am going to add a few more examples to the ones we have seen before in order to shed some light on the real message of this ancient way of thinking, because it has a meaning for us as well. Namely, if everything in nature has a spirit (or soul), then we ought to behave in a way so that we avoid hurting, insulting, or polluting them. A characteristic attitude of protecting and not harming Nature is revealed in the belief system and taboos of the Todja living in Tuva, described by N. A. Alekseev in his monograph on the religions of the Siberian Turkic nations: “According to the belief of the Todja Tuvans even big rivers and lakes have their spirit owners, which appear to people in the form of women only. They performed sacrifices to these before fishing: they tied a calama on the tree near the river or lake, or sprinkled some tea or milk on the bank. According to their beliefs, every arzhan (medicinal spring) has its own spirit owner. The people who went there prayed to the spirit of the medicinal waters, making supplications that they would be cured at least for a year or two. Around the arzhan hunting was forbidden, because all the animals and birds there were regarded as the property of the spirit owner. It was also an obligatory rule to avoid polluting the water.” (Alekseev 1980: 78-79).” ref

“The message is clear: it is our moral duty to maintain the balance of the natural order. Let us take another example: the nature philosophy of a tungus tribe from the Far East was thus characterised by a Russian scholar: “A clear expression of the animistic attitude to nature was the hunting rite whose vestiges still make themselves felt in practically all areas populated by Evenki and Evens. The hunting cult of the Tungus was based on the following premise: to kill animals, birds, fish, and to destroy trees in order to obtain food, clothing, fire, etc. is not contrary to nature and does not hurt it. What is contrary to nature and hunting is useless, senseless waste of natural resources…” (Tugolukov 1987: 420).” ref

“Since everything has a soul (spirit), it should not be endured – that is, it would be senseless to do so, because it would result in retribution. Exactly this rule was observed in former times by another Tungus people, the Nanai, who live along the river Amur. “In traditional Nanai society the unit of man and nature was regulated by the law of reflection or ‘boomerang’ (in Nanai amdori)… Centuries old observations led the Nanais to the conclusion that it is impossible to torture someone without being punished afterwards… This self-regulating system of interdependence between man and nature was kept through centuries, and maintained. At present this interdependence takes different shapes and people have almost stopped being conscious of it… Old people tell that some destruction in the spirit world upset the balance of Nature.” (Bulgakova 1992: 25-27).” ref

“The message of these sentences – which is ethnographic data at the same time – is quite clear: it is a program for a new, ecologically conscious animism (eco-animism) – for the protection of the environment. Unfortunately I have seen with my own eyes, while doing field work among the Nanai, how much injury the landscape sustained, how polluted the dignified river was, thought still rich in fish, and how defenceless people could be, when they are left to fend for themselves, deprived of their traditions. It is apparent, then, that an ethnohermeneutical (Hoppal 1992) understanding of shamanism can lead to the revelation that the belief systems of Siberian peoples, their mythological world-view and their practice of shamanism, like a giant reservoir or refrigerator, have not only conserved the ideas of animism (Gemuyev et alii 1989: 136-137), but also a message valid up to this day, a message has been serving the protection of the environment from the most ancient times until today. The message is: balance has to be maintained in all respects – and this is typically a shaman’s task. This is why we agree with Nevill Drury’s statement: “Shamanism is really an applied animism.” (Drury 1898: 5).” ref

Folklore Parallels Between Siberia And South Asia And The Mythology Of The Eurasian Steppes

“According to the myth about the origin of man recorded among the people of Eastern Europe and Siberia, the creator set a dog to guard the half-made human figures, but the antagonist bribed the guard and spoiled the creation, making humans vulnerable to disease. The creator told the dog to become the servant of man. Texts recorded in India (mostly among the Munda-speaking groups), the Dards of the Hindu Kush and the Abkhasians, though partly similar to the Northern Eurasian ones, do not share some important details: the antagonist is a horse, it tried to destroy man but a dog drove it away. In the Mongolian (more precisely, the Oirat) version, a cow acts instead of a horse, but in other respects this variant is similar to the Abkhasian ones. Negative associations related to the horse are rather widespread in Europe and Central Asia. Stories about the creation of man recorded in northern and southern Eurasia stemmed from the anthropogenic myth that was known to the Indo-Europeans of the Bronze Age. South Asia and the European–Siberian zone also share other tales, in particular the Earth-diver myth. Their analysis opens possibilities for reconstructing the early mythology of the inhabitants of the Eurasian steppe.” ref 

Siberian Folklore and the Na-Dené Origins

“Six folklore motifs shared by the native Na-Dené speakers in North America and in Southern Siberia are revealed. In such combination, these motifs are known nowhere else. The spread of the Na-Dené languages to North America was related to the migration of the bearers of the Dyuktai culture. The lack of parallels for the Na-Dené folklore in Yakutia, Kolyma, Chukotka, and Kamchatka is understandable: the Dyuktai people had gone to Alaska and their heritage was erased by the waves of newcomers. The folklore motifs that are shared both by Na-Dené and Siberian peoples go back to the traditions of the southern neighbors of the Dyuktai people. The population density across the area between Altai and Trans-Baikal region was higher than in northward territories; therefore, the remains of the “Paleolithic” folklore could survive, notwithstanding the multiple language changes.” ref 

Slavic religion

“A myth known to all Slavs tells how God ordered a handful of sand to be brought up from the bottom of the sea and created the land from it. Usually, it is the Devil who brings up the sand; in only one case, in Slovenia, is it God himself. This earth-diver myth is diffused throughout practically all of Eurasia and is found in ancient India as well.” ref

Tungusic creation myth

“Shamanism or samanism is a religious practice that involves a practitioner (shaman or saman) interacting with the spirit world through altered states of consciousness, such as trance. The goal of this is usually to direct spirits or spiritual energies into the physical world for the purpose of healing, divination, or to aid human beings in some other way. Beliefs and practices categorized as “shamanic” have attracted the interest of scholars from a variety of disciplines, including anthropologists, archeologists, historians, religious studies scholars, philosophers, and psychologists. The Modern English word shamanism derives from the Russian word šamán, which itself comes from the word samān from a Tungusic language – possibly from the southwestern dialect of the Evenki spoken by the Sym Evenki peoples, or from the Manchu language. The etymology of the word is sometimes connected to the Tungus root sā-, meaning “to know”. However, Finnish ethnolinguist Juha Janhunen questions this connection on linguistic grounds: “The possibility cannot be completely rejected, but neither should it be accepted without reservation since the assumed derivational relationship is phonologically irregular (note especially the vowel quantities).” ref

“Mircea Eliade noted that the Sanskrit word śramaṇa, designating a wandering monastic or holy figure, has spread to many Central Asian languages along with Buddhism and could be the ultimate origin of the word shaman. The word has been reported in Gandhari as ṣamana, in Tocharian A as ṣāmaṃ, in Tocharian B as ṣamāne and in Chinese as 沙門 shāmén. The term was adopted by Russians interacting with the indigenous peoples in Siberia. It is found in the memoirs of the exiled Russian churchman Avvakum. It was brought to Western Europe twenty years later by the Dutch traveler Nicolaes Witsen, who reported his stay and journeys among the Tungusic- and Samoyedic-speaking Indigenous peoples of Siberia in his book Noord en Oost Tataryen (1692). Adam Brand, a merchant from Lübeck, published in 1698 his account of a Russian embassy to China; a translation of his book, published the same year, introduced the word shaman to English speakers.” ref

“Anthropologist and archeologist Silvia Tomaskova argued that by the mid-1600s, many Europeans applied the Arabic term shaitan (meaning “devil”) to the non-Christian practices and beliefs of Indigenous peoples beyond the Ural Mountains. She suggests that shaman may have entered the various Tungus dialects as a corruption of this term, and then been told to Christian missionaries, explorers, soldiers, and colonial administrators with whom the people had increasing contact for centuries. A female shaman is sometimes called a shamanka, which is not an actual Tungus term but simply shaman plus the Russian suffix -ka (for feminine nouns).” ref

“Tungusic peoples are an ethnolinguistic group formed by the speakers of Tungusic languages (or Manchu–Tungus languages). They are native to Siberia, China, and Mongolia. The name Tungusic is artificial, and properly refers just to the postulated linguistic phylum (Tungusic languages). The name Tunguska, a region of eastern Siberia bounded on the west by the Tunguska rivers and on the east by the Pacific Ocean, has its origin from the Tungus people (Evenks). Russian Tungus was likely taken from East Turkic tunguz (literally, ‘wild pig, boar’, from Old Turkic tonguz), although some scholars prefer derivation from the Chinese word Donghu (東胡, ‘Eastern Barbarians’, cf. Tonggu 通古 ‘Tungusic’). This “chance similarity in modern pronunciation led to the once widely held assumption that the Eastern Hu were Tungusic in language. However, there is little basis for this theory.” It is generally suggested that the homeland of the Tungusic people is in northeastern Manchuria, somewhere near the Amur River region. Genetic evidence collected from the Ulchsky District suggests a date for the Micro-Altaic expansion predating 3500 BCE or around 5,500 years ago. The Manchu, the largest Tungusic-speaking population, displays increased genetic affinity with Han Chinese, and Koreans, compared to with other Tungusic peoples. The Manchu were therefore an exception to the coherent genetic structure of Tungusic-speaking populations, likely due to the large-scale population migrations and genetic admixtures with the Han Chinese in the past few hundred years.” ref

“Tungusic peoples display primarily paternal haplogroups associated with Ancient Northeast Asians, and display high affinity to Mongolic peoples as well as other Northeastern Asian populations. Their primarily haplogroup is associated with the C-M217 clade and its subclades. The other dominant haplogroup is Haplogroup N-M231, which was found in Neolithic Northeastern Asian societies along the Liao river and widespreaded throughout Siberia. An exception are modern Manchu people which display higher frequency of Haplogroup O-M122. 29/97 = 29.9% C-M86 in a sample of Mongols from northwest Mongolia. The maternal haplogroups of Tungusic peoples are primarily shared with other Northern East Asians. Maternal haplogroup diversity seems to reflect some amount of gene flow with peoples living around the Sea of Okhotsk (Koryaks, Nivkhs, Ainus, etc.) on the one hand and peoples living in Central Asia (Iranian, Turkic, Mongolic peoples) on the other.” ref

“In one account of the Tungusic creation myth, Buga, their central deity, set fire to a vast primordial ocean. Following a long struggle, the flames consumed much of the water, exposing dry land. Then Buga created the light, separated it from darkness, and descended to the newly created land, where he confronted Buninka, the devil. A dispute arose between them over who had created the world. Buninka was spiteful and tried to injure Buga’s creation.” ref

“Buga is a creator god and omnipotent highest power in the mythology of the Tungusic peoples. In a Tungusic creation myth Buga creates both the earth (using fire to create it within a watery void), as well as creating man and woman from fire, earth, iron, and water. In the myth he is opposed by Buninka, a devil figure, who becomes responsible for evil persons after death. For the Tungus the term buga (also buya, boya, boga) refers to the greatest, omnipotent, eternal being. The same word also means either “sky”, “universe”, and may also refer to terms corresponding to “world” or “locality”. The word is not taboo and is used in common speech. For the eastern Tungus buga is a remote figure whom they have no description of, and nor do their shamans connect with it/him. The buga forms an exception in that it is one spirit than cannot be mastered by a shaman. Shirokogoroff states that all Tungus know how to pray/make sacrifices to buga and that activity is done without the intercession of shaman.” ref

“Furthermore, bugady are a tribe’s sacred places. Equivalent names for a supreme deity are Es (Ket language), Nga (Enc language), and Turum or Torym (Ostyak language). The Tungus term ‘buga’ is similar to the Mongolian term bogdo (holy), Old Persian language baga (god), and the Kassite language bugas (god). The Even language term for the highest deity (the creator) is/was Nalban Omgo Ogyn Buga, the proper name in the same language is Hovky-Sovky; in the Evenk language the god’s name is Shavaky-Savaky. The “upper” and “lower” worlds in those people’s shamanic worldview are also referred to as Dulyn Buga and Harpy Buga.” ref

“The name Tungusic is artificial, and properly refers just to the postulated linguistic phylum (Tungusic languages). It is generally suggested that the homeland of the Tungusic people is in northeastern Manchuria, somewhere near the Amur River region. Genetic evidence collected from the Ulchsky District suggests a date for the Micro-Altaic expansion predating 3500 BCE or around 5,500 years ago. The Tungusic expansion into Siberia displaced the indigenous Siberian languages, which are now grouped under the term Paleosiberian. Several theories suggest that the Pannonian Avars of the Avar Khaganate in Central, East, and Southeast Europe were of Tungusic origin or of partially Tungusic origin (as a ruling class). Tungusic people on the Amur river like Udeghe, Ulchi, and Nanai adopted Chinese influences in their religion and clothing with Chinese dragons on ceremonial robes, scroll and spiral bird and monster mask designs, Chinese New Year, using silk and cotton, iron cooking pots, and heated homes from China.” ref

“The Manchu originally came from Manchuria, which is now Northeast China and the Russian Far East. Following the Manchu establishment of the Qing dynasty in the 17th century, they have been almost completely assimilated into the language and culture of the ethnic Han population of China. The southern Tungusic Manchu farming sedentary lifestyle was very different from the nomadic hunter-gatherer forager lifestyle of their more northern Tungusic relatives like the Warka, which left the Qing state to attempt to make them sedentarize and farm like Manchus.” ref

