Drones, Tones, and Timbres: Sounding Place among Nomads of the Inner Asian Mountain-Steppes [1 ed.] 0252045459, 9780252045455

Citation preview

[128.104.46.196] Project MUSE (2024-04-09 03:07 GMT) UW-Madison Libraries

DRONES TONES & TIMBRES SOUNDING PLACE among NOMADS of the INNER ASIAN MOUNTAIN-STEPPES

CAROLE P E G G

Drones, Tones, and Timbres

Drones, Tones, and Timbres Sounding Place among Nomads of the Inner Asian Mountain-Steppes

carole pegg

Publication of this book was supported in part by the University of Illinois Press Fund for Anthropology. © 2024 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Pegg, Carole, author. Title: Drones, tones, and timbres : sounding place among nomads of the inner Asian mountain-steppes / Carole Pegg. Description: Urbana : University of Illinois Press, 2023. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: lccn 2023016773 (print) | lccn 2023016774 (ebook) | isbn 9780252045455 (hardcover) | isbn 9780252055072 (ebook) Subjects: lcsh: Altaic peoples—Russia (Federation)— Altaĭ (Republic)—Music—History and criticism. | Altaic peoples—Russia (Federation)—Altaĭ (Republic)—Rites and ceremonies. | Throat singing— Russia (Federation)—Altaĭ (Republic)—History and criticism. | Shamanism—Russia (Federation)— Altaĭ (Republic). | Music—Social aspects—Russia (Federation)—Altaĭ (Republic) Classification: lcc ml3680.7.a57 p45 2023 (print) | lcc ml3680.7.a57 (ebook) | ddc 783.0957/3—dc23/eng/ 20230530 lc record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023016773 lc ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/ 2023016774

This book is dedicated to the Indigenous peoples of Altai, Khakassia, and Tyva republics, including those shamans, musicians, colleagues, and friends who moved on from Middle Worlds during this project.

Contents

Acknowledgments ix Languages, Transliteration, Translation xiii Companion Website xvii part one: emplacement, ontologies, bodies

Introduction 3 1. Performative Bodies

25

part two: sounding middle worlds

2. Human Communities

57

3. Spirit Actors, Spirit Places, Nomadic Landscapes 91 4. Ancestors and Archaeology

123

part three: attuning to upper and lower worlds

5. The White Way

155

6. With-Spirit Epic Performers 7. Shamanic Roads

216

189

Coda 247 Appendix

265

Participants 269 Notes 277 Glossary

291

References 299 Index 321

Acknowledgments

Deep thanks go to friends of creative spirit in all three republics, who introduced me to their ways of being and Indigenous knowledge, included me in their everyday and ritual performative events, taught me how to sense their spiritual worlds, and opened my own body-mind-spirit to their re-soundings of contemporary identities and place. Musicians, shamans, epic performers, and other spiritual specialists often also engage in theatrical productions, politics, herding, hunting, conservation, teaching, and research. Listed as “Participants,” I thank them for their generosity, time, and permission to record their performances. I’m grateful to the following research-funding bodies: the British Academy for preliminary fieldwork in the Republics of Altai, Khakassia, and Tyva, southern Siberia (2002, 2003); the Economic and Social Research Council for funding the main project Overtones: Music and Personhood in the Sayan-Altaian Region of Southern Siberia (2004–7); and the World Oral Literature Project, University of Cambridge, for additional fieldwork in the Altai Republic (2010). Thanks also go to the Music Faculty, University of Cambridge, for hosting this anthropologicalethnomusicological project. I thank the local academic bodies that supported my research: the Institute of Humanitarian Research, Gorno-Altaisk State University, Altai Republic; the Research Institute of Language, Literature and History, Katanov State University of Khakassia; and the Tyvan Institute of Humanities Research, Kyzyl. Academic colleagues from these institutions gave advice and practical help and often accompanied me to distant regions. In Altai, I am especially grateful to Svetlana

Acknowledgments

Tyukhteneva and Elizaveta Yamaeva; in Khakassia, Boris Amzarakov (Head of International Relations), Stanislav Ugdezhekov, Larissa Anzhiganova, and Valentina Mainogasheva; and in Tyva, Valentina Süzükei and Zoya Kyrgys, Mongush B. Kenin-Lopsan (1925–2022), and Nikolai Abaev (1949–2020). I benefited from discussions in the field with anthropologists Galina Lindquist (Stockholm University) (1998–2008) and Dmitri Funk (Moscow State University); ethnomusicologists Galina Sychenko (Conservatoire M.I. Glinka, Novosibirsk) and Ghuilyana A. Dorjieva (St. Petersburg Conservatory and State University for Art and Culture); and archaeologist Vitalii E. Larichev (Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk) (1932–2014). In each area, key musicians befriended and accompanied me. In Altai, I thank warmly professional musicians Urmat Yntai and members of ensemble AltaiKAI, “Nogon” Shumarov, and Buddhist monk-musician Sarymai Urchimaev. I am also grateful to sacred site guardian Danil’ Mamyev and Chagat Almashev, director of the Foundation for Sustainable Development of Altai, who shared generously his knowledge of mountains, snow leopards, and bears and helped with interpretation and translations. In Khakassia, huge thanks go to multi-instrumentalist and instrument-maker Sergei Charkov and family. Having filmed Sergei transforming living wood into instruments (chatkhan zither, yykh fiddle, khobyrakh flute) in his Abakan workshop (Pegg 2005OS), it was moving to witness him make them sing. Sergei introduced me to epic performers, chatkhan players, and spiritual specialists in distant Khakas regions. I am also grateful to professional musicians Ai Charykh Saiyn Küchen and family, and the late Aleksandr “Sasha” Samozhikov and his wife, Stesha, who took me to their places of birth and pilgrimage. In Abakan, musician and poet Sibdei Tom (Sergei Mainagashev), professional musicians Evgeni Ulugbashev and Oleg Chebodaev, and with-spirit instrument-maker Pyotr Topaev were also generous with their assistance. In Tyva, I thank hugely Radik Tülüsh for inspirational help during our research trips, and drone-overtone vocalist and politician Boris Kherlii, who accompanied me to Mönggün Taiga region. All opened my avenues of research, helped me to understand their rural, urban, and international activities, and enabled extraordinary experiences and encounters. Certain shamans proved vital in “opening the way” for my work and stay with me still: the late Arzhan Közörökov in Altai, Viktor Kishteev in Khakassia, the late Mongush Kenin-Lopsan, Lazo Dovy-oglu Mongush, and the late Ai Chürek (Oyun) in Tyva. Musicians in each republic gave me lessons. In Altai, thanks goes to Nogon Shumarov for teaching me the komus jaw’s harp; in Khakassia, to Sergei Charkov and Yulia Charkova for yykh fiddle and chatkhan lessons and for enabling me to

x

Acknowledgments

find my own drone-overtone vocal sounds (khai); and in Tyva, to Fyodor Tau, who tried to teach me khöömei and kargyraa vocal styles, and Radik Tülüsh and Choduraa Tumat for igil fiddle lessons. Invaluable also were those who helped me to reach my destinations and settle within them. The mountainous Altai Republic lacked easy access. It has no railway and, until 2011, had no airport capable of landing large planes. I am grateful to Galina Sychenko’s sister and niece, who accompanied me along the Chuidyn joly (Chuisky trakt) from Barnaul to Gorno-Altaisk; Sveta Tyukhteneva’s mother Emil’ Sapyevna, sister Nadezhda (“Nadia”), and broader family for accommodation and transport in Altai; and to Sveta’s schoolfriend Tanya Toloeva, for providing refuge in Yakonur. Thank you also to Russian photographer Igor Heitman for accommodation and friendship in Barnaul. Khakassia is the most accessible of the three republics, with an international airport, branch of the trans-Siberian railway, buses, and a good internal road network. Extremely remote, Tyva has no railway, a small airfield with intermittent flights, and only three roads leading to it. Thanks to Sergei Charkov and Galina Sychenko for risking journeys with me across the spectacular western Sayan Mountains, often blocked by snowfalls and avalanches. Soldiers rescued the car I shared with Galina Lindquist and Galina Kokova Shamaness when the gears failed and it stopped, blocking the narrow mountain pass leading to the Aldyn Maadyr Festival in western Tyva. They towed us to the top in torrential rain, for which we, and those queuing behind us, were all grateful. My way, then, was not always easy. Mobility was at times severely restricted. In each republic, roads were often nonexistent or bad and blocked by snow or floods, the weather was unpredictable, and petrol was scarce. There was also potential bird-flu. Each republic had its own issues. In Altai, there was seismic activity and a ladybird plague. There was a tick epidemic in Khakassia. Tyva suffers the highest murder rate in the Russian Federation, and the advice for foreigners was not to go out alone after dark and to travel in a group that included Tyvans. I was fortunate in collaborating with local interpreters who understood Indigenous languages, each with their own mixture of Turko-Mongol terms and dialectical variations. I offer thanks to these intrepid companions, who shared experiences and often harsh conditions, and who became friends as well as colleagues and assistant researchers. In Altai, these include Irina Tozyyakova, Yulia Mekachinova (formerly Muklaeva), and Anton Catskkyster; in Khakassia, Anna Shoeva and Vitalii Tabaev; and, in Tyva, Ailana Irgit, Kira Kyrgys, Rita Maadar, and Aldynai Sedek-Khurak. I am grateful to academic colleagues in Cambridge University, including Emeritus Professor Marilyn Strathern and Dr. Piers Vitebsky for illuminating comments on the book’s manuscript, participants of the Magic Circle Seminar (Scott Polar

xi

Acknowledgments

Research Institute, convenor Piers Vitebsky), the Mongolia and Inner Asia Studies Unit (MIASU) Research Seminar (former director Caroline Humphrey), World Oral Literature Project workshops (convenor Mark Turin), and the Royal Anthropological Institute Ethnomusicology Seminar Series (convenor John Baily), all of whom provided helpful insights on papers that contributed to the book. Thanks also to Robert Turner for stimulating conversations about his anthropologist parents Victor and Edith Turner, and to Ken Hyder and Tim Hodgkinson for music-making, refreshments, and conversations in Kyzyl and England. I am also grateful for the support of Dr. Vladimir Trifonov (Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology SB RAS, Novosibirsk), and Bayarmandakh Gaunt for help with Russian language translations in Cambridge. To my husband, Nicholas James; daughter, Clancy Pegg; and grandson, Seb Pegg, I give special thanks for insightful comments and constant support (helped by Dexter Glyn “Bandit” and Ella Pegg). I also thank Charles Mapleston (Malachite Ltd., UK) for technical help with field equipment and post-field video copying and editing; Michele Banal (lead curator, World and Traditional Music Collection, National Sound Archive, British Library) for hosting this project’s sound recordings and converting digital tape recordings to wav audio files; and archaeological illustrator Andy Boyce for assistance with digitization of maps. *

*

*

Some materials have been revised and developed from the author’s previously published works: a chapter in Music, Dance, Anthropology (Pegg 2021a) and papers in Asian Music’s special issue on Transregional Politics of Throat-Singing as Cultural Heritage (Pegg 2021b), Musiké: Music and Ritual (Pegg 2006), Oral Tradition (Pegg and Yamaeva 2012), and the oral literature issue of Language Documentation and Description (Pegg 2010a). I thank the editors and publishers of the above, who have been generous in approving revised publication of parts of these works.

xii

Languages, Transliteration, Translation

Classification of a communication system as a “language” or “dialect” or as belonging to a particular language group has political implications. Altaian, Khakas, and Tyvan “literary” languages, created as part of Soviet nationalities policies, put local Indigenous languages into the Russian language alphabet, that is, Russian Cyrillic. This had to be adapted to embrace the four additional sounds of Altaian [j, ң (ng), ö, ӱ (ü)], six of Khakas [ғ (gh), i (ï), ң (ng), ö, ӱ (ü), ҷ (j)] and three of Tyvan [ң (ng), ө (ö), ү (ü)]. Several Russian-language sounds are lacking in Indigenous literary languages (see appendix, table 1). Russia has divided the geographical areas of its federal subjects (including Altai, Khakassia, and Tyva) into regions (raion), translated under the former USSR as “districts.” The same system allotted Russified names to cities, towns, villages, settlements, mountain ranges, passes, rivers, and roads, names that still appear on maps. Local naming, however, points to different linguistic and historical affiliations. For instance, instead of Ru. raion, Altaians use aimak and Khakas peoples aimaghy, both of which arise from Oirot (West Mongolian) domination of the area from the seventeenth to mid-eighteenth centuries and are related to classical Mo. aimag, meaning a “tribe” or “clan” (Lessing [1960] 1982, 21). Similarly, Tyvans have kept Mo. khoshuu(n) [banner]/Tyv. kozhuu, a military administrative unit used by the Manchus, to refer to a “region.” I transliterate and translate from the Indigenous local languages rather than Russian for internal areas of each republic and refer to them as “regions” (see appendix, table 2). I have kept the Russian names for the capitals of each republic (Gorno-Altaisk, Abakan, Kyzyl) because

Languages, Transliteration, Translation

of international recognition but have used local-language names for villages and settlements where possible. Indigenous villagers sometimes use several names. For instance, they call Malyi Spirin in Khakassia’s Syra aimaghy “Azakh Sööt” and its former communist collective name “Arghystar” (“Comrades”). I use abbreviations for each republic’s Indigenous groups and for non-Indigenous languages and ethnicities (see appendix, table 3). The literary language of each republic is based on the spoken language of the largest Indigenous group in that republic. For instance, “Altaian” is based on that of the Altai Kizhis. Indigenous languages have also, though, modified or changed through contact. For example, although Khakas Khoibals comprise different Samoyedic peoples, their Khoibal’ language is now extinct, and contemporary Khoibals speak a Turkic language. Other peoples in Altai, Khakassia, and Tyva use a mixture of Mongolian and Turkic words. In epic narratives, for instance, the performer often interchanges Tu. aylp with Mo. baatyr, both meaning “hero”; Alt. Üch Kurbustan, the main benevolent spirit actor of Upper Worlds (as well as a complex philosophical concept), derives from Mo. Khormusta; and Erlik rules both the Turkic and Mongolian Lower Worlds. In the post-Soviet period, a trilingual system operates. Indigenous peoples speak their own endangered languages at home and in rural areas, and Russian in official contexts. The “literary” language in used in publications. It is difficult to find direct English equivalents for culturally specific terms, especially those related to ontological and ritual beliefs and practices. “Spirit,” for example, is an inadequate translation of the complex properties of nonhuman actors. The multivalent concept ee (Alt., Kh. ee, Tyv. eezi) is often translated as “spirit-master” but may also mean a nonspirit “host” or “owner.” My use of “spirit-owner” avoids the gender-bias of “master,” since among nature’s eeler, the energies of springs, rivers, lakes, and mountains (including the Altai Mountains) are female. When it becomes a quality of persons, places, or things, I follow local language structures and meanings. For instance, in Altaian the suffixes-lu/-lü,du/-dü,-tu/-tü denote possession or being “with” something; for example, attu kizhi is a “with-horse person” and süttü chai is “tea with milk” (Chernova and Chumakaeva 1992, 144–45). I therefore translate eelü as “with-spirit” (rather than “spiritual”). This preserves the local idea that this is a separate entity acquired by a person, place, or object. It is both part of and separate from that which it “owns.” Similarly, Tyvan albys is often translated as “witch,” but that English term is historically laden, carrying its own connotations, ambiguities, and misconceptions. I strive, therefore, to use local terms where possible and highlight different meanings in the text or endnotes. I transliterate Indigenous terms for vocal and musical genres, titles of songs and epics, instruments, and musical and spiritual specialists (see G1 [Glossary 1]). I also try to avoid using the concepts of one set

xiv

Languages, Transliteration, Translation

of religious beliefs and practices to describe another. I avoid, for instance, Christian terms such as “God,” “deity,” “Heaven.” An exception is retention of the term “soul,” which I explain according to its culture-specific meanings. Indigenous terms for an epic performer (Alt. kaichy, Kh. khaijy) indicate the importance of kai-khai vocal production to this practice. Since kai-khai is neither a speaking nor singing voice, the epic performer cannot accurately be described as a “singer of tales” (Lord [1960] 2000)1 or simply a poet. The Khakas phrase alyptygh nymakh is translated into Russian as bogatyrskoe skazanie (Butanaev 1999, 69), the English equivalent of which is “heroic story or tale.” However, long narrative poetical works that derive from oral tradition and feature the adventures of heroic characters are usually referred to in English as “epics” (Gk. epikos, Lat. epicus, www.oed.com). Since I concentrate on performance rather than poetical analysis or literary criticism, I refer throughout to “epic performers” rather than “story-tellers” or “epic-tellers.” The word for rhythmical poetical verses often in quatrain form (Alt. Oir. alkysh, Kh. alghys, Tyv. algysh) recited or sung during ritual events by an elder or spiritual specialist is also difficult to translate. It may invoke, praise (Yamaeva 2010), thank, or request permission, protection, and blessing-fortune from Middle- and Upper-World spirit actors. I use the general term “song-chant” and local terms with one of the above translations according to context.

xv

Companion Website

Readers of Drones, Tones, and Timbres are invited to visit the supplemental materials found at the University of Illinois Press website and accessed through the web page for the book. The site contains selected video and audio clips and additional color photographs relevant to each chapter.

Drones, Tones, and Timbres

part one

Emplacement, Ontologies, Bodies

Introduction

Background

Drones, Tones, and Timbres is based on research since 2002 with Indigenous1 nomadic, seminomadic, and formerly nomadic peoples of the republics of Altai, Khakassia, and Tyva, which lie in or adjacent to the snow-capped northern Altai and western Sayan Mountains of southern Siberia on the remote southern edge of the Russian Federation. The project’s participants include musicians and instrument-makers; shamans, animists, and epic performers; adherents of the Altaian movement Ak Jang (“White Way”), Tengrists, and Buddhists; herders and hunter-gatherers; rural and urban dwellers; and a range of spirit actors. Grounded in ethnography, it interweaves participatory experiences and comparison scholarship to explore how these Indigenous peoples sound place and movement in a series of sensuous and actor-inhabited worlds. Indigenous peoples of this region are famous for “throat-singing,” a vocal technique in which a singer produces a sustained musical drone and one or more simultaneous separate notes. Known locally by different generic terms (Alt. kai, Kh. khai, Tyv. khöömei),2 and with diverse styles and substyles, it is part of the musical sound complex identified by Tyvan ethnographer and ethnomusicologist Valentina Süzükei as “timbre-centered.” It places more importance on the textures created by these simultaneous soundings than on discrete notes or lineal melodies, and timbral listening necessitates hearing the drone as equal to and intermingling with its related sounds or voices (Tyv. ünner) (Süzükei 1993; Levin with Süzükei 2006, 46–47).

part one. emplacement, ontologies, bodies

When traveling with master musician and throat-singer Radik Tülüsh during fieldwork in Tyva in 2003, I asked him: “Why is khöömei so important for Tyvans?” His reply emphasized a sense of nomadic identity rooted in the landscape, ecology, and spirits of his homeland, which he tantalizingly referred to as a “philosophy.” Radik’s powerful sense of place and belonging, the elements that fed into it, and the explanation of it were intriguing. As the project progressed, the disjuncture between Western preoccupations with the techniques of throat-singing and the relevance of these sounds for Indigenous nomadic peoples became clearer. Radik’s reply and that disjuncture threw up questions: Why is this musical complex important to peoples of the Altai-Sayan Mountain region? Does it connect to self, personhood, and other identities? How does it relate to landscape, nomadism, and ritual practices? How do these peoples of nomadic heritage, now within the republics of Altai, Khakassia, and Tyva, perform their “senses of place”? A sense of being “out-of-place” can bring suffering, illness, death, and chaos. This raises the questions: “out-of-place” in what? As a whole or in entirety? How do they become “in-place”? What does “place” refer to? The book explores how these Indigenous peoples use multiphonic soundings of place that draw inspiration from the acoustic environment and local ecology of the mountain-steppes in which they live, the pathways of nomadism in the Altai-Sayan and Greater Altai Mountain regions, and the shamanic animist universe. Everyday and ritual events create traditional transborder soundscapes that connect across contemporary political boundaries and multiple worlds. Altai-Sayan and Greater Altai Mountain-Steppes

Although the Altai-Sayan and Greater Altai Mountain regions share the same ecosystem and soundscapes, the book concentrates on the three republics that lie at the junction of the Altai and Sayan Mountain ranges. “Altai-Sayan peoples,” then, refers to those living in the republics of Altai, Khakassia, and Tyva. It has been well established that Tyvan throat-singers draw inspiration from the soundscapes of their local acoustic environment—primarily topography and nature—in the ways they combine musical drones, overtones, and melodies (Levin with Süzükei 2006, Kyrgys [2002] 2008). Here, then, I extend that principle to include the Altaian and Khakas peoples of the Altai-Sayan region in which the three republics are located and, by extension, those of the neighboring Altai Mountain range. The Altai Mountains form a magnificent rocky-ridged range—crested by snowfields and glaciers with high mountain-steppes and lakes, deep-cut valleys, and virgin rivers—that stretches 1305 miles (2100 kilometers). Forming the spine of Inner Asia,3 it travels from southern Siberia in the Russian Federation southward through Western Mongolia, taking in small areas of eastern Kazakhstan and 4

Introduction

map 1. Altai-Sayan Region, Mountain Ranges, and Republics. key A Republic of Altai K Republic of Khakassia T Republic of Tyva

Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region of northwest China, then merging into the Gobi Altai range in southwest Mongolia. Consequently, sections of the range are often called “Russian,” “Mongolian,” or “Chinese” Altai. Lying on the peripheries of the larger political units of Mongolia, the Russian Federation, China, and Kazakhstan, the Altai Mountain range is an ur-place in which Siberian Scythians established their nomadic culture and Oirats created a homeland. For contemporary Turkic peoples, including Kazakhs, it is a place to which they connect imaginatively in their adoption of “throat-singing” (kömei) (Daukeyeva 2021). Significantly, the Altai-Sayan and Altai Mountain landscapes are also transitional places, where forested mountains meet rolling steppes, and in the case of the former, where Inner Asia meets Siberia. The Sayan Mountains, divided into Western and Eastern ranges, extend eastward from the Altai Mountain range to Lake Baikal in Buryatia. The landscape of the Altai-Sayan region, an area proximate to the Altai and Western Sayan Mountains, is a mosaic of mountains, coniferous forests, steppe lands, and alpine meadows with its own ecosystem. The phrase “Altai-Sayan peoples” refers to Indigenous peoples living in the republics of Altai, Khakassia, and Tyva, the focus of the book’s research, but all connect to those in the Altai Mountain range through shared musical soundscapes and ontologies. 5

part one. emplacement, ontologies, bodies

The transborder musical soundscape of the Altai-Sayan and Altai Mountain ranges crosses international and national borders. It comprises drone-overtone vocal music (“throat-singing”), the guttural bass technique of heroic epic vocal performance (Alt. kai, Kh. khai), and traditional instruments constructed to emphasize local preferences for drones and timbre-centered sounds. The instruments most closely related to drone-overtone vocal music are the jaw’s harp and open end-blown flute, both of which combine vocal with instrumental sounds. Other traditional instruments create drone-overtones through playing techniques. For instance, lightly touching the side or underside of the other string(s) creates an overtone spray from a drone played on two- and four-stringed fiddles. Holding the bow underhand allows fingers to increase or reduce this spray by adjusting the tension of its horsehairs. Plucking an open and stopped string simultaneously produces a drone beneath a higher melody on two- and three-stringed lutes and long-box zithers. Similarly, when beaten, the single skin-headed shamanic drum emits sprays of harmonics. However, within the crossborder musical landscape, performative connections differ according to Indigenous group.4 The Altai-Sayan musical soundscape of horizontal drones and vertical partials evokes its mountain-steppes. In pre-Soviet times, mobile pastoralists (nomads) of the Altai-Sayan and Greater Altai Mountain region moved between the horizontal low and highland steppes and vertical mountain pastures as seasons turned. Limited in range during the restrictions of communist collectivization, pastoralists are once again undertaking this traditional seasonal grazing in kin-based nomadic groups (Pegg 2021b, 18–20), and musicians and spiritual specialists sound the places of their clans’ former seasonal campsites. Contemporary musical and ritual performances embrace the sounds and sensibilities that arose during traditional transition management of domestic animal migrations, seasons, and social status. No longer nomadizing in the same way, the Altai-Sayan musical soundscape combines drones and partials with horse rhythms and paces, the clinking of tackle during riding, and the hunting lures and calls of wild animals, evoking those vertical and horizontal topographies, movement between them, and the body-places of spirit-owners of land and place. This combination of horizontality and verticality, and of the rootedness, mobility, and relationality of place, is activated within the landscapes of the shamanic animist universe. The Shamanic Animist Universe

Our fieldwork played out in horizontal (parallel, peripheral, superimposed) and tripartite vertical landscapes (Middle, Lower, and Upper Worlds) of the shamanic animist universe.5 There have been historical encounters with world and regional ideologies including Christianity, Buddhism, Manichaeism, Tengrism, and Communism, and different “traditional confessions” are drawn into the post-Soviet 6

Introduction

quest for national identities.6 However, shamanism and animism remain the core of Indigenous ontologies in the three republics.7 As nomadic pastoralists, movement is essential to their Indigenous ways of being in the world and universe.

[128.104.46.196] Project MUSE (2024-04-09 03:07 GMT) UW-Madison Libraries

journeying in horizontal middle worlds

The concept of “journeying” along pathways is essential for everyday life, ritual practices, and emplacement. Transhumant pastoralists move seasonally,8 and even those now settled in cities constantly refer to various kinds of “path,” “road,” or “way.” “Within every Altaian is a horse, saddled and ready to go,” say the Altaians. Spirit actors, however, may create black obstacles to block the road. To ensure that the way is “white,” they sprinkle milk into the air and onto the means of transport—whether horse or vehicle—and utter entreaties immediately before departure. Similarly, everyone has a particular path through life, which needs to be a “white way” (see Oelschlägel 2004). Shamans can see this path and “open the way” by unblocking or broadening the road as required. I participated in many such shamanic ritual performances, including several to open the pathways of my own academic work and life (chaps. 4, 7). The drone-overtone musical complex of these Indigenous nomadic peoples synergizes with relational movement and the rootedness of place. Sensing being “in-place” involves the sounding of a sustained and balanced base, intrinsically connected to sonic pathways that enable human and spirit-actor interactions. During ritual performances, such pathways are traveled in shared cultural landscapes that connect across topographical, political, and dimensional borders of their own homeland and shamanic animist universe. In Middle-World landscapes, everything has its own voice, song, rhythm, and energy (Sat P) and, for shamans, its own vibration, used for healing (Süzükei 2021OS). It also has its own “spirit-owner” (ee), with whom humans must form relations using vocal and instrumental sounds (chaps. 3, 6). Brightman, Grotti, and Ulturgasheva’s definition of animism as “the attribution of human (-like) subjectivity, agency, and emotion to non-humans” (2012, 14), is pertinent here. Among Altai-Sayan Indigenous peoples, animism becomes an active and performative way of being through the concept of “spirit-owner,” which also has implications for personhood. Travelers and hunters perform drone-overtone music, verbal entreaties, vocal calls, or musical duets with nature’s spirit-owners in reciprocal exchange for safe passage, game, and timber as they travel in dangerous MiddleWorld landscapes (chap. 3). The bodies of a musical instrument’s spirit-owner and its player interact emotionally (chap. 1), and respectful communications with the spirit-owner of an instrument taken from an ancestral grave and then reconstructed are necessary (chap. 4). When spirit-owners gift instrumental and vocal sounds and forms, punishment follows transgressions in the ethics of performance (chap. 6). Spirit-owners, ancestral “mountain people,” and other spirit 7

part one. emplacement, ontologies, bodies

actors require respectful offerings in the Middle-World places they occupy (chap. 3). They participate in everyday life and ritual events of Indigenous peoples, along with other spirit actors, in all three republics. Sonic Pathways in Vertical Landscapes

Spiritual specialists divide the universe according to traditions of clan, ethnic group, and individual persuasion (Karunovskaya 1935, 174–75; Cohn [1857] 1946, 17–53; Basilov [1984] 1997, 8–10). In Mountain Altai, for instance, shamans may create sonic pathways to seven or nine vertical layers of the universe; Ak Jang (“White Way”) ritual leaders, who concentrate on the Upper Worlds, may reach eight (chap. 5), and epic performers may journey to nine in the Middle World, three in the Upper World, and seven in the Lower World (chap. 6; Marazzi 1986). In Khakassia, there are eleven parallel, peripheral, and superimposed domains in the Middle World, nine in the Lower, and seven in the Upper (Kotozhekov P), and in the contemporary Tyvan Upper World, there are nine. Nevertheless, those with whom I worked all acknowledged a basic tripartite shamanic universe (as argued by Eliade [1951] 1989) and used it for creative inspiration in their performances of traditional music, oral narratives, bodily classifications, and rituals. Human and spirit actors and verbal and instrumental offerings travel along sonic pathways, enabling the creation of social relations. A shaman may create them with drone-overtone vocal music, song-chants, a jaw’s harp, or a skin-headed drum (that when beaten emits harmonics) and percussive costume (chaps. 1, 7). These sounds change the shaman’s consciousness and, when healing, the patient’s body, enabling his or her road to be adapted to create the potential for “whiteness.” To restore balance in all bodies of the universe, the shaman needs to make a series of choices. These include the directions of pathways, the identification and enlivenment of spirit-helpers and protectors to help them, which vocal and instrumental sounds to use, and how most effectively to emplace the patient’s body during ritual performances (chaps. 6, 7). With-spirit epic performers use deep timbral sounds centered upon a single extended pitch (Alt. kai, Kh. khai) as they open and travel along pathways to different worlds with enlivened heroes and spirit-helpers. Shamans and with-spirit epic performers are careful not to access their shared universe simultaneously. The universe is experienced in “landscape style” (Sagalaev 1999, 127). Radloff ([1884] 1989), for instance, described the spheres of earth and sky among Abakan Tatars (contemporary Khakas) as having their own seas, steppes, and Altai or mountain range. Among the mountains, lakes, rivers, forests, deserts, and steppes of each domain, the lives of spirit actors are described by shamans and epic performers as similar to those of humans. For instance, they live in camps

8

Introduction

and palaces, engage in battles, marry (sometimes with humans), keep animals, hold feasts, and enjoy music (chap. 3). Shamanisms, like musics, are not universal and homogeneous but diverse. They do not occur in isolation but change continuously in interaction with the peculiarities and histories of people in natural, spiritual, social, and political environments—in short, the worlds in which they live. Traditional soundscapes of contemporary Indigenous peoples embrace rootedness, movement, and multiplicity as they connect human and spirit actors in cross-border grazing grounds and the multidimensional shamanic universe. As part of this mobile and complex present, they also sound place from within republics (“nations”) of the Russian Federation and interact with the soundscapes of the Russian state and global flows of commodified music. the creative shaman

The Altai-Sayan region is janus-faced in that it looks to Inner Asia with its drone-partials and timbral musical models, and to Siberia, the locus classicus of shamanism. Its ontology draws deeply on shamanism and its interrelations with spiritual complexes with deep roots in the region—animism, epic performance, Ak Jang (White Way), Tengrism, Manichaeism, and Buddhism. Since the fall of communism and the USSR in 1990, Indigenous peoples are reviving ritual practices. Although each spiritual complex has its own core traditions that became diffused or went to ground during the Soviet period, their overlapping beliefs and practices enable contemporary flexibility. Those who interact only with benevolent Upper-World spirit actors, including white shamans, Tengrists, followers of Ak Jang, and Buddhists, have gained ground in recent years. Controversies occur, though, when spirit actors of different spiritual complexes, such as shamanism and Buddhism, compete to occupy places in a landscape (chap. 3), and when shamans and neoshamans take part in ritual practices, particularly if the latter are outsiders. The nature of shamanism has long been controversial. I warm to those who recognize the shaman’s artistry and dramatic skills (Vitebsky 1995, 120–23) and poetical abilities and creative improvisations (Kenin-Lopsan 1997b, 110–11), and I adopt the concept of “shamanship,” deriving from Atkinson’s analysis of an Indonesian shamanic ritual ([1992] 2004, 131) because of its invocation of showmanship and skill. As one of the voices of the book, the Shaman’s Song embraces shamanic practices as creative acts that intertwine tradition with improvisation, and include music, sounds, performance, and multisensory abilities. This emphasis contrasts with most early historical perspectives. These ranged from early Christian writings describing shamans as “ministers of the devil” (Narby and Huxley 2001, 11–18) and magicians who summoned demons (Avvakum [1672] 2001), to

9

part one. emplacement, ontologies, bodies

attributions of mental instability produced by the harsh natural environment (Czaplicka [1914] 1969), neurosis, and epilepsy (Shirokogoroff [1935] 1999). There were a few dissenting voices. For instance, German scientist Alexander von Bunge, when visiting the Altai Mountains in 1826 in search of plants and minerals, noted the “captivating sounds of a shamanic drum” (Znamenski 2003, 4). Tyvan shamanism was recorded by the Russian explorer Pyotr Chickachev in 1845, and from 1878 to 1892, Khakas scholar N. F. Katanov recorded shamanic entreaties, chants, and recitations among Khakas peoples (Radloff [1868] 1967b). A range of skills shared by shamans and Buddhists also began to be noticed. For example, a report on Tyvan shamanism in 1887 referred to physician-monks assisted by shamans, and both Buddhist monks and shamans who prophesied (Süzükei 2007, 397). Communist regimes in the three republics considered shamanic and other ritual practices, including epic performance, as challenges to modernity and brutally repressed and secularized them, together with sounds that had spiritual or ritual associations, such as drone-overtone and timbral music, traditional musical instruments, and song lyrics. During the 1930s, they labeled shamans as “class enemies” and “enemies of the people” and, during collectivization and Stalinism, subjected them to bloody purges. Until the end of the 1950s, the Communists portrayed southern Siberian shamans as aristocratic and self-serving opportunists. In response, to avoid detection shamans morphed creatively into Indigenous healers with specialist skills and extrasensory abilities. Family practices, including funeral rituals, continued secretly, particularly in remote areas (Forsyth 1989, 83–86; 1992, 287–99). Gifted people channeled their creative energies into becoming professional epic performers, musicians, singers, and actors, and others into writing songs and poetry. Today, musicians and actors may become shamans, shamans may perform as different ritual specialists, and contemporary musicians and instrument makers—taught to play traditional instruments modified to produce the sounds of Western classical harmony—experiment with the traditional sounds and instrument designs of their own Indigenous group. In the post-Soviet period, diverse types of shamans have emerged in the three republics. There are those who evoke the Siberian ecstatic shaman from historical ethnography with multiskilled solo performances in elaborate costumes during spectacular ritual displays. They use a combination of vocal sounds (“throatsinging,” lyrical songs, song-chants, poetry, whispering, whistling, mimesis), instrumental and percussive sounds (drum, jaw’s harp, jingle attachments), gestural dexterity, and swirling and other bodily movements. Contemporary shamans also have gifted imaginations, a repository of local knowledge, and the ability to create otherworld realities, producing a numinous atmosphere and maintaining relationships with participant human and spirit actors. Others continue the more

10

Introduction

discrete practices developed under communism, concentrate on specializations, or adopt Western New Age techniques. Contemporary shamans use musical instruments and other sound-producers to journey to worlds in other dimensions or bring nonhuman actors to ritual events in the Middle World to heal individuals and the community, and to readjust imbalances in all bodies of the universe (chaps. 1, 7). Shamans are also finding new ways to serve their human communities and, together with nonspecialists, are reconnecting to animist, shamanic, and other traditions as a means of strengthening contemporary senses of place and Indigenous identities. Shamans heal physical and societal ills, and their clients include their own clan members and neighbors, government officials, and international pilgrims for whom Western medicine has failed or who seek apprenticeship and knowledge. Arzhan Közörökov, who makes a major contribution to this work, illustrates the way in which extrasensory abilities may be adapted to different traditions, for he performed as a ritual leader in Ak Jang (White Way, chap. 5), with-spirit epic performer (chap. 6), and shaman (chap. 7). Republics, Indigenous Peoples

The republics of Altai, Khakassia, and Tyva have similar mountain-steppe topographies, punctuated by small settlements and with-spirit places. Before Russian colonization and the creation of Altaian, Khakas, and Tyvan republics, Indigenous peoples placed themselves verbally and musically by landscape, confederation, lineage, and local community. For instance, a Chalkan in the territory of the contemporary Altai Republic self-designated as a “swan person” (kuu-kizhi) or Lebedin (living close to the Lebed River); a Tuba, as a “forest person” (dish-kizhi); and a Telengit, living by the Chu River, as a “Chu person” (chu-kizhi). Following the dispersion of family and broader communities during the Soviet period, Indigenous peoples are reconnecting in contemporary everyday utterances and practices to these former traditions. For instance, when Altaians meet, they ask: “Which Altai are you from?” The answer may name a river (for instance, Ursal Altai), or distinguish between Large ( Jaan) or Small (Kichi) Altai, that is, Mountain Altai or its steppe land areas. During the Soviet period, Russian education eroded traditional culture and Indigenous heritage in all three republics. Under Soviet nationality policies, newly established republics were given their own “literary” languages based on the traditions of the largest Indigenous group or groups. Smaller groups were marginalized or assimilated. Eventually, due to settlement policies that encouraged Russian immigration, all Indigenous peoples in Altai and Khakassia became minorities in their own homelands (Altai 34.5%; Khakas 12.1%). In Tyva, Indigenous peoples

11

part one. emplacement, ontologies, bodies

still form the majority (82%) (All-Russian Census [2010] 2011). In the post-Soviet period, stringent Russification policies include suppression of ethnic and cultural difference, privatization of sacred land and traditional hunting grounds, and restructuring of administrative regions and Indigenous designations within the Russian Federation. Census results of different peoples have become contentious since access to legal rights, cultural expression, and political power depends upon population size. Reclamation and performances of traditional music; spiritual practices; connections to the ancestral past and social groups, including kinship relations of humans and land; and languages have become important in the fight for the survival of Indigenous identities. mountain altai (gorny altai)

Situated in that part of the rugged snow-capped Altai Mountain range that lies in southern Siberia, the Altai Republic—also known colloquially as Mountain Altai (Gorny Altai)9—shares international borders with Mongolia, China, and Khazakhstan and federal borders with the Republics of Khakassia and Tyva, Altai Krai,10 and Kemerovo oblast.’ Altaians requested protection from the Russian Empire after the fall of the Jungar Khanate in 1756, and their territory became an autonomous republic within the Russian Federation in 1991. Contemporary Indigenous peoples regard the Altai Mountain range and its nature as both “with-spirit” and kin-related. In particular, they revere Mt. Üch Sümer (Ru. Belukha), the highest peak in Siberia (14800 feet), the River Kadyn, Lake Altyn Köl, and Plateau Ukok, all of which are recognized and protected by UNESCO. Clan organization, which lasted until the end of the nineteenth century, has been revived in the post-Soviet period. The landscape changes dramatically as the taiga-forested hills and lakes of the north give way to the dramatic glacial Altai Mountains, high plateau, deep-cut river valleys, and rolling steppes of the south. Along the Chuisky Trakt motorway, two high mountain passes vie as contenders for marking this division: Jal Mönkü (Seminskii Pereval), which lies between the villages of Shebalin and Karakol, and the more dangerous Chike-Taman, with its precipitous turns and spectacular views. The suggestion that peoples living in these contrasting ecological areas differ in ethnic origin, languages, economies, and past cultures (Levin and Potapov [1956] 1964, 305) broadly holds as Indigenous peoples reclaim their identities following the Soviet collapse. Forest-dwelling northern Altaians—Chalkans, Kumandins, and Tubas—are traditionally hunter-gatherers and fishers. Their Turkic-based languages have Mongolian influences (Potapov 1953, 135; Verbitskii [1893] 1993, 21; Radloff [1884] 1989, 588, 593), their oral traditions are based on short stories

12

Introduction

map 2. Republic of Altai Fieldwork Sites. key Towns, villages, settlements: 1. Maima 2. Paspaul 3. Choya 4. Turachak 5. Artybash 6. Ulagan 7. Kosh-Agash 8. Ortolyk 9. Bel’tir 10. Kurai 11. Inya 12. Küpchegen 13. Ongdoi 14. Kurota 15. Nizhnyaya Talda 16. Karakol 17. Bichiktü-Boom 18. Boochi 19. Kulada 20. Kök Suu Oozi 21. Möndür-Sokkon 22. Kan-Oozi 23. Yakonur 24. Yabogan 25. Elo 26. Shabalin 27. Chamal Archaeological Sites: P Pazyryk KT Kalbak-Tash IM Ice Maiden Ak Alakha B Bashadar

and legends, and their spiritual complexes combine shamanism and animism (Potapov 1969). Southern Altaians—Altai Kizhis (Altaian people),11 Telengits, Töölös, and Teleuts (Levin and Potapov [1956] 1964, 305–41)—are traditionally pastoral nomads. Altai Kizhis, who identify with Oirots, still refer to their language as “Oirot.”12 Their oral traditions are based on heroic epics and spiritual complexes that combine animism with Buddhist-influenced shamanism. Although Potapov (1953, 1969) included the Shors (shor kizhi) as Altaians, they are now considered to be close to but separate from northern Altaians.

13

part one. emplacement, ontologies, bodies

Contemporary Indigenous peoples also identify themselves in different ways. For instance, Telengits, who live in the Altai Republic’s southern and eastern high mountains, refer to themselves as “mountain people” and to Altai Kizhis of central and eastern regions as “steppe people” (Yntai P), although they also consider themselves united as “Altaian” by their common reverence for the Altai Mountains (Halemba 2006, 17–18). Peoples with populations of less than fifty thousand may now register as Indigenous Small-numbered Peoples of the North, Siberia and the Far East (ISPNSFE),13 a Russian census classification, bringing economic benefits. Chalkans, Kumandins, Telengits, Teleuts, and Tubalars have registered, while Altai Kizhis, the majority Indigenous group in the Republic, have not. No longer a question of being “Altaian,” “Khakas,” or “Tyvan” with a single language (containing “dialects”), this has established the principle that peoples within a republic may legitimately assert identity and difference. khakassia

The Republic of Khakassia occupies the Sayano-Altai plateau, lying in the crook of the Altai and Western Sayan mountain ranges that form the western and northern borders of Tyva. Although in parts heavily industrialised and collectivized for agriculture under communism, two thirds of Khakassia is covered by mountains. A few minutes’ drive from Abakan, its capital city, lie mountains and steppes dotted with villages in which each wooden home has a smallholding. During my fieldwork in Khakassia (2002, 2004, 2005, 2012), its Indigenous peoples identified themselves generally as “Tadar” (Tatar) rather than “Khakas” (Pegg and Ugdezhekov 2006)14 and as belonging to one of its Indigenous groups: Khaas, Saghai, Khyzyl, Khoibal, and Piltïr. A small number of Shors, most of whom are settled in neighboring Mountain Shoria, also live in Khakassia. Traditionally, members of each Indigenous group distinguished themselves from neighbors in their musical practices, including tuning systems, melodic patterns, melodies, and instrument construction. While some contemporary musicians strive to revitalize these sounds and practices, others combine them with their knowledge of Western musical scales and modified instruments learned during the communist period. Khakassia is the most Turkic and russified of the three republics.15 During the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, the Russian Empire gradually assimilated the Indigenous nomadic tribes and clans of the Minusinsk Basin. There was mass Russian immigration and increasing economic and ideological intervention from 1822. Many Indigenous peoples converted to Orthodox Christianity. By the 1917 Revolution, Russians formed approximately half of the population. They were officially renamed “Khakas” in 1917 (Butanaev 2004, 215). Soviet power was established in 1923, and the area was elevated to an autonomous region within the

14

map 3. Republic of Khakassia Fieldwork Sites. key Towns, villages, settlements: 1. Chernogorsk 2. Aghban Piltïrï (Ust’-Abakan) 3. Sayanogorsk 4. Charkov 5. Chogharkhy Paza (Upper Baza) 6. Indïrkï Paza (Lower Baza) 7. Askhys 8. Sapron 9. Politov 10. Indïrkï Töö 11. Ust’-Chul 12. Oty 13. Chogharkhy Töö 14. Tashtyp 15. Angchul 16. Tuim 17. Azakh Sööt 18. Zhemchuzhny 19. Syra (Shira) 20. Altynchul 21. Chookhchyl 22. Toghyrghy 23. Orzhonikidze 24. Naa aal 25. Novomar’yasovo Archaeological Sites: SA Salbyk “Valley of the Khans” SU Sunduki Astrological Temple USC Uibat Steppe Chaa Tas (War Stones)

part one. emplacement, ontologies, bodies

USSR in 1930. By the end of 1937, 93% of the population had been collectivised and settled in villages. In 1990, it was renamed Khakas ASSR and in 1991 became the Khakas Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR). Following the downfall of the USSR, it became the Republic of Khakassia in 1992. The Khakas language, part of the southern Siberian Yenisei Turkic language group, is close to Altaian and Shor languages. Language affiliations of its Indigenous peoples have changed over time (Diószegi [1960] 1968, 81). A literary Khakas language with Russian cyrillic alphabet was created in 1924. tyva

Tyva is bordered by the Russian Altai Mountains in the west, the western Sayan Mountains in the north and northeast, and the Tangdy-Uula mountain range in the south. The ethnonym “Tyvan” was allegedly used as early as the tenth century to refer to nomadic pastoralist groups in the valleys of the Sayan and Tangdy-Uula mountain ranges who shared a language that belonged to Ural-Altaic language family, Old-Uighur (Balzer 1999). They were formed from several Turkic groups, Turkified Mongols, Samoyeds, and Ket speakers (Lindquist 2013, 72). During the twentieth century, inhabitants of this territory were called “Uriangkhai” (Carruthers 1913–14) and “Soyot” (Diószegi [1960] 1968, 206–7). The Tyvan People’s Republic was created in 1921, and in 1944 it was annexed to the USSR. The capital city received its current name, Kyzyl, in 1926. Tyvans live in two ecologically contrasting areas. In western, central, and southern areas, nomadic pastoralists traditionally live in round felt tents (ög) similar to livestock-herding Altain, Khakas, and Mongol peoples. At the time of my fieldwork, there was no evidence of subdivisions into different Indigenous peoples. Clan names now appear as family names. Within these are recognised lineages of talented musicians, drone-overtone singers, epic performers, and shamans, who increasingly attract the attention of western researchers and media companies. In the Sayan Mountain taiga forests of the north and northeast, Tozhu reindeer herders are hunter-gatherers, traditionally living in birch-bark tepees (choom) and only accessible by river, horse, and helicopter. Despite being registered as ISPNSFE since 1993, Todzhu Tyvans, a minority of possible Samoyedic origin, have no secure legal rights. With changes by the Moscow Duma to the Forest Code and the dismantling of Indigenous-led reindeer herding cooperatives, they are vulnerable to land sale and loss of hunting rights. They share some musical practices with Tyva’s pastoralists, such as communication with animals and spirits by songs and intoned speech, melodies on wooden jaw’s harps, and sound mimesis of nature, but have little drone-overtone vocal music (Levin with Süzükei 2006, 70; Anderson and Harrison 2020, 499; Tuva: Voices 1990D).

16

key Towns, Villages, Settlements: 1. Arzhan 2. Khaiyrakan 3. Shagonar 4. Chadaana (Ru. Chadan) 5. Sug-Aksy 6. Aldan Maadyr 7. Kyzyl-Khaya 8. Mögür-Aksy 9. Shui 10. Chyrgaky 11. Khandagaity 12. Dus-Dag 13. Ak-Chyraa 14. Samagaltai 15. Erzin 16. Khobu-Aksy Archaeological Sites: VK: “Valley of the Kings” with Scythian burial mounds including Arzhaan 1 and 2 U. Kh: Üstüü Khüree ruins of Tibetan-style Buddhist monastery and site of International Music Festival

map 4. Republic of Tyva Fieldwork Sites.

part one. emplacement, ontologies, bodies

State and Global Flows unesco, the russian state, nomads, world music

Contact with other Indigenous peoples, with international experts (on endangered languages and cultures), and with UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) have helped to raise local awareness. Although UNESCO is keen to protect the unique ecosystem, endangered animals, and archaeological sites of the transnational “Golden Mountains of Altai,” its recognition of cross-border musical landscapes and Indigenous music is hampered by a state-driven system. Since the Russian state has not ratified UNESCO’s 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage or 2005 Convention for the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Expressions, the Altai, Khakassia, and Tyva Republics cannot submit proposals for recognition of their national musics, and Indigenous peoples within those republics also have no direct pathway to UNESCO. Ownership of cultural identity, part of the process of state and nation building, has become a defended resource (S. Harrison 1999), and the tussle between China and Mongolia over state ownership of “throat-singing” is a prime example of that (Curtet 2021). My own work supports the case for acknowledging the voices and alterity of Indigenous peoples, who find themselves within a babushka-doll state-nation framework. Increased international attention has opened useful networks. When professional musicians nomadize globally, they carry with them a “nomadic sensibility,” a quality embracing nomadic movement and spirit, that attracts organizers of international music festivals, tours, and concerts (such as France’s Nomadic Spirit Festival, Johanni Curtet’s NGO Routes Nomades, Morocco’s annual Nomads Festival, and Kazakhstan’s Nomad Way Festival).16 Musical collaborations between professional Indigenous and non-Indigenous musicians and promoters have also raised the global profile of Indigeneity and nomadism. Recognition of Greater Altai and the Altai-Sayan regions as epicenters of drone-overtone vocal and instrumental music was helped after the USSR collapse by the ability of professional musicians to travel internationally, the digital circulation of “throat-singing” or “overtone-singing” in global space as a sonic icon evoking nomadism and spirituality, registration for some in UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage program, and increased accessibility of these areas to specialist tourism, including apprenticeships with throat-singing masters and shamans. shamanic renaissance and harner’s global core

Global influences affect the shamanic renaissance in all three republics. These include Buddhist and Hindu theories of the body’s energetical centers (chakras),

18

Introduction

Russian shamanology17 and magic (including “bio-field” healing or extrasensorics, Lindquist 2006, 24–26), Western New Age ideas of bodily regeneration through manipulation, and, perhaps most striking, American anthropologist Michael Harner’s “core shamanism.” Harner identifies two essential elements in his construct: “journeying” and playing the drum or rattle. In contrast to traditional Siberian shamanism, any individual can journey using a “shamanic state of consciousness” (SSC) for rapid self-healing and personal growth (Harner [1988] 1990, 2004). Also different from tradition is that this may be achieved by “sonic driving,” created by monotonous drum or rattle rhythms that may be delivered via headphones from an electronic source, such as a compact disc (Harner 2005). In order to encourage the survival of Indigenous shamanisms, Harner’s American Foundation for Shamanic Studies (FSS) has dispatched basic training teams and individuals to the homelands of tribal or former tribal peoples, including Tyva. Field associates—often academics—act as forerunners who secure requests for assistance, after which FSS conducts research and arranges conferences, seminars, and courses. In 1992, Finnish anthropologist and FSS field associate Heimo Lappalainen arrived in Tyva, paving the way for the first International Tyvan-American Symposium on Shamanism in 1993 (Brunton 1994). Tyvan Ai Chürek Shamaness recalled that shamanism had been forbidden before that symposium, and only after it had Mongush Kenin-Lopsan’s publications detailing performances of Tyvan rituals and shamanic song-chants become available. These two events enabled Tyvan shamans to become openly active (Ai Chürek P). FSS mounted a further expedition to Tyva in 1994, when it awarded Kenin-Lopsan the title Living Treasure of Shamanism, with a small stipend. In 1995, Tyvan shamans attended the First World Congress of Psychotherapy in Vienna, going on to work with advanced FSS students in Austria and Switzerland. In 1998, Kenin-Lopsan and Ai Chürek taught at the Foundation in California (Sundström 2012, 376), at which Kenin-Lopsan made a commitment to help create “world shamanism” (Grimaldi 1998). In 2003, Tyvan shamans held a conference to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the first symposium. By then, Tyva was very much on the shamanic global map. Harner’s potential influence caused dissent in Altai. For instance, Altaian shamans, although invited to attend a conference on “global shamanism” in 2003, refused to do so (Halemba 2014, 8–9). The three republics have now become established as centers of mystery and power, attracting local spiritual and musical pilgrims, international adherents of “energy tourism” (Ru. energeticheskii turizm) and neoshamanism. Artist and visionary Nicholas Roerich’s Agnus Dei disciples consider Altai’s Üch Sümer as a gateway to the mystical land of Shambala.18 At Sunduki, Khakassia’s ancient

19

part one. emplacement, ontologies, bodies

astrological mountain observatory, contemporary festivals draw crowds that mark the solstices (chap. 4). In each republic, the seriously ill, curious, and potentially gifted also arrive to seek help from powerful shamans. When I began fieldwork in the Altai Republic in 2002, only a few people were called “shaman” (kam). Spiritual specialists known under the generic term biler ulus (“people who know”) were drawing ever closer to the shaman in their displays of gifts in childhood and later activities of healing, purifying, removing spells, and prophesying. Shamans, as well as those who “see” and “know,” use varying degrees of an altered state of consciousness (ASC).19 “Since they share the same ways of being, one may also easily transform into the other,” said Altaian elder Danil’ Mamyev (P). The overlap in spiritual abilities and practices was epitomised by Arzhan Közörökov, who was equally effective as a shaman, epic performer, and White Way ritual leader (jarlykchy). Similarly, when I first arrived in Khakassia only a small number of shamans and other spiritual specialists had reemerged. There were uninitiated shamans and novitiates, including those who “know,” “see,” and “whisper.” As in the Altai Republic, the attribution of shamanship had broadened and continues to do so. As ritual shamanic assistant Alexandr Kotozhekov commented: “Young Khakas whisperers now also proclaim themselves to be shamans” (P). Because Tyva did not join the Soviet Union until 1944—much later than the other two republics—shamanism was able to flourish during the 1920s. By 1931, there were 411 male and 314 female practicing “crowned” shamans (T. Ondar 1997, 51). These suffered during persecution in the 1930s, but shamanic traditions have remained within living memory. Tyva’s post-Soviet shamanic renaissance includes reclamation of traditional practices passed down within families or continued by those who had fled to remote areas, as well as assimilation of elements of Harner’s global neoshamanism. These two extremes come together in Mongush KeninLopsan. During the Soviet period, he collected and documented shamanic material culture and practices and, when Lappalainen arrived, began to institutionalize Tyvan shamanism by founding the first shamanic center, Dünggür (Drum), officially registered as a “religious organization” in 1993. When I arrived in 2003, there were four more: Tös Deer (Nine Skies), Adyg Eeren (Bear Spirit), Salotaya Orba (Golden Beater), and Khattyg Taiga (Windy Taiga). Each organized hierarchically under the supreme leadership of Kenin-Lopsan and its own director, they mirrored Putin’s drive to create a vertical political axis of governance between Moscow and Tyva. Referred to by Tyvans as “shamanic societies,” their elevation to the same status as Buddhism, Orthodox Christianity, and Islam enables tax exemptions, legal status, and the possibilities of organizing large-scale public events and inviting foreign guests (Pimenova 2013, 125–29). Now expanded to eight, these shamanic centers offer a range of rituals as well as courses on traditional

20

Introduction

shamanic knowledge, ideas, worldview, and training. They award certificates that authorize healing and enable shamans to participate in modern healthcare and social services (Sundström 2012, 350). This contrasts with the traditional single shaman, who served one local community, such as a clan or family, and engaged in life-and-death combats in which newcomers or rivals were “devoured.” It sits uneasily, then, with independent shamans, who resist joining official organizations, and Tyvans who doubt their “authenticity.” Alliances between shamans remain uneasy, with tensions erupting within and between centers in the form of rivalries involving curses and other forms of shamanic warfare. Contemporary shamans who work together are often from the same extended family or region. Structure of the Book performance arena

The book’s physical structure mirrors the performance arena of my fieldwork—a tripartite and multidimensional shamanic animist universe—with participants that include human and spirit actors in vertical Middle, Upper, and Lower Worlds. The term “actor” indicates the focus on action rather than text, performative bodies rather than social structures, speech that has creative (illocutionary) rather than explanatory (propositional) force, culture as process not product, and agency rather than representation. It does not suggest that those participating are “acting” as in the sense of a theatrical performance (although some of the participants do also appear in those contexts) but rather, whether in everyday or ritual soundings, there is instrumentality and intention (see Hughes-Freeland 1998, 6–7). The Middle World also embraces other horizontal dimensions or subtle “worlds.” These include those superimposed onto the human landscape, such as the domains of spirit-owners and spirit-actor roads, those within landscape, such as ancestors and ancient heroes, and those in a place close by, such as down a river, sometimes called the “world of the dead” or “otherworld” (see Humphrey 1995, 152–53). Accessible to those with extrasensory abilities, spirit actors of all worlds may be heard, felt, or smelled (chap. 3, chap. 4). The performance arena of the book is divided into three parts. Part one, “Emplacement, Ontologies, Bodies,” introduces the peoples of the Altai-Sayan mountain-steppes and the musical and ontological scapes from which they sound their emplacement. In this part also stands chapter one (“Performative Bodies”), for the human body is the primary locus of senses of place, performance, sounds, and multi- and extrasensory experiences. The individual’s multiple bodies also connect in performance to human and spirit actors in all three worlds. Part two, “Sounding Middle Worlds,” contains three chapters (“Human Communities”; “Spirit Actors, Spirit Places, Nomadic Landscapes”; “Ancestors and

21

part one. emplacement, ontologies, bodies

Archaeology”). These illustrate how local peoples, including spiritual specialists and musicians, create relations of personhood with human and other-than-human actors from different Middle-World dimensions. Performances strengthen ethnicity, Indigeneity, and senses of place, as sonic pathways connect to nomadic khanates or empires, former clans, spirit actors of nature, music and sound, and ancient ancestors. Part three, “Attuning to Upper and Lower Worlds,” has three chapters (“The White Way,” “With-Spirit Epic Performers,” “Shamanic Roads”). These provide case studies of ritual specialists who sound connections from the Middle to Upper and Lower Worlds. Although each spiritual and ritual complex has its own traditions, the borders between them are also porous. And all share with other Altai-Sayan Indigenous peoples the synergetic drone-partials musical and ontological models. ontological musicality and sonicality

The book’s theoretical structure follows the Indigenous musical model of droneovertone music in which multiple sounds or voices emerge from a foundational drone and then return to it. Here, I develop Radik’s tantalizing reference to a “philosophy” that links that music to nomadic identities, landscape, ecology, and his homeland’s spirits by combining Indigenous Altai-Sayan musicality with ontology, a branch of philosophy that investigates the existence of individual human beings in society and the universe, and concerns relations. I call these interrelational complexes “ontological musicality,” part of the broader field of flexible interrelations that I call “ontological sonicality.” The book’s fundamental drone comprises ontological musicality and sonicality, and its separate voices emerge and return to it throughout. Süzükei’s comparison of the drone and its overtone voices to the fragmentation of light passing through a glass prism (2009, 2), is more evocative than Western musical theory in which the drone—sounded as the fundamental of an octave [G2]—is described as a “complex tone” comprising “simple tones,” also called “partials” or “sine waves” [G2] (von Helmholtz and Ellis [1885] 1954, 23). But both theories explain how drone-overtone musicians (vocalists and instrumentalists) can amplify the drone’s different voices to sound separately and simultaneously while also remaining implicit in it. The drone and its voices are, then, both separable and inseparable. And the term “partial” is useful here for it enables inclusion of sonic resonances of the drone that are both “overtone” and perceptually “undertone,”20 that is, sounds that seem to be lower than the pitch of the drone (Levin with Süzükei 2006, 238n3). When the ontologies of Altai-Sayan peoples synergize with this way of experiencing music to become “ontological musicality,” the musical drone becomes

22

Introduction

the balanced and dynamic stability desirable for all in the tripartite shamanic animist universe. Süzükei describes this relation as both perceptual and physical: within the sound space created by the wide frequency range of a harmonically rich timbral drone, overtones and undertones may be heard and lower, middle, and higher sensations experienced comparable to floating weightless in space with sounds existing on different planes in different dimensions (Levin with Süzükei 2006, 50–55). Elsewhere, Süzükei explains that this sonic universe encompasses the tripartite shamanic universe, nomadic ideas of sacred space, the stability of an indissoluble connection with nature, and the necessary intervention of spirit actors from all worlds (2007, 393–95). Drone-partials music embraces both horizontality and verticality. As middle, upper and lower musical voices journey from it then return to an integrated yet dynamic core (the drone), often accompanied by ritual circular movements, they are the Middle-World pathways of nomadism and pilgrimage; cycles and transitions of death and rebirth, illness and health, seasons and status; and the means of connection between human and spirit-actor communities from different dimensions. A middle-register drone sounds the lateral Middle World as nature’s hum emanates from animals, birds, humans, and spirit actors of mountain-steppes, caves, valleys, rivers, and streams. Its vertical overtones, reaching upward as in the sygyt drone-partials vocal style, connects to spirit actors in Upper Worlds and brings healing and good fortune. Its vertical undertones, reaching downward, are used for potentially dangerous transitions and encounters with other worlds. For instance, the sounds made by camels both at life’s creation (a rutting male) and its loss (a female grieving for a calf) inspired their southern Tyvan herders to perform kargyraa drone-overtone vocal style (B. Kyrgys P; Z. Kyrgys 2013, 13–14). Suggested as the basis and possible origin of drone-overtone music (Pegg 2001a), this deep, timbral vocal tone is also used by Altaian and Khakas shamans during transitional phases between birth and death (chap. 1), for heroic epic performance, particularly when engaging with malevolent forces in the Lower World, or for escorting a posthumous soul to another world (chap. 6). Ontological sonicality, the broader category with which ontological musicality interacts, embraces timbre-centered music, both vocal and instrumental, that implies rather than sounds the drone. It also includes the “power of the word” and its intentional absence (silence), replacement, and syllabic content; everyday and ritual speech events, such as naming, entreaties, oral narratives, and forms of address; and percussive and onomatopoeic vocal and instrumental sounds. My own voice, as an anthropologist of music, interweaves with the book’s ethnography as I bring together the connections made by Radik when explaining to me the importance of khöömei to Tyvans. I argue that ontological musicality and

23

part one. emplacement, ontologies, bodies

sonicality, activated in multi- or extrasensory performance practices, are essential to the identities, senses of place and nomadic movements in society, the world and universe, the very senses of being of Indigenous nomadic Altai-Sayan peoples. Such sonic performances enable emplacement of human and spirit-actor communities vertically in the tripartite universe and horizontally in Middle Worlds while simultaneously enabling movement across the boundaries. The recent ontological turn in anthropology, as expounded by Viveiros de Castro (1998), proposes that not only do epistemologies (ideas, worldviews, cultures) vary across the world but so do nature, realities, and ways of being. Here, I support this ontological argument for the value of this alterity, interest in the role and future of Indigenous or minority groups within a nation state, and desire to move anthropological theory away from representation to action. In my creation of the terms “ontological musicality” and “ontological sonicality,” I embrace Radik Tülüsh’s cluster of connections and broaden the philosophical base and ontological methodology of those engaged in anthropology’s ontological turn by, in the drone and partials of this book, moving perspectivism along to include sounds, the sensory, and performance. The ontological turn has repercussions for ethnographic methodology (Holbraad and Pedersen 2017). As Heywood (2017, 6) pointed out, if those you work with point to a tree and call it a “spirit,” to describe this as a “belief ” implies their error. How, then, do we deal with radical difference? Following the ontological turn in anthropology, I present those human contributors not as objects of study but as active participants in the project, and in line with local ontologies, I include spirit actors—who are present in everyday and ritual events—as active participants and describe them as they occur in the text. *

*

*

The book argues that, for Indigenous nomadic peoples, “place” is not a selfcontained, border-bound entity. As with a multiphonic musical drone that produces relational partials, senses of place involve sonic relations, movement, and plurality. The book’s theoretical drone draws upon that of these Indigenous peoples. Its multiple relational voices—place and pathways of movement, self and personhood, ethnicity and Indigeneity, nomadic and shamanic sensibilities— sound in each chapter. In that sounding, the book contributes to contemporary debates on place, movement, and belonging; performativity, music, and sound; contemporary ritual practices; shamanism and animism; the body; the sensory, multisensory, and extrasensory; Indigeneity and identities; nomadism and landscape; the ontological turn and holism.

24

1

Performative Bodies

This chapter argues that Altai-Sayan Indigenous peoples experience a series of performative bodies choreographed in the performance of place. Here we encounter ontological musicality as a sonically embodied self-drone that interweaves multiphonically with other relations (“partials”) of personhood that extend beyond the human body’s boundaries. Sonically embedded “senses of self ” and traditional human and spirit-actor relations of personhood are animated by a tuned physical body that produces drone-overtone “body-music,” and both selfdrone and musical drone are based within a tripartite body and universe with many layers and dimensions. The musical drone’s pitch and consequent activation of other timbral partials activates relations with the actors within that universe. These bodies adhere to Severi’s chimera principle of multiply choreographed performance as a composite of elements ([2007] 2015). However, rather than being mnemonic memory devices as he suggests, their activation follows the model of drone-partials music. They do not disappear when not performed, as Mol (2002) posits in her work on the body multiple in medical practice but, as with the musical drone, remain “onstage” and implicit as contributory presences, always with the potential for fully becoming through the process of emerging, journeying, and returning. At times, a human soul becomes separated from the main cluster and needs to be ritually located and returned. For shamanic rituals, some shamans don a percussive suprabody. Altai-Sayan peoples do not bring to front stage bodies that reflect internalized norms and expectations for behavior (Goffman [1959] 1978) but rather bring those that challenge and renegotiate the

part one. emplacement, ontologies, bodies

prevailing norms of colonial society as they seek to strengthen post-Soviet identities. Musical instruments become human-style bodies that have personhood and intentions. Landscape is also simultaneously a series of bodies that are both singular and plural. Multiple performative bodies are social, sensory, multisouled, instrumental, traditional, with-spirit, landscaped, and Indigenous. Social

The composite elements within Altai-Sayan bodies form, as anthropologist Marilyn Strathern noted for Melanesians, an internal sociality of diverse and plural relations experienced both within the body (intrasomatic) and external to it (extrasomatic) (1988, 2009). Interacting with the sensory experience of sound, they produce sonically embodied senses of self that interact with external human and spirit actors as relations of personhood. Interwoven social processes of mixing and separation going on within actors are the same as those that occur externally between actors. sonically embodied self-drone

Philosophers, social psychologists, sociologists, and social anthropologists have long debated the concepts of “self ” and “person.” For instance, French sociologist Marcel Mauss’s classic article ([1938] 1991) traced the historical and geographical differences in the conscious self (Fr. moi), the social person (Fr. personne), and roles played (Fr. personnage), making it clear that the Western conflation of these concepts is a recent phenomenon. Contemporary anthropologists often slip between them, endowing both self and person with relational properties that engage with the world. It is the nature of those relations that is debated, for instance, whether self or personhood is internally implied (Wagner 1991), distributed (Gell 1998), partial (Strathern 1991), or self-similarly fractal at various levels of magnification (Gell 1999), and whether those relations are links, partials, or equivalences. A focus on performance and performativity offers another way forward. For Kirsten Hastrup (1995, 91), the performing self has no front stage or back stage as described in Erving Goffman’s presentation of self ([1959] 1978), but all performances are variations of “theaters of self,” a unified space with no boundaries and the performing self at its center. Here I argue for a more complex process among Altai-Sayan peoples in which a “self-drone” constantly interacts with partials (relations) of personhood that cross bodily boundaries in a fluctuating bodily environment. Merleau-Ponty’s embodied self as enmeshed with the visible world (“I am all that I see”) and owing its power to the fact that it possesses a place (the body) from which it sees ([1945] 2014), was reinforced in his final essay, “Eye and Mind,” which circumscribes “opening to the world” as “through the eye” (Lefort [1974] 26

1. Performative Bodies

2014, xxi). Similarly, in Viveiros de Castro’s Amerindian ontological perspectivism, humans see [my emphasis] things through a particular constellation or bundle of affects, dispositions, or capacities (1998, 477–78). Based on the Altai-Sayan materials, I point to a distinct yet interactive relationship between self and personhood. I argue that embodied senses of self in this region are rooted in a tonal cluster or drone, the partials of which interweave multiphonically within multi- and extrasensory registers as relations of personhood. We can therefore refer to the sonically embodied self-drone, itself a partial, and the partials of personhood that emanate from it. Among these nomadic and seminomadic peoples, a timbre-centered musical aesthetic is instilled and rooted well before birth by immersion in the sound world that permeates the mother’s body from the outside environment (Levin with Süzükei 2006). This includes the natural sounds of their vast landscapes as well as those of humans at work and play. These self-sounds develop throughout life. As the place of the child in life and society changes and musical “senses of self ” fluctuate, the timbres, melodies, and harmonies within that aesthetic are adapted. It is from this inner self-drone that creativity arises. While there is fluidity in the qualities of Altai-Sayan musical senses of self, these remain rooted in the body’s emotional, physical, and mental core. In our postmodern world of multiples, the idea of rootedness is on the back foot. But as socialist feminist biologist Donna Haraway points out in her argument for location, embodiment, and partial perspective, relativism is a denial of responsibility (1991, 194–95). Chiming with the Altai-Sayan case is Ong’s recognition, in his work on orality, of an important property of hearing: “When I hear . . . I gather sounds simultaneously from every direction at once: I am at the center of my auditory world, which envelopes me, establishing me at a kind of core of sensation and existence” (Ong [1982] 2002, 71). The field of sound is not then spread in front of the body, as with vision, but all around it. The anthropologist John Blacking, pondering the relations between music, body, and self in his work on the Venda of South Africa, also argued that making and listening to music produces cognitive and bodily “resonances” that lead to “self-actualization” (1995, 241) and expressions of the “very ground of their being” (1992, 302–4). It does not necessarily follow, though, that Altai-Sayan “senses of self ” form a single undivided individual. Blacking’s identification of a transcendent state of self or other self ([1973] 1983) inspired debates on the self ’s different manifestations. Here, I argue that “senses of self ” interact with relations of personhood as tones to drones in the drone-partials musical model. Moreover, the topography of subjectivity is multidimensional. While striving for harmony, the self-drone can be divided and contradictory. It is retuned within the tonal cluster in a resonating and vibrating body by constant interaction with its other partials. 27

part one. emplacement, ontologies, bodies

relations of personhood

Mauss suggested a link between the “person” and masked dramas in Latin and Etruscan culture. Latin persona, arising from a conjunction of per (through) and sonare (to sound) referred to the mask through which an actor’s voice sounded ([1938] 1991, 14–15). Vocal sounds later became of interest to anthropologists. Malinowski, for instance, wrote of the force of magical utterances ([1935] 2002b) and Tambiah of the magical power of words in ritual (1968). The Altai-Sayan case does not sit easily with anthropological ideas that attribute the agency of such relations to human personhood. These Indigenous peoples need to negotiate reciprocal relations of personhood not only with humans but also with spirit-owners and other spirit-beings in Upper and Lower Worlds. For instance, while Strathern (1988) describes Melanesian relations of personhood as polyphonic, internal, and human-based, among Altai-Sayan peoples they may be understood as multiphonic partials of the embodied self-drone and, as Halemba described for Altaian Telengits, as involving “relations with kin, landscape, [and] other energies within the world” (2006, 145). While Halemba argues that these form aspects of personhood, I argue that they constitute it. Relations of personhood, like senses of self, are never a given, but always processual. Altai-Sayan persons are not distinguished either ontologically or structurally from an interactive field of human and spirit-human relations. Such relations are performed in everyday musical and verbal interactions as well as in sonic ritual performances. The social world of Altai-Sayan peoples, then, includes not only human beings but also those that are part-human and other-than-human, visible and invisible persons. Significantly, the term for “person” (Alt., Tyv. kizhi, Kh. kïzï) refers to spirit and posthumous beings as well as living humans, and personhood involves relations with human and human-like forms in different states of existence. The concept of “spirit-owner” (Alt., Kh., Tyv. ee) is crucial for personhood and senses of place. Relations of personhood, for instance, are formed with spiritowners of all natural phenomena, including landscape, creatures, and elements, who can materialize as any of these. Herders, hunters, musicians, and travelers charm these spirit-owners during everyday activities, and ritual specialists also engage with them. For instance, Ak Jang (White Way) leaders invite mountain spirit-owners to eat from the altars at mountain-temple rituals; shamans know each spirit-owner, helper, and protector as a person with specific bodily characteristics and life histories and negotiate with them in song-chants (Alt. alkysh, Kh. alghys, Tyv. algysh) during multi/extrasensory performances. Anton Yudanov, grandson of the renowned epic performer (kaichy) Nikolai Ulagashev, explained: “A kaichy lives with heroes. He communicates with them. They are active for him.” Epic performers make offerings to spirit-owners of the epic and their musical instruments and call the spirit-owner of the Altai Mountains to attend the event. 28

1. Performative Bodies

They are aware that the spirit-owner of the epic and hero will listen and will punish any mistakes in descriptions and plot (chap. 6). Multisensory, Extrasensory prioritization and entwinement of common senses

In everyday life, sensations bombard our bodies, which they process through the senses of hearing, sight, smell, touch, and taste. Prioritization of those senses varies across cultures. The Kaluli of New Guinea, for instance, give primacy to sound (Feld [1982] 2012), while for Trobriand Islanders smell is vital, especially during ritual performances when “magic . . . must enter through the nose” (Malinowski [1935] 2002b, 44). Prioritization may also change over time. When printing replaced orality in literate cultures, for example, emphasis tended to be on the eye rather than ear (Goody [1977] 1995), but technological audio developments including radio, compact discs, the internet, and digital streaming have partly redressed the balance. Among Altai-Sayan peoples, sounds constantly entwine through the medium of performance with the other four “common” senses. Color, for instance, intimately connects to sound and the body. Tyvan ethnomusicologist Valentina Süzükei notes that white light and khöömei (drone-overtone vocal sounds) share the same prismed separation of components (1993, 48), and Tyvan Nadia Sat Shamaness explained that colors provide both energy and protection. “There is,” she said, “no rhythm without color.” Color has significance from the moment of birth. During Tyvan birth rituals, for instance, a baby acquires a series of colored dots (menge) that vary according to the time and date of the event.1 According to Nikolai Oorzhak Shaman, this color combination governs blood circulation and indicates potential illnesses and general health, spirit, body, mind, and character. Tyvan Lazo Mongush Shaman creates chalama ritual ribbons in the menge colors of participants during healing rituals (chap. 2), and Khakas Viktor Kishteev Shaman wears colors that express the domains to which his body-double will travel to heal the client (chap. 4). sounding and sensing spirits

Sounds are important for nomadic pastoralists when managing everyday tasks and encounters with spirit actors and other worlds. For instance, to gain protection in the dangerous landscapes through which they travel, hunt, and herd, Altai-Sayan peoples must negotiate with and charm capricious and powerful spirit actors, such as nature’s spirit-owners, who control unpredictable events such as predatory animals, bad weather, sudden rock falls, turbulent waters, and malevolent spirits that bring illness to the unwary. In Khakassia, “mountain people” (Kh. tagh

29

part one. emplacement, ontologies, bodies

kïzïler) may kidnap or trap a person. All must be wooed by performative vocal offerings such as a few words of poetical praise and entreaty, drone-partials vocal and instrumental music, song-chants, or instrumental duets (chap. 3). Humans may detect the arrival or presence of a spirit actor by an unusual fragrance, and spirit actors can also smell. For instance, the aroma of burning herbs or of fragrant flowers placed on altars by Altaian Ak Jang practitioners attracts them. Spirit-helpers sometimes use their sense of smell to help a shaman. For example, Khakas Semen Tinikov Shaman told the missionary Vasilii Sukhovskoi (1901, 151) that his spirit-owners were able to track a stolen soul by “sniffing” the black or sandy red track left by a hostile spirit (aina) that had stolen it. Others feel spirit actors intuitively or as a bodily sensation. For instance, when Tyvan musician Radik Tülüsh performed drone-partials vocal and igil fiddle music for the spirit-owners of his ancestral land, he felt them come to him on the wind. Similarly, when Tyvan Stepan Manzyrykchy Shaman treated me in 2005, I felt the touch of a soft breeze on the nape of my neck despite being in a closed room without drafts. Those with spiritual gifts may also have special ways of seeing and hearing.

smelling, feeling, touching

Located at the center of the brow and forming the apex of a triangle with everyday eyes, the “moon” or “third” eye2 is frequently depicted in rock art figures on stelae in Khakassia from the Okunev period (Savinov and Podol’skii 1997) and copied onto musical instruments as decorations (chap. 4). The potency of this eye is often detectable as a quality (Alt. küch; Kh. küsh, küs; Tyv. küsh, küshtüg) in the everyday eyes of creative people, such as shamans, musicians, artists, and carvers, indicating a particular kind of energy received from the cosmos (see Hodgkinson 2005–6). Altaians traditionally invite a person “who can see” (kösmökchi) or has “a seeing eye” (kös körör) to funerals and commemoration rituals to watch the behavior of posthumous souls. They may also see spirit-owners, malicious spirits, and wandering souls (Anokhin [1924] 1994; Tyukhteneva 1999, 94; Halemba 2006, 197). Khakas peoples distinguish such a clairvoyant (körïgjï/kördïgjï) from a doublesighted person (köspekchï), who can see souls, spirits, the past, and the future (Butanaev 1999, 52; Subrakovoi 2006, 208). Similarly, in Tyva, a “double-sighted” person (karang körnür) can see things that ordinary people cannot. Both shamans and with-spirit epic performers describe in detail the landscaped spirit-worlds they see as they journey. Shamans also use this eye to perceive a patient’s body differently. For instance, many see a series of threads extending from it and use them in several ways. Altaian Közörökov Shaman explained that he saw from nine to eighty-one threads (uchuktar), the number revealing the seeing: moon eye, dreams

30

1. Performative Bodies

client’s energy levels and their length indicating lifespan. Tyvan Lazo Mongush Shaman described these threads as “energy lines” and Galina Pavlova Kokova, a Khakas shamaness living in Tyva, as “white, black, or grey smoke.” Khakas Valerii Chebochakov Shaman pointed out that when the khut soul (explained later in this chapter) leaves the body, it remains connected to it by a silver thread which, if cut, will cause death. Similarly, when a shaman’s soul leaves the body during rituals as a double or multiple, it remains connected by threads to the visible body.3 Altai-Sayan peoples discuss dreams. They consider that events “seen” during dreams are as real as those seen by the everyday eye. With-spirit epic performers, musicians, instrument-makers, and shamans often see and hear spirit actors, instruments, epic dramas, and characterizations in dreams and visions. Received as gifts, they inspire creative agency in everyday life. Khakas long-box chatkhan zither player Nikadim Ulturgashev, for instance, told how spirit actors offered his shamaness mother’s drum (tüür) to him in a dream, but he grabbed instead the chatkhan and after this began to play that instrument (chap. 7). Similarly, Saghai musician and with-spirit epic performer Ai Charykh Saiyn Küchen recounted how the spirit-owner of khai (khai eezi) had told him in a dream to look at his hand. Instead of fingers, Ai Charykh had seen five traditional instruments—a

figure 1.1a. Khakas Ai Charykh

Saiyn Küchen playing a horn-shaped fiddle with round face and monolithdecorated head. Other instruments include a khomys lute, long-box chatkhan zither, and end-blown flutes, Abakan, 2004.

