E-mail: barguten@mail.ru Тel.: +7 (3012) 43-35-51
6, Sakhyanova str., Ulan-Ude, Buryatia, 670047, Russian Federation
PhD in History, Researcher, Institute for Mongolian, Buddhist and Tibetan Studies, Siberian Division, Russian Academy of Sciences
This article was prepared within the framework of the state project “Ethnocultural Identity in the Architectonics of Folklore and Literary Texts of the Peoples of the Baikal Region,” No. 121031000259–6).
This article is devoted to the well-known traditional shamanic cult of one of the spirit masters of the Lena River among the Kachug Buryats — Azhirai Buhe (“Azhirai-Strongman”), which became widespread in the late nineteenth — mid-twentieth century. This cult is widely known among the Buryats, among members of the Ekhiri tribe and other ethnic groups of the Baikal region. This article analyzes the ritual and ceremonial of the Azhirai Buhe cult and is based on the methodology of L. N. Vinogradova and S. M. Tolstoy concerning ritual invocations of mythological characters. Field materials we have collected, archival records, historical and comparative analysis allow us to identify the dynamics of shamanic invocations; the morphology and characteristics of the ritual part of the cult (its character, locative, action, and subject codes); the general and special space-time continuum of the Azhirai Buhe cult; and the local features of religious shamanic traditions in the context of pan-Buryat ethno-cultural history. The Azhirai Buhe cult has the special character of a military cult, and the host spirit of Azhirai Buhe has again come into demand in connection with the political situation in the country as a symbol of the protection of military service and of all residents of the Baikal region. In the modern situation, the rite performs another new function of a global nature — the unification of the Echirites of ethnic Buryatia. Further study of the sacred centers and objects of the Kachugsky, Ekhirit-Bulagatsky, and Olkhonsky districts of the Irkutsk region will reveal further historical and cultural relationships in the Buryat and Bargut (Central Asia) shamanic traditions, especially in the question of mythological and religious representations.
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