“During the 17th century, the Tsardom of Russia was expanding east across Siberia, and into Tungusic-speaking lands, resulting in early border skirmishes with the Qing dynasty of China, leading up to the 1689 Treaty of Nerchinsk. The first published description of a Tungusic people to reach beyond Russia into the rest of Europe was by the Dutch traveler Isaac Massa in 1612. He passed along information from Russian reports after his stay in Moscow. “Tungusic” (Manchu-Tungus) peoples are divided into two main branches: northern and southern. The southern branch is dominated by the Manchu (historically Jurchen). Qing emperors were Manchu. The Sibe were possibly a Tungusic-speaking section of the (Mongolic) Shiwei and have been conquered by the expanding Manchu (Jurchen). Their language is mutually intelligible with Manchu.” ref

“The northern branch is mostly formed by the closely related ethnic groups of Evenks (Ewenki) and Evens. (Evenks and Evens are also grouped as “Evenic”. Their ethnonyms are only distinguished by a different suffix – -n for Even and -nkī for Evenkī; endonymically, they even use the same adjective for themselves – ǝwǝdī, meaning “Even” in the Even language and “Evenkī” in the Evenkī language.) The Evenks live in the Evenk Autonomous Okrug of Russia in addition to many parts of eastern Siberia, especially Sakha Republic. The Evens are very closely related to the Evenks by language and culture, and they likewise inhabit various parts of eastern Siberia. People who classify themselves as Evenks in the Russian census tend to live toward the west and toward the south of eastern Siberia, whereas people who classify themselves as Evens tend to live toward the east and toward the north of eastern Siberia, with some degree of overlap in the middle (notably, in certain parts of Sakha Republic). Minor ethnic groups also in the northern branch are the Negidals and the Oroqen. The Oroqen, Solon, and Khamnigan inhabit some parts of Heilongjiang Province, Inner Mongolia, and Mongolia and may be considered as subgroups of the Evenk ethnicity, though the Solons and the Khamnigans in particular have interacted closely with Mongolic peoples (Mongol, Daur, Buryat), and they are ethnographically quite distinct from the Evenks in Russia.” ref

“Full genome analyses on Northern East Asian populations, including Tungusic peoples, revealed them to descend primarily from Ancient Northeast Asians, with varying degrees of admixture associated with agriculturalist populations from the Yellow River region. Tungusic peoples display their highest genetic affinity with Mongolic peoples, but also share varying degrees of genetic affinity with Turkic peoples, which however have significant West Eurasian admixture. Tungusic peoples display the highest genetic affinity to Ancient Northeast Asians, represented by c. 7,000 and 13,000-year-old specimens. Previous studies argued for a potential shared ancestry between Tungusic, Mongolic, Turkic, Koreanic, and Japonic populations via Neolithic agriculturalist societies from Northeast China (eg. the Liao civilization) as a part of the hypothetical Altaic language family. However, recent data contradicts this because while West Liao River ancestry was found among the “macro-Altaic” Koreans and Japanese, it was absent among the “micro-Altaic” Tungusic and Mongolic populations.” ref

“The Manchu, the largest Tungusic-speaking population, displays increased genetic affinity with Han Chinese, and Koreans, compared to with other Tungusic peoples. The Manchu were therefore an exception to the coherent genetic structure of Tungusic-speaking populations, likely due to the large-scale population migrations and genetic admixtures with the Han Chinese in the past few hundred years. Tungusic peoples display primarily paternal haplogroups associated with Ancient Northeast Asians, and display high affinity to Mongolic peoples as well as other Northeastern Asian populations. Their primarily haplogroup is associated with the C-M217 clade and its subclades. The other dominant haplogroup is Haplogroup N-M231, which was found in Neolithic Northeastern Asian societies along the Liao river and widespreaded throughout Siberia. An exception are modern Manchu people which display higher frequency of Haplogroup O-M122.” ref

ref

“Nomadic tribes such as the Ket people and the Yugh people have lived along the banks of the Yenisey since ancient times, and this region is the location of the Yeniseian language family. The Ket, numbering about 1000, are the only survivors today of those who originally lived throughout central southern Siberia near the river banks. Their extinct relatives included the Kotts, Assans, Arins, Baikots and Pumpokols who lived further upriver to the south. The modern Ket lived in the eastern middle areas of the river before being assimilated politically into Russia during the 17th through 19th centuries.” ref

“Some of the earliest known evidence of Turkic origins was found in the Yenisey Valley in the form of stelae, stone monoliths and memorial tablets dating from between the seventh and ninth centuries AD, along with some documents that were found in China’s Xinjiang region. The written evidence gathered from these sources tells of battles fought between the Turks and the Chinese and other legends. There are also examples of Uyghur poetry, though most have survived only in Chinese translation.” ref

“Wheat from the Yenisey was sold by Muslims and Uighurs during inadequate harvests to Bukhara and Soghd during the Tahirid era. Russians first reached the upper Yenisey in 1605, travelling from the Ob, up the Ket, portaging and then down the Yenisey as far as the Sym.” ref

“Yakuts or Sakha people speak Yakut in North Siberia, which is the Siberian branch of the Turkic languages. The Khoro (Khorin, Khorolors) Yakut maintain their progenitor was Uluu Khoro, rather than Omogoy or Ellei. Scholarship has not definitively established their ancestral ethnic affiliations. Their homeland was somewhere in the south and called Khoro sire. When the Khorolors arrived in the Middle Lena remains uncertain, with scholars estimating from the first millennium to the 16th century CE.” ref

“Among scholars a commonly accepted hypothesis is that the Khoro Yakut originate from the Khori Buryat of Lake Baikal, and therefore spoke a Turko-Mongolic language. This is largely based on their similar ethnonyms. Proponents see the word Khoro as arising from the Tibetan word hor (Standard Tibetan: ཧོར). For example, according to G. N. Runyanstev, during the 6th through 10th centuries CE the inhabitants of Lake Baikal were called Chor. Okladnikov guessed that Khoro sire was near China and adjacent to the X.” ref

“This premise is not universally accepted and has been challenged by some researchers. George de Roerich has argued that the word is based on the Chinese word hu (Chinese: 胡), a term used as general reference by the Chinese to refer to various Iranian or Turkic-Mongolian peoples of Central Asia. In contemporary Tibetan hor is used to describe any pastoralist “nomad of mixed origin” regardless of their ethnonym. After researching their origins, Ksenofontov concluded that while the Khorolors were “formed from parts of some alien tribe that mixed with the Yakuts”, there was no compelling evidence connecting them with the Khori Buryat.” ref

“A more recent argument by Zoriktuev proposes that the Khorolors were originally Paleo-Asians from the Lower Amur River. In contrast to their Yakut relatives, Khoro folklore focuses largely on the Raven, with some tales about the Eagle as well. In the mid 18th century Lindenau noted the Khorolors focused their religious devotion on the Raven, who was alternatively referred to as “Our ancestor”, “Our deity”, and “Our grandfather” by the Khorolors. This reverence arises from the Raven enabling a struggling human (either the first Khoro man or his mother) to survive by giving a flint and tinder box. Their mythos is similar to cultures from both sides of the Bering Sea; the Haida, Tlingit, Tshisham of the North American Pacific Northwest Coast and the Paleoasians of the Siberian Coast like the Chukchi, Itelmen, and Koryaks all share reverence for the Raven.” ref

“Many researchers have concluded that the Yakut ethnogenesis was an admixture of Turko-Mongols migrating from Lake-Baikal and native Yukaghir and Tungusitic peoples residing around the Lena River. Okladnikov detailed this conceived admixture process as the following:

“…the Turkic-speaking ancestors of the Yakuts not only pushed out the aborigines but also subjected them to their influence by peaceful means; they assimilated and absorbed them into their mass… With this, the local tribes lost the former ethnic name and a proper ethnic consciousness, no longer separating themselves from the mass of Yakuts, and [were] not opposed to them… Consequently, as a result of the mixing with Northern aborigines, the southern ancestors of the Yakuts supplemented their culture and language with new features distinguishing them from other steppe tribes.” ref

“In 1996 Aleksei N. Alekseev and S. I. Nikolaeva-Somogotto alternatively proposed that Paleo-Asian and Samoyedic peoples populations instead intermarried with the incoming Turko-Mongols, for which there is some evidence. Traditional Yakut histories contain stories of the aboriginal peoples of Yakutia. From the subarctic Bulunsky and Verkhoyansky Districts accounts state that the Black Yukaghir (Yakut: хара дъукаагырдар) descended from migrants pushed north from the Lena River. Related stories recorded in Ust’-Aldanskiy Ulus and Megino-Kangalassky District mention certain tribes leaving the region due to rising pressure from the incoming Yakuts. While some remained and intermarried with the newcomer, most went to the northern tundra.” ref

“The Ymyyakhtakh are an ancient people of the Lena River. A burial ground was excavated and anthropologists I.I. Gokhman and L.F. Tomtosova studied the human remains and published their results in 1992. They concluded that some of the Late Neolithic population took part in the formation of the modern Yakuts. The consistency of related artistic embellishments on the traditional clothing of the Buryat, Samoyed, and Yakut led one scholar to conclude they are related. Toponymic data of Yakutia indicates there was once a presence of Paleoasian and Samoyed habitation in the region. Vilyui Tumats reportedly practiced anthropophagy and seen as an “ethnocultural marker” of the Samoyedic peoples.” ref

“The Tumat stand out in Yakut tradition as a numerous and powerful society, with constant conflict once happening with them on the Vilyuy River. Their households were semi-subterranean with sod roofing and are comparable to traditional Samoyed dwellings. The term Doubo (Chinese: 都播) was used in medieval Chinese historical works in reference to the Sayano-Altai forest peoples. Vasily Radlov concluded that Doubo referred to the Samoyedic peoples. Doubo is additionally seen as the origin of the ethnonym “Tumat” by L. P. Potapov.” ref

“The Yakuts called the Tumat people “Dyirikinei” or “chipmunk people” (Yakut: Sдьирикинэй), arising from the Tumatian “tail-coat.” Bundles of deer fur were dyed with red ocher and sewn into Tumatian jackets as adornments. Tumat hats were likewise dyed red. This style was likely spread by the Tumatians to some Tungusic peoples. Similar clothing has been reported during the 17th century for the Evenks on the upper Angara and for Evens residing on the lower Kolyma in the early 19th century. Additionally there are many similarities between the clothing of the Tumats and Altaic cultures. Archeological work on Pazyryk culture sites have turned up both hats dyed red and tail-coats made of sables. While the “tails” were not dyed red, they were sewn with red dyed thread. Stylistic and design choices are also comparable to traditional Khakas and Kumandin clothing.” ref

“Some peaceable interactions including intermarriage did occur with the Tumats. One such example is the life of Džaardaakh (Russian: Джаардаах), a Tumatian woman. She was renowned for her physical strength and martial repute as an archer. However, Džaardaakh eventually married a Yakut man and is considered a notable ancestor of the local Vilyuy Yakut. The origin of her name has been linked to a Yukaghir word for ice (Yukaghir: йархан). The ancestors of Yakuts were Kurykans who migrated from Yenisey river to Lake Baikal and were subject to a certain Mongolian admixture prior to migration in the 7th century. The Yakuts originally lived around Olkhon and the region of Lake Baikal. Beginning in the 13th century they migrated to the basins of the Middle Lena, the Aldan and Vilyuy rivers under the pressure of the rising Mongols. The northern Yakuts were largely hunters, fishermen and reindeer herders, while the southern Yakuts raised cattle and horses.” ref

“The origins of the Yakut horse are still uncertain, genetic similarity with the original breeds of Central Asia, has led to the theory that the Yakut horse is not a native of Siberia, but that he was taken there by the ancestors of the Sakha people.” ref

“The origins of the Yakut horse are still uncertain, but researchers believe that it is probably one of the oldest breeds in existence.  The genetic and immunity markers seem to show similarity with the original breeds of Central Asia (Akhal-Téké, Arab, Kazakh, Kirghiz, and other saddle horses), which has led to the theory that the Yakut horse is not a native of Siberia, but that he was taken there by the ancestors of the Sakha people.  These latter first arrived in the region by following the Lena river, around the 13th century, followed by successive waves of immigrants.  The Lena’s source is in Lake Baikal, further south, near Irkutsk, on the border of western Mongolia.  Other researchers think that the breed is linked to the Mongolian horse, which also is perfectly feasible.” ref

Yeniseian languages

“The Yeniseian languages sometimes known as Yeniseic or Yenisei-Ostyak; occasionally spelled with –ss-) are a family of languages that are spoken by the Yeniseian people in the Yenisei River region of central Siberia. As part of the proposed Dené–Yeniseian language family, the Yeniseian languages have been argued to be part of “the first demonstration of a genealogical link between Old World and New World language families that meets the standards of traditional comparative–historical linguistics“. The only surviving language of the group today is Ket. From hydronymic and genetic data, it is suggested that the Yeniseian languages were spoken in a much greater area in ancient times, including parts of northern China and Mongolia. It has been further proposed that the recorded distribution of Yeniseian languages from the 17th century onward represents a relatively recent northward migration, and that the Yeniseian urheimat lies to the south of Lake Baikal.” ref

“The Yeniseians have been connected to the Xiongnu confederation, whose ruling elite may have spoken a southern Yeniseian language similar to the now extinct Pumpokol language. The Jie, who ruled the Later Zhao state of northern China, are likewise believed to have spoken a Pumpokolic language based on linguistic and ethnogeographic data. For those who argue the Xiongnu spoke a Yeniseian language, the Yeniseian languages are thought to have contributed many ubiquitous loanwords to Turkic and Mongolic vocabulary, such as Khan, Khagan, Tarqan, and the word for ‘god’ and ‘sky’, Tengri. This conclusion has primarily been drawn from the analysis of preserved Xiongnu texts in the form of Chinese characters.” ref