31

part one. emplacement, ontologies, bodies

figure 1.1b. Ai Charykh’s yykh fiddle with innovative body design, transmitted in a dream, Abakan, 2005.

lute (khomys), zither (chatkhan), fiddle (yykh), metal jaw’s harp (timïr khomys), and end-blown flute (khobyrakh)—each with modern adaptations. He gave drawings to master instrument-maker Pyotr Topaev. At a shamanic gathering in his workshop in 2002, these instruments were on display. There were two lutes. On the four-stringed instrument (tuned in pairs), Pyotr had carved a black hand on the body’s back and on the two-stringed, a white hand. He had incorporated the “rib” design of a shamanic drum into the face of the lute. Modifications sometimes served practical purposes. For instance, the back of one lute’s body had been made of rough tree-bark to stop it from slipping when played and the bottom of an yykh fiddle’s body had been shaped to be more easily gripped between the knees. Creativity inspired by human-spirit interactions in dreams involves processes of memory and copying (Glaskin 2011). Creative agency and ownership are not individual but shared with the spirit actor, and therefore the recipient must accurately reproduce the gift. hearing: inner ear, moon ear Musicians develop an “inner ear”—the ability to hear nonsounded musical notes—used when tuning instruments and

32

1. Performative Bodies

the body for drone-partials vocal music. Another ability, called by Khakas and Shor peoples a “moon ear” (Kotozhekov P, Arbachakov and Arbachakova 2008, 534), is possessed by those who can hear the voices, songs, music, and movements of spirit actors, including spirit-owners and mountain people (Pegg and Yamaeva 2012; chap. 3), and by shamans, who listen to and negotiate with spirit actors to heal a client’s body. Altai-Sayan shamans usually combine sounds with vision during rituals. Altaian Chalkan A. K. Abasheva Shamaness, however, unable to see her landscaped journeys, relies upon descriptions given by the mountain spirit-owners who fly with her. She also hears spirit actors of different ages and genders, speaking and sometimes whispering from the direction from which she called them (Sychenko 2009b, 38–39). Although some people specialize in a particular sense to access the extrasensory, others experience overlapping sensations. For instance, when Abasheva Shamaness hears messages of impending death from her spirits, her throat tightens or closes. She also experiences the presence of spirit actors through feelings of being bound, and when her clan mountain’s spirit-owner arrives, the sensation that her hair is standing up (Sychenko 2009b, 38–39). The singing and bell-ringing that signals the arrival of Khakas ancestral “mountain women” causes the same feeling of the host’s hair standing up (chap. 3). When shamans and with-spirit epic performers describe their encounters with spirit actors, they do not only present pictorializations of domains of experience (Fernandez 1986, 175) or images projected onto the inner eye lids (Kapchan 2007, 97). They reproduce conversations, songs, and music of those spirit actors as well as environmental sounds, such as bird song and rustling leaves (Pegg and Yamaeva 2012). Sounds and vision form part of their multi- and extrasensory performative bodily experiences and occur in introductory versified song-chants. For instance, Russian researcher A. V. Anokhin4 described how an Altaian shaman introduced a spirit-helper or spirit-enemy in the form of an animal or bird but also requested:

synesthesia

Let the piebald falcon screech before me, Let the grey eagle give forth sounds Above my two shoulders. (cited by Alekseev [1987] 1997, 62)

The shaman then used a process of embodiment that included vocalizing the sounds of the bird or animal. Mongush Kenin-Lopsan described how a Tyvan shaman wanted to feel and hear the presence of spirit actors, inviting them to dance and play amid his percussive suprabody’s sound-producers: Descend from the skies, Drop on my head with dance, There, between my shoulder blades, hang little bells,

33

part one. emplacement, ontologies, bodies

They are of bronze, amuse yourself with them! On my shoulders are little bells. . . . Play to the sound of these bells. (Balzer 1995, 241)

With-spirit epic performers use a combination of timbral vocal sounds, versified song-chants, and incantations in their long narratives, received in dreams, accompanied by the two-stringed lute (topshuur) or long-box zither (chatkhan), to embody and describe their journeys and the obstacles and spirit actors encountered and become the hero and other characters in the tale. Merleau-Ponty considered the sight and color of sounds as part of the phenomenology of perception ([1945] 2014, 238) and musicologist Zuckerkandl pondered “hearing with the eyes” (1956, 341), bringing him close to Merleau-Ponty’s “painterly vision” (Ingold 2000, 267). In the Altai-Sayan mountains, shamans often have this synesthetic ability but use it for practical purposes. For instance, Altaian shaman Arzhan Közörökov saw as well as heard the gossip of his kopchi spirits as it reached as high as his knees, which alerted him to my imminent arrival.

[128.104.46.196] Project MUSE (2024-04-09 03:07 GMT) UW-Madison Libraries

Multisouled

Indigenous narratives and ethnographic literature from this region attribute multiple souls to the body, rather than the single soul of Judeo-Christian religions.5 In common with other Siberian and Amerindian cosmologies, living souls have materiality and corporeality (Brightman, Grotti and Ulturgasheva 2012, 14) as well as capabilities of immateriality and metamorphosis. They are both singular and plural and distributed internally and externally in life and after death. The performative abilities, qualities, and terminology of these multiple souls, which vary among different peoples, are complex and ambiguous. All, though, connect to “living” or “posthumous” states of being, preceded by a liminal phase. From Indigenous perspectives, when every soul is “in-place” within the interconnected bodies of the universe, then harmony and health prevail. When a soul is “out-of-place” through loss, migration, theft, metamorphosis, or prebirth/posthumous liminality, senses of self and relations of personhood are threatened, and illness and cosmic chaos follow. A distributed soul is not lost, though, if deliberately placed. in-place living souls 6

The “composite soul” (Alt. süne,7 syn; Kh. khut; Tel. süne; Tele. süne, sünezin; Tyv. kut, sünezin) is a general word for “soul.” Spirit protectors and ritual action closely guard it. As with the drone in the drone-partials musical model, it is both singular and plural, interweaving with the body’s multiple souls as a relational matrix, each simultaneously part of the composite soul and separate from it. It is

34

1. Performative Bodies

both internal to and distributed outside of the body. For instance, the traditional Tyvan kut soul is internally located on the left or right side of the body, the former indicating long life and the latter an early death (Kenin-Lopsan 1993, 32–33). Its extracorporeal distribution is both settled and nomadic. It has its own place, such as on a high mountain or in a clan tree or ancestor’s campsite, but also may decide to hide on a human’s outer body or personal belongings (Kenin-Lopsan 1997a, 70). A Tyvan shaman’s soul often settles in his drum (dungur), drumstick (orba), costume, or spirit-helpers, or in a deceased shaman’s resting place. The embryo embodies the “initial soul” (Kh. khut, Tel. suzy, Tyv. kut) as the potential for realization. It contains the seed-sounds of self within the mother’s body, travels with the fetus into this world, and remains within the living body. Tyvans bury the placenta at the birth-spot by the fire on the side of the rising sun, after hiding it for three days (Kenin-Lopsan 1997a, 70). This ritual act, accompanied by rhythmical improvised verse-chants, roots the newborn’s body, soul, and sense of self in its native land, marks the spot where the soul crossed from the other world into this, and creates a vital connection between senses of self and relations of personhood that include parents, ancestors, and land. In Shor creation mythology, the highest, most benevolent spirit actor Ul’gen created the human body, but it was Erlik, his younger brother, who instilled the initial soul by blowing it through a hollow angelica stem (kobrak) (also a Khakas musical instrument) into its mouth (Arbachakov and Arbachakova 2008, 15). The “life-force” soul (Alt., Sh. kut; Kh., Tyv. khut) is linked to the body’s inner organs, base of spine, health, vital energies, and luck. It may leave temporarily at night or through fright, exiting by the right ear or eyes, then taking material form. Among Shors, it can sit at the back of the mouth through surprise or fear (Arbachakov and Arbachakova 2008, 17). In contemporary Altaian and Khakas use, it overlaps with the sünezin in its composite nature, potential for loss, and negotiated return or exchange in shamanic performance. A clan also has its own “life-force” soul (van Deusen 2004, 54), as do animals and plants. The “breath-soul” (Alt., Kh., Tyv. tyn; Sh. tin), which is both corporeal and extracorporeal, is the animating principle that also denotes destiny and life-path. Located in the chest, whole body, or bones, it constantly crosses the body’s physical boundaries, interacting with the rhythms (breaths) of all living beings, including natural phenomena and musical instruments. Khakas peoples say that its movement is associated with the wind, and if it leaves the body remains attached by a thread. Among Tyvans, it is traditionally hidden outside the body to avoid a shaman or angry shaman-tree stealing or absorbing it (Kenin-Lopsan 1997a, 80). When the tyn departs at death, Altaians hear the sound of a snapping string (Diószegi [1960] 1968, 222). The “consciousness-soul” (Kh., Tyv. sagys, sagysh) embraces self-awareness, reason, volition, intention, memory, dreams, and imagination. It may rest in the 35

part one. emplacement, ontologies, bodies

mind, under the fingernails, among the hairs of the head or be distributed in trees, work implements, and favorite objects. The “syn soul” (Alt., Kh.) is located at the top of the head or forehead. A “person who sees” divines its loss, a portent of danger that may be preempted by the ritual performance of a Sky shaman. Living souls are sometimes described as vortices of power, vitalities, or energies within the body akin to the chakras of Hindu, Buddhist, and New Age philosophies. Some coincide with the position of certain chakras. For instance, the Altaian and Khakas syn soul is in the areas associated with the sixth and seventh chakras (top of the head, forehead). out-of-place living souls

Unlike chakras, a living soul may migrate to occult dimensions of its own volition before a journey or during dreams, be startled out of the body in fright, or be stolen by shamans, spirits, or posthumous liminal souls. Its mode of bodily exit and means of reentry vary. Temporary loss causes illness, with death ensuing if it is caught by a malicious spirit. Prevention of loss, location, soul retrieval, and reemplacement requires shamanic rituals. Traditionally, Tyvan shamans call back an “out-of-place” composite soul (sünezin) by performing a versified song-chant that recounts the disease’s history, why the soul has left, and how to save it (Kenin-Lopsan 1993, 29) or describes the shaman’s journey to negotiate for the soul’s return. The liminal “out-of-place” soul, which threatens the balance of all interrelated bodies of earth and cosmos, metamorphoses into an occult soul and takes a different name. For instance, a sick person’s composite soul, including “life-force” (kut) and “breath” (tyn) souls, becomes the “spiritual-double” (Alt., Tel. jula; Kh., Tyv., Sh. chula; Tele. t’ula), which shamans may capture and show in material form (Radloff [1866] 1967a, 553). Spirit-owners gamble with a child’s spiritdouble and may accept a human or animal soul in exchange. In Tyva, its return requires rituals by a Sky shaman, who has good relations with earth’s spirit-owner. Recent ethnography sheds light upon contemporary shamanic soul-retrieval rituals among Telengit Altaians. For instance, Halemba explained that the jula may be returned to the patient as a single hair (2006, 146), and Kara and Kunkovács described how a soul, stolen by a client’s deceased mother, was retrieved during a shaman ritual performed to reach Erlik’s Lower World by using songs, percussive sounds, helper-spirits (körmös), and the medium of fire (2014, 159–60). Altaians call the jula’s materialization sür (Baskakov and Yaimova 1993). It may separate from the body seven to ten years before death and can be troublesome. Called sürüezi among Shors, it steals the kut (Funk 2005, 30). When the kut departs the body through the eyes at death, it becomes surun (Arbachakov and Arbachakova 2008, 18). Among Khakas peoples, it stays with the bones or wanders close to the

36

1. Performative Bodies

home of the deceased and may suffocate a person during sleep (van Deusen 2004, 54), while for Telengits it is both an embodied internal power and an external appearance (Halemba 2006, 146). The Khakas süne, a dead person’s soul, stays for one year on earth before becoming an üzüt spirit actor in another world (van Deusen 2004, 54). Among Altaian Chalkans, an üzüt may bring illness to the stomach via consumed meat, caused by a social misdemeanor such as failing to visit the deceased (Makarovna P). dispatching a posthumous soul

Sonically based shamanic rituals send off the composite posthumous soul when, being in-between this and other worlds, it is “out-of-place.” This soul may take the corporeal form of the deceased, appearing as a ghost. It often stays initially in the home, acting as in life, close to the body or resting within the bones. If properly dispatched, it may become an ancestral ghost, but if not, it becomes a servant of the Lord of the Underworld, Erlik. In Tyva, shamans perform fire rituals to dispatch a posthumous soul from liminality on the seventh and forty-ninth days after death. If unsuccessful, a further ritual is performed after one year or during the autumn. In 2006, I traveled from Tyva’s capital, Kyzyl, to western Tyva with Lazo Mongush Shaman and the Kuular clan to perform a forty-ninth-day sending-off ritual. The process was fraught with danger. The composite sünezin soul still hung on to the sagysh soul of self-awareness and memory and tried to maintain its Middle-World personhood by continuing former social and physical relations with its grieving family. Lazo needed to prevent this. This proved to be a struggle. The fire, a portal and pathway between worlds, contained multiple dangerous spirit actors as well as the deceased’s sünezin. It began to spread quickly as Lazo drummed up a wind that threatened to engulf him and the boy’s family. Using a combination of timbral drum sounds and percussive suprabody (gown) jingles, Lazo beat back the fire to safe boundaries within the ritual performance arena. During dialogue with and song-chants addressed to the sünezin soul, he established that the young man’s death had not been suicide as claimed, and persuaded him to accept his fate, change his mode of personhood, and leave behind his family members. Lazo safely dispatched the soul across this dangerous liminal boundary to a different status in the otherworld, avoiding the danger of a reluctant “out-of-place” posthumous soul, which threatened the balance of all interrelated bodies of earth and cosmos. The potential extreme danger of this liminal period distinguished it from Victor Turner’s later theories espousing any act of theater as an act of liminality (1982). The Tyvan sünezin soul may reappear years after death singing a song or calling the name of a desired companion. It may also appear in a significant former place as an animal, mythical being, or giant (Kenin-Lopsan 1993, 30–32).

37

part one. emplacement, ontologies, bodies

Instrumental

It was Mauss who observed that the body is “man’s first and most natural instrument” ([1934] 1979, 101). The body becomes a communicative instrument during sonic events, whether as speech acts (Austin [1962] 1975, Searle 1969) or musical performances. Important to senses of self and relations of personhood in this region is drone-overtone or drone-partials vocal music, a world music icon known as “throat-singing” or “overtone-singing” that circulates in global space and is evocative of shamanic nomadic cultures but was created by the peoples of the Altai-Sayan Mountain ranges.8 throat-singing as body-music

When a vocalist plays with the sounds of a sustained rich timbral cluster (a “drone”) by selecting certain tones (“partials”), producing a simultaneous melody, or changing its textures, the body becomes a multiphonic instrument or musical ensemble. Terms used in scholarly and popular Western discourse— “overtone-singing,” “throat-singing,” and “biphonic/double voice”—are etic interpretations of Indigenous terms: kai (Alt., Sh.), khai (Kh.), and khöömei (Tyv.), and all have proved problematical.9 When Anokhin, one of the first collectors of Altaian epics, encountered kai in the late nineteenth century, he described it as resembling “the buzzing of a flying beetle” (Kyrgys [2002] 2008, 14). Shul’gin later explained that, despite the compressed larynx and rigors of delivery for the performer, this sound is musical to Altaians, soothing the nerves of listeners (1973). The Russian exile E. K. Yakovlev, who visited western and central Tyva in 1898, noted that the sounds seemed to come from “deep within his entrails” (Kyrgys [2002] 2008, 12) and recent research has illustrated the complex bodily techniques required. Therefore, I use the terms “drone-overtone” as the equivalent of “overtone-singing,” and “drone-partials” vocal music or timbral body-music for rich vocal sounds of epic performance or individual local terms kai/khai/khöömei and retain “throat-singing” only when referring to global contexts or general reference. Altaian, Khakas, and Tyvan peoples use “drone-partials music” or “timbral body-music”—situated in a liminal position somewhere between speech and song and able to metamorphose between them—to communicate with spirit actors and enable travel to different domains of the universe. To produce the correct sounds, they must tune the body according to need. tuning the body

A singer uses the ear to tune single pitches to others in a melodic phrase or to accompany vocalists or instruments. By contrast, performers of timbral bodymusic use the ear to tune the separate voices of the body-instrument as muscles, 38

1. Performative Bodies

mouth, and nasal passages radiate and modulate a spectrum of sounds and the body produces and feels their vibrations. Breath control is important. Ethnomusicologist Zoya Kyrgys classified breathing techniques of Tyvan khöömei into three types—from the abdomen, chest, or diaphragm—depending upon the style (2013, 47–54). For all types, it is necessary to maintain a steady airflow. There are similarities with the air supply to a bagpipe, but whereas that instrument has one pipe for the drone and another for melodic notes, the human body has a single pipe or respiratory system. Manipulating distinct parts of the vocal tract enables production of separate notes. For instance, its volume changes by moving the jaws backward and forward, altering the shape of the lips and the thickness and position of the root, middle, and tip of the tongue. According to the legendary Tyvan performer of kargyraa style Aldyn-ool Sevek, the tongue regulates the acoustics of the mouth (Kyrgys 2013, 82) by dividing the cavity, filtering the throat’s sounds, and producing the vowels that enable the production of harmonics. These bodily movements enable alignment of the frequency of a resonance (“formant”) with that of a harmonic to make it clearly discernible as an individual pitch. Other techniques used to vary the vibration frequency include manipulating the laryngeal cartridges that change the length and thickness of the vocal folds and the slit between them (the glottis) (Sundberg 1980, 82). These are “pitch regulating muscles,” since the vibration frequency determines the pitch, blocking the airflow by moving the “false vocal folds.” In addition, the arytenoid cartilages at the back of the throat rotate, and the aryepiglottic folds and the epiglottic root in the vocal tract move (Levin and Edgerton 1999). The body-instrument needs warming up before changing from the ordinary vocal cords of the everyday singing voice to the false vocal cords of timbral body music. Bodily tuning produces different drone-partials styles, and classifications of these vary. For illustrative purposes, I use the four main Tyvan melodic styles identified by the Russian ethnographer A. N. Aksenov ([1964] 1973), who recorded Tyvan music from 1943 to 1945. These are borbangnadyr, ezengileer, sygyt, and kargyraa, to which I add khöömei.10 Table 1.1 illustrates differences in mouth and chest resonators; positions of jaws, lips, and tongue; vowels used; and changes in throat and breathing for these styles. Timbral body-music among Altaian (kai) and Khakas (khai) peoples traditionally uses a guttural growling single-cavity technique arising from heroic epic performance. There are four main drone-partials vocal styles of Altaian kai: köömoi, sygyt, sybysky or könö (used in epic performance), and karkyra. Substyles include tumchuk (nasal), tilgirek (tongue), and borbong (rolling). Urmat Yntai performs these substyles in combination with open- and closed-throated karkyra. Khakas peoples traditionally use three styles of khai for heroic epic (alyptygh nymakh) performance. Mid-range küülïp or küveler (“buzzing,” “humming”) is 39

part one. emplacement, ontologies, bodies

Table 1.1. Tuning the Tyvan Body. Jaw, Lips, Resonance Chamber Sounds

Styles Khöömei: Register: middle. Two or three melodic overtones (8th–12th). Airy whistle above fundamental. Borbangnadyr: “Rolling” as of stream or river. Register: middle or lower. Triple voice; melodic and nonmelodic overtones and timbres. Ezengileer: “Stirrup.” Pulsating ambling horse rhythm, tapping stirrups. Register: middle. Timbre: quiet. Melodic overtones. Sygyt: “Whistle.” Register: high. Two-three flutelike overtones (8th– 12th).

Throat and Breath

Mouth: single cavity. Chest: muscles compressed.

Jaw: down and forward. Lips: oo, v shape. Vowels: ö, ü.

Mouth: single cavity. Nose.

Lips: v shape; light, Throat: medium tension. rapid, quivering Breath: interrupted. movements. Vowels: ö, ü.

Mouth: single cavity. Pharynx, nose.

Lips: vibrating. Vowels: a, ö, i, ü, e, yü, ya.

Mouth: double cavity Jaws: half open. (front and back). Vowels: io, i, ia.

Kargyraa: “Roar.” Mouth: single cavity. Jaws: half open. Register: low-middle. Chest: muscles tightly Vowels: a, ö, e, ü. Guttural growling compressed. with tones above (overtones 6th– 12th) and below (undertones) fundamental.

Tongue

Throat: open, relaxed. Root: not raised, Breath: one for each filters sound. melodic phrase. Tip: micromovements.

Root: moves between mouth and nose.

Breath: periodic Root: rapid double exhalation movements to through nose and open and close mouth. nasal passages.

Throat: tense, constricted.

Throat: vibrating vestibular folds.

Root: forward. Middle: raised hollow shape, lowered, slides back and forth. Tip: touches back of upper teeth (‘l’). Flat.

the main style, often called simply khai because only this continued during the Soviet period. Related to Alt. köömoi and Mo. khöömii, it focuses less on producing discernible overtones. Kharghyra/kharygha or ulugh chon khai (“khai of the respected elders”), pitched an octave lower and used for short passages, and syghyrtyp (“to whistle”), like Tyvan sygyt, is used sparingly (Nyssen 2013).

40

1. Performative Bodies

Once tuned, timbral body-music connects to others in the performer’s social universe: humans, spirit-owners, spirit-protectors (for example, ancestors, heroes, animals) and other spirit actors in Middle (including parallel), Upper, and Lower Worlds. To achieve this, the instrumental and musical body needs to interweave with the multi/extrasensory multisouled human body. In Altai, Khakassia, and Tyva, timbral body-music has resumed its use in ritual contexts. In Altai, when an epic is performed kai sünelü chörchök, it is “with süne soul”; “mürgüül kai” enables Telengit ritual leader Aleksandr Askanakov to travel to other dimensions during Altai Jang (Altaian Way) or Ak Jang (White Way) rituals (chap. 3); and different kai styles allowed Közörökov Shaman to journey across space-time and negotiate with spirit actors in Ak Jang and shamanic rituals (chaps. 5, 7). In Khakassia, epic performers use it to accompany a dead soul to the other world and, during the month of ancestors (November), to summon ancestral souls to accompany good spirits to Upper Worlds (Kurbizhekov P). In Tyva, shamans Nikolai Oorzhak and Lazo Mongush perform khöömei during ritual events, as did the recently deceased Ai Chürek Shamaness. Sounds produced by the following two musical instruments relate closely to drone-overtone vocal technique. jaw’s harp, open end-blown flute

The jaw’s harp (Alt. komus, Kh. khomys, Tyv. khomus) falls somewhere between the body as musical instrument and body as musical instrument activator. Most contemporary jaw’s harps are played by pressing the instrument’s metal or wooden body against the teeth with one hand, while jerking the central flexible tongue (lamella) to create vibrations from the single pitch produced by the instrument with the other. The performer amplifies the fundamental and its two or three other partials by using the tongue and lips, supported by muscles of diaphragm, pharynx, and larynx, to change the volume of the oral resonator (mouth cavity) and adjust breathing techniques, as in drone-overtone vocal music (R. Tülüsh P). Contemporary shamans produce animal sounds, such as those of a bird, bear, or wolf, to gain the help of spirit actors and facilitate travel to other dimensions, while some musicians pay homage to the natural world (see Urchimaev 1999D, 2004D). Others improvise with melodies and rhythms while herding or resting in nature or combine instrumental with vocal sounds, such as speaking and “throat-singing.” Ancient jaw’s harps in this region were made from bone (see, for instance, the second century BCE jaw’s harp excavated in Tyva’s Aimyrlyg 3, now kept in the Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg [Tadagawa 2016, 62–63]). A related recently revived instrument is the Tyvan bow-harp (cha khomus) in which the player presses one end of a large (hunting) bow against the corner of the mouth. To produce sounds, the performer strikes rhythmically the center of its hairs

41

part one. emplacement, ontologies, bodies

with an arrow or strums them close to the mouth with a finger or plectrum (see musicians Aylangmaa Damyran of ensemble Tyva Kyzy, and Aldyn-ool Sevek). The open end-blown flute, often without fingerholes, is played traditionally by steppe-dwelling pastoralists in the Altai-Sayan region and Oirad communities in Mongolian Altai (Alt. shoor [shagur], choor; Kh. khobyrakh, khobrakh; Kh. Sag., Sh. shoor; Tyv. shoor; Mo.Khal. tsuur; Oir. shuur).11 The performer selects partials from a deep sustained vocal drone and then amplifies them through the pipe to sound simultaneously with the drone. Traditional construction and playing methods are still practiced. For instance, during my fieldwork in the Tashtyp region of Khakassia in 2004, hunter-fisherman Lazar Tyumerekov cut the long stem of an umbellate plant then played it. The shoor end-blown flute was banned during the Soviet period because of its ritual use. Many contemporary professional musicians, who play wooden or plastic instruments with up to six fingerholes, maintain its connections with nature and its spirit-owners. For instance, during our trip to Övür in 2005, Radik Tülüsh played the shoor to accompany “My Bai Taiga,” a eulogy (alkysh) that evokes the neighboring region’s mountain as a spirit-person, with a head, shoulders, stomach, and gown, standing guard over and influencing the rich harvest and herds in the steppes below. musical instrument as living body

For Altai-Sayan traditional musicians and spiritual specialists, a musical instrument also has a spirit-owner and therefore is a “living being” with its own life, body, voice, energy, and emotions. Materials for construction are taken from nature and dependent upon it. For instance, a variant of the shoor is only made in early spring when the sap begins to run and the willow bark becomes easy to remove whole, and hunting horns (Tyv. terezin-idiski or versions of murgu) are made in autumn when the stems are firm (Süzükei 2007). Removal of material from nature requires permission from its spirit-owner. The maker of such instruments needs special skills. Pyotr Topaev is a Khakas master craftsman who makes instruments for shamans and epic performers. He belongs to a group of Khakas instrument makers and shamans who, at the time of my fieldwork, held workshop meetings in an educational institute in central Abakan. As the institute was built over a burial mound, the workshop is respected as a spirit-imbued place. When he first began to make instruments, Topaev gathered information from elders, museums, and books. Then the ability to understand the living qualities of Khakas instruments and their spirit connections came to him and, in 1991, he became a “master” (Kh. uzanjy). “There is,” explained Pyotr, “a physical and spiritual relationship between the bodies and lives of the instrument and its owner.”12 He began by pointing to the correspondence between instruments and various parts of the human body. He 42

1. Performative Bodies

reached for paper and pencil and drew a figure. Then he drew a line from the top of the head, around an extended arm and leg, and then up between the outstretched legs: “The horse-hair fiddle [yykh] connects to the genitals,” he said. Drawing a small circle around the head, he added: “The iron jaw’s harp [timyr khomys] connects to the head” and then pointing to the center of his stomach: “The lute [khomys] connects to the navel, against which it rests when it is played.” Topaev added that a “master” must understand both the living and spiritual dimensions of an instrument. He pointed to the small hole in the center-back of his khomys that enabled it to breathe. In 2006, Altaian epic performer Eles Tadykin made a similar comment: “When I play my grandfather’s lute [topshuur], I feel the breath [Alt. tynysh] of the instrument’s spirit-owner. It comes from the small holes in its sound board and becomes my lungs. My own breath and that of the topshuur become as one.” Among Khakas peoples, performance with a living, breathing instrument activates a spirit-human relation of personhood like that experienced by the shaman with his or her spirit-helpers. Because the instrument intimately connects to the player, it cannot be mended or passed on to another. Pyotr took out the khomys lute with nineteen frets [G2] that he had made in 1995. Although technically mendable, Topaev had been unable to regain its voice. He had to abandon his attempt to make a composite instrument with the head of one and body of another after one of the instrument owners had a disturbing dream. Topaev had heard about the entwinement of the bodies of player and instrument from his elders and had also already experienced it. He recounted how, one day on a long bus journey to the Upper Töö (Chogharkhy Töö) Valley in south Khakassia, he had begun to feel very cold and ill. When he played his khomys, he felt a healing warmth spreading from his belly throughout his body. There was an exchange of emotions: “When the player is happy, he gives the mood to his instrument, but when the player is sad, the instrument gives happiness.” When an instrument is finished, Pyotr performs a ritual to provide a protective energy shield or armor (khuiakh) around it, similar to ritual bodily purifications performed by shamans. During such a khuiakhtany ritual in 2004, he set alight wild thyme in a bowl, fell to his knees, and held the instrument in the smoke, reciting: May the root not be torn! May life not be extinguished! May the sacred words of Khakas people Be drops of the soul!

He also instills into the instrument the inner power (küsh) of the future owner. Acting as mediator between the ancestral spirits, instrument, and future owner, Pyotr instructs the latter how to enliven it. Luring spirits can be a frightening 43

part one. emplacement, ontologies, bodies

figure 1.2. Khakas master instrument-maker Pyotr Topaev performs a khuiakhtany ritual to protect

and bring power to the new khomys lute. Workshop, Abakan, 2004.

experience and must be undertaken with caution even for a master instrument maker, as Topaev explained: It must be a place in the countryside, either on a mountainside or by a river, and be windy. The wind acts like the slap a baby receives when it is born. It puts breath into the instrument and makes it a living body. When I went to such a place, I heard someone running and when I turned, I saw a small whirlwind behind a tree, hiding. It was autumn. I built and fed a fire with bread, meat, and tea, like Tadars do. Again, I heard someone running and again behind a different tree was a whirlwind. But the weather was fine. People say that a whirlwind is a shaman’s soul. I became afraid and left.

Pyotr explained that the relationship between a with-spirit performer and their musical instrument is also exclusive: “When an epic performer or shaman dies, their instrument is broken and accompanies them to the otherworld. It is not possible to mend it. An instrument has only one life, one personality, and its own voice, all of which are inseparably bound up with its owner.” Even if not buried with the deceased, the intimate relationship between musician and instrument continues after death, as illustrated by the case of Pyotr Yanchulov. In 2005 I went with musicians Sasha Samozhikov and Sergei Charkov to Yanchulov’s home in Naa aal (Ru. Ustinkino), Ordzhonikidze region, northern Khakassia. Born in 1929, Yanchulov used to perform epics using kai timbral vocal technique throughout three whole nights. His widow, Kristina Achisova, welcomed us with eggs and strong homemade brandy of a secret and potent

44

1. Performative Bodies

recipe. As Samozhikov played his chatkhan zither, her eyes filled with tears. She explained how, after her husband died in 1977, his chatkhan used to play itself during the night, disturbing both herself and her children. “Oddly,” she said, “it played faster than my husband had played.” She became very afraid and, taking advice from a shaman, gave it to a musical member of her family. Sasha believed he had also experienced the intervention of the deceased musician’s spirit. He always played the chatkhan faster than his stepfather, who disapproved. After his stepfather died, Sasha began to play the instrument at his usual fast speed, but all the bridges flew out. Since these Khakas instruments are not transferable to another owner, they are in a sense intrinsic to the player’s body, as argued by Strathern for Melanesian flutes: “It is not just that they are extensions integral to the relationships a person makes, and ‘instruments’ in that sense, but that the physical body is apprehended as composed of those instruments as it is composed of relationships. The relations (the instruments) appear intrinsic to the body” (1991, 75–76). However, for Altaian, Khakas, and Tyvan peoples, instruments are separate persons with their own personality, voice, emotions, and intentionality. In performance, they connect with humans and spirit actors as essential expressions of personhood. Traditional gendered

The gendering of bodies, performed during musical and ritual events (chap. 5) and in speech act and nonverbal communications (Butler 1988), strengthens and develops Indigeneity as it acknowledges traditional identities. For instance, it was men who traditionally performed ritual vocal genres (drone-overtone vocal music, epic timbral vocal music, song-chants) and associated instruments (end-blown flute, horse-hair fiddle, long-box zither, two-stringed lute). Taboos that threaten infertility and bad fortune to relatives for the next seven generations reinforce prohibitions against female drone-overtone vocal performance. In 2002, Altaian Chalkan singer Anna Makarovna regretted that her gender had prevented her from performing kai, citing Shura Shamaness, who had been able to overcome this because of her ritual status. It was often a source of concern during my fieldwork, but challenges arise from professional musicians Tandalai (Raisa) Modorova of Altai (2007D), Khakas musician and singer Yulia Charkova (2011D, Khyrkhaas 2005D), and Choduraa Tumat, who heads the all-female Tyvan group Tyva Kyzy (“Daughters of Tyva”) (2005D, Pegg 2022). Gendering the strings of an instrument’s body has remained. Topaev, for instance, refers to the lower and upper “strings” (bundles of black and white horsehairs) of his khomys as “male” and “female.” In ritual performances, both men and

45

part one. emplacement, ontologies, bodies

women make respectful gestures that evoke traditional male or female dress and hairstyles, both denied to them during the communist period. If traditional clothing is not available for ritual participation, participants improvise (chaps. 5, 7). The bodies of nature’s spirit actors are male or female, thereby affecting the offerings given. For instance, the spirit-owners of rivers, streams, caves, and fire are female. Mountains may have a spirit-owner that reveals itself as male or female and are female in the umbilical cord that connects each one to other mountains and domains. Nature’s spirit-owners may use their gender to entrance, seduce, kidnap, or have sexual relations with humans. Their sex is sometimes visually evident in nature (chap. 3). Speech acts gender landscape. In Mountain Altai, for instance, the Karakol River Valley is the “father’s side” with male energy, while the Kurota River Valley, lying across the Ursal River, is the “mother’s side” with female energy and intuition. Mt. Bai Tuu, situated at the confluence of the Karakol and Kurota Rivers, connects the male and female energies of the two valleys (Mamyev [2015] 2017, 149). respectful

Sociality with human and spirit actors requires respectful human bodies. Rules for parents, elders, in-laws, and children regulate everyday family interactions. As a mark of respect, younger family members do not enunciate the names of elders, including parents. Song lyrics encourage attitudes of respect. In “Song for Our Elders,” for instance, Yulia Charkova acknowledges the difficulties elders experienced in their lives and then entreats young people to respect them: Dear grey-haired elders, May your lives be peaceful and happy now, Young people, may your lives be rich, And do not offend your elders. (Khyrkhaas 2005D, Charkova 2011D)

Yulia performed this song using küülïp khai (humming khai), the timbral bodymusic style used in epic performance. This, together with her choice of the ancient chatkhan zither as musical accompaniment, transmitted her respectful communication to her elders and ancestors (chap. 4). In Mountain Altai, Indigenous peoples give Ak Jang (White Way) ancestors alternative names (chap. 5), and in Tyva, they avoid sounding the name of a powerful shaman. In Mountain Altai and Khakassia, epic performers, shamans, and laypeople must show respect to spirit-owners and spirit-helpers by making appropriate offerings and obtaining permission for their actions. The wife of the head of the family performs the first respectful action toward spirit actors each morning when she flicks the “top” of the freshly made tea or milk from a ritual nine-holed birch-bark spoon in the direction of sunrise, surrounding 46

1. Performative Bodies

mountains and land. Aspersions of milk or milk-alcohol onto the mode of transport, such as a horse or jeep, always occur before a journey, even when abroad. The Altaian springtime home ritual, Jaiyk Chööktör, expresses respect and veneration by interjections of “chöök,” as the ritual specialist enlivens jaiyk spirit-interceders with milk sprinklings. The respectful body must adhere to specific codes of conduct, rules, or taboos. Within the home, these include avoiding stepping across the “head” of the fire, since within the fire and hearth resides Fire-Mother, spirit-protector of family and home, who must receive the first portion of every meal. During everyday and work activities, these rules include contained, careful, and humble behavior and requesting permission of nature’s spirit-owners for any activities in their territories. Sacred places, such as a clan mountain, cave, or healing spring, have powerful spirit-owners, mark boundaries between worlds, and are therefore places “with prohibitions” (Alt. bailu). Internal and external bodies must both be physically and morally “clean” before visiting such places (Mamyev P). Abstinence from sexual relations and certain foods partly achieves this. In Altai, a person who has observed these behavioral rules throughout life becomes bailanchak. Because of the power of sounds and the spoken word, respectful bodies regulate vocal sounds when in or mentioning spirit-imbued places, people, or animals. For instance, there must be silence when crossing a mountain summit, no raised voices at burial sites (chap. 4), and avoidance of the names of sacred phenomena, such as the sun and moon, and spirit actors. Tyvans do not sound the name of a place with malicious spirits and, when addressing a bear (adyg), use respectful terms such as khaiyrakan (“dear one”), mazhaalai (“quiet one”), or cher kulaktyg (“creature with earthly ears”) (Kenin-Lopsan 1997a, 58). Altaians replace the name of a dead person’s soul (körmös) by neme, meaning an “entity” or “something” (Halemba 2006, 143). On other occasions, such as interacting with nature’s spiritowners, performance of timbral body music is a sign of respect. Gestures of respect include praying, bowing, and full prostration performed during certain rituals. Participants also hold the armpits tightly to the body in the manner in which Altai’s spirit-owner protects livestock under its armpits (chap. 6). Ancestral bodies require respect. Non-Indigenous archaeologists show disrespect by removing Scytho-Siberian ancestors, whose bodies lay undisturbed in permafrost for 2500 years, and displaying those bodies in public, as in the case of the Altaian Ice Maiden (chap. 4). Being aware of these Indigenous feelings and perspectives, I found highly disturbing the decision taken by the British Museum and Russian Hermitage State Museum to display the original skull and tattooed skin of a khan taken from the Altaian Pazyryk burial site as part of their joint exhibition “Scythians: Warriors of Ancient Siberia” in 2017. 47

part one. emplacement, ontologies, bodies

With-Spirit the gift

The human body with a spirit-owner (ee) is a creative person such as a musician, epic performer, instrument maker, shaman, or other spiritual specialist. To be a person “with a spirit-owner” implies acceptance of the responsibility of respectful relationships with spirit-owners of the creative gift. Denial of this gift, reluctance to perform, or inaccurate performances cause illness. For instance, Tyvan Ai Chürek was hospitalized with mental health issues caused by constantly hearing musical drone-partials in her ear and was healed when she became a shamaness and performed them (P); Tyvan Valerii Mongush’s childhood sickness was cured only by becoming a sygytchy (a person who performs sygyt drone-overtone vocal style) (Beahrs 2019, 325); and with-spirit epic performers Altaian Elbek Kalkin and Khakas Ai Charykh Saiyn Küchen are punished by the spirit-owner of kai vocal tone, tale, or word if they make mistakes during performance or fail to perform (chap. 6). shamanic suprabody

When Lazo Mongush Shaman performed the soul-dispatch ritual in western Tyva in 2006, he wore an elaborate gown (Tyv. khamnyng tonu), to which he had attached multiple sound-producers including metal bells and objects, ribbons, cloth snakes, cowrie shells, animal pelts, and knotted thongs and lacings. He had also added bells to his headdress and drum handle and metal rings to his drumstick. During lengthy dance-drama performances, the jangles, swishes, and rustles of the costume became a percussive orchestra heightening his sensitivities and enabling an altered state of consciousness. Lazo called his ancestral and animal spirit-helpers (eerens) into the gown’s sound-producers, creating a percussive shamanic suprabody that contained all their energies and capabilities. “A great shaman,” said Lazo, “should have 365 eerens on the gown, one for each day of the year. If a shaman holds a death ritual with too few eerens, he will get into trouble.” Lazo’s relationship with his eerens is complex. “Eerens are like a chain,” he said, “they connect to each other and to me.” They watch over him and help him to overcome the obstacles blocking his path. But he also instructs them, a process he described as akin to moving his own arm or leg. During rituals, the eerens enable him to see the worlds across which he journeys through their eyes, as in perspectivism theory (Viveiros de Castro 1998). But, as Tyvan Manzyrykchy Shaman explained in 2005, a shaman can also hear what his eerens hear and feel what they feel. In addition, they facilitate the shaman’s interactions with spirit actors in virtual domains. The suprabody also displays the repertoire of pathways that the shaman may activate in performance and establishes the origins and individual powers of each

48

1. Performative Bodies

figure 1.3a and 1.3b. The

front and back of Lazo Mongush Shaman’s percussive suprabody gown. Chyraa Bazhy, western Tyva, 2006.

shaman. For instance, its percussive attachments may include metal pendants of the sun, moon, stars, and earth, indicating access to and power from Upper and Middle Worlds (Prokof ’eva 1971, 87–88). They may also, as with Lazo Mongush Shaman, illustrate the multiplicity of “shamanic roads,” including those available from Sky-origin status and leading to Lower Worlds (chap. 7). Lazo’s shamanic costume did not, though, like that of the Daur Mongols—Inner Mongolia—become a “world-conquering time-machine” or an object independent from its makers and owner with its own magical power (Humphrey with Onon 1996, 202). In performances, Lazo interwove vocalizations (exclamations,

49

part one. emplacement, ontologies, bodies

song-chants, timbral body-music), drumbeats, and rhythms with the percussive sounds of his suprabody to beat back the fire, host to a posthumous soul unwilling to cross otherworld and changed-status boundaries. Similarly, rather than being “possessed”—as Pedersen argues for Darhad shamans of northwest Mongolia (2007, 158–59)—he actively chose the repertoire of spirit-helpers by adding their eeren receptacles in advance to his gown and then activating them as required. In attaching a bear’s claw, for instance, he anticipated needing the animal’s ability to hear over great distances as well as its strength and intelligence in the battles to be engaged in on the journey. When musical sounds, selfhood, and personhood were brutally remolded in the cause of the Soviet, Altai-Sayan peoples changed their practices to continue their interactions with spirits secretly. Mindful of historical suffering, Altaian shamans had not readopted shamanic costumes or instruments at the time of my fieldwork. Arzhan Közörökov Shaman, for instance, replaced the percussive gown by a staff (taiak) and the drum by the softer sounds of his topshuur lute. Enabling his shamanic soul to travel across all virtual domains, the taiak had simultaneously a single spirit-body with a head, face, mouth, and nose, yet housed multiple bodies of “many spirits with many ears and eyes” (P). He had divided its single spirit-body—like the Altai-Sayan human body, universe, and shamanic drum—into Upper, Middle, and Lower Worlds. Arzhan greased the joints on his taiak with horse fat to ease transitions between those worlds. The enlivened spirit-helpers and protectors in his taiak, as in a Tyvan percussive suprabody, helped him to locate lost souls or reasons for a blocked road. He had not, he said, yet finished constructing the taiak. He intended to make it more percussive and gown-like by adding küzüngü shamanic mirrors and bells. When not being used, this powerful ritual instrument was disguised by its lack of adornments as an ordinary wooden staff (chap. 7). Landscaped resonating the tripartite universe

Human bodies, as with other bodies in the universe, exist within landscaped domains and share features with those landscapes. For instance, powerful energetical places occur within the landscaped human body and human-like bodies of nature and the universe. Within the human body, these include the sites of multiple souls; and in the Middle World, they manifest in natural (mountains, cliffs, caves, trees, springs) and human-made (hitching posts, ritual cairns, archaeological sites) places. All energetical sites interconnect and are conduits to other worlds. Pathways between these sites within both the body and external landscapes are important, for blocked pathways cause illness or chaos for all interrelated bodies of the universe.

50

1. Performative Bodies

In performance, a single human body may span the universe or world, a nation, homeland, or region, a mountain range or mountain, or single rock or stone. Altaian professional musician Nogon Shumarov described how kai timbral body-music styles express the vertical tripartite division of the universe and human body: The Lower World reaches from the epiglottis down to and including the sexual organs. This is deep bass karkyra kai. The Middle World spreads from the epiglottis up to the nose. The kai sounds produced here are Altai. In childhood, I used to imitate a calf ’s cry to find it—I pitched my tonality according to the calf ’s. When milking, my mother and grandmother made vocal sounds. These are the sounds of Altai. This is khöömei. The Upper World goes from the spot in the middle of the forehead to the top of the head. These are the high sounds of sygyt.

In the discourse of spiritual performers, the separate corporeal organisms of the universe connect through the two powerful bodily nodes: the top of the head and the navel or umbilical cord. For instance, Tyvan academic colleague and Tengrist Nikolai Abaev explained in 2005 that during ancient ritual Sky worship, the Khan opened both energetical nodes by taking off his hat and belt before calling mountain spirit-owners and Sky spirit actors. Participants, by contrast, had to cover their heads with a hat or hand (P). In 2006, Altaian Danil’ Mamyev, leader of the Tengri spiritual organization, and Buddhist monk-musician Sarymai Urchimaev both used kin (“navel,” “umbilical cord”) to describe the connection between Earth, Altai, and the Sky. Similarly, Altaian shaman and epic performer Arzhan Közörökov explained that during rituals he connected to the universe via the top of his head. Khakas instrument maker Pyotr Topaev performed the equivalence of human body and Middle-World landscape in a traditional verse in 2005: My body/flesh is earth, My bones are stone, My blood is life-water, My hair is grass, My thoughts are the wind, My eyes are the sun’s beams, My soul is the Tigir Sky.

This equivalence affects behavior. For example, contemporary Altaians will not pull out grass by the roots because, as earth’s bodily hair, this would cause it pain (see Potapov 1991, 217). At the same time, both humans and nature’s spirit-owners perceive their bodies as separate. Spirit-owners, for instance, are aware that their bodies suffer because

51

part one. emplacement, ontologies, bodies

of detrimental actions by humans from whom they expect respect. Humans know that each feature of the landscape’s spirit-body can bestow blessings. For instance, Altaian white shaman Anton Yudanov performed a ritual poem in 2006 as an offering to Golden Lake (Alt. Altyn Köl), considered to be Altai’s eye: With white-blessings skies, Through-seeing of Sacred Altai, The eye became with white blessings, Altyn Köl.

Spirit-owners of landscape also make their own bodily choices. For example, as Valentina Chechaeva and Elena Mandaeva of the Todosh and Töölös clans, respectively, explained in 2010, the ears of Kan Altai, the Altai Mountain range, close in winter and open again in spring (chap. 5). They are only receptive to aural performances, then, during certain seasons. Harmful behavior toward the spiritowner of nature’s body may even threaten the survival of Indigeneity, as warned in a dramatized performance of a traditional Khakas tale: “You have burned my breast—the great forests. You have changed the course of my rivers and dirtied my eyes, the clear lakes. You became foreign and that is why you started to die” (van Deusen 2004, 41). The landscape of Mountain Altai comprises a recumbent (prostrate) male spirit-owner (Kan Altai), whose body again falls into three parts, marked by sacred mountains: his head and neck centered on Mount Üch Sümer (Ru. Belukha), in Kosh-Agash region, southern Altai; his navel (Kin Altai) on Mount Üch Engmek,13 at the head of the Karakol Valley, central Altai; and his lower body attached by the belt-like three mountain peaks of Albagan, Burchagan, and Burakan in northern Altai. As in a human body, the spirit-owners of his blood, arteries, and veins—the two main rivers, Kadyn and Bii, smaller rivers and streams—are female. In a eulogy to Tyva’s mountainous western region Bai-Taiga (Rich Taiga), musician Radik Tülüsh evokes Mt. Bai-Taiga as a spirit actor, with a head, shoulders, stomach, and gown, who stands guard over and influences the rich harvests and herds in the steppes below: My high-headed Bai-Taiga, Falling and tumbling down, On Bai-Taiga’s stomach, rich men stopped for the night And could not move on. My high-shouldered Bai-Taiga, Curving and twisting, On Bai-Taiga’s lower gown, Rich men stopped for the night And could not move on. (Tülüsh 2007D)

52

1. Performative Bodies

Similarly, Altaian musician Aidar Churupov’s song describes snow-capped Mt. Üch Sümer as a white-bearded old man, who looks to the Blue Sky, herds the clouds, and covers himself in a veil of smoke: White clouds herding, Blue Sky looks, (His) white beard stroking, Veil with smoke covers.

Tyvans use certain styles of drone-overtone and timbre-centered body-music to delineate musically contours of a spirit-owner’s body-place as they travel past it or connect to it in the imagination (chap. 3). Since land is alive, it also performs music (Levin with Süzükei 2006) as each mountain and cave, river and stream, plant and tree, rock and stone resonates with its own breath-soul rhythms. living rocks and stones

All stones and rocks are living and therefore have bodies. They include “stone figures,” megaliths and stelae (chap. 4), and distinctive rocks in a landscape enlivened by oral narratives. Each has its place. For example, in a contemporary Khakas oral narrative, a young woman turned to stone when eloping with her lover because she looked back. He then threw himself into the Abakan River from Taptachy Khaiya, close to Kyzyl Ahan village in Askhys region. When officials moved her body-stone to Abakan Museum to enable construction of a railway, workers there heard her crying throughout each night. The museum director invited Gorbatov Shaman to perform a ritual. He divined that she must be put back “in-place.” The compromise reached causes concern because she is back in the area but is fifty meters “out-of-place” and at right angles to her former place (and the railway) (Ulturgashev P). ancestral, archaeological

Dead bodies maintain a contemporary social presence, exerting agency in the fields of social relations surrounding them. In this area, mummified bodies have become mobilized in the struggles of different interest groups. Russian archaeologists perceive them as objects for study and categorization and reframe them within European personhood. Politicians attempt to deny ancestry and ownership to Indigenous minorities by citing disputed DNA tests and facial reconstructions. These ancestors are active in the everyday lives of Indigenous peoples. The Altaian Ice Maiden, for instance, guarded the pathway to Lower Worlds, preventing the penetration of evil forces into the Middle World. The disembodied dead (ghosts, ancestors) are also active, and because they are potentially destructive are dealt with by spiritual specialists.

53

part one. emplacement, ontologies, bodies

Indigenous

Local senses of Indigeneity and its connection to heritage and history of the Altai-Sayan peoples occur in the interweaving tonal cluster-drone of the book and partials of its chapters. The interrelation of musicality (drone-overtone and drone-partials vocal and instrumental music) and ontology (the relations of individual human beings existing in society and the universe)—ontological musicality and sonicality—and associated bodily movements during everyday life and ritual activities perform Altai-Sayan Indigeneity. *

*

*

This chapter has contributed to anthropological debates concerning the singularity or plurality, materiality or immateriality, boundedness or permeability, overlaps or transformations, interactions, processes, and orders of magnitude of the body. It has demonstrated how Altai-Sayan Indigenous peoples experience human bodies not as monophonic, discrete, and bounded with a single soul, but as a relational cluster of vitalities that connect to other energies, including human and spirit actors, in Middle (parallel and peripheral) Worlds. The next chapter illustrates how Indigenous peoples of Altai, Khakassia, and Tyva negotiate senses of place within a range of human communities as they continually grapple with the recent constructions of nationhood and federative belonging.

54

part two

Sounding Middle Worlds

2

Human Communities

This chapter shows how, in a rapidly changing post-Soviet world, identities are fashioned and senses of place are negotiated by human actors in relation to a range of human communities. Performative affiliations to ethnic and kinship communities have surged as Altai-Sayan peoples reconnect to pre-Soviet and pre-Russian times, when differences between tribes and clans had not been eradicated, kinship relations with humans, ancestors, land, and spirits had not been forcibly suppressed, and traditional music, shamanism, and animism not been denigrated. Indigenous peoples connect to pre-Soviet human communities as they grapple with the contradictions of nationhood, subordination to the state, and global influences. While wanting to strengthen the “nations” created in the Soviet period, contemporary oral and musical performances simultaneously challenge the homogeneity of the twentieth-century titular nationalities: “Altaian,” “Khakas,” and “Tyvan.” Alternative senses of place and belonging are sounded as ethnicity and Indigeneity are performed in epics, tales, and oral narratives that link with khanates and empires of the deep past; musicking connects performers and audiences to kinship, human ancestry, and lineage, and senses of belonging to clan and land are strengthened in shamanic rituals. Ways of belonging jostle within festivals in which musical instruments and styles, vocal music and dramas display Indigenous or colonial place. The chapter concludes by comparing the sounding of local place with the ways in which Indigenous peoples, although constrained by local and international politics, project their own Indigenous sounds globally.

part two. sounding middle worlds

Agents of Ethnicity and Indigeneity: Epics, Tales, Poetry, Oral Histories

Altaian, Khakas, and Tyvan peoples have belonged to a succession of nomadic khanates and empires at different points of history. However, during my fieldwork, it was the Yenisei Kyrgyz Khanate (sixth to tenth centuries), Mongolian Empire (thirteenth to fourteenth centuries), and Jungar Khanate (fifteenth to mid-eighteenth centuries) to which they connected in performances of epics, oral histories and narratives, poetry, and everyday utterances. Since these connections are important to self-identity and place, they sometimes caused heated debates. yenisei kyrgyz (turkic) khanate

In the late nineteenth century Friedrich Radloff, the founder of Turkology, proposed that the Abakan Tatars (contemporary Khakas) shared roots with the Kyrgyz, pointing to their love of epic performance and the richness and greater development of epic poetry and poetic tales than their eastern neighbors. He recorded Saghai and Khachin (Khaas) epics, showing how textual details—proper names, topography, spiritual practices, and ways of life—distinguished taiga-forest from steppe peoples ([1868] 1967b). During fieldwork in Khakassia in 2002, whether the ethnonym “Khakas” (introduced during the national congresses of 1917 to 1978) originated in the Yenisei Kyrgyz Khanate was the subject of heated debate (Pegg and Ugdezhekov 2006). Khakas scholar Viktor Butanaev (1995, 75) proposed the importance of a fourteenth- to eighteenth-century Khongorai-Khoorai ethno-social union. Attempts to revive Khoorai began in 1991 when an Ada-Khoorai festival advertisement declared: “dedicated to the Day of the Restoration of Statehood and of the Memory of Ancestors (starting with the mythical Khoorai-Khan) Who Perished for the Freedom of Khakassia.” Musicians, however, noted that the cry “khoorai” attracts good fortune and does not refer to a “people.” Contemporary Khakas peoples’ identification as “Tadar” (Tatar), modified to “Saghai Tadar,” “Khaas Tadar,” and so on, has become a presentation of self that constantly contests the official designation of “Khakas.” As a performative “act of saying,” local peoples revel in its “illocutionary force” (Austin [1962] 1975). Butanaev’s suggestion, though, caused confusion. Transformed through oral performance, these classificatory terms became both metaphors of the past and metonyms of the present (Dening 1996) as the actors struggled to self-situate. For instance, in 2002, a herder in the Töö River valley, Askhys region, commented: “Now I don’t know—am I Khakas, Tadar [Tatar], or Khongorai?” Nevertheless, contemporary Indigenous Khakas peoples still connect in everyday utterances to the Kyrgyz Khanate. They use Kyrgyz topographical names, including rivers along the periphery of

58

2. Human Communities

the Minusa basin and taiga (Butanaev 1995, 71), and refer to the burial sites on their territory as belonging to Kyrgyz clans (Kh. Khyrghys sööktör) (chap. 4). They also suggest that the komys/ kobyz lute is Kyrgyz in origin (Topaev P). Similarly, because the Altaian version of the epic Alyp-Manash has ancient motifs, including the hero’s miraculous birth, shape-changing and talking winged horse, bark coracle ferry journey across a supernatural river, and capture by Underworld beings (Ulagashev 1985), it is claimed to have originated in the foothills of the Altai Mountains during the Kyrgyz (Turkic) Khanate. Later versions track its migration with the Kyrgyz from Altai to Central Asia, and then with other nomadic peoples to the Volga and Ural Mountains, Transcaucasia, and the Asian part of modern Turkey (Zhirmunsky 1967, 274–75). In Tyva, political hegemony of the Yenisei Kyrgyz lasted from their defeat of the Uighurs in 840 until the beginning of the tenth century. They were dispersed by the early thirteenth-century Mongolian invasion, migrating southwest to Kyrgyzstan, their current homeland. The few who remained in Tyva now bear Kyrgys as a family name. When traveling in 2005 with Radik Tülüsh to visit his family in southwest Tyva’s Övür region, we drove into Middle Pass (Art Arazy), a small valley in the Tangdy-Uula mountain range, and called at the camp of Bayarlang Kyrgys, who was keen to relate his people’s oral history, transmitted to him by an elder: “The Kyrgyz lived north of Tyva in the Minusinsk area. They gradually moved southward and came here. They lived side by side with the Uighur tribes (aimaks) and formed their khanate. When Chinggis became Mongolian Khan, this was the first place he conquered. Afterwards, the rest of the Kyrgyz moved west. My Kyrgyz people originate from the few that remained on Tyvan territory. They settled in Ulug-Khem, Övür, and Erzin regions. Those in Ulug-Khem are Khavan Kyrgys (Pig Kyrgys). A small group [arban] lived in Dus-Dag.” mongolian empire

Chinggis (Genghis) Khan, the charismatic thirteenth-century leader, first united the Mongols under his Borjigin clan and then all Turko-Mongol nations into the largest contiguous land empire the world has known. Chinggis Khan’s rule brought with it advances, such as the Uighur written script (later used to form the Mongolian alphabet), a postal service, and religious and ethnic tolerance. But it is the devastation caused by his troops that remains vividly in contemporary oral performances of poetry and epics when sounding place in the Altai-Sayan region. In 2005, I met fifty-one-year-old Galina Adyshaa, a Tumat teacher, poet, and singer in Ak-Chyraa in Övür, a region that sits on the shore of Lake Uvs, which spans the borders of Tyva and Mongolia. She performed a poem she had written in 1992, which linked her own Indigenous identity to the landscape of her homeland and the resistance of the Övür Tumats to Chinggis Khan’s invasion. It began:

59

part two. sounding middle worlds

Standing tall, when held, it is like a lively strong man, A place with cliffs and over-looking trees, A vast valley shrouded in a misty shawl, Tumat land, my native country, you are proud. When Chinggis Khan’s vast army attacked, You were like a heroine who would not lay down her sharp sword, And Buurul Chalaa, competing with a high cloud, My proud Tumat land. Vast steppe with snow, white as a virgin girl, Light blue Ubsa [Lake Uvs], rivalling the color of the sky, From childhood, I grew up playing on its banks My place, my Golden Lake, my Yellow Lake. Even if I am among other people, From time to time, I long for it and want to see it, A small part of my Övür region, The place where I grew up, Tumat land, you are dear to me.

Similarly, in 2004, seventy-two-year-old Pavel Borgoyakov, who lived in Lower Töö, Askhys region, Khakassia, performed Cheek chaa (Devastating War), learned from his father. Using khai epic vocal style with chatkhan zither accompaniment, interspersed with unaccompanied declaimed narrative, it evokes the devastation caused by the invading Mongols: I walked on the yellow steppes where the magpie does not land, And on the pale steppes where the raven does not land, I looked to see if green grass grew, And found a land where no green grass grew. I looked to see if animals roamed there, And found a land where no animals roamed. When I wandered, thinking to sit in the shade, I spied a crooked standing stone [köze], And sat at the foot of the crooked köze. When I played seven syrtyp [G1] on my seven-stringed zither [chatkhan], The snow-capped mountain peaks [taskhyl] began to rumble. When the taskhyl stopped rumbling, cold and hot breezes collided, And the desolate steppes whispered on. When the desolate steppes stopped whispering, A small black tornado, flinging black earth, Lifting black dust into Khan Tigïr [Sky], drawing up a storm, Told me its story at the crooked köze: “Long ago, and before that, Invaders came, invaded our land,

60

[128.104.46.196] Project MUSE (2024-04-09 03:07 GMT) UW-Madison Libraries

2. Human Communities

Our heroes they stayed, struggling, and fighting. On these desolate steppes, Many of our heroes were left fallen,” It told to my chatkhan. After it had told that story, When I played seven syrtyp on my seven-stringed chatkhan The small black tornado said to me: “I heard the beauty of the seven-stringed chatkhan, Now I will present you with my silk belt,” That I wound around me and tied. When it tried one end of the silk belt around the crooked köze, And offered the other end to Khan Tigïr, Rain fell from Khan Tigïr as if from a bucket. And the broad steppe flooded. After a short or long time, I saw that Green grass had grown on the steppes Where none had been, Animals roamed on the lands Where none had roamed. Many flowers had grown on the lands Where none had grown. . . . Now I have ended my story By playing seven syrtyp On my seven-stringed chatkhan.

Borgoyakov explained that when the Mongols invaded, there was a great battle on Arban Chazy steppes. He told how Saghais, Khaas, and Chystangas (Shors) had fought hard for their land, how many warriors had been mown down, and a curved stele commemorating their names now stands at the center of the steppe. In 2004, I went with Khakas professional musician Sergei Charkov and his father Trofim to Politov village (aal), Askhys region, to meet Nikadim Ulturgashev, who performed an improvised narrative (takhpakh) about Chinggis Khan, accompanied by the chatkhan zither. He paused to explain that Chinggis’s father was a Saghai trader and his mother was Mongolian. It was, he said, not Chinggis but his grandson Batu who had devastated Khakas lands in revenge for the kidnap of his wife by a Saghai leader. Chinggis Khan was born of a Saghai trader and Mongolian mother. The ancient Saghais used to fish in Pai Kyöl [Lake Baikal, in contemporary Buryatia, Russian Federation]. When Chinggis was fifteen years old, he said to his mother: ‘I don’t want to live here, let’s go to your land.’ So, they moved to Mongolia. . . .

61

part two. sounding middle worlds

Chinggis Khan was a wicked man. He and two friends robbed traders. A Mongol khan caught and imprisoned him for years. China went to war with Mongolia. Chinggis said: “Set us free and we’ll fight.” He spent three years gathering fighters and China continued to wage war. He took hunters from Saghai lands and from Middle [Central] Asia. They drove the Chinese away. Chinggis Khan formed a great army and began campaigning. He did not touch Buryat and Saghai lands. Chinggis Khan went, went, and went along. He reached the Mediterranean. He went to Egypt. He defeated them. But horses cannot drink salt water and he said to himself: “Tenger [Sky] does not allow me to go further. So, I will die here.” He reached Greece but the Greeks had guns so he could not defeat them. People with bows and arrows cannot beat people with guns. He does not lie in his own land. His warriors dammed one of two rivulets, buried his body in the dry one then released the water again to cover it. Chinggis Khan did not hurt Khakas people. Batu went to war with Russia. The Saghai leader [El Pig] captured Batu’s wife, who had three children by him. When Batu returned, he took revenge throughout Saghai land.

In 2003, Tyvan hunter Dugul-ool Chambal placed himself in relation to his own clan, their current location, and Chinggis Khan: “My Khertek people are renowned as skillful hunters. We hunt on Small Mönggün Taiga Mountain, the place to which we fled when escaping from Chinggis Khan in the thirteenth century.” jungar (oirot) khanate

At its height, the nomadic Jungar (Oirot)1 Khanate’s territories included lands now known as West Mongolia, Altai, Khakassia, and Tyva, and Buryat Mongol territories around Lake Baikal. Indigenous peoples within those areas paid tribute to Oirot leaders and took part in their military actions. The Khanate fell to a combination of eastern Mongols (Khalkhas) and Manchu Chinese in 1757. Faced with a terrible bloodbath, many fled northward to Altai and beyond. Despite Oirot identity becoming problematical under communism, those of Oirot heritage still connect in performances of epics, myths, rituals, and oral narratives with this Khanate’s rulers, including Galdan Khan (1644–97), who formed the powerful Four Oirot tribal alliance, and the eighteenth-century Khoit leader Amyrsana, as well as cultural heroes such as Janggar and Shunu.2 In 2010, for instance, Jyrgal Chachiyakova, daughter of the renowned Altaian Töölös epic performer Tabor Chachiyakov (b. 1923), related part of her father’s Shunu Baatyr (Shunu Hero) tale, which he had inherited from his father, Anyshka. She began in storytelling mode: Shunu Baatyr is our Khan. How do you understand that? Galdan Khan, the greatest Khan of the Turkic peoples, had two children: a daughter and his son,

62

2. Human Communities

Shunu. But Shunu never became his people’s ruler. Galdan Khan’s daughter married a Manchu Chinese. Galdan was upset and challenged the Manchus in war but wasn’t strong enough. The Manchus cursed the Oirots. Shunu Baatyr began to kill livestock, people . . . everything. His elder sister became pregnant, and he decided the child must die. His father discovered this and threw Shunu into a pit. His sister gave birth to Amyrsana, and the Chinese curse was in him. After they named the baby, it was prohibited to kill him. When Galdan Khan became old, he gave the throne to Amyrsana instead of Shunu. Shunu became angry. Why should the son of the Chinese husband of an older sister become Khan? He invited him to go hunting intending to kill him. Many clan leaders warned Amyrsana: “Beware! Your uncle Shunu’s invitation comes from a black not white mind. He will kill you. Wear your armor.” Amyrsana ignored them and, when the warriors moved ahead, Shunu shot not the animal but his nephew. Shunu went to Bala Khatan as a guest. He transformed into Tastarakai.3 Bala Khatan could see that he was not an ordinary person. She made tea. As soon as the water boiled in the samovar, he made it freeze. She boiled water for a second time. Then they drank tea and talked. Bala Khatan said: “Snake Khan is struggling with me. He is eating my people.”

Jyrgal suddenly became aware that she had “broken through” from storytelling into epic performance mode (Hymes 1975), exclaiming in a surprised tone: “I have begun to perform an epic [chörchök]!” She continued: Bala Khatan said to Shunu: “Snake Khan lives at the bottom of the Black Sea. If you kill him, I will live with you. If you cannot kill this worm-snake what is the point of you being Khan?” Coming to the Kalmyk plateau, Bala Khatan gathered her slaves and ordered them to build a shed and fill it with grass. Shunu Baatyr whistled through a hole in his thumb. The Earth became very cold, and the Black Sea froze down to the bottom. Snake Khan escaped into the shed to get warm. “This person” burnt the shed and all the snakes slithered out.4 Shunu Baatyr needed to fight with Snake Khan. But this was prohibited because when the Earth was created, they were made equal in strength, mind, and destiny. If they fought, Earth-Sky [Jer-Tengeri] could slide from its axis. They decided, therefore, to compete. Snake Khan would hide himself three times. If Shunu Baatyr found him, he had to pronounce his name. When he hid for the first time, the Snake looked through the mountain. Being afraid of the Snake’s eye, “this person” fell. The button at the hem of his gown came off at which he cried out: “topchy” [button]. He looked through the sea. Snake Khan’s name was Topchy. So, they shook hands and left without fighting. Living together unmarried, Shunu Baatyr and Bala Khatan had two children: Nikolai and Mukhlai. Nikolai ascended to the throne and became a Russian Khan. Mukhlai followed his father’s way. 63

part two. sounding middle worlds

Jyrgal insisted that this tale was ancestral history, performed as an epic by her father using epic vocal tone (kai chörchök). In her own telling, she equated Snake Khan to Russian rule. When I commented that Dörbets in West Mongolian Altai await the return of Shunu,5 Jyrgal said: “The Snake Khan now rules but when Shunu Khan returns, he will gather and lead his Turkic people. He will recognize them by the spark in their eyes.” Altaian songs about Shunu are widespread among elderly rural singers and young urban professional musicians. For instance, Didii Toloeva and Müngülchi Bairysheva, both Ak Jang practitioners from the Kypchak clan in Yakonur, Kan-Oozy region, in 2002, and Valentina Chechaeva and Elena Mandaeva, of Kulada, Karakol Valley, Ongdoi region, in 2010, performed songs about Shunu. Chechaeva and Mandaeva’s version portrays Shunu as Oirot Khan’s messenger, who forecasts his return: From the Bii-Kadyn [River-Kadyn], He crossed the bridge dancing. Saying that our Kaan will come, He sent Shunu.

By contrast, the version performed by professional musician Aidar Churupov in 2006, which had traditional lyrics accompanied by lively rhythmical topshuur lute playing, implied that Shunu himself relieved “his people” from misfortune, although in the chorus his fate seems unclear: Shunu, Shunu, Er-Shunu, did he cross the strong-winded ocean? Shunu, Shunu, Er-Shunu, did he cross the gusty taiga mountains?

Lineages, Kinship, Land

There are clearly different Indigenous groups within each of the three republics, but whether these were historically tribes or clans is difficult to untangle.6 State manipulation of tribal and clan units was already evident during the Russian Empire. For instance, Mikhail Speransky, the governor-general of Siberia (1819–22), structured Khakas peoples—categorized as nomadic inorodtsy (native population, literally “people of different birth”)—into clan and native administration units based on encampment size (ulus), then organized them into four Steppe Dumas. The Kacha/Kachin, Khoibal, and Kyzyl-Achinsk Dumas and the Duma of United Miscellaneous Tribes (Vasilev 2005, 319–20) subsumed different communities (söök) under these collective titles (Butanaev 1995, 72). Piltïrs, for instance, who historically had their own princes, were reclassified as Saghai. Connecting to land, an Indigenous or lineage descent group, and ancestry, is important to Altaian, Khakas, and Tyvan peoples. When Altaians meet, for instance, 64

2. Human Communities

they ask: “Which Altai are you from?” or “Which söök are you from?” The response to the former might identify a village or river (for instance, Ursal Altai) or distinguish Large (Jaan) from Small (Kichi) Altai, that is, its mountain from steppe land areas. Söök, meaning “bone” but often translated as “clan,” relates to the patrilineal lineage, the male embodiment of reproduction and personhood. Relatives from the mother’s lineage, however, play an important part in transmitting musical and spiritual gifts, the latter being inherited from the matrilineal line through the body’s blood (Alt. kan; Kh., Tyv. khan). Contemporary lineage communities ideally remain exogamous but are often territorially dispersed. The introductory question about söök therefore helps to avoid taboo relations. For instance, intermarriage between Telengit Köbök and Jabak clans (sööktör) in Altai’s Ulagan and Kosh-Agash regions is prohibited because they are in a brotherhood relation. Other Altaian sööktör, such as Todosh and Kypchak, have affinal (nonblood) relations (Alt. kudalar). Summer sacrificial rituals to the sky (tigïr taiygh) performed in the early Soviet period by Indigenous communities now grouped as Khakas have been revived.7 In 2004, Nikadim Ulturgashev explained that Khakas Piltïrs8 meet biannually at the “stele person” (közee kïzï) on Sorakh Mountain. At this day-long gathering, the eldest male acts as ritual leader. That year, eleven groups had participated. Piltïrs also gather annually to perform the tigïr taiygh ritual in the small valley of Charykh Khol. According to Ulturgashev, the traditional sacrifice of a young girl was replaced in the 1930s by a white lamb. Ulturgashev performed a takhpakh that expressed the Piltïrs’ desire to reclaim their territorial identity: Heroic Piltïrs spread along sixty rivers, How to achieve their recovery? Good Piltïrs spread along fifty rivers, How to gather them?

Whether dispersed or territorially discreet, each genealogical community is aware of the location of its core land. Khakas peoples can instantly match a family name with a particular valley, river confluence, or region (Anderson 1998, 58) and differentiate themselves by the rivers along which they live. Khaas populations, for instance, refer to themselves as Aghban, Iirgï Üüs, Toiym, Uibat, and Üüs Khaas (Kokov P). A community marked its territorial borders by a birch tree, hitching post, or ritual cairn (oboo) to which they attached ribbons. Such a hitching post on the Askhys border marks the gateway to Saghai land. In Khakassia, which is rich in ancient archaeological monuments, a lineage’s “clan stone” has also become the site of pilgrimage. Ritual feeding of spirit-owners, song-chants, musical performances, and sometimes silent contemplation recreate kinship connections between contemporary clan members, ancestral spirits, land, person, and place. In 2006, I went with Urmat Yntai to meet Oirot Otykov in Ortolyk village, Kosh-Agash region. Oirat was a with-spirit epic performer (eelü kaichy) from the 65

figure 2.1a. Telengit “with-spirit” epic performer Oirot Otukov and AltaiKAI’s Urmat Yntai before two totemic larch trees of their Jabak and Köbök brother-related clans. Ortolyk, Kosh-Agash region, southeast Altai, 2006.

figure 2.1b. Oirot Otukov’s lute bearing the eagle totem of Köbök clan. Ortolyk, Kosh-Agash region, southeast Altai, 2006.

2. Human Communities

Telengit Köbök lineage, noted for its epic performers and shamans. We sat with Oirot’s mother as she smoked her clay pipe on the front steps of their home. Then, having taken refreshments with them after our long journey, we piled into the car and headed to a nearby lake beside which stood two larch trees. They symbolized the brotherhood relation of Oirot’s Köbök and Urmat’s Jabak lineages. ` The strong chilly wind did not deter Oirot from performing. It was a sacred place, connected with nature; therefore for him, such a wind was intentional. Oirot performed part of the epic Ösküs-uul (Orphan Boy), his own composition “Kai Song” (Kai kozhong) (AltaiKAI 2002D), and “The Wind of Chui” (Chuidyng salkyny). In addition, each clan has its own spirit-protector. Onto the wooden face of his topshuur, Oirot had carved his söök’s totem spirit-bird—a falcon or eagle (Tel. berküt)—with wings outstretched, flying toward the fingerboard as if toward the melodies he played. Khakas takhpakhchy Nikadim Ulturgashev, by contrast, had incorporated the crow—the totem bird of his children’s mother’s Chepchigashev söök—into a song he had written when he returned from the army and discovered that she had married another. He visited her father and sang: Until I take the Crow’s daughter, I will not allow the Crow’s gateway to become cool. Until I take Chepchigashev’s daughter, I will not allow Chepchigashev’s doorway to become cool.

And when Khaas musician Sergei Charkov and his daughter Yulia toured England in 2005, they performed as Khyrkhaas, a name that combines his father’s Khyrgys söök and southern Khaas identity (Khyrkhaas 2005D). praise-songs and blessings in the singing forest

In Altai, in the late summer of 2006, Nogon Shumarov invited me to go to Kulada village—where he had spent his childhood—in Karakol Valley, Ongdoi region. Nogon is proud to be Töölös, one of the oldest Altaian communities, and listed his ancestors—Könchkünek, Kuragan, Katu-Kara, Parchygysh, Ak-Buka, and Tüde—who had lived on the banks of Golden Lake (Alt. Altyn Köl).9 Some are buried among Telengits in Ulagan region. His father Nökör, grandfather Shumar, and great-grandfathers, however, are buried in Kulada. We teamed up with Buddhist monk-musician Sarymai Urchimaev, born in Kulada and Nogon’s relative. In Sarymai’s elder sister Sveta’s house, we refreshed ourselves with fermented cow’s milk (sut chegen) and hard cheese (kurut). Sixtysix-year-old Kumdus “Beaver” Borboshev, an adherent of Ak Jang (White Way) joined us. Nogon wrapped a broad cloth sash around my waist and advised me

67

part two. sounding middle worlds

to sit on the ground, with left knee raised10 while Kumdus performed a request for blessing (alkysh). Then, we drove to the “Singing Forest,” a sacred birch-tree grove, described later by jangar ritual song performer Mandaeva as “the place where we perform mürgüül rituals” and the praise-song “Kozhongchy Aral.” We walked through the grove to Nogon’s clan’s healing spring (arzhan suu), noted for curing eye problems. It is called Shumar’s Hearth (Shumar Oidyk)11 because Nogon’s grandfather Shumar had followed family tradition by pitching his round felt tent (aiyl) there each winter, after spending summer in the lowland pastures. Nogon told us how, as a child in the Soviet period, he and his family went there secretly to praise the spring’s young female spirit-owner and ask for blessings before bathing their eyes in the clear water. When we reached the spring, Nogon and Sarymai chose a low flat rock to serve as an altar. They placed upon it a red porcelain bowl containing milk and a small brass goblet containing juniper (archyn), which they set alight. The rock was nestled amid long green grass beneath silver birch trees decorated with blue and white ritual ribbons (kyira). Kumdus tore white cloth into strips and, after bowing with hands held as in prayer, added two of them to a heavily bedecked tree. He demonstrated how to knot the strips onto a branch (with two ends reaching for the Sky) and I attached mine. Nogon, Sarymai, and Kumdus then performed offerings of improvised poetry, songs, and instrumental music that placed them within a network of other Altaian sacred sites, spirit-owners, and ancestors. Nogon sat below the altar and took his topshuur lute. Made for professional performance, it was carved not from a single piece of wood, as in traditional design, but from separate pieces for body and neck. The body was oval with a decorated skin face. The neck, fitted with nineteen frets, had two strings leading to machine heads, which, as with traditional tuning pegs, were both fitted on the same side of the pegbox. A carved horsehead above them faced the other way. Nogon strummed in traditional style, using modern chord patterns. He began with a short instrumental that merged seamlessly into “Altai Maktal,” a praise-song to the Altai Mountains using a range of kai drone-overtone vocal styles with urgent topshuur accompaniment: Sing, my two-stringed topshuur, Ask the great epic performers and my Altai for their blessing, I begin my song about the pure, blue peaks of the Altai Mountains, Where the nightingale sings all through the night. (Shumarov 2000D)

Nogon continued with “Üch Sümerge Maktal,” a praise-song to the threepeaked Mt. Üch Sümer (Three Sümer),12 interspersing deep, lyrical kai with instrumental passages (Shumarov 2004D). Later, Nogon explained that his father’s elder sister, Tyiyk Shumarova (1904—86), performed the following section when she made offerings to the spirit-owners of nature: 68

2. Human Communities

You were father to us, white glacier, You were mother to us, pure river. Taking a hair rope, I caught a flying horse, Drawing up water with my hands, I drank from a pure spring. In hot summer days, I cleaned myself with rain, In the cold winter, I lay on white downy snow. You protect your birds and animals, my sacred mountain, You do not allow anyone to climb our peaks, my praised taiga. People living here offer praises to honor you, my mountain, Bestow upon your children, the flying bird, and the running beast, Peace and your blessing. (Shumarov 2000D)

Finally, he performed “Yellow Leaves” (Sary Bürler), an Ak Jang song, finishing with drone-overtone vocal music (kai) and an instrumental, “My Altai” (Menin Altaiym), played on the end-blown flute (shoor). After Nogon’s musical offerings, he drank from the spring and washed his face and eyes. We followed him. It was an intensely sensuous experience as the shock of icy water on the skin intermingled with the aromas of grass and burning juniper and the sounds of rippling water, rustling leaves, and birdsong. It was then Sarymai’s turn. He began by playing the shoor—an instrument beloved of nature’s spirit-owners. He used two techniques: achyk shoor (with an open end, no drone but two notes), and tuyuk shoor (with fingers periodically blocking the end). Then, he put his thumb to his mouth and performed ergek shoor (“thumb” shoor), mingling vocally produced end-blown flute sounds with bird and animal cries. He finished by playing the shoor while simultaneously producing a vocal drone. Sarymai then took his wooden-faced fretted topshuur lute, strummed and plucked an instrumental prelude, and performed the Ak Jang song “White Burkhan” (Ak Byrkan) (see also chap. 5).13 After a two-line instrumental break, he ran seamlessly into a sustained note in chest kai (kögüs kai), backed by his topshuur’s urgent strumming, and into the alkysh “Karakol Bazhy Üch-Engmek”: Source of Karakol, Üch-Engmek, Shone, sparkled, bowed, Sat on a white throne, Wrapped in golden silver, White silk covered, My bailu-chümdü [prohibited, elegant]14 Altai. Gulley-crack [river] mouth and tributary, Branched, grew with tree Grew bailu-chümdü, curled, With juniper-bushes,

69

part two. sounding middle worlds

With a sea that ebbed and flowed, With water from the healing spring, My bailu-chümdü Altai. Precious Mother-Altai, Strongly defended Father-Altai, Tender Navel-Altai, Nut rich Sun-Altai.

He ended by reciting an alkysh in kai vocal tone, alternating a line pitched on a sustained note with one pitched an interval of one tone higher, thereby injecting a sense of tension and urgency. Finally, he held his topshuur to his forehead, making it clear that these performances had been spiritual offerings. Later, Sarymai explained that when performed in Karakol, an alkysh should call the spirit-owners of sacred mountains in order: first, Mt. Üch Sümer (the River Kadyn’s source and Altai’s most sacred mountain), then Mt. Üch Engmek (source of the Karakol River), and finally Mt. Tekpenek (the small mountain in the middle of Karakol Valley). He explained that these mountains are all “navels,” that is, nodes that interconnect and link to other dimensions and worlds. Kumdus brought the proceedings to an end. He sang “The River’s Song” (Suunyng kozhong), composed by writer and poet Brontoi Bedyurov, and then an alkysh in song form (jangar alkysh kozhong), expressing thanks to Tengeri, the Sky. Finally, he recited the following alkysh words (alkysh söstör), reinforcing our sense of immediate locality and ancestry: Shumar Oidyk, Rich person’s place. The head of the Singing Forest’s sacred spring.

Kulada has its own Ak Jang open mountain temple (küree) and tradition of spiritual leaders (chap. 5). Nogon sang “Yellow Leaves” (Sary Bürler), a song usually performed during the autumn Ak Jang ritual. As a Buddhist monk, Sarymai’s performance of “White Burkhan” (Ak Byrkan) was initially surprising since White Burkhan is the messenger of the highest burkhan (Üch Kurbustan) in Ak Jang. However, Byrkan also means Buddha, and Ak Byrkan is the name of an Altaian Buddhist organization. Also, in Sarymai’s matrilineage were many Ak Jang spiritual leaders, including his mother’s great-grandfather Mandaev Barnaul, a famous jarlykchy of the Maiman (Naiman) clan. Referred to respectfully as “Ada” (Father), he was arrested in 1936 and punished for his Ak Jang activities (Shinzhina 2004, 48). Although Sarymai performed “Ak Byrkan” at the healing spring (arzhaan suu), he declined to enter the Ak Jang küree temple to which we climbed later. After visiting the küree, we had tea by Nogon’s family tree then visited his sister, eighty-one-year-old Tokton Shumarova. She chided Nogon: “You should not

70

2. Human Communities

take people to the arzhan suu—you might offend its spirit-owner. They will not know what to do and how to do it!” But Nogon replied: “It’s alright—we went with Sarymai.” That night I stayed overnight in a small wooden house in Boochy within sight of the Karakol River. Snow was melting and the river roared. As the Siberian wind bit hard, I began to sense the powerful energy of this sacred valley and its river and gain more understanding of the local spirit-related beliefs and practices. musicking past kin

In 2004, when I went with Sergei Charkov to visit Nikadim Ulturgashev of the Piltïrs, floods caused by melting snow had caused devastation. They had destroyed the bridge across the river to Politov aal, a village of about thirty families on the banks of the River Töö in Khakassia’s Askhys region. It was difficult, therefore, to reach him. After making us welcome, Ulturgashev took his chatkhan zither and began by performing a takhpakh using khai vocal tone. The village lay amid Tagar and Kyrgyz burial grounds, but he placed himself in relation to the River Töö, the local landscape, and his immediate deceased kin: The streams from White Taskhyl [snow-capped mountain], Turning white, Flow as the River Töö, don’t they? Flow into pure Tashtyp [aimaghy, region]. His father’s child Ulturgashev is in his sixtieth year, isn’t he? The streams from Blue Taskhyl, Whirling fifty times and turning, Enter like fifty Tashtyp heroes, His mother’s child Nikadim is singing fifty takhpakhs, isn’t he?

Ulturgashev then made clear that his patrilineage was inextricably bound up with the village. Its name prior to the communist period, reinstated in 1990, had honored his ancestor Politka, an important trader responsible for collecting horsetax for the Russian authorities in Kuznietsk. “This is Politovka,” he said as he gesticulated toward the surrounding village. “Politka had Satik, and Satik’s son Mukulakh was an epic performer (khaijy) and also sang a song by the famous khaijy and shaman Khomatai Bastaev.” With his own performance, Ulturgashev began the process of musicking his Piltïr ancestors and bringing them into the assembled company.15 He situated himself again in terms of kinship and the village: “This was my grandfather’s brother Genka’s house. He died after Übren Borgoyakov defeated him in a takhpakh competition [aitys].” Ulturgashev recalled his relatives and where they had lived: “The house where the school is now was Khiysang Pai’s

71

part two. sounding middle worlds

PATRILINEAL Maksym Ulturgashev Linek Lapin

Armas (Gray mare song)

Khuskhunakh khaijy epic performer khai

Satrik Ulturgashev

Politka

Genka Danil’ takhpakh performer

Pai Oolakh

Satik

Stepan

Pedr ==

Mukulakh khaijy epic performer, singer, khai, song

Safron drum

Yakin drum

Aarkad’ev

Aleksandr chatkhan zither, “mountain wives”

Nikadim Ulturgashev khai, chatkhan zither, takhpakh performer

MATRILINEAL Khystigh Khara-Ool With-spirit epic performer (eelig khaijy) khomys lute

= Nyura Subrakova (Shaman’s Call/ Words)

Olas khaijy epic performer, chatkhan zither (Katerin’s Song)

Pyotr Roman khaijy epic performer, chatkhan zither

Yermil singer

Maksym Ultur gashev

figure 2.2a. Patrilineal and matrilineal genealogies of Khakas Piltïr Nikadim Ulturgashev.

house. My father was Pedr. His father, Pai Oolakh, had three barns—two of them here and another over there. They still exist. Then there was Armas and his son Makhsum, Linek (who was older than Armas), Linje, and Politka.” He remembered that Armas had sung about the theft of his celebrated gray mare: “Armas had so many horses that when people saw them on the mountainside, they compared them to cockroaches. All were a reddish color except one mare, which was gray. The mare escaped in search of a stallion. Armas found her in Upper Paza River, a long way from here, but the people there—the Ivandaevs

72

2. Human Communities

figure 2.2b. Ulturgashev performs improvised verses (takhpakh) accompanied by the chatkhan

zither. Politov aal, Askhys region, Khakassia, 2004.

and Chertykovs—would not return her. Armas wanted to escape but they gave him vodka to drink and were ready to kill him. There were a lot of them and even though he was strong, he could not beat them all.” He then sang Armas’s song, which expresses the hope that those who kept the mare would suffer for their actions: When Poraat runs to my father’s hands, May the Ivandaevs have red dust to eat. When Poraat runs to my mother’s hands, May the Chertykovs have black dust to eat.

Ulturgashev turned to his matrilineage. He began with the “shamanic words” (kham sösteri) of his mother, Nyura, a powerful shamaness from the Subrakov clan who had performed them using khai vocal tone: [My] Mother Fire with thirty teeth, Rush to thirty snow-capped mountains, [My] Mother Fire with forty teeth, Rush to forty snow-capped mountains. If I jump into the river, I will become a pike and swim, If I climb the mountain, I will become a red owl16 and fly. Titmouses17 around me, guard me,

73

part two. sounding middle worlds

In case another shaman should come. My Black Fox, Come out from the hole in the Black Rock, My Red Fox, Come quickly out of the Red Rock. My Black Fox, Lock Black Umai into the Black Rock, and return. My Red Fox, Lock Bad Umai into the Red Rock and return. My Falcon, Untie my Variegated Wolf from Shaman Taskhyl and return. Sit quietly my people, Do not let the Variegated Wolf swallow you, Do not let the Fly Wolf eat you.

Ulturgashev recalled his mother shamanizing (khamnirga) and described her shamanic drum (tüür): “My mother was a great shamaness, a true shamaness. Before shamanizing, she would say: ‘I go to Kam Taskhyl.’18 She used to warn: ‘I am calling my Variegated Wolf. Do not be eaten by him.’ She had a drum with twelve metal bells and cones attached as sound producers [khongyraa (G1)] and covered the frame with hide. She died in 1979. My elder brother, Yakin, took the drum. He should have put it into a museum—it was ‘black-awfully beautiful.’”19 He then introduced the uncles on his mother’s side, the Subrakovs. Two of his mother’s brothers, Olas and Pyotr Roman, were epic performers and played the chatkhan. He had inherited his timbre–centered vocal tone (khai) from Olas and wanted to perform Olas’s Song, explaining first: “Olas was a big man. He was in Voroshilovo and met Katerin, the daughter of a rich man [pai], Moyesei. He was a clever pai, but bandits shot him.”20 In this song, Olas asks for Katerin from her father: Will you give me, Moyesei, a horse to travel together With my father’s hand-raised chigir red [horse]? Will you give [my] father’s son Olas, A child to keep together close? Will you give me, Moyesei, a horse to pair With my mother’s hand-raised chigir red [horse]? Will you give [my] mother’s son Subrakov, A child to make a pair?

Ulturgashev added: “And then, during the night, he put the girl onto his saddle. It was his father’s horse, a very fast red. His father’s name was Khara-ool. He was a big strong man with hands like a bear’s paws.”

74

2. Human Communities

He introduced the song of his mother’s youngest sister, who had inherited the Subrakovs’ ability to sing, by saying, “Ingejek married Ivan Sagalokov from Pechin village. I was a teenager then,” then broke into: The little needle made good Ivan, Who used to be unkempt, Subrakova made wise with thoughts, Sagalakov, who used to be uncouth.

Ulturgashev also performed the songs of other local characters, for instance, that of Khyilagh, a man who moved to Tyva at the time “when the Reds were shooting.”21 pilgrimage: big shamans, little shamans

In 2005, I traveled to Ordzhonikidze, a region of snow-capped mountains and taiga forests lying in northern Khakassia and homeland of the Khyzyls. Aleksandr (“Sasha”) Samozhikov, leader of Ailanys (Renaissance), had invited me to join him and his wife, Stepanida (“Stesha”), also a member of Ailanys, on a pilgrimage to the place of his ancestors. Sasha self-identified as Khyzyl, and Stesha as “northern Khaas.” Sergei Charkov, who drove us, regards himself as “southern Khaas.”22 And Vitalii Tabaev joined us as an interpreter familiar with their different languages and dialects. Sasha remembered that when he was young, Khyzyls would sing during every activity, for instance, while planting potatoes and haymaking. “Even the northern Khaas remarked upon it,” he said. Khyzyls and southern Khaas, who are neighbors, use different languages, musical tonalities, and melodies. Chatkhan player Georgii “Nikolai” Kokov told how he prefers to perform epics and improvised verses (takhpakhs) in the Khyzyl language, even though he is Khaas, because “it is softer, beautiful, and more suitable for poetry.” Khyzyls traditionally play the end-blown flute (shoor) and a spoon-shaped fiddle with skin face (kyiysh egel’). We descended into Syra aimaghy, an intermountain area about 160 kilometers northwest of Abakan and south of Ordzhonikidze. The horizon suddenly revealed the blue-green expanse of Lake Shira (Kh. Syra), known for its salt and magnesium healing waters. Tagar burial mounds dotted the landscape, and the intriguing mounts of Sündüki stood proud. We passed through the Khaas area, where Stesha’s family lives, the White and Black Üüs Rivers meet, and local peoples gather in a cave in Shaman Mountain to perform rituals. Sasha, Stesha, and Sergei began to joke about these “northern Khaas,” how slowly they speak and how they think of themselves as “pure Khaas” because they do not mix with other groups. Sasha teased: “Our elders used to say, ‘When you go with a Khaas, always keep a knife close by!’ Since my wife is Khaas, this is what I must do!”

75

part two. sounding middle worlds

As we traveled northward toward Orzhonikidze, Sasha began to get excited: “Now I can speak Khyzyl—I don’t have to pretend to be Saghai or Khaas!” We stopped first in Naa Aal (New Settlement), so called because the population was settled there during collectivization in the 1920s. Sasha had been born there in 1955 and spoke of its strong epic tradition. Fifteen epic performers had lived there, including with-spirit epic performer (eelig khaijy) Pödör Kurbizhekov. We drove to Sasha’s ancestral place where, he said, the Khamnar community had lived for centuries. Their seal (tangma)—a shamanic drum (tüür)—suggested that it was rich in hereditary shamans. It was subdivided into Ulugh (Great) Khamnar, where his mother had lived, and neighboring Kichig (Small) Khamnar, home to his father. His maternal grandfather had been a shaman (kham) and his paternal grandfather, a “person who can see” (körïgjï), an ability that Sasha had inherited. As we left the car to make offerings where Kichig Khamnar had been, the landscape and natural forces seemed to become co-actors in Sasha’s evocation of his ancestors’ struggles. Khangza Pig Mountain23 brooded darkly over us from behind the black river, and along its banks loomed Tagar gravestones (chap. 4). Sasha sprinkled milk in four directions and then toward the stones, asking for blessings. But storm clouds gathered rapidly, and the wind howled. Stesha held out a khomys lute, enabling the spirit-owner of the wind to sound its strings, adding to the sonic impact. And as Sasha began to recount the history of that place, the light dimmed: “Khangza Pig, an early eighteenth-century hero, escaped from the Cossacks over the mountain and river to reach this place, but was captured by them. Then, during the Russian civil war in the early 1920s, it was the site of a bloody battle. First, a local resistance hero and his men forded the river but didn’t harm my mother and clan. Later, the Red Army arrived. They robbed and killed.” Khangza Pig is a hero to both Khyzyl and Khaas Indigenous peoples, and both have popular songs about him. Leader of an anti-Russian movement, he was captured and taken to Tomsk by raft, where he underwent slow execution by the Cossacks. Some songs, such as “Hey, My Beloved Rich Man” (Ek! Chanym pai iren) performed by Yulia Charkova, are in the form of laments by Khangza Pig (Charkova 2011D). A dark eerie place then, with a black history. As we began to set up the video camera, the rain pelted down, propelling us back to the car for shelter. All around us the sky was light—only our small place was dark and swamped. Hereditary shamans had been purged here and Indigenous peoples colonized and removed from their territories and lineage connections. The following case study of rituals performed by Tyvan Lazo Mongush Shaman illustrates, though, that contemporary shamans in the Altai-Sayan region are helping to recreate connections to Indigenous traditions and ways of belonging.

76

2. Human Communities

bonding, coloring, and re-placing a tyvan family

In 2005, I took part in several lineage-strengthening rituals performed by Tyvan Sky shaman Lazo Mongush. These included summer tree ceremonies in the countryside close to Kyzyl, an after-death ritual in Bai-Taiga region, and a joint spring lineage-bonding and after-death ritual close to Khovu-Aksy, Chöön Khemchik region. For the latter, we set off in Lazo Shaman’s car after eating horse stew and fatty sheep’s tail. The Kuular (Swans) family traveled separately in a minibus and car. During the journey from Kyzyl to Chyraa Bazhy, the Kuular family’s ancestral homeland, Lazo Shaman paused to make milk offerings at Khaiyrakan, a sacred mountain for both Buddhists and shamans, rising from the steppes about one hundred kilometers from Kyzyl on the road leading westward to Chadaana town. A stupa-like construction (containing Buddhist statuettes) and stone monument (Tyv. közhee dash) had been constructed there to commemorate respectively the monks and shamans slaughtered during communist purges. We paused again close to Süt Khöl (Milk Lake) to await the Kuular family, then stopped at a high point overlooking their grandparents’ former land. A short distance away was a healing spring (arzhaan suu) and the birthplace of the eldest female participant. We sat for a while to eat. Then the family stood in a semicircle around Lazo Shaman, holding their hands as in prayer. First, he dipped a small wooden-handled horsehair whip into a silver bowl containing milk and powdered juniper (aidys) and performed libations. Then, he talked of the responsibility of upholding Tyvan traditions. The countryside was beautiful in the fading light as we all listened intently. The outlines of an ovaa ritual mound and an ancient hitching post looked down upon us from the surrounding hills. Eventually, we came to the round felt tent (ög) of the eldest lady’s younger brother in a high dry spot in Kök-Tei. He had camped there with his wife, four children, cows (in an overnight pen), goats, sheep, and horses. We pitched our small tent next to their ög. Lazo Shaman laid a stick across the roof of his car, attached a lamp leading to the car’s battery, and prepared for a hefty session of chess. Not for them the slow deliberations of the European game. Instead, they moved quickly, banging successful moves on a clock, each time hollering loudly. We rose at seven in the morning to discover that, although the family had wanted to hold the ritual at the arzhaan suu, Lazo Shaman had persuaded them to hold it next to a river in taiga, where he created three interconnected ritual sites. preparations The first site was next to the river. Here, a sheep was killed using the traditional method of inserting the hand into a slit in the chest and nipping the aorta. Its meat was dissected and hung in trees, a cauldron of water put on a fire in which to boil it, and khan blood sausage prepared. Offerings were laid on a wooden tray.

77

part two. sounding middle worlds

Lazo Shaman involved all participants in the preparations. In the Tyvan astrological system menge—a series of nine colored dots associated with numbers, elements (earth, fire, water, metal), and cardinal directions—are acquired by everyone at birth. Number combinations of the dots—white 1, 6, 8; black 2; blue 3; green 4; yellow 5, red 7, 9—affect the individual’s body, disposition, and life pathway. According to Lazo, my own two black menge indicates extrasensory abilities and great inner power. Each year has its own menge, therefore the fluid relation between current and birth years requires specialist assessment. As part of this process, a shaman activates the sound frequencies of colors, elements, and directions through ritual movements. Although the menge system might appear to give each person a unique and complex metaphysical identity (Hodgkinson 2005—6), in this shamanic ritual it was used to reestablish the family’s relations to lineage and ancestral homeland. Lazo tore colored cloth into strips to make ritual ribbons (chalama) for each participant, who then chose chalamas to match their menge color and number combinations and attached them to a line strung between two trees. He prepared a spirit-protector (eeren) for the family. At the forty-ninth-day soul-dispatch ritual performed for a lineage member’s wife the year before, the family had been advised to gather again when the “grass became green” to prevent the deceased soul from returning and taking others. Lazo Shaman’s eeren was to prevent that. He explained the meaning of the main bones in the eeren bundle: “To a posthumous soul or malicious spirit, this sheep’s shoulder-blade [charyn] is a ‘door,’ and it will try to enter the Middle World by it. The sheep’s knucklebone [kazhyk], one of the six domesticated animals [horse, cow, goat, sheep, yak, camel], is here the horse. This bone must be cleaned of all meat so that the spirit will think: ‘He has a good horse, he can get close and catch me.’ The sheep’s shinbone [kyry] is a knife for protection against malicious spirits.” Lazo Shaman bored a hole into the sheep’s knucklebone and attached braid to the shinbone. He threaded black-and-white and red-and-white twisted braids through three additional small bones, then braided together blue, white, red, and black ribbons and attached those and chalama (red, black, yellow, pale green, turquoise blue) to the whole bundle. “Spirits,” he said, “try to gain entry using the ribbons, looking for weak sections. I block that with braided ribbons. Braiding makes the ribbons stronger, and malicious spirits will leave when they cannot get through.” The second site, Kara-Sug, was deeper in taiga. Lazo Shaman had built a ring of large stones resembling both a hearth and a small archaeological site. He had set three upright stones in a triangle within the circle to plot time spatially. They represented past, present, and future, with the latter

ancestors and traditions

78

2. Human Communities

stone shaped as a bull’s head. The triangular structure also connected to the traditional practice of using three stones when making a fire. A short distance from the triangle Lazo Shaman had erected a small upright stone, symbolizing the lineage’s ancestor. Small stones, collected by the participants, had been neatly packed into the triangle. These, explained Lazo Shaman, showed Tyvan respect for the Earth, whom they did not want to burn. The performance arena was in the form of a traditional round felt tent (ög), with the fire at its center, and a stele person (közhee kizhi) representing the eldest male sitting in the most respected place. It had also been set out to correspond to the cardinal directions. Lazo Shaman constructed two shelves over the fireplace to hold offerings. He touched the first portion of raw sheep breast to his forehead before placing it on the lower shelf and then added more meat. On the upper shelf, he laid the family’s offerings, including flour, milk, butter, and tea. Then, he added powdered juniper (Tyv. aidys) to a bowl of milk, used a juniper bunch (Tyv. artysh) to splash it onto the stones, and broke the bunch onto the prepared hearth. He tied a bunch of juniper branches together, with a white ritual ribbon (Tyv. chalama) attached, and presented it to the eldest male while asking him to make offerings during the ritual. Preparations completed, Lazo leapt up and down, sighed, and donned his costume. The fire was lit as he swung a spirit-protector (eeren) of two sticks bearing two chalama cloths decorated with the moon, stars, and ancient writing. Inside, said Lazo, was a small “consecrated arrow” (ydyk ök) placed there for protection. His own arrow, he added, was in the back of his drum. Lazo whispered questions as he twirled the eeren to fan the flames, then unwrapped a rattle from blue and white ritual-scarves (Tyv. kadak). He whistled and shook the rattle at the fire, thereby creating a wind. As the fire took hold, he used his drum’s beater (Tyv. orba) to sprinkle milk from a silver bowl onto the drumskin. He rubbed it in and held it over the fire to dry, beating it intermittently and checking the skin’s tension with his fingers. He then drummed, twirled, danced, and performed song-chants (Tyv. algyshtar) interspersed with drone-overtone vocal music (Tyv. khöömei). Finally, he drummed around the heads of all participants. The vibrations of the drum, he later explained, purify the body’s organism, beating out any disease that may have collected there. He then made his way to the inner sanctuary. encircling the shamanic tree At the third site, two lines of chalama cloth ribbons hung between two trees. One was a larch (Tyv. khash dyt), a “shamanic tree” with several trunks growing from one root, chosen to stabilize the family and strengthen the paths of its members. The river ran by this tree. An ivory-handled sheathed sword, belonging to Lazo and intended to “cut off bad things,” was propped at the tree’s base. A black gown, belonging to the family, hung from a branch as a shield (Tyv. dosküül) against black energy from the Underworld. Lazo hunched

79

part two. sounding middle worlds

over his drum and addressed the spirit-owner of the water softly while drumming. He continued to drum as he walked around the tree. Returning to the second site, Lazo Shaman drummed to the fire until it began to die down. He rang a bell over the head of each participant to dispel malicious spirits, then rubbed a large bear’s claw (attached to a small belt with bells) over each participant’s head and body for protection.24 He muttered to the fire, then sat down and called the youngest girl forward. He dabbed milk onto her hand with a juniper branch, then on the hands of all participants in order of age. He joked and the atmosphere lightened. Before leaving, we all circled the tree in the inner sanctuary and the hearth three times, then returned to the first site and tucked into the meal. As well as reestablishing place and belonging in relation to ancestral lineage and spirits of the land in such ritual community events, individuals in all three republics improvise verses in events that personalize their own experiences of local and social place. Local and Social Place improvised verses and melodies

Khakas peoples perform improvised verses in different contexts. A Khakas takhpakh comprises improvised verses with a minimum of four pairs. Traditionally, poets or poet-singers performed takhpakhs in contests of verbal combat (Kh. aitys) that lasted throughout the day and sometimes the night (Nyssen 2005). Exceling in such contests by combining poetical skill, ingenuity, and speedy response qualified the performer as a specialist takhpakhchy (Butanaev 1999, 139), a valued social role. Takhpakhs also occur in Khakas epics and other contexts when a performer may use khai epic vocal tone (Khyrkhaas 2005D). A takhpakh verse rhymes by alliterating the beginning and end of lines. Structural parallelism enables performers to place themselves in terms of local landscape and social position. In the takhpakh “Körbe ool Takhpaghy,” for instance, Khyzyl epic performer (khaijy) Pödör Kurbizhekov situates his community close to Khara Üüs (Black River) and himself within the epic performance tradition of his clan: Our settlement is near Khara Üüs river, I am a descendant from khaijy of the Körbe clan. (Nyssen 2013/Ülger Ensemble 2013D, vol. 1)

And when Khaas chatkhan player Georgii Kokov performed Kurbizhekov’s takhpakh, he also paralleled the flow of Khara Üüs with the continuation of khai epic performance tradition:

80

2. Human Communities

The little Khara Üüs flows downwards, Flows through the village, Young khaijy epic performers, who are now growing, May they learn to perform khai by copying us.

Similarly, Saghai chatkhan player Pavel Borgoyakov equated poetically his relationship with Kök Khaia, the Blue-Green Rock overlooking his village, with that of his relatives, then linked the singing tradition to the flow of his local River Töö: Kök Khaïa that overlooks, When I go, it is beautiful to see. My relatives who have come, I also feel their closeness. The Töö’s waters flow rolling, May they help all the people. If they all keep singing, The Töö’s waters will flow without end.

The connection between the takhpakh’s lyrics and its creator is highly personal, and therefore a performer must acknowledge it. For instance, Kokov cited Alexei Troshkin’s father, its creator, before performing a takhpakh that placed them both in their natal Chookhchyl village and compared it to a swaying reed on the banks of the Tostygh River: The Tostygh River with high banks, Lays on yellow silk, My Chookhchyl aal [village] will stand until it falls, Swaying like a young reed. The Tostygh River with beautiful verges, Lays on red silk, My Chookhchyl aal will stand until it falls, Swaying like a young reed.

He also identified Varvara, also from Chookhchyl, who, in her takhpakh, regrets the loss of the social and physical place that her youthful singing ability had given her:25 Dwelling on the banks of the White Üüs, I grew up, a sixty-little-plaits-girl, The songs I sang to people I could not contain in my mouth, I’ve past sixty and realize I have become lost. Dwelling on the banks of the Iirgï Üüs (Old River),

81

part two. sounding middle worlds

I grew up, a fifty-little-plaits-girl, The songs I sang to people I could not find room on my shoulder, I’ve past fifty and realize I have become lost.

Similarly, Evdokiya Tygdymaeva’s takhpakh, performed by Mikhail Borgoyakov with chatkhan zither accompaniment, justified her social place as a single woman: Is it not better to walk along the riverbank Than to cross it in a cracked boat? Is it not better to live alone Than to live with an evil man? Is it not better to also walk along the riverbank Than to cross it in a cracked boat? Is it not better to live dryly alone, Than to live with a bad man?

The historical takhpakhs of Khangza Pig are much admired, as explained by Khakas Khyzyl musician Oleg Chebodaev: “Khangza Pig’s takhpakhs are one of the peaks of Khakas poetry. They bring to life the language of my ancestors, the language of the strong spirit of our people. Khangza Pig creates in his takhpakhs not only a man capable of confronting an entire empire but also a talented poet expressing the beauty of thought and melody.” In contrast to a takhpakh’s individualized lyrics, performers within a community use a common melody. From that melody, it is possible to tell a singer’s origin. Musician Ai Charykh Saiyn Küchen noted this of his Saghai people, explaining: “Among Saghais, melodies are simpler than those of northern Khakas peoples. They fall within the compass of a fifth or sixth.” He then added: “Even within one Khakas people, singing differs from river to river, valley to valley.” ritual laments

Khakas peoples perform a ritual lament (syyt) on the first and third days after death by the deceased’s grave. It is melismatic, frequently interrupted by weeping, and uses individualized elaborate melodies. In addition, the performer claps the hands rhythmically, an action peculiar to this form and only done in case of death (Nyssen 2010; Sagalaev and Oktyabr’skaya 1990, 131). The deceased continues to hear for forty days, and the lament reassures the posthumous soul, especially if the family laughs. The lament, then, often includes jokes. Coins are placed on the deceased’s eyes to prevent seeing, an ability retained for seven days (Küchen P). Ritual laments do not occur in stage performances, unless as part of another genre, such as epics or animal stories. Lyrics may reference transformation, such

82

2. Human Communities

as in dirge songs taken from historical stories (Kh. kip-chookh) in which animals or humans who have become animals often complain about their suffering (Nyssen 2013, vol. 3). According to singer and storyteller Anna Kurbizhekova, a syyt may become a “song” (Kh. yr, saryn), performed by others, if it develops a lively melody during transmission (Nyssen 2013, vol. 1), as in the case of Altyn Tan Tayas’s “Song of a Hare” (Kh. Khozanakh ygy) (Ülger Ensemble 2013D, vol. 1) and Yulia Charkova’s “Little Hare” (Kh. Khozanakh) (Khyrkhaas 2005D). Among Altaian Chalkans, grieving relatives performed laments with extended melodies in plaintive tones. Chalkan singer Anna Makarovna remembered how a widow had asked in her lament why her husband had left her alone and had incorporated his own song for his children, detailing where he had lived and asking them to remain there to remember him. In music festivals, participants face the disjuncture of strengthening their Indigeneity, “nation,” or republic through performances of traditional forms of belonging—such as to ethnicity, lineage, kinship, and land—and state pressure to promote national unity and federative position by reducing local diversity and belonging. The Festive Nation’s Musical Soul

During the Soviet period, spirit-infused local festivals were adapted to become secular public demonstrations of unity within newly created ethnically based “nations.”26 National musical icons and dramatic performances within such festivals reinforced their new secular identities and “senses of place” within Russia and the Soviet Union. Contemporary festival participants increasingly challenge this ideology as awareness of Indigenous identities strengthens. For instance, although festivals often celebrate historical events linked to Russian “protection” or political elections, others coincide with a new moon linking them to the lunar calendar of Inner and Central Asian cultures rather than the later solar calendars of Europe, including Russia. And diverse Indigenous peoples within each republic want to sound their own traditions and musics. In all three republics, young musicians seek a “national musical soul” as an alternative to the classically arranged “folk music,” modified instruments, and secularism introduced into music colleges and theaters under Soviet cultural policy. They have also become increasingly aware of the musical and spiritual traditions of their own clans and former tribes. Tensions sometimes arise, then, in those national music festivals designed to stress the republic’s place within the Russian Federation. No longer satisfied by the communist ideal of a new “modern” style based on western European classical music, young professional musicians listen to old

83

part two. sounding middle worlds

recordings, refer to manuscript collections, learn from older amateur musicians who preserved oral traditions secretly, and reconstruct instruments from archaeological finds. Each republic has developed its own national drone-partial and timbral styles, within which there are local and individual variants, and has elevated one of its traditional musical genres as its nation’s symbolic soul. altaian el-oiyn, chaga bairam, altyn taiga

Heroic epic performance, using kai vocal tone and two-string topshuur lute accompaniment, has become the musical icon of Altaian national identity and forms the focus of national festivals. El-Oiyn (People’s Games) takes place over three days at the weekend of July’s first new moon. In 1988, musician and dramatist Nogon Shumarov created it in its current form, that is, with drama, musical performances, and competitions. Participants include those from the republic’s regions, neighboring autonomous republics of the Russian Federation (Tyva, Khakassia), former Central Asian Soviet republics (Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan), and different countries (Mongolia, Japan, Korea, America, England). Indigenous Altaian participants wear national costume. The location of the first festival, held outside Elo in the central Ongdoi region, mostly populated by Altai Kizhis, was where twelve clan leaders (jaisang) had written to the Russian Empress to request protection after the Jungar Khanate’s defeat in 1756. The festival then migrated to different regions biannually, each incorporating that region’s distinguishing features by basing an opening drama on an Altaian epic with local significance. For instance, the Kosh-Agash Festival in 2000 featured Princess Ukok (The Ice Maiden), whose mummified body was excavated from a nearby burial mound and is said to be the epic heroine Ochy Bala (chap. 4). I attended El-Oiyn in 2006, when it had returned to Elo, where it was to remain. In the early mornings before and after the public event, “people who know” climbed a local mountain to make ritual fire (Alt. sang), show respect through rituals (Alt. mürgüül), and perform song-chants (Alt. alkyshtar) requesting blessings from Altai’s spirit-owner, Altai Eezi. The festival itself, however, celebrated the 250th anniversary of Altai’s amalgamation into Russia and the fifteenth anniversary of its status of Republic. The Elo Festival brochure painted a vivid picture of the Jungar Khanate’s defeat, describing how the “Mongol-Chinese [KhalkhaManchu] alliance killed the men, raped the women, and beat the heads of children against stone walls . . . burnt houses, slaughtered cattle, and defeated one million Kalmyks [Oirats] . . . [and] in the internecine wars that followed, Jungars became slaves, starved, or succumbed to smallpox.” It stressed that when Altaians had requested that Elizaveta Petrovna “take the Altaian peoples as subjects of her

84

2. Human Communities

Empirical majesty and allow them into the Empire,” Russian acceptance had saved them. The valley in which the festival took place formed a natural amphitheater as hundreds of costumed riders swept into it, enacting the Jungar Khanate’s fall and Russia’s rescue of Altaians in a spectacular opening drama. Disquiet arose, though, that the festival’s purpose was to celebrate not Altai but its absorption into the Russian Federation. The organization of El-Oyin in Chamal’ region in 2002 in support of a parliamentary candidate was still a sore point. At the festival in 2006, people wondered whether the Leader and Minister of Culture of the Republic’s membership in the political party Edinaya Rossiya (United Russia) conflicted with development of Altaian culture and identities. During this festival, Altaians from all Indigenous groups competed in epic performance contests held in a traditional dwelling (Alt. aiyl). The festival poster, though, became a point of heated debate since it featured kaichy Elbek Kalkin with his lute (topshuur). Arzhan Közörökov, a recipient of the title El Kaichy (People’s Kaichy), supported the idea that epic performances using kai timbral vocal technique and topshuur accompaniment are quintessential expressions of Altaian identity. However, he also pointed out that Elbek is Telengit, an Indigenous people whose epics connect to their mountainous landscape and hunting traditions. For instance, Maadai Kara, an epic Elbek inherited from his grandfather Grigorii Ivanovich Kalkin, revolves around the hero’s hunt for the soul of the evil Underworld Khan Kara-Kula (Yntai P). This is less relevant for the steppe pastoralist Altai Kizhis. Tension between diverse Altaian traditions and a homogeneous nation are also evident in the lunar New Year festival, Chaga Bairam (Tel. White Feast). Celebrated at national, regional, village, and family levels, it received Altaian State Holiday status in 2000. As in El-Oiyn, Indigenous locals light ritual fire before the festival and request blessings (Alt. alkyshtar) from Altai Eezi. They offer traditional New Year greetings to family and friends, but in a new round dance, “We Are People of Altai,” performed in Gorno-Altaisk’s main square in 2019, participants wore Altaian hats and other items of national clothing (Almashev, pers. comm.). The nature and history of this festival are also the subject of dispute. Some people criticize its secularization, arguing that it is an important Altaian ritual tradition, and that its timing must be determined by elders after considering the movement of celestial bodies including the Pleiades constellation. Others associate Chaga Bairam only with Telengits, who led its revival in the early 1990s (Broz 2009, 19–20). Yet others reject Chaga Bairam as Buddhist and therefore non-Indigenous. In Gorno-Altaisk, Buddhists celebrate Chaga Bairam in the Buddhist temple, and Altaian intellectuals—seeking credentials for a national celebration—tend to favor Buddhism, which has global connections (Halemba 2003, 178–79).

85

part two. sounding middle worlds

Altyn Taiga (Taiga’s Breath),27 founded in 2003, is an interregional festival of throat-singing. In 2006, organizer Urmat Yntai invited me to judge the competitions, together with Telengit kaichy Elbek Kalkin, Buddhist monk-musician Sarymai Urchimaev, and AltaiKAI musician Emil’ Terkishev. It took place in Chamal region, where the population is 75% Russian. Urmat explained: “It is being held here because a point needs to be made. Culture is a powerful tool for identity.” I traveled there by bus with AltaiKAI and a group of foreign musicians. At the border of Chamal, on the banks of the Kadyn River, female singers in national costume greeted us with song and traditional food, followed by a speech from Radon B. Bukachakov, Chamal’s political leader, who had supported the event. The festival began with a drama featuring the legendary hero Sartakpai, who is associated with the topography of the Kadyn River. It used traditional epic motifs and characters, including the multiheaded cannibalistic epic monster Jelbegen, summoned by a shaman from the Underworld. Chaos followed as it caused disruption to seasonal balance, bringing draught, fires, excessive cold, and subsequent death to humans and animals. Following Jelbegen’s defeat and the restoration of balance, the performers sang and played the topshuur lute. Jelbegen became a spot on the moon. Wrestling (Alt. küresh) followed the drama. Urmat pointed out, “Epics frequently mention Altai küresh and festivals. For instance, sports competitors battle for a bride or magnificent horse. Like kai, they are very ancient. So, a kai festival should also have wrestling.” Urmat explained then that El-Oiyn is a modern festival in which epic performances revitalize traditional culture and identities. khakas chyl-pazy, tun pairam

The musical soul of Khakas national identity is heroic epic performance “on horseback” (attygh nymakh), that is, using kai vocal tone accompanied by the chatkhan zither. When I arrived in Khakassia in 2004, frozen snow lay on the ground. It was Chyl-Pazy, the Khakas New Year, timed to coincide with the spring equinox (March 20). During an evening concert in Abakan, epic performers Ai Charykh Saiyn Küchen (with his group Ülger) and Evgenii Ulugbashev performed attygh nymakh. The next day, at a fair, there were theatrical adaptations of Khakas folktales, performances of epics, khai vocal music, and long-box zither (Kh. chatkhan) melodies. A hunter strolled around playing the birchbark hunting horn (Kh. pyrghy), and young women paraded in traditionally inspired Khakas clothing. Timing of the festival Tun Pairam is in early June when Indigenous people produce the first fermented cow’s milk drink (Kh. airan) after herds have moved from winter to summer pastures. Traditionally, participants gathered in the foothills and lit a huge fire. They tied a white horse, consecrated by a shaman, to a

86

2. Human Communities

birch tree. An elder blessed the Sky and poured drops of airan into the fire. In 2013, funded by UNESCO and the Russian and Khakas governments, the festival drew thirty thousand people over nine sites and included Khakas citizens as well as participants of the conference Historical-Cultural Heritage as a Source of Socio-Cultural Development. Like other festivals, it included theatrical spectacles, musical performances, contests, and exhibitions. Before the communist period, epic performances, narratives, musical accompaniments, and instrumental construction had varied according to the traditions of different Indigenous communities. Collecting in the mid-nineteenth century, Radloff was impressed by the musicality of “Saghais and Khoibal, Kachin and Kyzyl Turks,” noting their use of four musical instruments: a two-stringed horsehair “violin” (kobyz) with skin resonator, sounded by an arched bow; a “wooden guitar” (the same instrument unbowed); the “flat, lying-down harp” (chattagan); and the “reed flute” ([1884] 1989, 226–28). These are the contemporary chatkhan zither, yykh fiddle, khomys lute, and khobyrakh or shoor end-blown flute. The chattagan appears in the heroic epics of different Indigenous peoples. For instance, Radloff recorded Taska Maattyr, in which the hero Kara Üüs Kyrgys returns from paying tribute to the Mongol Khan but is not recognized at Khyzyl prince Üdseng Peg’s court until he plays his “forty-stringed chattagan.” The hero performs forty melodies and poetical texts that make “birds turn in their flight and wheel three times round him listening” (719). Radloff noted that Saghais performed the epics that, being shamanic and with classic themes, he considered to be the most ancient (Chadwick and Zhirmunsky 1969). He described the chattagan as being six-stringed, shaped like a flat box, one arshin long and three to four vershoks wide, and made from cedar or pine with movable bridges under each string to enable tuning (267).28 Mikhail Taidonov, nephew of the famous epic performer Sömön Kadyshev, agreed that the chatkhan should be of cedar and about one and a half meters in length. The number of strings, though, had begun to vary by the early twentieth century and differed according to ethnicity. Khyzyl epic performer Pödör Kurbizhekov, for instance, used a seven-stringed chatkhan. During the communist period, introduction of Western European scales required more strings. When traveling in Khakassia’s rural areas with instrument-maker Sergei Charkov, the construction of his chatkhan sometimes proved problematical. We visited Kubizhekov’s nephew Aleksandr, for instance, with a newly made ninestring chatkhan. Born in 1950, Aleksandr had learned to play using both Russian and non-Russian pitches. Epic melodies needed a seven- or nine-stringed chatkhan, Khakas songs more. He preferred a twelve-stringed instrument with two centimeters between strings. Aleksandr also preferred traditional bridges made from astragalus or sheep’s knucklebone (khazykh), rather than the modern

87

part two. sounding middle worlds

wooden bridges (called “teeth,” Kh. tyster), since, he said, the former made tuning easier. During the communist period, some people stopped playing the chatkhan because of its ritual connections. Fisherman-hunter Tyumerekov, for instance, destroyed his home-made chatkhan in 1965. In the postcommunist period, together with epics and khai, the chatkhan has become a secular national instrument and unifier of Khakas peoples. Saghai poet-musician Sibdei Tom explained: “The chatkhan has become ‘the soul of the Khakas nation’ because it creates a link with ancient epics, between past and present.” Its sounds are now as beautiful as flowers in the steppes, as the lyrics of chatkhan player Nikifor Adygaev demonstrate:

[128.104.46.196] Project MUSE (2024-04-09 03:07 GMT) UW-Madison Libraries

When walking on the white steppe, A white flower is beautiful, isn’t it? When playing the six-string chatkhan, To listen to its sound is beautiful, isn’t it? When walking on the green steppe, A green flower is beautiful, isn’t it? When playing the chatkhan for people, Its resonance is beautiful, isn’t it?

At the same time, though, chatkhan melodies, styles, number of strings, and tuning express differences between Indigenous peoples. Aleksandr Samozhikov of Ailanys, for instance, played Khyzyl melodies, which are traditionally in minor keys, while Saghai and Khaas melodies are in major ones (Tom P). Nikolai Kapchigashev, a Khaas chatkhan player, explained that although steppe Khaas and mountain Khyzyls live in neighboring areas, the differing landscapes affect their melodic tempos: Khaas, who traditionally use a six-string chatkhan, play calm melodies, while Khyzyls play them rapidly. Khyzyl musician Aleksandr Kurbizhekov pointed out that Saghais of Tashtyp and Askhys regions evoke a running horse by rhythmical playing, while Khyzyls and Khaas express it melodically. The instrument appears prominently in all official publications about Khakassia even though, as Samozhikov explained, “Among some Khakas peoples, epics were performed unaccompanied and rapidly, like tongue twisters, or were accompanied by the khomys lute or yykh horsehair fiddle.” tyvan naadym

Tyvans are proud of their styles and substyles of drone-overtone vocal music (khöömei), usually accompanied by the also highly valued two-stringed horsehead fiddle (igil). This combination has become an icon of Tyvan identity. The annual International Festival of Khöömei, held in Kyzyl, coincides with the International Ethnomusicology Symposium, which both highlights and furthers

88

2. Human Communities

research on traditional music. Other annual events include the Aldyn Maadyr Festival, commemorating the Sixty Heroes who rebelled in the mid-1880s, held in Süt-Khöl region (kozhuun). As with the two other republics, Tyva’s annual festival (Tyv. naadym) now a national holiday, has come adrift from the rhythms of the nomadic pastoralist ritual calendar and is also subject to political pressure. In 2004, for instance, its mid-August date became September to commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of Tyva joining the Soviet Union. Seasonal changes are, however, still marked at ritual ovaa cairns. The Naadym in 2005 resembled the Mongolian Festival of the Three Manly Sports (Mo. eriin gurvan naadam) with its competitions of wrestling, archery, and horse-racing. Wrestlers in both, for instance, wear short trunks, bolero jackets with long sleeves (leaving the chest bare), and traditional curly-toed leather boots reaching to the knees. They follow the same wrestling rules, and both perform the “eagle dance” with slow stylized high-stepping, circling outstretched arms and thigh-slapping on front and back (Pegg 2001a). The Tyvan Naadym concluded with a gala concert of traditional music in the National Drama Theater in Kyzyl. Since 2007, the International Üstüü-Khüree Festival of Live Music and Faith in Chöön Khemchik kozhuun, western Tyva, also includes sports, musical offerings, chanting, and prayers. In all three republics, contemporary festivals attract foreign visitors and tourism, part of the process of establishing presence and place in the world. Global Presence and Place: Shamans, Musicians, Indigenous Peoples

Contemporary Indigenous peoples are connecting globally to particular interest groups, bringing their own beliefs, practices, and music to the diversity of world cultures, and strengthening local as well as global recognition. For instance, urban shamans, “throat-singers,” and musicians of Altai, Khakassia, and Tyva regularly perform abroad, enabling them to display their Indigenous cultures internationally and bringing economic benefits in difficult post-Soviet times. Also Western students travel to Tyva to learn from Indigenous shamans, mostly in the centers in Kyzyl but occasionally from those who are independent, such as fourth-generation Kyrgyz “Dragon” Shaman Kungaa Tash-ool Buu oglu, who trained Russian, Ukrainian, and British initiates. Kyzyl-based Tyvan shamans can participate in global networks. Directors of shamanic centers, for instance, heal in medical centers abroad and participate in conferences, seminars, summer camps, festivals, theater productions, and concerts. They often began their careers as musicians and actors. For instance, Lazo

89

part two. sounding middle worlds

Mongush Shaman, former Director of Dünggür Shamanic Center, was a leader and soloist in the Sayany Ensemble, and Nikolai Oorzhak Shaman cofounded Ensemble Tuva (with Boris Kherlii). Lazo travels regularly to Switzerland to treat patients with gynecological problems in a private clinic. Oorzhak, realizing that his dramatic shamanic performances affected the health of concert audience members and with the onset of headaches, apprenticed himself to a shaman, and eventually became Director of Tös Deer Shamanic Center. He combines healing sessions with concerts in international festivals and has developed a form of jazz “throat-singing” called “khöömei-jazz.” Shamans have also made their music and rituals accessible to global markets on compact disc. For instance, Oorzhak Shaman has issued six compact discs ranging from shamanic song-chants to OorJazz. And Shamaness Ai Chürek’s compact disc purports to heal if the listener first performs a short purification ritual (2003D). Academics and musicians who travel to these republics sometimes promote professional musicians in their own countries or introduce them to key promoters who have access to world music networks. Locally held international festivals, such as Tyva’s Üstüü Khüree and the Sayan Ring Festival, also attract foreign musicians as well as international world music impresarios and journalists. A growing number of compact discs present collaborations between local and non-Indigenous musicians and scholars (for example, Kongar-ool Ondar 1999D; Kongar-ool Ondar and Paul “Earthquake” Pena 1996D; Bulgarian Voices, “Angelite,” featuring Huun-Huur-Tu 1996D; TriO and Sainkho 2005D; Carole Pegg and Radik Tülüsh 2014D). These musical and shamanic “global nomads” recreate local performance places, spiritual practices, and human-spirit audiences in distant lands. For instance, during UK tours I had arranged, Altaian monk-musician Sarymai Urchimaev summoned the spirit-owners of his music, instrument, and homeland together with Buddhist spirit-protectors to London’s Royal Opera House; Khakas musicians Sergei Charkov and his daughter Yulia purified their performance space by burning sacred juniper in Cambridge University’s Music Faculty; and Radik Tülüsh visualized his homeland and its spirit-owners before each performance and sprinkled milk to the Sky and cardinal directions from the moors overlooking the fishing town of Whitby before descending to perform at its Folk Festival. *

*

*

In the next chapter, we consider another component of Altai-Sayan communities, that is, the spirit actors with whom Indigenous peoples interact sonically during domestic, work, and ritual Middle-World activities.

90

3

Spirit Actors, Spirit Places, Nomadic Landscapes

For contemporary Altai-Sayan Indigenous peoples, spirit actors are social persons with whom they share their everyday lives. I accept their assumptions here, rather than explaining spirit actors away as imaginal or imaginary. For French philosopher Henry Corbin, the imaginal realm was ontologically real, something perceived (not created) by imagination, and experienced in dreams and visions (Kovelant 2015, 128–29). Csordas, when considering healing performances among Catholic charismatics, interpreted the “imaginal” as “sequences of imagery,” a means by which imagination through performance becomes efficacious (1996, 94–98). While Corbin portrays spirits or deceased souls as archetypes, Csordas treats them as imaginal actors within a multilayered, multisensorial performative event. Neither quite fits the Altai-Sayan case of multisensory interactions with spirit actors. These include everyday small acts—feeding the fire’s spiritowner, offering the top of the milk and first tea of the day to nature’s spirit-owners, beckoning fortune, and making verbal entreaties when taking from or traveling through nature—that perform the subordinate place of humans in the Middle World. They also include lengthy rites-of-passage that help humans to negotiate territorial and seasonal boundaries, reestablish or challenge place in society and the universe, “open the way” for success and health in life, and aspire to actualize change in broader society. This chapter opens out the multisensory everyday interactions of Indigenous peoples with spirit actors who occupy Middle-World landscapes. They include the important “spirit-owner” category (common in all three republics), Khakas

part two. sounding middle worlds

ancestral “mountain people,” shamanic spirits, and spirits of illness. Humans charm them with speech acts, song-chants, drone-overtone music, and musical duets and sometimes respect them through silence. Since these spirits are also musical, sonic performances become a reciprocal kinship type of gift-giving based on an aesthetics of propriety. The Khakas daughter of a mountain’s spirit-owner reveals accommodations and tensions between calling Indigenous shamanic spirits (called with a virtual ancestral drum) and beliefs of Russian Orthodox Christianity. Contestations arise when Buddhist spirit-protectors occupy local land, and rituals performed for them anger local spirit-owners. Musical substyles express the contours of a site and nomadic movements. Sounds enable the crossing of boundaries at portals in landscape, allowing humans to sense vertical and horizontal place, pathways, and movement in relation to earthly and otherworld landscapes and dimensions. Nature’s Spirit-Owners

Nature’s spirit-owners (eeler) simultaneously constitute and command all natural phenomena. They are more than the life essence of “living souls” (Tylor [1871] 2010). They are sentient beings who have their own voices, may perform songs and epics, play instruments and music, and have their own musical tastes. Here, animism embraces nonhuman beings (animals, birds, insects), natural living phenomena (trees, plants), entities classified by western societies as “inanimate” (mountains, rocks, stones), natural elements (earth, water, fire, air/wind), celestial bodies (rainbows, stars, planets) and creative vocal and instrumental practices. Each has its own spirit-owners. Nature’s spirit-owners are of shifting and overlapping orders of magnitude. In the Altai Republic, for instance, there is a spirit-owner of earth (jerding eezi) and of Altai (Altaidyng eezi), as well as of every mountain, tree, river, and rock. Nature and landscape are not neutral and passive, admired for their beauty, exploited for resources, protected as in European and American societies, or worshipped. Rather, through its spirit-owners, nature is known, interacted with, respected, and honored as kin (Mamyev P). Spirit-owners have volition and agency and are superordinate to humans. They are truculent, and if displeased may steal health or material well-being, destroy hunting luck, cause quarrels or loss of stock, and harm animals. According to Altaians, the card gambling of spirit-owners causes one area to be rich in wildlife and another to have none. Spirit-owners also have the power to restrict human behavior toward nature. Although spirit- “owners,” their principles of ownership differ from contemporary Western notions of private property and those used in cultural heritage

92

3. Spirit Actors, Spirit Places, Nomadic Landscapes

debates. They are custodians or stewards of landscape, nature, territory, and place, and grant humans conditional use of them. The arrangement is like the “aesthetics of propriety” described by Rebecca Empson for Mongolia (2011, 95–97) in that social relations are based on a shared morality. In the Altai-Sayan case, codes of ethical practice maintain social balance through musical gift-giving that both show respect and entertain the spirit-owner, allowing the bestowal of kinship-style reciprocal benefits. This propitiatory exchange is used in transaction for different benefits, such as safe passage or the giving of game (see Humphrey with Onon, who distinguish this type from the general good fortune received by a Mongolian social group after animal sacrifice [1996, 145]). The spirit-owner of place is also responsible for weather in its area. For instance, Dongak Oyun-ool, a sixty-three-year-old Tyvan shepherd and kargyraa performer, described how the female spirit-owner of place (cher eezi) of the Tangdy-Uula mountain range in Övür region creates wind by blowing through her bronze nose. During interactions with nature’s spirit-owners, Indigenous peoples use vocal and instrumental timbres and melodies to sound their relation to the contours of that spirit-owner’s body-place in nature, the spirit-human social structure, and the physical cosmos. Kyrgys identified a range of drone-overtone vocal substyles that evoke musically Tyva’s wildlife, topography, and nature. For instance, kanzyp conjures up the cry of a wolf, chylankyk the sounds of crickets, and dag (“mountain”), khovu (“steppe”), kashpal (“hill”) and taiga (“forest”) kargyraa, the respective contours and features of the land ([2002] 2008, 85). Aldyn-ool Sevek, of Mönggün Taiga region, specialized in khat kargyraa, a substyle that imitates the dynamics of the wind. In 2010, Altaian epic performer and shaman Arzhan Közörökov developed the relation of drone-partials musical styles, nature, and place further: “Kai depends on the natural environment of a person’s birthplace, for instance, whether there are forests or not. If born in Ulagan, how the tree swings there, how the grass moves affect that person’s kai.” Features, such as high or oddly shaped mountains and trees with multiple trunks or in a solitary position, indicate a place with a powerful spirit-owner that requires special forms of social behavior. The peoples in the Altai-Sayan region, then, do not only relate to landscape as part of it, or struggle with a polarity of organisms within systems of ecological relations and persons within systems of social relations (Ingold 2000, 3). Rather, their senses of body, self, personhood, and place are mutually implicated (see also Hirsch 1995, Munn 1996) and activated during performances of traditional songs, epics, drone-partials music, rhythmical poetry, poetical song-chants, and oral narratives as they attempt to please, charm, and placate these truculent spirit actors.

93

part two. sounding middle worlds

A person who “sees,” “hears” (voices, steps, music), or “feels” may experience nature’s spirit-owners in everyday life and during dreams and visions in which they may receive music and language from them, endure punishment from them, or engage with them in spirit-human sexual relations. Shamans and Altaian Ak Jang (White Way) ritual leaders call them to participate in rituals, and they respond to sounds that are respectful and pleasing. respecting and serenading

Respectful ritual sounds performed for nature’s spirit-owners establish the subordinate status of the performer. Bodily actions, including burning offerings, sprinkling milk or tea or alcohol, and attaching colored cloth ribbons to sacred trees, also show respect. Other offerings are gender and age specific. For instance, female spirit-owners of springs and rivers receive silver jewelry, and older male spirit-owners, alcohol or tobacco. Altaian musician Nogon Shumarov explained that spirit-owners understand human speech and therefore verbal communication to gain permission for action is important: “Before singing or making music, you must always ask permission from nature’s spirit-owners. Explain your reasons for being there and ask for strength.” Those who enter a mountain spirit-owner’s domain, such as a ritual specialist, hunter, or climber, must also request permission for their activities there. Nature’s spirit-owners particularly love performative sounds. The sounds used depend upon the spirit-owner’s musical tastes and habitat and the interactional purpose. In Altai and Tyva, for instance, mountain spirit-owners love the endblown shoor flute and topshuur lute, while in Khakassia they prefer the chatkhan zither and khomys lute. And in Tyva, a spirit-owner of place (cher eezi) particularly enjoys the igil fiddle (R. Tülüsh P). Moreover, the spirit-owner of the TangdyUula mountain range will reward the singer of a beautifully performed song (S. Mongush P). The sculptor Mongush Kyzyl-ool Kongar requests permission and explains his reasons before removing stones belonging to the spirit-owners of the mountains, taiga, and Süt Khöl region: I beseech you, my Tangdym, my Kyzyl Taiga, My rich Süt Khöl, For the benefit of future generations, I take your golden stones from nature, Not for myself.

Rewards for musical performative offerings that both please and show sufficient respect include safe passage through their territory, benefits and good luck, replenished energy, and general well-being. Some Indigenous peoples engage in musical duets with spirit-owners, and others silently offer a few words of praise 94

3. Spirit Actors, Spirit Places, Nomadic Landscapes

and entreaty while circumambulating a ritual cairn or tying a cloth ribbon to a branch. Tyvans serenade spirit-owners with timbral body/drone-partials music (kai-khai). Punishment by misfortune, illness, and death follows disrespectful behavior, which includes failing to make offerings, breaking codes of conduct, hunting or felling trees without permission, and polluting rivers and reservoirs. In Altai, such behavior is kinchek, understood by Christians as “sinful” and Buddhists as “karma,” since it affects not only the offender but seven generations of descendants. Hunters sometimes outwit a spirit-owner by diverting their attention while taking animals (Broz 2007, 302). But this is risky because of their inequality. Humans cannot, for instance, punish spirit-owners, and only spiritual specialists have the power to negotiate with them. Moreover, according to local peoples in each republic, the anger of the spirit-owners of taiga, earth, water, and fire gives rise to a sharp imbalance of natural harmony. Health, happiness, and prosperity depend upon the natural balance of the surrounding world, and this affects the style and manner of musical performance. The prohibitions and ritual performance practices at a “place with codes of conduct” (Alt. bailu jer) vary according to spiritual complex. Shamans, for instance, call the spirit-owners of mountain, water, taiga, animals, and birds to help with specific tasks, such as healing or locating a lost soul. Tyvan Nikolai Oorzhak Shaman explained that they help him to identify the place of origin of a patient’s illness, for instance, whether it is in Lower Worlds. Shamans also reenergize themselves from the spirit-owners of their native land and mountain. Tyvan Lazo Mongush Shaman, for example, goes annually to Ak Bashtyg mountain in Mönggün Taiga region for this purpose. The interaction between a shaman and certain spirit-owners is dyadic, although human clients may also be present. By contrast, in Ak Jang rituals in the Altai Republic, the officiant performs rhythmical song-chants to call the mountain spirit-owners to eat and participate (chap. 5), but all participants pray, praise, bow, or prostrate (Alt. mürgüül) and make their own requests to them. In Ulagan—the administrative center of Ulagan region—individuals may also return to the temple site to put food on the altars, feed the fire, greet spirit-owners, and hang up ritual ribbons (Tel. jalama) during the fourteen days of the new and growing moon (Askanakov P). charming for hunting and animal husbandry

Mountain taiga forests are rich in game and therefore important for hunters. Each mountain has its own powerful spirit-owner that shares human characteristics. Khakas chatkhan player Pavel Borgoyakov compared its power to that of a human leader or administrative district head. It may also fight the spirit-owner of another mountain, gamble with other spirit-owners for human lives, and desire a human sexual partner. 95

part two. sounding middle worlds

Mountains are potentially dangerous places where steep cliffs, hidden gullies, fierce animals (including snow leopards, bears, boar, and wolves), and sudden changes in weather may cause harm. A hunter is also aware that when he is hunting a “wild” animal (Alt. ang), it is domesticated from the spirit-owner’s perspective (Alt. mal) (Kotozhekov P; Broz 2007, 296–97). Needing meat and fur to survive, he must interact with that spirit-owner. Borgoyakov remembered how his grandfather had suffered when he failed to do this: My paternal grandfather was Tomaskin. He lived in the taiga and went to Cedar Valley to hunt. Sometimes, I went with him. Once, he told me that he had spent about a week trying to kill game without success. When he returned emptyhanded, his wife asked him: “Did you ask the taiga’s spirit-owner?” “No, I did not,” he said. “You should have,” she said. “And you should have explained to the spirit-owner of the tree where you slept at night: ‘I have come to hunt. Please do not be greedy with your animals. I am making you an offering. Please give me a share.’ Otherwise, you will not catch any game.”

In the traditions of many Indigenous peoples, mountain spirit-owners particularly enjoy epics (see Pegg 2001a), and hunters take with them an epic performer to charm the taiga’s spirit-owner into giving game. Altaian Töölös epic performer Arzhan Közörökov, respecting this tradition, accompanied a hunting party for this purpose in 2006. Tyvan hunters perform a short vocal entreaty (iöreel) before hunting. During a research trip in 2003 with Zoya Kyrgys, for instance, we stopped at a herder’s camp on steppes just north of Samagaltai in Tes Khem region. The family had oriented the round felt tent (ög) in which they greeted us in the traditional way. The door faced south. Inside, in the north of the ög, was the tör, an area allocated for men, in which stood an altar (shiree) bearing juniper (artysh) and a lamp. Women sat in the southwest, in front of cooking equipment, and guests in the northwest. A man killed a sheep in the traditional way, by inserting the hand into the animal’s chest and nipping its aorta. We sampled Tyvan specialties including its liver, minced heart and lung, blood sausage, fermented milk, and milk-spirit. Then Kherel Yadanov told how, before hunting, he addressed the taiga’s spiritowner, explaining his presence and requesting food but never specifying which kind: Lord, please give me food for my children, I come here not to kill your animals, I come here to ask for food for my children.

Also in 2003, when I traveled with Boris Kherlii to Kyzyl-Khaya village in Mönggün Taiga region of western Tyva, Dugul-ool Chambal of the Khertek

96

3. Spirit Actors, Spirit Places, Nomadic Landscapes

Indigenous group, a hunter who both “sees” and divines, explained his own prehunting practices. First, he makes a ritual fire and divines using forty-one stones (khuvaanak) or the cracks in a charred sheep’s shoulder blade (charyn). Then, as he travels by horse to the taiga, he offers deep timbral drone-partials vocal music (kargyraa style) to its spirit-owner. According to Ai Chürek Shamaness, kargyraa belongs to the taiga and hunters use it because, like an echo, it travels far and lures spirits. In 2006, Altaian Töölös hereditary leader (jaisang) Erke Yamaev, who lives in Karakol Valley, Ongdoi region, explained that local hunters make requests from the spirit-owners of the taiga forest, clan tree, Mount Üch Engmek (source of Karakol River), and Altai Eezi Ak Byrkan. He added: “As they do this, they burn a branch of juniper [Alt.K. archyn], tie up ritual ribbons [kyira], sprinkle mare’s or sheep’s milk,1 offer food to Fire-Mother [Ot-Ene], and ask for blessing-fortune [Alt.K. alkysh-byian], saying: Animals-birds give, I ask for blessing-fortune. May the game be good and fat. If a sable, may it be black. If a Siberian weasel, may it be yellow. If an ermine [stoat] may it be white. If a squirrel, may it be blue.”

Khakas spirit-owners dislike imitations of their own voices. An exception is the spirit-owner of a Siberian stag (Kh. syyn) (Adygaev P). Hunters imitate this voice with the pyrghy, a long conical birchbark pipe played by inhalation, called by Altaians amyrgy, and by Tyvans amyrga. In 2004, Khakas storyteller and chatkhan player Pavel Borgoyakov explained the actions needed when first entering the taiga: “You must make an offering to its spirit-owner. If you go hunting, or gathering berries or cedar nuts, you must flick [seek-seek] or pour milk-spirit [aragha] onto the ground to keep your way open and address the supreme spirit of the Sky, Khan Tigïr, with these special words: We make an offering to Khan Tigïr, Let us pour [it] onto the black earth, May our way ahead and behind be open, May we be lucky in our goals.” He went on to explain that certain trees must also be honored: There are big ancient trees in the taiga to which we show respect. Elders take the young with them. If they see a birch tree with nonedible fungus on the

97

part two. sounding middle worlds

figure 3.1. Tyvan hunter playing

the amyrga conical pipe to lure a Siberian stag by imitating its voice, 2005.

trunk shaped like a woman’s breasts, the elders say: “This is a beautiful taiga girl.” Young men must then circle the tree three times and kiss them. If they see a larch with fungus shaped like a “man’s pipe,” they say: “This is the taiga’s spirit-owner.” The young women must then circle it three times, then hug and kiss it. Then they will have good luck. If we do not respect the spirit-owners in this way, something bad might happen. Someone, for instance, might fall from a tree.

Spirit-owners of domesticated animals, such as sheep and cattle, also require offerings. Mountain spirit-owners sometimes help a shepherd by herding sheep into a pen (P. Borgoyakov P). Piltïr chatkhan player Nikadim Ulturgashev told how a spirit-owner had spoken to him when shepherding in a small mountain valley: I had put three bottles of vodka under the table in the shepherd’s hut that I shared with Chamang, the head shepherd, and my uncle Sofron. Chamang spent the first night with the sheep and said: “I heard some people talking.” That night, I made a fire, cooked mutton soup, ate, and went to bed. But then I heard a voice say:

98

3. Spirit Actors, Spirit Places, Nomadic Landscapes

“If you have vodka, why don’t you put it into the fire?” I got up, opened a bottle, made an offering to the fire, and put food into it. I drank a little myself and said: “Eat from here my rivers and my mountains.” Then I poured a second and said: “Let’s drink together.” In the morning, Chamang asked: “How did you sleep last night?” I said: “I was afraid.” But he replied: “Our animals will be healthy.” The mountain spirit-owner [tagh eezi] had told him: “He was an attentive young man. He made offerings immediately when I spoke to him.” Nothing bad happened to any animals for ten whole years. Our richness increased. We received money for the wool and no lambs died. And I became a head shepherd.

Altyn Tan Tayas, musician with Khakas Ülger (Pleiades) Ensemble, added that her mother, who lives close to the Upper Töö River (Chogharkhy Töö), has a reciprocal arrangement with spirit-owners. She guards their animals together with her own, and in return they protect her cattle from wolves. Similarly, Tyvan herders offer praises and entreaties before agreeing to reciprocal care for the spiritowners’ animals and making room for them within their herds (R. Tülüsh P). musicality

Land is alive with spirit-owners who perform music. Overtones and undertones emerge from mountains and rivers, lute sounds from forests, fiddle music from caves and mountains, and each plant, tree, and rock resonates with its own tyn breath-soul rhythms. Depending on the location and direction of the wind, some can hear a spirit-owner’s khai. To do so, they must learn how to listen (Samozhikov P). Their music, though, affects human lives in positive and negative ways. For instance, when Ulagan’s Ak Jang leader Aleksandr Askanakov reproduces the music of nature’s spirit-owners, it enables him to communicate with them and travel to alternative dimensions. He explained that he uses different styles of Altaian droneovertone vocal music (köömoi, sygyt, sybysky, karkyra kai) and a combination of sybysky and kargyraa, and accompanies himself with the two-stringed topshuur lute. He continued: “These are the sounds the spirit-owners themselves produce. For instance, Altai’s ee [spirit-owner] performs kai, and earth’s ee creates the sounds of a topshuur.” He added: “Children hear kai from the other side.” When using kai to offer praises and request blessings from spirit actors during Altai/Ak Jang ritual events, Askanakov calls it “mürgüül kai.” “This kai,” he explained, “goes by itself.” Using kai and the words of “pure alkysh song-chants that have come from somewhere and someone else,” Aleksandr travels to and returns from the “other side.” A Tyvan hunter, by contrast, is aware that a beautiful girl who appears suddenly in the forest may entrap him with her weeping or sing him into another world. A hunter must also be careful when playing the end-blown shoor flute because, if he plays too well, a mountain’s spirit-owner may abduct him rather than give him game (R. Tülüsh P). Khakas hunters attract ancestral “mountain people”

99

part two. sounding middle worlds

by singing and playing, and if abducted by spirits, any resulting child has special musical abilities. Through mimetic interrelations with nature’s spirit-owners, such as Altaian musician Sarymai Urchimaev’s bird and animals sounds (1999D, 2004D), and using drone-overtone styles that resonate with the contours of the spirit-owners’ body-place, performers sense their own place in relation to local landscape, the spirit-human social structure, and the related bodies of the multiple dimensions of the tripartite universe. Tyvan Lazo Mongush Shaman explained that spirit-owners of the land love it when he uses his soft beater to accompany kargyraa and khöömei. They become calm and the sounds lull them to sleep. And Dongak Oyun-ool described how shamans and lamas in the Tangdy-Uula mountains perform sygyyt drone-overtone vocal music in dagyyr consecration rituals at an ovaa ritual cairn, after requesting blessings in algysh song-chants. He also told how spirits sing beautifully, perform drone-overtone vocal music, and play the igil fiddle. duetting in the ancestral land

It was after a strange coincidence that I experienced the musical duets of a musician and a spirit-owner. In the summer of 2005, I went to the Center for the Study of Shamanism in the Tyvan Museum of Regional Studies to pay my respects to Mongush Kenin-Lopsan, the eminent ethnographer of shamanism. He advised that—for my work in Tyva to be successful—I must “lay down my head” within sight of Lake Uvs (Tyv. Ubsa Nur), a large salt-water lake that spans the southern Tyva-Mongolia border. I had worked previously along the Mongolian side of that lake but had no plans to visit it from the Tyvan side. Walking down the road afterwards, I bumped into Radik Tülüsh, who told me that, after touring internationally for five years with ethno-rock group Yat-kha, he felt spiritually depleted. His friend Mergen, a Buddhist monk, had advised him to reconnect with the spirit-owners of his homeland, saying: “Then your body, spirit and music will be strong.” To my great surprise Radik then said: “My family live close to the Mongolian border, overlooking Lake Uvs. Do you want to come?” Historically, Tülüsh was the name of a large rich tribe (Tyv. aimak) that camped in the valleys, steppes, and taiga of Dus-Dag (Salt-Mountain), part of the TangdyUula mountain range that stretches along the border of southern Tyva and Mongolia. Dus-Dag divides Tyva’s Övür region. Having loaded up Radik’s car with provisions, small gifts, and my recording equipment, we set off, stopping to make offerings of music and white ritual ribbons (chalama) at shamanist and Buddhist ritual cairns, shrines, and trees on the way. We headed for Samagaltai, the former capital of Tyva and once the site of a large temple where Buddhist monks had performed the ’chams ritual dance and

100

3. Spirit Actors, Spirit Places, Nomadic Landscapes

figure 3.2. Radik Tülüsh enter-

tains the “spirits-of-place” with igil fiddle and khöömei drone-overtone vocal music, rock cairn (ovaa), Köndergei Pass, Tyva, 2005.

yellow shamans had also resided (Kungaa P).2 Then we turned westward, traveling along the border zone with Mongolia. Arriving at the edge of the Tangdy-Uula, we transferred to a jeep in the autumn place of Kaadyr Kyrgys, Radik’s second cousin, and headed toward Middle Pass (Art Arazy), a narrow valley that weaves its way into it. We paused before entering and looked back to shimmering silver and blue bands of sky and lake, blending seamlessly on the horizon. Then, to the spirit-owners of the valley’s entrance, Radik offered nasal kargyraa (dumchuktaar kargyraa), its richly harmonic sounds interplaying with the buzzing of purple flying grasshoppers. As we traveled along the wooded ravines and rocky riverbeds of Middle Pass, Radik explained that performing instrumental duets with nature’s spirit-owners in summer is less risky than in spring or autumn, because in those seasons they may materialize and entrance the player. At Radik’s family’s summer camp, we sat by a small brook. There, Radik’s mountain kargyraa (dag kargyraa) and shoor end-blown flute melodies dipped and dived with the sounds of the water’s spirit-owner (sug eezi). And when we left Middle Pass, the rhythms of Radik’s khomus jaw’s harp danced with the chirruping sounds of crickets. But when he played the igil fiddle, it had a startling effect. The wind instantly arose and, as Radik felt its spirit come to him, it caught his inspirational improvisations and tossed them about us (Tülüsh 2007D).