“Proto-Yeniseian or Proto-Yeniseic is the unattested reconstructed proto-language from which all Yeniseian languages are thought to descend from. It is uncertain whether Proto-Yeniseian had a similar tone/pitch accent system as Ket. Many studies about Proto-Yeniseian phonology have been done, however there are still many things unclear about Proto-Yeniseian. The probable location of the Yeniseian homeland is proposed on the basis of geographic names and genetic studies, which suggests a homeland in Southern Siberia.” ref

“It has been suggested that the Xiongnu and Hunnic languages were Southern Yeniseian. Only two languages of this family survived into the 20th century: Ket (also known as Imbat Ket), with around 200 speakers, and Yugh (also known as Sym Ket), now extinct. The other known members of this family—Arin, Assan, Pumpokol, and Kott—have been extinct for over two centuries. Other groups—the Buklin, Baikot, Yarin, Yastin, Ash, and Koibal—are identifiable as Yeniseic speaking from tsarist fur-tax records compiled during the 17th century, but nothing remains of their languages except a few proper names. Ket, the only extant Yeniseian language, is the northernmost known.” ref

“From toponyms it can be seen that Yeniseian populations probably lived in Buryatia, Zabaykalsky, and northern Mongolia. As an example, the toponym ši can be found in Zabaykalsky Krai, which is probably related to the Proto-Yeniseian word sēs ‘river’ and likely derives from an undocumented Yeniseian language. Some toponyms that appear Yeniseian extend as far as Heilongjiang. Václav Blažek argues, based on hydronymic data, that Yeniseians were once spread out even farther into the west. He compares, for example, the word šet, found in more westerly river names, to Proto-Yeniseian sēs ‘river’.” ref

“According to a 2016 study, Yeniseian people and their language originated likely somewhere near the Altai Mountains or near Lake Baikal. According to this study, the Yeniseians are linked to Paleo-Eskimo groups. The Yeniseians have also been hypothesised to be representative of a back-migration from Beringia to central Siberia, and the Dené–Yeniseians a result of a radiation of populations out of the Bering land bridge. The spread of ancient Yeniseian languages may be associated with an ancestry component from the Baikal area (Cisbaikal_LNBA), maximized among hunter-gatherers of the local Glazkovo culture. Affinity for this ancestry has been observed among Na-Dene speakers. Cisbaikal_LNBA ancestry is inferred to be rich in Ancient Paleo-Siberian ancestry, and also display affinity to Inner Northeast Asian (Yumin-like) groups.” ref

“In Siberia, Edward Vajda observed that Yeniseian hydronyms in the circumpolar region (the recent area of distribution of Yeniseian languages) clearly overlay earlier systems, with the layering of morphemes onto Ugric, Samoyedic, Turkic, and Tungusic place names. It is therefore proposed that the homeland, or dispersal point, of the Yeniseian languages lies in the boreal region between Lake Baikal, northern Mongolia, and the Upper Yenisei basin, referred to by Vajda as a territory “abandoned” by the original Yeniseian speakers. On the other hand, Václav Blažek (2019) argues that based on hydronomic evidence, Yeneisian languages were originally spoken on the northern slopes of the Tianshan and Pamir mountains before dispersing downstream via the Irtysh River.” ref

“The modern populations of Yeniseians in central and northern Siberia are thus not indigenous and represent a more recent migration northward. This was noted by Russian explorers during the conquest of Siberia: the Ket are recorded to have been expanding northwards along the Yenisei, from the river Yeloguy to the Kureyka, from the 17th century onward. Based on these records, the modern Ket-speaking area appears to represent the very northernmost reaches of Yeniseian migration. The origin of this northward migration from the Mongolian steppe has been connected to the fall of the Xiongnu confederation. It appears from Chinese sources that a Yeniseian group might have been a major part of the heterogeneous Xiongnu tribal confederation, who have traditionally been considered the ancestors of the Huns and other Northern Asian groups. However, these suggestions are difficult to substantiate due to the paucity of data.

“Alexander Vovin argues that at least parts of the Xiongnu, possibly its core or ruling class, spoke a Yeniseian language. Positing a higher degree of similarity of Xiongnu to Yeniseian as compared to Turkic, he also praised Stefan Georg‘s demonstration of how the word Tengri (the Turkic and Mongolic word for ‘sky’ and later ‘god’) originated from Proto-Yeniseian tɨŋVr. It has been further suggested that the Yeniseian-speaking Xiongnu elite underwent a language shift to Oghur Turkic while migrating westward, eventually becoming the Huns. However, it has also been suggested that the core of the Hunnic language was a Yeniseian language. Vajda (et al. 2013) proposed that the ruling elite of the Huns spoke a Yeniseian language and influenced other languages in the region.” ref

“One sentence of the language of the Jie, a Xiongnu tribe who founded the Later Zhao state, appears consistent with being a Yeniseian language. Later study suggests that Jie is closer to Pumpokol than to other Yeniseian languages such as Ket. This has been substantiated with geographical data by Vajda, who states that Yeniseian hydronyms found in northern Mongolia are exclusively Pumpokolic, in the process demonstrating both a linguistic and geographic proximity between Yeniseian and Jie. The decline of the southern Yeniseian languages during and after the Russian conquest of Siberia has been attributed to language shifts of the Arin and Pumpokol to Khakas or Chulym Tatar, and the Kott and Assan to Khakas.” ref

“The Yeniseian languages share many contact-induced similarities with the South Siberian Turkic languages, Samoyedic languages, and Evenki. These include long-distance nasal harmony, the development of former affricates to stops, and the use of postpositions or grammatical enclitics as clausal subordinators. Yeniseic nominal enclitics closely approximate the case systems of geographically contiguous families. Despite these similarities, Yeniseian appears to stand out among the languages of Siberia in several typological respects, such as the presence of tone, the prefixing verb inflection, and highly complex morphophonology. The Yeniseian languages have been described as having up to four tones or no tones at all. The ‘tones’ are concomitant with glottalization, vowel length, and breathy voice, not unlike the situation reconstructed for Old Chinese before the development of true tones in Chinese. The Yeniseian languages have highly elaborate verbal morphology.” ref

Proposed relations to other language families

“Until 2008, few linguists had accepted connections between Yeniseian and any other language family, though distant connections have been proposed with most of the ergative languages of Eurasia. In 2008, Edward Vajda of Western Washington University presented evidence for a genealogical relation between the Yeniseian languages of Siberia and the Na–Dené languages of North America. At the time of publication (2010), Vajda’s proposals had been favorably reviewed by several specialists of Na-Dené and Yeniseian languages—although at times with caution—including Michael Krauss, Jeff Leer, James Kari, and Heinrich Werner, as well as a number of other respected linguists, such as Bernard Comrie, Johanna Nichols, Victor Golla, Michael Fortescue, Eric Hamp, and Bill Poser (Kari and Potter 2010:12). One significant exception is the critical review of the volume of collected papers by Lyle Campbell and a response by Vajda published in late 2011 that clearly indicates the proposal is not completely settled at the present time. Two other reviews and notices of the volume appeared in 2011 by Keren Rice and Jared Diamond.” ref

“The Karasuk hypothesis, linking Yeniseian to Burushaski, has been proposed by several scholars, notably by A.P. Dulson and V.N. Toporov. George van Driem, the most prominent current advocate of the Karasuk hypothesis, postulates that the Burusho people were part of the migration out of Central Asia, that resulted in the Indo-European conquest of the Indus Valley. As noted by Tailleur and Werner, some of the earliest proposals of genetic relations of Yeniseian, by M.A. Castrén (1856), James Byrne (1892), and G.J. Ramstedt (1907), suggested that Yeniseian was a northern relative of the Sino–Tibetan languages. These ideas were followed much later by Kai Donner and Karl Bouda. A 2008 study found further evidence for a possible relationship between Yeniseian and Sino–Tibetan, citing several possible cognates. Gao Jingyi (2014) identified twelve Sinitic and Yeniseian shared etymologies that belonged to the basic vocabulary, and argued that these Sino-Yeniseian etymologies could not be loans from either language into the other.” ref

“The Sino-Caucasian hypothesis of Sergei Starostin posits that the Yeniseian languages form a clade with Sino-Tibetan, which he called Sino-Yeniseian. The Sino-Caucasian hypothesis has been expanded by others to “Dené–Caucasian” to include the Na-Dené languages of North America, Burushaski, Basque, and, occasionally, Etruscan. A narrower binary Dené–Yeniseian family has recently been well received. The validity of the rest of the family, however, is viewed as doubtful or rejected by nearly all historical linguists. A link between the Na–Dené languages and Sino-Tibetan languages, known as Sino–Dené had also been proposed by Edward Sapir. Around 1920 Sapir became convinced that Na-Dené was more closely related to Sino-Tibetan than to other American families. Edward Vadja’s Dené–Yeniseian proposal renewed interest among linguists such as Geoffrey Caveney (2014) to look into support for the Sino–Dené hypothesis. Caveney considered a link between Sino-Tibetan, Na-Dené, and Yeniseian to be plausible but did not support the hypothesis that Sino-Tibetan and Na-Dené were related to the Caucasian languages (Sino–Caucasian and Dené–Caucasian).” ref

“A 2023 analysis by David Bradley using the standard techniques of comparative linguistics supports a distant genetic link between the Sino-Tibetan, Na-Dené, and Yeniseian language families. Bradley argues that any similarities Sino-Tibetan shares with other language families of the East Asia area such as Hmong-Mien, Altaic (which is actually a sprachbund), Austroasiatic, Kra-Dai, Austronesian came through contact; but as there has been no recent contact between Sino-Tibetan, Na-Dené, and Yeniseian language families then any similarities these groups share must be residual. Bouda, in various publications in the 1930s through the 1950s, described a linguistic network that (besides Yeniseian and Sino-Tibetan) also included Caucasian, and Burushaski, some forms of which have gone by the name of Sino-Caucasian. The works of R. Bleichsteiner and O.G. Tailleur, the late Sergei A. Starostin, and Sergei L. Nikolayev have sought to confirm these connections. Others who have developed the hypothesis, often expanded to Dené–Caucasian, include J.D. Bengtson, V. Blažek, J.H. Greenberg (with M. Ruhlen), and M. Ruhlen. George Starostin continues his father’s work in Yeniseian, Sino-Caucasian, and other fields. This theory is very controversial or viewed as obsolete by other linguists.” ref

“Oldest Connection with Native Americans Identified Near Lake Baikal in Siberia. Newly sequenced genomes from prehistoric hunter-gatherers in the region of Lake Baikal reveal connections with First Americans and across Eurasia.” ref

“Since the term ‘Ancient North Eurasian’ refers to a genetic bridge of connected mating networks, scholars of comparative mythology have argued that they probably shared myths and beliefs that could be reconstructed via the comparison of stories attested within cultures that were not in contact for millennia and stretched from the Pontic–Caspian steppe to the American continent.” ref

“The mytheme of the dog guarding the Otherworld possibly stems from an older Ancient North Eurasian belief, as suggested by similar motifs found in Indo-European, Native American, and Siberian mythology. In Siouan, Algonquian, Iroquoian, and in Central and South American beliefs, a fierce guard dog was located in the Milky Way, perceived as the path of souls in the afterlife, and getting past it was a test. The Siberian Chukchi and Tungus believed in a guardian-of-the-afterlife dog and a spirit dog that would absorb the dead man’s soul and act as a guide in the afterlife. In Indo-European myths, the figure of the dog is embodied by Cerberus, Sarvarā, and Garmr. In Zoroastrianism, two four-eyed dogs guard the bridge to the afterlife called Chinvat Bridge. Anthony and Brown note that it might be one of the oldest mythemes recoverable through comparative mythology.” ref

“A second canid-related series of beliefs, myths, and rituals connected dogs with healing rather than death. For instance, Ancient Near Eastern and Turkic–Kipchaq myths are prone to associate dogs with healing and generally categorized dogs as impure. A similar myth-pattern is assumed for the Eneolithic site of Botai in Kazakhstan, dated to 3500 BCE, which might represent the dog as absorber of illness and guardian of the household against disease and evil. In Mesopotamia, the goddess Nintinugga, associated with healing, was accompanied or symbolized by dogs. Similar absorbent-puppy healing and sacrifice rituals were practiced in Greece and Italy, among the Hittites, again possibly influenced by Near Eastern traditions.” ref

The Female Siberian Ice Maiden

“Buried in permafrost soil around the 5th century CE, a 35-year-old woman was discovered in the Republic of Altai, Russia. Finding the woman helped archaeologists develop deeper understanding of the people that lived in this remote region. The female, who is now known as the Siberian Ice Maiden was buried with a fascinating range of artifacts, all of which were remarkably preserved by the permafrost. This allowed for further information to be learned about the region and how the culture viewed death and the afterlife. The Ukok Plateau where the Ice Maiden’s tomb was also has rock carving from the Iron and Bronze Age, with some rock art dating back 10,000 years ago. The burials were performed high in the mountains under mounds of stones which allowed water to seep down but prevented the Sun’s heat from reaching what was buried beneath. During the harsh winter conditions, the ground and the chambers would have been permanently frozen. The Telengits, an Altaian indigenous tribe, believe that the Ukok Plateau was a place of burial and worship for their ancestors.” ref

Holding hands for 5,000 years, ancient couple buried together with interesting artifacts

“At a site near Lake Baikal in Russia, experts have discovered an ancient couple, thought to be a man and either his wife or mistress, buried together in a display of eternal commitment and affection.” ref