101

part two. sounding middle worlds

These sonic interactions strengthened Radik’s sense of place. He connected through them to his homeland, ancestors, and kin and renewed his energies, enabling him to recommence his musical activities in Tyva and abroad. Similarly, Khakas Valerii Chebochakov Shaman duets with a mountain spiritowner in his natal territory in Askhys region. He performs in a cave into which he descends by a ten-meter rope. He explained that his four shaman ancestors guard the cave’s hidden entrance, and he sees them, from a distance, in a beam of light. The cave is the size of an apartment, he said, and prior to drumming he fills it with a hundred candles. The mountain spirit-owner is female and sings with a high voice; his drum complements it by singing with a male voice. silence in a sacred place of khai

In some contexts, respectful behavior in spirit-charged places prohibits bad language or shouting and encourages avoidance or absence of sounds (chap. 1). Saghai Khakas musician Ai Charykh Saiyn Küchen had received initiation as an epic performer in a dream from his deceased mother’s brother (chap. 6), who had led him to the junction of two rivers, the Ulugh (Large) and Kichig (Small) Üüs. In 2005, he wanted to perform a ritual there and agreed that I could video it. We went with interpreter Vitalii Tabaev. On the way, we passed Saiyn Aal, a precollectivization camp and site of a terrible slaughter of herders, who had refused to leave the land necessary for their animals’ welfare. Eventually, we pulled off the track and stopped. Ai Charykh warned us to remain silent or whisper. He donned his waders, took his fishing rod, and asked us to wait while he caught a fish to offer to the island’s spirit-owner. After a couple of hours, Ai Charykh returned empty-handed. We ate a picnic in gloomy silence. Without speaking, he headed off and again we waited. I silently requested that the river’s spirit-owner be kind to us and allow Ai Charykh to catch a fish, promising in return to also make an offering. Ai Charykh returned: “OK, let’s go.” We walked the short, wooded path to the river, removed our shoes and socks and waded to the other side on slippery stones in icy water. Ai Charykh went ahead. Vitalii and I clambered up the bank and tried to locate him, ducking beneath branches, and stepping over fallen ones. Ai Charykh had donned a traditional Khakas shirt and was making a fire. I hurriedly set up the video equipment. In silence, Ai Charykh made offerings of the fish and vodka. Suddenly loud thunder filled the air and we scrambled to leave. An overhanging branch swept off my headscarf. It was not until we had crossed the river again and dived into the car in a monumental downpour of rain that I realized that my glasses, previously perched on the headscarf, were missing. Ai Charykh went back to find my glasses. The fall had taken out both lenses. I could not help feeling that this was a lesson. Engrossed in my video-shooting and in the haste of leaving, I had failed to make my own offering. “The ee was kind,” said Ai Charykh. “Instead of your glasses, it could have taken your eyes.” 102

3. Spirit Actors, Spirit Places, Nomadic Landscapes

Mountain People

Khakas Indigenous peoples refer to their ancestors as “mountain people” (tagh kïzïler), who continue to live in the mountains. They engage in the same social activities as humans, such as holding wedding parties, singing, and making merry, and have their own places and roads along which they travel. They may cause an accident or bad luck and strangle or suffocate those who build houses on their roads. Following abduction, they may also gift music and other special abilities to humans and have sexual relations with them. hearing and seeing ancestors

Khakas mountains are where ancestors lead human-like lives, humans receive gifts of music and song, and instruments originate. Indigenous Khakas peoples distinguish mountain people (tagh kïzïler) from “mountain spirit-owners” (tagh eezïler), although these two types of spirit actor sometimes interact and overlap. Mountain people were once one Indigenous group, until those with supernatural abilities became invisible and moved to the mountains, and those who stayed became “Tadar” (Kotozhekov P). Mountain people vary in size. When I traveled with musician Ai Charykh Saiyn Küchen in Askhys region in 2005, he told how he had encountered a group of about fifty as a young boy in 1986. He described them as half the size of humans and mounted upon small horses. To others, they have appeared as giants riding huge horses. Some look like humans but may be identified by their lack of eyebrows, particularly when viewed upside down through open legs. They may have dark or red hair and dress in traditional Tadar style. The girls, for instance, wear long red silk dresses, red shoes (Kurbizhekov P), and shawls and braid their long hair into plaits (P. Borgoyakov P). Khakas scholar Larissa Anzhiganova recounted that about thirty kilometers in the direction of Sayanogorsk lies Izykh, a mountainous place and home to giant mountain people who dress in the armor of Medieval warriors. When these ancestor spirits are outraged, she said, they turn red and become “red riders,” and added that also in this place is a bottomless well, an entrance to the Underworld from which “people who see” describe the emission of a beam of light. Nikifor Adygaev, born in Lower Töö, Askhys region, began to perform khai timbral vocal music in 1935 after making his own chatkhan zither. He played as a khaijy throughout the night at funerals and became a “person who sees” (kördïgjï kïzï) after a small tornado whipped off his hat when he was returning home late one night. In 2004, Adygaev told me that he had seen mountain people three times between 1924 and 1929. First, when returning from mowing, he had seen three girls dressed in long dark clothes with long black hair and no shawls. They remained silently for a long time before going to Kök-Khaïa (Blue Cliff), a snakeless place 103

part two. sounding middle worlds

close to his village where mountain people are known to play. The second time, he was riding home at night after ploughing when a rider overtook him and went to the mountains. “It is rare,” he said, “to see mountain men—mountain women are seen more often.” The third time, he was returning from Minusinsk, where he was unable to study because in the 1920s the communist authorities had exiled his father—who, as a takhpakhchy, played the khomys lute and performed improvized verses—for being wealthy. Adygaev had taken a train to Abakan but then walked to Lower Töö. It had taken him three days and nights. As he reached his home, a rider trotted down to the River Töö and disappeared. According to Adygaev, a human must not address a tagh kïzïler encountered in everyday life. “Otherwise,” he said, “they will catch your kut soul. Like spirit-owners, mountain people demand respectful behavior and will punish with misfortune those who do not comply, sometimes causing death or suicide. Khakas chatkhan player Nikadim Ulturgashev, for instance, described his uncle’s punishment: “Horses wearing bells came. Later, my mother’s brother, a young boy, was looking after the sheep at Alty Khubalar, on the road to the Kyrgyz graves, and when he heard the bells, he shot at them. In the morning, he saw that predators had taken eight sheep. Shooting at tagh kïzïler is forbidden, you see.” music, instruments, receiving the gift

Indigenous Khakas peoples discuss and experience mountain people in everyday life. They may hear the bells attached to their horses’ bridles or cows’ necks but only in dreams may safely verbally interact with them and listen to what Adygaev described as “our songs.” By contrast, epic performers and musicians, particularly chatkhan zither players, sometimes hear their speech and musical sounds in everyday encounters. Ai Charykh Saiyn, for instance, assumed that the group he saw as a boy was a wedding party because he could hear their jolly Khakas-sounding songs. Pavel Borgoyakov, who had heard them singing and improvising takhpakhs when asleep in the taiga, found the words incomprehensible. He described the sounds: “They sing with long, drawn-out sounds—like the wind—sometimes loud and sometimes soft. Have you heard the wind in treetops? It is the same. You cannot understand their words. But the sounds are beautiful.” In 2004, Ulturgashev confirmed this, saying: “It doesn’t sound like our language.” He had heard the songs, horse-bells, and speech of mountain people on three occasions while shepherding. At Upper Tastykh Khyiagh, he had heard them playing the khomys lute and yykh fiddle. They had also performed khai, which he tried to describe: “It sounds like the tone of this chatkhan’s string, but longer.” Plucking a string to demonstrate, he added: “It’s louder than that—it travels a long way.” Aleksandr Kurbizhekov, nephew of the famous Kyzyl khaijy epic performer Pödör Kurbizhekov, had heard them play the chatkhan zither and khomys lute. 104

3. Spirit Actors, Spirit Places, Nomadic Landscapes

Offspring of sexual union between mountain people and humans—often achieved during abduction3—may become a “mountain-born singer” (taghdang töreen sarynjy), with-spirit singer (eelïg sarynjy), or improvised verse performer (takhpakhchy) or receive the gift of understanding animal language (as had Ulturgashev’s daughter). Competitors perform improvised lyrical verses (takhpakh), taking alternate verses until one concedes defeat. A mountain-born performer, though, has special protective power (khuiakh) until after the cock crows. Übren (Nikadim) Borgoyakov was such a singer. When lost in the taiga for three nights, he had competed there against mountain people (Adygaev P). When he returned home, he was reluctant to compete with humans, mostly performing at sacrificial rituals (taiygh). This “black-awful” singer had competed against and defeated Ulturgashev’s grandfather Genka, who had commented, “I won’t last long” and had died soon afterwards (Ulturgashev P). Rejecting the sexual advances of a mountain person can bring death. Chatkhan player Pavel Borgoyakov explained how this had happened to a hunter from Lower Töö: The man went to taiga to hunt and built a cabin to sleep in. The days passed but he could not catch any game. Then he heard a woman crying outside his cabin. He lit a fire and said, “Why don’t you come in instead of crying outside?” It was the middle of the night. When she entered, he saw that she was naked and did not have eyebrows. So, she was a mountain girl. She sat at the door. He was afraid and covered himself with a blanket. He noticed that she was beautiful. Her breasts began to extend and tickled him. Because he was afraid, he beat her with a piece of wood from the fire. She ran out and he could hear her crying on the mountainside. Children there asked her: “Why did you go to that ‘person of the sun’ [künnïg kïzï]?’4 We are ‘people of no sun.’ That ‘person of the sun’ beat you and burnt your body.” She said: “I wanted to live with him, but he beat me. I will take revenge on him for that.” The hunter was unable to catch anything for a week so left for home. On his way, he came across a horse with an upturned cart and, lying under a pile of logs, saw a woman who begged him to pull her out. He lifted the logs but then she pushed him under them, saying: “You beat me, so now you’ll die beneath these logs.” And this man died. He should have been friendly towards her when they met. People tell this story.

According to Khakas instrument-maker Pyotr Topaev, all traditional Khakas instruments are “born” in the parallel Middle World of ancestral mountain people. As a “master” who makes instruments for those who are “with-spirit,” he sees in dreams how mountain people construct them and reproduces their designs and methods. This otherworldly spiritual birth enables with-spirit performers to use them as vehicles on which their souls can travel to other domains. Topaev also explained in his Abakan workshop in 2004: “When a master makes instruments,

105

part two. sounding middle worlds

he must be in the right frame of mind since he lives in this world but mediates between mountain people and the instrument’s human owner.” ancestral spirit-roads

Unlike spirit-owners, mountain people (tagh kïzïler) leave the mountains of their own volition to travel along their own roads, a spiritual geography superimposed onto the human landscape. When traveling with Ai Charykh Saiyn, we stopped on such a road to make offerings at the place he had encountered their wedding party. Ai Charykh traced with his finger the mountain people’s road (tagh kïzïler choly) as it snaked toward us from the high mountain distance, passing through the villages of Karl Marx and Molotov in Upper Askhys, and Angchyl Chon in Upper Töö. Later in the day, when returning to Ai Charykh’s mother’s village, we attempted to cross another section of a tagh kïzïler road without making offerings. The car slipped off it and became stuck in mud, and we spent an hour gathering stones to put beneath the wheels to enable us to continue. Politov village, in Askhys region, was built on Kyrgyz burial mounds and a tagh kïzïler road. Alexandr, nephew of Ulturgashev, explained that because of the latter, two “mountain women”—one young, the other older—visit regularly. They come to him when he is in bed but not asleep, usually around 1:00 a.m. Sounds herald their imminent arrival. He hears their bells ringing, mountain women singing, and his own dogs whining. This causes physical reactions: his body goes icy cold, and his hair stands up. When they enter, he invites them to his bed but tells them not to touch him. The two mountain women also visit an old lady who lives close by. As a “whisperer” (sybyraghjy) who “hears” and “sees” (körïgjï), she knows that he “has” tagh kïzïler. The whole village is also aware when they are present. Shamanic Spirits

The spirits of deceased shamans congregate in certain places to make music. For instance, they gather near Blue Mountain on the left bank of Tyva’s River Khemchik and people hear their drumming through the night either at its peak or base (KeninLopsan 1997a, 80). Lazo Mongush Shaman pointed out that people also hear them on one of several islands in the Yenisei River (Ulugh Kem) visible from the ovaa ritual cairn overlooking Kyzyl. Danger surrounds interactions with spirit actors, and therefore ordinary people avoid such places. Shamans go there to perform rituals in which they call and negotiate with spirit actors of Upper and Lower Worlds. mountain shamaness with virtual drum

In 2005, I went with Sergei Charkov and Vitalii Tabaev to visit 85-year-old Saghai Tadi Burnakova (néé Borgoyakova), who lives in the upper reaches of the River Töö, in Khakassia’s Askhys region. Tadi’s brother, Apanis, was a well-known Khakas 106

3. Spirit Actors, Spirit Places, Nomadic Landscapes

epic performer (khaijy). She could cite eight generations of shamanic ancestry in her Tagh Khargha (Mountain Crow) clan.5 At four years old, she had inherited her grandfather Chaprakh’s ancestral spirits (töstör). Those spirits and Chaprakh, who had been a powerful shaman, come to her during rituals. Other shamans in her clan were less powerful. Tadi’s father, for instance, used a fan (chilbeg) to perform purifications, and her great-great-grandfather Kham Kharak (Shaman Eye) was a clairvoyant (Kharitonova 2005, 231). Tadi is a “person who sees” (körïgjï)6 the future, deep past (including the actions of heroes), and dead souls. In addition, she is a “person who knows” (pïlïgjï) and heals. Her possession of thirty ancestral spirits and spirit-animals suggests that she is a strong shamaness. Being uninitiated because of communist repression, she did not have a costume, drum, or drumstick. The village nestled in a valley between wooded hills. Pigs wandered down the street together with dogs, chickens, and people. Inside her wooden house, it was dark. Despite her ailing health, Tadi decided to heal me. During the ensuing purification ritual, she called for help from both mountain spirit-owners (tagh eeler) and shamanic ancestral spirits (töstör). In her invocations and songs, she rejected shamanic spirits of the Lower World (in the form of snakes or worms) in favor of those of Kudai, the highest benevolent force in Upper domains. Her words suggest that both of her parents had converted to Russian Orthodoxy and that she also has a crucifix. Moreover, she sometimes incorporates a Russian Orthodox icon into her rituals. Ultimately, she stresses her identity as a Mountain Shamaness, that is, an ancestral shamaness whose power also derives from being the daughter of a mountain spirit-owner.7 She began the ritual by taking my hands, feeling the pulses on each wrist, and squeezing a little further up each arm. Suddenly she broke into song. Using a voice from deep within her chest, she swayed as if in semi-trance and performed ilik, an invocation to the spirit-owners of nature: My Great Rivers! My Great Mountains! You know what is going on, you know what happens! Guests have come to me, I will tell them what they ask, I will show them what they want to see. Seek [G1], my Great Mountains, Great Rivers! Seek to all of you. I offer it to you. May you all know. Let us understand each other. May you understand these people. I know also. How can I not know, I, Siroshka’s daughter?

After pausing briefly to sip vodka, she took a forked hawthorn branch (tiginek), which she called her shamanic tös,8 saying: “I have taken this hardwood from the upper reaches of the Black River.” Beating the air rhythmically as if playing an invisible drum with a drumstick (orba), she broke into an incantation, with 107

part two. sounding middle worlds

sounds coming from deep in her belly. With a mixture of shamanic vocabulary and growling sounds (making translation difficult), she again sang. This time, she called her tös spirit-helpers whom, she said, formed an army: With my spinning movement, My backbone and neck, My swaying movement, My flesh and blood becoming old, My swaying movement. . . .

She began to circle the stick around my head, continuing: Encircling[?] shoulder blades, I will play with them, In my right hand, May they come. My bones I will shake, . . . May they run.

Her melody changed as she encountered creatures of the Lower World— perhaps forbidden to her because of the influence of Russian Orthodoxy—and exhorted them to leave and return home: It is forbidden to slither like a snake, It is forbidden to wriggle like a worm, With teeth from [?] With cheeks from Khomys Rock. It is forbidden to walk backwards, To collide with or be hit by something you should not, Which land did you come from? Return, return!

With another change of melody, she rejected the “snake’s clothes” being offered and declared herself to be a person of Kudai, ruler of Upper Domains. Then she addressed again the spirit-owners of mountains and rivers, saying that her father was the son of “mountain people”: I am the Mountain spirit-owner’s daughter, My father is the son of mountain people, I am Siroshka’s daughter. I am the wealth of the Great Mountain, I am the wealth of the Great River, Turn into [?], It must be seen. 108

3. Spirit Actors, Spirit Places, Nomadic Landscapes

She commented, “Ah, I told it to you very well,” before singing again: Long, long ago, it happened, There was a bad life to live, Which land did it come from? Can you see from where? Can you see from where? I am the Mountain spirit-owner’s daughter, I am the Mountain spirit-owner’s daughter.

She performed the powerful purification invocation, “Alas, alas, alazy,” before continuing: I offer the mountain thyme of fifty mountains, Juniper from the twin-peaked mountain, To the whisperer [sybyraghjy] holding [the herbs], I said: “Untie the rope!” Alas, alas, alazy. Only I chop down the hardwood tree On the bank of the Black River, My father wears his cross you know, My mother wears her cross you know, The son of the mountain spirit-owner Has a cross, you know, Siroshka’s daughter has her cross, you know.

Finally, she declared: I hold on to the hardwood tree That stays near to the Black River, I am a shamaness, I am the daughter of Kham Tolgai,9 I am the son of Kham Tolgai, I am from my father’s clan, My father was Adam,10 you know.

Tadi explained that because she “went to the mountain,” and visited the mountain spirit and mountain people, they listen to her and advise her during rituals. She described the musical process. Inside Shaman Mountain,11 along with drums of deceased shamans, is a huge shamanic drum (tüür) that belonged to her grandfather, and her own tüür. When she beats her virtual drum (Kharitonova 2005) as described above (using a hawthorn or hedge rose stick), she hears the bells on her mountain drum ringing. “When the bells ring,” she said, “mountain people hear everything and tell me what to do.” The mountain is also a resting place for 109

part two. sounding middle worlds

souls. “It’s like purgatory, where sinful souls may stay for up to forty years,” she said. tyvan eeren

The complex concept eeren, referring both to the spirit actor and its receptacle, is important in Tyvan shamanism.12 Both are respected but not worshipped. The eeren receptacle may be zoomorphic or anthropomorphic in form and has ancestral connections. It may be made from wood, felt, skin, metal, or cloth and be the body of a whole animal or bird or part of it, such as a bear’s paw or eagle’s feather. The bronze mirror (küzüngü), a powerful eeren, may be found in an ancient grave or cast specially by blacksmiths for shamans. An eeren may be put in an honored place within the home, hung from the shaman’s gown, reside in the shamanic drum, be carved on the drum’s handle or shaman’s staff, or be sewn onto the headdress. Shamans create eeren bundles that include divinatory bones and ritual ribbons, which they give to clients or instruct them how to make (chap. 2). The shaman or elder feeds the home eeren with tea or milk from a nine-holed spoon or greases it with butter and fat, receiving in return its strength and protection. The spirit-owners of natural phenomena (such as a rainbow) and ancestral spirits may also be eerens. A Tyvan shaman enlivens an eeren spirit actor by whistling and playing the dünggür drum or khomus jaw’s harp during rituals. It helps the shaman to diagnose a patient’s illness, guards or rescues him or her from spirits of illness, assists in journeys, and acts as a scout (Vainshtein 1978). The eeren’s place may also be in animal form within nature. Of wolf origin (börü uktug), Manzyrykchy Shaman described how his white wolf eeren lives not in a receptacle but in the steppes. He comes when Manzyrykchy Shaman calls but is simultaneously always with him. Similarly, Lazo Mongush Shaman compared his eeren spirit-helpers to his own limbs, always connected (chap. 1). spirits of illness

Victims of spirits of illness, who reside in Middle-World landscapes, need shamanic intervention. For instance, when a Tyvan albys appears in a sandy, rocky, or isolated place as a long-haired woman or male rider and enchants a listener with beautiful singing, an albys-origin shaman (albystan khamnaan kham) can prevent the listener’s constant return to that place to sing or play music. Western Tyvans describe an albys as young with beautiful clothes but with a long, curved copper or white nose (or none), a crooked mouth, and entrails visible from the rear. Local people avoid albys-occupied places. The Khakas aza spirit of illness, who lives around graves, sometimes appears as a blue light producing beautiful songs, and may steal the souls of those who have broken behavioral moral codes or been frightened and not received shamanic

110

3. Spirit Actors, Spirit Places, Nomadic Landscapes

healing (van Deusen 2004, 61). And the Altaian aina spirit of illness, used by black shamans, inflicts epidemic diseases such as typhus, scarlet fever, measles, anthrax, and syphilis. The aina is greedy and, if a person dies, is deemed to have “eaten” that person’s soul (Kharitonova 2005, 230n11). Buddhist Accommodations and Contestations rituals, music, spirit-protectors, and land

I first experienced Buddhism in Tyva in 2002, when Tibetan monks created a mandala from powdered colored stones on the floor of a building in Kyzyl. The overlap with local spiritual practices struck me when, having taken a week to complete, the monks immediately dismantled it, processed, and dropped it into the Yenisei River as an offering to its spirit-owner. In 2003, I participated in the International Music Festival at Üstüü Khüree (Upper Temple), the only remaining Tibetan-style temple in Tyva, located seven kilometers southeast of its former capital, Chadaana, in western Tyva. As we began our journey, we stopped at the huge ovaa cairn that stands proud over the Yenisei River. Small green islands nestled together in the river below, and beyond—where green steppes merged into mountains and a vast turbulent sky—Kyzyl appeared small. We asked the spirit-owners for safe passage by circumambulating the ovaa three times clockwise and hanging ritual chalama ribbons on the square wooden frame next to it. We knew that Chadaana might be a difficult place: “Tyva’s Chicago” had an alarmingly high murder rate. Later, we also paused to pay our respects at “Adar Tösh” (Shot in the Breast) ovaa, where Soviet troops had executed Buddhist monks from Chadaana and shamans had also died. The festival, held amid ancient red larches in the Khemchik River valley, promotes tolerance of different traditions, including humanism. It intermingles Buddhist and shamanic rituals with local, national, and international spirit-infused and experimental music. On the way back, we visited Nastoyatel’ Buddhist temple in Chadaana. In this small single-roomed building, elevated to a Gelugpa temple after the Dalai Lama’s visit in 1993, we met Losal, a young monk, who had studied in Buryatia and Russia and whose great-grandparents had been shamans and monks. He described how, before communism, there had been two large temples—Upper and Lower—in the monastery complex. Lower Chadaana temple was being rebuilt and Losal expected Nastoyatel’ Khram to be incorporated into it.13 Losal, who served Chadaana, was impressive in his dedication. We stayed for Losal’s ritual, which took place amid sumptuous colors. Bright blue, green, and golden embroidered tapestries were draped over surfaces and significant objects, and the furniture was painted in red and yellow traditional

111

part two. sounding middle worlds

designs. Wearing a deep crimson robe and red-trimmed pale-yellow cap, he sat behind a low, fabric-bedecked table. On it stood peacock feathers in a quill pot, two small handbells (kongga), a ritual scepter or “thunderbolt” (dorju, ochyrom), a manual (sutra), a small brass bowl within a larger red porcelain bowl, and a tin of grain. To his right, a golden statuette of Buddha and a framed color photograph of the Dalai Lama stood before a wall painting of Buddha. In front of this were offerings—red, green, and white ritual scarves, a burning candle, a plate of unleavened bread, and a bowl of sweets. On the adjacent wall was an array of icons: framed pictures of a mandala and Buddhist gods, a porcelain figure of the White Old Man (spirit-owner of “place” and bringer of fertility), and tapestry-bound sutras. Behind the White Old Man was a framed picture depicting the Buddhist hells, draped in a pale-blue silk ritual scarf. An impressive double-headed kenggirge drum stood in the corner. It had a wide, richly decorated frame, long wooden handle, and wooden drumstick attached to it. Blue silk ritual scarves connected the head and handle. Losal began by ringing one of the small bells with his left hand while holding the scepter with his right. The rhythmical chanting lasted for about forty-five minutes and fell into sections. Keeping a wary eye on the sutra while clearly knowing some of it by heart, he interspersed his recitations with ritual actions and sounds: the pouring of milk for libations from a teapot into the small brass bowl, rhythmical handclaps and finger-clicks, bell-ringing, circling peacock feathers, sprinkling grain, and whooshing crescendos, rhythmical strikes, and delicate trills on large, bossed cymbals (shang). At the end of each section, Losal’s droning voice dropped in volume and pitch but increased in tempo; a sustained vocal note marked the end of a cymbal section; the loud ringing of a bell signaled the completion of the ritual. Musicians actively supported the restoration of both temples and training of Buddhist monks and music by organizing and participating in the Üstüü Khüree Festival of Live Music and Faith to raise funds. Buddhist monks and shamans performed healing rituals at the site and festival. Arriving in the Altai Republic in 2006, I was apprehensive about my planned return to Ongdoi region, where I had previously become seriously ill after trying to introduce myself to local spirit-owners of place. With hopes for protection, I went with eighty-nine-year-old Emil’ Sapyevna, the mother of academic colleague Svetlana Tyukhteneva, to the Buddhist Ak Burkan temple tucked beside the River Maima in Gorno-Altaisk. Built in 2004, it was a small, single-roomed wooden building. There were three monks present, including monk-musician Sarymai Urchimaev from Ongdoi region and Mergen from Kan-Oozy region. On the wall behind a long table hung a photograph of the Dalai Lama and a Buddhist tapestry (tenggerek) depicting the female Bodhisattva Tara. Ritual objects were

112

3. Spirit Actors, Spirit Places, Nomadic Landscapes

arranged on the table: a conch-shell trumpet (dung), small handbell (kongko), thunderbolt (ochyr), double-headed drum (damar), beaded rosary (ereken), and, beneath a tenggerek, two cymbals (sang). I laid offerings of money and fruit on the table and sat on a visitors’ bench placed at a right angle to it. Mergen sprinkled purification water onto my offerings and around my body while whispering a mantra. In unison, the three monks then chanted, interspersed with clapping and hand-gestures, including finger-clicking. Mergen held in one hand the thunderbolt, which brings power, and in the other the bell, which he sounded to bring wisdom (P). Sarymai led the reading of Buddhist texts in a deep rich kai timbral vocal tone. Into this soundly produced purified place, the conch-shell trumpet was blown to call Buddhist spirit actors, who might include gurus of the Buddhist lineage, patron deities, and/or a powerful Bodhisattva Tara. Rather than becoming Buddhas, who disappear from the needy world, the latter remain present (Bolle 1978, viii). Of the twenty-one possible manifestations, I expected the arrival of Green Tara, the favored Buddhist protectress of women in Inner Asian societies. In her cross-legged position, always with one foot extended, she is constantly ready to come to help. To my surprise, it was White Tara who arrived, the composite of all twenty-one, who lengthens life, protects family, and restores energy. “All-seeing” White Tara has seven eyes: two that see everyday human realities, an eye of foreknowledge in the center of her forehead, one in each palm, and one in each sole (Waddell 1972, 259). She set over my head a white umbrella (Urchimaev P), which provided calmness and well-being for the next month, well into my planned trip to Ongdoi. Both Sarymai and Mergen were keen to stress the accommodation rather than competitiveness of Gelugpa Buddhism with local Altaian spiritual practices. From 1997 to 1998, they had both attended the datsan temple in St. Petersburg. Sarymai explained that, having also trained in Buryatia and Nepal, he had opted for Tibetan Buddhism because it shared Altaian ritual practices in its use of low-pitched timbral music during rituals and in its interactions with spirit-owners. Afterwards, as in the Tyvan Buddist mandala ritual experienced earlier, we processed to the Maima River and dropped into it my fruit offering for its spirit-owner. Mergen expressed the desire to embrace Buddhist practices but with local characteristics, seeing no reason to visit Tibet or India. “What can they know about Altai? This is our Buddhism, and it is different,” he said. In addition to acknowledgment of spirit-owners and use of timbral vocal tone, Gelugpa Buddhism, the order adopted,14 also attaches colored ritual ribbons to trees and follows the same astrological system (menges). However, despite attempts to assimilate local shamanic-animist practices into Buddhism, problems have occurred. When I arrived in the Karakol Valley in Ongdoi region, for instance, local people had destroyed a stupa built close

113

part two. sounding middle worlds

to Boochy village and dedicated to Boor, the eighteenth-century monk said to have introduced Buddhism to Altai. This complex stone structure erected in the landscape caused a battle between institutionalized religion and Altaian spiritual sensibilities involving the presence of nature’s spirit actors. Ecologically minded animists argued that local spirit actors prefer their dwelling places to be more flexible, biodegradable, movable constructions, such as a stone cairn (üle) or colored cloth ribbon (jalama, kyira) attached to trees (Halemba 2006, 76–77). Also, stupas across Tyva form a national network that connects to the sacred topology of Tibetan Buddhism and its homelands of Tibet, India, Buryatia, and Mongolia. Inside each Tyvan stupa (suburgan) is a vessel containing sacred objects, such as special texts for the Protectors of the Faith (Tyv. Sagysyns, Tib. Dharmapala), that include converted spirit-owners of place (eeler). Dried juniper, earth, and healing spring water from all Tyvan regions, sprinkled over the contents, symbolize the presence of Buddhist Tyva’s entirety in every stupa. At the inauguration of a new stupa, monks arrive in groups, chant sutras, clash cymbals, and beat drums (Lindquist 2013, 84–85). Kenin-Lopsan’s creation of shamanic centers in Kyzyl was partly to combat this rise in the attempted dominance of Buddhist ontological musicality and appropriation of land. angering local spirit-owners

In 2000, drumming and other “weird sounds” made by Buddhists from GornoAltaisk upset elders and clan leaders at the Chaga Bairam lunar New Year celebration in a Telengit village in Kosh-Agash region. According to “those who know” (biler ulus), this had angered Altai Eezi (the spirit-owner of Altai), who had not attended, thereby risking serious misfortune and even death for local people. Performance of a further ritual included offerings to rectify the situation (Halemba 2006, 123). Similarly, when neoshamans from a Moscow conference arrived in the Altai Republic and began drumming to contact Altaian spirits, angry local shamans surrounded the building they were in, disconnected its electricity, and drummed up their own. Dissonance also occurred in Tyva in 2003, when Kenin-Lopsan honored the request of Finnish anthropologist Heimo Lappalainen (1944–94) to have his ashes sprinkled on sacred Khaiyrakan mountain. Local people protested the presence of an ambiguous, dangerous, posthumous sünezin soul. After the small private ceremony, shamans from each shamanic center arrived together with researchers, urban shamanists, and shamanic therapists from northern Europe for a spectacular shamanic ritual as a celebratory finale of the tenth-anniversary shamanic conference held in Kyzyl. Competition arose, though, among the Tyvan shamans over the prestigious role of leading the drumming. During hours of uncertainty,

114

3. Spirit Actors, Spirit Places, Nomadic Landscapes

the Westerners began to drum. They then experienced the full force of Tyvan Ai Chürek Shamaness’s wrath. “Such unauthorized drumming,” she said, “angers the eeler [spirit-owners] of place.” The funerary ritual also angered them in that it had defiled their territory. In addition, bitter combats later ensued between the spirit-helpers of different Tyvan shamans (Lindquist 2013, 81–83). Boundaries, Emplacement, Movement

Human journeys, essential to nomadism or mobile pastoralism, involve crossing boundaries between Middle-World territories and Middle-Otherworld dimensions in places marked in landscape. Rituals performed at those occupied by spiritowners of place enable movement across horizontal Middle-World landscapes and dimensions, while those accessed by other spirits connect vertically across boundaries to Upper and Lower Worlds.

[128.104.46.196] Project MUSE (2024-04-09 03:07 GMT) UW-Madison Libraries

territorial markers: ritual cairn, hitching post

Territorial boundaries marked by human constructions often coincide with the boundaries of Indigenous clan lands. The ritual stone cairn (Alt.K., Mo.Oir. oboo; Kh. obaa; Tyv. ovaa; Tel. üle) is the most familiar. It is often situated in a high place, such as a mountain or hill, within sight of a human settlement, so that the spirit-owner of land and place can watch over and protect those people (Lazo Mongush Shaman P). In 2003, I traveled with academic colleague Zoya Kyrgys to Tore Khöl, a lake that spans the Tyva-Mongolia border in Tes-Khem region, and we paused at Eagle Rock (Ezir Dash), a place where Kök Sayan, Sayan, and Choodar clans used to perform ovaa rituals for the spirit-owner of clan and land. Upon arrival, Zoya described how competitors battled to be the best vocalist in kargyraa dronepartials vocal style, chosen to perform for the mountain’s spirit-owner in a substyle related to the contours of the landscape: “At the summer solstice, there was a ritual at an ovaa stone cairn. Afterwards, there was a festival [naadam] with the traditional competitive sports of wrestling [khüresh] and horse-racing [a’t charyzhy] and kargyraa competitions in which breath control—involving filling the chest with air—was admired, together with other skills. The winner went to the ovaa to call the spirit-owner of place by performing the appropriate kargyraa substyle—‘peak’/‘mound’ kargyraa [kozhagar kargyraazy] or ‘steppe’ kargyraa [khovu kargyraazy]. If pleased, it granted the community a rich life.” Kyrgys explained further that males of a patrilineal clan called upon spirit actors of mountains and forests to bestow good fortune in the form of rain, good grass, healthy livestock, and male strength. The strength of the kargyraa performer

115

part two. sounding middle worlds

and manly games celebrated masculinity, and neither women nor shamans were allowed to attend. These rituals therefore traditionally consolidate horizontal place in Middle-World human and human-spirit relations as well as vertical place in relation to lineage and gender. When crossing from one spirit-owner’s domain to another, communication is necessary—an introduction, a reason for traveling, praises, and promises to respect the spirit-owner’s territory. Travelers show respect by circumambulating the boundary marker three times in the path of the sun, adding a stone or other offerings to cairns, and attaching colored ritual ribbons (chalama, kyira) to trees or a hitching post, hoping for reciprocity in the form of safe movement across the boundary and along the pathways of the spirit-owner’s territory. Spirit-owners of place are both distinctive and mutable. In 2003, when traveling in Tyva’s snow-capped highest mountain region, Mönggün Taiga (Silver Taiga), with politician and former professional drone-overtone vocalist Boris Kherlii, he explained that the spirit-owner of Ak Bashtyg Mountain appears as a woman with two plaits. In 2005, also in Mönggün Taiga, Lazo Mongush Shaman pointed to the place where a male and female spirit-owner meet to tie their steeds to a high mountain hitching post, in contrast to the single rider who watches over neighboring Bai-Taiga (Rich Taiga) region. And in 2006, Danil’ Mamyev interpreted my own vision of a blue-eyed, fair-haired woman—who stared at me deeply in Altai’s Karakol Valley—as the valley’s spirit-owner, who also might appear as a white stag. Spirit-owners may also nomadize and travel. Khakas Viktor Kishteev Shaman, for instance, had encountered one such when he went with his assistant to prepare a ritual performance for the Kapsargin clan. They traveled by car at night, taking with them offerings of food and drink for the ritual site’s spirit-owner of place. However, they discovered that he preferred cigarettes, so they hastily got back into the car and tried to leave. Appearing as a giant, he rocked the car back and forth and, as they drove away, pursued them while continuously batting it. Viktor laughed as he recounted this, saying: “He was playing with it lovingly.” Eventually they managed to cross water, the territorial boundary of the clan and spirit-owner, and he disappeared. Kishteev Shaman described another spirit-owner who, having been born on Khoibal’ steppe, now constantly nomadizes along the Abakan River. Indigenous peoples reinstated both clans and their territorial markers immediately after the Soviet collapse. For instance, in 1992 a small group, including Khakas musician Ai Charykh Saiyn and academic Viktor Butanaev, erected a hitching post (chaky) close to the boundary between the former Saghai and Kachin Steppe Dumas in Khakassia’s Askhys region. In Altai, a wooden hitching post sits outside every rural home (aiyl). When raised to face the rising sun and

116

3. Spirit Actors, Spirit Places, Nomadic Landscapes

on the eastern side of the home, it brings good luck to the family. It marks the host’s place in terms of status by the number of carved notches (three to nine) for tethering horses, and his territorial place (Mamyev P). The vertical presence of the hitching post connects that family’s land and place in the Middle World to the tripartite universe: the upper section links it to the sky and the future; the central part expresses the host and clan’s place in the Middle World and often bears the clan seal (tangma); and the lower part connects to Lower Worlds, the past and clan roots. Each section has its own spirit-owner, who also uses it as a hitching post, as described in the Altaian epic Maadai Kara: At the entrance to the ninety-sided stone yurt Is a ten-faced silver hitching post. Its lower part in the Lower World serves Aibystan, Its upper part in the Upper World serves Üch-Kurbustan, Its middle part serves the hero Maadai-Kara, Riding his dark bay precious horse. (Maikova and Kudachinova 2015, 17–18)

Removing or harming these major divisions and connections brings bad luck to the perpetrator and his or her future generations. Markers may also coincide with boundaries in topography, such as the base and summit of a mountain, entrance to a valley, or bank of a river, across which a traveler needs assistance to pass. While crossing a mountain pass requires sonic and material offerings to the spirit-owner of place, avoiding disaster when climbing a mountain can necessitate respectful silence. In 2005, Lazo Mongush Shaman cited the recent death of three foreign male mountaineers in an avalanche on Ak Bashtyg Mountain, noting: “It is important to be silent and pay attention to this lady, she is very tough on men.” otherworld boundaries: portals, pathways

In all societies, passage from one place or state of reality to another—whether in terms of status, earthly territory, or alternative worlds—necessitates crossing a threshold, involving a period of ambiguity between places. A portal through a boundary is often the home of spirits (van Gennep [1909] 1977) or the site of soundly purified places through which human and spirit actors may travel. Boundary markers in Altai-Sayan landscapes, then, are also portals that open pathways to other dimensions. Opening a portal and allowing passage through it requires ritual performances. The area of transition and period of passage may be short, as when crossing the threshold of a house. Spirit actors occupy it and are visible to a shaman (Közörökov P). Or they may be more protracted, as in initiation ceremonies or journeys

117

part two. sounding middle worlds

undertaken by shamans and with-spirit epic performers. The transition point between worlds, the “door,” must not be blocked. Khakas Kishteev Shaman told of a young Altaian shaman whose family, especially his son, was being “pressed.” Viktor’s explanation was that he had built the house in front of such a “door” in a cliff. Ritual specialists use sound to open these portals, reach other dimensions, engage in social relations with their inhabitants, and bring them to a ritual place in the Middle World. These sounds vary according to the traditions of different Indigenous groups, individual inspiration, and spiritual persuasion, as do details of the levels and spirit actors of the tripartite shamanic universe. Since portals house spirit actors and mark boundaries between worlds, they are subject to codes of conduct. Natural phenomena, such as mountains, trees, rivers, and rainbows, also provide access and pathways to vertical Upper and Lower Worlds. mountains, trees Sacred mountains, as portals, are dangerous and ambiguous. In the Altai Republic, they are bailu (“with-injunction”) places. Physical and moral cleanliness before visiting them, and respect upon arrival, is necessary. Indigenous peoples understand the moral and social implications, but these may catch out the unwary visitor. In August 2002, for instance, I met Danil’ Mamyev, founding director of Üch Engmek Nature Park (Three Peaks),15 named after the snow-capped mountain that broods over Karakol Valley and is the source of the powerful Karakol River that runs through it. Born and raised in the valley, he is the keeper of orally transmitted Indigenous knowledge and a sacred site guardian. He protects the ecology and spirituality of the valley through revitalization of that knowledge, including bai injunctions that guard biodiversity, environmental conservation, and sacred sites. He is a charismatic figure with a special intensity of eye indicative of otherworldly power (Alt. küsh). Urmat Yntai, director of AltaiKAI ensemble, commented, “Danil’ is a knowledge bearer of this valley. His eyes are like the mountain. He guards it. It is as though Üch Engmek sees.” We stood at the valley’s entrance and looked at the mountains encircling its forty kilometers of length. It was steaming hot, and the setting was idyllic. Rich golden and orange autumn leaves startled the eye, round haystacks and lazy cows dotted the lower pastures of the rugged mountains, and geese flew overhead, heading north. Among this visual splendor, Danil’ talked quietly of the energetical significance of the mountains in Karakol Valley: “If we map the bailu mountains, then this one at the head of the valley—which has two white peaks—closes the mountain circle and a net covers the whole valley. This is important because, according to Altaian tradition, it provides an energetical shield.” He went on to explain the meaning of bailu: “A mountain is bailu partly because of the physical structure of the stones. It is forbidden to climb a certain mountain or only

118

3. Spirit Actors, Spirit Places, Nomadic Landscapes

possible at certain times. But it is not only to do with prohibition. It is a place with meaning. In a bailu place, you must be attentive to what is happening around and inside yourself.” Accessing the energetical shield of the mountains that protect this sacred valley requires more than prohibition and good conduct. My own initial experience there reconfirmed the necessity for good social relations with its spirit-owners. I had asked Danil’ if I might photograph the mountains surrounding the valley to reproduce them as a panoramic view. He agreed but the camera malfunctioned. Danil’ struck a note of caution: “In Altaian Wisdom [Altai Bilik],” he said, “everything has its own time and limit. The time is not yet.” The next day, I went with him to a spirit-imbued tree at the valley’s entrance. I tied a white ritual ribbon (kyira) to its branch, introduced myself to its spirit-owner, and asked permission to work there. That night I had a dreadful lucid waking dream in which small Bosch-like creatures were biting me below the waist. I became ill, then hospitalized, and had to be flown back to England, where I took several months to recover. Mountains as energetical conduits connect to Upper Worlds by their peaks and Lower Worlds by their caves or volcanic craters. Academic colleague, philosopher, and Tengrist Nikolai Abaev explained that the most sacred mountains derive from volcanoes, for these nurture earth’s fires that connect to the sky’s fire, the sun. In the Altai Republic, Indigenous peoples perceive Mt. Üch Sümer both as earth’s fire and as its umbilical cord. Potapov, who undertook field research on Altaian shamanism for more than fifty years, suggested that reverence for specific mountains related to the World Mountain, the navel of the Earth, which connects the tripartite levels of the shamanic universe. In Altaian shamanic rituals, for instance, the crown of the birch tree reaches Upper Worlds, its trunk traverses the Middle World, and its roots penetrate the Lower World (Potapov 1991, 26). During clan sacrificial rituals, the souls of strong shamans reach Upper Worlds by climbing this tree, and they bathe in Milk Lake (Süt Köl) at its summit. Altaian spirit-owners also gather on the flat top of this World Mountain to gamble the embryo souls of children and animals with dice, chess, pebbles, and cards. The tree as conduit between worlds is a motif in heroic epics. In Gregorii Kalkin’s version of Maadai Kara, for instance, two black eagle soul-birds and two black dogs guard an iron poplar, directing heroes along the correct pathways (Marazzi 1986, 32). Elderly Altaians maintain the relationship between mountains and trees, saying, for instance, that beneath Mt. Üch Sümer is an iron leafy tree and that, in ancient times, trees took the mountain’s name. Traditionally, at a girl’s betrothal, a large cloth is tied between two birch trees, acting as a veil and signal that she is not free. In the same way, protective birches veil Mt. Üch Engmek—whose ee spirit-owner is a young woman of marriageable age (Mamyev P).

119

part two. sounding middle worlds

While healing springs provide access to spirit actors in parallel earthly dimensions, those in lakes, rivers, and streams are from Lower and—since water often appears to merge visually with the sky—Upper Worlds (Kishteev Shaman P). Health and good luck are given in reciprocity for gifts to healing-spring spirit actors, and safe passage when crossing dangerous waters. Kyrgys, for instance, describes a poetical entreaty (iöreel) performed for protection from the Yenisei River’s spirit-owner when crossing its upper reaches in Central Tyva. The entreaty repeats the word “khartygai” (hawk), accompanied by the whistling wind, over alternating melodic phrases using küüler (buzzing)—a tone like dronepartials vocal music—and ends with an entreating “kü” or “küei,” sometimes in fasetto (Kyrgys [2002] 2008, 74–76). The confluence of rivers and brooks, in the shape of a forked shamanic stick, is a particularly powerful place, where a Khakas with-spirit epic performer (Kh. eelïg khaiji) receives his gift from the spirit-owner of khai timbral vocal tone and shamans perform rituals. lakes, rivers, streams

Fire enables the continuation of life, the family, and its nomadic place in landscape. A family ritually introduces a new wife to the hearth’s fire and leaves its embers smoldering or takes them along when they nomadize. A fire is also a portal to other dimensions. A family respects Mother Fire (Alt. Ot Ene) daily within the home, aware that she becomes angry if not offered the first portion of food or drink. In such cases, a shaman must purify the home. There are prohibitions against spitting, spilling water, putting rubbish in, or stepping over the domestic fire, which provides protection and connects to spirit actors within it and to other dimensions. Shamans use fire in their rituals. For instance, Tyvan shamans conduct fire rituals in autumn, after the harvest has been gathered and food prepared; Lazo Mongush Shaman communicated with spirit actors within fire during rituals (chap. 1); Khakas Kishteev Shaman fed the spirit actors within the fire before “opening my way” at the gateway to Salbyk’s Valley of the Khans (chap. 4); and Altaian Arzhan Közörökov Shaman fed the spirit-owner of fire within his surgery and on the compound’s altar prior to his ritual performances (chap. 7). Ak Jang (White Way) rituals include a hearth altar at which participants make offerings to its fire (chap. 5). Fire and its smoke also provide pathways to other worlds, as do celestial phenomena such as rainbows and constellations.

fire

rainbows, constellations The rainbow is important for shamans, who use it to indicate pathways on their drumskins. It is also important for Altai Jang (Altaian Way) and Ak Jang (White Way) practitioners. In 2006, I met Telengit Aleksandr Askanakov, ritual leader of Ulagan’s Ak Altai Jang movement16 and an epic performer (kaichy). Drawing a rainbow as a circle with one half above the ground and the other below it, he explained that it connects with the spiritual en-

120

3. Spirit Actors, Spirit Places, Nomadic Landscapes

ergies within Upper, Middle, and Lower Worlds, and that its seven colors connect to Altai’s seven star-spirits and heroes. The seven-star constellation (Alt. Jeti Kan), known elsewhere as the Great Bear or Orion, is important in all three republics.17 According to Askanakov, seven energies emerge from Jeti Kan and reach Earth through seven mountains, that is, Mt. Üch Sümer and its six mother’s brothers. “Mürgüül rituals,” he said, “are performed for these seven heroes and Altai, and a kaichy epic performer uses kai vocal tone to tell of these things.” On the face of the with-spirit lute (eelü topshuur) with which he accompanies his own kai, Askanakov has prodded a circle of six holes, with a seventh at the circle’s center, representing Mt. Üch Sümer and its six kinship-related encircling mountains. These seven sacred mountains are also integral to the Ak/Altai Jang rituals at the mountain temple (küree) on Mount Kara Khaya, constructed in 1999 and overlooking the River Bashkaus and Ulagan village. At this küree, six altars (tagyls) form a circle with the seventh at its center. The ritual specialist lights a fire on the central communal tagyl and burns offerings. Participants place miniature mountains at the four corners of each tagyl as offerings to Altai’s spirit-owner and the seven mountains. Ak Jang ritual jangar verses, performed at the hidden mountain temple in Kulada, Ongdoi region, mention Jeti Kan (chap. 5). powerful places, boundaries, verticality, and laterality

Powerful places in Altai-Sayan landscapes do not fit the model of a fixed spatial constellation of human and nonhuman actors (Latour 1996, 374) or anthropological boundary-free, center-periphery, vertical-horizontal models for Inner Asian nomadic societies. Pedersen (2003, 240–46), for instance, argues from his work with the Tsaatangs of northwest Mongolia—who migrated there from neighboring Tyva—that the ritual cairn in nomadic landscape lies at the center of a powerful energetical field emanating from a nonhuman entity, and that there are no clear-cut boundaries. Altai-Sayan peoples, by contrast, acknowledge the presence and permeability of boundaries—whether crossing the threshold of the home, entering a valley, passing over a mountain summit or river, or moving from the territory of one Indigenous group and spirit-owner to another. Spirit actors who inhabit them are potentially dangerous and require ritual action. Middle-World travelers therefore regularly interrupt a journey to perform rituals to spirit-owners occupying such places of strong energy or power. The boundary relation becomes a means of social and physical emplacement, while at the same time enabling an accumulated sense of connection and movement. Performative sonic offerings and attunement with local energetical forces also bring changes in the human body and spirit.

121

part two. sounding middle worlds

They recreate those powerful places in local landscape and social relations with the spirit-owners of place, as well as enabling safe passage. Pedersen’s model is reminiscent of Humphrey’s punctual “chiefly” nomadic landscape of Mongolia’s Buddhist and State-oriented central steppes, portraying ego-centered notions of centrality and verticality that negate seasonal migrations and link males in replicating hierarchical lineages. The Altai-Sayan case fits more happily into Humphrey’s alternative “shamanic” landscape of the Mongolian mountain-steppe fringe, which opens up the cosmos, encompasses laterality, acknowledges movement and pathways, and embraces relational interactions with multiple energies (Humphrey 1995, 142–59). In addition, the Middle-World mountain-steppe shamanic landscape of the Altai-Sayan region becomes a flexible performance arena that—as with the peoples’ ontological drone-partials musicality—enables senses of lateral and vertical place. As Kyrgys recounted, a Tyvan traditional ritual cairn performance strengthened patrilineal descent and male reproduction while simultaneously seeking to please the horizontal Middle-World spirit-owner of clan and place. Verticality resonates with Indigenous Altai-Sayan ontologies that value lineages of kinship and creativity, respect high mountains (home of ancestors, deceased shamans, Khakas “mountain people”), reach to connect with spirit actors in multiple landscaped Sky levels, and acknowledge Lower Worlds accessible in certain ritual places (e.g., a mountain cave, a standing stone, a tree, or water). The tradition of enabling emplacement, sociality, and movement at MiddleWorld boundary markers continues to develop. For instance, sygyt drone-overtone performances at a new ritual cairn—established by musician and Tyvan Minister of Culture and Tourism Aldar Tamdyn—create a social group of international fictive kin as local traditions are adapted for global flows of tourism and international musical pilgrimage. Those social groups also carry the potential of future global nomadizing. Moreover, they mediate cultural boundaries as non-Indigenous peoples experience kinship connections with land that involve moral responsibilities (see Beahrs 2021). *

*

*

In the next chapter, we consider how Indigenous Altai-Sayan peoples draw inspiration in their music and creation of post-Soviet identities from the presence, lifestyles, musical instruments, and works of art of ancestors in archaeological sites.

122

4

Ancestors and Archaeology

This chapter explores the importance of the past for contemporary nomadic peoples in a landscape that brings together ancestral spirits, the materiality of ancient burial mounds, cultural heritage controversies, and the negotiation of boundaries. Case studies illustrate how ancestors from ancient burial sites become part of contemporary relations of personhood and senses of place. In Altai, an ancient harp is reconstructed from archaeological finds; an embalmed Ice Maiden becomes spirit-protector, epic heroine, musical icon, and contested heritage; Black Hand ancestors recently mingled with local inhabitants; and musical styles evoke ancient heroic warriors. In Khakassia, an epic narrative (as rock art) is enlivened in its ancient spiritual and astronomical center; respect is offered through timbral sounds at the site of fallen heroes and silence at sacred sites; silence and articulation are mediated when ancient rock art is transferred to musical instruments then sounded; and a multisensory shamanic ritual allows exploration of “liminality” in emplacement and transition. In Tyva, musicians and promoters connect to Scytho-Siberian ancestors, and a multifaith festival at a restored Buddhist temple enables accommodations. Indigenous peoples identify particularly with those in Scytho-Siberian kurgan burials from the Early Nomad period discovered on their land.1 Grave contents suggest that these ancestral transhumant pastoralists engaged in the same activities as contemporary Indigenous peoples, for instance, personal, leisure, and work activities (diet, accessories, musical instruments, tools), ritual practices (smoke purification, protective amulets2), and traditional horse-burials (including masking and antlering for safe passage). Although horse-burials ceased at the end of

part two. sounding middle worlds

the nineteenth century (Rudenko [1953] 1970, 284), disguise for safe passage is still practiced by epic performers, who mask their voices by timbral vocal sounds when traveling to other worlds (chap. 6), and shamans, who wear fringes over the eyes when accompanying dead souls (chap. 7). Indigenous peoples also connect to those in Bronze Age slab burials and to others who erected and decorated monoliths, stelae including statues, and rocks in different periods. There are Buddhist and Zoroastrian influences on the art of Pazyryk, Tagar, Arzhan, and Okunev archaeological periods3 (Bokovenko 2006, 875), but it is the shamanic and animistic elements that have become expressions of identity for contemporary local peoples. Let us consider each republic in turn. Altai pazyryk heroes, harp, and drums

In early spring 2006, Telengit musician Urmat Yntai drove me to a deserted valley in the mountainous region of Ulagan in southeastern Mountain Altai. It lay between the Chulyshman River and its tributary, the Bashkaus, close to the border with Tyva. Local people call the site “Pazyryk” after the five large Scytho-Siberian kurgans excavated by Russian archaeologist and anthropologist Sergei Rudenko.4 Larch trees grew in the excavated wells, blue irises surrounded them and mingled with Altaian anemones and campion, and snow-capped mountains hung in the sky on the southern horizon. A tranquil picturesque scene, this ritual landscape had experienced violence from grave-robbers and archaeologists yet still exuded power. We walked silently around the barrows and then sat close to them, imagining the nomadic clans that had gathered there to hold funerary feasts and to embalm and bury their dead. They were complex burials. Beneath stone mounds, perpendicular shafts up to ten meters deep led to rectangular wooden burial chambers, and leading to those chambers and sometimes within them were buried antlered and masked horses. Adornments on the embalmed bodies within included furs, leathers, gold, crystals, and tattoos of realistic felines as well as composite and mythological winged beasts. Bearing witness to the creative imaginations and ontology of this culture, they express in stylized dance the changing forms of the body’s passage from this to another world. Two musical instruments were discovered next to eating utensils along the eastern wall of Pazyryk kurgan 2, suggesting that they may have accompanied a ritual meal ( Jettmar [1962] 1967, 95). A reconstruction of one of them—a harp (Alt. jadaan) with wooden and skin body and sinew strings—is in the Hermitage State Museum in St. Petersburg. In the first major book written on the Siberian finds, Rudenko describes it as follows:

124

4. Ancestors and Archaeology

The resonator, eighty-three centimeters long, is hollowed out as a piece of solid wood and has four wooden stretchers along the top edge. The ends of the body are relatively wide (eleven to twelve centimeters), the middle part very narrow (up to three or four centimeters). The lower face of the body is almost horizontal, but the center concave, so that at its ends the instrument is 8.59 centimeters high, but in the middle only five centimeters. The middle part of the body is covered by a wooden sounding board stuck on, twenty-six centimeters long, with an X-shaped resonating aperture in the middle. Over the open part of the body were extended sounding membranes of thin, finely dressed leather, dyed red on the outside. In each membrane were three circular resonating holes, one near either end, and one near the middle. The membranes were fixed to the body by thin wooden pegs. At the projecting ends of the body were lugs, perhaps for suspension of the instrument from the shoulder while playing. The string holder, twenty-four centimeters high, was fixed by a strap to a lug at one end of the broader part of the body, and at the other end fixed to a bow attached to another lug ([1953] 1970, 277).

He suggested that it had four or more strings. Although structurally this Pazyryk harp resembles the angular horizontal harps of Assyrian wall reliefs, in detail it differs significantly. Its classification is also not straightforward. Is it “angular” or “arched” (see Sachs 1977, 80)? The string-bearing stick is at an angle to the resonator but, in both its boat-shaped body and the spacers inserted into its top to prevent collapse, it is like traditional arched Burmese harps. And is it “horizontal” or “vertical”? The angle of the Pazyryk harp is larger than that of other horizontal harps and it has a carrying strap that could have enabled the player to hold the instrument in a vertical or horizontal playing position (Lawergren 1990, 116–17).

figure 4.1. Drawing, following Rudenko ([1953] 1970, pl. 146), of reconstructed Scytho-Siberian arched harp, Pazyryk kurgan 2, Altai Republic.

125

part two. sounding middle worlds

Considering the discovery of two further harps in the Altai Mountains—a second Pazyryk harp found in a Bashadar kurgan in the Karakol Valley, and a harp discovered in a Mongolian Altai cave burial—I suggest that this kind of harp connects to the hunting, epic performance, and shamanic practices of Altai Mountain peoples. The horseshoe-shaped cross-section of both Pazyryk harps suggests that they were used by nomadic riders and their bodies—hollowed from a single piece of wood and with short necks—are similar to the scoop-shaped topshuur lute played by epic performer Baataryn Avirmed of the Altai Uriangkhais of West Mongolian Altai (Pegg 2001a, 81 and pl. 6). Epic performers throughout the Altai Mountain range traditionally accompanied hunters to perform for the spiritowners of game (chap. 6). Carvings on the Mongolian Altaian harp, discovered in 2008, depict a hunter drawing a bow and arrow, stags, ibexes, and dogs (Törbat et al., 2009). Such an intermediate harp, angular or arched (bow-shaped), played horizontally or vertically, befitted the movements of Altai Mountain herders and hunters between vertical and horizontal mountain-steppe pastures.5 Moreover, the concave hourglass-shaped sound hole in the wooden part of the harp of Pazyryk kurgan 2 is also evident on shamanic drums from the Altai region (see Lawergren 1990, 118n46; Emsheimer [1964] 2019, 68–75). Aleksandr Gnezdilov, an instrument-maker from Barnaul in neighboring Altai Krai region, had contacted Urmat about reconstructing the instrument from Pazyryk 2 for contemporary use. Urmat had explained that both this Pazyryk site and its harp have spiritual significance. Therefore, Gnezdilov needed to ask permission of the spirit-of-place before doing so. Urmat described the events that followed: I took him to Ulagan. It was a difficult road and severe weather, snowing. Gnezdilov worried about reaching Pazyryk, but I had a jeep, so we managed it. We talked until late about his problems. I told him: “You must throw away bad things and go to Pazyryk with good feelings.” In the morning, he wanted to go home. But at Pazyryk the sky cleared. We made jalama ritual ribbons and put them on the second kurgan. After sitting on the mound, we asked permission to reconstruct the instrument. We greeted the spirit-owner of the place with milk-spirit [araka] and performed a ritual.

These acts had affected Gnezdilov’s life, said Urmat. One year later he had married and then produced a son. He is healthy and wealthy and has a successful business. Gnezdilov’s reconstruction, though, was suitable only for ensemble concert use, so Urmat had constructed a multiple instrument: jadaan harp, jadagan zither, and ikili fiddle. (See Eles Tadykin, track “Altyn Köl” [Golden Lake] on the compact disc “Where Altai Is in Rise” [AltaiKAI 2002D]). The second instrument found in Pazyryk 2 was a small single-headed goblet-shaped drum made of ox horns bound together by golden platelets with braided ornamentation (Rudenko [1953] 1970, 277–78; Jettmar [1962] 1967, 95). 126

4. Ancestors and Archaeology

figure 4.2. Drawing, following Rudenko ([1953]

1970, 278) of single-headed ox-horn drum, Pazyryk 5, Altai Republic.

Archaeologists discovered similar drums (average height eighteen centimeters) in Pazyryk kurgans 3 and 5. Contemporary musicians connect to Pazyryk peoples as ancestors who shared the same lifestyles and spiritual practices as themselves, and to Pazyryk warriors as their own heroes. For songs about them, therefore, they often use the same combination of vocal tones and instruments as in traditional epic performance: declamatory pentatonic vocals in deep bass karkyra tone and Indigenous languages, accompanied by the two-stringed topshuur lute. The connection between Pazyryk and their own epic traditions is evident in the performances of Altaian musician Bolot Bairyshev, who often wears ancient heroic costume on stage and recorded the song “Pazyryk” during an international gathering of epic performers. Like traditional Altaian epic performers, Bolot moves vocally in this song between different drone-overtone styles and, by stressing the first beat of certain bars in his topshuur galloping horse rhythms, evokes the hero urging his horse onward (2008D). In the song “When Will Baatyr Heroes Rise?” Bolot connects the Altaians’ current colonial plight to the time of heroes, echoing the popular belief that they will rise again: When will my few people be many and wise? When will my oppressed people be free? When will heroes rise from the barrows? When will medicinal herbs, instead of tall weeds, grow in valleys? 127

part two. sounding middle worlds

When will evergreen trees, trampled by horses’ hooves, grow again? When will my humble and oppressed people Live with their heads held high? (Bairyshev and Shumarov 1996D)

Connections to ancestors and Indigeneity as well as spiritual and epic traditions also come together in the case of the Ice Maiden. ice maiden: spirit-protector, epic heroine, musical icon

In 1993, Russian archaeologist Natalya Polos’mak discovered an embalmed young woman aged between twenty-eight and thirty years in a kurgan from the later Pazyryk period (third century).6 She lay on the remote Altai Mountain Ukok Plateau, close to the borders with Mongolia, China, and Kazakhstan. Difficult to reach and suffering severe weather, it is home to rare animals, such as the snow leopard. For Altaians, it is a spirit-imbued place, where people must remain respectfully silent or quiet. Since designation by UNESCO as the “Ukok Quiet Zone” and a world cultural and natural heritage site, dwellings and crowds are prohibited. And since the controversy surrounding this young woman’s excavation, Russian archaeologists are also forbidden to dig there. The controversy centers upon the identity and treatment of the body and revolves around contested ownership, colonial power, and Indigenous rights. It provokes heated ethical discussions and arouses complex and ambivalent emotions. Buried in a huge larch coffin within a ceremonial wooden chamber, she was clearly a powerful person of high status. As tall as male warriors found in other Pazyryk graves, she had lain undisturbed and preserved by ice for more than 2500 years. Referring to her as the “Ice Maiden,” “Ice Princess,” and “Princess Ukok” began the process of reattribution of personhood to the body rather than treatment as mere physical remains. Polos’mak took this further. Unlike female Pazyryk warriors identified elsewhere, there were no weapons in this grave and instead signs of spiritual significance. For instance, adorning the felt stick supporting her three-foot wig-headdress were carved gold-foiled swan-like birds, a symbol of the “tree of life” or “world tree” used by shamans to move between diverse levels of the universe. The same hair-tree motif is on a pair of gold plaques excavated by Russian archaeologists in the eighteenth century (now in the Siberian Treasure of Peter the Great collection, Hermitage Museum of Art and Culture, St. Petersburg). Interpreted as a scene from an Altai-Sayan heroic epic, it depicts a woman sitting under a tree while cradling in her lap the head of a dead rider. He has hung his quiver on the tree’s branches, which a streamer from her headdress also entwines. Similarly, in a felt funereal hanging from Pazyryk kurgan 5, a male rider stands before a much larger female, who holds a tree with her left hand and whose size and presence suggest that she is superhuman. When the hanging was

128

4. Ancestors and Archaeology

in place, the woman faced east—the source of life and renewal—and the rider faced west, suggesting her role as guardian of the road to the afterlife ( JacobsonTepfer 2015, 1–2, 311). This superhuman evokes Umai, the “goddess of death . . . who carries off the dead” (Potapov 1972, 270). Charred grain husk particles— used as bloodless sacrificial offerings to spirit-patrons—shaped the Ice Maiden’s pyramidal wig-headdress, suggesting a form of protection for the Maiden on her journey to and in the afterlife (Polos’mak 2005). Also striking are the Ice Maiden’s tattoos and jewelry depicting animals dancing the transitions of death and rebirth ( Jacobson-Tepfer 2015, 297). Dressed as a rider ready for her journey, she wore white felt stockings, thigh-high riding boots, a marmot fur cape trimmed with black foal skin, a wild-silk blouse, and a long crimson woolen skirt. Six saddled and bridled sacrificial horses lay against the outer wall of her chamber as spiritescorts to the otherworld. For Indigenous Altaians, the lack of respect shown in her excavation, removal, and later treatment violated ancestral taboos. Her removal from Altai, without local permission, caused outrage. Techniques for defrosting the body on site caused it to decay, exacerbated by later malfunction of refrigeration in the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography in Novosibirsk. She was taken to Moscow and soaked for months in chemicals of the kind used to preserve the bodies of Soviet leaders, Lenin, and Stalin, then put on public display naked in the Museum, fueling the intensity of the Altaians’ anger. There were local predictions of problems in society, land, and universe because of the imbalance caused by disrespect for the sacred. Evidence included the events during and after the dig: the archaeologists suffered nightmares and illness; the helicopter transporting the archaeologists and Ice Maiden had to make an emergency landing; and an earthquake swallowed the local village of Bel’tir with subsequent daily tremors for six months. There were also forest fires, high winds, and the worst flooding in Altai for fifty years. Suicides multiplied (Filimonov 2010). In 2012, a further violation occurred when the Ice Maiden returned to the Altai Republic and—draped only in a thin white cloth—appeared in a glass sarcophagus in the A. V. Anokhin National Museum, Gorno-Altaisk. That visitors pay to view her body is an added indignity. There was also the question of her soul. Unlike Orthodox Christian beliefs in which the single soul departs the body at death, in the Altaians’ multisoul system, one remains with the body. Local people argued that violations and movement disturbed this Ice Maiden’s soul. A Council of Altaian elders and spiritual leaders—believing the Ice Maiden to still be “out-of-place” and therefore with a restless soul—voted to rebury her to restore harmony. Based on her lavish individual burial, “tree of life” headdress, and animal tattoos, Polos’mak cast the Ice Maiden as an independent, celibate woman possessing 129

part two. sounding middle worlds

specialist knowledge, such as a shaman or epic performer, who memorized the history and myths of her people (1997–98OS, 2005). Altaian spiritual leaders and elders repersonalize her differently. Nikolai Shodoev, leader of the Altaian Ak Suus (White Soul) spiritual organization, argues that she is Ochy-Bala, the heroine—not performer—of the epic that bears her name.7 An outstanding warrior, Ochy-Bala defended Altai against foreign invaders and gave her life for the freedom of her people. Akai Kine, clan leader (jaisang) of the Töölös, who filed a lawsuit in 2016 arguing for Ochy-Bala’s reinterment at her original burial site as a site of cultural heritage, tapped into the popular Altaian discourse that, in death, Ochy-Bala had become the spirit-protector of Altai. The Ice Maiden, he said, is the “White Lady,” guardian of the “umbilical cord of the earth,” standing as a guard at the gates of the Underworld to prevent the penetration of evil spirits. After her removal, they had begun to seep through, as evidenced by the natural disasters and human conflicts that had followed it (Siberian Times 2016). The legal case failed, and the Ice Maiden remains in the museum. Competing reconstructions and testing identify her as European, Mongolian, or the ancestor of contemporary Nenet and Selkup peoples (Filimonov 2010, 3). Despite these contested interpretations of ethnicity, the transhumant nomadic culture from which the Ice Maiden sprang has clear affiliations with that of contemporary Altaians, drawing musicians to her as proof of their Indigeneity. To evoke the atmosphere and mystery of the Ukok Plateau and its famous inhabitant, musicians often fuse traditional Altaian sounds with electric and electronic music (see collaborative compact disc and concert program “Ukok,” Shumarov and Ternovnik 2013D, and the track “Ukok,” New Asia 2006D). Bolot Bairyshev performs his song “Ukok” (2000D) in traditional epic performance style and combines topshuur lute with octaval changes and percussive, electronic, and programmed sounds when he sings of the Ice Maiden as Ochy-Bala (2005D). Such complex and unusual musical collaborations explore alternative ways of evoking the mysteries of the sacred. Non-Altaian musicians have also raised the profile of Ochy-Bala, the Ice Maiden (Zawinul 1996D; Pegg and Tülüsh 2014D). In addition, Altaian spiritual leaders, elders, and musicians connect imaginatively to those excavated from the Bashadar kurgan complex, polychromatic figures of Bronze Age slab burial art, and rock art in the sacred Karakol Valley in Ongdoi region. black hand ancestors, energetical locks, bashadar heroes, and altaian harp

When I met Danil’ Mamyev at the entrance of Karakol Nature Park (“Üch Engmek”) in 2006, he explained the kinship relation between contemporary Altaians, the figures in the slab graves, the creators of rock art within the valley, and people

130

4. Ancestors and Archaeology

excavated from kurgans there. The multilayered slab images executed in petroglyphic and pictographic techniques,8 he said, depict anthropomorphic spirit actors—with horns or feather-like haloes, tall headdresses, loop-heads, masks, bird-like features including claws,9 and animals’ extremities. Interpretations range from them representing the between-world liminality of bodies at burial to being instruments of passage from this world to the next and depicting “protoshamans.”10 According to Mamyev, these ancestors are relevant to the valley’s name, “Karakol.” Local people understand this as “Black Hand” rather than the official translation, “Black River” (Kh. kara kool). He said that some of those slab figures with elongated black arms, hands, and fingers and long black nails had been identified by the valley’s elders as ancestor spirits who had visited local people regularly until the 1940s. Dressed as humans, they had covered their long black nails and fewer fingers beneath long sleeves to conceal their identities. Mamyev called them almys, and suggested that this human species existed until the mid-twentieth century.11 We walked down the valley to the village of Bichiktü-Boom (Ru. Bichiktu Bom), which translates as “rocks with inscriptions,” a testament to its richness in petroglyphs. Although Russian academics have suggested that their function was to understand, lure, or possess animals represented in them (see Kubarev and Zabelin 2006, 87), Mamyev explained them as part of the valley’s spiritual powers: “Each drawing and stone,” he said, “is an energetical lock that connects to the spirit world and guards the valley’s potency.”12 He added: “The shape of boom is round, indicating that this is a place where people ‘see.’ There is an eye in this place.” Mamyev argues that the drawings may enable prediction, an ability that Indigenous Altaians are reawakening. Along the left bank of River Karakol between the next two villages, Boochi and Kulada, lie fifty-seven Pazyryk burial mounds. According to Mamyev, the builders of Bashadar kurgans used sacred geometry interpreted by those who “know” and “see,” including shamans. Mt. Bashadar lay near to the two largest kurgans, inspiring Rudenko, who excavated them in 1950, to name them Bashadar 1 and 2.13 Both contained humans, accompanied by sacrificial horses and decorative items including wooden vultures, carved felines, and animal-style designs. Importantly, archaeologists found the second Altaian harp there. Although fragmentary, it is about one hundred and thirty years older than that in Pazyryk 2, implying that the harp had a well-established and durable presence in the Altai region (Lawergren 1990, 112). I returned nervously in 2006, together with Danil’ Mamyev, Urmat Yntai, and my interpreter, Irene Tozyyakova, after severe illness had forced my return to England. When we arrived, vivid deep red streaks lit up the sky. It looked spectacular. Mamyev started to smile: “The spirits are having a wedding,” he said. “Everything will

131

part two. sounding middle worlds

be fine for you. Earth’s spirit-owners are greeting you.” The next morning, Mamyev arrived wearing a necklace of bright turquoise, a stone discovered in the tombs of Karakol. He took us first to the Karakol River at the valley’s entrance and framed the event as a pilgrimage, stressing the strength of the river’s energy, the sacredness of the valley, and the effect it would have on feelings, ideas, and subsequent acts. He whispered to the spirit-owners, introducing us to them as he tore white cloth into ritual kyira strips before explaining: “You must hang two strips of white cloth from a branch facing east. If you are not in the right place, you must walk in a circle in the path of the sun. Never cut the cloth. Always tear it with the grain, vertically. Introduce yourself, perform an alkysh request for blessing—praise the place and its spirit-owners.” Mamyev smiled as a crow responded to my performative actions. “An auspicious sign,” he said. “The crow sound is a transformation of energy.” As with the Ice Maiden, Indigenous people of Karakol Valley are angry that Russian archaeologists have removed their living heritage to museums. Along with grave contents, they have taken petroglyphs, stone figures (Alt. kezer tash) from the Turkic period (ca. five to nine hundred CE), and stelae. Only two of the sixteen stelae of Mamyev’s childhood remain in the valley. He was troubled that these standing stones are now “out-of-place.” “In the museum,” he said, “they are nothing. In their own place, they have energy and create harmony.” When I returned to Karakol Valley later that year with Nogon Shumarov, he played a self-composed instrumental on the jaw’s harp (Alt. komus). The melody and his interjections of growling karkyra drone-partials evoked Mount Bashadar, the warriors buried there, and the rhythms of the horses on which they rode (Shumarov 2003D). Khakassia

The Minusinsk Basin, now home to Khakas peoples, has been subject to periodic waves of migration, leaving ancient archaeological complexes from different historical periods that dominate the landscape. These include megaliths and burial mounds, mountain fortresses and temples, stone stelae incuding figures (közee) and small round stones from Okunev culture (“children of közee”). It is also rich in rock art. An ancestral site, thought to be the oldest astronomical observatory in Asia and recently identified as of spiritual significance, forms a performance arena for local rituals, musical performances, and an international festival. Striking also is a series of petroglyphs that portray an epic narrative. sunduki: epic narrative as rock art

In the northern Syra region, a group of eight sandstone mounts rise from the flood plain on the banks of the Ak River (Ak Üüs). Called “Sunduki” (trunks, chests) after the box-like shape of the first mountain,14 they dominate the surrounding 132

4. Ancestors and Archaeology

steppes, and an energetic climb yields a spectacular 360-degree view. Spiritual specialists and musicians frequent this place. I visited Sunduki twice. In 2004, I traveled with musicians Sergei Charkov, Aleksandr (“Sasha”) Samozhikov, his wife Stepanida (“Stesha”), and interpreter Vitalii Tabaev. Sergei had played the chatkhan zither through night-long rituals there for shamans and “people who see.” Most participants, he said, had “seen” spirit actors standing behind him, including a white-haired old man acting as guardian. The stone cairn (obaa) bedecked by ritual ribbons behind the summit of the first mount suggested recent ritual activities. Sasha recalled that his stepfather, Kokov, had also seen a spirit when healing by hand on Sunduki and, according to local people, the spring water there revives the dead (Samozhikov P). Sunduki was important to Stesha for she had been born and raised in the nearby northern Khaas community. Since torrential rain had prevented them from performing in Sasha’s Khyzyl place of origin and pilgrimage (chap. 2), Sasha took his chatkhan zither and Stesha her khomys lute to perform the song “What Are You?” Both were aware of recent archaeological theories suggesting Sunduki as an ancient spiritual center and the importance of the series of epic petroglyphs at the base of the fourth Sunduk. When Sergei and I revisited a year later, Russian archaeologist Vitalii Larichev was finishing the last day of his summer dig. Working there since the 1970s, he had discovered fifteen temples and identified Sunduki as an astronomical and astrological center rather than a fortress as previously assumed. He described himself as an astroarchaeologist.15 Hidden within the clefts and crests of the first Sunduk, Larichev found astronomical orientation points from which ancient peoples had monitored constellations and used the landscape to observe summer and winter solstices, calculate time, and determine the cardinal directions. He was keen to show us the petroglyphs. Larichev suggested that these seven images, from the late Tagar period, formed the earliest depiction of a heroic epic narrative and interpreted them as scenes. In scene one, the hero, a bearded hunter on skis, holds a spear in his right hand and, in his left, a composite S-shaped bow and arrow. Around his waist is a quiver and upon his head, a feather. Two smaller figures, one also on skis, carry bows and an arrow. Upper right, an unfinished figure fights a snake. Scene two shows foreigners invading and an ensuing battle. Scene three depicts the hero receiving a sword from an elder, behind whom stands a tall ancestor. A shamaness stirs ritual food in a cauldron, using a hook-shaped stick reminiscent of a shamanic drum’s beater. In scene four, a shaman rides a bear or panther. In scene five, the hero has descended into the Underworld inhabited by human-like figures with long penises. Scene six shows the hero, wearing skis, ascending to the sky. And in scene seven, he becomes a star. According to Larichev, this epic narrative suggests that participants processed to the temple (mount) and the performance of epics was a ritual activity. 133

part two. sounding middle worlds

figure 4.3. Sunduki heroic epic petroglyph showing spirit actors of the Lower World, ScythoSiberian Tagar period, Syra region, 2005.

Since 2014, a summer solstice festival founded at Sunduki in Larichev’s honor has flourished. Festival-goers witness the rising sun over the great chest on the first mount and the “killing of the dragon” as the mouth of the Dragon Stone swallows the setting sun. They may also participate in shamanic performances, chakra alignments, and horse-riding, or watch fire-eaters and wrestlers. the war stones of uibat steppe

In 2005, Sergei Charkov invited me to celebrate his ancestors with his daughter Yulia at the war stones (Kh. chaa tas) of Uibat Steppe.16 We set off from Abakan in a late afternoon with senses heightened. Sunlight bathed our car despite rain on all sides. The steppes of the Aghban Piltïrï region shone in a vivid patchwork of blue-green and, as we crossed the Uibat River, the sky behind distant mountains lit up with streaks of intense fiery red. When we reached the impressive line of forty-six war stones, Sergei explained that each was the body of a fallen Kyrgyz hero. Kyrgyz graves (sixth to thirteenth centuries CE) marked by chaa tas war stones are sometimes situated next to Tagar graves.17 Following the excavation of the burial site next to the Uibat chaa tas stones, however, archaeologists removed the corner stones of its enclosure.18

134

4. Ancestors and Archaeology

Eager to connect sonically to ancestors of the stones and burial site, Sergei and Yulia donned their traditional costumes. Then, Sergei took his yykh fiddle and situated himself in relation to the landscape, its burial mounds and heroes, and his own Indigenous community by performing “Uibat Steppe” (Uibat Chazy), a song from Kenel’s collection about the Khaas traditional homeland: Swift Uibat’s low steppe muffles itself in white flowers, The Sun and Moon of our homeland shine gold and silver. Bluish Uibat’s flat steppe merges with green flowers, My homeland, covered by countless kurgan burial mounds, Famed for its heroes (Khyrkhaas 2005D).

Then, Yulia sang two songs using epic küülïp khai vocal style and accompanying herself with the chatkhan zither. The first, “Song for Our Elders” (Ulughlargha yry), expressed respect for previous generations in both its lyrics and its traditional performance style. After introducing the instrument in “The Chatkhan’s Voice” (Chadygan üni),19 Yulia evoked earlier epic performers amid ancient monuments, enlivening connections to ancestors, spirit-owners of place, and traditional performance arts: Silent kurgan megaliths constantly in my dreams, Obaa stone cairns, the glory of time past, Khaijy epic performers seated at their feet Singing melodies that evoke happiness. (Charkova 2011D)

Finally, Sergei played the khomys lute and Yulia the yykh fiddle, and both sang and performed khai in “Epic Performers” (Khaijylar), a further song from Kenel’s collection, in which they connected to the ancient tradition of epic performance using khai vocal tone: In the place where the horse gallops, Its father used to gallop, In the land where the father performed khai, In the land where his uncle/elder brother20 performed khai In our great land, khaijylar perform. All people listen to the epics they perform. We listen to the khai of the khaijys They have “light” voices. We feel good at heart when we listen to such khai. (Khyrkhaas 2005D)

A rainbow appeared over the stones as we left for Charkov village, where Sergei bought horsetails to string fiddles and bows, and goatskins to cover drumheads. On the journey back, Sergei and Yulia performed khai in the car and, as I tried to join in, I found my own.

135

part two. sounding middle worlds

In contrast to Sasha and Stesha, and Sergei and Yulia, who had been happy to offer musical sounds to their ancestors at sacred archaeological sites, Saghai epic performer, musician, and sculptor Ai Charykh Saiyn Küchen preferred silence. boundary between worlds: silence at a tagar megalith site

In 2005, Ai Charykh Saiyn Küchen drove his wife Anna Burnakova and their two children, my interpreter Vitalii Tabaev, and myself to his birthplace, Sapron aal (Ru. Safronov) in Askhys region. Most of the four hundred people who live there are from Ai Charykh’s clan. As we traveled, he explained that the Saghais are taiga forest people and that their traditional melodies—in their use of a limited range of a fifth or sixth—differ from those of northern Khakas peoples. Traditional Saghai songs within one community share the same melody, he added, but styles and melodies vary from “river to river, valley to valley.” He left his family at his mother’s home and then drove us to Pychyktyg Közee, a Tagar burial complex of huge megaliths decorated with images of humans and creatures, both realistic and imagined. Ai Charykh pointed to a figure holding his ancestral spirit-helper (tös) in the shape of a bird and to the carved patrimonial seals (tamga) of later descendants. It was a calm peaceful place and I asked if he would perform khai. He replied emphatically that such a performance is against custom and would make him ill. Rather, this was a place for silence. It was, he said, a spirit-imbued place, a boundary between worlds, and he had himself experienced this: At that time, I was a student at the Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg. It was nearly evening, and I was drawing the stones when an old lady came over the brow of the hill, looking for her calves. “You’re drawing very well,” she said, “But why don’t you draw the birch tree?” I looked and saw a birch tree where none had been before. It was a rich birch tree, a sacred birch tree. Then she continued walking. I tried to follow but she suddenly disappeared. I took fright and ran away.

This with-spirit liminal place in landscape, marked by megaliths and rock art, necessitated human silence for Ai Charykh, but when those rock art images are interpreted as conveyors of sound and identity and are added to the bodies of musical instruments or influence its form, they mediate between silence and sound and create Indigenous connections with ancestors, ontology, and place. conveyors of sound and place: rock art and musical instruments

Khakassia’s valleys were the homelands of Scythian-type tribes, and elements of Tagar animal-style art, such as a crouching feline, belong to its earliest stages 136

4. Ancestors and Archaeology

(Chugunov 2017, 74). Okunev culture, first dated to the early Bronze Age but now thought to be much older, is a source of inspiration for contemporary Khakas Indigeneity.21 Named after the locality of the first Bronze Age burial excavated in 1928, this period is characterized by rectangular slab-faced burials and huge stones, some forward-bending with faces or “masks” in their bellies. Okunev faces are part-human, part-animal, and three-eyed, with coronas variously interpreted as tree-branches, sunrays, energy lines, or tuning forks. Some bear images of anthropomorphic and realistic creatures. There are also long figures with tall headdresses, wolf people, and shamans. Contemporary shamanic costumes and practices connect to pictorial elements on Okunev monoliths and slabs (Leont’ev and Kapel’ko 2002, 23–29). The richness of this artistic heritage has influenced neighboring cultures, such as that of Karakol (Savinov 1997, 205–8). In 2004, Aleksandr Kotozhekov, member of Chitigen Theatre of Drama and Ethnic Music and of the Executive Body of the Khakas People, expounded on the symbolism of Okunev rock art. He pointed to the importance of nature’s sounds to nomadic peoples and their ontological significance in rock art, suggesting that nature’s sounds and drone-partials vocal music (khai), which also draws from nature’s timbres, are expressed in it. He elaborated: “Sound is movement, the beginning of something. Everything sounds. Sound is the ‘breath of humanity.’ The most terrible sound is thunder. When thunder sounds, nature begins to revive. Animals in rock art have open mouths, as if they are shouting. A line from a person’s mouth in rock art represents khai.” Kotozhekov went on to explain the symbolism of rock art and monolith forms copied or sculpted on instruments. Let us consider a few examples. On the back of the body of Saghai musician Sibdei Tom’s khomus lute is carved an Okunev petroglyph from a slab stone from Aghban piltïrï region, deposited in the Minusinsk Museum by ethnographer I. T. Savenov in 1911 ( Jacobson-Tepfer 2015, 47). Its name, the “Girl Stone” (Kh. khys oba/khys köse), arises from the female face and body depicted on it. The face has three eyes, with its two everyday eyes widely set as the base of a triangle. Below these are three straight parallel lines, widely set nostrils, and a smiling mouth. A corona of wavy lines radiates from her head, reminiscent of branches with leaf-like terminals and the Altaian Pazyryk burial associations between female spirit actors and the tree of life described above. The three-eyed face design on one of Charkov’s drumheads is like that on a ceiling slab stone from kurgan 2 at Verkh-Askiz, Upper Askhys region. Its features also recall the Girl Stone, but its male face has a tuning-fork rather than tree-branch corona. The neck of an yykh fiddle made by Sergei Charkov is based on a monolith from the left bank of the River Bir’ (Gryaznov 1969, pl. 141; Jacobson-Tepfer 2015, 51). Both fiddlehead and monolith are carved, slightly forward-bending, and crowned by a wild ram’s head. On the front of the fiddle’s head, at the ram’s chest, a small 137

part two. sounding middle worlds

figure 4.4a. Drumhead design by Sergei Charkov from ceiling slab of kurgan 2, Chogharkhy Askhys (Kh.)/Verkh-Askiz (Ru.) burial complex, Upper Askhys region.

face supports a ladder-style structure and, on the lower third, a three-eyed parthuman part-bovid face or mask stares out. At this creature’s chest level is a squared circle, also found on both sides of the fiddlehead, and its two tuning pegs emerge from the gaping sharp-toothed mouths of ferocious creatures. Snaking its way up the back of the fiddle and monolith is a narrow ladder or backbone with triangular extensions. The Okunev-style bull painted on the side of Yulia Charkova’s chatkhan zither is found on stelae in Askhys region. It depicts the spirit-owner of the stele, of Yulia’s chatkhan, and of the animal totem spirit of her father Sergei’s Khaas ancestry. Similarly, carved onto the pegbox of Saghai musician Ai Charykh Saiyn Küchen’s yykh fiddle is the long, thin mask of a three-eyed Okunev face, taken from the bowed stelae of the same period, below a superstructure containing other faces. Kotozhekov explained how such facial features relate to the low, medium, and high vibrations of the tripartite universe. He described corona and wavy lines as “tuning forks that detect sound.” A man with waves across the cheeks depicts the spirit-owner of thunder, he said, the “father of vibrations.” Such waves are vibrational sounds of the sky and the “breath of life.” Tuning-fork shapes on the head are important, for they organize energies from the “other world,” a power transferred to contemporary instruments when the petroglyph is copied onto it.22 The eyes support those energies—the left eye is cold and the right one hot. Our world is represented by the mouth. Parallel horizontal lines below the eyes separate the sacred realm (of the dead) from the everyday Middle World. Spirit 138

4. Ancestors and Archaeology

figure 4.4b. Sergei Charkov and daughter Yulia playing yykh fiddle and chatkhan zither (with totemic

bull rock art decoration) at archaeological site on steppes close to Abakan, 2004.

actors have three eyes,23 and triangles indicate sounds. A squared circle denotes the sun. According to Ai Charykh Saiyn Küchen, a narrow ladder or backbone with triangular extensions represents seven khut souls, which in a human body disappear gradually within one year of death. Khakas rock art, then, conveys the importance of sound to nomadic peoples. When the sounds of rock art are copied onto a musical instrument, its music sounds Indigenous ontological place in terms of community, ancestry, nature, and the universe. The capacity of sounds to make such connections, and to accomplish contemporary social transitions as well as reaffirmations of traditional social space and identities, became evident in a multisensory shamanic ritual performed at the gateway to a major Khakas archaeological site. a multisensory shamanic ritual

About sixty-five kilometers northwest of Abakan lies the extensive necropolis of Salbyk, the burial complex of Tagar rulers. Within this “Valley of the Khans” are more than fifty large and middle-sized kurgans and many small ones. The Great Salbyk kurgan, most famous of the megalithic monuments in Siberia, is the largest. Pyramid-shaped and surrounded by a huge square “fence” of stone slabs, it rose to a height of more than

gateway to salbyk’s “valley of the khans”

139

part two. sounding middle worlds

twenty meters before its excavation by S. V. Kislev between 1954 and 1956.24 On the basis of new analyses, this kurgan dates to the seventh century BCE. In 2002, Khakas Viktor Kishteev Shaman, Head of the Society of Traditional Religion of the Khakas People—Center of Shamanism (Obshchesto traditsionnoi religii khakasskogo naroda—Tsentr shamanizma), and Aleksandr Kotozhekov, who, in addition to his musical and political activities, is a shamanic ritual assistant and a man with “a moon eye,” chose the gateway to this valley as the location for an “opening the way” shamanic ritual. This kind of ritual is often performed for a client who is suffering from or wants to avoid an obstruction on their pathway through life. I had requested it to enable my research work in Khakassia. The multisensory participatory experience became a “rite of passage” into Khakas society and culture that chimed with van Gennep’s classic theory of the tripartite structure of rituals and anthropologist Victor Turner’s development of it. The first stage, separation, was achieved by a retuning of self and personhood during the journey and arrival at the site. During the liminality of the ritual itself, I experienced Indigenous Khakas ontological practices, explained in detail as we traveled back to Abakan, where I was reincorporated into a new place in Khakas society. As we traveled by car along the Minusinsk Basin toward Salbyk, Kotozhekov began to distance me from the purely visual impact of the landscape through a combination of verbal statements and small rituals. Using history, mythology, and contemporary ritual activity, he situated our traveling group: over there was evidence of early Bronze Age Afanasiev culture, considered European in origin, and further north lay Sunduki, which, following Larichev, he described as a natural observatory and sanctuary used by ancient Tagars. As we passed between the domains of different spirit-owners, we “fed” them by burning mountain thyme (irben ot), throwing broken cigarettes to the ground, and sprinkling distilled mare’s milk (aragha) before sampling it ourselves. The cigarettes were broken, it was explained, because in the spirit world everything is reversed. For this reason, the clothing and possessions of the deceased are always spoilt at funerals, so that they will be restored in the “other world.” Classic reciprocity was being sought. In return for satisfying the taste buds of the spiritowners of landscape, we hoped for safe and positive experiences in their domains. The togetherness of Turnerian “communitas” was already beginning to be sensed. Crossing the mountain pass between the towns of Chernogorsk and Prigorsk, we came to the Mountains of the Sun (Taghlar Künnyng), so called because they lie east-west along the sun’s route. On top of them stand archaeological remains. Kishteev Shaman continued the process of separation from my former emplacement by situating me within a ritual landscape. In this place, he explained, when the sun changed its path on December 22, he had lit four fires and sat in their center. Fire is important, he said, because its smoke connects Middle and tuning in to ancestral landscapes

140

4. Ancestors and Archaeology

Upper Worlds. Later, he pointed to another ritual site. Those attending had become afraid, he said, because too many spirit actors had participated. Some had mistaken a group of young girls in Khakas dress as human, and there was much consternation when they disappeared. Eventually, we veered off the road and stopped at the gateway to the sacred valley, marked by two standing stones. These, together with a small cairn (obaa), delineated the ritual’s performance arena. Taking a small axe, Kotozhekov chopped wood to make a fire, propping up the sticks in a triangular shape and in a position that formed the eastern apex of a large triangle. The base of the triangle was formed by the two standing stones. These were oriented in the same way as the chain of kurgans within Salbyk Valley—the shorter, broader, female one in the southeast and the slender, longer one in the northwest, the extreme positions for moonrise and moonset. Brooding mountains seen through this doorway provided a dramatic backdrop. Kishteev Shaman propped his drum (tüür, lit. “skin”) on its rim in the grass with its open back facing the direction from which the wind blew to receive energy from its spirit-owner. He lodged its beater (orba) inside, then sat cross-legged next to the drum.

figure 4.5a. Ritual Performance Arena: Standing stones form the Gateway to Salbyk’s Valley of the Khans, 2002.

141

[128.104.46.196] Project MUSE (2024-04-09 03:07 GMT) UW-Madison Libraries

figure 4.5b. Shaman’s drum propped up to receive energy from the spirit-owner of the wind.

figure 4.5c. The researcher is placed cross-legged on a bearskin as the ritual assistant feeds the fire

with milk-spirit (aragha).

4. Ancestors and Archaeology

Kotozhekov set a wooden tray laden with food tidbits in front of the shaman and drum. After a while, Kishteev Shaman picked up the drum and walked around with it, rubbing the skin with his left hand in a circular motion. He put it next to a small stone circle clearly used previously to make fire. Then, he laid a huge brown bearskin, with its black legs outstretched and face intact, on the ground southeast of the fire. He asked me to sit on it, cross-legged. “In sacred places, you need to tune yourself,” he said. “You need to feel.” sensing liminality The ritual began. Kotozhekov put mountain thyme into a small round container, while Kishteev Shaman carried nine kebabs—each with a piece of horsemeat, sheep’s heart, and liver, and decorated with chalama ribbons— around the fire three times in the path of the sun. Kotozhekov then propped them around the fire and lit it. He placed the wooden tray laden with cheese, bread, sausage, and bowls next to the fire together with the bowl of mountain thyme. As the fire took hold, he fed it with aragha milk-spirit. Behind me, Kishteev Shaman began to beat his drum. Facing southwest, he fell to his knees. Drumbeats and bells rang out, both at similar volume. He beat quickly in a steady 4/4 rhythm, with the emphasis on the first beat of each bar. Then he moved clockwise around the fire kneeling and drumming as Kotozhekov sprinkled more milk-spirit onto it. Kotozhekov held the bowl in his left hand, from which also dangled a large Buddhist bell. He again offered milk-spirit to the fire, chanting rhythmically to it while intermittently ringing the bell. The drumbeats mirrored the intensity and flickering of the fire. Kotozhekov knelt before it. Then, he moved clockwise around it while feeding it with milk-spirit, horsemeat, and bread. He made nine offerings before giving the same milk-spirit and food to me. Sitting among the tall grass and flowers, I peered across a carpet of green, yellow, and white to a fire bedecked with multicolored ribbons. The smells of the fresh grass mingled with the smoke from the fire and the offerings. The colors chimed with the decorations on the costumes of the shaman and his assistant and with the vast sky and its puffy white clouds. Once the fire had taken hold, Kishteev Shaman moved westward and came within my line of vision. The sudden sight of him squatting, hunched over his drum, unexpectedly wearing a black helmet-mask, provided a contrasting vision of darkness and unpredictability. It was a visual shock. He continued to drum. After a while, he moved around, faced me, and fell to his knees. As the fire flared and the shaman’s drumming intensified, Kotozhekov instructed me to relax, stop gripping my knees, and turn my palms upward. He made offerings while bowing and chanting to the fire. Aurally, the effect became increasingly intense as the persistent drumming, bellringing, and chanting increased in volume and depth. I struggled to relax but felt the friction of bear’s

143

part two. sounding middle worlds

figure 4.5d. The shaman appeared dark and unpredictable.

fur, the heat of the sun and fire, the taste of horsemeat, sheep’s heart, and aragha milk-spirit. The sonic pounding vibrated through me. The surroundings became shimmering strips of mauves, blues, and greens. My eyelids began to blink at an alarming rate, and I felt apprehensive. Could I see a small face in the fire reaching toward a kebab to taste it? Kishteev Shaman’s drumming slowed slightly, and the assistant’s chanting and bellringing increased in volume. Kotozhekov then ceased to chant and increased the speed and intensity of the bell to match that of the drum. While Kishteev Shaman continued to drum, Kotozhekov instructed me to move east of the fire, bow to it in the direction of the standing-stone doorway, then circumambulate it three times clockwise, and place three kebabs into it on each circuit while making requests of its spirit-owner. As I completed the circuits and made my requests, the drum sped up and the assistant’s bell followed its speed and rhythm. Eventually the sounds became more measured, the drum louder and the bell more intermittent. With a change of rhythm (stressing alternate notes) a climax was reached, and the drum began to fade. The shaman had completed a full circle, finishing drumming at his starting point in the east. 144

4. Ancestors and Archaeology

I was directed to walk toward the stones and, as I paused before them, Kishteev Shaman ceased drumming and approached. Taking his drumstick (orba), he beat it on my shoulders, then pressed it into the center of my back, drawing a sign with it. He pushed me forward. As instructed, I stopped in the doorway and contemplated which way to turn before passing through and turning left. Tucking myself into a niche worn into the rock of the bigger of the two stones, I felt its texture just as countless others who had preceded me. Seeing the milk stains on the stone where it had been fed, I felt the presence of all who had offered there. We then crossed the short distance to the stone cairn (obaa) into which had been placed a stick bedecked with chalama ribbons. We each tied three ribbons to the stick: blue at the top, then white, then red. As I walked toward the obaa, a steppe eagle soared above me and, as we drove into the valley, it perched on the stone I had chosen, causing much excitement within our small group. reincorporation: body of spirit, place of spirit On the journey back to Abakan, Kishteev Shaman eased my reincorporation into a new position in Khakas society by giving me his own insider’s perspective on the proceedings. First, he explained his own experience of ritual and place. Choosing a ritual place, he said, depends upon the vibrations of the person for whom the ritual is to be performed. A shaman must listen to these. This place had been chosen because it radiates energy caused by a geological fault running along the mountains and passing between the stones. Our ritual was conducted on the side of positive rather than negative energy. It was also chosen because of ancestral links with Europeans. Skulls found during kurgan excavations in the sacred valley included the archaic “Europoid” type. During the ritual, he said, he had followed the instructions of participating spirit actors. The bear was important for Kishteev Shaman for it is his main tös, his ancestral spirit-helper. It had told him to make another drum, covered in bearskin. I was disconcerted to discover that he had placed me on the bearskin so that it would absorb my power. He had propped up his drum because it had become weak, and the ritual could only begin when it had regained its power. The wind’s spirit-owner (ee) had breathed life into the spirit actors within the drum. The shape on the back of the orba beater, a “Y,” was the same as a shaman’s stick that contained his spirit-helpers. The perpendicular handle was called bars (“wild animal”) and the horizontal handle, kupis (“bowstring”) (Potapov 1968). Kishteev Shaman had covered his drum and beater in elk skin, indicating that it had an elk spirit-owner, and was a means of travel and protection as the shaman journeyed across the different levels of the universe. The colors used on both drum and clothing created relations: white connected to ancestors, red to nature’s spirit-owners, and blue to the sky. When attached to a tree or to a stick in a ritual cairn, the connections made

145

part two. sounding middle worlds

were slightly different: red must be the lowest color to connect to Earth, white in the middle to connect to air, and on top must be blue, to reach the sky. Wild mountain thyme had been burnt to purify the air before and after the ritual. As soon as the ritual began, a man with red hair hanging over his ears stood behind me. The ancestral Kyrgyz, Kishteev Shaman explained, had red hair as do tagh kïzïler “mountain people.” This spirit actor, though, was a European, who had died after going there to buy horses for export. He wore the traditional Khakas clothing in which he had been buried—according to tradition, a great honor for a guest. Other participating spirit actors also wore traditional dress. The man had, therefore, wrapped a Khakas shawl around my shoulders, embracing me into Khakas culture and history. He had held his hands above my head throughout the time I sat on the bearskin. On this occasion, the other spirit actors were mostly women. They did not dance because it was not a feast, but they sang. He had begun to drum in the east because that is the direction of the rising sun and orientation of a yurt’s door. He moved from east to west because these directions are traditionally associated with female and male respectively, and I am female. His drumming called the spirit actors. First, he had flown over the place and invited the spirits of the four directions. When they came, he spoke to them and to the spirit-owners of the surrounding mountains in shamanic language. He flew with the sound of the bells. I had examined the drum and beater. On both sides of the drum’s perpendicular handle and on its back were attached percussive sound-producers: two small round bells, two cloched bells, and two thin metal cones (khongyro [G1]). Two small round bells were also attached above the horizontal handle at the northwest and northeast positions on the drum’s circumference, and a single small bell was attached at the base of the vertical handle. A small bell hung around the shaman’s neck. All sounded as the shaman beat his drum. “The bells go whoosh,” he said, “and I go with the sound.” On one occasion, “people who can see” had come from neighboring Krasnoyarsk, he added, and were surprised at the speed with which he flew. He was unable, though, to regulate his speed, for when the drum’s bells sound, he must fly with them. Kishteev Shaman had chosen colors to adorn himself that connected to the levels of the universe to which he would travel during the ritual. I had inspected his black leather helmet. It had an upturned brim. Black leather braids led from the brim to the crown and attached to each, close to the crown, was a single turquoise stone. Meeting there, the braids were bunched and secured by a string of white beads. This imitation of the traditional male hairstyle, he said, enabled his spirit-helpers to pull him out if he became stuck. Black—the color of the Underworld—was chosen for the fringes covering his eyes (to conceal his identity from malevolent spirits) and for his tunic, knee-length boots, and drum beater’s grip and ribbons. This beater (orba) drove on his drum’s animal-spirit to Lower

146

4. Ancestors and Archaeology

Worlds. White (cowry shells and ribbons on the beater) and blue (blouson, tunic decoration, silk bag around neck) connected him to the Upper Worlds, and red (drum’s wooden horizontal handle, armlets on blouson, trim on tunic, sash, necklace) gave him access to Middle Worlds. He explained that he had hung mirrors on his back and front to deflect malicious spirits. Spirits enter the third eye first, then the top of the head, and finally pass in between the shoulder blades. When he first began to use the mirrors, these spirit actors had hurt his shoulder. They continued to hurt him for some time, testing him. If he passed their tests, he said, he would accumulate power. The sign he had made on my back was in the shape of a “V.” He had beaten me on the shoulders with his orba until he felt my emotions rise, then drew them down. I had become animated by the ritual, so, before walking through the door, I needed to be “balanced.” “V is a symbol of spirit: body of spirit, place of spirit,” he said. Such a sign is placed under the doorstep or behind the door of a traditional dwelling (aiyl) to protect it. I had chosen the male side when I walked through the doorway, as in the gendered orientation of an aiyl, because I needed energy. The spirits had shown support by sending a steppe eagle that did not attack me or the shaman. As we drove back through the now transformed landscape, the shaman’s assistant continued to impart his own understanding of the former inhabitants of his land. He wanted to connect to the Sakhas of northeast Siberia, who had kept horses in that place since the seventh century, with the Sakhyas of Tibet, and with Europeans. Khakassia used to be the center of Eurasia, he explained, an area which stretched from the Carpathian Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. He reiterated the importance of Aryan tribes who had traveled eastward in the Afanasiev period, now considered to precede the Bronze Age ( Jacobson-Tepfer 2015, 40), and the Bronze Age Andronovo and Karasuk cultures, citing myths and legends to flesh out his theories. Kishteev Shaman’s ritual was set within the referent of Khakas tradition. The circular performance arena delineated by his drumming trajectory transformed the landscape into both domestic place (as in a round felt dwelling) and a circular portal (that connected human and spirit actors from other dimensions). Vocal praises, drum sounds, and associated jingles called spirit actors to that place. Fire, as provider of cooked food for spirit and human participants, strengthened senses of community. During the three stages of this ritual, my body experienced sounds (drumming, percussion, chanting, wind, fire) together with heightened vision (colors, landscape, steppe, sky), smells (fire, grass, food cooking), tastes (horsemeat, sheep’s offal, milk-spirit), and touch (bearskin, beater, heat, sun, breeze). It was

bodies, sounds, place

147

part two. sounding middle worlds

part of a multisensory process, serving to transform space into place and to alter connections to Khakas landscape and society. Sounds, necessary for the effectiveness of the ritual, were part of the multisensory and extrasensory experience. The assistant’s chanting and bells wooed the spirit-owner of the fire, while the shaman’s jingles, activated by his drumming, enabled him to fly above the place and to invite and communicate with spirit actors. The bodies that were sensing this ritual were involved in processes of personhood with visible and invisible forces as well as with each other. In the sense that this performative bodily experience fused self, time, history, and local knowledge, Casey’s phenomenological account of place is pertinent (1996). The shaman and his assistant used post-Soviet freedom to connect themselves through ritual performance to that valley, to archaeological monuments, to their own (and, through the presence of a European spirit actor, my own) imagined histories and ancestors. Perhaps because the client was a foreign researcher, there was more fluidity between the three ritual phases as identified by van Gennep ([1909] 1977) and developed by Victor Turner (1969), between liminal and liminoid, and their coordination with associated feelings of communitas. For instance, during the preliminal separation phase—our journey from Abakan—feelings of communitas akin to comradeship began to emerge as Kishteev Shaman and his assistant told stories that enlivened the landscape’s spirit actors. This mood became stronger in the early phase of liminality within the gateway’s performance arena and merged with a kind of emotional effervescence (Durkheim [1912] 1965). This embraced all human and ancestral spirit actor participants as ritual offerings were made, food shared, Khakas clothing donned, and vocal entreaties, drumming, and timbral sounds filled the air. In its fullness, the dramatic ritual also hinted at an underlying Indigenous-based “social drama” (a bubbling breach and crisis not yet able to reach a phase of public action) (Turner 1974, 37–41) that under Russian rule has seethed for many years. Indigenous traditions were performed in contestation of the position of minority Khakas peoples experienced within broader Russiandominated society. Tradition and culture were evoked as a means of resistance by an Indigenous minority in this private ritual, whereas those who tried to perpetuate Khakas culture without prior approval in public would be arrested. The ritual’s performance arena was situated at the juncture of multiple thresholds. The stones formed the doorway to the sacred valley and marked the boundary where positive and negative energy zones to the east and west of the stones met (Kuznetsov P). The stones, situated on a geological fault through which energy and radiation leaked upward, functioned as plugs in the entrance from Middle to Lower Worlds. Fire was a portal of entry for spirit actors and its smoke the pathway connecting with Upper Worlds. In addition, the performance arena marked the threshold of two social states for the initiand (from outsider—with

148

4. Ancestors and Archaeology

Western experience of landscape, spirituality, and personhood—to insider) and Khakas participants (connecting in the post-Soviet era with pre-Soviet ancestors and traditions, spirit actors, and foreigners). During the journey back, our sense of communitas was consolidated through dialogue, explanation, and interpretation. Arriving back in Abakan and entering Khakas society, my own position and understanding of it certainly had changed. What, then, had the Khakas participants gained from this event? The shaman and his assistant had been transformed too. By sonically inviting their ancestor spirits to share their social space, they had reaffirmed traditional social relations and senses of place denied to them during the Soviet period. For instance, although contemporary Khakas people live mostly in wooden houses or flats, the social place within the ritual was inhabited as if in a traditional dwelling. This traditional domestic place was mapped onto broader space and landscape (see Humphrey 1995) by moving with the path of the sun and the cardinal directions. Likewise, Indigenous spiritual practices and ontology were reaffirmed—a modality also previously prohibited. Social relations with spirit actors, history, and place were reestablished, and those between ritual officiants and researcher changed as I reached a deeper understanding of the sociality of a spirit-imbued landscape and its importance to Khakas personhood. The performance of these social relations was an act of resistance and reappropriation for the shaman and his assistant. Although freed from the Soviet system with its accompanying Russification and created ethnicities, they remain part of an Indigenous minority in their own land. In urban situations, Russian culture predominates. Russian rather than Khakas, for instance, is the language of public and academic discourse in Abakan. During this ritual, the landscape, with its ancestor spirits, spirit-owners, and living archaeological monuments, joined them as actors in the political struggle for post-Soviet identity within the Russian federative republic. Emergent aspects of personhood reinvigorated the officiants’ resolve to strengthen the culture and the position of Indigenous minority groups in post-Soviet society. Almost as a bonus, the overt reason for conducting the ritual was also fulfilled. I received the research funding I had applied for and my “way was opened.” It was also opened through the link established in the ritual between my European and their Khakas ancestors, bringing with it initiation into Khakas culture and communitas with Indigenous Khakas peoples. Tyva arzhan burials, jaw’s harp, stone figures, rock art

Tyvan musicians connect themselves and their music to archaeological finds and animal-style art from Scythian burials, stone persons of the Turkic period (sixth

149

part two. sounding middle worlds

to twelfth centuries CE), and rock art of the early Bronze Age (fifth to eighth centuries BCE). A second-century CE bone jaw’s harp (khomus), discovered in Aymyrlyg 31 burial ground close to the Yenisei River, aroused great interest since contemporary musicians love to play the metal form of this instrument. The Arzhan Scythian burial complex, one of the earliest in Eurasia (late ninth or early eighth century BCE), lies in the southern foothills of the Western Sayan Mountains of northern Tyva, about sixty kilometers northwest of Kyzyl.25 Arzhan-2, eight kilometers east of Arzhan-1, contained nine thousand golden objects (from the late seventh century BCE), including a female’s high headdress—held together by a pair of golden needles decorated in animal style (Nagler and Parzinger 2006)—reminiscent of that of the Altaian Ice Maiden. A bronze plaque in the form of a coiled feline, excavated from Arzhan and believed to have been a breast ornament on a sacrificial horse ( Jacobson-Tepfer 2015, 259–61), forms the cover of Voices from the Land of Eagles, a compact disc featuring soloists from the early Tyvan music group Ensemble Tuva (1991D). Huun-Huur-Tu’s Ancestors Call (2010D) epitomizes the connections to ancestors marked in landscape by stone persons from the Turkic period (kizhe közhe). When the cardboard sleeve that bears drawings of four such persons is removed, the same design appears but with the faces of the band’s members (Kaigal-ool Khovalyg, Sayan Bapa, Radik Tülüsh, Alexei Saryglar) replacing the figures. Its title track, “Ancestors,” calls for spiritual strength, expansion of herds and wealth, and help from the great powers of the Tangdy steppe. With somber drumbeats, igil fiddle horse rhythms, soaring vocals, and evocative calls, its lyrics connect with the Tyvan landscape, horse riders, stone persons, and different drone-partials vocal styles: Yenisei, the Mother River, and the powerful Sayan mountains Have been my motherland from ancient times. Sweet sounds of sygyt and khöömei Have been my song from ancient times. Even though the ancestors of sygyt and khöömei Turned into stone statues, For our soul and heart to be alive We, your descendants, sing khöömei and sygyt. Even though the ancestors of kargyraa Turned into stone statues, To soften your hard hearts, We, your descendants, sing kargyraa. (2010D)

Similarly, the cover of Tuva Ensemble’s Tuva: Echoes from the Spirit World (1992D) depicts a stone person found near Bizhiktig Khaya (Written-on Rock) on the flood plain of the Barlyk River in western Tyva (Beahrs 2014, 73). The 150

4. Ancestors and Archaeology

same stone figure is portrayed on the cover of Huun-Huur-Tu’s DVD Been Away for a While: Huun-Huur-Tu in Tyva (2007OS). And petroglyphs from cliffs on the banks of Tyva’s Yenisei River are superimposed onto a photograph of the Sayan Mountains on the cover of Tuva: Among the Spirits, promoting a sound ideal that stretches beyond Tyva to include musicians from Sakha-Yakutia in northern Siberia (1999D). During my Tyvan fieldwork, spirit-imbued places were beginning to be reconstructed and celebrated. Renovated ritual cairns, often upon mountains or passes, provide opportunities to make an offering. During our journey to Ōvür region in 2006, for instance, Radik Tülüsh chose to perform khöömei accompanied by the horse-headed igil fiddle before a large ovaa ritual cairn in Köndergei Pass (fig. 3.2b; 2007D; chap. 3). When traveling on separate occasions with Boris Kherlii and Lazo Mongush Shaman, we paused at Mount Khaiyrakan, one of Tyva’s nine sacred mountains (Brunton 1994, 1), lying one hundred and five kilometers along the main route westward from Kyzyl. Known also as “Bear Mountain”— home to Mazhaalai, the ancestor of humans, who descended from the Azarlar Sky people—it is in the form of a prostrate bear sipping from the Yenisei River (Ulug Khem) and has become a traditional place to honor those shamans and Buddhist monks who died during the Soviet period (L. Mongush Shaman P). Following the Dalai Lama’s visit to Tyva in 1992, it is also the site of a Buddhist stupa and, beyond this, a birch-bark tepee (choom) containing Buddhist offerings and a bear’s skull. Further back, out of sight from the road, is a nine-stone–pile ritual cairn (ovaa), where shamanic ceremonies are conducted. Perhaps the most impressive reconstruction is the Üstüü Khüree monastery complex in western Tyva, where Buddhist and shamanic rituals are also performed, and the International Festival of Live Music and Faith has been established. Üstüü khüree temple and festival

Historically, the monastic complex of Chadaana, the largest in Tyva, staged elaborate rituals including the annual Tantric masked dance-dramas, ‘cham.26 It was closed in 1930 and destroyed in 1937, together with all Tyvan Buddhist temples, as part of Stalin’s antireligious campaigns. Üstüü Khüree is historically relevant for two main reasons. First, the last hereditary ruler of Tyva and former monk, Hung Noyon Buyan Badyrgy, had attained the level of Geshe in philosophy, sanskrit, medicine, and astrology there and, between 1905 and 1907, had built the Tsogchin main temple. Secondly, it was the site of Tyva’s “last stand” against communism. Upon defeat, it was from there that Tyva had “asked for Russian protection.” Buyan Badyrgy became head of the independent People’s Republic of Tyva but was then executed during the communist repressions. He was rehabilitated in 2007 during the Üstüü-Khüree Festival by decree of Tyva’s President, Sholban Kara-ool (The 151

part two. sounding middle worlds

New Research of Tuva, https://en.tuva.asia/212-ustuu-huree.html). In 2012, a replica of Üstüü Khüree (Upper Temple, Temple of 1000 Buddhas) was completed behind the single remaining wall of the original Tsogchin Temple. No masks or instruments survived, only sutra texts, ritual objects, and statuettes. It was after meeting the Buddhist monk Losal at the Nastoyatel Temple in Chadaana in 1999 that Igor’ Tülüsh, Art Director of the Philharmonic’s Symphonic Orchestra and himself a musician, founded the Üstüü-Khüree Music Festival to raise awareness and funding for reconstruction of the Buddhist complex. As a result, twenty young monks traveled to India and visited the Dalai Lama’s monastery at Dharamshala. By the time I became a festival jury member at Üstüü Khüree in 2005, it had blossomed into the International Festival of Live Music and Faith. The timing of the festival is astrological and sometimes coincides with the Dalai Lama’s birthday. In 2005 it began with a musical parade led by monks along Chadaana’s streets. Political representatives followed, then figures wearing ’cham masks, including the White Old Man, animals, and birds. Traditionally dressed musicians brought up the rear playing drums, bells, and long büree Buddhist trumpets. Campers at the festival site set up their tents in a clearing among trees, where there was a small river, and close to the ancient mud wall of the Tsogchin temple. A Buddhist ritual opened the festival. To mark the Dalai Lama’s visit and declaration that the “eternal light of this temple still shines,” his portrait hung above an altar table placed in front of the eastern wall. On this, festival participants laid offerings of milk, sweets, and coins and attached bright blue, green, and white ritual scarves, as well as yellow Buddhist prayer-flags to wooden poles behind it. Tyvan musicians and guests constructed the stage. Following principles of tolerance and equality, local amateur performers alternated with famous professional Tyvan musicians. In 2005, the latter included Sainkho Namchylak (TriO & Sainkho 2005D) and Alash (2017D); in later years, Huun-Huur-Tu (1993D, 2010D), Chirgilchin (1996D), Yat-kha (2000D), and Tyva Kyzy (2005D) also participated. Although initiated to support Buddhism, the festival embraces other spiritual complexes. For instance, the American jazz band Sun Ra Arkestra, perpetuating the cosmic philosophy of its founder Sun Ra (d. 1993), played there in 2004 and 2005 under the direction of the alto saxophonist Marshall Allen. Moreover, there is a tradition of shamanic ritual and stage performances at Üstüü Khüree. Buddhist monk Losal cited the shamanic healing of a patient with a serious thyroid infection in 2003, and in 2004, Ai-Chürek Shamaness performed drum-based rituals before joining Choduraa Tumat and Marshall Allen on stage to play the metal jaw’s harp (demir-khomus).

152

part three

Attuning to Upper and Lower Worlds

5

The White Way

This chapter considers how sonic pathways between Middle and Upper Worlds are opened during domestic and clan rituals of the Altaian spiritual complex, Ak Jang (White Way),1 referred to in academic literature as Burkhanism. While acknowledging the presence of the Underworld and its Lord, Erlik Khan, Ak Jang focuses only on the benevolent spirit actors of different Sky domains. It is said by many to be peculiar to Altai. During fieldwork, some Altaians argued that it is based on Indigenous knowledge (Alt. bilik) (see Shodoev [2011] 2012, Shodoev and Kurchakov 2003) or has roots in Tengrism, Manichaeism, and Zoroastrianism (Yamaeva 2010), others that it is a branch of Buddhism (S. Urchimaev P), and yet others equated it with the “Altaian way of doing things” (Altai Jang), with which it shares ritual practices and connections with nature (Askanakov P). However, predominant were those who linked Ak Jang with the seventeenth-to-eighteenthcentury West Mongolian Jungar (Oirat) Khanate and Burkhanism. The latter, an early twentieth-century movement that arose among southern Altaian nomadic pastoralists, initially opposed both Russian influences and shamanism (Danilin [1932] 1993) but nevertheless took on shamanic and Buddhist influences. Presenting case studies of two contemporary Ak Jang mountain-temple clan rituals, this chapter illustrates how kaleidoscopic connections enable local place to be sensed while accomplishing seasonal and personal transitions. It notes the importance of the “message” transmitted by a range of vocal sounds, as well as a process of “unsounding.” Combining sensory and multisensory experiences and set within the referent of Altaian Ak Jang and epic traditions, Ak Jang participants acknowledge the “power of the word” as they connect to the past by unsounding

part three. attuning to upper and lower worlds

the names of the Burkhanist movement’s early twentieth-century leaders, to respect their suffering during its demise and, before that, the traumatic end of the Jungar Khanate. Finally, the chapter considers how the deep timbral vocal tone kai, essential for a with-spirit epic performer, has become integral to contemporary Ak Jang. First, let us consider the connections made with the Burkhanist movement, the Jungar Khanate, and the repercussions, in terms of sound, of the suffering Indigenous Altaians endured during these periods. Beginnings, Re-Creating, Unsounding

The Burkhanist movement occurred after Altaians had struggled with Russian agricultural colonization, immigration, land dispossession, and loss of traditional leaders during the latter half of the nineteenth century. The Russian Soviet regime, fearing Ak Jang as a nationalist threat, ensured its brutal suppression. In its postSoviet revival, it reclaims Indigenous ontology, including the creation of place in relation to Indigenous histories, and a contemporary society and cosmos once again inhabited by both human and spirit actors.2 “Burkhan,” a complex concept, remains important. According to Altai wisdom or knowledge (bilik), bur means “liver” and kaan means both “blood” and “sacred.” By extension, burkhan shares the light, life-giving essence of the liver and is also a sacred place where human and other-than-human pure souls are born and can develop. They are places of birth and the development of spirits and souls. There are earthly burkhans—for instance, Earth Mother ( Jer-Ene) and human, animal, bird, and plant burkhans—and those who have their place in the Sky domains of Ak Jang ontology (Shodoev [2011] 2012, 77–87). The trigger for the movement was in 1904 when Chugul Sorok, the twelve-yearold adoptive daughter of herder Chiot Chelpan, encountered a messenger from the deceased Jungarian prince Oirot Khan (chap. 2) in the form of a White Rider, who prophesied his imminent return. The oral message delivered to Altaians instructed them to abandon Russian influences, shamanism, and blood sacrifices and to pray instead to burkhans, including the main benevolent Upper-World spirit actor and philosophical concept Üch Kurbustan, and the sun, moon, and fire. The White Rider became known as “White Burkhan” (Ak Byrkan) (Danilin [1932] 1993, 24, 86). The verbal message remains important to Ak Jang as both the ritual leader (jarlykchy) and spirit-interceders (jaiyk) sound and carry them in individual, home, and clan rituals to participants and burkhans in Middle and Upper Worlds. Depending on Indigenous clan practices, the jaiyk is embodied in a receptacle, such as a white cloth, colored ribbon of cloth, sheep- or hare-skin rope, hare’s pelt, or image (Shodoev P) and enlivened by ritual sounds and acts. Oirot Khan, a leader of the Jungar Khanate Tengrist and Buddhist Khanate, is important to contemporary Ak Jang. While Tengrism and Buddhism both 156

5. The White Way

acknowledge a tripartite universe, Ak Jang practitioners follow Tengrism in their communication with spirit actors of Upper Worlds only. For this reason, Ak Jang is contrasted with shamanism (Kara [Black] Jang), in which Erlik, Lord of the Underworld, and his spirit-helpers play an active part.3 Oirot Khan became part of the Ak Jang pantheon, together with heroes from Altaian oral epics and tales, and Ak Jang practitioners await his return. When I met epic performer Elbek Kalkin in his traditional wooden dwelling (chadyr) in Kan-Oozy region in 2006 he lit a fire in his open hearth, took up his topshuur lute, and sang: The moon will reach the Golden Mountain, It will even reach the mountain ridge, Golden Oirot Khan will come, And our people will become one nation. The sun will reach the Silver Mountain, It will even reach the Brown Mountain, Silver Oirot Khan will come, And our people will become one circle.

While valuing the early movement, contemporary Ak Jang is being recreated and reimagined for current needs. Debates rage about the location, design, and content of temples and rituals. For instance, when activist Aleksandr Askanakov and followers constructed a temple complex (küree) on Kara Kaia (black rock), a mountain above Ulagan village in Ulagan region, it caused a rift in the broader Altaian Ak Jang community because the site’s name contained the word “black” (kara). The spring ritual event (mürgüül) to Altai’s spirit-owner (Altaidyng eezi) introduced by Askanakov in the 1990s created discord among local Telengits who preferred to make their own individual offerings (Broz 2009, 28–30). Altai Kizhis in Ongdoi and Kan-Oozy regions are concerned to remain within the traditional continuum of the early movement. For them, Oirot Khan is a generalized ancestor who connects a traumatic historical past and a difficult present. As Altaian academic Elizaveta Yamaeva stressed to me in 2010: “We Altaians feel part of continuous space-time and with that comes memories of great suffering.” Those memories affect the sounds that are acceptable in Ak Jang ritual practices in the villages of Kulada and Upper Talda in Ongdoi region. Altaians employ a system of word substitution, replacing prohibited (bailu) names, such as those of gods, spirits, ancestors, and respected kin. In Ak Jang, this shows respect for the suffering of Altaians and those in the Ak Jang movement during their turbulent history. Ak Jang spiritual leader Ol’ga Erokhonova added another reason: “Words have power, their own energy, and, to preserve that, significant words are avoided.” Two periods of suffering, then, are important for Ak Jang practitioners, both of which are linked to the figure of Oirot Khan. The first was after the fall of the 157

part three. attuning to upper and lower worlds

Jungar Khanate in 1758, when southern Altaian clans, who had joined that Oirot tribal alliance’s fight against Manchu-Chinese and eastern Mongol troops, fled from the final bloodbath in West Mongolia to their current homeland. Kumdus Borboshev of the Tele clan, who lived in Kulada village in Karakol Valley and participated in rituals there, explained that they built the first altars—now part of the Ak Jang mountain-temple complex (küree)—upon their arrival. He added that twelve hereditary clan leaders (jaisangs) had signed a letter in that valley asking Katerina, the Empress of Russia, for protection. It was written in west Mongolian tod bichig, a script created by Zaya Pandita in 1648 that remained in use until the twentieth century. The second began after the violence that followed the first ritual event (mürgüül) organised by Chugul Sorok in Kyrlyk village in Tereng Valley, KanOozy region. The belief that Oirot Khan would return to free Altaians from Russian rule had led to Russian fears of Altaian nationalism and Oirot unification. According to eighty-year-old Töölös clan leader Erke Yamaev, who had helped to reconstruct the küree above Kulada village in 2002 (Yamaeva, Pegg, and Terkina n.d.), nationalism was not Ak Jang’s focus but suspicions of it had catastrophic consequences even at its beginning: “Chugul Sorok invited people from the whole region. My grandfather, a clan leader [jaisang], attended.4 Russians in Biisk misunderstood and thought they wanted to leave Russia. They killed many people.” Those who attended this event—including clan leaders, their assistants (demichis), and wealthy local tribal leaders (beys) from across western Altai (Shinzhina 2004, 45)—were attacked, beaten, and in some cases killed by priests, missionaries, and baptized Kazakhs.5 Yamaev told how the leaders were imprisoned before eventually being released without charge: “They imprisoned the girl, her ‘uncle’ and five or six people in Biisk for five months. People complained about their imprisonment, and they pleaded ‘Not guilty.’ They had a Russian attorney and people came from Moscow and Leningrad. They said: ‘We follow Ak Jang, and we make mürgüül.’ And so, they let them go. In 1908, they began to make mürgüül again.” Undeterred by the violence, Ak Jang developed rapidly in the western regions of Ongdoi, Shebalin, Kan-Oozy, and Kök-Suu Oozy, although some returned to shamanism after typhoid decimated jarlyk ritual leaders and cattle. Tirii Akemchi, who encountered Buddhism when he served in Mongolia as a Russian translator, became the Ak Jang leader. The movement was supported by the emergent intelligentsia, including Siberian artist Grigorii Choros-Gurkin. Ak Jang jarlyk “messengers” were brutally repressed as hardline communism and collectivization took hold, with punishments spanning loss of voting rights, property confiscation, imprisonment, exile, and death by firing squad (Shinzhina 2004, 46–49).6 As Yamaev put it: “In Soviet times, Ak Jang people disappeared. If they performed

158

5. The White Way

rituals or prayers, they were taken to court. The Soviets created their own jang: atheism. Only when they disappeared did we begin to make free mürgüül. Before that we were afraid to offer ritual ribbons [kyiras].” Words that continue to be avoided include Ak Jang (replaced by “Altai Jang”) (Erokhonova P), shüüten (clan rituals, replaced by mürgüül) and archyn (juniper, replaced by jazhyl, “green”). Chugul Sorok is referred to as Aky Keree (White Light), and Chiot Chelpan as Abai (Grandfather) or Abaiys (Uncle) (Shinzhina 2004, 140). Academic colleague Elizaveta Yamaeva explained that Barnaul Mandaev (b. 1869), who was exiled to Kazakhstan in 1936, is called Ada (Father). Üch Kurbustan is replaced by phrases such as Ulu-Byrkan, Upper Jaiaan (Upper Great One), or Upper-Staying Jaiaan (Öröö Turgan Jaiaan) (Mandaeva P), or together with other spirits and burkhans called by the respectful terms “Kairakan” and “Örökön.” Protective hero spirits of the Ak Jang pantheon, such as Oirot Khan and Shunu, are also not mentioned by name. In oral poetry performed in mountain-temple clan rituals, suffering is expressed through metaphor rather than direct reference. For instance, the verses of “Büramailu Ödükti,” recited to me by Elizaveta Yamaeva, use the traditional felt boot worn by the jarlyk (Ukachina, Yamaeva, and Tolbina 1993, 144) to evoke their loss of Indigenous identity: Buramailu felt boots, Our broken Altai! During a destructive century, Our soul-bereft Altai! Vast felt boots, Our decimated Altai! During a bad century, Our soul-bereft Altai!

Domestic Rituals enlivening spirit-interceders

The home ritual, Jaiyk Chööktör, is performed in early spring when milking the mares begins (Yamaeva P). The verbal interjection “chöök” and accompanying aspersions of milk or milk-alcohol enliven the spirit-interceder (jaiyk) to enable it to hear the ritual specialist’s song-chant (alkysh), then transmit it to Ulu-Byrkan (Üch Kurbustan) and its Upper-World emanations. When juniper becomes “with-spirit” (eelü), it takes on jaiyk properties. Supplications are also made to the spirit-owners of place and hearth. Early Ak Jang followers distinguished two colored cloth ribbon jaiyks: white, the interceder between humans and Üch Kurbustan; and yellow, which reaches

159

part three. attuning to upper and lower worlds

all Middle-World spirit actors (Vinogradov 2003, 119). When I visited Nikolai Shodoev in 2006 in the Museum of Traditional Altaian Culture in Möndür Sokkon, Kan-Oozy region, he explained that in contemporary Ak Jang, traditional Altaian knowledge (Ak Bilik), including that related to jaiyks, has developed. The white jaiyk, for instance, relates to Mountain Altai (the republic) and the yellow jaiyk to “small Altai” (a broader area including the cities of Barnaul, Biisk, and Novosibirsk in Altai Krai region). The white jaiyk is associated with the hearth. During clan rituals, it transmits messages to the Sun Burkhan (Kün Byrkan), which grants vitality and governs development. Additional colors communicate with different burkhans, for example, blue to Sky and Shili Byrkan, green to Tös Byrkan (Ancester Burkhan), and pink to Ai Byrkan (Moon Burkhan). offering to the fire, respecting the hearth

Burkhans occupy the fire and hearth, which are therefore venerated and subject to many injunctions. Offering to the Fire-Mother (Ot-Ene) is one of Ak Jang’s three main rituals (Danilin [1932] 1993, 182). She receives the “head” (bazhy) of fresh tea and the first portion of food. The way an offering burns is significant. Complete consummation, for instance, denotes that it is accepted but black smoke is a bad sign. In clan leader Erke Yamaev’s wooden home (aiyl) in 2006, three cloth ribbons (jaiyks) hung in a row by the hearth, in the male honorable place in the north. These, he explained, were to defend it. He reminded me of the taboo against stepping over its “head,” a prohibited place (bailalyk) at which he performed the Mother Fire ritual (Ot takyr). Yamaev then sang a ritual song (mürgüülding kozhongy): Head of the hearth, grains of ash, Let us act in accordance with its bailu rules, With forty-two white burkhans, Let us abide by its canon of laws. Head of the fire with its oboo cairn7 of ash, Let us act in accordance with its bailu rules, With thirty-two white burkhans, Let us abide by its canon of laws.

Songs about heroes (jangar) are also sung within the home. In 2002, in Yakonur, Kan-Oozy region—where Ak Jang originated—Didii Toloeva and Müngülchi Bairysheva, from the Kypchak clan, sang four jangar songs by the Ak Jang altar and jaiyk ribbons in Didii’s home. Performed in unison, each consisted of fourline verses with line-initial rhyming and had the same restricted melody. First was a jangar about the heroes Tüükei, Karchaga, and Irbizek:8

160

5. The White Way

When my uncle lived, We went up a small hill, When Tüükei Baatar lived, He gathered a great army. When my dear uncle lived, We passed through a narrow valley, When Karchaga Baatar lived, He led many people. A white-grey horse has a long silky mane, When Alyp Baatar saw that horse, it gleamed like sunlight. A blue-grey horse has a long jewelled mane, When Irbizek Baatar saw it, it sparkled like sunlight.

They followed with a jangar about Shunu, the son of Galdan Baatar, and another about Mt. Altyn Tuu and the Kadyn River, where, according to Didii and Müngülchi, heroes live. Finally, they performed “Byrkan Jang” (The Burkhan Way). These jangar songs, they said, draw upon Altaian epics. They added that it had been difficult to perform rituals during the communist period and that they had had to speak Russian when visiting a town. However, in rural contexts they had continued to sing Ak Jang songs in their own language, for Russians did not understand it. These songs, then, became a form of resistance that enabled local people to keep Indigenous spiritual traditions alive. protecting the home

The home is purified by white smoke from a burning branch of juniper. Elders hang jaiyk ribbons and sprinkle milk with requests for blessing-fortune (alkyshbyian). Clan rituals begin inside the home where all participants gather. The ritual leader (jarlyk) puts juniper on an oboo-stone in the hearth and feeds the Fire-Mother (Ot-Ene). If the ritual is to be performed at a distance, Ot-Ene is fed on the day that sacrificial meat is boiled in the home (Yamaev P). Clan Rituals: Altai’s Ear

Two annual clan rituals held in küree open-air mountain temples are central to Ak Jang: Jazhyl Bür (Green Leaves) and Sary Bür (Yellow Leaves). During both, offerings are made in the hope of ensuring an open and clean road (Yamaev P), successful hunting, plentiful food, increased livestock, and healthy and successful children (Chechaeva P). The rituals also help to cross the boundaries from winter to spring and summer to winter and prepare the participants for transitions that are important for survival.

161

part three. attuning to upper and lower worlds

Jazhyl Bür (Green Leaves) is held close to the spring equinox, when “Altai’s ear opens,” the mountains’ spirit-owners (eeler) awaken (Chachiyakova P), and food is becoming available again after a long hard winter. The first “sound of the sky”—thunder—heralds the event (Chechaeva P). Traditionally, clan spirits (ülgen) or “pure ancestors” (aru tös) are venerated at the event by sprinkling milk and consecrating a light-colored horse. This involves braiding the horse’s mane with ribbons (kyiras) before releasing it back into the wild herd (Anokhin, quoted in Vinogradov 2003, 118). During consecration, the ritual leader (jarlyk) puts the sacred bowl (aiak) on the horse’s back and whips the horse a little. If the bowl falls upside down, it is a good omen and evidence of the acceptance of the offering (Yamaeva 2010 MS, 4). Sary Bür (Yellow Leaves) is performed close to the summer equinox, when requests are made for “blessing-fortune” (alkysh-byian) for the approaching difficult winter before “Altai’s ear closes” and the mountains’ spirit-owners sleep. This ritual, at which a sheep is sacrificed, is traditionally dedicated to Üch Kurbustan or Ak Altaidyng Eezi (Spirit-Owner of White Altai) (Danilin [1932] 1993, 182). Both clan rituals are referred to as mürgüül, a term which in contemporary use encompasses the whole event including respectful gestures, such as bowing, and sounds (verbal praises, entreaties, and musical offerings), performed to spirit actors of Upper Worlds. preparations and purifications

Participants must purify their bodies during the preliminal rites of separation. This is partly achieved by abstinence from sexual activity and alcohol, food restrictions (for example, no salt or meat) and refraining from disturbing spirits by digging the ground (Yamaey P). If a body has become impure because of a death in the family or a crime committed, ritual participation is forbidden. At both Kulada and Lower Talda, careful preparations of food and other ritual items contributed to the purification process. Elena Mandaeva, who attended the Kulada ritual, explained: “We prepare for three days before going to mürgüül. All people purify themselves by preparing food, juniper [artysh], and ritual ribbons [kyiras].” Taboos surround food preparation in this preliminal period. For instance, bread must be broken with the fingers rather than cut (Chechaeva P). Ritual participants also go to Kara Suu Tongmok Suu (Black Water Nonfreezing Spring), where, after purifying themselves, they hang ritual ribbons on the branches of a sacred birch tree with silent requests. ritual participants the temple as living architecture As with every aspect of nature, the architecture of the temple (küree) has spirit and therefore is a living participant in

162

5. The White Way

the sensory ritual process. Its individual elements are all able to grant favors and to feel emotions, such as enjoyment, as is the ritual process itself. The küree is constructed to gather Indigenous knowledge (bilik) and past experiences. Human ritual participants know about Ak Jang history, their clan’s migrations, and the significance of the küree. The Kulada temple’s design connects with the deep past of presocialist history, with influences from Manichaean temple architecture and from the clan leaders who had fled to Altai at the fall of the Jungar Khanate (Borboshev P) with their knowledge of Altai Jang and the mandala of Jungarian Buddhism (Sarymai Urchimaev P). A küree comprises a complex of altars (tagyls), wooden poles (süme), a hitching post (chaky), birch trees (bai kaiyng, jaiyk), and sometimes a perimeter wall (cheden) (Yamaeva 2010 MS, 4). A survey of thirty-five historical and contemporary kürees in Mountain Altai revealed that the shape of altars and the form in which they are set out may be rectangular, square, or in the shape of the sun (circular) and new moon (crescent) (Yamaeva, Pegg, and Terkina n.d.). At the kürees in Kulada and Lower Talda, eight altars formed a crescent, while in the küree above Ulagan, six altars form a circle around a central seventh. Of major importance are the sun and moon, the foci of Ak Jang worship as commanded by Oirot Khan’s messenger, White Burkhan (Ak Byrkan). The temple always faces east, the direction of the rising sun. The hitching post and birch trees are the axis mundi, the point of connection between Upper, Middle, and Lower Worlds. Since Ak Jang practitioners look primarily upward, these—together with the columns of smoke from the fire and the fire itself—provide conduits along which communications travel to burkhans and other spirit actors in Upper and parallel Middle Worlds. Spirit participants and good fortune also travel along these conduits to the küree. Because of these potential arrivals, it is sometimes called kündü-küree, “reception” temple (Tybykova 2005, 124). The küree forms a performance arena, the staging for prescribed bodily movements intertwined with certain sounds. One meaning of küree is “circle.” Yamaeva proposes a link with the term kur (“circle”), used to designate “people united by relationship or common deed,” “people of one circle” (bir kura ulus), and “relatives” (bir kura töröön) (Yamaeva 2010 MS, 4). In both Kulada and Lower Talda, the altars form two semicircles, with large altars on the inner and smaller ones on the outer. Participants create circular performance spaces by positioning themselves in a semicircle around the back of the altars, and women stand in a circle to sing jangar songs. At Kulada and Upper Talda, the circular shape of the küree site is also evoked by ritual circular movements and gestures made following the path of the sun. For instance, the küree is circumambulated two, four, six, or eight times by participants

163

part three. attuning to upper and lower worlds

(Borboshev P), ritual ribbons (kyira) are circled in the purifying smoke of the circular hearth-altar, and food is circled above the head before offering it to the fire.9 These movements encourage the circulation of energy between different dimensions of the universe, as do offerings of animal sacrifice and food with ritual significance as “life” (Eliade 1971, 98, 163). The clan and that other dimension of lineage—the ancestors—are similarly the loci of circulating energy since ancestral souls are reincarnated through descendants. Circular movements during the ritual therefore also express the circularity of death and birth. Finally, circular gestures “turn the world” in the sense of moving on the seasons. To accomplish difficult transitions, reestablish harmony in local, global, and cosmic worlds, and reenergize their own senses of “being-in-place,” the Kulada and Lower Talda kürees are built on high ground allowing clear views of clan village, valley, and river below, and planets and constellations above. Participants are situated both physically and imaginatively on a threshold. They must not be separated from surrounding landscape and sky by walls, windows, and roofs, the practice of most institutionalized world religions, for Ak Jang participants need to interact with the energies of Upper and Middle Worlds. Valentina Chechaeva and Elena Mandaeva described how Altai’s six corners,10 “gathered” into the küree by the six small altars on the outer perimeter built from stones brought from other regions, are activated during ritual performances at Kulada: “The performer of blessing-fortune requests [alkyshchy] makes alkysh to all six corners of Altai in order that Altai will live in peace and the people live well.” Also gathered in the placement of the stones is the connection between temple and clan. A clan’s sacred mountain, tree, totem animal, and tös ancestor spirit are referenced in the construction of the küree and its topographical location (Muytueva 2004, 18). The remaining altars are oriented toward the clan mountain and others of significance, the spirit-owners of which are invited to participate in the ritual. In Kulada, for instance, one altar looks to the local Mount Üch Engmek, while another one looks to the more distant Ak Sümer (Ru. Belukha). In addition, among the large flat stones of an altar lie those brought by clan members from their premigration homeland. Altar construction also varies according to clan. For instance, those of the Töölös clan are crowned with white stones. The living küree temple, then, is already an event in which multidimensional gatherings have been assembled: a numinous arena linking sky and earth from which participants will be drawn, knowledge of cosmic and earthly alignments, and shapes and materials relating to ancient practices and to Ak Jang and clan histories. These living participating structures become a potent arena in which human performers activate those connections, thereby creating and negotiating a sense of “being-in-place” in continuous historical-contemporary space-time. Also gathered into the küree is knowledge of a range of spirits that, once awoken, will also become actors who participate in the ritual. 164

5. The White Way

The Ak Jang pantheon includes different deities, burkhans, protectors, and spirits of place. Here, we include only those who participated in the two Sary Bür rituals under discussion by receiving requests for blessing-fortune, sending messages, and visiting the temple complex to eat, sit, and circulate as forms of energy experienced by human participants. For Ak Jang practitioners—as for shamans and epic performers—the Sky (Alt. tengr, tengeri) is not part of monolithic space, but a series of levels or domains wherein dwell spirit actors and powers. When conferred upon individuals, these bring strength and protection. The ontology of Altai Bilik (Altaian wisdom and knowledge), as set out by Shodoev and Kurchakov (2003, 73–77)11 and A. K. Bardin, clan leader of the Maimans, comprises eight rather than the seven Sky levels typical of shamanism.12 Ak Jang adherents prefer even numbers. Clan rituals are held on an even date of the new moon, each person hangs up two white ritual ribbons, and circumambulation and bowing are performed an even number of times. Burkhans have their place in the eight Ak Jang Sky domains, each of which has its own name. In ascending order, they are as follows:

cosmic substances, deities, burkhans

1. Mountain Peaks Sky (Tuular ustyu tengeri): the interface through earthly mountain peaks (of the shamanic “Middle World”) with levels of the Upper Sky place of Tös Byrkan, a concept that embraces pure ancestral spirits (aru töstör), clan protectors, and spirit-owners of mountains, rivers, trees, and animals. According to Bardin, also present here is Umai Mother (Umai Ene), protector of female fertility. Shodoev places here Abu Byrkan, mediator with Erlik, Lord of the Underworld, a domain not represented in Ak Jang ontology. 2. White Cloud Sky (Ak bulut tengeri): place of Altaidyng eezi Altai-Kudai, Altai’s composite spirit-owner. Shodoev places Umai Mother (Umai Ene) here. 3. Blue Cloud Sky (Kök bulut tengeri): place of Sky Burkhan (Tengeri byrkan) from where a person’s soul, parents, fate, and life purpose are decided. 4. White-cosmic Sky (Ak-aias tengeri): place where souls await earthly embodiment (reincarnation). 5. Blue-cosmic Sky (Kök-aias tengeri): place of Moon burkhan (Ai byrkan). 6. White-blue Sky (Ak-kök tengeri): place of Sun burkhan (Kün byrkan). 7. Sacred Blue Sky (Agarar kögörör tengeri): place of Blue Creator. 8. Golden Universe Sky (Altyn Telekei tengeri): place of positive energy creator Ulgen-Syulter and negative energy dragon burkhan (Mongyzyn byrkan-Saksun). There is stability in this place (in the energies of the subtle world kangyi) and movement (of souls). The Golden Stake (Altyn Kazyk) tethers the body of kangyi, represented by Shodoev as a World Egg, which rotates and swings like a pendulum (Shodoev [2011] 2012, 24–25). 165

part three. attuning to upper and lower worlds

In Ak Jang ontology, Üch Kurbustan lies above these Sky domains and is the location of Milk Lake (Süt Köl). According to legend, Kudai and his children swam in this lake, making it a spirit-charged place.13 Milk Lake is therefore a symbol of Kudai (Ukachina, Yamaeva, and Tolbina 1993, 144), governing an individual’s destiny. Around it grow white and yellow flowers (Yamaev P). Burkhan creates people from flowers, which are therefore revered. Üch Kurbustan. Permeating all and circulating freely is the three-faced Üch Kurbustan (Three Kurbustan), already present in nineteenth-century Altai as “creator of all spirits, the sky, stars, earth and water” (Danilin [1932] 1993, 153). Yamaeva points to older roots, arguing that the Zoroastrian spiritual complex of Altaian Scytho-Siberians included Kurbustan as well as other aspects of Ak Jang practice, such as worship of fire, thunder, lightning, and the Blue Sky (Kök Tengeri) (2002, 3). Üch Kurbustan is the spiritual rather than physical cosmos (Orchylang Ochilang). Yamaeva described some of its properties: “Üch Kurbustan is a cosmic substance of the Upper World. It is the cosmos or universe. Üch Kurbustan can come as lightning [to punish people] and as light. Üch Kurbustan is a creator [Jaiaachy—“source”] that is all-seeing and all-knowing. It is also the substance within each person.” Burkhan. Üch Kurbustan has become the main burkhan—Ulu Byrkan— generating multiple other burkhans or emanations in Upper and Middle Worlds. This is quite different from the rest of Inner Asia, where burkhan refers to Buddha or an enlightened Buddhist (Shinzhina 2004, 140). During Ak Jang rituals, burkhans of high rank descend onto a large banner (Alt.K., Oir. maany, bairy) or white felt carpet—as in the Kulada ritual—while lesser ones choose a “clean” place or specially chosen places to sit, for instance on the temple’s poles (süme). Kudai. Despite the early Ak Jang attempt to replace Kudai—the nineteenthcentury Orthodox missionary translation of a monotheistic God—by byrkan, Kudai continues to be used, sometimes interchangeably with the north Altaian term tengeri and sometimes as a general name for spirits (kudailar). Ülgen. Ak Jang practitioners have adopted the shamanic spirit actor Ülgen but use it as a generic name (ülgen) for “pure ancestors” (aru tös) (Vinogradov 2003, 118). At the same time, they personify Ülgen. In Altaian oral narratives, he created everything including his younger brother Erlik, with whom he quarreled. Ülgen ascended to Upper Tengeri as Kudai and Erlik descended to the Underworld to become its master. Ak Jang participants offer bloodless sacrifices to Ülgen, such as a horse consecrated by having ribbons tied to its mane. Spirit-owners of place (eeler). These have major importance during Sary Bür and Jazhyl Bür rituals, especially spirit-owners of the clan and surrounding mountains, who come to dine at the temple’s altars. In ritual contexts, Altai’s spirit-owner becomes Altai Eezi Ak Byrkan, a composite figure that embraces

166

5. The White Way

Oirot Khan’s messenger, White Burkhan, who sits in a special place. The juniper and the banner also contain spirit-owners that heal and enjoy kai drone-partials music. The Altai-Sayan epic world and its heroes permeate Ak Jang rituals, and Altaian epic performers are familiar with Ak Jang ontology. According to renowned epic performer Aleksei Grigor’evich Kalkin, for instance, there are eight burkhans in the Upper domains and seven in the Lower (Vinogradov 2003, 73). Epic heroes who are protectors, such as Oirot Khan and Shunu, are subject to name avoidance. Foci of worship in Ak Jang, such as Üch Kurbustan, Ak Byrkan, and Jer-Ene (Earth Mother), occur widely as epic characters who undertake specific tasks. Üch Kurbustan, example, may give a hero-child to an elderly couple or a magical horse to the hero. Tengeri Khan, also a character in Altaian heroic epics, has a daughter who can resuscitate the dead. The forms of hero protectors are visible in the earthly landscape and are also located in certain stars and constellations. The nineteenth-century Russian missionary Verbitskii noted the presence of Ak Jang warrior protectors in epics ([1893] 1993, 117, 120). Danilin suggested that three heroes were most important to Ak Jang: Kaldan-Oirot (Galdan-Oirot), Shunu, and Amyrsana, all of whom have links with the Western Mongol Jungar Khanate ([1932] 1993, 59). Two of these heroes—Galdan-Oirot and Amyrsana— are historical, while the identity of Shunu, who features in Altaian epics and contemporary tales and songs, is uncertain. Galdan-Oirot or Oirot lies at the root of Ak Jang. The name embraces two historical Galdans, both of whom ruled the Jungarian Khanate. Galdan Boshigt Khan (1644–97), founder of the Four Oirot (Mo. Dörvön Oirat) tribal alliance, became Kongtaichi of the Jungars in 1677, and Galdan Tseren, possible brother of Shunu, became ruler in 1727.14 Amyrsana, a taisha prince of the Khoits, succeeded Galdan Tseren and extended Oirot power over the whole of Mongolia.15 He led two rebellions against the Manchu Chinese for which the Oirots were brutally punished. As a result, he had to flee northward to Altai, where—according to Radloff—he took refuge in a cave on the Kadyn River before having to cross the Irtish River, then succumbed to smallpox close to Tobolsk in 1757 (cited in Danilin [1932] 1993, 75–76). Shunu figures prominently in orally transmitted tales and songs of Altaian and Khakas peoples. Altaian oral narratives blame him for a Tibetan curse resulting in many wars. As an Ak Jang protector spirit, however, Shunu is a messenger with miraculous powers, whose name is respectfully not sounded. Oirot, Amyrsana, and Shunu are an interchangeable triple-hero motif, also popular among Tyvans, Kalmyks, Uriangkhais, and Mongols (Danilin [1932] 1993, 60–63) and compared to Mongolia’s Genghis Khan and Tibet’s Gesar on the epic hero protectors

167

part three. attuning to upper and lower worlds

strength of sharing kinship with Kurbustan (Vinogradov 2003, 122–26). However, contemporary Altaians do not relate to all three equally. For while Oirot Khan has become a symbol of Altaian identity and an essential element of Ak Jang, and Shunu is an Altaian khan with Altaian blood and therefore their own Altaian hero, Amyrsana has none of those attributes. Standing apart is the hero of the Oirot epic Jangar, widespread in the former territories of the Jungar Khanate and found among those who migrated from there. Academic Elizaveta Yamaeva pointed out that the Altaian version of Jangar has thirty-eight thousand lines and embodies the main tenets of Ak Jang as well as praises used in its rituals.16 In this epic, Üch Kurbustan creates the warrior Jangar, who is raised under the protection of Earth Mother ( Jer-Ene). Jangar’s mission is to eliminate evil, punish wrongs, and establish world peace.17 He accomplishes this by blocking the opening between the Lower and Middle Worlds (Yamaeva 2010 MS, 6). Traditionally, its performance as a complete epic happens before momentous historical changes. Nikolai (“Shunu”) Kokurovich Yalatov (1927–2002), for instance, performed it before the fall of the Soviet Union. Yalatov said the hero appeared to him and forced him to perform it.18 ritual specialists

Several ritual specialists may perform at clan rituals:

jarlyk/jarlykchy (“messenger”). In contemporary Altai, this central figure may be male or female. The jarlyk leads the ritual event, having traditional and inspired knowledge of its order, formulae, and bodily practices. S/he feeds the fire, circumambulates while sprinkling milk19 or milk-spirit from a ritual bowl and spoon, and purifies participants and place with juniper. S/he may also read from a sacred text (sudur),20 utter or sing praises (maktal), and request blessing-fortune (alkysh-byian). The jarlyk should be with-spirit (eelü), thereby having the ability not only to “know” procedures but also to see the past, predict, exorcise, heal, and see and hear spirits. Borboshev explained: “Ak Byrkhan is not visible with ordinary eyes and not heard with ordinary ears.” Most importantly, the jarlyk calls burkhans and spirit-owners to the temple to participate in the ritual. In the early years of Ak Jang, the male jarlyk wore a milk-white coat (ak süt ton), white cap (ak kalban börük), milk-white felt boots (ak süt ödük), and his hair in a braid (Sagalaev 1992, 158). He used a whip (kamchy),21 “thunderbolt” (ochyr),22 copper or brass knife (kylysh),23 bowl (aiak), sacred text (sudur), small pipe (ajys), and juniper (Ukachina, Yamaeva, and Tolbina 1993). Unlike the shaman, the jarlyk is rooted in the Middle World, unable to travel to Upper or Lower Worlds. Some shamans became jarlyks in the Soviet period to avoid persecution and continued to use the drum and to “journey.” Jyrgal Chachiyakova, for instance, daugh-

168

5. The White Way

[128.104.46.196] Project MUSE (2024-04-09 03:07 GMT) UW-Madison Libraries

ter of the famous epic performer Tabor Chachiyakov, recalled how her grandfather Anyshka, a jarlyk, “did not walk on the Earth, he flew over it.” Anyshka, whose father was a shaman, used kai timbral vocal tone and a shamanic drum (tüngür) in rituals at the küree. alkyshchy. A performer of rhythmic poetical quatrains (sing. alkysh), here imbued with the ideology of Ak Jang. The alkyshchy offers praises and requests blessing-fortune, sprinkles milk or milk-spirit, and purifies with juniper smoke. S/he is also “with-spirit” (eelü), for the words come from the “other world” (altygyn oroon), whether ancient, learned through the tradition, or improvised (Borboshev P). Monk-musician Sarymai Urchimaev explained that an alkyshchy changes consciousness during performance, an ability possessed by both his mother and his wife. The alkyshchy’s spirit-owner, he said, helps to bring in the improvised texts. In contemporary Altai, a single person may perform both jarlykchy and alkyshchy roles. shabychy. An assistant whose main duty is to perform jangar songs (jangar khozhong) that praise Burkhan. During prayer-meetings in the early twentieth century, jangar songs were performed by “clean” (virginal) girls in special costumes (Yamaeva 2010 MS, 2), decorated with white, yellow, and blue kyira ribbons and buttons, and wearing their hair in plaits (Ukachina, Yamaeva, and Tolbina 1993). koitukchy. An assistant whose duties include carrying food to the temple, making the fire, and refilling the ritual bowl.