“The Time Machine” on the Coast of Lake Baikal: Archeology of the Sacred Lake

“There are a lot of archaeological curiosities on Baikal’s shores and on its islands, affirming the fact that this territory has been inhabited since the Stone Age, upper paleolithic stopping places of Malta and Buret’. The position of the lake between forest and steppe zones made a certain imprint on the culture and economic activity of the native people and on regional historical processes. About 25,000 years ago people in Pribaikalye lived in big permanent settlements. They made both long-term homes of poles, sod, flagstones, and bones of big animals, and light portable summer homes. The inhabitants of these settlements hunted mammoth, hairy rhinoceros, bison, and reindeer. Living in the severe Ice Age people were able to make and feed the fire. They were capable of counting and knew how to keep calendars. They also kept religious rites.” ref

“Numerous neolithic and aeneolithic burials contain a rich variety of funeral implements. Things made of Sayan nephrite that are discovered in Pribaikalye and the Amur basin contribute to the intercommunal exchange that was well developed. Numerous Baikal rock carvings also date from neolithic times. The most famous of them are the Shishkinskiye carvings stretching for about 2 km in the upper reaches of the Lena River. Ancient artists left carvings depicting animals, hunters, and people in boats. One of the masterpieces of early Scythian art is the Korsukovsky hoard discovered in 1983. Its former owner saved everything valuable he had in a bronze pot.” ref

“The Ivolginskoye site, the remains of an ancient town with a neighboring burial plot, is considered to be the standard for investigation of culture, and architecture. The town residents engaged in cattle breeding and agriculture, the smelting of cast iron and bronze, and the forging of iron. “Khun” sites are replaced by tent-like graves, located in groups on Olkhon Island and on the shores of Baikal. The tent-like graves, made of sandstone, arranged in a circle and equally sloping from the center of the burial site, remind one of a yurt (or a tent) used by nomads. They are thought to have been left by Kurikans. For self-protection, the Kurikans had to build fortified towns and defensive walls, some of which still exist.” ref 

“The territory of the Olkhon region, on the southwestern coast of Lake Baikal and in the delta of the Selenga River. As a result, the archeologists managed to discover numerous Neolithic burial grounds, defensive stone walls, and watch towers on the coasts of the Kurkut and Mukhur bays, the bays of Ityrkhei and Ulan-Khada, the capes of Shibete, Ulan and Ulyarba. The unique Fofanovsky burial ground of the Stone, Bronze, and Iron Ages is located on the right bank of the Selenga River, at a distance of 60 kilometers from Ulan-Ude, on the southwestern, southeastern, and eastern slopes of the Fofanovskaya Mountain, at an altitude of 26-38 meters above the river level. Today it is one of the largest and oldest burial grounds in the Baikal region with a total of more than 100 burial places that have been studied; and, most importantly, archaeologists still have interesting work to do there.” ref

“We are calling this acropolis unique for a good reason. Burials of three different cultures of different times were discovered there, which means that people had been buried here during the four millennia! Not only Buryats, but also ancient people treated mountains as a kind of a holy, sacred place. It is assumed that they were attracted by the unusual shape of the Fofanovskaya Mountain and the proximity of the Selenga River: it was believed that the souls of the dead went along down the river and could not go back up.” ref

“Modern Buryat archaeologists have discovered local burial places that date back to the so-called “Kitoy” culture (the name was derived from the burial ground found on the Kitoy River in 1880; this culture is wide-spread in the upper Angara region, on the southern coast of Lake Baikal, in the upper reaches of Lena; within the framework of the Neolithic period, it covered the late 6^th-middle 5^th millennia BCE.) A mother-of-pearl ring, the bones of the deceased, and… a skull of a completely different deceased were found in one of the burials places. The unexplainable presence of “extra” bones in the graves is a characteristic feature of Kitoy culture. Its representatives generally treated the body of the deceased in a very peculiar way, regularly burying the deceased without a head. The bodies were often even “disassembled” into parts, and these parts were buried separately. The representatives of “Kitoy” culture necessarily covered the graves with red ocher. They attached great importance to this natural material; besides, ocher was an analogue of blood in funeral rituals.” ref

“One of the most unusual graves, according to the stories of Buryat archaeologists, was a collective burial place in a very small pit, as large as a desk top. When the experts opened the grave, they saw the skeletons of two adults with the remains of two children resting on one of them. The skulls of adults were decorated with mother-of-pearl rings with a human tooth near each of them. The majority of the objects could be seen on the man’s skeleton – jewelry on the neck, bone harpoon, animal bones, a plate of chalcedony, stone tools. Most likely, all those people died from violent actions. The artifacts excavated – scrapers, arrowheads, jade axes, copper knives in the shape of blades, harpoons, ceramic utensils and rock paintings make it possible for historians to get an idea about ​​the life of people of that time.” ref

“Burial grounds, they dated them to the era of the early Bronze Age, and noticed similarities with the burial grounds of the “Glazkovskaya” culture. This is the archaeological culture of the ancient Tungus tribes that lived in the Baikal region, in upper reaches of the Angara and Lena rivers. An especially noteworthy burial place is the pair grave described by the archaeologists in the following way: the skeletons lay with heads head to the west, arm-in-arm. Presumably, the remains of the buried people belong to a man and a woman of mature age.” ref

“The remains of the man were decorated with massive rings of rare white jade: three of them on the chest and one in the left eye socket. A leather bag with a metal product could be found between the kneecaps of the man. More modest exhibits – bone awls and two stone knives – were found near the female skeleton. The funeral sets found in various graves also included hundreds of paste beads made of plastic mass, most likely, limestone. Above all, archaeologists also found a collection of colorful pebbles, where each stone was a primitive tool and had a specific purpose: pebbles were used as weights, adzes, and scrapers.” ref

Legends of Baikal Origin

“1: “It is said that a huge stone fell from the sky like they do now, sometimes. While it was falling it became red hot. When it hit the earth there was a great rainfall. Earth, stone, and water came to a boil and in that turmoil Lake Baikal was born.” ref

2: “The insufficiently known Arabian Cosmography “Creation Wonders” (the 12th century) reads about Baikal: “It is a sea of remarkably transparent and tasty water. It lies behind the Diamond Sea. The Most High has made it in the form of two joined horns. It has sprung up from an underground crevice. And it has been and it will be moaning till the Last Judgement. And the sea is always rough and enraging…”. “And God saw: “The land has appeared cold, I am afraid it may feel hurt!” And not to offend the land, gave God the Lord not just a bedding but a bountiful measure of his, the measure by which he measured everything he had. And the measure fell down and turned into Lake Baikal…” ref

3: “In ancient times the place where Lake Baikal now is, was covered a dense forest. There was so much game that it was difficult for man to pass through it. And among birds there was one, as big as a sturgeon. Its wings were huge and strong, and if it touched a tree, the tree would fall down with its roots up, and if it touched a rock the rock would fly to bits. The people were afraid of the bird, but they could not kill it as when it flew by, hot rays it eradiated, made hunters fall in a dead faint. But a man was born. He grew before the people’s eyes. Soon he grew up as strong as Hercules and feared nothing. The people came and asked him to save them and kill that monstrous fiery bird. The hero listened to them. From 100 trees he made a bow, from 200 stems he cut out an arrow and set off hunting. Shortly after the Earth shuddered. And the bird fell down and a fire broke out, and it was hot in the skies. The people left the taiga for the mountains and saw water columns through the flames. And a sea appeared on that place. While the Earth and the taiga were burning, the people “were crying out: “Baikal, Baikal”. Since that time the place has been called Baikal. Nobody knows for sure what the people meant by that word, either that bird, or the big fire, or the word meant “much water”… All the people remember that the place is called Baikal.” ref

 “Postglacial genomes from foragers across Northern Eurasia reveal prehistoric mobility associated with the spread of the Uralic and Yeniseian languages.” ref

“The North Eurasian forest and forest-steppe zones have sustained millennia of sociocultural connections among northern peoples. We present genome-wide ancient DNA data for 181 individuals from this region spanning the Mesolithic, Neolithic, and Bronze Age. We find that Early to Mid-Holocene hunter-gatherer populations from across the southern forest and forest-steppes of Northern Eurasia can be characterized by a continuous gradient of ancestry that remained stable for millennia, ranging from fully West Eurasian in the Baltic region to fully East Asian in the Transbaikal region. In contrast, cotemporaneous groups in far Northeast Siberia were genetically distinct, retaining high levels of continuity from a population that was the primary source of ancestry for Native Americans. By the mid-Holocene, admixture between this early Northeastern Siberian population and groups from Inland East Asia and the Amur River Basin produced two distinctive populations in eastern Siberia that played an important role in the genetic formation of later people. Ancestry from the first population, Cis-Baikal Late Neolithic–Bronze Age (Cisbaikal_LNBA), is found substantially only among Yeniseian-speaking groups and those known to have admixed with them. Ancestry from the second, Yakutian Late Neolithic–Bronze Age (Yakutia_LNBA), is strongly associated with present-day Uralic speakers. We show how Yakutia_LNBA ancestry spread from an east Siberian origin 4,500 years ago, along with subclades of Y-chromosome haplogroup N occurring at high frequencies among present-day Uralic speakers, into Western and Central Siberia in communities associated with Seima-Turbino metallurgy: a suite of advanced bronze casting techniques that spread explosively across an enormous region of Northern Eurasia around 4,000 years ago. However, the ancestry of the 16 Seima-Turbino-period individuals—the first reported from sites with this metallurgy—was otherwise extraordinarily diverse, with partial descent from Indo-Iranian-speaking pastoralists and multiple hunter-gatherer populations from widely separated regions of Eurasia. Our results provide support for theories suggesting that early Uralic speakers at the beginning of their westward dispersal where involved in the expansion of Seima-Turbino metallurgical traditions, and suggests that both cultural transmission and migration were important in the spread of Seima-Turbino material culture.” ref

“Gao argued that Chinese has three major layers, he saw the root of Chinese as coming from a common Sino-Uralic source, the second layer coming from Indo-European during the Chalcolithic age or later and the third layer coming from Yeniseian during the Bronze Age. The proposal has been brought forward by the Chinese linguist Jingyi Gao, based on works by 19th century linguists such as Karl August Hermann. Gao suggested the proto-population could have been lived in Neolithic China and carried the Haplogroup N, claiming that a common proto-language could have been spoken around 5.000-10.000 years ago.” ref 

The Origin and Dispersal of Uralic: Distributional Typological View | Annual Review of Linguistics 

“Recent progress in comparative linguistics, distributional typology, and linguistic geography allows a unified model of Uralic prehistory to take shape. Proto-Uralic first introduced an eastern grammatical profile to central and western Eurasia, where it has remained quite stable. Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Uralic had no connection, either genealogical or areal, until the spreading Indo-Iranian branch of Indo-European came into contact with the already-diverged branches of Uralic about 4,000 years ago. A severe and widespread drought beginning about 4,200 years ago cleared the way for a rapid spread of Uralic-speaking people along the Volga and across southwestern Siberia. It also contributed to the sudden rise of the Seima-Turbino bronze-trading complex, one component of the Uralic spread mechanism. After the initial spread, the Uralic daughter languages retained their Volga homelands remarkably stably while also extending far to the north in a recurrent Eurasian pattern.” ref 

Proto-Samoyedic language 

“Proto-Samoyedic, or Proto-Samoyed, is the reconstructed ancestral language of the Samoyedic languages: Nenets (Tundra and Forest), Enets, Nganasan, Selkup, as well as extinct Kamas and Mator. Samoyedic is one of the principal branches of the Uralic language family, and its ancestor is Proto-Uralic. It has been suggested that Proto-Samoyedic greatly influenced the development of Tocharian, an Indo-European language.” ref 

Yeniseian languages | Yenisei River, Siberia, Paleo-Siberian 

“Samoyed languages (of the Uralic family) at one time in the past absorbed the languages of now-extinct Yeniseian tribes.” ref

“Kolyma (Колыма́, IPA: [kəɫɨˈma]) or Kolyma Krai (Колымский край) is a historical region in the Russian Far East that includes the basin of Kolyma River and the northern shores of the Sea of Okhotsk, as well as the Kolyma Mountains (the watershed of the two). It is bounded to the north by the East Siberian Sea and the Arctic Ocean, and by the Sea of Okhotsk to the south. Kolyma Krai was never formally defined and over time it was split among various administrative units. As of 2023, it consists roughly of the Magadan Oblast, north-eastern areas of Yakutia, and the Bilibinsky District of Chukotka Autonomous Okrug. The indigenous peoples of this region include the Evens, Koryaks, Yupiks, Chukchis, Orochs, Chuvans, and Itelmens, who traditionally lived from fishing along the Sea of Okhotsk coast or from reindeer herding in the River Kolyma valley.” ref 

“The area, part of which is within the Arctic Circle, has a subarctic climate with very cold winters lasting up to six months of the year. Permafrost and tundra cover a large part of the region. Average winter temperatures range from −19 to −38 °C (−2 to −36 °F) (even lower in the interior), and average summer temperatures, from 3 to 16 °C (37 to 61 °F). There are rich reserves of gold, silver, tin, tungsten, mercury, copper, antimony, coal, oil, and peat. During archaeological investigations of Paleolithic sites on the Angara, in 1936 the unique Stone Age site of Buret’ was discovered which yielded an anthropomorphic sculpture, skulls of rhinoceroses, and surface and semisubterranean dwellings. The houses were analogous, on one hand, to Paleolithic European houses and, on the other, to ethnographically studied houses of the Eskimos, Chukchi, and Koryaks.” ref 

Lake Baikal Ust’Kyakhta-3 (UKY) 14,050-13,770 years ago, with 30% Ancient North Eurasian and 70% Ancient Northeast Asian ancestry. 

“Ust-Kyakhta is a rural locality (a selo) in Kyakhtinsky District, Republic of Buryatia, Russia. The Ust-Kyakhta-3 archeological site is located close to Ust-Kyakhta along the Selenga River. It was discovered in 1947 by Soviet archaeologist A.P. Okladnikov. Systematic excavations started in the 1970s and since then yielded more than 40,000 stone artifacts and in 2012 also two human tooth fragments from the late Upper Paleolithic (ca. 12000 BCE or around 14,000 years ago). Ancient DNA extracted from one of the fragments revealed that it belonged to a male individual that was genetically close to another late Upper Paleolithic individual from the Kolyma area in northeast Siberia, indicating that this Ancient Paleo-Siberian ancestry must have been widespread in eastern Siberia at the onset of the Holocene. Ancient Paleo-Siberian ancestry has been shown to be related to the early ancestors of Native Americans, and partially contributed to the gene pool of later populations of Siberia until the present time.” ref

“A deer tooth pendant impregnated with the genetic material of an ANE woman was found in the Denisova Cave, and dated to circa 24,700 years before present. She is closely related to Mal’ta and Afontova Gora specimens, found further east. One theory supposes that Ancient North Eurasians migrated south to East Asia, or Southern Siberia, where they would have encountered and mixed with ancient East Asians. Genetic evidence from Lake Baikal in Mongolia supports this area as the location where the admixture took place.” ref

“The descendants of admixture between ANE and ancient East Asians include Ancient Beringian/Ancestral Native American, which are specific archaeogenetic lineages, based on the genome of an infant found at the Upward Sun River site (dubbed USR1), dated to 11,500 years ago. The AB and the Ancestral Native American (ANA) lineage formed about 25,000 years ago, and subsequently diverged from each other, with the AB staying in the Beringian region, while the Ancestral Native Americans populated the Americas. The ANE genetic contribution to late-Paeolithic Ancestral Native Americans (USR1 specimen, dated to 11,500 years ago in Alaska, and Clovis specimen, dated to 12,600 years ago in Montana) is estimated at around 36.8%. There are also the Ancient Paleo-Siberians, populations represented by the Late Upper Paeolithic Lake Baikal Ust’Kyakhta-3 (UKY) 14,050-13,770 years ago. They carried 30% ANE ancestry and 70% East Asian ancestry.” ref

Devils Gate dating to 7,726-7,622 years ago, Y-DNA C2-M217. mtDNA D4 and M. Related to the Ancient Northeast Asian gene pool after 13,000 years ago.

“Chertovy Vorota Cave, also known as Devil’s Gate Cave is a Neolithic archaeological site located in the Sikhote-Alin mountains, about 12 km (7 mi) from the town of Dalnegorsk in Primorsky Krai, Russia. Around 600 lithic, osteological, and shell artifacts, 700 pottery fragments, and over 700 animal bones were recovered from the site. A .6 cm thick jade disk made from brownish-green jade and measuring 5.2 cm (2 in) in diameter was also recovered from Chertovy Vorota. The remains of racoon dog, brown bear, Asian black bear, wild boar, badger, red deer, fish, and mollusc shells were found inside the cave. The occupants of the cave are thought to have been hunter-gatherers, with no evidence of any farming practices.” ref

“The remains of carbonized textile fragments were found within the cave, under the remains of a wooden structure that had caught on fire and collapsed. The carbonized remains of rope, nets, and woven fabrics were recovered from the cave. The fibers likely came from Carex sordida, a sedge grass from the family Cyperaceae. The textile remains were directly dated to around 9,400-8,400 years ago, the earliest evidence in the archaeological record for textile remains from East Asia. As spindle whorls were not found in the cave, and also rarely found in contemporary East Asian sites, archaeologists postulate that the people at Chertovy Vorota either produced their textiles by hand or through the use of warp-weighted looms. The remains of 7 individuals were discovered within the cave. They were the first individuals to be identified with the specific Ancient Northeast Asian (ANA) gene pool.” ref 

“The skulls of two of the individuals, DevilsGate1 and DevilsGate2, were directly dated to around 5,726-5,622 BCE. Six out of seven individuals whose remains have been recovered from the cave have been genetically analyzed. Originally, three of the specimens were thought to be adult males, two were thought to be adult females, one was thought to be a sub-adult of about 12-13 years of age, and one was thought to be a juvenile of about 6-7 years of age based on the skeletal morphology of the remains. Results of a genetic analysis on the sub-adult individual have not yet been published. However, two specimens, NEO236 (Skull B, DevilsGate2) and NEO235 (Skull G), who had been presumed to be adult males according to a forensic morphological assessment of their remains, were discovered through genetic analysis to actually be females. The juvenile specimen also has been determined to be female through a genetic analysis.” ref

“Three of the specimens (including the only adult male plus NEO235/Skull G and another adult female, labeled as Skull Е, DevilsGate1, or NEO240, who has been genetically determined to be a first-degree relative of NEO235/Skull G) have been assigned to mtDNA haplogroup D4m; a previous genetic analysis of one of these adult female specimens determined her mtDNA haplogroup to be D4. Another three specimens (including the juvenile female, the DevilsGate2 specimen, and another adult female; both the juvenile female and the DevilsGate2 specimen have been determined to be first-degree relatives of the other adult female, and the juvenile female and the DevilsGate2 specimen also have been determined to be second-degree relatives of each other) have been assigned to haplogroup D4; a previous genetic analysis of the DevilsGate2 specimen determined her mtDNA haplogroup to be M. The only specimen from the cave who has been confirmed to be male through genetic analysis has been assigned to Y-DNA haplogroup C2b-F6273/Y6704/Y6708, equivalent to C2b-L1373, the northern (Central Asian, Siberian, and indigenous American) branch of haplogroup C2-M217.” ref

“When compared against all populations on record, ancient or modern, the ancient Chertovy Vorota individuals were found to be genetically closest to the contemporary Ulchi, speakers of a Tungusic language from the lower Amur Basin. The DevilsGate1 and DevilsGate2 specimens were also found to be close to the Hezhen and Oroqen, two other contemporary Tungusic-speaking populations from the basin of the Amur River, as well as contemporary Koreans, Japanese, and Nganasans. When compared against an outgroup from southern Africa (Khomani), outgroup f3 statistics indicate that DevilsGate1 and DevilsGate2 exhibit greatest shared drift with representatives of the same six populations, though in slightly different rank order: DevilsGate1 shares greatest drift with Ulchi followed in order by Oroqen, Hezhen, Korean, Japanese, and Nganasan, whereas DevilsGate2 shares greatest drift with Ulchi followed in order by Nganasan, Hezhen, Korean, Japanese, and Oroqen. The outgroup f3 statistics also reveal a tendency for the DevilsGate2 specimen to exhibit slightly greater shared drift with contemporary populations than the DevilsGate1 specimen shares with contemporary populations. The ancient Chertovy Vorota individuals are genetically closest to the Ulchi, followed by the Oroqen and Hezhen. The genetic distance from the ancient Chertovy Vorota individuals to the Mal’ta boy is the same as that from modern East Asian populations to the Mal’ta boy.” ref

“With the exception of DevilsGate1, most of the individuals tested did not yield enough DNA to allow for phenotypic testing of traits. DevilsGate1 did not carry the derived SLC45A2 or SLC24A5 alleles associated with lighter skin color, the derived HERC2 allele associated with blue eyes, the derived LT allele associated with lactase persistence, or the derived ALDH2 allele associated with the alcohol flush reaction. However, the individual likely did carry the derived EDAR allele commonly found in modern East Asian populations, the derived ABCC11 allele associated with dry earwax and reduced body odor commonly found in modern East Asian populations, and the derived ADD1 allele associated with increased risk for hypertension.” ref

ULGAN – the Siberian God of Creation

“He created the Earth by dropping a huge round slab of land upon the back of three giant fish who happened to be splishing around in the Primordial Ocean.” ref

“Bai-Ülgen or Ülgen (Old Turkic: 𐰈𐰞𐰏𐰅𐰣; Cyrillic: Үлгэн) is a Turkic creator-deity, usually distinct from Tengri but sometimes identified with him in the same manner as Helios and Apollo. His name is from Old Turkic bay, “rich”, and ülgen, “magnificent”. Ülgen is believed to be without either beginning or end. In Tengrism, the birch tree, regarded as a cosmic axis between earth and sky, was regarded as sacred to him, as was the horse (horse-sacrifice was a part of his worship). Ülgen symbolizes goodness, welfare, abundance, plentiness of food, water, etc. Furthermore, he created earth, heaven, and all living beings.” ref

“In addition, he controls the atmospheric events and movements of stars. He creates land for people to live on, the heads of both humans and animals, and the rainbow. He was regarded as the patron god of shamans and the source of their knowledge. It is believed that Ülgen has been created from Kayra (Tengere Kayra Khan). He is the highest deity after Tengri in the pantheon. Often, Ülgen is compared with Tengri, and at times they are thought to be on par, or even the same. In some sayings, the name/function of Ülgen may be (partially) interchangeable with that of Tengri. Ülgen is described as the enemy of Erlik who is the god of evil and darkness. Ülgen assumes the protectorship of humankind against him.” ref

“Bai-Ülgen lives on the sixteenth floor of the sky above the stars, sun and moon in a golden house. Mere humans may never reach him, only shamans and kams who possess astral powers can. Animals are used for sacrifice in worship of him, especially horses. Once in every third, sixth, ninth, or twelfth year, a shaman may sacrifice a white horse as the first step of reaching Ülgen. Then he must ride its soul, penetrate through all the layers of heaven until he reaches Ülgen. Firstly, the kam (shaman) meets Yayık who is the servant of Ülgen. This entity informs the kam whether or not the offering has been accepted. If the sacrificial rite has been successful, the shaman is able to learn from the omniscient Ülgen of impending dangers, such as bad harvests.” ref

“In the Turkic mythology, Erlik was involved in the creation of humanity. He slew the messenger-god, Maidere/Maydere, and is a teacher of sin. He is sometimes represented by a totemic bear. In Turkic mythology, Erlik was the deity of evil, darkness, lord of the lower world, and judge of the dead. Erlik is a brother of Ülgen, they both have been created from Kayra (Tengere Kayra Khan). He wants to be equal to Ulgen, he makes his own land and was sent to the prison at the 9th layer of the earth and became opposed to the upper world, the realm of light. According to the Khakas, Erlik resides in the deepest underworld in a palace of copper with furniture made of gold.” ref

“According to an Altai legend, Erlik created the spirits (İye) while he was still in heaven. Erlik and his spirits were cast out and fell to earth together when he claimed divinity for himself. Another legend of the Altai people recorded states, God (Tengri) endowed Erlik with a hammer and an anvil, but took his power away when Erlik was creating evil with it. According to another legend, recorded by Vasily Radlov, God ordered the first human to dive into the primordial water and remove a handful of soil from the bottom of the sea. The first human, however, desired to hide some soil in order to create his own world later. But the soil in his mouth grew and he spit it out. Kayra, who designs the world in this legend, cast the first human away from the heavenly realm as means of punishment and thus named him Erlik.” ref

“In yet another narrative, people have been immortal before the advent of Erlik. People and animals overpopulated the world, until a crow suggested to summon Death into the world. So people summoned Erlik, whereupon death enters. First, all people knew when they would die, and so they lived in fear, until Tengri hid their date of death. The evil spirits created by Erlik cause misfortune, sickness, and death to mankind. These spirits are imagined as Erlik’s assistants. Besides these, his nine sons and daughters help their father in the way of evil. Erlik’s daughters especially try to change a shaman’s mind while he is attempting to reach Ulgen with their beauties.” ref

“Erlik gives all kinds of sickness and wants sacrifices from the people. If they do not sacrifice to him, he catches the dead bodies of the people that he killed and takes them away to this lower world, and then makes them his slaves. So, especially in the Altays, when sickness appears, people become scared of Erlik and make many animal sacrifices to him. In the prayers of shamans, Erlik is described as a monster, having the face and teeth of a pig combined with a human body. Besides his face, he is an old man with a well-built body, black eyes, eyebrows, and mustache. According to the Dolgans, Erlik took Mammoths down to the underworld. Whenever they try to get back to the surface, they freeze to death as punishment. Erlik has nine sons, named Karaoğlanlar (“dark boys”). They are Karash Khan, Matır Khan, Shingay Khan, Komur Khan, Badish Khan, Yabash Khan, Temir Khan, Uchar Khan, and Kerey Khan. He also has nine daughters, named Karakızlar (“dark girls”), their names being unknown.” ref

“Erlik was worshipped in some traditional religions in Siberia and Central Asia, such as by Buryats. As Erlik is seen as the ruler of demons and the underworld, sacrifices are made for him to get rid of diseases or for the sake of people, who will enter the underworld after death. Alternatively, people sacrifice to Erlik in order to get a higher rank in his underworld. Shamans who venerate Erlik are called Black Shamans (kara kam). Their practise is usually frowned upon, since they negotiate with demonic spirits. Erlik cannot claim every soul but only the evil ones. When a person dies, Erlik sends a kormos (some sort of ghost) in order to take the soul, simultaneously, heaven sends a spirit to carry the soul to heaven. The alignment of the soul determines the outcome of the struggle of these two spirits. While some scholars believe that Erlik points to some sort of dualism between the divine heaven and the lower earth within Tengrist cosmology, others argue that Ülgan and Erlik are two rulers alongside Tengri, representing good and evil respectively.” ref

Slavic water spirits

“In Slavic paganism, there are a variety of female tutelary spirits associated with water. They have been compared to the Greek Nymphs, and they may be either white (beneficent) or black (maleficent). They may be called Boginki, Navki, Rusalki, and Vily. he Proto-Slavic root *navь-, which forms one of the names for these beings, means “dead”, as these minor goddesses are conceived as the spirits of dead children or young women. They are represented as half-naked beautiful girls with long hair, but in the South Slavic tradition also as birds who soar in the depths of the skies. They live in waters, woods and steppes, and they giggle, sing, play music, and clap their hands. They are so beautiful that they bewitch young men and might bring them to death by drawing them into deep water.” ref