Clan members participate by preparing and offering food, hanging up ribbons, and making ritual movements and gestures. They support requests for blessing-fortune by uttering “Let it be! Let it be!” (“Bash bolzyn! Bash bolzyn!”), making praying gestures, genuflecting, and sometimes prostrating themselves fully. They also experience energies that, they say, transform their bodies and minds. Having visited the Kulada küree with musician Nogon Shumarov and Ak Jang officiant Kumdus Borboshev in 2006, I hoped to attend the ritual there when I returned in 2010. However, spirit actors play an active role in Altaian life and can “block” or “open” a person’s road. The ritual must be held on an even date between the fourth and twelfth days of the waxing moon, the eighth day being optimal since prior to that the moon is still considered to be weak (Yamaev P). The timing, though, is fragile and planning is fraught with danger. Exact arrangements are not discussed openly or too far in advance lest truculent spirits overhear and thwart them (Erokhonova P). If arrangements are too specific, there is also the risk that the jula soul may go ahead, separating dangerously from the body and potentially being lost (Halemba 2006, 146). Other factors, such as a bad dream, may also cause plans to change. In 2010, the road was literally blocked by a fatal

clan members

169

part three. attuning to upper and lower worlds

accident and subsequent lack of transport that kept our party thirty kilometers away, despite a hazardous journey from Gorno-Altaisk through the snow-bound Jal Mönkü mountain pass. A few days later, after teaching in the local school in Bichiktü-Boom, I interviewed Ol’ga Erokhonova, who taught there and had acted as ritual leader of the Kulada Ak Jang ritual, and Valentina Chechaeva and Elena Mandaeva, who had performed jangar songs at it, in their homes in Kulada. As regular participants, they helped me to understand the Kulada ritual process. Kulada: Performing Kaleidoscopic Connections bowing, blessings, and place

In 2006, Kumdus Borboshev changed into a traditional white gown, trimmed with black, with a brownish-gold silk sash wound around his waist, and together we climbed the steep hill to the mountain temple (küree) overlooking Kulada. We paused at a flat place before the final ascent from where we could see the temple site clearly. It was partway up the mountain, backed by taiga forest. A blue, white, and yellow banner blew gently in the breeze from a tall birch pole in front of the site, supported by rocks. Behind it stood three shorter birch poles, the central one bedecked with yellow cloth ribbons. Blue and white ribbons fluttered from ropes strung between them. We continued to climb and entered the ritual space through a prescribed entrance. There were two large altars and six smaller ones.24 According to Borboshev, the main altar in the most easterly position was oriented to Mount Üch Sümer and the rising sun. It overlooked Kulada village in the valley below. The other, slightly smaller one was aligned with Üch Engmek, the mountain at the head of Karakol Valley. Two small altars stood in front of it, forming part of an outer circle. We stood facing the main altar—a rectangular structure of thin slates of almost waist height. On each corner stood an extra stone on which to place juniper.25 There, Borboshev demonstrated how to perform mürgüül in its bodily sense, instructing me to follow: “Hold the palms together with fingers pointing upward— beneath the chin takes away wrongdoing, otherwise they’re held level with the chest. Then turn your palms upward, kneel with right knee, bow downward, and touch the earth with your forehead and palms.” Borboshev proclaimed loudly his alkysh request for blessing-fortune first to the “thirty-headed fire, forty-headed fire” and then to the sun and nature. After each alkysh, we touched our faces with hands held as in prayer, knelt “with the knee below the heart touching the ground,” then bowed the forehead to the ground six times, fulfilling the requirement of an even number. We did not perform full mürgüül, that is, full-length prostrations (Yamaeva 2010 MS, 5).

170

fig 5.1a and 5. 1b. Kumdus Borboshev demonstrates Ak Jang ritual, Kulada Küree Temple, Ongdoi

region, central Altai, 2010.

part three. attuning to upper and lower worlds

During rituals held there, gathered kaleidoscopic connections were activated. For instance, in 2006, Erke Yamaev explained that after laying down the felt carpet (shirdek) on which Ak Byrkan will sit, the jarlyk calls that spirit actor to the küree with the words: With Moon-Sun, Sky-Blue, Altai Eezi Ak Byrkan, With Sun-Moon, Sky-Blue, The Sun’s light, Ak Byrkan.

These words connect the moon and sun to the temple’s architecture in that the largest, most easterly of the eight altars is called “Sun-mother” (Kün-ene) and the second largest, “Moon-father” (Ai-ada) (Mandaeva P). The “Sun-mother” altar also connects to the cosmic substance Üch Kurbustan through fire, as Yamaev explained: “On this ‘fire oboo’ [ot oboo], sacrificial offerings [sang] and fire rituals are made to Üch Kurbustan. We use branches to make fire in the round part26 and juniper, butter, and sheep are added to it. When the fire is high, it greets Üch Kurbustan.” Altai Eezi Ak Byrkan is a composite expression for the “spirit-owners of nature.” In Ak Jang, Altai Eezi (Altai’s Spirit-owner) is an emanation of Üch Kurbustan. “Moon-father” links to Altai Eezi (Yamaev P) and, as an epithet of Altai, it simultaneously connects ritual participants to their current homeland. In addition to placing them in contemporary Upper and Middle Worlds through these connections, the epithets “moon-sun” and “sun-moon,” occurring in alkysh song-chants performed there, situates them in relation to Ak Jang history, since returning to the worship of the sun and moon was one of the stipulations of Oirot Khan’s original messenger Ak Byrkan (White Burkhan). Ak Byrkan similarly has kaleidoscopic properties. He is embodied by the jarlyk ritual leader, who dresses as the original messenger and transmits messages to the participants (Vinogradov 2003, 129; Sagalaev 1992, 158). The jarlyk’s attire connects to the “white shaman” (ak kam) (Danilin [1932] 1993, 113–25). For instance, feathers attached to the cap and shoulders of the white jarlyk costume displayed in the A. V. Anokhin National Museum in Gorno-Altaisk are often a feature of a shaman’s costume ( Jacquemoud 2015, 94; figs. 85–86). Similarly, the jarlyk’s costume connects to the White Old Man, a deity of herds and fertility and lord of the earth and of waters, found throughout Inner Asia. But Ak Byrkan is also present, sitting on the felt mat. This dual messenger presence in the temple ritual collapses space and time by connecting historical and contemporary Ak Jang events. ritual and jangar songs

Ak Jang ritual and jangar songs vary textually and stylistically according to Indigenous community, ethnicity, place, occasion, and the abilities of participants. While all Ak-Jang clan rituals include requests for blessing-fortune (alkysh-byian), 172

5. The White Way

bowing (mürgüül), praise-song (maktal), and the use of spirit-interceders, the Kulada ritual was able to include jangar songs (jangar kozhong). Valentina Chechaeva and Elena Mandaeva, both born in Kulada, regularly perform them at the Kulada küree. Elena described the rituals that preceded their singing: After putting [offerings] into the fire, the alkyshchy blesses the six corners of Altai so that it may live in peace, that people may live well. The alkyshchy purifies all present with burning juniper, then purifies two ritual white ribbons [kyira] by circling them in the fire’s smoke. He ties them to a line stretched between birch poles in front of the altars and performs praises and requests for blessing-fortune. The men add their own, followed by the women and children. As we tie these white ribbons, we make silent requests. We circle the altars in the path of the sun and then stand. Everyone is given milk to drink and then we sing. (Mandaeva P)

Kaleidoscopic connections that create senses of place continue in jangar performance. Standing facing the direction of sunrise, Valentina and Elena first activate a personal, individual sense of connection with Kulada village and Karakol River valley: With flaming mane [horse], Created place Karakol, Since childhood, Played-in-place, Kulada. With light-blue mane blue grey [horse] Coddled place Karakol, Growing well since childhood, Our joyous place, Kulada. (Pegg 2013OS)

The performance mode engenders this connection for all the local participants. Elena first sings a line, which Valentina repeats, followed by all present. “It becomes like a choir,” she said. “Even if people don’t know how to sing, this way they can join in.” Jangar texts also connect to Indigenous Altaian identity, clan, and cosmos. For instance, the seven stars of Jeti-Kan,27 white spirit-protectors who are the founders of Altaian clans, are mentioned in the following verse: There is a constellation, Jeti-Kan, In seven rotations dawn will come, On Earth far away is my dear one, After seven moons, [my dear one] will come.

Elena and Valentina use different styles in performance, for instance, könü jangar (“normal” jangar, that is, with the usual melody and rhythm), jelish jangar (“as swift as a horse” jangar), atynelish jangar (“horse-rhythm” jangar), and kögüs 173

part three. attuning to upper and lower worlds

jangar (“chest” jangar, with extended melody). Addressing Altai Eezi Ak Byrkan in the latter style, they sang “Bisti Byrkan Jaiaan” (Our Burkhan Creator), also performed by monk-musician Sarymai Urchimaev and Didii and Müngülchi as “Byrkan Jang,” which had included the following verses: To wear a golden bridle, Burkhan created a horse, To live on the White-Earth [Altai], Burkhan created us, Burkhan created humans. With Moon-Sun Sky Golden-silver Altai, With Sun-Moon Sky Silver-silver Altai. To wear a silver bridle, Burkhan created a brown horse, To live on this Sun-Earth, Burkhan created us

figure 5.2. Valentina Chechaeva and Elena Mandaeva sing ritual songs (jangar), Kulada, central Altai,

2010.

174

5. The White Way

With Sun-Moon Sky Silver-silver Altai, With Moon-Sun Sky Golden-silver Altai.

Styles also vary according to occasion. For instance, kürelei jangar (“circle” jangar), in which people sing as they swing their bodies in a circle, is usually performed at weddings. As with alkyshes, ritual jangar songs are received from the “other side.” They connect the participants to Ulu Byrkan (Üch Kurbustan) and to Ak Jang history and ideology. Important Ak Jang motifs are used in jangar texts in Kulada, such as flowers—often laid on altars when there is no sacrificial food for the spring ritual following a harsh winter—and horses, important for all nomadic peoples, as in the jangar song “Kök ölöng bazhy” (Blue Grass Head) performed by Elena and Valentina: Blue grass head, blue flower, If my blue horse eats [it], it will become silky, Blue valley’s head, sky-blue, If we hold a ritual, our mood will lighten. White grass head, white flower If my white-grey horse eats [it], it will become silky, White valley’s head, white sky, If we make mürgüül, our mood will lighten.

Flowers also featured in the song performed by Didii and Müngülchi in Yakonur: Asking the white-grey land, To white-silver mountain peaks we will go, Asking blessings from White Burkhan, With white flowers we will play. Asking blue-grey helpers, To blue-silver mountain peaks we will go, Asking blessings from Blue Burkhan, With blue flowers we will play.

Blessing-fortune is always requested from the spirit-owner of Altai. Shatra figurines offered on a specific occasion also influence jangar texts and ritual behaviour. For instance, because Mt. Üch Engmek was one of the shatra offerings at Kulada, the ritual assistant (shabychy) sang jangar songs that praised and requested blessing-fortune from that mountain. Milk was sprinkled in four directions, and all contributed “Bash bolzyn!” They “made mürgüül” by bowing to the altars and making praying gestures. Then they sang:

175

part three. attuning to upper and lower worlds

Brown-stoned temple, May our temple enjoy. Our brown-flowered Altai, May our ritual event enjoy.28

Songs vary according to season and events particular to that ritual. Valentina explained that at the spring ritual, the verse above becomes: Blue-struck stone, May our mountain-temple enjoy, Our blue-flowered Altai, May our ritual event enjoy.

Lower Talda: Improvising Traditions preparations

It was October and the snow lay thick on the ground when I was driven at dawn with Arzhan Közörökov up the narrow Kurota Valley to Lower Talda village nestling at the foot of a mountain. Having experienced a “blocked road” that prevented me from reaching the Kulada ritual, my “road was opened” unexpectedly to attend the Ak Jang ritual of a Kypchak clan, to be held above Lower Talda. Arzhan was to perform as ritual leader (jarlykchy) and specialist in requesting blessing-fortune (alkyshchy). A horse tethered to a traditional hitching post stood outside the gate of a compound, inside which were vegetable gardens, a pigsty, and a cluster of wooden buildings. As I ate breakfast in the kitchen of the main wooden house, participants expressed their concern that I was wearing jeans when I needed—like the other women—to be wearing a skirt. The problem was solved by wrapping around my waist a broad scarf that hung over my jeans as a skirt replacement. I sought out Arzhan, who had slipped away from the company. Although Ak Jang’s early commandments had replaced bloody shamanic sacrifices with ribbons, burning juniper, and making milk or milk-alcohol aspersions, I found Arzhan cooking sacrificial mutton in the central open hearth of a smaller wooden building. In fine weather, he said, the sheep is slaughtered and prepared on the mountain, close to the ritual site. Once this was accomplished, Arzhan moved to a third building, where participants had laid out more sacrificial food on wooden tables. Arzhan performed alas, purifying the room with juniper smoke, before making a food offering to Fire-Mother. Then, hostess Valentina Bachibaeva, a person who can foresee, knelt deeply to Fire-Mother. Finally, we set out on foot to climb the mountain. On the way to the küree, our ritual party of twelve processed around the base of the mountain in the path of the sun, then began the climb by following a stream

176

5. The White Way

through woodland until we reached its source. There, the men bathed their heads and the women their faces in the icy water. In reciprocity for water taken and purification received, we made offerings of two juniper branches together with bead necklaces (red, white, and green) and buttons to the spring’s spirit-owner (ee), a young girl. Climbing steadily, we paused beneath a birch tree for the men to carve ritual figurines (shatra)29 from soft white byshtak cheese, offerings for Upper Jaiaan (Üch Kurbistan) and the spirit-owners of the forested mountains to encourage them to descend to the altars to eat. Arzhan, advised by spirits, enunciated the forms of each figurine and, in doing so, enlivened them. Certain figurines are mandatory, for instance, a wild and domesticated animal, mountain, traditional dwelling, horse, and hitching post. Ours also included a human, wedding chest, cooking pot, hearth, and sheep. The form of the figurines influences the oral poetry included in the ritual event. Three small boys, intrigued, stood close, watching intently. The food offerings (tepshi), contributed by each participant, were then arranged with great care, for on these a mild winter and good luck would partly depend. Arzhan jarlyk put the cooked sheep’s head and meat into a bowl. Other food, laid out on trays and plates, included meatballs on traditional flatbread, Altaian butter, biscuits, sweets, fruit juice, and rounds of fried pastries (boorsok).30 Arzhan tore two white cloth kyira ribbons for each participant. Valentina arranged the shatra on a separate tray. The men then led the way up the mountain to the küree, carrying the offerings of shatra and food. ritual actions

After climbing the steep snowy forested mountainside, our group paused below the temple complex. Two single rocks marked the eastern end of the performance arena and away from them curved three main altars. The most easterly, the “hearth” (ochok), was hollowed out and looked down to the valley below in which the clan’s village nestled. Before the second, two lines were strung between three birch poles and, at the western end, a large white banner (maany) fluttered from a sturdier, taller birch pole. In front of the third altar stood five small ones ending in a single rock, marking the arena’s western boundary. The men entered first and made fire with wood in the hearth-altar. Then women and children entered. Arzhan circled two ritual ribbons in the purifying smoke as he circumambulated clockwise around the hearth, then tied them to the line between the first two birch poles. Next the men—led by the eldest clan member—attached their ribbons, stroking their heads backward with the right hand, to connect with the single plait worn by male practitioners in the early days of Ak Jang. The women followed. Valentina Bachibaeva tied her ribbons to the second

177

part three. attuning to upper and lower worlds

line and knelt deeply. After tying, each person processed between the big and small altars and around the final stone, to form a semicircle at the back of the ritual space. There they sat in traditional poses: the left knee raised by the women and the right knee by men. Arzhan directed his ritual assistant, Valentina’s son Arzhan, to put half of the shatra figures (including hearth and hitching post) onto the first large altar and the rest on the second. The ritual assistant then knelt to fill the sacred bowl. Arzhan jarlykchy-alkyshchy sprinkled milk liberally from a wooden nine-holed spoon over the hearthaltar and large altars, including figurines and ritual ribbons, while quietly requesting blessing-fortune with interjections of “Jakshy bolzyn [May it become good!] Chöök!” Valentina opened the white cloth bearing juniper branches. Arzhan took a branch, lit it, and purified the ritual arena by waving the smoking juniper around it. Next, Arzhan added bread to the fire, then took the sheep’s ribs and head from the bowl held by two male assistants and added them to it while requesting blessing-fortune. Valentina knelt low on one knee before each altar. Then,

figure 5.3a. Arzhan Jarlyk sprinkles milk and asks for blessing-fortune before an altar bearing cheese-figurine offerings. His assistant strokes his head. On the left is the hearth-altar; below is the clan’s village, Lower Talda, central Altai, 2010.

178

5. The White Way

figure 5.3b. Female participants attach ritual ribbons to lines between hitching posts, then circumambulate between outer and inner tagyl altar crescents.

connecting to early female Ak Jang practitioners by stroking two imaginary plaits, she bowed and touched her head to the floor three times before each large altar. The men added more food to the fire, taking off their hats and stroking their heads backward as they did so. Valentina, taking a plate of food, knelt and circled it four times above her head before adding it to the fire. Arzhan’s performance, which lasted for about an hour, combined a deep knowledge of traditional beliefs and practices with personal creativity and improvisations. He adapted his performative skills to fit Ak Jang by gathering as participants ancestors from Ak Jang cosmology and history, jaiyk-mediators, and shatra figurines. These mingled with elements from Altaian tradition (Altai Jang) and his own shamanic rituals, such as performing unaccompanied improvised verses, using sound avoidance, calling spirit-owners, sprinkling milk, and wrapping juniper in white cloth. Given the presence of heroes in Ak Jang cosmology, it is not surprising that Arzhan drew also upon his experience of performing epics by incorporating epic

179

figure 5.3c. Hostess Valentina Bachibaeva circles food offerings to be made to Üch Kurbustan via

the fire on the hearth-altar.

figure 5.3d. Arzhan jarlyk plays topshuur lute and performs blessing-fortune verses (alkysh) in kai

vocal tone before the hearth-altar.

5. The White Way

motifs and concepts into his texts, using kai timbral vocal tone, and accompanying himself with the topshuur lute. Let us look in more detail at how he used these adaptations to help the human participants to sense “being-in-place.” bowing, blessing-fortune, and place

Arzhan processed along the altars, sprinkling milk and milk-spirit, offering praises and thanks, and requesting blessing-fortune from the fire, mountain spirit-owners, and spirit actors of Upper Worlds. To orientate the participants in the universe, Arzhan’s first request addressed the hero of the Golden Stake (Altyn Kazyk) or Pole Star which, according to Altaian Indigenous knowledge (bilik), acts as a hitching post for the eight sky domains and the stars turning around it as tethered animals. As with earthly hitching posts, it is the axis mundi that connects directly to Earth, this time through its mountains. This hero protector sees from the White-cosmic Sky (Ak-aias Tengeri), the fourth Sky domain, where celestial souls await reincarnation (Shodoev and Kurchakov 2003, 76). Arzhan uses kairakan, a respectful way to refer to a spirit actor or spirit-owner in Middle and Upper Worlds: My Pole Star, Earth-Altai protected, Pole Star hero, He is with blessing, Sees from Ak-Aias, Kairakan Bash Bolzyn!31

The Golden Stake provides balance, stability, and protection for Earth Altai ( Jer-Altai) and its inhabitants. If this star shakes, then so would the Earth’s axis, and disasters would follow. Altai, frequently referred to as Kin Altai (Navel/ Umbilical Altai), is the “navel” of the universe, connecting here to Altyn Kazyk. Several dimensions coexist, each dependent upon the other: May Earth’s people live peacefully, May Earth-Universe not diminish, May Earth-Universe not shake, Six-cornered Navel Altai, Bash Bolzyn! May your strength-armor be strong.

To maintain this stability, Arzhan needed to ensure peace among the spirit actors of Upper and Middle Worlds. He asked, therefore, that the ancestors refrain from fighting (“Öbökölör, Öbökölör tartyshpazyn”) and spirit-owners of the sea (Talai-Khan)32 and sacred springs remain calm:

181

part three. attuning to upper and lower worlds

May Talai-Khan not become angry. . . . May the spirit-owners of sacred springs Not to be angry, Quarrel.

Referring to Kudai as the generator of life, Arzhan requested “strength-armor” (Alt. kurchu-kuiaktu) and peaceful lives for his own people: Our people, May they be with strength-armor, Kudai-given life, May it be peaceful.

Throughout, Arzhan addressed his requests to Altai Eezi, Üch Kurbustan, Ülgen, Kudai, and burkhans—avoiding their names directly. He also specified the cosmic domain his requests must reach. For instance, this ritual took place in the new moon, so that its bright energies would have maximum effect on its success, rather than during the aging moon, when dark energies are abroad. Arzhan therefore asked that his milk-sprinklings reach the moon’s place, Ai Byrkan, which is in Blue-cosmic Sky (Kök-aias tengeri), the fifth domain of its eight layers (Shodoev and Kurchakov 2003, 74): May white milk aspersions, Reach the Blue-cosmic Sky. spirit-interceders

The white ritual ribbons (kyiras) became spirit-interceders as Arzhan sprinkled them with milk and whispered requests for blessing-fortune. Each person also silently addressed their own kyiras fluttering in the breeze. The juniper’s spiritowners became spirit-interceders, able to hear words from the White Cosmic Sky domain and converse with Üch Kurbistan. In addition, it became “medicine juniper” with healing properties: May the strength of our spirit-charged juniper with spirit-owners Not diminish, May people’s minds Not be captured by black thoughts, May the strength of our sacred juniper Not diminish, May it grow. Saw good-bad things in people, Hearing Ak Aias’s talk, heard,

182

5. The White Way

Talked with Üch Kurbustan, Medicine juniper, May it grow, not diminish.

Arzhan addressed the spirit-owners of the banner fluttering on the birch pole positioned at the far end of the ribbon-bedecked lines, seeking to keep this strong and through it to channel blessing-fortune: May these people live with good fortune, May they live with blessing, Bailu-chümdü banner, Spirit-charged banner with spirit-owners, Kairakan, Lord, let it be! [Bash Bolzyn!]

Later, Arzhan addressed the spirit-owner of the mountain source of the Korota River meandering through the valley below, in relation to this banner: Created sacred banner, Become a spirit-charged banner with spirit-owner, May blessing come to Altai, May that spirit-charged cloth with spirit-owners not suffer, Korota-Source, Kairakan Lord! epic motifs, throat-singing, topshuur lute

The presence of Arzhan Közörökov at the Lower Talda ritual enabled performances of timbral vocal music (kai) with the topshuur lute as well as alkysh songchants. Throughout his performance of the latter, Arzhan drew upon traditional epic imagery and motifs. He began by situating the ritual participants at the base of the “world tree,” a quintessential feature of epic landscapes that allows the hero access to other levels of the universe. Rather than making its base in the Lower World, as in shamanic cosmology, he placed it in the Middle World (where the participants sat), as appropriate to Ak Jang. Arzhan localized it by choosing the Altaian cedar as the tree, rather than the “iron poplar” or birch tree usual to epics: May the cedar tree, With nuts, keep swinging, May people at the base of the tree Take strength-armor [protection].

Later, when referring to leaders in Altai and the world, Arzhan used the numbers sixty and seventy, which often occur in Altaian epics. For instance, in the famous Altaian epic Maadai Kara, the hero noticed that

183

part three. attuning to upper and lower worlds

the sixty khans of the Altai had started to move. The seventy khans of the Earth had become agitated. (Marazzi 1986, 38, line 425)

Arzhan sang: In six corners, sixty khans, May they not fight. On Earth, seventy khans, May they not make war. Lord, let it be!

Six, as in “six corners” (above), is also a significant epic number. For instance, in Chachiyakov’s Jylangash-Uul (Naked Boy), the hero’s father is Mt. Ak Sümer-Taiga, with six sides, and his mother is Lake Ak Süt Köl, with six bays (Yamaeva n.d.). Arzhan adopted the classic Altaian epic performance mode for his final lengthy communication with spirits: kai vocal tone and two-stringed topshuur lute. Kai, an essential vocal tone for a with-spirit (eelü) epic performer (allowing descent to the Underworld), does not occur in early Ak Jang literature. Among Altai Kizhis of Ongdoi region, though, it is now integral to this spiritual complex. Kai appears, for instance, in jarlykchy Ol’ga Erokhonova’s book Agaru, Agaru, Agaru (Pure, Pure, Pure), which contains the quintessential doctrines of contemporary Ak Jang: Kai—the people’s breast, The people’s road, The heroes’ voice, The heroes’ arrow, Struggling with black [forces], With help from Upper Jaiaan. . . . Great kaichy epic performer—difficult roads, Tabooed kaichy—honored roads, The gift is deep—the hand is white, The gift is pure—the mind is white. (2002, 320, 322)

After calming his “truculent” topshuur, as Arzhan later put it, by warming it next to the fire,33 Arzhan appealed for blessing-fortune from Altai and Üch Kurbustan, both essential to Ak Jang and epics: Ooooooi, Our spirit-charged Altai! Üch Kurbustan, our Source! Making kai with pure thoughts

184

5. The White Way

I ask for blessing-fortune.

Situating himself again at the base of the world tree, Arzhan asked that Altai give voice to his topshuur lute and kai vocal tone: Oooooooi, From the base of this cedar tree, May my carved topshuur, Decorated with gold and silver, Make kai to this seated group. Give a voice to my topshuur, My great Altai.

The next verse began with another epic formula. Although it was an earlymorning ritual, Arzhan used the epic phrase “the blue evening” when requesting that his kai become sonorous enough to spread Sary Bür’s song throughout Altai: Soften people In the blue evening, [May I] make sonorous kai, Kairakan! Alongside young tree(s), [We go] to our Altai, golden silver with flower(s), Created [by] our Father Sary Bür’s song spreads, Our Altai.

Throughout his performances, Arzhan used improvisation to root the participants in their contemporary geographical and societal place. First, he situated the family at the temple complex reached through the taiga forest: Going alongside young larch? tree(s), Pure [alky] silver34 sacred altar, To surrounding taiga-stone [taiga-tash] . . . 35 These people’s blessing-request is in the flames, In the surrounding altars.

Then he placed them in the mountain temple in Korota Valley, their state, and the universe: Oooooi . . . That people’s living place, In Korota [Valley], This people’s living place, [In the] State-Universe.

185

part three. attuning to upper and lower worlds

In the blessing of sisters36 sitting in the temple, Nature all around, May the people’s place of living be in peace.

He situated them in relation to the Soviet period by asking for “Good fortune for Lenin Road” (Len-joldyng byiany edi)—the name used during the Soviet period for the village now called Lower Talda (Ru. Nizhnyaya Talda)—and then placed them in contemporary space-time by addressing current problems. With the high road accident rate in mind, he asked Altai, “May the road to Korota be softened,” and later, May surrounding roads not become harsh, Our iron horses [cars] have no accidents.

He asked for relief from attacks by wolves and bears on livestock and people, avoiding the prohibited names of these respected animals by replacing them with kokoiok instead of börü (wolf), and Maajalai Örökön (Respected Elder) instead of aiu (bear): May the tabooed kokoiok Not attack livestock, The spirit-charged Örökön Not attack livestock, May these people not be attacked.

And he addressed the problem facing all Altaian rural-dwellers—that their children had to go to Gorno-Altaisk, Novosibirsk, and Moscow to study or to find work or to fight (at the time in Chechnya): May the children who will go far away Travel peacefully, May the boys in the far army Return peacefully.

Moving from local to global, he requested that the participants’ minds remain light, illnesses and pains of the heart lessen, relatives live peacefully, children prosper, trees not suffer from disease, animals, birds, and fish increase, milk be abundant, Indigeneity gain acknowledgment, and ethnic cleansing cease: May the northern people [Europeans] Not have closed minds . . . May the ruling people Not confuse people’s minds . . . Among large folk, May small folk live . . . 186

5. The White Way

May our dark-haired people Not create war-blood Among each other.37

In addition to his mixture of tradition and improvisation, Arzhan’s creativity also manifested itself in his personalization of texts. He showed concern for talent, requesting that “people with talent increase.” Moreover, as a man who enjoyed joking, he hoped that his blessing requests would make Altai Eezi and “Respected Elder” (Örökön) of the Upper World “hear and laugh.” Often Arzhan’s improvisations followed the rules of Altaian poetry, using alliteration at the beginning of lines and half lines and pairing or playing with words. Word-pairing encapsulates broader meanings, as in blessing-fortune (alkyshbyian) or moon-sun (ai-kün). It is also a filler to maintain rhythmical flow. For instance, the “road to Korota” became Koroty jolgo jol.’ Jol means “road” and its repetition as jolgo is not necessary for meaning. Words are also paired to intensify or please the ear. Arzhan frequently paired bailu (“with prohibition”) with chümdü (“beautiful,” Gatsakh 1997b, 649) becoming bailu-chümdü. Toward the end of the ritual, Arzhan poured the liquid into the ritual bowl for his two assistants to sprinkle. Then each participant drank from the cup. We sat quietly as the fire crackled. A crow flew overhead and cawed. Valentina bowed to Arzhan jarlykchy-alkyshchy and to the fire. postritual celebrations

After such rituals, participants descend from the küree to a lower place on the mountain or return to the host’s home if the weather is bad. There, they eat food including mutton and barley soup, and drink a little Altaian milk-spirit. They relax and, depending on those present, may play music, perform jangar songs and epic tales (kai chörchök), and play the lute (topshuur) or jaw’s harp (komus). If still on the mountain, they play games to take away disease and pain, for instance, rolling on the ground or performing somersaults (Mandaeva P). If indoors, they discuss the proceedings, what they felt and saw and whether the ritual was successful. Prohibitions or behavioral codes continue for at least a further three days. Multisensory and Extrasensory Experiences

During both Ak Jang rituals, senses of taste, smell, feeling, hearing, and touch— already heightened by fasting, prohibitions, and other purifications—were sharpened further by the beauty of the mountainous taiga forest and sky; the touch of Siberian autumnal coldness, soft snow, and breeze with the contrasting warmth of sunlight and fire; the smells of burning wood, food, and juniper; the taste of milk and milk-spirit, and the sounds of birds, poetry, and music. Together with these,

187

part three. attuning to upper and lower worlds

visual connections to the sky, clan mountain, valley, village, river, and temple architecture aroused feelings of connection to the cosmos and its spirit actors, Altaian history and ancestors, and the spirit-owners of landscape. The body’s engagement in ritual practices—production and reception of poetical and musical sounds, creating fire and smoke, sprinkling milk, offering food, and bowing to fluttering ribbons, banners, and altars—combined to trigger other sensory experiences not yet fully researched, such as feeling and seeing invisible energies interpreted as a range of spirit actors. Such extrasensory experiences encouraged a healing process. Participants at Kulada, for instance, experienced the arrival of energy and blessing-fortune encircling them as a belt, constantly rotating (Chechaeva P, Mandaeva P), and performances at the temple changed the participants’ sense of their own bodily health, enabling strategies to help with the difficulties of the everyday world in which they live: “After the ritual, everyone feels internally purified and becomes vigorous. Jangar songs are a form of meditation. Afterwards, if I feel bad, I remember that there is a parallel Altai, an upper Altai” (Mandaeva P). A transference of energy is felt, as Erokhonova explained: “In our rituals, we take energy from Upper Jaiaan and from the mountains. The body feels healed, purer, more energetical.” At Lower Talda, Arzhan jarlykchy-alkyshchy clearly exhibited signs of changed consciousness. For instance, when shaking a juniper branch toward the end of the ritual, he saw and addressed spirit actors that others present were unable to see: Respected ones, Spirit-owners sitting around!

Arzhan’s visions could instill fear rather than healing. For example, during the postritual celebrations he explained that at the end of the ritual event, he had seen a white-robed man high on the mountain watching and that had made him fearful. His final alkysh had therefore requested: When people of Tengeri come as guests, May they not steal people. *

*

*

This chapter has outlined the kaleidoscopic connections made by Indigenous participants during multi- and extrasensory Ak Jang rituals. Essential to Ak Jang ontology are heroes from the pantheon, local heroes resting as landscape’s contours, epic traditions, and motifs. In the next chapter, we focus on epic performance, the kai person, and relations in the performative skills of ritual specialists.

188

6

With-Spirit Epic Performers

The secularization of epic performance and its conversion into concert entertainment under Soviet ideology helped to maintain the profile of Altai-Sayan epic texts, which rival the more well-known Greek myths and Icelandic Sagas in their rich dramatization of heroic quests, struggles, and triumphs. Many feature fearless female warriors of the Amazon type who, according to the Greek author Herodotus, writer of the first great narrative history produced in the ancient world, fought against the Greeks and intermarried with Scythians ([1910] 1971, 330–32). The Altaian epic Ochy-Bala and Khakas epics Ai-Khuujyn and Alyp-Khys-Khan, for instance, are named after the female warriors who rescue their homeland from invaders and fight for social justice. Supernatural powers are used as humans fight in the Middle World, and evil is defeated in the universe in battles between Upper- and Lower-World spirit actors. As part of the revitalization of their own Indigenous traditions, contemporary epic performers are learning from their families, clan’s lineage members, the memories of those who listened to or interacted with ancestral epic performers, and the publications and archival recordings of early collectors.1 Some are also reclaiming the spiritual and ritual aspects that the Soviet system suppressed. As with their forebears, with-spirit performers often combine traditional knowledge, including textual formulae and partly composed texts, with epic narratives received from the “other world” and their own improvisations, despite oral traditions of faithful reproduction. Some have inherited texts, performance skills, and codes of conduct from kin. The timbral vocal tone (Alt. kai, Kh. khai), used

part three. attuning to upper and lower worlds

for intoned epic narratives, occupies a central place in the sound cultures of Altai and Khakassia. Here, we focus on the with-spirit kai-khai person (Alt. eelü kaichy, Kh. eelïg khaijy). The chapter explains how those designated “with-spirit” (Alt. eelü, Kh. eelïg) undertake human apprenticeship and training but are also given narratives and kai-khai skills by spirit-owners and ancestors. The with-spirit kai-khai person is a ritual specialist and purveyor of ontological sonicality as the power of the word (epic narratives) and timbral music propels the performer, audience, and epic hero to other dimensions, where they cross the boundaries of bodily sexuality and gender, landscape and the universe, time, and space, and encounter human and spirit actors in acoustic and sensuous worlds. By involving the audience in these events, the with-spirit epic performer provides healing and support for humans in the Middle World as he restores balance in the social relations of humans and nonhumans and reestablishes rhythmic patterns, such as transitions between night and day, the seasons, and the positions of constellational bodies in the universe. Because of the receipt of these skills from spirit actors, respectful and accurate performative behavior is necessary to avoid punishment. It goes on to explore how the with-spirit epic performer uses the timbre-centered sonicality of kai-khai to extend his sensibilities and acquires performative gifts and codes of performance practice. It then analyzes the strategies of a contemporary Altaian epic performer as he brings together humans, ancestors, and heroes, as well as spirit-owners of Altai, epic tale, word, and steed-instrument in a performance event for potential global audiences. Finally, the chapter describes how the performer creates musical and dramatic characters and alternative worlds with the skillful use of sounds, ethnopoetics, and paralinguistics. Let us begin, though, by introducing the with-spirit heroic epic performers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries with whom contemporary Indigenous performers of each republic connected, through ancestral kinship or inspiration, at the time of my fieldwork. Some epic lineages also contain shamans and storytellers. Lineages altai: telengit, altai-kizhi, töölös tuba

Altaian epics were promoted by the Ministry of Culture from 1995 to 1998, which encouraged many young epic performers. I worked with three with-spirit epic performers (eelü kaichy)—Elbek Kalkin, Oirot Otykov, and Arzhan Közörökov—as well as with descendants of renowned epic performers Tabar Chachiyakov and Nikolai Ulagashev.

190

6. With-Spirit Epic Performers

Albert (“Elbek”) Kalkin (b. 1953), a Telengit of the Saal’ clan from Pasparta in the remote Ulagan region of southeastern Altai, can “see,” call spirit-owners and souls, and enliven his instrument. He is proud to belong to an unbroken patrilineal line of with-spirit epic performers that includes his great-grandfather Telesh, his grandfather Grigorii Ivanovich (1901–69), and his father Aleksei Gregor’evich Kalkin (1925–98). Grigorii Ivanovich performed seventeen epics, including the most famous: Maadai Kara and Ochy-Bala (an epic heroine now linked to the Ice Princess of Plateau Ukok). He was admired for his resonant kai, clear lyrics, and skillful topshuur lute accompaniments (Shinzhin 1996; Konunov, Demchinova, and Yntaev 2010, 28–30) and performed a range of drone-overtone (köömei) styles (Harvilahti 2000, 219). By the age of twenty-two, Elbek’s father, Aleksei Grigor’evich, knew about thirty heroic epics including Maadai Kara (Konunov 2010a, Scrase 2009OS), Kan-Altyn, Ochy-Bala, and Ösküs-uul (Orphan Boy) (Shinzhin 2004, 11–138)2 and was noted for his ability to perform extended passages of kai without breathing or resting (Konunov 2010a, 41–42). Moreover, in 2002, Altaian academic Nikolai V. Ekeev mentioned that Aleksei Grigor’evich reached Upper, Middle, and Lower Worlds during epic performance and refused to talk to researchers about those epic sections that he considered sacred. Ekeev went on to explain that, despite the constraint of becoming a national artist during the secular Soviet period and being the first to receive the title El Kaichy of the Altai Republic, Aleksei Grigor’evich had remained an eelü kaichy. Noted for his spiritual power, he would “open the way” for those with extrasensory abilities. He also used kai vocal tone, topshuur lute, and his hands to heal, and was able to foresee. Elbek and A. G. Kalkin’s grandson Aleksei Kalkin have inherited Maadai Kara. Professional musicians include extracts from it in their concert repertoires and compact discs as one of the icons of Altaian identity. Bolot Bairyshev and Nogon Shumarov, for instance, use kai vocal tone with urgent topshuur accompaniment to perform a compelling confrontation between Maadai Kara and the evil Kara-Kula Kan (1996D). I recorded Elbek Kalkin in 2002 and 2006 (Pegg 2010a). In 2006, I also went with Urmat Yntai to visit Oirot Otykov, an eelü kaichy, bearer and creator of tradition of the Telengit Köbök clan, in Ortolyk village, Kosh-Agash region. Oirot’s great-grandfather Otuk had been a shaman and storyteller (chörchökchi kizhi [G1]). Perhaps because of the power of performers in the intertwined shamanic, epic, and storytelling traditions, Oirot’s home was the only building to escape earthquake damage said to have been caused by the removal of the Ice Maiden’s body from nearby Ükok Plateau (chap. 4). For that reason, Urmat suggested that we show extra respect to its spirit-owners. This intertwining of traditions was also evident in the ritual performances I recorded in 2006 and 2010 of Töölös Arzhan Közörökov as epic performer, Ak

191

part three. attuning to upper and lower worlds

Jang officiant, and shaman. As an eelü kaichy, Arzhan followed the traditional codes of epic conduct, performance, and instrument-making. He composed and sang his own alkysh poetical verses in praise of his topshuur lute and told how he had received a new epic from the deceased A. G. Kalkin. He used epic performance to heal and was able to “see” and “hear” spirits. He also received the title El Kaichy of the Altai Republic and performed in secular concerts and festivals. Tabar A. Chachiyakov (1923–1998), an Altai Kizhi of the Töölös Indigenous community, was born in Elo village, Ongdoi region. While in exile with his family in Kazakhstan during the communist period he had learned epics from Kuukak Sakarov (1879–1940), whose father had been a kaichy (Gatsak 1997b, 661–62). Chachiyakov also inherited epics from his father Anyshka and was noted for his performances of Kan-Altyn, Kan-Budai (Shinzhin 2004, 197–246), and JylangashUul (Naked Boy). As a ritual leader (jarlykchy) of Ak Jang (White Way), Chachiyakov acknowledged the presence of Lower Worlds but was unable as an epic performer to travel there. Instead, he located the hero’s vital battle in the Middle World and performed epics using rapid unaccompanied recitative rather than kai vocal tone. But he alluded to a connection between kai and Lower Worlds in his version of Kan-Altyn3 by imprisoning his defeated enemy in a pit, where he performed kai. In the same epic, Erlik Khan, Lord of the Underworld, performs kai when he hears Kan-Altyn’s copper flute, and approaches the portal between Lower and Middle Worlds with his copper drum and copper beater to possess it. The flute referred to in Chachiyakov’s epics is the closed shoor (tuiuk shoor), an instrument used when performing ritual worship of Altai (Yamaeva n.d.).4 In Chachiyakov’s version of Kan-Altyn, a ritual whip is also used during worship of his father, Mt. Ak Sümer (Üch Sümer), and mother, Ak Süt Köl (White Milk Lake). Chachiyakov’s daughter, Jyrgal Chachiyakova, who keeps her father’s ancestral lineage alive through personal narratives (chap. 2), recalled in 2010 how her grandfather Anyshka had used such a ritual whip to drive away evil spirits of the Lower Worlds (Alt. körmös) during his mountain-temple worship of Altai. Similarly, Anton Yudanov nurtures the epic heritage of his grandfather Nikolai (Myklai) Ulagashev (1861–1946)—from the Küzen clan of the hunter-gatherer Tubas (Tubalars)—who was born in Közöö village, Choi region, northern Altai (Yudanov P). He had begun to recite the epic Altai-Buchai5 at the age of nine and went on to perform thirty-two heroic epics including Maadai Kara, Öküs-uul, Alyp-Manash (Alpamysh), Kan-Altyn, Malchi-Mergen, Üch Kys (Three Girls), AltaiBuchai, and Kan-Tutai (Shinzhin 2004, 139–96). In 2006, I traveled with Yudanov, Urmat Yntai, and Chagat Almashev to Paspaul, where he had created a memorial to Ulagashev in a small traditional wooden building (aiyl). By 2011, this had blossomed into a memorial complex (aiyl-muzei) that pays homage to Ulagashev’s

192

6. With-Spirit Epic Performers

life and work as well as the material and spiritual culture of Indigenous peoples (including Tubas, Chalkans, and Kumandins), and has hosted events such as the International Round Table of Indigenous Peoples from the North, Siberia and the Far East of the Russian Federation and the International Epic Conference “Kurultai.” khakassia: khyzyl, khaas, saghai

Two twentieth-century Khakas with-spirit epic performers (eelïg khaijys)— Sömön Kadyshev and Pödör Kurbizhekov—have a profound influence on contemporary khaijy epic performers, chatkhan zither players, and takhpakh verse improvisers. Both performed heroic epics (alyptygh nymakh) in the northern Khakas (Khyzyl and northern Khaas) rather than southern (Saghai) style (Nyssen 2018/Ülger Ensemble 2018D, vol. 6). They also both delivered epics and takhpakh verses in the form of a passage narrated in küülïp khai style with accompaniment on the seven- or nine-stringed chatkhan, repeated in unaccompanied intoned speech. A mark of the development of tradition is the influence also of Antonida Kurbizhekova, Pödör’s sister, who recited epics and played the chatkhan. Sömön (Ru. Semyon) Kadyshev (1885–1977) knew more than thirty epics. He was an eelïg khaijy, takhpakh performer, and storyteller (nymakhchy). From the Indigenous Khyzyl community, he lived for many years among the Khaas in Chookhchyl village, near Lake Syra, northern Khakassia. He performed in Khaas, with a smattering of words in his everyday Khyzyl language. Kadyshev performed each epic “on horseback” (attygh nymakh), that is, using chatkhan zither accompaniment and khai vocal tone. He rode upon his chatkhan and used khai to enable travel with his hero to other worlds, engaging there in supernatural warfare. Performing an epic “by horse” is therefore also called an “epic with war” (chaalygh nymakh) (Kenel’ 1955, Mainogasheva 1997). Kadyshev’s unaccompanied speech passages varied in pitch, sometimes dropping from a high to a low note and sometimes cascading in richly different tonalities. He performed each line using one exhalation of breath. Kadyshev’s performance embraced other traditional vocal forms such as dialogue songs, lyrical songs, improvised verses, and ritual poetry, as required by the narrative. According to Khaas chatkhan player Nikolai Kapchigashev (b. 1939), also from Syra region, Kadyshev knew many melodies and changed them each time he played. His measured chatkhan playing, clear narratives, and adaptable personality enabled his acceptance by the Soviet regime, but he also maintained old traditions. For instance, as an eelïg khaijy, Kadyshev had the power to give or prohibit the gift of khai. Kadyshev’s heroic epics—which include Altyn-Arygh (Pure Gold) and AlypKhys-Khan (Warrior Princess), both with female warriors as the main characters—and his improvised takhpakh verses and melodies are highly valued by

193

part three. attuning to upper and lower worlds

contemporaneous khaijy epic performers and chatkhan players throughout Khakassia. For instance, Khaas epic performer Pyotr Aryshtaev from the Khyrgys clan, who lived as a boy in Kadyshev’s village and listened to his epic performances each winter, now performs a version of Altyn-Arygh. And chatkhan player Nikolai Adygaev from Lower Töö in Askhys region, inspired by his own exiled father’s performances of takhpakh, improvised verses accompanied by the khomys lute, made his own chatkhan in 1935 and taught himself to play many of Kadyshev’s melodies. Contemporary professional musicians also learn from recordings of Kadyshev, made by Aleksandr Kenel’ in the 1940s.6 For instance, both Sergei Charkov and Evgenii Ulugbashev perform Kadyshev’s “Shira” melody (Syra köö) on the chatkhan zither. Charkov also plays Kadyshev’s “Takhpakh” (Khyrkhaas 2005D), and Ulugbashev performs an extract from Kadyshev’s version of Altyn-Arygh (2004D). Pödör [Pyotr] Kurbizhekov (1910–66), also Khyzyl, descended from epic performers of the Körbe lineage (Ülger Ensemble 2013D, vol. 1) and lived close to the Üüs River, Ordzhonikidze region, before being moved in the communist period to Naa Aal (New Settlement), Khyzyl region. In this village, there were many epic performers but Pödör was the only eelïg khaijy. He performed his epics “on horseback” (attygh nymakh), received epics in dreams, and had other extrasensory abilities. Included in his one hundred heroic epics (alyptygh nymakh) (Kurbizhekov P) was the ten-thousand-line Altyn-Arygh (Mainogasheva 1988) and Ai-Khuujyn (Alekseev, Alekseev, and Gatsak 1997). He also told stories about historical heroes (kip-chookh [G1]), such as Taskha Matyr (Ülger Ensemble 2018D, vol. 6), that share heroic epic features including motifs and performance delivery. Kurbizhekov influenced Kadyshev and other epic performers of that time including Apanis Burnakov, a Saghai from Askhys-Tashtyp region, who visited Kurbizhekov during the 1950s. Contemporary epic performers and musicians also draw from Kurbizhekov’s repertoire. For example, his nephew Aleksandr Kurbizhekov performs extracts from Altyn-Arygh, and Ai Charykh Saiyn Küchen performs his “Körbe-ool” takhpakh (Ülger Ensemble 2013 D, vol. 1). Aleksandr Samozhikov, who also referred to Kurbizhekov as tai (mother’s brother), performed an instrumental version of Altyn-Arygh. At funerals, Sasha “saw” tagh kïzïler mountain people and ghosts. Since he was not a khaijy, he did not recite the epic text. Antonida (“Anna”) Kurbizhekova (1913–90), Pödör Kurbizhekov’s sister, was a storyteller (nymakhchy) rather than a khaijy. Following the gender rule, she recited epics without khai and “on foot” (Kh. chazagh nymakh) (Kurbizhekov P).7 She was unable, therefore, to travel with her characters to other worlds or

194

6. With-Spirit Epic Performers

figure 6.1. Aleksandr Samozhikov

with his chatkhan zither, Abakan, 2004.

ride with her hero into battle. Although she played no chatkhan accompaniment below the epic text, she sounded the instrument as ornamentation or a means of spurring on the narrative. In her performance of the epic Khan-Mirgen, for instance, she played a brief introductory motif on the seven-stringed chatkhan, then performed unaccompanied text with short chatkhan phrases at the end of each line and occasional notes below the text (Kurbizhekova 2008). Anna Kurbizhekova’s repertoire also influences contemporary performers. For instance, a song about a young woman who metamorphoses into a hare to avoid marriage—taken from one of her kip-chookh stories—has been recorded as “Song of a Hare” (Kh. Khozanakh ygy) by Altan Tan Tayas (Ülger Ensemble 2013D, vol. 1) and as “Little Hare” (Kh. Khozanakh) by Yulia Charkova (Khyrkhaas 2005D). Kurbizhekova’s dirge “Gaggling Geese in Flight” (Kh. Khangyra khangyr), in which the honking and ringing sounds of migrating geese appear to promise reunion with her deceased husband in the invisible world, is also performed by Khyrkhaas (2005D), Yulia Charkova (2011D), and Ülger Ensemble (2013D, vol. 3). Ai Charykh Saiyn Küchen (Vyacheslav “Slava” Kuchenov), a young Saghai with-spirit epic performer (eelïg khaijy) and leader of Ülger (Pleiades Constellation) Ensemble, is one of the main forces driving revitalisation of Khakas heroic

195

part three. attuning to upper and lower worlds

epic performance. He received the gift from an ancestral spirit of his mother’s lineage and can perform heroic epics for many hours. In an extract from the Saghai epic Togys khulas sunu küreng attyg Siber Chyltys (Siber Chyltys on his ninefathom-high brown horse), Ai Charykh Saiyn describes the world’s creation, the epic world, and supernatural battles (Ülger Ensemble 2013D, vol. 3). In his rendering of Kadyshev’s epic Alyp-Khys-Khan (Warrior Princess), after giving a detailed account of earth’s creation, he recounts how this strong female warrior rescues her homeland from foreign rulers (Ülger Ensemble 2013D, vol. 2).

[128.104.46.196] Project MUSE (2024-04-09 03:07 GMT) UW-Madison Libraries

tyva: clans, schools

Tyvan musicians emphasize drone-overtone vocal performance (“throat-singing,” khöömei) as integral to their identities rather than heroic epic performance (maadyrlyg tool) and its distinctive vocal tone. Tyvan epics are performed as recitative or melodic narrative poetry without instrumental accompaniment, but within the narrative the main character sometimes performs one or more khöömei styles (Kyrgys 2013, 24) and drone-overtone performances are used for entertainment. In the epic Kangyvai Mergen, for instance, the hero performs in kargyraa style “so powerfully that the blue sky began heaving and the black earth began trembling,” and in the epic Boktug-Kirish, Bora-Sheelei, a princess is entertained by thirty khomus jaw’s harp players and 30 khömei performers (Kyrgys [2002] 2008, 56). Traditionally, epics were learned within families. They include Boktug-Kirish, Bora-Sheelei; Khunan-Kara (Orus-ool 1997); Aldai-Buuchai; and Aldai-Sumber.8 Gifts for teaching a non–family member also became a tradition (S. Ondar 2019), and regional schools developed from significant individuals. Chanchy-Khoo Oorzhak (b. 1895) of the Mönggün Taiga School recorded Khunan-Kara in 1959; Kavaakai Sat of the Ulug-Khem school recorded a fragment of the epic BoktugKirish, Bora-Sheelei in recitative in 1982; and Mannai Oorzhak of the Süt Khöl School learned Boktug-Kirish, Bora-Sheelei and other epics from his grandfather Dagyryk, a respected epic performer, before transmitting them to his students (Orus-ool 1997, 1994). A rare example of contemporary Tyvan epic performance is Shoidak-ool Khovalyg’s version of Boktug-Kirish, Bora-Sheelei, in which he repeats sung passages in an everyday speaking voice (K. Harrison 2005, Israel 2011). A video funded by the Endangered Languages Project shows him seated before a round felt tent performing it for his family (Khovalyg 1970OS). In 2005, I visited Shoidak-ool with Valentina Süzükei. Born in 1928, he talked about precommunist times when the epic performer (toolchy) had been respected, traveled from one settlement to another, and accompanied high official delegations when they went to pay homage in China.

196

6. With-Spirit Epic Performers

The traditional Tyvan toolchy also performed a heroic epic seated on a felt mat (shirdeg) for two or three nights when the Pleiades constellation was visible. He was said to be blessed with a long life because he pleased the ear of the spirit-owner of place. In addition, he entertained the taiga’s spirit-owner during hunting expeditions, bringing good luck in the form of game (S. Ondar 2019), and performed at the New Year holiday (Shagaa), at the birth of a child, and during funerals. Shoidak-ool explained: “At funerals, all epics were performed in a whisper and no alcohol was consumed. Great epic performers, though, used a different voice for each character.” As with epic performance in the Altai Republic and Mongolian Altai, the epic performer had to complete the epic or be punished by the epic’s spirit-owner (tool-eezi). The presence of a spirit-owner during epic performances is evident from Saryg-Shyyr Bashtak-ool, a pupil of Baazanai Tülüsh (1887–1953) of the central Tyvan Ulug Khem school. With a repertoire of twenty heroic epics, he was recorded performing a fragment of Fifteen-year-old Aldai-Sumber in 1984. Bashtak-ool recited epics lightly with his eyes closed, swaying in time with its poetical rhythms, which varied according to the events he described. He used mimicry and gestures but always maintained a serious expression. When he occasionally forgot the words, he would exclaim “ee” (spirit-owner) at the end of a line (Orus-ool 1997, 18–21). Let us consider in more detail the qualities of a with-spirit epic performer or kai-khai person. Kai-Khai Person

The timbral vocal tone kai (Alt.) or khai (Kh.) is used for the intoned narrative of heroic epic performance in Altai and Khakassia.9 The terms kai and khai have wider connotations, though, than production of a particular vocal tone. The withspirit epic performer (Alt. eelü kaichy, Kh. eelïg khaijy) is a kai-khai person with one or more spirit-owners who, by using kai-khai, can extend his sensibilities to communicate with Middle-World spirit-owners and travel to other dimensions. This has implications for personhood, since relations between the performer and the spirit-owners of epic tale, hero or heroine, kai-khai, musical instrument, and epic characters are constantly in play. This extension of sensibilities also enables the crossing of everyday boundaries. extending sensibilities, crossing boundaries

The with-spirit epic performer uses the multiple harmonics and thick textures of kai-khai vocal tone to access layers of sensibility beyond everyday realities. The enriched bodily and oral sensations engendered by its production enable him to achieve an altered state of consciousness. The Altaian term kai means “to soar,”

197

part three. attuning to upper and lower worlds

“glide by air,” “fly up or take off ” (Sagalaev and Oktyabr’skaya 1990, 170), suggesting that it is how the eelü kaichy propels himself and his hero along pathways in Middle (including peripheral and parallel worlds), Upper, and Lower Worlds, according to the epic’s narrative. Similarly, Khakas performers explain that khai enables the epic performer to be transported into the epic world (Aryshtaev P) and to merge his consciousness into it (Samozhikov P). In 2004, I traveled with professional Khyzyl musician Aleksandr “Sasha” Samozhikov (leader of the group Ailanys) and Khaas musician Sergei Charkov to Ordzhonikidze region to visit khaijy Aleksandr Kurbizhekov, the son of Antonida (“Anna”), sister of eelïg khaijy Pödör Kurbizhekov. Alexsandr’s uncle Pödör taught him to play the chatkhan when he stayed with him in the school holidays, and his mother Anna taught him to play the khomys lute. “Pödör tai [mother’s brother] was a powerful ‘person who could see’ [Kh. ulugh körigji],” said Aleksandr, adding: “Like his grandfather Dmitry Kurbizhekov, Pödör had two mountain spiritowners [Kh. tagh eeler], identified by their lack of eyebrows or lashes, who came to listen to the epic.” Pödör Kurbizhekov described to Khaas khaijy Nikolai Kokov how his consciousness altered in performance: “I walk among them [epic characters]. I don’t see the people [audience]. I am not here. I go there completely.” Aleksandr Kurbizhekov confirmed this: “When his hero traveled and fought, my uncle went with him.” As they travel along pathways together, the with-spirit epic performer and hero must be able to cross borders into alternative worlds and space-time, while also carrying with them the consciousness of audience members. In the world of the most ancient epics, the boundaries between humans, nature, spirit actors, and different dimensions are porous. In the Altaian epic Ochy-Bala, for instance, two sister-warriors are born of a high mountain taiga father and steep riverbank mother, and in the Khakas epic Ai-Khuujyn, a mighty warrior maiden is born of skewbald colt horses. Humans, animals, and birds in this world can shape-shift and take on one another’s characteristics. For example, in the Tyvan epic KhunanKara (Orus-ool 1994, 1997), the hero and his horse metamorphose, a small siskin finch has the power of speech, and a Khan’s daughter appears as a bird. Heroes and heroines often have extrasensory powers. In some epics, crossing sexual bodily boundaries requires improvisatory skill. For example, in the Tyvan epic Boktug-Kirish, Bora-Sheelei, the latter—having “seen” in divinatory stones that her brother died after falling from his horse— decides to “become” her brother and win sporting contests to marry AngyrChechen, a sorceress-princess, who can revive him. Unlike male heroes, however, she is unable to fully shape-change. She must cover her breasts with bear-fur when wrestling shirtless and wear male genitalia created from goose parts when forced to participate naked in horse-racing.

198

6. With-Spirit Epic Performers

To fulfil the purpose of a ritual kai-khai performance event, the spirit-charged epic performer calls upon an armory of sounds within the referent of tradition to vividly enact the epic’s action, which engages his listeners and affects their sensibilities. Khakas epic performer Pyotr Aryshtaev, for instance, noted that when Sömön Kadyshev performed khai having “entered into a different state,” its quality drew in the listeners, affecting their senses of well-being, energy, and strength: “When Kadyshev performed, your heart rose. I have never heard a khai sound like his. It was uplifting. Nobody else could give this feeling. Homes were small. Everybody sat on the floor, and it was hot. But people were not tired.” The with-spirit epic performer also brings the audience into a multidimensional network of social relations with human and spirit actors in different states of being. By enabling the audience to participate in dramas in alternative worlds and enter relations beyond the immediately visible, he reorders his audience’s experience of “being-in-the-world” and recreates social well-being there. First, though, he must be initiated and then receive performative gifts from spirit-owners and learn the codes of performance practice of his community. initiation, performative gifts, codes of performance practice chosen by spirits, visionary dreams An initiated with-spirit epic performer is chosen by a spirit actor with whom he will maintain an active relationship, essential to his personhood. Khaas chatkhan player Georgii Kokov explained: “An eelïg khaijy has a double. It is the term used for a person with a ‘comrade,’ with an ee that accompanies him.” It is this ee “double” that travels to other levels of the universe while the epic performer’s body remains present in the performance event. It is a popular Khakas belief that khai eezi, the spirit-owner of khai, having emerged from Tyva (Tatarintsev 1998, 58), went first to Saghai territory, south of Abakan. On discovering the reluctance of Saghais to perform, it continued to Khyzyl territory, to the confluence of the rivers Akh and Khara Üüs in the northern taiga Ordzhonikidze region. Consequently, there have been powerful Khyzyl khaijys. Khyzyl musician Aleksandr (“Sasha”) Samozhikov explained that khai eezi chooses a with-spirit epic performer in the same way that spirits choose a shaman: “Khai eezi looks for the right person. It is a gift and a reincarnation. When a khaijy dies, the reincarnation may not be immediate. Several hundred years may pass.” Sasha’s stepfather Kokov had recounted how he had received the gift and initiation during visionary dreams: “Kokov was in prison doing hard labor during the communist period and dreamed that a spirit told him to perform epics, or he would die. He prepared by making a chatkhan zither from strips of wood. Upon release a year later, he had a second dream in which the spirit told him to go to a

199

part three. attuning to upper and lower worlds

burial mound and perform epics there throughout the night. Then he became a khaijy” (Samozhikov P). People say that khai eezi has returned to the Saghais in the person of the young professional musician, epic performer, and sculptor Ai Charykh Saiyn Küchen (Topaev P). I first met Ai Charykh in 2004. A year later, on the way to his family’s home in Sapron aal, he described the dream that led him to become an eelïg khaijy:10 In 1994 I went to my father’s younger sister’s home in Sapron aal to collect my graduation diploma in sculpture from Repin Academy in St. Petersburg. It rained heavily and the road was bad. When I arrived, my boots were soaking wet and muddy, but my aunt cleaned them carefully and put them on the woodstove to dry overnight. I went to bed and had a dream. A tall person came to me. I couldn’t see his face clearly, just a shadow, but he looked like Sapir, my tai [mother’s brother], who had died. “Let us go to your grandfather’s brother. I want to show you a place where our clan used to perform rituals,” he said. I stood up and dressed. We walked and walked. We went to a kurgan burial place and continued walking until we reached a place where two brooks divide. There my tai said: “You will perform epics with khai and play chadygan zither or khomys lute. If not, you will become seriously ill and may die.” I said: “But I don’t know how to do it.” “Don’t be afraid,” he said, “you will.” Then he began to give me some information, taught me alghys song-chants and so on. We went back home, and I fell asleep. When I woke up and went to put my boots on, I discovered that they were dirty. I asked my aunt: “Did I go somewhere in the night?” She did not know.

Later, Ai Charykh took me to the junction of the Ulugh (Large) and Kichig (Small) Üüs, the location of this dream event (chap. 3). Khyzyl epic performer Aleksandr Kurbezhekov explained that initiation by khai eezi should be in a with-spirit place, saying, “An aspiring eelïg khaijy should go to a place of sacrificial ritual [Kh. taiygh], offer a white animal and spend the night there.” And Khyzyl musician Sasha Samozhikov stressed that once initiated, the eelïg khaijy must perform: “Khai eezi enters an eelïg khaijy and forces him to perform the epic. The with-spirit epic performer is not the master of his own body. If he does not perform, he will die.” Epic heroes also put pressure on the epic performer. For instance, Ai Charykh told how, after he had received the gift, he had disturbing dreams: “Three heroes tried to beat me with whips, but I escaped. They forced me to perform, to work out my music. I had to find musicians, form a workshop. I did not know any musicians because I was a sculptor.” He borrowed a khomys lute and began to perform, continuing: “I still dream and, in the morning, find marks on my body where the

200

6. With-Spirit Epic Performers

heroes have beaten me. They come on stallions when it is time to perform an epic and give the narrative to me.” Epics may also be given when awake and the mind is otherwise occupied. Ai Charykh, for instance, described how he had received part of the epic Ai Charykh Khan on a Grey Horse while on the bus journey back to Abakan after his initiatory dream. He has been unable to find that epic in written form (Levin with Süzükei 2006, 166). Once chosen, the eelïg khaijy may acquire more spirit-owners, as in the case of Pödör Kurbizhekov. Samozhikov pointed out that the khaijy-eeler relationship is like that of a shaman and his töster. They are spirit-helpers. In addition, the epic’s words, narrative, and accompanying instrument all have spirit-owners who, together with human teachers, judge the performance, adherence to traditional performance rules, and narrative accuracy, and impose punishments for misdemeanors and errors. revisualization, enlivenment, word-power In both Altai and Khakassia, a with-spirit epic performer may only perform with the epic spirit-owner’s permission. Gifted by its spirit-owner in the form of a vivid drama in a dream, he must reproduce that drama faithfully in every detail. Pödör Kurbizhekov told his nephew Aleksandr that he received epics from his mountain spirit-owners (tagh eeler): “They give me epics in dreams. They perform and I see everything—their horses, clothes, the land where it happens—and then, in the evening, I perform the epic” (Kurbizhekov P). The epic performer revisualizes his dream in performance, which makes the audience’s experience, as Altaian musician Urmat Yntai put it, “like being at the cinema.” Khakas musician Aleksandr Samozhikov explained that, in performance, the epic performer must also enliven his characters, who are intimately related to himself: “The spirit of the khaijy and that of the hero or heroine are related. For instance, Altyn-Arygh lives while the eelïg khaijy is performing. He brings her to life with his words. As he speaks, she exists.” In addition to visualization and enlivenment skills, the Khakas eelïg khaijy needs not only a distinctive kai-khai vocal tone but also the “power of the word.” He needs to be “with a spirit-owner of the word [Kh. sös eezi]” (Kurbizhekov P), who channels the epic’s words through the performer. Some, such as Ai Charykh Saiyn Küchen, receive the “word” from ancestors; others, such as Pödör Kurbezhekov, from mountain spirit-owners. Yet others go to the mountain to receive it and are thereafter called “from the mountain” (Samozhikov P). Sometimes the words received are incomprehensible to the khaijy. Ai Charykh explained: “When I began to sing epic fragments in Khakas poetic language, people were surprised. I had spoken little Khakas in St. Petersburg. I was also surprised,” he

201

part three. attuning to upper and lower worlds

said, “because there were many words that I couldn’t understand. It is the same now. If I try to concentrate, I cannot find the words but if I perform freely, then the words come.” Codes of performance practice embrace the expectations of spirit actors, epic characters, and the human community to which the with-spirit epic performer belongs. He is traditionally male, supported by the taboo that a female kai-khai performer will be infertile and cause infertility and misfortune to family and herds. He should be over forty years old, with many children. Among Khakas peoples, he should also not play the chatkhan zither or perform takhpakh improvised verses until that age (Samozhikov P). It is said that Anna Kurbizhekova became blind from smallpox in the 1930s because she had not adhered to traditional epic performance codes of practice. Training occurred gradually in family contexts. For instance, Altaian epic performer A. G. Kalkin inherited his epics from his father, learning them first as prose, then as unaccompanied recitative, and finally, as he approached forty years old, he began performing them using kai accompanied by the topshuur lute (Hatto 2000, 131, Harvilahti 2000, 216). Samozhikov explained that a Khakas apprentice needs to “pull out” his khai (Kh. sygharyp alargha), that is, receive training in kai-khai epic intonation before initiation. Kadyshev’s nephew, Mikhail Taidonov, lamented that he had not accepted Kadyshev’s offer of instruction. He described how, later, Kadyshev had caught him performing an epic using khai and chatkhan zither accompaniment when he was only nineteen years old. Kadyshev had laughed and said: “Ah, you did not come, but I will listen to you now. Khaila!” Looking distressed, Taidonov told how he had felt something being torn away from him and—although he had known about twenty epics and had performed at funerals—has been unable to perform khai from that moment. Taidonov would only play his chatkhan for me, repeating that he had been prohibited from performing khai. Altaian epic performers also needed to rehearse, as A. G. Kalkin noted: “If you want to perform kai, you have to tune the instrument [the body] the day before to repair it and begin getting used to singing kai again” (quoted in Harvilahti 2000, 218). Pödör Kurbizhekov had described to his nephew Aleksandr how he would rehearse all day for an evening performance after receiving epics from spirit-owners in dreams. apprenticeship

Contemporary epic performers describe respectful practices necessary to avoid punishment. Altaian eelü kaichy Elbek Kalkin, though, is a shy man who is sometimes reticent to talk about epic performance. It was his wife, Mariya Erteevna, then, who explained in 2006 that several spirit actors attend the kai performance event and will judge it. “They will respect, accuracy, punishment

202

6. With-Spirit Epic Performers

ask,” she said, “Is this correct kai or not?” The initiated epic performer is aware that the spirit-owner of place (Altai Eezi) and the epic’s hero will judge his overall accuracy and adherence to performance codes of practice, and the spirit-owners of kai-khai vocal tone, epic tale, and words will judge the accuracy of his narrative and descriptive details. Mistakes will be punished by the hero, who sits on his shoulder to listen, and the others who sit unobtrusively with the audience. Mariya described one form of respect: “If you perform kai, you must finish the whole epic, otherwise you will be punished. You cannot stop after a section. You will be punished by kai eezi because a kaichy is connected to the ‘other world.’ He goes to the world of the hero. If he interrupts the tale, the hero will come and punish him.” Khakas Samozhikov agreed and elaborated on the punishment: “When the eelïg khaijy performs, spirits gather and listen to him. Once he has begun, he must finish the epic, no matter how long, otherwise something terrible will happen to him and to his family down to the seventh generation.” The epic performer and his hero must show respect to those from whom they require help. In Altaian kaichy Chachiyakov’s version of Kan-Altyn, the hero does this by playing the end-blown flute (shoor) during rituals to his tribal primogenitors: his “father” Mt. Üch Sümer and “mother” Süt Köl (Milk Lake). Descriptive details are respectful if they are “accurate.” Mariya described how Elbek had been chastised by an epic heroine in a dream for having described her as “having an odd nose.” The punishment of Samozhikov’s mother’s brother, a Khakas eelïg khaijy, was much more severe: “In 1963, my tai performed the epic Altyn-Arygh and made her into a vulgar woman rather than a heroine. He joked and made her into a bad girl who wanted to marry one man, then another. The audience laughed but he nearly died during the performance and later that year was imprisoned. The spirit of Altyn-Arygh punished him. A khaijy must not change the words.” Similarly, Samozhikov’s stepfather used to say that if a khaijy altered the words, he would become ill. And Ai Charykh Saiyn Küchen discovered that if he tried to improvise or compose additions to epics he had received, he also became extremely ill (Levin with Süzükei 2006, 166–67). Lack of respect expressed by failure to acquire the appropriate performance permissions or by making inadequate offerings to spirit-owners risks the ultimate punishment of death. The morning after he had received an epic dream, for instance, Pödör Kurbizhekov always offered food, milk, and milk-spirit (aragha) to his two-mountain spirit-owners (tagh eeler) while requesting permission to perform. Immediately before the performance, he also threw aragha over his left shoulder for them and made offerings to spirit actors outside the door. But his granddaughter Albina Vasilievna, a fine improvised verse performer (takhpakhchy), explained that one host had provided too little aragha and Kurbizhekov had died shortly afterwards (van Deusen 2004, 81).

203

part three. attuning to upper and lower worlds

Altaian and Khakas heroic epics are extremely long. For instance, when Surazakov recorded Maadai Kara from A. G. Kalkin in 1963, its 7,738 verses took eight hours to perform (Surazakov, Pukhov, and Baskakov 1973). Performers use common “floating” narrative motifs in their epic repertoire, such as the hero’s birth and childhood, rescue from the Underworld of kidnapped parents, peoples and herds, battles with malevolent spirits and monsters, and finding and winning a bride. They also use set scenes—a feast, wedding, or festival—that contain lengthy detailed descriptions including facial and bodily characteristics, demeanor, character, and clothing of human, animal, and spirit actors. The ideal of an unchanging text was probably intended to preserve the culture of a tribe or clan. Despite floating motifs and set scenes, it is unlikely that such lengthy epics would be performed the same each time, rather that the narrative emerges from a combination of tradition and the experience of a situated performer—whether, for instance, he is a young apprentice or mature performer and to which Indigenous group he belongs. Ritual Performances

The performer’s choice of epic, composition of audience participants, and use of kai-khai varies according to ritual performance context and community affiliation. This section outlines the traditional contexts of hunting and soul accompaniment, which continued secretly in the Soviet period and are being revitalized today, before considering in depth a contemporary Altaian with-spirit epic performance that brings a local traditional event to a global audience. local activities: hunting, escorting the soul

It was traditional practice for a with-spirit epic performer to offer his epic to the taiga’s spirit-owner before a hunt in reciprocation for the gift of game (the spirit-owner’s domestic animal, see Broz 2007). Tyvan epic performer Dadarool Kyrgys, from Ulug-Khem region, offered the epic Karaty-Khan with Golden Daughter (Ru. Karaty-Khan s zolotoi docher’yu) during hunting, knowing that the taiga’s spirit-owner loved to listen and would reward him (Orus-ool 1997, 16). Epic performer Arzhan Közörökov revitalized this tradition by accompanying a hunting party in the Altai Republic before his premature death in 2012. Such performances also strengthen the resolve and courage of the hunters. Radloff, for instance, noted how the guttural tones of Abakan Turks (contemporary Khakas peoples), during evening performances when hunting in the forested mountains, became part of a multisensory experience that intensified the visual scenes of the epic tale: “The dark night which envelops the whole scene, the magic of the fire-light, the roar of the storm which howls around the hut, and

204

6. With-Spirit Epic Performers

accompanies the guttural tones of the singer, all these form the necessary framework for the highly colored shifting pictures of the songs” (quoted in Chadwick and Zhirmunsky 1969, 217). Tyvan Dugul-ool Chambal, after making and feeding a fire, offers on his way to the hunt rich declamatory kargyraa drone-partials music, rather than a whole epic, to the spirit of place. In Khakassia, a with-spirit khai person traditionally accompanies a deceased person’s khut or chula soul on the journey to the next world (Aryshtaev P). Khyzyl chatkhan player Aleksandr Samozhikov explained that an eelïg khaijy sees the soul leaving the body, feeds it, and then accompanies it on its journey. These sounds help the soul to come to terms with what has happened to it and protect the epic performer and soul from malevolent spirits on the journey. The epic performer is preferred, it is said, because shamans attract the soul to themselves (Küchen P). Epics are performed throughout the first and third nights after death. Before the seventh or ninth and twentieth days, close relatives gather for a “night of waiting” for the posthumous soul to visit them, and again before the fortieth day when it will depart. If no khaijy is available, the chatkhan zither is played (Charkov P). In contemporary Khakassia, descendants of eelïg khaijys continue this tradition. Nikolai Kapchigashev, following his father Dmitri (Polin) Lukich and influenced by Kadyshev, plays the chatkhan at funerals. Samozhikov used to play at seventhday rituals for women and ninth-day rituals for men but, as he was not an eelïg khaijy, did not accompany souls. He did, however, “see” posthumous souls and spirits twice: On the ninth day, when playing for a ritual that began at midnight, I saw someone pass through a glass window, enter the room, and then go into another room. Another time, I was at a ritual at which my friend Grigori Itpekov, from Askhys region, was playing the chatkhan zither. A group of people passed by the window and through the locked door. Again, they went into another room. They wore Khakas clothes but looked pale, not colorful. I asked, “Who are you?” and they replied, “We are your people. We came because we heard the chatkhan.” (Samozhikov P) a traditional-global encounter: elbek kalkin

In 2002, the first time I recorded Altaian with-spirit epic performer Elbek Kalkin, he had felt uncomfortable. He was aware that local audiences identify easily with the lives and ontology of epic characters, which mirror their own. The drama always unfolds, for instance, in a multilayered tripartite universe of Middle, Upper, and Lower Worlds linked by a cosmic pillar in the form of a sacred tree, hitching post, or “navel.” Landscapes of snow-capped mountains, steppe lands, healing springs, and milk lakes are multibodied and inhabited by spirit actors and souls, and human and spirit actors engage in similar lifestyles. The the performance arena

205

part three. attuning to upper and lower worlds

figure 6.2. With-spirit epic performer Elbek Kalkin with lute (topshuur), Ongdoi village, Ongdoi region, central Altai, 2002.

power of the alkysh and subsequent extract from Maadai Kara that he performed was in the interplay of word-power, performance, ontology, and tradition, which he knew that global audiences—a possibility given my recording of his performance—would not understand. On the second occasion in 2006, Elbek took measures to illustrate the context of his performances and its participants. First, he situated the event in the Museum dedicated to his father Aleksei Gregor’evich in his former home in Yabogan, Kan-Oozy region. Then, he ensured that the visual “frame” of the performance connected to his Telengit family tradition by sitting before his father’s topshuur lute, traditional costume, and an oil painting portraying him performing an epic. Other factors consolidated this lineage relation. For instance, he performed alkysh poetical verses as a prelude to Maadai Kara—his grandfather and father’s epic—to call Altai Eezi; used archaic Telengit words and dialect; played topshuur accompaniment to his kai vocal technique; and maintained a traditionally grave demeanor throughout. However, this was not a traditional performance event, and the development of Telengit tradition and Elbek’s own life trajectory were

206

6. With-Spirit Epic Performers

also evident. The “face” or sounding board of Elbek’s topshuur, for instance, was made of wood rather than hide, an innovation of the communist period to make the instrument suitable for stage performance rather than family or small, local communities. Since Elbek moved to central Altai to live among Altai Kizhis—who unlike his own mountain Telengit group are mostly steppe people with strong Oirot connections—he began to include Altai Kizhi words alongside the archaic Telengit ones. Having arranged the performance arena, Elbek then incorporated traditional elements, as he performed an introductory alkysh to Altai Eezi, spirit-owner of the Altai Mountains, using words and sounds to entreat, please, and lure her to the performance.11 This female spirit actor loves to listen to heroic epics. She also transmits them and protects kaichys (Harvilahti 2000, 219). Using kai vocal tone and accompanying himself on the two-string topshuur lute, Elbek asked Altai Eezi for protection beneath her armpit in the same way that she protects deer sleeping peacefully beneath her trees: Cedar tree covers, Silver snow washes, My secret Spirit-Altai, My untouched native-Altai. By this tree with one trunk, A roe deer slumbers, By these two trees with one trunk, A buck roe deer slumbers My secret Spirit-Altai, My untouched native-Altai. May [we] sleep on your bosom, Folded under your armpit My secret Spirit-Altai, My untouched native-Altai.