“Navia, spelled in various ways in the Slavic languages, refers to the souls of the dead. Navka and Mavka (pl. Navki and Mavki) are variations with the diminutive suffix –ka. They are also known as Lalka (pl. Lalki). The Proto-Slavic root *navь-, means “dead”, “deceased” or “corpse”. The word Nav is also the name of the underworld, Vyraj, which is presided by the chthonic god Veles. Boginki means little goddesses. The world of the dead is believed to be separated from the world of the living either by a sea or a river located deep underground. In the folk beliefs of Ruthenia, Veles lives in a swamp located at the centre of Nav, sitting on a golden throne at the base of the world tree, and wielding a sword. Symbolically, the Nav is also described as a huge green plain–pasture, onto which Veles guides the souls. The entrance to Nav is guarded by a zmey, a dragon.” ref

“According to Stanisław Urbańczyk, amongst other scholars, Navia was a general name for demons arising from the souls of tragic and premature deaths, the killers and the killed, warlocks, and the drowned. They were said to be hostile and unfavourable towards the living, being jealous of life. In Bulgarian folklore there exists the character of twelve Navias who suck the blood out of women giving birth, whereas in the Primary Chronicle the Navias are presented as a demonic personification of the 1092 plague in Polotsk. According to folk beliefs, Navias may take the form of birds. According to Vladimir Propp, Rusalka (pl. Rusalki) was an appellation used by the early Slavs for tutelary deities of water who favour fertility, and they were not considered evil entities before the nineteenth century. They came out of the water in spring to transfer life-giving moisture to the fields, thus nurturing the crops.” ref

“In nineteenth-century descriptions, however, the Rusalka became an unquiet, dangerous, unclean spirit (Nav). According to Dmitry Zelenin, young women, who either committed suicide by drowning due to an unhappy marriage (they might have been jilted by their lovers or abused and harassed by their much older husbands) or who were violently drowned against their will (especially after becoming pregnant with unwanted children), must live out their designated time on earth as Rusalkas. Original Slavic lore suggests that not all Rusalkas were linked with death from water. They appear in the form of beautiful girls, with long hair, generally naked but covered with their long tresses, with wreaths of sedge on their heads. They live in groups in crystal palaces at the bottom of rivers, emerging only in springtime; others live in fields and forests. In springtime, they dance and sing along the riverbanks promoting the growth of rye. After the first thunder, they return to their rivers or rise to the skies.” ref

“According to Polish folklore, they appeared on new moon and lured young men to play with them, killing them with tickles or frenzied dancing. Sometimes they would ask a riddle, and, if given the right answer, they would leave the man alone. They were particularly mean towards young girls. In some regions they were called majka (pl. majki); in the Tatra Mountains – dziwożona. Other names used to describe this spirit were: water maiden, boginka, moriana and wodiana (the last one became topielica later). A rusalka wasn’t necessarily a water spirit – forest ones existed too, and they appeared as more mature than their water counterparts (they also had black hair instead of golden).” ref

“They were worshipped together with ancestors during the Rosalia (or Rusalye) festival in spring, originally a Roman festival for offering roses (and other flowers) to gods and ancestors; from the festival derives the term rusalka itself. Another time associated with the Rusalkas is the green week (or Rusalnaya nedelja, “week of the Rusalkas”) in early June; a common feature of this celebration was the ritual banishment or burial of the Rusalka at the end of the week, which remained popular in Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine until the 1930s.” ref

“Vila (pl. Vily) are another type of minor goddesses, already identified as Nymphs by the Greek historian Procopius; their name comes from the same root as the name of Veles. They are described as beautiful, eternally young, dressed in white, with eyes flashing like thunders, and provided with wings. They live in the clouds, in mountain woods or in the waters. They are well-disposed towards men, and they are able to turn themselves into horses, wolves, snakes, falcons and swans. The cult of the Vilas was still practiced among South Slavs in the early twentieth century, with offerings of fruits and flowers in caves, cakes near wells, and ribbons hanged to the branches of trees.” ref

Primordial waters/Cosmic ocean/Celestial river 

“A cosmic ocean, primordial waters, or celestial river is a mythological motif that represents the world or cosmos enveloped by a vast primordial ocean. Found in many cultures and civilizations, the cosmic ocean exists before the creation of the Earth. From the primordial waters the earth and the entire cosmos arose. The cosmic ocean represents or embodies chaos. The cosmic ocean takes form in the mythology of Yazidism, Ahl-e Haqq, Alevism, Ancient Egyptian, Ancient Greek, Judaism, Hinduism, Ancient Persian, Sumerian, and Zoroastrianism. The primacy of the ocean in some creation myths corresponds to the cosmological model of land surrounded by the world ocean. The sky is often thought of as something like the upper sea. The concept of a watery chaos also underlies the widespread motif of the worldwide flood that took place in early times. The emergence of earth from water and the curbing of the global flood or underground waters are usually presented as a factor in cosmic ordering.” ref

“In ancient creation texts, the primordial waters are often represented as having filled the entire universe and are the first source of the deities. The act of creation is the establishment of an inhabitable space separate from the enveloping waters. The cosmic ocean is the shape of the universe before creation. The ocean is boundless, unordered, unorganized, amorphous, formless, dangerous, terrible. In some myths, its cacophony is noted, as opposed to the ordered rhythm of the sea. Chaos can be personified as water or by the unorganized interaction of water and fire, The transformation of chaos into order is also the transition from water to land. In many ancient cosmogonic myths, the ocean and chaos are equivalent and inseparable from each other. The ocean remains outside space even after the emergence of the land. At the same time, the ability of the ocean to generate is realized in the appearance of the earth from it and in the presence of a mythological creature in the ocean that promotes generation or, on the contrary, zealously defends the “old order” and prevents the beginning of the chain of births from the ocean.” ref

“Yu. E. Berezkin and E. N. Duvakin generalize the motif of primary waters as follows: “Waters are primary. The earth is launched into the water, appears above the water, grows from a piece of solid substance placed on the surface of the water or liquid mud, from an island in the ocean, is exposed when the waters subsided, etc.” The idea of the primacy of the ocean as an element, from the bowels of which the earth arises or is created, is universally prevalent. This representation is present in many mythologies of the world. In Asia and North America, the earth-diver myth is found. In this myth a creator god dives into the cosmic ocean to bring up and form the earth. A diving bird, catching a lump of earth from the primordial ocean, often appears in the mythologies of the Native Americans and Siberian peoples.” ref

“In totemic myths, bird people are often presented as phratrial ancestors. Eggs are a common theme in creation myths. A waterfowl extracts silt from the sea, from which land is gradually created. In Polynesian mythology, Maui fishes islands. In Scandinavian mythology, the gods and goddesses raise the earth, and Thor catchesJörmungandr from the bottom of the ocean. In ancient Egyptian mythology, the earth itself comes to the surface in the form of a mound. In the Brahmanas, it is Brahma as Prajapati took the earth out of the primordial waters in the form of a Indian boar named Ermusha.” ref 

“In the mythologies of many Asian countries, in which there is an image of an endless and eternal primordial ocean or sea, there is a motif of the creation of the earth by a celestial being descending from the sky and interfering with the water of the ocean with an iron club, spear or other object. This results in condensation which gives rise to the earth. In Japanese mythology, the islands of Japan arose from dirty foam raised by mixing the waters of the ocean with a spear of gods (Izanagi and Izanami). In the mythologies of the Mongolian peoples, the role of the compactor of the ocean waters is played by the wind, which creates a special milky substance out of them, which then becomes the earth’s firmament. According to the Kalmyks, plants, animals, people, and gods were born from this milky liquid. Indian Mythology has a similar with about the churning of the Kshira Sagara.” ref

“Myths about the world’s oceans are universally accompanied by myths about its containment when the earth was already created, and myths about the attempts of the ocean to regain its undivided dominance. In Chinese mythology, there is the idea of a giant depression or pit that determines the direction of the ocean waters and takes away excess water. In many mythologies, there are numerous narratives regarding the flood. The opposition of two types of myths is known (for example, in Oceania) – about the earth sinking in the ocean, and about the retreat of the ocean or sea. An example of the first type is the legend about the origin of Easter Island, recorded on this island. In the creation myth of the Nganasan people, at first, the earth was completely covered with water, then the water subsides and exposes the top of the Shaitan ridge Koika-mou. The first two people fall to this peak – a man and a woman. In the myth of creation of the Tuamotu Islands, the creator Tāne, “Spilling Water”, created the world in the waters of the lord of the waters, Pune, and invoked the light that initiated the creation of the earth.” ref

“The motif of the cosmogonic struggle with the serpent (dragon) is widespread in terms of suppressing water chaos. The serpent in most mythologies is associated with water, often as its abductor. He threatens either with a flood or a drought, that is, a violation of the measure, the water “balance”. Since the cosmos is identified with order and measure, chaos is associated with the violation of measure. The Egyptian sun god Ra kills the underworld snake Apep, the Hindu thunderstorm god Indra kills the demon snake Vritra, and the Mesopotamian deities Enki, Ninurta, Inanna fight with stalemate the owners of the underworld Kur, Ereshkigal, and Nergal, the Iranian Tishtrya – with the deva Aposhi. Apep, Vritra, Aposhi hold back the cosmic waters and are killed by deities. Marduk defeats the progenitor godess Tiamat, the wife of Abzu, the personification of the dark waters of chaos, who has taken the form of a dragon. There are hints in the Bible about Yahweh fighting and killing the monster whale Leviathan. Yu the Great‘s heroic struggle with the cosmic flood ends with the murder of the insidious owner of the water Gungun and his “close associate” – the nine-headed Xiangliu.” ref

“The transition from the formless water element to land is the most important act necessary for the transformation of chaos into space. The next step in the same direction is the separation of the sky from the earth, which, perhaps, essentially coincides with the first act, given the initial identification of the sky with the oceans. But it was precisely the repetition of the act – first down, and then up – that led to the allocation of three spheres – earthly, heavenly and underground, which represents the transition from binary division to trinity. The middle sphere, the earth, opposes the watery world below and the heavenly world above.” ref

“A trichotomous scheme of the cosmos arises, including the necessary space between earth and sky. This space is often represented as a cosmic tree. Earth and sky are almost universally represented as feminine and masculine, a married couple standing at the beginning of a theogonic or theocosmogonic process. At the same time, the feminine principle is sometimes associated with the element of water and with chaos; usually it is conceived on the side of “nature” rather than “culture.” Mythical creatures personifying chaos, defeated, shackled, overthrown, often continue to exist on the outskirts of space, along the shores of the oceans, in the underground “lower” world, in some special parts of the sky. So, in Scandinavian mythology, frost giants precede time, and in space they are located on the outskirts of the earth’s circle, in cold places, near the oceans.” ref

Egyptian mythology

Nu (mythology)

“In Ancient Egyptian mythology, in the beginning the universe only consisted of a great chaotic cosmic ocean, and the ocean itself was referred to as Nu. In some versions of this myth, at the beginning of time Mehet-Weret, portrayed as a cow with a sun disk between her horns, gives birth to the sun, said to have risen from the waters of creation and to have given birth to the sun god Ra in some myths. The universe was enrapt by a vast mass of primordial waters, and the Benben, a pyramid mound, emerged amid this primal chaos. There was a lotus flower with Benben, and this when it blossomed emerged Ra. There were many versions of the sun’s emergence, and it was said to have emerged directly from the mound or from a lotus flower that grew from the mound, in the form of a heron, falcon, scarab beetle, or human child.” ref

“In Heliopolis, the creation was attributed to Atum, a god who is a form of Ra, who was said to have existed in the waters of Nu as an inert potential being. The concept of chaos is etymologically associated with darkness (Kek), but primarily about water chaos in the form of the primary ocean (Nu) or, in the Germanic version, five divine pairs representing its different aspects. The primary hill is identified with the sun god Ra. Water chaos is opposed by the first earthly mound protruding from it, with which Atum is associated in Heliopolis (as Ra-Atum), and in Memphis, Ptah. Initially, the existing ocean is personified in the image of the “father of the gods” Nu. In the historical era, the ocean, which was placed underground, gave rise to the river Nile. In the Heracleopolis version of the myth, an internal connection between the ocean and chaos is noted.” ref

Greek mythology

Oceanus (mythology)

“The ideas of ancient Greek mythology about the ocean demonstrate a typologically more advanced stage, when the image of Oceanus becomes the object of “pre-scientific” research and natural philosophy. Oceanus is presented first of all as the greatest world river (Hom. Il. XIV 245), surrounding the earth and the sea, giving rise to rivers, springs, sea currents (XXI 196), shelter of the sun, moon and stars, which they rise from the ocean and enter it (VII 422; VIII 485). The Ocean River touches the sea, but does not mix with it. In the extreme west, the ocean washes the boundaries between the world of life and death. In Homer, Oceanus is without beginning.” ref

“In Theogony 282, Hesiod Hesiod presents a folk etymology of the name Pegasus as derived from πηγή pēgē ‘spring, well’, referring to “the pegai of Oceanus, where he was born”. In Homer and Hesiod, the Ocean is a living being, the progenitor of many gods and goddesses and titans and titanesses (Hom. Il. XIV 201, 246), but Oceanus also had parents. According to Hesiod, Oceanus is the son of the oldest of the titans Uranus and Gaia (Theogony 133). Oceanus is the brother and husband of Tethys, from whom he gave birth to all the rivers and sources – three thousand daughters – oceanids (Theogony 346–364) and the same number of sons – river flows (Theogony 367–370).” ref 