In bringing Altai’s spirit-owner into the audience, Elbek followed tradition in which spirit-owners of place, tale, and heroes are also present and participate in the epic performance event. In Khakassia, this tradition also includes “mountain people” (tagh kïzïler) and the eelïg khaijy makes an introductory request: “May unnecessary people not stick to my legs and arms in the land where I am going” (Adygaev P). Elbek also followed the tradition of enlivening his steed-instrument. The with-spirit epic performer needs a “steed” on which to travel the roads to alternative realms that he will open with his epic vocal tone. The musical instrument—the two-stringed lute (Alt. topshuur, Kh. khomys) or

steed-instrument

207

part three. attuning to upper and lower worlds

fiddle (Alt. ikili, komus, Kh. yykh) and Khakas chatkhan zither12—must therefore be enlivened first with poetical verses (Alt. alkysh, Kh. alghys) that call the instrument’s spirit-owner, praise it, and request permission or favors. The instrument is then addressed as a living actor and offered nourishment for the journey. Initially, it takes the form of the animal whose hide provided its “face.” As the epic performer’s spirit-helper, it can shape-change during the journey, even into an object, when needed to overcome obstacles. Elbek explained: “The topshuur has a spirit-owner (ee). It’s also a spirit-helper. The kaichy visits Lower and Upper Worlds. It depends on the narrative. When he crosses a river, the topshuur becomes a boat; when he goes through mountains, it becomes a horse. You can’t be a kaichy without a topshuur.” He pointed out that the spirithelper can also undertake other crucial tasks. For instance, it may become the hero’s horse and destroy the enemy by locating his soul. The instrument’s ability to shape-change is linked to its otherworldly origins, which vary in oral tradition. For instance, Elbek’s father, A. G. Kalkin, told how Altai Eezi gave her official hunter both kai and the topshuur, saying that the design of the latter would be found at the foot of a cedar tree dried by lightning. The hunter made it from a single piece of cedar, using a white mare’s tail-hairs for the strings and sheep-head skin for the body’s face. An alternative myth of origin, summarized here, tells how it was given by the Mistress of the Lower World: Two heroes, who each lived on a mountain separated by a strong river, quarreled over ownership of the better mountain. They agreed that the first to address a woman during construction of a bridge across the river would lose the right to the better mountain. As they worked, they heard the beautiful sounds of a woman singing and playing an instrument emerging from dense undergrowth. One of them cried out “Oh woman!” Then, lightning struck, thunder emerged from underground and there was a deafening crack as the bridge and river fell into an abyss. The hero who had cried out went to the place from where the music had emerged. He saw a woman on a rock strike a stone with her instrument, then disappear. An imprint of the instrument remained from the blow. From this imprint, Altaians made the topshuur lute. (Marazzi 1986, 16)

Aleksandr Kotozhekov related a similar story about how the khomys lute was given to Khakas peoples by a “mountain girl,” who sang and played music, then left behind the instrument’s imprint in the ground, which they copied. In other Altaian legends, Lord of the Underworld Erlik gave his official singer the skills of köömei and the two-stringed ikili fiddle (identical to the topshuur but sounded by a bow).13 Traditionally, the instrument’s body is decorated following instructions from its spirit-owner given in dreams to the epic performer or master instrumentmaker. The dreamer can see the required materials and method of construction. 208

6. With-Spirit Epic Performers

Designs upon it are significant. For instance, the number of holes prodded into the body of an Altaian topshuur expresses its power. The performer must interpret the spirit’s instructions. When Ai Charykh Saiyn Küchen was told in his initiatory dream to turn his palms toward others, he began to imprint his palm onto the back of his instruments (Levin with Süzükei 2006, 166). balance, relations, and place Within the charged performative atmosphere of local community events, the traditional with-spirit Altaian epic performer could restore equilibrium between good and evil energies and bring into balance social relations between humans, ancestral spirits, nature’s spirit-owners, and other spirit actors of the universe. In the post-Soviet period, with a renewed emphasis on traditional family relations and restoration of social relations between human and spirit actors in nature and the universe, dramatized epic themes have become both important as Indigenous heritage and relevant to contemporary life. Let us consider the popular epic Maadai Kara. In this, the kinship relation between humans and nature’s spirit-owner is recreated by Altai Eezi in the form of an old lady, who rescues and rears the abandoned hero-baby, Kögüdei Mergen. The child must take action to redress imbalance in relations in the Middle World caused by the loss of parents, lack of a wife, childlessness within marriage, and invasion by a foreign enemy. Kögüdei Mergen must defeat Khan Kara-Kula to rescue his parents from the Underworld and then overcome Kara-Kula’s widow’s attempts to prevent him from seeking a wife. The balance of traditional human family social relationships (father/son; husband/wife) is thus reestablished by his accomplishments. A hero has the potential to unbalance spirit-actor relations in the universe by his own actions. In Chachiyakov’s epic Jylangash-uul (Naked Boy), for instance, the boy has no siblings, a status expressed by his nakedness. During the epic, he redresses this imbalance by acquiring a hero’s clothes and horse and, while on Mt. Üch Sümer, capturing a fledgling swan that becomes a beautiful wife. He finds himself in a white palace upon a white throne. Buoyed up by his success, he lassoes the countries of the Kün (Sun)-khan and Ai (Moon)-khan. But when he lassoes a black stump in the middle of the Pale (Kuba) Steppe, causing the Upper World of Üch Kurbustan (Kudai) and Lower World of Erlik to reel, those spirit actors must act (Yamaeva n.d., 1–12). Similarly, battle between the two main spirit actors of Upper and Lower Worlds is triggered in Kan-Altyn when the hero plays his golden and copper flutes (shoor) and both want to possess them (Gatsak 1997b, 303). The restoration of traditional social balance in the form of kinship relations, accomplished in both Maadai Kara and the Naked Boy, resonates with their strong reclamation in post-Soviet society. Similarly, the relation of epic performance to transitions in season, time, and cosmos is also finding expression in contemporary life.

209

part three. attuning to upper and lower worlds

epic performance as boundary transition

Among Altaians, Kan-Altyn was performed before transitions from life to death while hunting and the Jangar epic before major historical changes. Epic performer Nikolai Yalatov (1927–2002) explained that it was the hero Jangar who made him perform that epic before the fall of the USSR (Shinzhin 2010). Epics were performed throughout three or four nights at a clan or community traditional event, such as marking the beginning of a new season or lunar phase. Both Altaian and Khakas with-spirit epic performers moved nature onward after the equinox, especially in winter when times were difficult. This periodic time change is now marked by epic performers during the daytime in national festivals. The Altaian El-Oiyn (People’s Games) Festival, for example, coincides with July’s first new moon, and the Khakas Tun Pairam Festival celebrates the arrival of summer, change of animal pasture, and availability of the first airan sour milk drink. Some traditional aspects are maintained. Most contemporary with-spirit epic performers will not, for instance, play during the old moon, when bad spirits are abroad. Concepts and experiences of time change during epic performance for both performer and audience. The performer’s journey takes place in real time, the length of his performance. When Altaian and Khakas epic performers use kaikhai, however, they travel in “epic space-time” (Yntai P). Mariya, wife of Elbek Kalkin, referred to this as “kai-time.” In kai-time, the epic performer and audience travel to the past and back again at great speed and often go to the beginning of space-time, as in the opening passage of Kadyshev’s epic Altyn-Arygh: In the beginning, when the earth was forming, Copper and iron becoming firm, the height of the earth, Snow-capped mountains Were also arising and standing. Wide waters, large rivers, Flowed from white mountains, Flowed through white steppes, Flowed by night and day, Gushing and gurgling.

Both epic performer and audience experience the “here and now” of performance and “then and there” of epic space-time or kai-time simultaneously. The epic performer reestablishes the physical cosmos for epic characters and local audiences by involving them in the dramatic events of the journey. For instance, in Maadai Kara, which has a “heavenly hunt” theme, the hero Kögüdei Mergen (Heavenly Archer) reestablishes the alternation between day and night,

210

6. With-Spirit Epic Performers

a periodic order, thereby reinjecting a “vital rhythm” into original chaos. He also reestablishes certain constellations (Marazzi 1986, 8). To do these things, he must defeat Khan Kara-Kula of the Underworld by hunting for his “life-force” (soul), hidden as one of two quail chicks inside a golden box in the stomach of one of the Three Cosmic Deer (Alt. Üch-Myigak)14 that form the belt of Orion. After defeating Kara-Kula, Kögüdei Mergen and his wife Altyn Küskü ascend to the sky. Kögüdei Mergen becomes the seven stars (Alt. Jeti-Kan, “Seven Khans”) of the Great Bear constellation (Ursa Major); Altyn Küskü, the Golden Stake (Altyn Kazyk) or Pole Star; and the bloodied arrow shot by Kögüdei Mergen to release the golden box containing Kara-Kula’s soul becomes the single red star above the Three Cosmic Deer of Orion (16). Having achieved harmony, balance, and regeneration in the cosmos and between human and nonhuman energies through the epic narrative’s action, the epic must end well so that all can return peacefully to their own “place.” The epic performer and hero must agree that it is time to stop. The spirit-owners of the epic, khai, and topshuur lute must also be content. Mariya explained that when Elbek finishes an epic, he makes sure the hero returns to a good place where he may sleep: “The road of the kaichy and hero will separate and then meet again. The hero has his own life. This is what the epic says. Heroes exist with the kaichy. At the end, the hero rests. The kaichy opens his way and the hero goes his own way.” She continued: “Elbek performs an alkysh at the end, saying: ‘My topshuur will have a rest for a while.’ All agree.” The audience, too, can then rest easy. protection, healing

We have seen above how epic performance traditionally protects posthumous souls and humans by restoring balance in social relations between human and spirit actors. Khakas eelïg khaijy Ai Charykh Saiyn Küchen performs epics at the full moon as protection from bad spirits who are more active at that time. His khai, he says, threatens them and has a harder edge than the khai he performs at the new moon (Levin with Süzükei 2006, 167–68). Epics are also performed for healing the body. For instance, Altaian eelü kaichy Arzhan Közörökov performed the epic Baabyi Kan (Baby Khan), also known as Kabai Kadun (Cradle Kadun), to cure infertile women. “The choice of epic depends on a person’s “road” or “way” [Alt. jol],” said Arzhan, adding that he discovered that way by listening to the voices of his spirits. He elaborated: “When I perform an epic, spirit-owners (eeler) communicate through the sounds and vibrations of my kai vocal tone and topshuur lute. The kaichy only opens his mouth and his words are in tune with the spirit’s vibrations.” According to Arzhan, the vibrations of kai heal by affecting the body’s biological organism. After enlivening his instrument, the performer may also ask the epic’s spirit-owner which epic needs to be performed to cure the problem.

211

part three. attuning to upper and lower worlds

In the Middle World, the epic performer may also predict, prevent, or heal illness or misfortune; “hear,” “see,” and interact with other-than-human actors; and locate lost or deceased people and animals. All these contexts of performance require a combination of skills. The Skillful Epic Performer sounds, ethnopoetics, paralinguistics

The epic performer’s mode of delivery is influenced by ethnicity, former tribe, clan, Indigenous group, and spiritual connections. Those Altaian Telengit and Khakas epic performers who travel to Lower Worlds perform sections of intoned narratives using kai-khai with instrumental accompaniment, then repeat the text without accompaniment in the everyday voice. Some Khyzyl and Altaian Altaikizhi epic performers, whose heroes remain in the Middle World because of Ak Jang affiliations (for example, Tabor Chachiyakov), recite spoken passages very low and fast, almost like tongue-twisters (Samozhikov P). However, to breathe life into the epic’s narrative, the performer needs to be skillful and creative in his choice of traditional vocal genres, poetical descriptions, instrumental techniques, rhythmical improvisations, and expressive sounds. He may repeat texts, sing words he has never sung before (Yntai P), and improvise with verbal and musical formulae and motifs. Individual epic performers also have their own peculiarities. For instance, Khakas chatkhan player Nikolai Kokov (b. 1933) recalled a conversation with Sömön Kadyshev in which he had admired the vocal and performance skills of Pödör Kurbizhekov: “When Pödör Kurbizhekov plays chatkhan, his voice follows the melodies of the chatkhan. I cannot perform like that, and I couldn’t even when I was young. He was a big master.” Kai-khai tonality should be rich and the narrative clear, so that the epic is pleasing to the ears of human and spirit audiences. Epic performers also have their own individual kai-khai styles15 and employ them throughout the epic. To complete his epic journey, the performer needs to move his musical hero or heroine, himself, and his audience effectively across experiential dimensions, difficult terrains, and different scenes. A change of kai-khai styles acts as a cue, alerting the audience to the stage of the journey and drama reached. For instance, in Khakassia “buzzing” khai (küülïp khai), “snoring”16 khai (kharygha/kharghyra khai), and “whistling” khai (syrghyrtyp khai) are used to cue the beginning and end of the tale and the onset of different scenes (Baskakov 1948). Traditionally, as local human audiences remained awake throughout the night, these cues also provided ways for them to become engaged in the performance with vocal reactions such as cheering on

212

6. With-Spirit Epic Performers

the hero and performer during the supernatural battles to defeat foes, crucially including the Lord of the Underworld Erlik Khan and his retinue. Verses are poetical. Each line is of relatively equal syllables, meter, and length (stichic) and divided into half-lines (hemistich). Poetical devices, such as lineinitial and within-line alliteration, syntactical parallelism, formulaic names and speech, verbal motifs, reduplication, and onomatopoeic sounds, add sonic richness and serve as memorization devices. Together with the story, texts contain ancient traditions and customs, Indigenous knowledge, omens, charms and spells, curses, well-wishes, lullabies (cradle songs), proverbs, and sayings of moral and ethical content (Katashev 1997, Sheikin and Nikiforova 1997). Ethnopoetics and paralinguistic features, such as voice quality, volume control, pauses, and silence, are also important for enhancement of the drama (Hymes 1975). A. G. Kalkin performed seven epic lines in one breath exhalation, which affected the sounds of phrases and words, especially final ones. Rhythmic fillers are also used, for example “Ochy la Bala” instead of “Ochy Bala” in the Altaian epic (Gatsak and Kazagacheva 1997, 72–74) and emphatic suffixes, such as-daa in the Tyvan epic Boktug-Kirish, Bora-Sheelei (Israel 2011). Khakas khaijy Aryshtaev lamented the stylization of epic texts for publication in the “literary language” during the communist period. By contrast, “words from khai eezï came from the heart and the liver,” he said. In performance, pronunciation differs according to Indigenous group and subgroup affiliation, also affecting the sounds and rhythms produced. For instance, Telengit epic performer A. G. Kalkin pronounced the end-blown flute choor, and Töölös epic performer Tabor Chachiyakov pronounced it shoor. In the literary language, the word for hero might be written bagatur or baatar, but in epic performance it is more likely to be pronounced paatyr.17 The verse’s rhythm is supported by a melody for which musical creativity is also required. The epic performer molds rhythmic patterns and melodies around his ideas and varies other prosodic features as the hero’s journey and tasks progress. Each epic has one basic melody of comparatively small range18 but each khaijy interprets this differently, transmitting this and his performance style to his descendants and students (Samozhikov P). After an instrument-enlivening alkysh, an alkysh to call the epic’s spirit-owner, and a short instrumental prelude, the epic performer employs a range of musical motifs, as with narrative ones, from within his epic repertoire (Kapchigashev P). These express the hero’s actions (for example, embarking upon a campaign, winning or losing a battle), emotions (such as being upset, suffering), summoning the power to defeat the enemy, or fighting with failing strength. When his power rises to defeat his enemy, all must fear him. Clearly a talented and skillful musician is needed.

213

part three. attuning to upper and lower worlds

musical epic hero and epic world

The epic hero is always musical, using different traditional vocal genres, instruments, and sounds that are familiar to the audience. As with kai-khai styles, they act as cues to help the hero or heroine on their journeys and move the narrative onward. In the Altaian epic Maadai Kara (A. G. Kalkin’s version), for instance, Kögüdei Mergen breaks into song or plays an instrument when crossing different experiential dimensions or difficult terrains. His singing permeates the valleys and gorges as he travels on horseback, musing: “Why not ride along singing [and] on a slender ambling sorrel?” (Marazzi 1986, 108). He bursts into lengthy sonorous songs when confronted by an obstacle, such as crossing the Underworld’s poisonous fordless Yellow Sea, and offers songs with goblets of strong alcohol to seven identical lamas to discover the location of Kara-Kula’s soul. The epic world resonates with sound as the hero’s singing produces profound effects on his horse as well as on birds and other animals. When traveling in the bleak Underworld steppe lands of Kara-Kula, for instance: “The animals with their young, having left their young, give ear; the birds in their nest, having left their nest, give ear. His dark-grey horse dances with his forelegs, dances with his hind-legs” (93). Even nature is affected. When Kögüdei Mergen performs a long- and shortsong to alert his parents to his arrival in the Underworld, flowers spring from stones and cedars become green. Once rescued, his parents sing as they set off on the homeward journey to Altai. Kögüdei Mergen is also enveloped in sounds as he travels. A recurring motif, for instance, is: The saddle [made] of bark groans, The body-belts [made] of withe rustle, With the grey nine-tailed rod of withe, He flogs [his horse] with a hiss. (94)

Instruments played by the hero are familiar to the local audience. The endblown flute (shoor) played using the thumb—a key motif in Altaian epics—is made by contemporary hunters and played by musicians. In Maadai Kara, it is played at significant moments: Kögüdei Mergen’s successful location and capture of Khan Kara-Kula’s soul; when approaching the Underworld camp of Khan KaraKula and yurt of his imprisoned parents; and crucially, when finally confronting Erlik Bii: “Seeing him [Erlik], Kögüdei Mergen started to play the pipe with his thumb” (41, 100–101). The theme of Kan-Altyn revolves around two of these flutes19—a six-jointed golden shoor and a seven-jointed copper one—presented to the hero at birth by Kudai, the supreme power of Upper Worlds. Both flutes have the power to

214

6. With-Spirit Epic Performers

revive the dead and destroy the enemy. They also contain Kan-Altyn’s soul. When Kan-Altyn plays them, the moon and sun descend. In the Upper World, Kudai loves the sounds of the golden shoor; in the Lower World, Erlik loves those of the copper shoor. Other spirit actors of Upper and Lower Worlds also hear the flutes and want to possess them (Gatsak 1997b, 302–14). Therefore, war breaks out on all levels of the universe. Epics are alive with the sounds and dramatic performances of other characters in the drama. A character is often identified, as in contemporary life, by the type of sounds they produce. For instance, in Kan-Altyn, an epic performer who uses kai is called kailarim, and a “throat-singer” who performs köömei, köömeichin (see also contemporary kaichi, khaijy). Moreover, epic characters produce a range of other sounds, such as shouting, laughing, crying, and whistling. In the Lower World, Khan Kara-Kula’s wife, Erlik’s daughter, wears shoes made of birch bark that creak and a dress of coarse cloth that rustles, laughs with a snigger, and sings shrilly (Sheikin and Nikiforova 1997, 49–50). *

*

*

This chapter has teased out the partials of ritual, spirituality, and performance. It has illustrated how the epic world and its actors, accessed by kai-khai vocal tone and instrumental accompaniment, share the ontology of the epic performer and listeners, enabling emplacement in contemporary society, history, and the universe, the negotiation of boundaries between dimensions and kinds of being, the adjustment of social relations, and the restoration of well-being. We have learned how with-spirit epic performers share the multisensory performance skills and practices of other spiritual specialists. They are close to shamans, in that they have “received the gift,” can “open the way,” predict and prevent illness, communicate with spirit-owners and spirit actors, locate lost people or souls, and herds, and accompany posthumous souls. In contrast to shamans, they also raise the heart and reassure. Because of shared ontology of epic performers and shamans, Altaian Arzhan Közörökov was able to officiate at both kinds of ritual event. The next chapter looks more closely at his shamanic performances.

215

7

Shamanic Roads

Pathways of Origin

This last chapter explores further one of the book’s main voices, the Shaman’s Song. It shows how contemporary shamans draw upon and adapt Indigenous traditions in their processes of initiation and shamanizing and use a range of vocalizations and percussive sounds to enable modes of travel, pathways, transitions, and emplacement in healing rituals. It discusses the poetical, rhythmical, and improvisational creativity of shamanic performances that include the sounding, mimesis, and embodiment of spirit actors, vibrations, spinning, “hearing,” and “seeing.” Finally, it describes in detail a series of Altaian shamanic rituals in which spirit actors are summoned and enlivened for participation. It is by means of sonic pathways that those spirit actors arrive and the shaman travels in his or her diagnostic journey. In rituals for curing illnesses (mental health, anxiety, infertility, terminal conditions), the shaman must sonically open, widen, or unblock the patient’s road to enable transition from illness to health and restore senses of place in a social universe. Let us begin by identifying how the source of a shaman’s power affects his or her available pathways, spirit-helpers and protector spirits, song-chant lyrics, instrumental styles, and rhythms. sources of shamanhood and power

Contemporary Altaian, Khakas, and Tyvan shamans draw upon and often combine the traditions of their own Indigenous peoples, clans, and families, historical

7. Shamanic Roads

writings, and state and global influences. The most common and highly regarded source of the shamanic gift and power is inheritance from a clan ancestor, and those who received it from other sources often affiliate themselves to their Indigenous group or clan. For instance, shamanhood was conferred upon Altaian Közörökov Shaman by a mountain spirit-owner, but he was proud of his matrilineal shamanic line, healed many from his local Töölös people, and was aware when he deviated from their traditions (P). Hungarian ethnographer Vilmos Diószegi, who conducted research with exshamans among Khakas Saghais under communism, noted their three sources of the shamanic gift: from a clan’s ancestral shaman, from a mountain’s “spirit master” [spirit-owner] at the request of a clan’s ancestral shaman, or from the spirit of sickness (with limited healing powers). Inheritance for Saghais, though, was not of shamanic abilities but of the spirits (tös) of deceased shamans ([1962] 1998, 27–28). Mongush Kenin-Lopsan, respected researcher of shamanism, outlined five traditional sources of Tyvan shamanic power: shamanic ancestors, spiritowners of earth-water (cher-sug), the sky (deer, tengri), spirits of illness (albystar), and malicious spirits (azalar) (1993, 14). Potapov had reported that those with shamanic ancestors were considered in the 1920s to be the most powerful “wellborn shamans” (Tyv. uktu kam) and performed rituals to both Ülgen, the main beneficial spirit actor of Upper Worlds, and Erlik, Lord of Lower Worlds, as well as to spirits of the Middle World (1991, 159, 266). Perhaps because of the link with power, most contemporary Tyvan shamans are keen to establish shamanic ancestral descent. For instance, Tyvan Ai Chürek Shamaness told how she had received her grandmother’s shamanic gift from her mother, Lazo Mongush Shaman cited his grandfather, and Kara-ool Dopchun-ool Shaman inherited it from his grandmother. Some shamans bring ancestral spirit actors to assist during rituals. Altaian Közörökov Shaman, for example, brought “respected elders” to encircle his patients; Khakas Kishteev Shaman’s two great-grandfathers, Baljan and Badang, accompany him to negotiate with animal spirit-owners of a ritual place; and Tyvan Manzyrykchy Shaman calls his white-haired bearded grandfather to participate. An ancestral spirit may be heard rather than seen by the shaman. Contemporary shamans often draw power from several shamanic origins. For example, Ai Chürek, Lazo Mongush, and Kara-ool Dopchun-ool identify as hereditary and Sky shamans. The latter involves addressing song-chants (algyshtar) to Upper-World spirit actors, influencing the movement of celestial phenomena, affecting natural elements, and summoning the celestial Bear (Tyv. Adyg) or Blue Wolf eerens (Kenin-Lopsan 1997a, 65).1 Being powerful, they travel to all three levels of the universe. In our encounters, these shamans also drew power from spirit-owners of earth-water in the Middle World for certain rituals. Lazo

217

part three. attuning to upper and lower worlds

Mongush Shaman, for instance, performed summer tree ceremonies from May to July each year, choosing different trees for the ritual site, depending on the patient’s problem. For women, he chose a tree with two distinct species growing from one root (Tyv. tel yyash), symbolizing the family clan; for people to live well, he chose a long-living luxuriant tree with one strong trunk, closely grouped branches growing from one part of the tree, and bearing prolific berries and mushrooms (Tyv. bai yyash); and for family problems such as death, infertility, and divorce, he chose a long-living larch, with many trunks growing from the same root to stabilize the family and strengthen their paths. Lazo Shaman also performs autumn fire rituals to diagnose and exorcise spirits of illness and communicates with spirit-owners of water during healing and soul-dispatch rituals. Conflicts may arise, though, when more than one—or when it is not clear which—origin spirit is generating power at a ritual. For instance, in Kara-ool Dopchun-ool’s genealogy are his grandmother Kara-Kys, a “great shamaness” (ulugh kham), whom the Soviets executed, and from whom he inherited his Sky shamanhood, and her father Shokar, an albys-shaman who had transmitted it to her brother (P). This creates unresolved tensions within Kara-ool Dopchun-ool, activating his “shamanic impulse” to perform, but also bringing the potential for mental instability, since he is unsure whether he is being directed by his White Shaman grandmother or possessed by a demonic albys (Zorbas 2021, 78–79, 83–87). Both Lazo Mongush Shaman and Kara-ool Dopchun-ool Shaman maintain pre-Soviet traditions such as wearing full shamanic regalia, negotiating with spirit actors, performing forty-one–stone divination (khuvaanak), purification (aryglaar), and soul-dispatch rituals as well as giving hand massages and herbal remedies. The rehabilitation of clan and family in the post-Soviet period has also allowed the traditional relationship of the clan, ancestry, and shamanhood to emerge. clan, ancestral road, initiation

Among Siberian peoples, the shaman’s pathways were determined in pre-Soviet times by the clan and its ancestral shaman. After being sick with shamanic illness and accumulating power alone in the taiga forest, for instance, the candidate for shamanhood undertook an “examination” in which the clan evaluated ritual skills including drumming, dancing, and song-chant performance and the shaman’s reputation remained bound up with the perceptions of the clan (Yasser 1926). Hereditary initiands also had to travel the difficult road to the clan’s ancestral shaman, overcoming many obstacles. According to Saghai Kyzlasov Shaman, this journey involved attaching his clan seal (tangma) to a shamanic tree, being shown the correct path by an invisible shaman guarding the crossroads from which all

218

7. Shamanic Roads

paths diverge, crossing a fast-flowing river by a very narrow bridge (sometimes a single hair), and passing between two cliffs that clash day and night (Diószegi [1962] 1998, 31). At the crossroads, the pathway of those to be initiated by the ancestral clan shaman diverges. Mistakes might happen. For instance, Saghai candidate Toka had mistakenly taken the road of the father of smallpox, which runs northward. He succumbed to the illness and could then only heal those also afflicted by it, or by measles and abscesses (28). After successfully negotiating the trials of the ancestral clan road, the Saghai candidate had to choose shamanic accoutrements. First was a beater for the shamanic drum: “Ancient ones are made of stone, others from the wood of a shrub around which hare-skin is wound; some are called ‘bear,’ others, ‘horn.’2 The drumsticks of stone seem to be the most ancient” (31). Choosing the drum came next. In a warehouse-type building, human-like spirit actors sat opposite each other, writing at black-earth tables from which diverse types of drum were suspended (including skin-faced and bronze). The drum’s design was determined by the clan’s shaman ancestor and was constructed later by a master instrument-maker. The drum’s spirit, which the shaman would enliven, depended upon the skin (reindeer, wild goat, or bear) used for its drumhead from an animal captured by the initiand. Drawn onto the drumskin were a “rainbow” or sky belt (tigyr khury) and the initiand’s spirits in Upper and Lower Worlds. The clan’s shaman ancestor chose the number of percussive sound-producers to be attached to the drum and approved the completed instrument before then giving spirit-helpers—referred to as “people” (kïzïler)—to the initiate, thereby bestowing full shamanhood (31–33). Initiation in contemporary Khakassia is difficult because of the enforced break in tradition during the Soviet period and, following historical suffering, a reluctance to accept the responsibility. Viktor Kishteev Shaman had therefore “journeyed” to Tibet to receive the spirit of a Tibetan “White Shaman,” who had died one hundred years previously.3 The experiences he recounted bore some similarities to those of the Saghais described by Diószegi. Several weeks after “hearing” drum sounds, Viktor had found himself inside a white yurt where seven white-haired elders were sitting around a table silently drumming their fingers. They formed a council of equals, he said, who gave him the traditional Saghai task of escorting a candidate’s soul (chula) to them for introduction, initiation, or punishment. Viktor also talked of the patron of all shamans, Adam Khan, to whom every candidate must go, and explained that Khakas shamans, chosen by ancestral spirits (tös),4 may only take the drum when they reach forty years old. Traditionally, it was possible to hand back the shamanic gift by traveling the clan road, offering food to the clan’s ancestral shaman, and returning any spirit actors given. During the Soviet period, this occurred frequently. Piltïr chatkhan

219

part three. attuning to upper and lower worlds

player and khai performer Nikadim Ulturgashev recounted his own method of avoiding it. When his shamaness mother Nyura died, her Variegated Wolf spirithelper had carried him to Shaman Mountain (Kham Taskhyl), a place to which his mother travelled during rituals and dreams. Ulturgashev’s description of the initiation process is similar to that described for Saghais above: “There was a shining house, and a big ‘man’ met me outside. Once inside, there were five people, including two women. They wore Tadar clothing and asked: ‘Which clan do you belong to?’ I told them ‘Piltïr’ and they looked in several books to find it. They check what is there, what to give you” (P). They had offered him his mother’s shamanic drum (tüür), but instead he grabbed the zither (chatkhan) and ran. Despite refusing the shamanic instrument, Ulturgashev continues to travel with the Variegated Wolf and is known to have khuiakh, a protective power or “armor,” detectable in the eyes. It was also possible to request shamanhood but, as the following contemporary example shows, it is not always granted. When we met in Abakan in 2004, Khakas shaman’s assistant Aleksandr Kotozhekov described his attempt. Six years previously, when he had already experienced altered states of consciousness, he had tried to take the road of shamanic initiation. He had expected to have to overcome three obstacles on the way (a speaking stone, clanging rocks, and a river bridged by a single horsehair), and upon arrival be given a spirit-helper by Adam Khan, protector of shamans. Kotozhekov explained how the experience had turned out: A friend came to me—a white horse. I mounted it and asked it to take me to the speaking stone, so that I could pass through it. The horse started slowly, then went faster and faster. Just like in epics—a horse with wings. I flew with the horse. I could not see. I closed my eyes and had a rushing noise in my ears. The horse reached the speaking stone. I expected to see a stone figure, but it was the top of a mountain in the shape of a yurt. I understood that I had to go into the stone yurt and that there I would receive more instructions or tests. But I could not get in. I performed verses of praise and entreaty (alghys), made offerings, knocked, and banged my head on it. I looked for a secret door but failed to find it. Then I asked the horse: “How can I get into the stone yurt?” The horse laughed and I realized that I would never achieve it. I came back to reality. I knew then that I can never be a shaman.

Kishteev Shaman explained that after initiation, the shaman is offered stronger powers that can also be accepted, evaded, or postponed. He told how he had experienced this when undertaking the journey to sacred Pürüs Mountain (Ru. Borus). The mountain’s spirit-owner had seen him coming, even though he had only reached Sayanogorsk city. Laughing, the spirit-owner had offered its cap to him, but Kishteev Shaman did not accept it. “It was a very strong cap,” he said, “and I knew that it was too soon to take it. It would have caused me to suffer.” 220

7. Shamanic Roads

Most contemporary shamans have experienced illness prior to taking up their profession. Some described it using traditional motifs, others in relation to a disturbance in the senses. For Khakas Kishteev Shaman, a visual disturbance occurred in the form of a vision of a white snake. It kept him awake at night and only disappeared by swimming away across a river when he became a shaman. Tyvan Ai Chürek Shamaness told how her shamanic illness had expressed itself in sound: “I used to hear kargyraa throat-singing in one ear and algysh verses in the other. It was driving me crazy.” Doctors had advised her to have an ear operation but instead she became a shamaness. “My kargyraa emerged. I never trained, it just happened. I was healed,” she said. Then, she added: “Shamans pay attention to sounds and melodies because we believe that earth’s root is her echo. Sounds communicate information.” Ai Chürek went on to talk about the relationship of drone-overtone vocal music to place and power. throat-singing, place, power

There are “correct” places for the performance of ritual khöömei. These places must have power, such as by a shaman tree, at the confluence of two rivers, and “below the top of nature.” It must not be performed on the crest of a mountain but rather on the side of sacred hills and mountains. Rooted in their own “place” and in a “correct” place, shamans then trigger extrasensory experiences, create pathways and journey, heal patients and communities, and call, entertain, and negotiate with spirit actors (Ai Chürek P). Altaian shaman Arzhan Közörökov explained how kai timbral vocal music connects to the nature and location of the performer’s birthplace, including his own “place,” Korota: “Kai depends on the natural environment of a person’s birthplace, for instance, whether there are forests. If born in Ulagan, how the tree swings there, how the grass moves affects that person’s kai. Our place’s kai, Korota’s kai, gathers many things because it is a middle place.” In ritual contexts, Közörökov Shaman and Tyvan shamans Ai Chürek, Lazo Mongush, and Nikolai Oorzhak used only kargyraa and sygyt drone-overtone vocal styles. We saw earlier how, traditionally, certain Tyvan clans used kargyraa in their rituals (chap. 3). Ai Chürek suggested that performers should not chose other styles lightly, since they imitate the voices of spirit actors and may potentially upset them. Some shamans use the khöömei style but, according to Oorzhak Shaman, it is “born in the felt tent and used for lullabies,” and therefore does not fit with the timbral sounds created by a shaman’s costume and accoutrements. Sky shamans use sygyt and kargyraa to affect the pathways of elements, planets, and stars and to penetrate different worlds. A powerful shamaness and healer, Ai Chürek was both admired and feared. When we sat outside in the courtyard of her Tös Deer Shamanic Center on the banks of the Yenisei River, light was fading on the shamanic tree (kham yiash) and its fluttering ritual ribbons (chalama). She 221

part three. attuning to upper and lower worlds

figure 7.1. Ai Chürek shaman-

izing at Paradise camp, close to Bii-Khem River, Tyva, 2005.

spoke softly and kindly: “Sygyt is the highest form of khöömei because it connects to the universe and heavenly bodies—the stars, sun, and moon. It is from the sky and should only be performed in the morning and evening. A very strong shaman can perform kargyraa that penetrates to nine different worlds and if accompanied by drumming then more or less stars appear. A change occurs.” She then described how shamans compete to prove who is the most powerful: “If the shaman performing sygyt is better,” she said, “a cloud ascends and if the shaman performing kargyraa is better, the cloud descends, bringing down spirits, bringing them closer.” She confided that she had helped to douse wildfires in the taiga by using kargyraa to bring rain. This ability to control the elements is the preserve of shamans, maintained by taboos. Traditionally, it was forbidden for ordinary people to perform sygyt as they could offend a shaman’s spirits and cause strong winds, storms, snow, rain, or even a war (Kenin-Lopsan quoted in Hoppál 1997b, 131). Vocalizing Spirits and Journey

When journeying, a shaman uses a range of vocal sounds including song-chants, melodies, interjections, exclamations, spirit mimesis, drone-partials vocal music

222

7. Shamanic Roads

(including “throat-singing”), whistling, yawning, and coughing to activate and communicate with spirit actors, captivate listeners, and accomplish a purpose.

[128.104.46.196] Project MUSE (2024-04-09 03:07 GMT) UW-Madison Libraries

song-chants, melodies, interjections, exclamations

According to Tyvan Oorzhak Shaman, a shaman must perform a ritual songchant (Alt. alkysh; Kh. alghys, Tyv. algysh), for this creative sound-event calls spirit actors and activates reciprocal relations with them (P). Shamans hope that these sounds will please spirit-helpers, including spirit-owners, ancestral protectors, and powerful forces from Upper and Lower Worlds, who will reciprocate by preventing or rectifying imbalances in the interrelated bodies of individuals, society, and the universe. The song-chant is performed during potentially dangerous transitions, for instance, from illness to health, from life to death, from one moon phase, season, and camp to another. To make the transition from one dimension to another, a shaman dons a shamanic suprabody in the form of an idiophonic costume, the timbral sound-producers of which are enlivened to assist the shaman (chap. 1). The shaman must captivate human and spirit listeners, which requires a range of skills. The images and sounds of different worlds and their inhabitants are vividly evoked, and vocal dexterity creates dramatic effects. Saghai Kyzlasov Shaman’s powerful vocal sounds, for instance, ranged from singing to conversational, highpitched to deep bass, bawling, hooting, and inhaling with a rasping sound “like a soft whistle, like a neighing horse” (Diószegi [1960] 1968, 72). During my healing ritual in Kyzyl in 2005, Tyvan Manzyrykchy Shaman explained his variations in vocal tone: “If there are problems bringing the spirits, then I need to perform long, hard sounds. Once they have arrived, I can soften my voice.” He whispered his algysh as he touched the front and back of my ailing chest with his drum’s beater (orba). Similarly, Altaian Arzhan Közörökov Shaman often performed his songchants in a whisper. Because of such fluctuating sounds, and the use of shamanic language, song-chants are notoriously difficult to record and transcribe. Lyrics vary according to the shaman’s origins, ethnicity, Indigenous group, and community, and performance styles range from recitative through rhythmical chanting to pentatonic melodies [G2]. In pre-Soviet times, the song-chant’s central section contained descriptive motifs: the shaman’s journey to and activities in the Underworld, the supranormal place and spirit actors encountered there, the purpose of the journey, and the shaman’s return.5 The contemporary songchant often begins by introducing the shaman and describing his attributes and spirit-helpers, followed by an introduction of the client and a plea for guidance with the problem. Song-chant motifs, adapted to the shaman’s powers and patient’s needs, may activate and describe the flight path: “Under the clouds, above the trees I fly” or “Under the skies, above the clouds I fly” (Diószegi [1960] 1968,

223

part three. attuning to upper and lower worlds

259). Obstacles needing to be overcome during journeying also vary. In a southern Altaian shamanic ritual described by Anokhin, for instance, the second obstacle on the way to Erlik involved passing through a blacksmith’s workshop with: A sacred four-faced anvil, Black tongs, endlessly opening and closing, A black ringing hammer, Black moaning bellows— The creation of my Father Erlik! (Anokhin 1924, 85–86, cited in Alekseev [1987] 1997, 64).

The shaman demonstrates skills in the combination of poetical devices (for instance, initial line alliteration, parallel vowel harmonies, syntactical parallelism), rhythmical vowel alternations, structural refrains and motifs, and improvisational creativity. Vocal interjections and exclamations, such as “Hey,” “Oi,” “U,” both invoke spirits and create rhythm (Anokhin [1910] 2003, 10). The use of long musical phrases and such short utterances also traditionally relate to the body of the shaman’s animal spirit-helper: “Shamans sing high and long notes on these interjections. If one wants to comprehend visually the fluctuations of a shamanic melody with high and low notes, its chart will resemble a line that goes from a head to a spinal cord, the back and tail of an animal. Textually, a shamanic melody consists of two types of phrases: short utterances and long musical phrases” (Anokhin, cited in Znamenski 2003, 53). Shamans have their own chants and melodies—their own “signature tunes” (see also Daur Mongol shamans in Humphrey with Onon 1996, 183). According to Tyvan Nadia Sat Shamaness, the latter are given during initiation of a shaman’s coat or drum. In the pre-Soviet period, an older experienced shaman also offered training. For instance, a Tyvan “bull-shaman” trained young shamans to create and perform song-chants and dances for a period of at least a week and up to a month (Kenin-Lopsan 2000, 85). In contemporary Altai, new shamans usually memorize the beginning and end of rituals and improvise the passages in between. The structures of shamanic song-chants vary even within one community. Radloff, who noted the impromptu nature of Indigenous shamanism, cited two different structures used by Teleuts. One addressed Erlik in a fifteen-line verse performed in recitative on two notes ([1884] 1989); the other, twenty-seven lines long with a twoline refrain recurring four times, is offered to thank and request benefits from Bai Ülgen. Appeals to Bai Ülgen occurred less often. In the pre-Soviet period, Altaian shamans, using sound avoidance, referred to Ülgen as “the white lightness,” “light khan,” “thunder carrier,” “lightning carrier,” and “the one who might burn” (Radloff [1866] 1967a, 238). Khakas Galina Kokova Shamaness continued this tradition in her invocation (Tyv. iöreel) and song-chant (Kh. alghys) to the Great White (Ulugh Ak), performed during my healing ritual in Kyzyl in 2003. 224

7. Shamanic Roads

spirit embodiment and mimesis

While journeying, the shaman traditionally assumes the identities of spirit-helpers and spirit-enemies, producing their voices and embodying their characteristics to communicate their presence, actions, and dialogues to the ritual’s participants. Spirit-helper identities connect to the shaman’s origins and pathways. Sky shamans produce the sounds of birds, animals, and elements of celestial origin, such as thunder. Tyvan Nikolai Oorzhak Shaman described how he begins a ritual: “When I begin, I call different birds in my algysh because spirits of different places come as birds, such as an eagle. I ask spirits of the Upper World to come as a rainbow, then I begin to perform khöömei.” Earth shamans perform the sounds of animals and elements of Middle-World origin, and those who travel to Lower Worlds produce the sounds of creatures from those domains. Being rooted in the shaman, spirit-helpers enable his or her safe return from dangerous journeys. The choice of spirit-helper also depends upon the ritual purpose and kind of healing needed. Tyvan elder Chimba Lopsan explained that when cursing an enemy, a shaman imitated a raven; when summoning rain, a crow; when frightening people, a wolf or eagle-owl; when uncovering a lie, a magpie; when demonstrating power, a bull; and when expressing rapture, a bear. When negotiating with spirit-enemies from the place of origin of an illness, a shaman uses the appropriate sounds. If the illness came from the “meddling of spirits” of water or earth, for instance, Tyvan Shimit-Kyrgys Shamaness produced the sounds of a raven, crow, wolf, Siberian stag, goat, marmot, and bear but, if caused by the anger of domestic animals, she sounded the cries of a nanny goat, sheep, camel, horse, and dog (Kenin-Lopsan 1997b, 132). throat-singing, whistling, yawning, coughing

In contrast to Tyvan Oorzhak Shaman, who began to perform khöömei after calling spirit actors, Altaian Közörökov Shaman used different drone-overtone and timbre-centered vocal styles to summon and dispatch them. He said: “I use medium-range kai to get rid of kopchy spirits, who appear in the form of rumors and gossip, and low-range kai to get rid of an aldachy, who comes from the Lower World and tries to take a person’s soul.” He also used sygyt and kargyra styles to call spirit actors and draw upon their strength during shamanic rituals. Von Lankenau first reported that shamans of Minusa Tatars (contemporary Khakas) whistle to call and dispatch their spirit-helpers in 1872. Ethnomusicologist Zoya Kyrgys explained that Tyvan shamans still traditionally whistle to call spirits and that the melody is particular to each shaman. I experienced this in 2006 when Tyvan Lazo Mongush Shaman conducted a forty-ninth–day soul-dispatch ritual in Shui, Bai-Taiga region. We drove to a small, wooded area close to the home of the deceased seventeen-year-old boy. The family sat in a semicircle with 225

part three. attuning to upper and lower worlds

palms pressed together, as in prayer. The fire Lazo had laid was difficult to start. He whistled a series of rapid descending cadences to call the spirit-owners of the taiga, land, and fire as well as the soul of the deceased. “These,” he said, “always arrive with wind.” The sudden wind that arose was fearsome (chap. 1). Altaian Közörökov Shaman explained that he used whistles to call his spiritowner helpers (eeler) at the beginning of a ritual. Since he did not use a drum or wear a timbral costume, whistling helped him to change consciousness, enabling him, for instance, to see the vibrating threads emanating from a person’s body (chap. 1). The whistle, though, must be performed with intention. He also whistled to dispatch malicious spirits. “If whistling fails,” he said, “the shaman produces the sounds of his spirit-helpers.” There is a general belief that spirit-helpers enter human bodies through the mouth. Yawning and breathing deeply are therefore also ways of summoning them and absorbing their powers, and coughing often signals their arrival. After the ritual, loud exhalations signal dismissal of those powers. Sonic Modes of Travel

Contemporary shamans use the sounds of a drum, beater, jaw’s harp, staff, or fan and percussive jingles of the costume as modes of travel. drum: spirit-helpers, percussive sounds

The single-headed shamanic drum (Alt. tüngür; Kh. tüür; Tyv. dünggür [G1]) serves as the shaman’s main spirit-helper. It becomes the animal on which the shaman rides, and shape-shifts to overcome obstacles. For instance, it may become a boat to cross water or a bow to combat hostile spirits and shamans. If the latter, the crossed handles in the drum’s open back become bowstrings and the metal pendants attached to them become “arrows.” The drum’s spirit-owner, the ancestor of shaman and clan, often female, is carved onto the vertical wooden handle of southern Siberian drums. Khakas Galina Kokova Shamaness, for instance, has a female ancestral figure carved at each end of her vertical drum handle.6 That ancestor spirit, who had specified the drum’s design, protects the shaman while journeying. The skin, stretched over a round or oval-shaped wooden frame,7 is from a sacrificial animal whose soul occupies the drum. This animal-soul enables the shaman to ride to distant parts of the earth and universe. It is fed regularly by smearing milk and butter onto the skin. During rituals, shamans call the drum by its spirit-animal name. In pre-Soviet times, the animal varied according to Indigenous group. For instance, eastern Tyvans (Tozhu) used a reindeer; pastoralist western Tyvans used a horse; Shors used a wild goat buck; and Chalkans used a horse or Siberian stag. Western Tyvans used horse terminology, speaking of the ears, jaw bones, and upper and lower rib of their spirit-animal, referring also to “training” and “breaking 226

7. Shamanic Roads

it in.” After the drum’s initial enlivenment ritual, it becomes reenlivened when sounded. The elk skin used for Khakas Kishteev Shaman’s drumskin and beater (orba) was taken from above the animal’s hoof to facilitate his travel. The animal is changed as the shaman passes through initiatory stages (P). Contemporary shamans continue the tradition of scooping hostile spirits and lost souls into the drum. For instance, after drumming around my body during a ritual to cure my cough, Tyvan Manzyrykchy Shaman packed the conquered spirits into his drum and raced out onto my flat’s balcony to dispatch them. At the beginning of a ritual, a drum may also store spirit-helpers. In pre-Soviet times, the drumskin was torn after a shaman’s death to provide an opening through which any living souls caught there could escape (Diószegi [1960] 1968, 294). There are differences in drum construction and ornamentation among clans and former tribes in the three republics. Tyvans, Khakas Khaas, Saghais and Piltïrs, and Altaian Teleuts use birch or bone resonator humps between the skin and rim of the frame.8 Steppe Tyvans and southern Altaians do not. On Tyvan Tozhu drums, the number of resonators indicates how many spirits and domains the drum may reach. Khakas Galina Kokova Shamaness referred to the nine resonators (each with three rounded knuckles or ridges) around the rim of her drum as her ancestral spirits (töstör). Spatial divisions on the drumskin delineate the regions to which the shaman travels and images within those illustrate his or her spirit-helpers and protectors. Traditionally, Khakas drums had a horizontal stripe separating the top and bottom parts and a vertical stripe dividing the celestial sphere into left- and right-hand sides. It was up this “ladder” or “tree” that the shaman ascended to the mountains and sky. Sometimes, there were only two divisions. Images of spirit-helpers in human and bird form and celestial bodies appeared above the horizontal stripe; below it was leeches, bears, lizards, hares, winged snakes, a black dog, a pike, and a frog (Sukhovskoi 1901, 148–49).9 Tyvan Sky Shaman Lazo Mongush warned that a shaman must never beat on the Lower World. He had drawn a celestial bear onto his drumskin. Images of spirit-helpers appear spontaneously on the drumskins of some contemporary shamans. Tyvan Elena Tögüs-ool Shamaness from Mönggün Taiga region, for instance, pointed to some of these on her mountain-goat drumskin. It was divided into upper and lower sections, with the lower section portraying the Lower World on the left and Middle World on the right. She described a fourarmed person, forest, moon, and mouse that I was unable to detect. She identified as “the path” a shape caused by beating that resembled a bird with a long beak and explained why a recently Janus-faced wolf image had particular significance. “My grandfather, Blue Shaman [Tyv. Kök Kham], was a powerful Sky shaman with piercing blue eyes. He looked like a wolf and when he performed his algysh, wolves in the taiga howled. Kök Kham’s spirit-helper was a blue wolf. When I was 227

part three. attuning to upper and lower worlds

small, I said: ‘What is that blue wolf doing under the bed?’ Grandfather said: ‘This girl sees it.’ Now it is mine.” Then, she told how this spirit had recently helped her. In Mönggün Taiga, a semicircle of wolves were ready to attack her as she walked to the mountain. Her blue wolf had stood between them and her and they had turned and left. Percussive metal sound-producers (Alt., Kh. khongyro, Tyv. kynggyraa [G1]), including bells, conical tubes, and weapons, are hung along the drum’s horizontal handle—the ancestor spirit’s outstretched “arms”—and around the drum’s periphery. Khakas Galina Kokova Shamaness had hung six, some bell-shaped, along the horizontal handle of her crossed-stick drum, and Kishteev Shaman had suspended one medium and two small bells and a black ribbon on each side of his drum’s T-shaped handle. The skin handles of Tyvan Lazo Mongush Shaman’s modern drum were attached by twisted cords to a circular cord. From these, he had hung one large and six small bells and from the horizontal cord-handle, a bear’s paw and ritual ribbons (chalama). Kishteev Shaman said that he uses these percussive jingling sounds to elevate himself and the drum’s rhythms to journey to other worlds. Tyvan Nadia Sat Shamaness confirmed the need for jingles when journeying. She also explained that the sounds of the bells set in motion the rhythms of nature’s spirit-owners (eeler), essential for healing: “You can heal yourself with a bell, with its sound. When you ring a bell, eeler tune into the sound and give out energy. A leaf has veins, which have their own sounds. The ee is invisible to the eye but moves. When it hears the bell, it starts its rhythm and, as this accelerates, it starts radiating energy. Then healing occurs” (P). The bells also have their own eerens who help the shaman on the journey (Manzyrykchy Shaman P). These, explained Galina Kokova Shamaness, are eerens that protect the shaman. The frequency, power, and sounds of the drum propel the shaman’s journey and activities as described in the versified song-chant. The strength and speed of its beats and rhythms evoke the spirit-animal’s movements, denoting distance and direction, ambling or galloping. The drumskin’s age affects its speed and will determine the drum’s life. The optimum age is up to its seventh or ninth year. Traditionally, Tyvan shamans use a range of drum sounds and rhythms. For instance, they differed when receiving sounds from above (“signal drum sound”),10 imitating a crow during shamanic duels (“conjuration drum sound”), journeying to locate a lost item or search for and retrieve a patient’s soul, honoring a newlymade consecrated drum, curing mental illness, warding off a hostile spirit actor, or bringing luck (Kenin-Lopsan 1996, 31–32). Special drumbeats were traditionally used in Altai to summon the shaman’s ancestor spirit-helper (tös), who entered shamans, altered their consciousness, and released their doubles for shamanic journeys (Potapov 1991, 69). The swing of the drum also creates sounds that blow away illnesses and dispel malicious spirits (Lazo Mongush Shaman P). 228

7. Shamanic Roads

beater: metamorphosis, healing

Shamans use the drum’s beater (Alt.K. orbo, Kh., Tyv. orba [G1]), which has a spirit-owner and its own sounds, in several ways. It has the power to metamorphose during the shaman’s journey, for instance, to become a whip with which to beat the spirit-animal (drum) or a paddle to propel a boat. Its front, which beats the drumskin, is covered by the spirit-animals’ fur. The bells or metal rings attached to its back add to the percussive sounds emanating from jingles on the drum or staff, coat, and headdress, enabling the shaman to change consciousness, call spirit-helpers, and fly. Khakas Semen Tinikov Shaman attached ribbons, representing hostile spirit actors, to its handle (Sukhovskoi 1901, 149). Lazo Mongush Shaman explained that, for Tyvans, the beater denotes the patient’s “way.” If it lands with the fur-covered side up when thrown at the end of a ritual, the shaman predicts a successful outcome. Beaters produce different tone qualities and timbres. Lazo Mongush Shaman, who has two, said that he uses a soft one to accompany his drone-overtone vocal sounds when lulling spirit actors, and for other purposes a hard one, like “a tos karak nine-eyed spoon Tyvans used when mixing grain” (P). It also has healing power. In the pre-Soviet period, a shaman moved it over the bodies of patients or touched them with it during rituals to drive away the spirit of illness (Sukhovskoi 1901, 149), a practice that continues today. Contemporary Khakas and Altaian shamans remove all that is unclean from the client by scraping the beater down the client’s back (chap. 4). jaw’s harp: power, strength

In 1983, after performing a ritual in Kungurtak, southwestern Tyva, seventy-twoyear-old Tyvan Tozhu Dezhit Shamaness explained to the ethnographer Vainshtein that she began shamanizing first with a staff (daiak) and then with a jaw’s harp (khomus). Of the nine shamans in her lineage, Dezhit followed her grandfather, whose spirit had settled in her. She then outlined the process of summoning her spirit-helpers (eeren) with khomus music and singing and described the similarity of shamanizing to a dream experience: I sit with my eyes closed and listen to the music of my mouth [jaw’s] harp. Then I begin to sing quietly and softly to summon my eeren. First, it is all dark in my eyes, then I see white dots, which start to gleam like hail. Then the dots are gone, and I can see my eeren. Then I rise, walk around, run around, and drive hostile spirits away. But I never remember what I talk about and what I asked during this time. It is like a dream that you do not remember when you wake up. People tell me that I play my khomus with my eyes closed, even when I walk around.

229

part three. attuning to upper and lower worlds

She told how her khomus became a “Siberian stag” called her “little horse” onto which she held when journeying to Upper Worlds, and which weapons she used to fight hostile spirit actors: “My khomus is my Siberian stag, which helps me to fly to the Upper World.11 Although I call him my little horse, I do not ride him. My stag usually flies, and I fly nearby, holding him. I have weapons to fight hostile spirits, such as a lance, a knife, a shovel, a scraper, a scythe, and a drill. They are all made of iron. It is hard to win without them” (Vainshtein 1990, 161–62, cited in Znamenski 2003, 269). Shamanizing with the jaw’s harp (Tyv. khomustap khamnaary) was widespread among shamans of Tyva’s Erzin and Tes-Khem regions and found in Tozhu and Kaa-Khem regions. Kungaa Tash-ool Buu oglu of the Kyrgyz clan, a fourth-generation “Dragon” shaman, yellow shaman, and Buddhist monk, who lived in Kyzyl, explained that the khomus is a shaman’s energy, as is music. Kungaa came from the same region as the famous Kyrgys Lamazhap Shaman, who lived on the banks of the Kachyk River, shamanized in Mongolian, and used a bamboo jaw’s harp (Tyv. sheleer khomus). According to some, this method of shamanizing was predominant among weaker shamans (Kenin-Lopsan 1997a), but Kungaa Shaman insisted that they were stronger. “The melody of a khomus,” he said, “has twice the power of the shamanic drum [Tyv. dünggür]. A dünggür’s melody crosses one mountain, that of a khomus crosses two.” Ai Chürek Shamaness commented: “While a dünggür drum is used for many things, the khomus is more dangerous. It is used in specific circumstances, such as locating a lost soul or missing persons.” Altaian musician Nogon Shumarov warned that the jaw’s harp (Alt. komus) needs to be handled with care since it is linked to dark spirits of the Lower World. Timing in terms of the daily and lunar cycle is important and women must be particularly careful: “When you play the komus, the spirits of the Lower World dance. Women should not play after sunset. Bad spirits will awaken. You can play after sunset if you make a fire because fire frightens them away. My grandmother told me that I must not play komus when the moon is waning—only when it is waxing or in the middle” (P). Arzhan Közözökov Shaman reported that it is difficult to get past Erlik’s daughters when entering the Lower World and that Erlik’s doors, which are black, cannot be opened by hand. To do so, the “breath of the komys” is needed. When its sounds reach Erlik’s doors, Erlik’s daughters dance. “While they are being entertained,” he said, “the shaman (kam) can get past them. Otherwise, they will take off his trousers!” staff, fan

Among some Siberian peoples, the staff (Alt. taiak, Tyv. dayak/ tayak) was used for healing by a new shaman, who had to “go on foot” (Diószegi [1960] 1968, 238) before being qualified to “mount” the drum. Among others, for instance Buryat

230

7. Shamanic Roads

Mongols and Tubalars, the staff was a spirit-animal in the same way as the drum (D’yakonova 1981). Sitting in a traditional six-sided wooden dwelling (chadyr) in his compound in Kurota in 2010, Altaian Arzhan Közörökov Shaman explained that staffs were destroyed along with drums during communist collectivization, thereby breaking generational inheritance. There was an additional problem. “People these days are afraid to make them for shamans,” he explained. He was in the middle of making his own staff, although he was not a skilled carpenter. Arzhan’s mother’s brother (Alt. taai) had asked permission of the tree before chopping from it a log to match Arzhan’s height. “The wood used depends on the shaman’s road,” said Arzhan. He had chosen a three-year-old cedar as used by shamans in Turachak and Choi regions, rather than larch because, he said, it is softer and therefore easier to carve. He pointed to natural marks in the wood that formed the eyes and ears of the spirit-owners of his taiak, saying they look to the Upper, Middle, and Lower Worlds. He compared the staff to a hitching post, saying that both connect to those three domains. Arzhan held the staff around the Middle World. He fed it by rubbing it with melted butter and smoked horse fat. There were alterations still to do, for instance, the fishing line that attached the large square white cloth (Alt. ülü) to the staff was to be replaced by horsehair so that he could tug it. Then he planned to add tassels. Pointing to the staff, he added: “Here, there should be a shamanic mirror [Alt. küzüngi] and here, bells.” He stressed, though, the need to make the taiak look ordinary, to conceal that it was used for spiritual purposes. The white cloth was therefore only attached prior to rituals. White cloth becomes a fan among contemporary Altaian Telengit shamans, who call it tüngür (Oir. drum), decorate it with drawings as on a drumskin, and hang from it strips of cloth and bells (D’yakonova 2001; Halemba 2006, pl. 7.1). Contemporary Khakas shamans use a fan of branches. mirror: celestial origin, drum substitute

In Tyva, the bronze shamanic mirror (Tyv. küzüngü), which varies in size, is a powerful eeren protector spirit, a tool for “herding” spirit-helpers and an armor and weapon against curses and hostile intentions. Shamans use it to diagnose and heal by passing it over the bodies of the ill, particularly children. According to Tyvan shamanic song-chants (algyshtar), the küzüngü has celestial ancestry, takes light from the moon and sun, and “plays and looks from the Sky” (Kenin-Lopsan 1997a, 18, 19, 61). Bringing assistance from the highest Sky, it is also merciful. It is difficult to see a reflection in the mirror because of its dull surface.12 Some are decorated on the reverse, for instance, with bas-relief figures of the lunar calendar’s twelve animals, and hung with chalama ribbons. A shaman may find a

231

part three. attuning to upper and lower worlds

küzüngü by chance, in an old grave or in the mountains. Sometimes, blacksmiths cast them specially. Traditionally, Tyvan shamans had nine küzüngüs, but when they were taxed under the communist system, they limited themselves to one (Kenin-Lopsan 1997a, 61) and it eventually became one of the silent substitutes for the drum (Vainshtein 1990, 178). Shamans may hang a shamanic mirror around the neck (such as Khakas Viktor Kishteev, Tyvan Nikolai Oorzhak) or from the belt, gown (Tyvan Lazo Mongush), or staff (Altaian Arzhan Közörökov); others never take it from their home. costume: activator of pathways

Unlike the Daur Mongol costume, which was an independently existing object, separated from its makers and owner and with its own magical power (Humphrey with Onon 1996, 202), the shamanic gown for nomadic Altai-Sayan peoples is inextricably linked to each shaman, for it activates the spatial and temporal dimensions of his or her pathways through different domains of the universe and through life. These are indicated by metal pendants representing access to the Upper Worlds (sun, moon, earth, stars), Middle-World earthly dimensions, and the Underworld (snakes) that, along with bells and fringes, vibrate, sound, and swish, helping the shaman to reach an altered state of consciousness, travel, and lure spirits, as with the drum and beater (Oorzhak Shaman P). Plaits and fringes also become shamans’ roads, and contemporary shamans find ways of incorporating their origin pathways into the gown. Some continue the pre-Soviet tradition of attaching feathers to its collar, shoulders, and back to indicate the ability to fly to Upper Worlds (Prokof ’eva 1971, 86–88). “The costume of the Soyot [pastoralist western Tyvan],” pointed out Eliade, might be considered “a perfect ornithophily” ([1951] 1989, 156–58). Tyvan Lazo Mongush Shaman, though, displays his Sky-origin status by attaching a celestial-origin bear’s claw to his belt and “sky fetter” iron rings (Tyv. deerbek) to the back of his gown. Sound-producing fringes may symbolize feathers. Snakes form the largest number of pendants on a Tyvan shaman’s gown. Nikolai Oorzhak and Lazo Mongush attach strip-rolled cotton snakes, snakeskins, and snake-plaits, indicating their ability to journey to the Underworld. As the shaman progresses in skill, these pendants increase (Prokof ’eva 1971, 87). Similarly, the number of ribbons displayed on a Khakas shaman’s gown traditionally indicates the number of accessible spirit-owners and is therefore also indicative of the shaman’s power and skill. The costume must be presented to the shaman’s ancestor spirit for approval before use. Among early twentieth-century Altaians, shamans used their costumes during rituals for earth’s spirit-owners, Erlik and his sons, and clan spirits. During

232

7. Shamanic Roads

rituals for Ülgen and his sons in the Upper World, three white ribbons reaching to the ground were attached to the backs of ordinary robes (Anokhin [1924] 1994, 38). Each costume is traditionally socially destroyed following its owner’s death by putting it on a funereal spirit platform that only shamans are allowed to visit. Headgear was a mandatory part of the shamanic costume among all Siberian peoples except the Shors and Sakhas (Prokof ’eva 1971, 5–6). It takes different forms among contemporary shamans. Traditionally, a southern Altaian shaman wore a headband—broad among Altai Kizhis and narrow among Telengits, Teles, and Tubas. At the time of my fieldwork, Altaian shamans were wary of publicly reemerging and so did not wear headdresses (or gowns), but Tyvan shamans continue this practice attaching eagle and owl feathers to the top of a headband. Ai Chürek, Lazo Mongush, Anisiya Mongush, and Nikolai Oorzhak all explained that these enabled the journey to Upper Worlds. Cowrie shells are attached to the headband to give water protection (A. Mongush P), and bells dangling from it contribute to timbral effects. Anisiya Mongush followed the Tyvan tradition of displaying a human face on her headband. Its features demonstrate the shaman’s ability to “see,” “hear” and “sense” things that ordinary people cannot, to fight hostile spirit actors, and to use the power of words to bring good or bad fortune (Kenin-Lopsan 1997a, 78–79). By contrast, Khakas Kishteev Shaman wore a fringed black leather helmet. A bunch of plaits rather than feathers emerged from its crown (chap. 4). These plaits, he said, enabled his spirit-helpers to pull him out if he got “stuck” during his travels, adding that an ancestor spirit (tös) would not touch hands and legs, only hair. The leather fringes on his helmet concealed his face so that the tös would not recognize him in normal life. “If they did,” he said, “they would take my soul.” He continued: “Eventually, I will not need this disguise as my tös will trust me. They cover their own faces with hoods because if I saw their faces I would die.” Katanov’s detailed record of Khakas shamans in 1896 notes that the shaman did not put on his cap until a fur coat covered his bare chest. It was from that moment that a Khakas shaman transformed from ordinary person to one who could make offerings to spirits (cited in Alekseev [1987] 1997, 68). In the pre-Soviet era, Altaian shamans of ancestral spirit origin traditionally inherited a metal button and a sky sword (Alt. tengerenin kylyzhi), a small piece of iron left after a lightning strike. With these, they lit their pathways and protected themselves from hostile spirit attacks on the road to Erlik (Anokhin [1910] 2003, 8). We conclude this chapter by returning to the importance of pathways in the creation of place, illustrated by the ritual healing performances of an Altaian shaman.

233

part three. attuning to upper and lower worlds

An Altaian Shaman’s Healing Rituals creating, opening, unblocking the road

In 2010, I spent one month in the compound of Arzhan Közörökov Shaman, recording rituals intended to open, advance, broaden or make easy the pathways of those suffering from a range of illnesses (terminal condition, mental health, infertility, alcoholism). Arzhan was renowned as a strong kam and this application of his spiritual abilities took up more time than his epic performances or Ak Jang practices. When he was at home, clients began to queue from early morning, some having travelled huge distances for treatment, others sent to transport him to a patient. During rituals, Arzhan drew upon a repertoire of spirit actors, sounds, movements, and accessories. Each ritual involved the creation of pathways along which he, his clients, Upper-, Middle-, and Lower-World spirit actors, and communications traveled. He explained that it was the vibrational sounds and air movements of his timbral body-music (kai), rhythmical verses (alkyshtar), lute (topshuur), jaw’s harp (komus), staff (taiak) and white cloth fan (ülü)13 that activated the pathways. The chosen pathways and sounds depended upon the client’s problem. If the patient needed help from Upper Worlds, Arzhan sought advice from allseeing, all-knowing Üch Kurbustan on which pathways to activate. Should he, for instance, create a pathway to the seven-star constellation Jeti-Kan (seven khans), part of the lower body and tail of the Great Bear constellation (Ursa Major) and the source of the seven Altaian tribes including his own hero protector spirit, which lies in the fourth domain, the White-cosmic Sky (Ak-aias tengeri)? Or should he create one to the fifth domain, the Blue-cosmic Sky (Kök-aias tengeri), home of the moon, Ai Byrkan (Shodoev and Kurchakov 2003, 76)? Pathways were also created and recreated in the Middle World by treading between ritual sites within the performance arena. These included a small room akin to a doctor’s “surgery” in a Russian-style wooden building, two traditional six-sided wooden buildings (chadyr), a large stone altar referred to as a “hearth” (ochok), and a hitching post (chaky). The surgery became the performance arena for ritual curing of minor problems and the initial phase of more major rituals. On one wall hung a Kazakh felt carpet and the antlers of a red deer. In the room stood a wood-burning stove, a bed, and, by the window, a small table with two wooden chairs. A fire was lit in the stove for ritual purposes and to heat the room. In both chadyrs, an open hearth sat at the center. enlivenment, invitation, ancestral clan hero

Arzhan did not wear a shamanic costume or play a drum because of the suffering of shamans during the communist period. Therefore, he enlivened the eeler

234

7. Shamanic Roads

spirit-owners in his staff (taiak), juniper (archyn), white cloth fan (ülü), and lute (topshuur)—all of which enabled him to journey to other levels of the universe or to access the powers of Altai and nature. He sounded their enlivenment in the following way: All with spirit-owners are with blessing. Kairakan, May it be! My juniper with bai14 meaning and tradition, My spirit-owned juniper, My staff with bai meaning and tradition, My spirit-owned staff.

He also enlivened the spirit-owners of the fire in the surgery oven, central hearth in the chadyr, and outside hearth-altar. Arzhan explained that the cast of participants varied with the patient’s road according to the following: “It depends on a person’s road. Whether his kut, tyn, süne, and jula souls are in place. It may

figure 7.2. Arzhan Közörökov

Shaman with staff (taiak) and large square white cloth (ülü) in his compound, Kurota village, Ongdoi region, central Altai, 2010.

235

part three. attuning to upper and lower worlds

be in our Altai but under the earth and if so, you must go to take it back. The important thing is that it must not be lost.” Arzhan used a range of sounds to bring spirit actors for participation and called upon their support at key ritual moments. They included the Upper-World benevolent powers Kurbustan, Mother Umai, “Maajalai” (Bear), ancestor spirits, and his clan hero from the Pole Star.15 Whistling and vibratory movements were favorite means of invitation. For instance, at the beginning of an infertility ritual, Arzhan held the staff (taiak) with the left hand and shimmered the attached white cloth with the right. He sounded a sustained single-note whistle with short terminal ascent, followed by a pronounced ascending whistle. Speaking softly, he then welcomed kairakan respected ones, ancestor spirits (“elders”), and heroes (baatars): Oh Kairakan! Elders standing around, Heroes standing around, Kairakans have come, let it be!

During spirit-actor interactions throughout the ritual, he continued to vibrate the cloth, varying the intensity to attune with other vocal sounds, such as whispering, coughing, deep throat rumbles, bird and animal imitations, karkyra and sygyt drone-overtone vocal music, strangulated wheezes, and maniacal laughter. Reaching for a silver and black bead necklace hanging from his staff, he wrapped it around his forefingers, then addressed the spirit actor Umai, who grants fertility: “From Mother Umai, [we] ask for blessing-fortune [Ene bolgon enege Umaidang alkysh-byian].” Spirit actors also announced their arrival sonically. Through Arzhan, they coughed, sighed, or made sounds appropriate to the animal form they had taken. When describing the arrival of ancestor spirits in poetical improvised alkysh verses, Arzhan used traditional sound-avoidance, addressing them by respectful names, such as Jaan (Great One), Örökön (Elder), Kairakan (Dear One), Külükter (Strong Men), and Sanaany (Wise People). Great Ones, Encircling Great Ones, Encircling Strong Men, Dear Ones, who came, Wise People, who lighten thoughts . . .

He also addressed them as “bent elders” as well as “crawling children.” All could grant blessing-fortune (alkysh-byian) or carry Arzhan’s requests for it to Upper Worlds.

236

7. Shamanic Roads

When performing a ritual to cure an adolescent’s mental-health problem, Arzhan chose to call his clan’s ancestral hero (alyp) from the Pole Star (Alt. Altyn Kazyk, “Golden Stake”), situated at the top of the eight landscaped domains of the universe, holding them all together. In Altaian traditional knowledge (bilik), this star provides balance, stability, and protection. If this star were to shake, then so would the earth’s axis, and disasters would follow. This calling process required much effort. He began by performing a sustained high drone-overtone (kai) in karkyra and then sygyt styles: “Oi eeei, oi eeei.” His face began to redden as he then performed invocatory poetry (alkysh), also on a single note in a strained voice, interspersed with kai. Arzhan’s words created a vivid audiovisual scene as he asked his clan’s ancestral hero to create a sonorous road along which to travel, and described the horse on which he would ride: Lit up ranges, road of clan ancestor, My hero, descend from the Golden Stake You are with fortune. On a pacer [horse] on the given road to Altai, With a soft range. Come, my Hero! Seated on a sorrel [bay] with yellowish spots, You are my Hero given by Altai. If a quiet horse comes, Kairakan, Open the dark road. Make it sonorous with armor, Kairakan Örökön! Make the road to firm ground, Örökön! Make this road vast!

He also requested help in ascertaining the desired road for his patient: From the place of a thousand stars descend. Golden Stake, My hero, Help, Örökön, Say from where The desired road came, My Örökön!

Arzhan greeted his arrival with “Here is the hero,”16 followed by a long note in high rich kai and deep vibrations of the white cloth. Again, on a strained high note, he explained in verse that ancestor spirits encircled our group, as noted by

237

part three. attuning to upper and lower worlds

Anokhin for early twentieth-century rituals ([1924] 1994, 29). These spirit-actor participants enabled the shaman to accumulate strength and to bring to the event senses of numinosity, power, and protection. placing clients: clan, world, universe

In his alkysh introduction of clients to otherworld spirit actors, Arzhan identified the place at which the patient’s soul had passed into Middle-World dimensions (birthplace and burial place of the placenta-soul) and the first act of personhood linking the client to natal place, living kin, and ancestors. Identification of clan was also important, since this had implications for the participant spirit actors. When a Russian mother and Altaian grandmother and father brought a terminally ill baby, Arzhan first ascertained the child’s full name and that he belonged to his own Töölös clan. Then he took the juniper branch from the white cloth in which the clients had wrapped it and introduced them and the problem in an alkysh performed in a fast, high, unaccompanied voice and declamatory tone: Person [grandmother] with children came, Came with [request for] blessing, came with [request for] fortune, Children’s children came. . . . My spirit-charged juniper with spirit-owner, In Earth-Altai [it] spins according to tradition. One person has family, One person does not have family. Ahhhhh! Small baby got ill.

After this emplacement of the baby in terms of geographical and clan origins and explanation of the problem, he began to chant in a lower, slower voice. First, he explained that they had brought offerings: From Earth-Altai held, Take request for blessing from Earth-Altai, Under the Moon-Sun With blessing. . . .

Then he circled the juniper branch while asking how to proceed: “How many requests for blessing will it take?” He explained: “These young people in contemporary time have been pressed down by black spirits [Alt. karaga tabartkan balder bolyr alky boilory]” and requested: “May they receive blessing-fortune and may their road be opened.” Finally, he produced pressurized kai on high sustained notes, lowering each by a tone at its end. He looked at the juniper branch intently and began to address it as he broke off small pieces and turned his attention to fire in the hearth: 238

7. Shamanic Roads

Held from fire-hearth, Took blessing from fire-flames, To fire-flames with thirty heads, Kairakan, let it be.

In addition to emplacement in relation to the clan, ancestral hero, family, and universe (under the “Moon-Sun” on a spinning Earth-Altai), the sick baby’s own rainbow (which linked the tripartite levels of the universe), might require adjustment. Connections therefore needed to be made to Sky domains: From how many Aias, From Blue Aias, White Aias depending, Held from Blue Aias, With White Aias took blessing, Kairakan, may it be.

Let us consider in closer detail the sounds and accompanying actions during Arzhan’s “opening the road” rituals for terminal illness, distress, and infertility. case studies: terminal illness, distress, infertility

Arzhan Közörökov Shaman’s choice of sounds and direction of pathways differed according to the needs of his client. For instance, when going to the Underworld, he often played the komus jaw’s harp, the favorite sounds of the licentious daughters of Erlik, to distract them and unblock his path (P). To unblock the patient or client’s road, Arzhan and human participants needed to perform the correct rituals, sounds, and movements at ritual sites within the performance arena. After introduction and emplacement, Arzhan began the ritual process of opening the road for the terminally ill baby. He led the family across the compound to the large hearth-altar, three adjoining columns of flat stones orientated to face the rising sun. A pile of wood blazed on the central column, the main section of the altar, and offerings of Altaian butter (Alt. sarju), and a juniper branch (Alt. archyn) had been laid next to it. Arzhan fed the fire twice with Altaian butter then purified the juniper branch in the smoke. As he circled and vibrated the branch clockwise, he exclaimed “Chöök” and sounded “Oi” in deep karkyra kai interspersed with three short ascending whistles, before breaking juniper leaves into the ritual fire. Next Arzhan took the baby from his mother and circled him clockwise in the smoke four times, emitting a short ascending whistle during the first, “er” in a kai grunt during the second, “ooo” during the third, and finally a deep guttural “ooh.” He returned the baby to his mother. On a high single note, while circling and vibrating the archyn juniper in the smoke, Arzhan performed an alkysh, establishing

a terminally ill baby

239

part three. attuning to upper and lower worlds

that “spirit-owned bai juniper” was whirling from a spinning Earth-Altai ( JerAltai) as an offering from the family. Arzhan then vibrated the archyn branch in front of the fire while performing kai. Swinging his whole body back and forth, he knocked the fire three times from right to left. He touched the left-hand side of the father’s body with the archyn, then instructed both parents to circumambulate the hearth-altar with the baby. Arzhan followed, circling the archyn. During the first three circumambulations, he chanted an alkysh verse in deep karkyra kai, acknowledging the presence of “Kairakans with blessing-fortune, eeler spirit-owners of Earth-Altai, and Jaan Great Ones of many generations.” The final circumambulation was made in silence. Arzhan then led the way back to his “surgery.” Inside, Arzhan took circular, sweet unleavened bread (Ru. lepyoshka) and spread it with Altaian butter. Onto this, he sprinkled juniper leaves from the branch brought by the family and poured milk into a small wooden bowl. He opened one of the two bottles of vodka they had brought, sniffed it, and grimaced: “Oh Kairakan! Bitter vodka!” Then, he blew across the bottle’s rim twice and poured vodka into a second wooden bowl. Leaving the family in the surgery, he returned to the hearth-altar. He laid the two bowls on a flat stone on the nearest column and broke the bread into pieces. Standing behind the altar’s central section, he placed the milk and vodka bowls on either side of the ritual fire. He took a large piece of bread with toppings to the furthest altar section and broke off its edges. Moving then to the hearth-altar’s central point, he faced East from behind the fire and, as he broke more bread into it, sang melodically: “Small baby’s kut” (see chap. 1). Singeing the remaining piece of bread, he circled it in the smoke and said: “Mother and father’s request for blessing.” Then, sprinkling milk to the four cardinal directions and onto the central column, he chanted a request that ancestors and the firehearth’s spirit-owners open “a white road” for the baby: Spirit-owners of the fire-hearth, Stooping elders, My kairakans who came, Give blessing-fortune, Open a white road, [For] the baby, Kairakan, may it be.