“The gods revere Oceanus as an aged parent, take care of him, although he lives in solitude. Oceanus did not participate in the battle of the titans against Zeus and retained its power and the trust of the Olympians. Oceanus is the father of Metis, the wise wife of Zeus (Apollod. I 2, 1). Known for his peacefulness and kindness (Euripides tried unsuccessfully to reconcile Prometheus with Zeus; Prometheus Bound 284–396). Herodotus contains criticism of the mythological concept of Oceanus as a poetic invention (Herodot. II, 23, cf. also IV 8, 36, etc.). Euripides called the ocean the sea (Orestes 1376). Since that time, a tendency has been established to distinguish between a large outer sea – ocean – and inland seas. Later, Euripides begins to divide the ocean into parts: the Ethiopian Ocean, Eritrean ocean, Gallic ocean, Germanic Ocean, Hyperborean Ocean, etc.” ref

Indian mythology

Garbhodaka Ocean (Mythology)

“In Indian mythology, there is an idea of darkness and the abyss (Asat), but also of the primary waters generated by night or chaos. Ancient Indian myths about the oceans contain both typical and original motifs. In the tenth mandala of the Rigveda, the original state of the universe is presented as the absence of existing and non-existent, airspace and sky above it, death and immortality, day and night, but the presence of water and disorderly movement. In the waters of the eternal ocean, there was a life-giving principle generated by the power of heat and giving birth to everything else. Another mandala of the Rigveda contains a different version: “Law and truths were born from the kindled heat…”, hence the surging ocean. Out of the tumultuous ocean a year was born, distributing days and nights. “Rigveda” repeatedly mentions the generative power of the ocean (“multiple,” it roars at its first spread, giving rise to creations, the bearer of wealth), its thousands of streams flowing from the depths, it is said that the ocean is the spouse of rivers. The cosmic ocean forms the frame of the cosmos, separating it from chaos. The ocean is personified by the god Varuna . Varuna is associated both with the destructive and uncontrolled power of the waters of the oceans, and with fruitful waters that bring wealth to people.” ref

“The churning of the ocean of milk myth contains the motif of the confrontation between the elements of water and fire. As a result of the rapid rotation, a whorl lights up – Mount Mandara, but trees and grasses emit their juices into the drying ocean. This motif echoes the Tungus myths about the creation of the earth by a celestial being, which, with the help of fire, dries up part of the primordial ocean, thus reclaiming a place for the earth. The motif of the struggle of water and fire in connection with the theme of the world ocean is also present in other traditions. Indian mythology is characterized by the image of the creator god (Brahma or Vishnu), floating on the primary waters in a lotus flower, on the dragon Shesha. Kurma, also known as Tortoise, is an avatar of Vishnu who is depicted as churning the cosmic ocean. Vishnu adopts the form of a tortoise to help hold the stick used to churn the cosmic ocean.” ref

Persian mythology

“Fraxkard (Middle Persian: plʾhwklt, Avestan: Vourukaša; also called Warkaš in Middle Persian) is the cosmic ocean in Iranian mythology.” ref

“These stories in Iranian mythology, or Persian mythology concern the origin and nature of the world, the lives and activities of deities, heroes, and mythological creatures, and the origins and significance of the ancient Persians’ own cult and ritual practices. Modern scholars study the myths to shed light on the religious and political institutions of not only present-day Iran but of the [Persosphere], which includes [region]s of West Asia, Central Asia, South Asia, and Transcaucasia where the culture of Iran has had significant influence. Historically, these were regions long ruled by dynasties of various Iranian empires, that incorporated considerable aspects of Persian culture through extensive contact with them, or where sufficient Iranian peoples settled to still maintain communities who patronize their respective cultures. It roughly corresponds to the Iranian Plateau and its bordering plains. Most characters in Persian mythology are either good, or they are evil. The resultant discord mirrors the nationalistic ideals of the early Islamic era as well as the moral and ethical perceptions of the Zoroastrian period, in which the world was perceived to be locked in a battle between the destructive Ahriman and his hordes of demonic Divs and their Aneran supporters, versus the Creator Ahura Mazda, who although not participating in the day-to-day affairs of mankind, was represented in the world by the izads and the righteous ahlav Iranians. The only written texts relating to religious come from prophet Zoroaster, initiated the reforms which would become Zoroastrianism. Iranian mythology is based on the battle between good and evil. Indo-Iranian peoples believed in two general categories of gods: Ahuras, and evil: Divan. The characteristics of these two ranks of gods among Iranians and Hindus, and were transformed into each other, in the sense that among Indians Ahuras became evil and Divan became good, And among Iranians, Ahuras became good and Divan became evil. They sacrificed for both types of gods. The purpose of the sacrifice for the evil gods was to pay them a ransom to stop killing people. Sacrifice was made for good gods to seek help and blessing from them.” ref

“In the mythological beliefs of Iranians before Zoroastrian, the world was round and flat like a plate. The sky was also imagined as stone and hard as a diamond. The earth in the center was completely flat and untouched, and there was no movement between the earth, the moon, and the stars. But everything changed by Ahura Mazda. The dynamism arose, the mountains were created, the rivers flowed, and the moon and stars began to rotate. In the general picture of the world at that time, the world was divided into seven regions, the center of which was called Khoonirth, and six satellite lands were around it. The sky had three levels of star base, moon base and sun base. Dark Mountain, which was located in Alborz, was considered the center of the universe. The message of Iranian myths is the confrontation of two gems of good and evil. One is truth and the other is untruth, one is fragrant and the other is bright, one is light and the other is darkness.” ref

In Iranian mythology, what can be seen everywhere in all mythological narratives is the presence of evil and evil forces in the world. These evil forces, which are considered to be the assistants of Angra Mainyu (Ahriman), are mentioned by the names of Div and Druq. These two have male and female genders, and against every good thing in the world. In Iranian mythology, the world is always the scene of conflict between these evil and good forces. Creation takes place within twelve thousand mythological years. These twelve thousand years are divided into four periods of three thousand years. The first three thousand years begins with the birth of two children named Ahura Maza and Ahriman from Zarvan. The second three thousand years: After Ahriman’s unconsciousness, Ahura Mazda begins the creation of the world. He creates the sky, water, earth, plants, animals and humans in one year. The anniversary of these creations are six festivals, which are known as Gahambars. The main prototypes of creation are the cow, four-legged animals, and the human beings. At the end of the second three thousand years, Ahriman, with the help of his allies, returns and decides to destroy the current world.” ref

Judaism mythology

“In the first creation story in the Bible the world is created as a space inside of the water or Tehom, and is hence surrounded of it, “And God saith, ‘Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.'” (Genesis 1:6). It is not clear as to if this upper water refers to the clouds or a literal ‘sky ocean’ beyond the stars. There are hints though that indicate the cosmic ocean was enveloped in thick clouds. In Exodus the cosmic ocean is Yam Sûf and is mentioned in Exodus 15:4. The army of the Pharoh was thrown into the “Sea of Extinction.” Yahweh rises Egypt up from this sea. King Sargon is said to have washed his weapons in the cosmic ocean. The cosmic ocean is mentioned again in Joshua 1:4 and signified as a boundary of the universe. In the myth of Noah’s Ark, after forty days and nights of rain the cosmic ocean floods the earth.” ref

Sumerian mythology

“In Sumerian mythology, there was an image of the original sea abyss – Abzu, on the site of which the most active of the gods Enki, representing the earth, fresh water and agriculture on irrigated lands, made his home. In the beginning, the entire space of the world was filled with an ocean that had neither beginning nor end. It was probably believed that he was eternal. In its bowels lurked the foremother Nammu. In her womb arose a cosmic mountain in the form of a hemisphere, which later became the earth. An arc of shiny tin, encircling the hemisphere vertically, later became the sky. In the Babylonian version, in the endless primordial Ocean there was nothing but two monsters – the forefather Apsu and foremother Tiamat.” ref

Zoroastrianism mythology

“Vourukasha is the name of a heavenly sea in Zoroastrian mythology. It was created by Ahura Mazda and in its middle stood the Harvisptokhm or the “tree of all seeds”. According to the Vendidad, Ahura Mazda sent the clean waters of Vourukasha down to the earth in order to cleanse the world and sent the water back to the heavenly sea Puitika. This phenomenon was later interpreted as the coming and going of the tide. At the center of Vourukasha was located the Harvisptokhm or “tree of all seeds”, which contains the seeds of all plants in the world. There is a bird Sinamru on the tree which causes the bough to break and seeds to sprinkle all around when it alights. At the center of the Vourukasha also grows the Gaokerena or “White Haoma“, considered to be the “king of healing plants”. It is surrounded by ten thousand other healing plants. In later times, Vourukasha was connected with the Persian Sea and the Puitika with the Gulf of Oman.” ref

“Different Ancient Egyptian creation myths have some elements in common. They all held that the world had arisen out of the lifeless waters of chaos, called Nu. They also included a pyramid-shaped mound, called the benben, which was the first thing to emerge from the waters.” ref

“Nu is one of the eight deities of the Ogdoad representing ancient Egyptian primordial Chaos from which the primordial mound arose.” ref

“In Ancient Egyptian creation myths, there were many versions of the sun’s emergence, and it was said to have emerged directly from the mound or from a lotus flower that grew from the mound, in the form of a heron, falcon, scarab beetle, or human child. Another common element of Egyptian cosmogonies is the familiar figure of the cosmic egg, a substitute for the primeval waters or the primeval mound. One variant of the cosmic egg version teaches that the sun god, as primeval power, emerged from the primeval mound, which stood in the chaos of the primeval sea.” ref

Primeval Mound

“In Egyptian mythology of the Heliopolis theology, Heliopolis was the Primeval Mound, the first land to emerge at creation from the primeval waters.” ref

“The mastabas of the early dynasties had within them a development of the primeval mound, the place of original creation in Zep Tepi, the First Time, an embryonic stepped structure, concealed inside the internal fabric of the building. It was almost inevitable, therefore, that later generations should express their creative spirit in a shape of pure force, colossal but surging upwards, resting with absolute confidence on the earth, immovable but expressing that reaching out for the firmament — and beyond it, to the realm of the Imperishable Stars — which is so typical of the spirit of early Egypt.” ref

Benben stone (mound of creation) 

“In the creation myth of the Heliopolitan form of ancient Egyptian religion, Benben was the mound that arose from the primordial waters Nu upon which the creator deity Atum settled. The Benben stone (also known as a pyramidion) is the top stone of the pyramid. It is also related to the obelisk.” ref 

“Mounds of Creation were one of were many kinds of temples in the Age of the Pyramids. Some, such as the sanctuary of Khnum at Elephantine, or the Sacred Precinct at Nekhen, were ancient places where rocks and stones marked out a sacred site. In several towns, a special Mound of Creation marked the place where the local deity had brought land out of chaos and begun the work of creation. The existence of many of these “Mounds of Creations” shows local gods and goddesses had originally been credited with the work of creation.” ref

Shaman Rock, on Olkhon Island, Lake Baikal, Siberia, with a natural rock image that resembles a dragon. And is one of the “Nine Holy Sites of Asia.”

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Sacred Snakes or Dragons and Rivers? To me, it’s snakes/dragons in one theme express as rivers thus developed on animism to gods or totem and other believed sacred beings

Sacred Snakes or Dragons and Rivers, Lakes, and Seas?

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Ancient North Eurasian

“A 2016 study found that the global maximum of Ancient North Eurasian (ANE) ancestry occurs in modern-day Kets, Mansi, Native Americans, and Selkups. ANE ancestry has spread throughout Eurasia and the Americas in various migrations since the Upper Paleolithic, and more than half of the world’s population today derives between 5 and 42% of their genomes from the Ancient North Eurasians. Significant ANE ancestry can be found in Native Americans, as well as in regions of northern Europe, South Asia, Central Asia, and Siberia. It has been suggested that their mythology may have featured narratives shared by both Indo-European and some Native American cultures, such as the existence of a metaphysical world tree and a fable in which a dog guards the path to the afterlife.” ref

Ancient Northern East Asian/ later became Ancient Northeast Asian
Ancient Paleo-Siberian
Mal’ta–Buret’ culture (Mal’ta boy MA-1)

Ancestral Native American, Ancient Beringian

14,000-year-old Ust-Kyakhta-3 (UKY) individual found near Lake Baikal

Amur River Region

Chertovy Vorota Cave/Devil’s Gate Cave

Afanasievo culture

Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex

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“Phylogenetic position of the Paleo-Siberian lineage among other Eastern Eurasians.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Based on the seeming evidence, I speculate that around 14,000 years ago, it could be possible Siberian Shamanism (along with dogs and a bird carving, different but yet possibly related to the bird carvings in Siberia dating from 24,000 to 15,000 years ago) was transferred to China, after “N” DNA reached Siberia bringing them pottery. Bird sculptures through ethnographic comparison at 24,000–15,000 years old Mal’ta with objects used by Siberian shamans, suggest a fully developed shamanism.

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“The Paleolithic dog was a Late Pleistocene canine. They were directly associated with human hunting camps in Europe over 30,000 years ago and it is proposed that these were domesticated. They are further proposed to be either a proto-dog and the ancestor of the domestic dog or an extinct, morphologically and genetically divergent wolf population. There are a number of recently discovered specimens which are proposed as being Paleolithic dogs, however, their taxonomy is debated. These have been found in either Europe or Siberia and date 40,000–17,000 years ago. They include Hohle Fels in Germany, Goyet Caves in Belgium, Predmosti in the Czech Republic, and four sites in Russia: Razboinichya Cave in the Altai Republic, Kostyonki-8, Ulakhan Sular in the Sakha Republic, and Eliseevichi 1 on the Russian plain.” ref

1. 40,000–35,500 years ago Hohle Fels, Schelklingen, Germany
2. 36,500 years ago Goyet Caves, Samson River Valley, Belgium
3. 33,500 years ago Razboinichya Cave,  Altai Mountains, (Russia/Siberia)
4. 33,500–26,500 years ago Kostyonki-Borshchyovo archaeological complex, (Kostenki site) Voronezh, Russia
5. 31,000 years ago Predmostí, Moravia, Czech Republic
6. 26,000 years ago Chauvet Cave, Vallon-Pont-d’Arc, Ardèche region, France
7. 17,300–14,100 years ago Dyuktai Cave, northern Yakutia, Siberia
8. 17,000–16,000 years ago Eliseevichi-I site, Bryansk Region, Russian Plain, Russia
9. 16,900 years ago Afontova Gora-1, Yenisei River, southern Siberia
10. 14,223 years ago Bonn–Oberkassel, Germany
11. 13,500 years ago Mezine, Chernigov region, Ukraine
12. 13,000 years ago Palegawra, (Zarzian culture) Iraq
13. 12,800 years ago Ushki I, Kamchatka, eastern Siberia
14. 12,790 years ago Nanzhuangtou, China
15. 12,300 years ago Ust’-Khaita site, Baikal region, Siberia
16. 12,000 years ago Ain Mallaha (Eynan) and HaYonim terrace, Israel
17. 10,150 years ago Lawyer’s Cave, Alaska, USA
18. 9,000 years ago Jiahu site, China
19. 8,000 years ago Svaerdborg site, Denmark
20. 7,425 years ago Lake Baikal region, Siberia
21. 7,000 years ago Tianluoshan archaeological site, Zhejiang province, China ref

34,000 years old Paleolithic dog or wolf dog hybrid skulls found in Razboinichya Cave, Siberia

Dog Domestication, Shamanism, and Emerging “Sacred Companion” Mortuary Rituals between 33,000 to 12,000 years ago?

The Mytheme of Ancient North Eurasian Sacred-Dog belief and similar motifs are found in Indo-European, Native American, and Siberian comparative mythology

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Pottery moves from China to Siberia, then to the Middle East, and Europe

R2a from Siberia spreading to Iran, influenced the creation of Proto-Indo-European languages, transferring to R1b, emerging south of the Caucasus, and then spreading north into Russia/Europe

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Ancient North Eurasian (ANE)

Ancient Beringian/Ancestral Native American (AB/ANA)

Eastern Hunter-Gatherer (EHG)

Western Hunter-Gatherers (WHG)

Western Steppe Herders (WSH) 

Scandinavian Hunter-Gatherer (SHG)

Early European Farmers (EEF)

Jōmon people (Ainu people OF Hokkaido Island) 

Neolithic Iranian farmers (Iran_N) (Iran Neolithic)

Amur Culture (Amur watershed)

Groups partially derived from the Ancient North Eurasians

“Eastern Hunter-Gatherer (EHG) is a lineage derived predominantly (75%) from ANE. It is represented by two individuals from Karelia, one of Y-haplogroup R1a-M417, dated c. 8.4 kya, the other of Y-haplogroup J, dated c. 7.2 kya; and one individual from Samara, of Y-haplogroup R1b-P297, dated c. 7.6 kya. This lineage is closely related to the ANE sample from Afontova Gora, dated c. 18 kya. After the end of the Last Glacial Maximum, the Western Hunter-Gatherers (WHG) and EHG lineages merged in Eastern Europe, accounting for early presence of ANE-derived ancestry in Mesolithic Europe. Evidence suggests that as Ancient North Eurasians migrated West from Eastern Siberia, they absorbed Western Hunter-Gatherers and other West Eurasian populations as well.” ref

“Caucasian Hunter-Gatherer (CHG) is represented by the Satsurblia individual dated ~13 kya (from the Satsurblia cave in Georgia), and carried 36% ANE-derived admixture. While the rest of their ancestry is derived from the Dzudzuana cave individual dated ~26 kya, which lacked ANE-admixture, Dzudzuana affinity in the Caucasus decreased with the arrival of ANE at ~13 kya Satsurblia.” ref

“Scandinavian Hunter-Gatherer (SHG) is represented by several individuals buried at Motala, Sweden ca. 6000 BC. They were descended from Western Hunter-Gatherers who initially settled Scandinavia from the south, and later populations of EHG who entered Scandinavia from the north through the coast of Norway.” ref

“Iran Neolithic (Iran_N) individuals dated ~8.5 kya carried 50% ANE-derived admixture and 50% Dzudzuana-related admixture, marking them as different from other Near-Eastern and Anatolian Neolithics who didn’t have ANE admixture. Iran Neolithics were later replaced by Iran Chalcolithics, who were a mixture of Iran Neolithic and Near Eastern Levant Neolithic.” ref

“Ancient Beringian/Ancestral Native American are specific archaeogenetic lineages, based on the genome of an infant found at the Upward Sun River site (dubbed USR1), dated to 11,500 years ago. The AB lineage diverged from the Ancestral Native American (ANA) lineage about 20,000 years ago.” ref

“West Siberian Hunter-Gatherer (WSHG) are a specific archaeogenetic lineage, first reported in a genetic study published in Science in September 2019. WSGs were found to be of about 30% EHG ancestry, 50% ANE ancestry, and 20% to 38% East Asian ancestry.” ref

“Western Steppe Herders (WSH) is the name given to a distinct ancestral component that represents descent closely related to the Yamnaya culture of the Pontic–Caspian steppe. This ancestry is often referred to as Yamnaya ancestry or Steppe ancestry.” ref

“Late Upper Paeolithic Lake Baikal – Ust’Kyakhta-3 (UKY) 14,050-13,770 BP were mixture of 30% ANE ancestry and 70% East Asian ancestry.” ref

“Lake Baikal Holocene – Baikal Eneolithic (Baikal_EN) and Baikal Early Bronze Age (Baikal_EBA) derived 6.4% to 20.1% ancestry from ANE, while rest of their ancestry was derived from East Asians. Fofonovo_EN near by Lake Baikal were mixture of 12-17% ANE ancestry and 83-87% East Asian ancestry.” ref

“Hokkaido Jōmon people specifically refers to the Jōmon period population of Hokkaido in northernmost Japan. Though the Jōmon people themselves descended mainly from East Asian lineages, one study found an affinity between Hokkaido Jōmon with the Northern Eurasian Yana sample (an ANE-related group, related to Mal’ta), and suggest as an explanation the possibility of minor Yana gene flow into the Hokkaido Jōmon population (as well as other possibilities). A more recent study by Cooke et al. 2021, confirmed ANE-related geneflow among the Jōmon people, partially ancestral to the Ainu people. ANE ancestry among Jōmon people is estimated at 21%, however, there is a North to South cline within the Japanese archipelago, with the highest amount of ANE ancestry in Hokkaido and Tohoku.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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“N1c represents the western extent of haplogroup N, which is found all over the Far East (China, Korea, Japan), Mongolia, and Siberia, especially among Uralic speakers of northern Siberia. Haplogroup N1 reaches a maximum frequency of approximately 95% in the Nenets (40% N1c and 57% N1b) and Nganassans (all N1b), two Uralic tribes of central-northern Siberia, and 90% among the Yakuts (all N1c), a Turkic people who live mainly in the Sakha (Yakutia) Republic in central-eastern Siberia.” ref

Nenets (40% N1c and 57% N1b)

“The Nenets, also known as Samoyed, are a Samoyedic ethnic group native to northern Arctic Russia, Russian Far North. According to the latest census in 2010, there were 44,857 Nenets in the Russian Federation, most of them living in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Nenets Autonomous Okrug, and Taymyrsky Dolgano-Nenetsky District stretching along the coastline of the Arctic Ocean near the Arctic Circle between Kola and Taymyr peninsulas. The Nenets people speak either the Tundra or Forest Nenets languages, which are mutually unintelligible. In the Russian Federation, they have a status of indigenous small-numbered peoples.” ref

“The Nenets language is on the Samoyedic branch of the Uralic language family, with two major dialects, Forest Nenets and Tundra Nenets. Ethnologue says that in Siberia, most young people are still fluent in Nenets, whereas in European Russia, they tend to speak Russian. Overall, the majority of native speakers are from older generations. UNESCO classifies Nenets as an endangered language. Some believe that the use of Russian and Komi is due to inter-ethnic marriages.” ref

“There are two distinct groups of Nenets sensu stricto, based on their economy: the Tundra Nenets (living far to the north) and the Khandeyar, or Forest Nenets. A distinct third group of Nenets, (Yaran people), has emerged as a result of intermarriages between Nenets and Izhma Komi people. The Samoyedic languages form a branch of the Uralic language family. According to one theory, they moved from farther south in Siberia to the northernmost part of what later became Russia sometime before the 12th century.” ref

“Their main subsistence comes from hunting and reindeer herding. Using reindeer as a draft animal throughout the year enables them to cover great distances. Large-scale reindeer herding emerged in the 18th century. They bred the Samoyed dog to help herd their reindeer and pull their sleds, and European explorers later used these dogs for polar expeditions, because they were well adapted to the arctic conditions. Tundra wolves can cause considerable economic loss, as they prey on the reindeer herds which are the livelihood of some Nenets families. Along with reindeer meat, fish is a major component in the Nenets’ diet. Nenets housing is conical yurt (mya).” ref

“They have a shamanistic and animistic belief system which stresses respect for the land and its resources. During migrations, the Nenets placed sacred items like bear skins, religious figures, coins, and more on a holy sleigh. The contents of this sacred sleigh are only unpacked during special occasions or for religious rituals (like sacrifices). However, only esteemed elders are allowed to unpack the sacred sleigh. They had a clan-based social structure. The Nenets shaman is called a Tadibya.” ref

Nganassans (all N1b)

“The Nganasans are a Uralic people of the Samoyedic branch native to the Taymyr Peninsula in northern Siberia. In the Russian Federation, they are recognized as one of the indigenous peoples of the Russian North. They reside primarily in the settlements of Ust-Avam, Volochanka, and Novaya in the Taymyrsky Dolgano-Nenetsky District of Krasnoyarsk Krai, with smaller populations residing in the towns of Dudinka and Norilsk as well. The Nganasans are thought to be the direct descendants of proto-Uralic peoples. However, there is some evidence that they absorbed local Paleo-Siberian population. The Nganasans were traditionally a semi-nomadic people whose main form of subsistence was wild reindeer hunting, in contrast to the Nenets, who herded reindeer.” ref

“The Nganasans first referred to themselves in Russian as Samoyeds, but they would also often use this term when referring to the Enets people and instead refer to themselves as “Avam people.” For the Nganasans, the term signified ngano-nganasana, which means “real people” in the Nganasan language, and referred to both themselves and the neighboring Madu Enets. However, in their own language, the Avam Nganasans refer to themselves as nya-tansa, which translates as “comrade tribe,” whereas the Vadeyev Nganasans to the East prefer to refer to themselves as a’sa which means “brother,” but also Evenk or Dolgan. The Nganasans were also formerly called Tavgi Samoyeds or Tavgis initially by the Russians, which derives from the word tavgy in the Nenets language.” ref

“The homeland of the Proto-Uralic peoples, including the Samoyeds, is suggested to be somewhere near the Ob and Yenisey river drainage areas of Central Siberia or near Lake Baikal. The Nganasan are considered by most ethnographers who study them to have arisen as an ethnic group when Samoyedic peoples migrated to the Taymyr Peninsula from the south, encountering Paleo-Siberian peoples living there who they then assimilated into their culture. One group of Samoyedic people intermarried with Paleo-Siberian peoples living between the Taz and Yenisei rivers, forming a group that the Soviet ethnographer B.O. Dolgikh refers to as the Samoyed-Ravens.” ref

“Another group intermarried with the Paleo-Siberian inhabitants of the Pyasina River and formed another group which he called the Samoyed-Eagles. Subsequently, a group of Tungusic people migrated to the region near Lake Pyasino and the Avam River, where they were absorbed into Samoyed culture, forming a new group called the Tidiris. There was another group of Tungusic peoples called the Tavgs who lived along the basins of the Khatanga and Anabar rivers and came into contact with the aforementioned Samoyedic peoples, absorbing their language and creating their own Tavg Savoyedic dialect. It is known that the ancestors of the Nganasan previously inhabited territory further south from a book in the city Mangazeya that lists yasak (fur tribute) payments by the Nganasan which were made in sable, an animal that does not inhabit the tundra where the Nganasan now live.” ref

“By the middle of the 17th century, Tungusic peoples began to push the Samoyedic peoples northward towards the tundra Taymyr Peninsula, where they merged into one tribe called “Avam Nganasans”. As the Tavgs were the largest Samoyedic group at the time of this merger, their dialect formed the basis of the present-day Nganasan language. In the late 19th century, a Tungusic group called the Vanyadyrs also moved to the Eastern Taymyr peninsula, where they were absorbed by the Avam Nganasans, resulting in the tribe that is now called Vadeyev Nganasans. In the 19th century, a member of the Dolgans, a Turkic people who lived east of the Nganasans, was also absorbed by the Nganasans, and his descendants formed an eponymous clan, which today, though linguistically fully Samoyedic, is still acknowledged as being Dolgan in origin.” ref

Yakuts (all N1c)

“The Yakuts, or the Sakha (Yakut: саха, sakha; plural: сахалар, sakhalar), are a Turkic ethnic group who mainly live in the Republic of Sakha in the Russian Federation, with some extending to the Amur, Magadan, Sakhalin regions, and the Taymyr and Evenk Districts of the Krasnoyarsk region. The Yakut language belongs to the Siberian branch of the Turkic languages. The Russian word yakut was taken from Evenk yokō. The Yakuts call themselves Sakha, or Urangai Sakha (Yakut: Уран Саха, Uran Sakha) in some old chronicles.” ref