During the last line, he sprinkled the remaining milk around the fire and hurled the vodka to the Sky, apologizing in verse for its bitterness. He coughed three times and cleared his throat as he emptied the bowl. In a deep voice, he chanted an alkysh to the fire, interacting with it as he explained that the fire-hearth offering

240

7. Shamanic Roads

was carried by the flames and that the family and all the gathered Respected Ones, elders, and spirit-owners were appealing for blessing-fortune. He performed a sustained single-note whistle with a final melodic descent, circled the vodka bowl in the smoke, and emptied the dregs of milk. He then stroked his head backward four times, peered toward the eastern sky, looked intently at the fire, and said, “Right! [ Ja!].” After whistling twice, he headed back to his room as dogs barked and a crow flew overhead and cawed. Addressing the family group, Arzhan explained that the baby was being punished because the grandparents’ home had something bad (jaman neme) in it. Later, he confided that the house had been “swarming with bad things” from the Underworld, the result of an evil eye or a curse, that a pig from the Underworld was blocking the gate to the compound, and that the grandfather had been taken over by a malicious spirit (körmös). To remove these “bad things,” Arzhan then whistled in descending pitch as he vibrated the archyn juniper branch. He pulled at his nose and sniffed. Identifying the origins of the jaman neme required deep vibrations and circling of the white cloth in which the family had brought their juniper offering. He asked Kairakan to reenergize the juniper’s spirit-owner and then, lowering the pitch and tone of his voice and speaking normally, he asked Kairakan to open the road and give blessing-fortune. Suddenly Arzhan became the embodiment of a pig, making clicking and trotting sounds that became faster and higher and then erupted into low grunts, snuffling, lip-smacking, and chewing. Deepening the vibrations of the cloth, he requested: “Take the pig away from this person’s door [Ezhigining chochkony bu kizhining tuuralap salar].” This was followed by choking sounds, grunts, karkyra and sygyt styles of kai, and whistles, causing Arzhan to go very red in the face. Finally, he declaimed: “Bent-over elders, crawling children, Kairakan, may it be! Eh huh!” He slowly stood up, wrapped the remains of the enlivened archyn into their white cloth, and gave it back to the family. a distressed young woman When the family had left, a distressed young woman entered the surgery. She had set off from her village at six-thirty that morning, afraid that other patients would take Arzhan away. She wanted her problem to remain private. Arzhan’s ritual included grunting, snorting, laughing, whistling, kai, and vibrations of juniper, as in the previous case. This time, though, to draw on the power and protection of Altai, his alkysh enlivened the juniper with the spiritowners of a sheep and horse:

Sheep-source, my sheep juniper, Touched the power of Altai,

241

part three. attuning to upper and lower worlds

Horse-source, my horse juniper! Touched and raised the horsepower of Altai.

Arzhan then asked Örökön and Kairakan to create and open the woman’s road with the help of his kai. After some minutes, he declared that her “black misfortune” would disappear, and offerings were made to the fire-hearth. The young woman poured milk with juniper into the fire from a wooden bowl and Arzhan, after whistling over a bowl of milk while flicking his fingers in front of his mouth, did the same. Taking food brought by the woman from the table, he added that also to the fire. She had another problem. Arzhan had cured the effects of her elder brother’s alcoholism the previous year. But after being diagnosed with liver disease and having had a blood transfusion, he was drinking again. She had brought with her a large jar containing water. Arzhan put his left hand over the jar’s neck, then both hands, while requesting spirits to send blessing-fortune. He asked the name of her elder brother, then stroking and rubbing the rim of the jar, he whispered into it. He vibrated the water, muttering quietly before declaring: “Everything will be OK, his süne soul will not go away.” Arzhan then accompanied her out for private counselling. A taxi had arrived to take him to a patient. He left with his topshuur lute. an infertile couple On a separate day, a ritual was held in the chadyr close to the surgery for an infertile married Japanese couple, who were accompanied by an Altaian professional musician. A fire-hearth lay at the room’s center, across the head (ottyng baazhy) of which it is forbidden to step. Arzhan sat at the small table by the window, reached for his taiak staff, and began to vibrate the cloth attached to it. He needed maximum help to travel to the Underworld. He performed deep growling karkyra kai, followed by its substyle tymchyk (nasal) karkyra and then the melodic whistles of sygyt. After this, accompanying his karkyra with the topshuur lute, Arzhan performed an alkysh in which he called his spirit-helpers and protectors from the parallel Middle Worlds of ancestors and nature, and from Upper Worlds, including the powerful bear Maajalai. Then, he asked the Altaian musician to perform karkyra while he requested the exorcism of malicious spirits from the couple. At this point, he put fat on his fingers and rubbed it into the wooden staff. Hanging from the staff was the silver and black bead necklace. Arzhan again vibrated the cloth, and his face disappeared behind it as he muttered, performed karkyra and sygyt, spat, and produced low whistles, sometimes above a vocal drone. He coughed many times, made strangulated sounds, and laughed. This was an uncomfortable experience for participants because, as he

242

7. Shamanic Roads

battled with a hostile force from the Underworld, he choked and struggled violently for a considerable time. Then, he asked for “blessing-fortune” (Alt. alkysh-byian) from Mother Umai, sobbed, coughed, tweeted bird sounds, and gurgled. Finally, he coughed, reappeared from behind the cloth, and, while fingering the beads now wrapped around his forefingers, enquired: “I will give the beads for them to have children, OK? [Ne, baldarlu bolzyn etire jinjini ber koiyn, jibe?].” He gave the beads to the couple. Arzhan then went to the hearth-altar in the compound. Moving clockwise around it, he sprinkled milk in the direction of sunrise eight times. Then he went into his wooden home, emerged with a piece of venison, reentered the chadyr, and gave the meat to the infertile couple. He then sent the couple to circumambulate the hitching post within the compound four times in the path of the sun. When they returned, Arzhan took his taiak for a second time. Following low growls on one note, violent vibrations of the cloth, and whistling, he instructed them to circumambulate the hearth-altar clockwise. Arzhan concluded by performing a song about the hero Shunu, using kai, and accompanying himself on the topshuur lute. vibrating, spinning, seeing, journeying

It was clear from Arzhan’s shamanic performances that he needed vibrations and spinning movements to change consciousness and activate his extrasensory perceptions. He created vibrations in several ways, for instance by performing kai and other vocal sounds, plucking or strumming the strings of the topshuur lute, and shaking white cloth attached by a thread to the top of his staff or wrapped around a juniper branch. Arzhan explained that his topshuur produced vibrations and circular movements like those of a shamanic drum (tüngür): “Like the drum, the topshuur has a skin sounding board. It sets up drum-like vibrations that rotate inside the instrument with those of the topshuur’s two strings—low and high, thick and thin. These are a little bit softer, but they are circling.” Spinning involved circling objects or people in smoke, circumambulating hearth-altar and hitching post, and calling in his alkyshes for offerings to whirl and Earth-Altai ( Jer-Altai) to spin. He suggested that such spinning effect in Earth-Altai lightened the mood of the patients. In the case of the terminally ill baby, vibrating and circling the juniper branch gave Arzhan insight that he should address Kurbustan and therefore fire was needed. That communication was enabled by vibrating and circling first the juniper branch and then the baby in the fire’s smoke followed by circumambulations of the hearth-altar. Arzhan explained after the ritual that his cloth vibrations had enabled him to travel to the grandmother’s home where he had “seen” the cause of their problems.

243

part three. attuning to upper and lower worlds

In the cases of the adolescent with mental-health problems and the foreign infertile couple, Arzhan used his taiak staff, topshuur lute, kai drone-overtone vocal sounds, whistling, and cloth vibrations to facilitate his travel. Arzhan propelled vibrational sounds, as he put it, “from this earth spinning.” He stressed, though, that it was when performing kai that his own body spun, and that as the spin intensified, his body elevated within it. These vibrational sounds and movements enabled him to travel in alternative space-time. “I go,” he said, “with the sound to Upper and Lower Worlds.” In the case of the distressed woman, Arzhan also traveled in the Middle World. Having shaken the juniper up and down, whistled, and performed karkyraa, he had described in rapid speech his journey among the flowers and valley plains of Earth-Altai, noting the ravines and rivers surrounding him. patient actions

After a ritual, patients need to take action to complete the cure. Purification (alas) of body and place is important. In the case of the baby, the grandmother needed to purify her home with the enlivened juniper branch. The family were told to mix the ritual vodka with dried tea leaves, then sprinkle it over the gate and fence of their compound. This would help to get rid of the strong and dangerous spirit-pig from the Underworld that was blocking the family’s road, the result of a Russian curse caused by a mixed marriage that had broken traditional behavioral codes. The distressed woman needed to purify her own body with juniper. The mother of the mentally disturbed adolescent had to offer mutton or goat’s meat to the fire. The foreign infertile couple had to perform several actions in their home country. The husband, a musician, was instructed to wear a cloth “armor” (Alt. kuiak) when he played his drums as protection from the evil eye. He also had to find two other forms of protection—a wooden talisman made from the sacred tree of his own country and another from iron. He was also told to chop the venison (given by Arzhan) with which his wife should later make soup. He also had to collect moss and add to it two slices of dried bread rusk, then go to a sauna and spread the moss mixture around his chest and the back of his neck before putting his legs into mossy water. The moss water would purify, said Arzhan, taking away all bad things from himself and his wife. After washing, he needed to run around the building twice in a clockwise direction. They needed also to honor the sea’s spirit-owner (talaideng eezi) by showing respect to their own country’s sacred fish. Before preparing and cooking the fish, they were told to request blessing from the fish and put food offerings next to it. They were advised to later acquire another fish, wrap it in cloth, and put it onto that part of the body that needed healing. The fish would draw out the illness. Afterwards, they must burn the cloth. Finally,

244

7. Shamanic Roads

Arzhan gave them the white cloth that had been attached to his staff during the ritual, instructing that they hang it and the bead necklace in an important place in the northern area of their home, at the head of the fire. *

*

*

Throughout this monograph, theoretical partials have set forth on sonic journeys, expressed in each chapter. In the Coda, they return—as in drone-overtone and other timbral musics—to be integrated with the drone.

245

Coda

Radik Tülüsh’s response to my query about khöömei, set out in the Introduction, informed my research. It gradually became clear that Altai-Sayan Indigenous peoples perform drones, tones, and timbres in their soundings of journeying and place. Since sensing being “out-of-place” brought suffering, illness, death, and chaos, it raised the questions: “out-of-place” in what? A whole or entirety? How do they become “in-place”? What does “place” refer to? Let us examine again some of the multiple relational voices that emerged as ethnographic and theoretical partials in the book’s chapters so that they may be reintegrated within the drone of ontological musicality, sonicality, and place. Sounds and Silence

Anthropologists and ethnomusicologists recognized the capacity of sound to shape and bear cultures (Merriam 1964; Blacking 1973), long before the anthropology of the senses challenged the visual-textual bias of Western societies and traditional anthropology. Here, we have considered the agency of articulation, as expressed in ontological musicality and sonicality, and the range of performative skills needed to deliver these in different contexts. Vocal and instrumental sounds became powerful within the frame of performance events and the enabling referent of tradition (Foley 1995, 1), allowing identities and society to be questioned, transformed, recreated, and created (Turner 1969, 1974; Goffman [1959] 1978). Through sonic communications at boundary markers both horizontal and vertical emplacement was performed, while offering opportunities for movement.

Coda

Vertical place was sounded in experiential ways as performative connections were made to the tripartite shamanic universe, genealogical lineages, and asymmetrical human–spirit actor communities; horizontal place was sounded in relation to local nature, landscape, other dimensions, ecological and multispecies personhood, and Middle-World human-spirit communities. Ritual performers often seamlessly moved across the boundaries of ontological musicality and sonicality. For instance, Altaian and Tyvan shamans used whistles, yawns, animal and bird mimesis, or drone-overtone vocal styles to call spirit actors before performing song-chants to them. Arzhan Közörökov, as Ak Jang ritual leader, combined creative improvisations with tradition as he referenced contemporary geographical, societal, and Indigenous place and used Ak Jang and epic language and motifs in his vocalizations. The volume and quality of sounds produced by humans affected relations with spirit actors differently in the three republics. For instance, Altaians whisper their plans to prevent malicious spirits from hearing and stealing the jula soul that precedes the human traveler, yet elder Danil’ Mamyev and Arzhan Közörökov, as shaman and Ak Jang ritual leader, whispered to spirit actors. Khakas peoples avoid singing quietly since that lack of volume attracts the attention of malicious spirits (Nyssen 2020, 34). Quietness is practiced in places where some spirits dwell. UNESCO’s designation of Altai’s Plateau Ukok as a “quiet zone” is empathetic to the practices of Altain Indigenous peoples, who will not raise voices there or when visiting a healing spring. Sounds offered are acceptable but random shouts of joy or anger are not. For Altai-Sayan peoples, the presence of silence, as preferred by musician Ai Charykh Saiyn Küchen at the megalith site and river island ritual in Khakassia, is not one of humiliation (Connerton 2008) or a negative absence of sound (Basso 1970). Rather, as a powerful means of communication and sociality, silence has potential agency. For example, the respectful silence of a mountaineer hopes for reciprocal safe passage in the spirit-owners’ territory, and meaningfully embodied silent messages delivered in powerful places in landscape and heard in subtle other worlds produce effects in society, the world, and the body. Strategic silences in with-spirit epic performances produce dramatic effects, and silent rock art finds a voice when it is transferred to the body of a musical instrument. Performance and Performativity

Performance, one of the book’s multiple voices, proved to be interactive social action, productive of real effects. The seeds of traditional Altai-Sayan sonic performance practices, germinated before and quietly nurtured during suppression by the Soviet system, flourish as Indigenous peoples reclaim their own ontologies

248

Coda

and challenge their current place in contemporary liminal territorial and social positions. Performative practices have here included speech acts and singing in everyday contexts as well as lengthy musical and ritual events. The choreographed performativity of the simultaneously single and multiple Altai-Sayan body presented in chapter 1 offers an alternative to previous debates on the relational properties of self, personhood, and place, for Altai-Sayan peoples perform, create, and challenge place as embodied self-sounds interact with sonic relations of personhood. In chapter 2, different sounds signaled the “breakthrough into performance” (Hymes 1975) from everyday acts to oral histories and epic narratives. In chapters 3 to 5, the performance of sounds also propelled multisensory rituals and had consequences for both performers and participants. In the withspirit epic performances of chapter 6, it became clear that performances may be risky and not fully predictable, and in the shamanic performances of chapter 7, improvisatory. For Indigenous peoples, performance may articulate social identities and common values in everyday life, as suggested by Goffman [1959] 1978, while simultaneously challenging present realities and altering bodies, states of mind, and social relations. Anthropologist Edward Schieffelin’s argument is particularly relevant. Although performances may seem ephemeral, reverberations of the emergent in performative rituals—including fresh insights, reconstituted selves and personhood, new statuses, and altered realities—remain and bring effects in social reality (1996, 81; 1998, 19498). Sensory, Multisensory, Extrasensory sensuous scholarship

The book contributes to the anthropology of the senses and sensuous scholarship (see Stoller 1989; 1997, xv-xvi; Howes 1991; Vannini, Waskul, and Gottschalk 2012; Le Breton and Ruschensky 2017). In contrast to the five senses distinguished as “normal” or “basic” in Europe (Goody 2002), musicians and spiritual specialists during this project, while sometimes privileging one or another sense, often combined multi- and extrasensory skills, as they sometimes interacted with and sometimes became otherworld actors. Simultaneously, sounds, ritual actions, bodily movements, visual experiences, taste, and touch stimulated the senses of human participants as they permeated the body’s parameters, triggering responses as they intertwined in an affective weave. Heightened everyday sensory, multisensory, and extrasensory bodily experiences served to connect participants to landscape and archaeology, oral histories, and human and spirit-actor communities. This occurred in each Indigenous spiritual complex as, while maintaining their own traditions, they shared the same ontologies, and sometimes the same spiritual specialist, and overlapping

249

Coda

practices. In shamanic rituals, for instance, participants performed and heard incantations, song-chants, music, spoken words, and environmental sounds at the same time as seeing a clan tree, archaeological site, and human and spirit actors, tasting consecrated food, smelling incense, grass, and fire, touching sacred objects, and feeling communitas, emotional effervescence, and the touch or presence of a spirit actor. Spirit actors also spoke, sang, played music, and sometimes clothed human participants. Ritual Performances

[128.104.46.196] Project MUSE (2024-04-09 03:07 GMT) UW-Madison Libraries

gatherings of activation

In ritual community events, drone-partials and other timbre-centered musical sounds situated performers and participants as they expressed respect for land and ecology as sacred and kin-based; created pathways along which humans and spirit actors in parallel Middle, Upper, and Lower Worlds traveled and communicated; enabled extrasensory experiences of other cosmological domains; regenerated ancestors; reconnected with former tribes and clans, extended families, and associated territories (denied under communism); and enabled survival of Indigenous peoples (by mobilizing small minorities within a state system). In a phenomenological topographical sense, ritual performances gathered multiple dimensions of place. In the Ak Jang clan rituals at Kulada and Lower Talda, the multidimensional gatherings of temple structures created from the stones of former homelands, ancient practices, clan histories, personal and clan landscapes, and cosmic and earthly alignments stimulated feelings of “being-inplace.” Performances breathed life, then, into a fulcrum of Indigenous knowledge, histories, and space-time (see Casey 1996, 24–26; chap. 5). In a universe in which all is alive, the architecture and stones of the temple complex, celestial bodies, Upper-World spirit actors, and spirit-owners of local landscape became living participants within a circular performance arena. Human participants performed sounds and actions—including song-chants, music and song, gestures of prayer and respect, and circular movements of renewal—to transform each temple into a powerful and numinous place. In Ak Jang rituals in a circular place of “gatherings” (chap. 5), and shamanic rituals that placed the patient at the center of a circular hub of humans, spirit actors and pathways (chap. 7), the performance arena became a place of activation, power and transformation, in which all relations are sensed and recreated, and seasonal and personal transitions accomplished. transitions and transformations

More than a century ago, French sociologist Émile Durkheim recognized that rituals are performances and that feelings of “emotional effervescence” are essential

250

Coda

for change ([1912] 1965). Following participation in a range of territorial, seasonal, bodily, social, and otherworld ritual transitions, I have revisited Durkheim’s insight together with van Gennep’s tripartite transitional rites-of-passage model of preliminal, liminal, and postliminal ritual phases ([1903] 1977), and anthropologist Victor Turner’s developments of it. Initially working with Zambian village communities, Turner expanded van Gennep’s liminal (from the Latin for “threshold”) phase to include “communitas,” the intense comradeship and “spring of pure possibility” experienced during it (Turner 1969; 1974, 202), an affective process that aided transition. Later, he identified “an instant of pure potentiality when everything, as it were, trembles in the balance” (1982, 44), a moment of marginal experimentation and play applicable to large-scale societies that he called the “liminoid.” In my own reanalyses “by means of performance” (Schechner and Appel 1990), I identify further potential for Turner’s conceptual developments and contribute to his anthropology of performance ([1986] 1992). Each performance event involved movement across boundaries in space and time to a new place and more. Liminality became evident in multiple ways. For instance, performance arenas for rituals are located physically and imaginatively “betwixt and between” and close to otherworld portals. Shamans tend to perform next to a tree, river, and ritual cairn, or inside a cave, while clan and Ak Jang rituals take place on a mountainside, or close to a burial mound or standing stone (chap. 2). Kai-khai timbral vocal and instrumental music, itself lying between speech and song yet able to move between them, performs protection in dangerous liminal situations—for example, when used by epic performers accompanying a soul to the otherworld (chap. 6) and by shamans, such as Tyvan Lazo Mongush, needing to safely dispatch a recalcitrant posthumous soul across the border between worlds (chap. 1). The danger of Lazo Mongush Shaman’s ritual challenged Turner’s liminalityas-theater theories of the late 1970s (Turner 1982; Schechner [1986] 1992). Turner’s differentiation between liminality and liminoid in complex modern society rituals—“one works at the liminal, one plays at the liminoid” and “liminoid actions are voluntary, liminal required” (1982, 55)—were less distinct. For instance, in Ak Jang and shamanic rituals, performances constituted serious activity rather than play, and Kishteev Shaman’s ritual, which was voluntary, did not fall into Turner’s liminoid leisure genres of art, sport, pastimes, and games. It was liminoid in its focus on an individual, rather than a collectivity of initiands (Turner 1982, 54–55), yet collective in its inclusion of Indigenous and non-Indigenous human and spirit actor participants. Crucially, the kind of communitas experienced did not merge identities but safeguarded their uniqueness in the very act of realizing their commonness (as in Turner 1974, 274). “Emotion,” “sensuousness,” and “possibility” experienced during the liminal phase of Kishteev Shaman’s ritual coalesced and extended into the third protracted

251

Coda

stage—my own reintegration into Khakas society and culture, which strengthened gradually during my work. The ritual had propelled me across the boundary from outsider foreigner to insider participant and, importantly, transformed my awareness of Indigeneity. Moreover, my own vision within the fire initiated me into an alternative experience of reality. Kishteev Shaman interpreted the spirit-face reaching for a kebab as acceptance of my offerings, that the ritual—performed to “open the way”—would be successful, and that I would receive the research funding I had applied for, which I did. Crucial to ritual performances, not included by van Gennep or Turner, was the predominance of sound amid heightened multisensory awareness in liminality. For instance, Altaian Közörökov Shaman, Khakas Kishteev Shaman, and Tyvan shamans Lazo Mongush and Dorzhu Ogli Manzyrykchy all used vocal dronepartials and other timbral sounds to call spirit actors to the ritual, to journey, and to heal. Moreover, the rituals in which I participated also stimulated Indigenous traditions, challenged their minority position in broader society, and encouraged the idea of change. In contrast with classical anthropological notions of a static structured social life, there was a constantly evolving experience of interconnections between human and spirit actors. Nomadic Movement and Belonging

Investigation into the relation of place and movement to sonic performances, especially music, connects to academic classic writings. For instance, I develop here Martin Stokes’s focus on identity, particularly ethnicity, in the musical construction of “place” as social practice (1994) in relation to Indigenous peoples. I broaden the importance of the sensuousness of place (Feld and Basso 1996) to include multisensory and extrasensory performances that evoke movement and place through relations with human and spirit actors in a series of horizontal and vertical worlds. The book also complements Keith Howard and Catherine Ingram’s edited volume Presence through Sound: Music and Place in East Asia, which presents “place” as textured, interwoven, and a locus of gathering (2020), adding to it the region of Inner Asia and the dimension of movement essential for nomadic peoples. Multiple ways of performing place and movement interweave throughout the book as performative sounds enable senses of place and belonging by connecting to roots, traditions, and local communities while activating pathways and connections across borders and propelling physical, social, and virtual movements. At the same time, there is a sense of belonging and rootedness that connects to their families and former communities including nomadic khanates and clans, as well as to the historical and contemporary practices of their ancient nomadic ancestry (chaps. 2, 3, 4), and their current topographical and political place as Indigenous peoples in republics within the Russian Federation. 252

Coda

Indigeneity

Survival International’s definition of Indigeneity is attributable to peoples of Altai, Khakassia, and Tyva in that it encompasses descent, cultural distinctiveness, and domination and occupation by later arrivals of different ethnic origin (www.survivalinternational.org). It carries with it claims to territory and sovereignty (Barbora with Kikon 2004, Barbora 2005) and positive action to encourage recognition of and respect for “difference.” Here, I have demonstrated ways in which those peoples who nomadized historically in the Altai Mountains and its environs perform Indigeneity in their ontological musicality and sonicality (including drone-overtone and timbral musics), speech events (including oral and epic narratives), lived presence of the ancestral past, shamanic and animist ritual practices, bodily movements and dress, and nomadic sensibilities. Land rights are also important to them. land rights

The argument that justifications for Indigenous land claims rely on obsolete anthropological notions and on a romantic and false ethnographic vision (Kuper 2003, 395) is not borne out by the Altai-Sayan case, where Indigenous peoples face a real threat from federal privatization laws passed by the Russian Duma. These assume that the land is “Russian” and therefore available for development. Traditional hunter-gatherer activities and performative kinship relations with spirit-owners of nature, land, and place mitigate against the privatization of land and forests. But there has been a gradual reestablishment of central control and curtailment of the autonomous activities of Russia’s regions and its Indigenous peoples; privatization of land for foreign ownership or tourism; threats to ecology by the destruction of sacred sites and forests and the pollution of rivers; and large-scale developments, such as oil pipelines, railways, and roads.1 The Russian energy giant Gazprom planned to route a natural gas pipeline across sacred Ukok Plateau, destroying ancient burial sites and causing ecological damage to unique wetlands and summer pastures in this remote and relatively untouched region (Raygorodetsky 2017, 116). These plans were defeated in 2020 by an alliance of Indigenous Altaians with environmental groups. In 2006, Indigenous people close to Aktybash in Turachak region had been less fortunate. The case brought by local community-based organizations in the court in Gorno-Altaisk failed to secure their rights for subsistence hunting and fishing in the forest, and the only open land where the community gathered. A gas company from Tomsk had acquired those rights. A recent response to the destruction of Koibal steppe by private coal-mining companies illustrates the same kinds of struggle for Indigenous Khakas peoples: “On this land lies the majestic mountain Tapsaashi khaia, a sacred ancestral place, as well as ancient burial mounds and standing stones. 253

Coda

We are guests on our own land. I have walked to those places and apologized for being unable to protect their peace” (V. Kirsanov, Facebook, June 12, 2022). musical icons

When I first encountered drone-overtone music in Mongolian Altai in 1987 (Pegg 1992) and arranged a tour for Mongolian musicians in the UK (1988), these remarkable vocal and instrumental sounds were little known in Europe and America. By the time I began this project, Tyvan “throat-singing” had become a sonic icon in world music circles. I wondered whether touring in Europe and America would give them personal power and resistance to cultural colonization and how, given their release from a “national socialist identity,” they would choose to create and express themselves. During fieldwork, though, it gradually became clear that the predominant threat facing Indigenous identities is from inside the Russian Federation with an economic-developmental model of post-Soviet “new regionalism” that again perceives cultural difference as problematical. Drone-partials music as “world music” has created opportunities for the display and consolidation of non-Russian Altai-Sayan identities. The arrival of non-Indigenous musicians who learn “throat-singing”/“overtone-singing,” and growing awareness of global institutions, such as UNESCO, has raised issues of local ownership of Indigenous musics. A marker of Indigeneity and identity now valued internationally, “throat-singing” ownership has become the focus of competition among those in Altai, Khakas, and Tyva republics, as well as between Tyva and Mongolia and between Mongolia and China. Tyvans have developed many drone-overtone vocal styles and substyles to engage with different energies within worlds in spiritual and secular contexts. Urmat Yntai, director of the AltaiKAI music group, argues that kai, the rich guttural vocal tones used in epic performance in Altai and Khakassia—and the general term for different styles of Altaian drone-overtone vocal music in those republics—retains an unbroken link with epic performance. It is the root style, he says, lost by Tyvans, who no longer have that living epic tradition. Tyvan ethnomusicologists Valentina Süzükei and Zoya Kyrgys, in conversations with me in the field, pointed to references to different drone-overtone vocal styles in Tyvan epics. The power of epic performance and its relationship to Altaians’ identities has changed. While for the traditional eelü kaichy its importance lies in the restoration of cosmic, natural, and social balance (chap. 6), for contemporary eelü and non-eelü professional kaichys, it has become an icon of Altaian Indigenous identity. Global attention, through touring, compact discs, videos, and digital streaming, is used in the fight to reestablish Indigenous identities reclaimed in the early post-Soviet period. Indigenous minorities are raising their own musical voices

254

Coda

rather than those imposed by the previous totalitarian state. Evidence of the local value of international musical recognition is the case of Tyvan throat-singer and musician Kongar-ool Ondar, who, having recorded an album featuring Nashville musicians; costarred in the documentary film Genghis Blues; and collaborated with renowned physicist Richard Feynman and international musicians including Frank Zappa, the Chieftains, the Kronos Quartet, and Ry Cooder (Ondar 1999D, Ondar and Pena 1996D), was elected a deputy in Tyva’s parliament, the Great Khural. We have seen how drone-partials music takes different forms according to Indigeneity and ethnicity. Traditionally, all Inner Asian nomadic pastoralist peoples did not perform it, although—because of its elevation into an art form and dissemination via theaters during the Soviet period—it may appear to have been. Its historical presence among nomadic and seminomadic peoples of the mountain-steppes of the Altai Mountain range and neighboring regions is striking (Pegg 2021b). Traditionally performed only by men in their prime and in ritual contexts, Indigenous peoples still believe it will cause illness and family disaster if performed by females. But women are beginning to challenge these taboos. For instance, in Tyva, Choduraa Tumat, who heads the all-female group Tyva Kyzy (2005D, Pegg 2022), performs multiple drone-overtone vocal styles; in Khakassia, Yulia Charkova uses khai during epic extract performances (Khyrkhaas 2005D, Charkova 2011D), and in Altai, Tandalai (Raisa) Modorova performs a praisesong to the spirit-owners of the Kadyn River, trees, and the sky using kai (Levin with Süzükei 2006, 204; Modorova 2007D). Similarly, contemporary musicians often combine traditional musical practices with current Indigenous needs. For instance, the topshuur lute is traditionally how the Altaian “with-spirit” (eelü) epic performer, having praised its spirit-owner, travels with his heroes to other levels of the cosmos (chap. 6). Contemporary Altaian musicians still sing praises to the instrument but use it to encourage young people to pay heed to these traditions. In their song Topshuurym, for instance, the professional group AltaiKAI sings: Oh, my topshuur, carved from cedar, Covered with wild animal-skins, Strings of twisted horsetail hair, Tell me the story of the Altai heroes. Play, play, my topshuur, Melt the ice in the hearts of the young. Make them rejoice and sing, Play my topshuur, Do not feel sorrow about your broken strings.

255

Coda

Appearing both on their compact disc and in their repertoire during the UK tour I arranged for them in 2008, this song reminds young people of their traditional heroic performance tradition, alludes to current difficulties, and encourages all who hear it to rally. We have witnessed the chatkhan zither, traditionally used to accompany epics and improvised takhpakh verses, and more recently to play independent instrumental pieces, chiming with Indigenous singularity and multiplicity by simultaneously expressing the “soul of the Khakas nation” and, through its melodies, rhythms, tuning, and design, its different Indigenous Khakas communities. Similarly, musicians and instrument makers combine tradition and innovation. For instance, Khakas musician Ai Charykh Saiyn Küchen receives innovative instrument designs from spirit actors in dreams. And Tyvan musician Radik Tülüsh uses the two-stringed ikil fiddle—traditionally an accompaniment to drone-overtone vocal sounds—to create extended improvised pieces to entertain and duet with nature’s spirit-owners (chap. 3). Sounding Place multiphonies

Drone-partials vocal and instrumental music, together with oral narrative performances, sound multiphonies of place that both display historical alterity and negotiate dissonances and borders in contemporary life. For instance, in connecting to former states and empires, oral narratives consolidate Indigeneity in the face of domination; cross-border drone-scapes activate former historical relations between Greater Altai and Altai-Sayan peoples divided by contemporary political borders, and transnational links with groups interested in world music, shamanism, and nomadism create oral debates about cultural appropriation, ownership of music and land, and Indigenous and human rights. the past in the present

The past is important to contemporary emplacement among Altai-Sayan peoples. Although academics dispute the significance of former clans and tribes, the reclamation of the söök (clan) as an Indigenous group with its own spirit-protector, sacred mountain, tree, seal, and connections to genealogical lineages has become an important identifier in the post-Soviet period. Shamans cite important patrilineal and matrilineal members, and invite them to their rituals (chaps. 3, 7); Ak Jang practitioners practice unsounding and sound replacement to respect the suffering of their early twentieth-century founders and the fall of the Jungar Khanate (chap. 5); epic performers inherit their skills from lineage members, and musicians bring ancestors into local performances by choices of repertoire,

256

Coda

drone-partials music, and instruments. Russian archaeological excavation and removal of ancestors (especially the Ice Maiden) have provoked debates on belonging, cultural ownership, contemporary catastrophes, and sacred places, and musicians project their ancestral connections to multiple audiences by copying the artwork, instruments, and designs of ancient ancestors onto their instruments and compact disc sleeves (chap. 4). from “out-of-place” to “in-place”

Just as the partials of a drone leave their place from within it to explore other dimensions before returning, mobile pastoralists repeatedly return to their base using circular or return pathways as part of seasonal and annual cycles. Those who travel for other reasons also carry within them an attachment to their homeland and a longing to return. I have argued that sensing being “in-place” or “out-of-place” in society and the universe, essential to being comfortable with the body, self, and personhood, occurs traditionally through a successful balance in relations. Sonic interactions with spirit-owners (chap. 3) and participating spirit actors of an Ak Jang or shamanic ritual strengthened senses of place in relation to homeland, ancestors, kin, and Indigeneity. When “out-of-place,” the human or community’s body and soul need droneovertone and timbral music, verbal, and dramatic performances by a ritual specialist to return to being “in-place,” thereby restoring equilibrium within and between all interrelated bodies. All engaged in that process need to return to be “in-place.” Before finishing an epic, for instance, the performer and spirit-owners of the epic, hero, vocal tone (kai-khai), and instrument need to be peacefully back “inplace” (chap. 6). Similarly, “out-of-place” souls, whether through loss, migration, theft, metamorphosis, or prebirth/posthumous liminality, must return to their places to avoid illness and cosmic chaos. But a soul is “placed” when distributed and ex-corporeal, for example on the human’s outer body and possessions or in landscape, without such repercussions (chap. 1). Specific sounds and silence are “in-place” when performed in certain areas of landscape (chap. 7), with codes of conduct governing performance at mountain peaks, archaeological complexes, and other sacred sites (chap. 3). Circular movements and shapes imply return and reintegration. Portals to other worlds, activated during ritual performances, through which actors enter and return, are often circular. Circling in the path of the sun, a movement that echoes life, death, and rebirth, is important for nomadic migrations, everyday travelers, and Ak Jang and shamanic rituals (chaps. 5, 7). Drone-partials vocal or instrumental sounds often accompany these movements, echoed in the ritual actions of spiritual specialists and in instrument designs. For instance, the shaman circles

257

Coda

a drum, mostly circular in shape, around the head or body of a client and may use the metal jaw’s harp, also with a circular body. Both create timbre-centered music. Ritual participants also create circular shapes through circumambulation or in performance in shamanic and Ak Jang events as sounds attune to local energetical forces that effect changes in the human body and spirit (chaps. 3, 5). Relations and coordinations of place within multiple dimensions and communities need constant affirmation, renegotiation, and sometimes confrontation. An Indigenous body in the contemporary world feels “out-of-place” when it cannot balance self and personhood by performative integration. Shamans, Ak Jang ritual specialists, and with-spirit epic performers help to mitigate this problem by reconnecting ritual participants to traditional roots, beliefs, and practices and reenlivening the performance of traditional interrelations after the traumas of sedentarization and Europeanization of the Soviet years. A traveler’s or ritual participant’s earthly place and boundaries to be crossed are mediated in performances at ritual portals in the earthly landscape. While cairns, trees, and healing springs provide access to nature’s spirit-owners in parallel earthly dimensions, navel/umbilical-cord mountains connect to each other and alternative dimensions of the universe (chap. 5). In other with-spirit places, often decorated with ritual ribbons and sometimes spirit-actor figures fashioned on or from stone by ancient communities (chap. 4), the song-chants and whispered requests of shamans and travelers, or the music of contemporary pilgrims and musicians, serenade spirit actors. And the repertory choices of musicians and spiritual specialists, as in the praise-songs, improvised poetical offerings, and endblown–flute playing in the Altaian Singing Forest, activate others individually. At certain archaeological sites and mountain summits, spirit actors are respected by silence in anticipation of reciprocal benefits. holism

“Place in what?” raises the question of holism. The desire for balanced interrelations within and with all bodies, for instance, echoes the quest of early British anthropologists to understand how relational bonds and social equilibrium maintain societies (Radcliffe-Brown 1952, Evans-Pritchard 1965, Malinowski [1922] 2002a). Their holistic model of societies and cultures as integrated static, bounded, stable, and internally cohesive, however, failed to account for conflict or social, cultural, and political change. Explorations of the fractal properties, scales, and complexities of different entities (bodies, persons, clans, landscapes) in Melanesia shed new light on the model (chap. 1). Developments by Handelman and Lindquist ([2011] 2013, 19–23) of the theories of Dumont (1977, 1986) and Kapferer (1988)—who identified holism as a value for organizing the social—added to the debate on an “integrity of the entirety” without fixed boundaries.

258

Coda

More recently, Pedersen and Willerslev (2010) distinguished the early “totalitarian holism” and Melanesian “fractal holism” models from “proportional holism,” a concept that emerged from their work with Darhad pastoralists of northwest Mongolia and Yukagir hunters of northeast Siberia. The drone-partials model of the peoples of Altai, Khakassia, and Tyva chimes with the fractal holism described for Melanesians in that its integration is not a singular totality. Their cosmos, however, differs not only from that of Melanesians but also from that of the Mongolian and Siberian peoples described by Pedersen and Willerslev, whose spirit actors are either immanent souls occupying a shaman’s body or distal transcendental entities and whose cosmos consists of vague skies with gaps, voids, and holes that require filling (2010, 300—308). Rather, the Altai-Sayan cosmos is a series of nomadic landscaped domains reached by sonic pathways at with-spirit places in the Middle World. Social interactions between human and spirit actors remain a daily occurrence for Altai, Khakas, and Tyvan Indigenous peoples, who recognize all spirit actors as persons with distinctive characteristics, with whom they must create relations. These include ethical kinship relations with spirit actors of the different dimensions, addressed traditionally in the performances of shamans and epic performers and in codes of behavior in sacred places. State, National, and Global Pathways: Flows and Dissonances

Since the fall of the Berlin wall, the ability of global flows to reach the republics of Altai, Khakassia, and Tyva has seen the steady arrival of neoshamans, the growth of Buddhism, and interactions with international interest groups and institutions. From these have arisen questions about the ownership of local traditions, including shamanism and music, and how to protect Indigenous cultural heritage and local senses and performances of place while establishing a meaningful presence in global contexts. Let us consider some of those questions. are altai-sayan shamans “neoshamans?”

Of the three republics, Tyva has been influenced most by Harner’s global neoshamanism. Those affected fall along a continuum. Heavily influenced, Oorzhak Shaman teaches internationally Ün-Khün (Sound-Sun), his own sound therapy system that uses khöömei, sygyt, and kargyraa drone-partials vocal styles to open nine bodily energy centers. Decorations in the treatment room of Ai Chürek Shamaness showed clear influences from Native American sources and her interactions with Mongush Kenin-Lopsan and Harner’s core shamanism. Lazo Mongush Shaman, whose practices are more traditional, insists that he does not read or follow Harner or Kenin-Lopsan. Kara-ool Dopchun-ool had been influenced by

259

Coda

Russian bioenergetical theories. Galina Pavlovna Kokova, a Khakas shamaness living in Tyva, had been influenced by the chakra system. However, there were major differences in historical traditions and contemporary practices of these shamans from worldwide neoshamanism. For instance, they: • use a range of idiophonic sounds (rather than hallucinogens) to achieve altered states of consciousness (ASC) and to enliven spirit actors • vary the beats and rhythms of drum or jaw’s harp according to the nature of the ritual, stage of journey, purpose of multisensory performance, and participants • enter deep states of ASC (“trance”) only to address the serious problems of others, not themselves • activate other extrasensory abilities to heal • are never “possessed,” in the sense of losing self-control, even when “settled” by an ancestral or origin spirit • orchestrate their own dramatic ritual performances and the participants’ experiences of it • may journey and engage in battles with otherworld actors and other shamans • usually bring otherworld spirit actors, including ancestors, to MiddleWorld events where they communicate and negotiate with them, and enlist them as helpers and protectors • specialize in healing other individuals (local and international) and communities (kin, clan, human, nonhuman) by creating a relational equilibrium within the social human body and among the bodies of communities in all domains of the universe • perform in the living natural world to form connections with its multisensory energies rather than in rooms inside buildings or laboratories for scientific experiments.

There are four other vital distinguishing elements: their ancestral shamanic heritage, contemporary status as minority Indigenous peoples, performative actions that stress interrelationships rather than individuality, and ability—given shared ontologies and overlapping practices—to perform in different spiritual contexts. Both Khakas with-spirit epic performers and shamans, for instance, should not perform khai or play the drum until they reach forty years old. The move from being “keepers” to “performers” of Indigenous spiritual, ethnic, and musical traditions aligns them with the Fourth World struggle for Indigenous survival. They draw on mixed sources to inform the activation of Indigeneity in performance: memories of family and shaman elders, secretly continued local

260

Coda

traditions, museum documentations, classic literature, and contemporary writers who advocate “global” shamanism (T. Ondar 1997, 53–54). Moreover, the Indigenous ontological complexes of shamanism, the White Way (Ak Jang), and epic performance overlap and have influenced one another. For instance, in contemporary Altai, the shaman uses the position of a falling drum’s beater and an Ak Jang ritual leader (jarlyk) uses that of a falling bowl to determine whether the ritual outcome will be good (chap. 5, chap. 7). Both shamanic and Ak Jang rituals include unaccompanied improvised verses, sound avoidance, calling spirit-owners, sprinkling milk, using white cloth to carry juniper for burning in cleansing, bodily purification, and preliminal, liminal, and postliminal periods of rites-of-passage. All have multi- and extrasensory abilities and share the same tripartite animist universe. The White Way complex incorporates shape-shifting epic heroes into its pantheon, epic performers metamorphose with their musical instruments and heroes, and shamans transform themselves into birds, animals, and other spirit actors through sound, movement, and embodiment. All perform drone-overtone and timbral musical sounds, seeking to create a balanced dynamic stability (musical and ontological “drone”) through the creation and unification of pathways (overtones and undertones of that drone) to maintain peace, health, and prosperity. There is also flexibility in specialist roles. Within Ak Jang, for instance, a single person may perform both jarlykchy and alkyshchy roles. Khakas Piltïr Nikadim Ulturgashev mentioned Khomatai Bastaev, an epic performer and shaman, who had influenced the repertoire of his own lineage (chap. 2), and Töölös Arzhan Közörökov continued that tradition. How, then, does Buddhism fit with these overlapping Indigenous ontological complexes? is buddhism indigenous?

Despite its disputed origins, Buddhism has a long history in the Altai-Sayan region. Both Buddhist monks and shamans were brutally repressed under the Soviet system, and Buddhism is being actively revived in both Altai and Tyva (chap. 4). We have seen how Buddhism has characteristics that appeal to these Altai-Sayan peoples. For example, its rituals include spirit-owners, Buddhists and shamans have sacred geographies, and some monks perform drone-partials vocal music. However, we’ve also noted dissonances between local and global Buddhist practices, such as the desire of local practitioners not to adhere to the strict regulations of Gelugpa Buddhism but rather to adhere to local needs, and how contestations arise over Buddhist ritual performances, musical sounds, and which spirit actors should occupy land (chap. 3).

261

Coda

Buddhist music already has presence on the “world music” stage. Having heard the chanting of Buddhist monks in spiritual contexts in Altai and Tyva, as well as previously in Mongolia, Inner Mongolia, and Tibet, I was perplexed to experience the Tantric Gyuto Monks—in exile in India since the annexation of their native Tibet by the Chinese—performing on a concert stage in Cambridge, England. The audience was unsure—should they clap at the end of each short ritual performance? Listening again, though, to their recorded performances, in which drone-partials vocal and timbral instrumental sounds organically intermingle and separate, it is clear that there are striking similarities with the bass timbral styles of Indigenous peoples of the Altai, Khakassia, and Tyva. Moreover, both use the musical practice as a means of calling and communicating with spirit actors. For Buddhist monks, however, it is also a means of merging with deities: the monk becomes a deity, unlike the relationship between spirit actors and shamanicanimist Altai-Sayan peoples. Using a different range of styles, Tibetan monks use it as a way of displaying the essence of their own Indigenous identities, being Tibetan. who owns cultural heritage?

When UNESCO moved from the post–World War II safeguarding of Cultural Heritage (objects) to its Proclamation of Masterpieces of Oral and Intangible Heritage (embodied in people) during the Intangible Heritage Convention of 2003, it dangled the possibility of raising the global visibility, profile, and value of traditional musics as well as spiritual practices and knowledge. Its aims were ambitious: intangible cultural heritage (ICH) would replace the older terms traditional culture, oral tradition, and folklore but maintain the essential ingredient of these, that is, being a living force “transmitted from generation to generation” and “constantly recreated by communities and groups” in response to their social and physical environment (Ruggles and Silverman 2009, 9). However, while applications to UNESCO remain state-driven, Indigenous and other minority peoples equally remain vulnerable to omission or misrepresentation by repressive systems. This became particularly evident in 2009 when uproar followed China’s registration of the “art of throat-singing” with UNESCO as of Chinese rather than Mongolian heritage (Pegg 2012, Curtet 2021). This has been rectified, but in a subsequent discussion on the Facebook network site “Tuvan Music— Kargyraa, Xöömei, Sygyt,” Radik Tülüsh expressed his surprise and irritation that khöömei had been registered with UNESCO as of Mongolian rather than of Tyvan cultural heritage. Despite the presence of UNESCO representatives in the three republics, the ICH of their Indigenous peoples remains unrepresented on UNESCO’s lists. Indigenous musicians now travel internationally and so have become aware of

262

Coda

how the institution’s activities help promote musical genres and styles as icons of identity and power in the global music market. The potential power of sonic icons has fed into contestations between the kinds of ethnicity and nationhood allowed in local festival performances under colonization and those of contemporary Indigeneity and difference (chap. 2). For instance, questions have arisen about the elevation of a single instrument, such as the Altaian lute (topshuur) and Khakas long-box zither (chatkhan), to the status of the “national” instrument that accompanies epics when traditionally the instrument varied according to tribe or clan, now recognized as different Indigenous peoples. It became clear during fieldwork that these Indigenous peoples fiercely defend their musics and spiritual practices for several reasons. First, those practices had been taken from them or, in the case of music, adapted to Euro-American classical music intonations during the communist period. Second, they are now within a colonial system and, even though they have their own federative political structures, are subjected to constant Russification and are ultimately answerable to Russian rule. Third, while increased globalization and the web present opportunities for more audibility/visibility of their own musics and identities, they still must fight to have their own creativity and identities recognized in that arena. Fourth, and perhaps most important, the relationship they have with their own music cannot be reduced to “ownership.” Rather, embracing as it does the melodies and improvisations of their traditions and future, it constitutes an expression of their very being. Immersion into different societies and cultures can have radical consequences for the researcher. For me, participation in daily life, music-making, and transformative rituals of the nomadic peoples of Altai, Khakassia, and Tyva brought recognition of diverse Indigeneities, acknowledgement of the importance of cultural heritage for contemporary identities, and deep respect. If we listen anew to Altai-Sayan music within the framework of ontological musicality and sonicality with its stable yet dynamic self-drone and Middle-World hum, its partials (of drone and overtones) of personhood that create kinship relations with all living energies of the universe, its reverence for springs as bringers of life and healing and for rivers as arteries of the Earth’s living body, and performative practices that create ways of combining the potentially opposing notions of movement and place, sameness and difference, we could all benefit at a time when our peoples, nature, and planet are so much in need.

263

Appendix

Table 1. Transliteration of Indigenous and Russian Languages The sign “ indicates that this Russian Cyrillic letter/sound is also used in Indigenous literary languages. The sign ____ indicates that this sound is not present. Russian Cyrillic

Altaian

Khakas

Tyvan

Latin

а б в г ___ д e ё ж з и ___ й ___ к л м н ____ о ____ п р с т у

“ “ “ “ ___ “ “ ___ “ “ “ ___ “ j “ “ “ “ ң “ ӧ “ “ “ “ “

“ “ “ “ ғ “ “ “ “ “ “ i “

“ “ “ “ ___ “ “ “ “ “ “ ___ “

“ “ “ “ ң “ ӧ “ “ “ “ “

“ “ “ “ ң “ ө “

a b v g gh d e yo zh z i ï i j k l m n ng1 o ӧ p r s t u

“

Pronunciation (as in) anthem bass; Alt. “p” viola hard “g” (guitar) soft “g” (giant) drum “ye” (yellow) “yo” (yonder) treasure kazoo tweet between i and Fr. “eu” this joke; t’/d’ as in Fr. tiens kaleidoscope lute melody name song horn fur piano Fr. “r” saxophone trombone flute

Appendix Russian Cyrillic ___ ф х ц ч ___ ш щ Ь ы Ъ э ю я

Altaian

Khakas

Tyvan

Latin

ӱ “ “ ___ “ ___ “ “ “ “ “ “ “ “

ӱ “ “ “ “ ҷ “ “ “ “ ___ “ “ “

ү “ “ “ “ ___ “ ____ ____ “ “ “ “ “

ü f kh ts ch j sh shch ‘ y ’ e yu ya

Pronunciation (as in) Fr. vue fan Scot. loch tsunami charm treasure shake palatized “sh” soft sign (modifies preceding consonant) between “i” and “eu” hard sign (modifies preceding consonant) egg ukelele “ya” (yazoo)

Note: 1. I have simplified the orthography of this velar nasal for easy readability by non-linguists. For instance, the Altaian people Teleŋit is rendered as Telengit, the epic Jaŋar as Jangar, and so on.

Table 2. Regions in Local and Indigenous Languages and in Russian Altaian Chamal aimak Choi aimak Kan-Oozy aimak Kök-Suu Oozy aimak Kosh-Agash aimak Maima aimak Ongdoi aimak Shebalin aimak Turachak aimak Ulagan aimak Khakas Aghban piltïrï aimaghy Altai aimaghy Askhys aimaghy Ordzhonikidze aimaghy Syra aimaghy Tastyp aimaghy Tyvan Bai-Taiga kozhuun Baryn-Khemchik kozhuun Choon-Kemchik kozhuun Erzin kozhuun Mönggün-Taiga kozhuun Övür kozhuun Süt-Khöl kozhuun Tes-Khem kozhuun Ulug-Khem kozhuun

Russian Chemalskii raion Choiskii raion Ust’-Kanskii raion Ust’-Koksinskii raion Kosh-Agachskii raion Maiminskii raion Ongudaiskii raion Shebalinskii raion Turachakskii raion Ulaganskii raion Ust’-Abakanskii raion Altaiskii raion Askizskii raion Orzhonikidzevskii raion Shirinskii raion Tashtypskii raion Bai-Taiginskii raion Barun-Khemchikskii raion Zün-Khemchikskii raion Erzinskii raion Mongun-Taiginskii raion Ovyurskii raion Sut-Khol’skii raion Tes-Khemskii raion Ulug-Khemskii raion

266

Appendix

Table 3. Abbreviations Altaian Arabic English French German Greek Khakas Latin Mongolian Mongolian Khalkhas Mongolia Oirats Oirat, Oirot Persian Russian Sanskrit Scottish Sogdian Tibetan Turkic Tyvan

Alt. Ara. Eng. Fr. Gm. Gk. Kh. Lat. Mo. Mo.Khal. Mo.Oir. Oir. Per. Ru. Skt. Scot. Sog. Tib. Tu. Tyv.

Indigenous Peoples Altai: Altai Kizhi Chalkan/Shalkan (Ru. Chelkan) Telengit Teleut Todosh Töölös, Teles (Ru. Tölös) Tuba (pl. Tubalar)

Alt.K. Ch. Tel. Tele. Tod. Tö. Tub.

Khakassia: Khaas (Ru. Kachin) Khoibal (Ru. Koibal) Khyrgys (Ru. Kirgiz) Khyzyl (Ru. Kyzyl) Kumandu Piltïr (Ru. Bel’tyr) Saghai Shor

Kha. Khoi. Khyr. Khyz. Ku. Pil. Sag. Sh.

Tyva: Tozhu (Ru. Tozha)

Tozh.

Mongolia: Khalkha Torgut

Khal. To.

267

Participants (P)

Altai

Akchin, Amyr. Professional musician. AltaiKAI ensemble. Rec. Ulagan region, 2006; Cambridge, UK, 2008. Askanakov, Aleksandr. Telengit Indigenous group. Leader of Ak Jang/Altai Jang. Throatsinger. Rec. Ulagan, Ulagan region, 2006. Bachibaeva, Valentina. Rec. Sary Bür ritual, Lower Talda, Kurota Valley, Ongdoi region, 2010. Bairyshev, Bolot. Professional musician and throat-singer. Rec. Kurota, Ongdoi region, Gorno-Altaisk, 2002. Bairysheva, Müngülchi. Kypchak clan. Ak Jang ritual and jangar songs. Rec. Yakonur, KanOozy region, 2002. Bedyurov, Er-Todosh Indigenous group. Brontoi. Historian, writer, poet. Rec. Gorno-Altaisk, 2010. Borboshev, “Kumdus” (1940–2009). Tele clan. Ak Jang practitioner. Rec. Kulada mountain temple, Karakol Valley, Ongdoi region, 2006. Chachiyakova, Jyrgal. Töölös Indigenous group. Storyteller. Rec. Elo, Ongdoi region, 2010. Chechaeva, Valentina, b. 1953. Todosh Indigenous group. Rec. Kulada, Karakol Valley, Ongdoi region, 2010. Churupov, Aidar. Kypchak clan. Professional musician. Rec. Dom Kultura, Gorno-Altaisk; Kibi Lodge, Maiman region, 2006. Epishkin, Erkemen, b. 1972. Kögöl-Maiman clan. Musician. Rec. Üch Engmek base camp, Karakol Valley, Ongdoi region, 2002, 2006. Erokhonova, Ol’ga Kedeshevna. Töölös Indigenous group. Ak Jang ritual leader. Rec. Boochi, Karakol Valley, Ongdoi region, 2010.

Participants

Kalkin, Elbek, b. 1953. Telengit Indigenous group. Traditional epic performer. Rec. Ongdoi, Ongdoi region, 2002, Yabogan, Kan-Oozy region, 2006. Kalkin, Mariya Erteevna. Wife of Elbek Kalkin. Rec. Yabogan, Kan-Oozy region, 2006. Közörökov, Arzhan (1978–2012). Töölös Indigenous group. El Kaichy (People’s Epic Performer) of the Altai Republic, Ak Jang ritual leader, shaman. Rec. Kurota and Lower Talda, Ongdoi region, 2006, 2010. Krachnakov, Timofei. Chalkan Indigenous group. Shaman. Rec. Gorno-Altaisk, 2002. Kükpenekova, Olesya, b. 1987. Hunting horn, jaw’s harp. Rec. Yakonur, Kan-Oozy region, 2002. Makarovna, Anna, b. 1932. Chalkan Indigenous group. Singer, folklore collector. Rec. GornoAltaisk, 2002. Mamyev Danil’ I. Todosh Indigenous group. Founding director and sacred site guardian of “Üch Engmek” Karakol Nature Park; founder of “Tengri: School of Ecology and the Soul.” Rec. Gorno-Altaisk, Karakol Valley, Ongdoi region, 2002, 2006, 2010. Mandaeva, Elena, b. 1954. Töölös Indigenous group. Jangar songs. Rec. Kulada, Karakol Valley, Ongdoi region, 2010. Mergen. Oirot. Buddhist Monk. Rec. Ak Burkan Buddhist temple, Gorno-Altaisk, 2006. Minakov, Andrei, b. 1938. Todosh Indigenous group. Musician. Rec. Yakonur, Kan-Oozy region, 2002. Otykov, “Oirot” (1965–2015). Telengit Indigenous group, Köbök clan. Musician, throatsinger. El Kaichy (People’s Epic Performer) of the Altai Republic, 2008. Rec. Ortolyk, Kosh-Agash region, 2006. Pustogacheva, Oksana. Chalkan Indigenous group. Krachnakov Shaman’s patient. Rec. Gorno-Altaisk, 2002. Sapysheva, Solunai. Vocalist, musician. AltaiKAI ensemble. Rec. Gorno-Altaisk 2006; Cambridge UK, 2008. Shodoev, Nikolai Andreevich. Leader of Ak Suus (White Soul) organization, geography teacher, founder of the Museum of Traditional Altaian Culture. Rec. Möndür-Sokkon, Kan-Oozy region, 2006. Shumarov, Nikolai (“Nogon”), b. 1947. Töölös Indigenous group. Musician, throat-singer, actor, director. Rec. Karakol Valley, Ongdoi region, 2006; Gorno-Altaisk, 2010. Shumarova, Tokton, b. 1925. Töölös Indigenous group. Rec. Kulada, Karakol Valley, Ongdoi region, 2006. Tadykin, Eles, b. 1970. Musician, throat-singer. Rec. Kurai, Kosh-Agash region, 2006. Tel’denov, Mergen. Musician, throat-singer. Rec. Kara-tyt Valley, Ulagan region, 2006. Terkishev, Emil’. Töölös Indigenous group. Musician, throat-singer. AltaiKAI ensemble. Rec. Ulagan region, 2006. Toloev, Kyspai. Kypchak clan. Ak Jang practitioner. Musician. Rec. Yakonur, Kan-Oozy region, 2002. Toloeva, Didii, b. before 1932. Kypchak clan. Jangar songs. Rec. Yakonur, Kan-Oozy region, 2002. Toloeva, Lyuba. Rec. Yakonur, Kan-Oozy region, 2002. Toloeva, Tanya Kükpenekova. Altai Kizhi. Rec. Yakonur, Kan-Oozy region, 2002.

270

Participants

Tuimesheva, Vera. Daughter of Adnai Tuimeshev Shaman, repressed in 1937. Rec. Aktybash, Choi region, 2006. Urchimaev, Sarymai (1965–2016). Kypchak clan. Buddhist monk. Professional musician, throat-singer, singer, performer of sounds of nature. Rec. Gorno-Altaisk, 2002; Ongdoi, Karakol Valley, El Oiyn Festival, and Singing Forest, Ongdoi aimak, 2006, 2010; Cambridge, UK, 2008. Urchimaev, “Slava.” Kypchak clan. History teacher, woodcarver. Rec. Küpchegen, Ongdoi region, 2002. Yamaev, Erke K., b. 1925. Töölös hereditary clan leader. Rec. Karakol Valley, Ongdoi region, 2006. Yanganovna, Anna Torbogosheva (Alt. Küpei), b. 1937. Irkit. Jangar singer. Rec. Yakonur, Kan-Oozy region, 2002. Yntai, Urmat (Ru. Vladimir Yntaev), b. 1973. Telengit Indigenous group. Founding member, musical director, producer, and manager of AltaiKAI ensemble; musician, throat-singer. Rec. Gorno-Altaisk, Kara Kud’ur, and Ulagan, Ulagan region, 2006, Cambridge, UK, 2008. Yudanov, Anton Viktorovich, b. before 1932. Jaryk clan. Tubalar hereditary clan leader. White shaman, Ak Jang ritual leader, instrument maker. Rec. Paspaul, 2006. Khakassia

Adygaev, Nikifor. Performer of epics and improvised verses, chatkhan zither player; a person who “sees” (kördigjy kïzï). Rec. Kharatas (Ru. Chernogorsk), 2004. Alakhtaeva, Galinakh Sergeevna. Khoibal Indigenous group. Rec. Naa aal (Ru. Ustinkino), Syra region, 2004. Altyn Tan (“Golden Dawn”) Tayas (Ru. Anya/Anna Burnakova), b. 1978. Northern Khaas Indigenous group. Musician, singer. Ülger Ensemble. Rec. Abakan and Sapron village, 2004, 2005. Aryshtaev, Pyotr, b. 1940. Khaas Indigenous group, Khyrghys clan. Chatkhan zither. Rec. Azakh Sööt (Ru. Malyi Spirin), Syra region, 2004. Ayoshin, Gennadi, b. 1948. Khyrghys clan. Performer of oral history. Rec. Novomar’yasovo, Ordzhonikidze region, 2004. Achisova, Kristina T., b. 1934. Khyzyl clan. Rec. Naa aal, Ordzhonikidze region, 2005. Borgoyakov, Makhtalin (Mikhail), b. 1934. Improvised verses, chatkhan zither. Rec. Karl Marx village, Askhys region, 2004. Borgoyakov, Pavel (1932–2016). Chatkhan zither, khai vocal tone, historical storyteller. Rec. Indïrkï [Lower] Töö, Askhys region, 2004, 2005. Burnakova, Abdokai (1928–2011). Improvised verses, chatkhan zither. Rec. Oty, Töö Valley, Askhys region, 2004. Burnakova, Anya. See Altyn Tan Tayas. Burnakova, Tadi (Tat’iana) (1915–2003/4). Saghai Indigenous group. Daughter of mountain spirit-owner; a “person who knows,” “sees,” and heals; funeral laments and songs. Rec. Chogharkhy (Upper) Töö Valley, Askhys region, 2005. Charkov, Sergei (Shibetei Kyrghys), b. 1963. Khaas Indigenous group. Professional singer, musician, composer; Khakas master craftsman in traditional instrument-making. Rec.

271

Participants

Abakan, 2002, 2005; Askhys 2002; Angchul’ village; Chaa Tas War Stones, Aghban piltïrï region, 2004; Cambridge UK, 2005. Charkova, Yulia, b. 1987. Musician, singer, kai throat-singer. Solo performer. Rec. Abakan, 2004; Chaa Tas War Stones, 2005; Cambridge, UK, 2005. Chebochakov, Valerii. Shaman with Shor ancestry. Rec. Abakan, 2004. Chebodaev, Oleg. Throat-singer, chatkhan zither. Ailanys Ensemble and Chitigen Theater of Drama and Traditional Music. Rec. Abakan, 2002. Kapchigashev, Nikolai, b. 1937. Khaas. Chatkhan zither. Rec. Zhemchuzhnyi, Syra region, 2004. Kicheeva, Galina, b. 1947. Rec. Toghyrghy village, Syra region, 2004. Kishteev, Viktor I. Shaman. Leader of the Society of Traditional Religion of the Khakas People—Center of Shamanism. Rec. Abakan, 2002, 2004, 2005; Gateway to Salbyk Valley, Aghban piltïrï region, 2002. Kokov, Georgii (“Nikolai”), b. 1933. Khaas Indigenous group. Takhpakh improvised verses, epic extracts, chatkhan zither. Rec. Altynchul aal (Golden Creek settlement) with wife Spirina, Syra region, 2004. Kotozhekov, Aleksandr (A. Chaprai). Member of Chitigen Theater of Drama and Ethnic Music, and the Executive Body of the Khakas People. Person who “sees,” shamanic ritual assistant. Rec. Gateway to Salbyk Valley, Aghban piltïrï region, 2002; Abakan, 2004, 2005. Küchen, Ai Charykh Saiyn (Vyacheslav [“Slava”] Kuchenov), b. 1967. Saghai Indigenous group, Choon Saiyn clan. With-spirit epic performer, professional musician, sculptor. Leader of Ülger Ensemble. Rec. Abakan 2002, 2004, 2005; Sapron village (Ru. Safronov), Askhys region, 2004, 2005. Kul’bisteev, Viktor B. 1933. Khyzyl. Chatkhan zither. Rec. Naa aal, Syra region, 2004. Kurbizhekov, Aleksandr. Khyzyl clan. Singer, chatkhan zither. Rec. Ordzhonikidze, Ordzhonikidze region, 2004. Kuznetsov, Nikolai. Academic physicist, geologist. Rec. Abakan, and Gateway to Salbyk Valley, Aghban piltïrï region, 2005. Potandaeva, Vera, b. 1945. Rec. Azakh Sööt (Ru. Malyi Spirin) village, Syra region, 2004. Samozhikov, Aleksandr (“Sasha”) (1955–2020). Khyzyl Indigenous group. Professional musician. Leader of Ailanys Ensemble. Member of Chitigen Theater of Drama and Traditional Music. Rec. Abakan, 2002, 2004; Kichig Khamnar and Naa aal villages, Ordzhonikidze region, 2004, 2005; Mt. Sunduki, Syra region, 2004, 2005. Samozhikova, Stepanida Stepinovna (“Stesha”). Khaas Indigenous group. Rec. Abakan, 2002, 2004; Kichig Khamnar and Naa aal (Ustinkino) villages, Ordzhonikidze region, 2004, 2005; Mt. Sunduki, Syra region, 2005. Taidonov, Mikhail Seratimovich, b. 1929. Khyzyl Indigenous group. Chatkhan zither. Rec. Toghyrghy aal, Syra region, 2004. Tom, Sibdei (Ru. Sergei Mainagashev), b. 1963. Saghai Indigenous group. Musician, songwriter, poet, radio producer. Rec. Abakan, 2002, 2004, 2005. Topaev, Pyotr. Saghai Indigenous group. With-spirit instrument-maker. Rec. Abakan, 2004, 2005. Tyumerekov, Lazar’, b. 1935. Khobi people. Chatkhan zither, khobyrakh flute. Rec. Angchul, Tastyp region, 2004, 2005.

272

Participants

Tyumerekova, Anastasiya. Shor Indigenous group. Singer, lutes. Rec. Angchul, Tashtyp region, 2004, 2005. Ulturgashev, Alexandr. Piltïr Indigenous group. Lives on mountain people’s road and has two “mountain wives.” Rec. Politov village, Askhys region, 2004. Ulturgashev, Nikadim, b. 1934. Piltïr Indigenous group. Chatkhan zither, improvised verses, shamanic words performer. Rec. Politov village, Askhys region, 2004, 2005. Ulugbashev, Evgenii. Saghai Indigenous group. Professional musician, throat-singer, composer. Leader of Khan Syn Ensemble, Khakas Philharmonia. Rec. Abakan, 2002, 2004, 2005. Tyva

Adyshaa, Galina, b. 1954. Tumat clan. Teacher, poet, singer. Rec. Ak-Chyraa, Övür region, 2005. Ai Chürek (Moon Heart), Oyun (1963–2010). Shamaness, throat-singer. Former Director of Tös Deer (Nine Skies) Shamanic Center. Rec. Tös Deer, Kyzyl, 2005, 2006; Paradise camp, close to Bii-Khem River, 2005. Chambal, Dugul-ool. b. 1968. Hunter, diviner. Rec. Kyzyl-Khaya, Mönggün Taiga region, 2003. Chambal, Valentin. Teller of epics, stories. Rec. Kyzyl, 2003. Chamzyryn, Gennadii (“Gendos”) (1965–2015). Professional musician, throat-singer, sculptor. Former director of Cheleesh, member of avant-garde jazz trio Biosintes and of experimental trio K-Space. Rec. Kyzyl, 2003. Damyrang, Aylangmaa. Musician. Member of Tyva Kyzy Ensemble. Rec. Institute of Humanities Research, Kyzyl, 2003. Darzhap, Oyun-ool, b. 1939. Choldaktar clan. Rec. family camp, Tes-Khem region, 2003. Deleg, Urii, b. 1962. Throat-singer, teacher. Rec. Samagaltai, Tes-Khem region, 2003. Dongak, Oyun-ool, b. 1942. Shepherd; throat-singer. Rec. Art Arazy (Middle Pass), TangdyUula, Övür region, 2005. Dopchun-ool, Kara-ool. “Great Shaman” (Ulug Kham). Founder and Director of Adyg Eeren (Bear Spirit) Shamanic Center. Rec. Adyg Eeren, Kyzyl, 2005. Kherlii, Boris, b. 1957. Irgit clan. Member of Tyva’s Great Khurel. Former member of Ensemble Tuva. Rec. Kyzyl, Kyzyl-Khaya, and Mögür-Aksy, Mönggün-Taiga region, 2003. Kherlii, Sasha-oglu. Shaman. Rec. Mönggün-Taiga region, 2003. Khertekovich, Adyg-ool. Shamaness. Rec. Kyzyl, 2005. Khovalyg, Kaigal-ool, b. 1960. Former shepherd; throat-singer, musician. Cofounder of Huun-Huur-Tu. Rec. Kyzyl, 2005. Khovalyg, Shoidak-ool. Storyteller. Rec. Khaiyrakan village, Ulug Khem region, 2005. Kokova, Galina. Khakas Shamaness. Rec. Kyzyl and Aldyn Maadyr Festival, Tyva, 2003. Köshkendei, Igor, b. 1978. Musician, throat-singer. Director, Center for the Development of Tyvan Traditional Culture and Crafts. Rec. Kyzyl, 2003. Kungaa Tash-ool Buu oglu (1940–2018). Fourth-generation Kyrgyz “Dragon” shaman, yellow shaman, former Buddhist monk, bone carver. Rec. Kyzyl, 2005. Kuular, Anatoli (“Tolya”) Bayir-ool oglu (1965–2015). Throat-singer, musician. Former member of the Tuva Ensemble and of Huun-Huur-Tu. Rec. Kyzyl and Üstüü Khüree Festival, western Tyva, 2006.

273

Participants

Kyrgys, Bayarlang, b. 1939. Kyrgyz oral history. Rec. Art Arazy (Middle Pass), Tangdy-Uula mountain range, Övür region, 2005. Losal, b. 1976. Buddhist monk. Rec. Nastoyatel’ Gelugpa Buddhist Temple (khram), Chadaana (Ru. Chadan), Chöön-Khemchik region, 2003. Manzyrykchy, Dorzhu Ogli Stepan. b. 1959. Wolf-origin shaman. Plays drum and bow (chakhomus). Rec. Adyg Eeren Shamanic Centre and the author’s apartment, Kyzyl, 2005. Mongul, Valentina. Shamaness, healing massage. Rec. Kyzyl, 2003. Mongush, Anisiya. Shamaness, Dünggür Shamanic Center. Rec. Kyzyl, 2006. Mongush, Kyzyl-ool Kongar, b. 1953. Throat-singer, two-stringed doshpuluur lute, sculptor, oral historian. Rec. Sug-Aksy, Süt-Khöl region, 2005. Mongush, Lazo Dovy-oglu. Hereditary Sky shaman. Former Director of Dünggür Shamanic Centre, Kyzyl. Former leader of Sayany State Ensemble. Rec. Kyzyl, 2005; Chyrgaakal, Chöön Khemchik region, 2005; Shui, Bai-Taiga region, 2006. Mongush, Sanaa, b. 1932. Rec. campsite close to Ulaatai River, Tangdy-Uula mountain range, Övür region, 2005. Namchylak, Sainkho, b. 1957. Traditional and experimental avant-garde vocalist. Rec. Üstüü Khüree Festival, 2005. Ondar, Bady-Dorzhu, b. 1984. Professional musician. Alash Ensemble. People’s khöömeizhi. Rec. Kyzyl, 2003. Ondar, Biche-ool, b. 1947. Maker of traditional and orchestral instruments, musician, teacher. Rec. Sug-Aksy, Süt-Khöl region, 2005. Ondar, Borbak, b. 1970. Instrument maker, musician. Rec. Sug-Aksy, Süt-Khöl region, 2005. Ondar, Kongar-ool. 1962–2013. Professional musician, master throat-singer. Cofounder of the Tyva Ensemble, artistic director of Alash and Tyva Kyzy. Member of the Great Khural of Tyva. Rec. Kyzyl, 2006, 2010. Ondar, Örgezhik, b. 1933. Praise and shepherd songs, coaxing animal sounds. Rec. Sug-Aksy, Süt-Khöl region, 2005. Ondar, Sergei, b. 1960. Musician, singer, throat-singer. Rec. International Scientific Center “Khöömei,” Kyzyl, 2003. Oorzhak, Nikolai. Hereditary shaman. Former professional throat-singer, musician. Former Director of Tös Deer Shamanic Center, former member of Dünggür. Rec. Kyzyl, 2003. Sat, Nadezhda (“Nadia”) Mizhit-Dorzhuyevna (d. 2016). Shamaness. Former director, Dünggür Shamanic Center. Rec. Kyzyl, 2005. Sevek, Aldyn-ool Takashovich (1963–2011). Throat-singer, musician, instrument maker. Former member of Yat-kha. Rec. Kyzyl-Khaya, Mönggün-Taiga region, 2003. Shirin, Kyrgys Dada, b. 1929. Rec. Erzin, 2003. Shirizhik, Ayan, b. 1982. Throat-singer, musician. Alash Ensemble. Rec. Tyvan Institute for Humanities Research, Kyzyl, 2003. Tamdyn, Aldar, b. 1975. Musician, throat-singer, instrument-maker. Chirgilchin Ensemble. Minister of Culture of the Tyva Republic (2014–). Rec. Kyzyl, 2003. Tau, Fyodor, b. 1929. Throat-singer. Rec. International Scientific Center “Khöömei,” Kyzyl, 2003. Tögüs-oolovich, Elena Saaya. Shamaness Rec. Dünggür Shamanic Centre, Kyzyl, 2005.

274

Participants

Tülüsh (Dülüsh), Igor’. Founder and Artistic Director of the Üstüü-Khüree International Music and Faith Festival, Art Director of the Tyvan Philharmonic Symphonic Orchestra, founder of rock band Internat. Rec. Kyzyl, 2003. Tülüsh (Ru. Tyulyush), Radik. Professional musician, singer, throat-singer. Former member of Yat-kha, former director of Tyva’s National Folk Orchestra. In Huun-Huur-Tu, performs solo, teaches workshops. Rec. Kyzyl, 2003, 2004, 2005; Art Arazy (Middle Valley), Tangdy-Uula mountain range, Övür region, 2005; Cambridge, UK, 2007. Tumat, Baazang-oglu Kara-ool, b. 1960. Rec. Art Arazy (Middle Pass), Tangdy-Uula mountain range, Övür region, 2005. Tumat, Choduraa, b. 1974. Singer, throat-singer, musician. Leader of all-female throat-singing group Tyva Kyzy. Rec. Kyzyl, 2003. Yadanov, Kherel. Rec. herder’s camp on steppes north of Samagaltai, 2003. Yeshe, Kalang, b. 1975. Rec. Khüree Buddhist temple, Samagaltai, 2003.

275

Notes

Languages, Transliteration, Translation

[128.104.46.196] Project MUSE (2024-04-09 03:07 GMT) UW-Madison Libraries

1. Drawing on his Baltic materials, Albert Bates Lord argued that oral tradition had relevance to those understood as literary traditions, such as Homeric and medieval epics ([1960] 2000). Introduction

1. Capitalization of the initial I is in line with the University of British Columbia’s “Indigenous Foundations” First Nations Studies Programme, which helped shape understandings of Indigenous later adopted by the United Nations. 2. Mo. khöömii. 3. Since American scholar Owen Lattimore entitled his influential book The Inner Asian Frontiers of China ([1940] 1988), the region of Inner Asia has been defined in several ways. The Mongolia and Inner Asian Studies Unit (MIASU), University of Cambridge, places Mongolia at its center, and includes surrounding regions of southern Siberia and northern China (Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang), as well as western China and eastern Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan). By contrast, the Sinor Research Institute in Bloomington, Indiana, defines it as the homeland of the Altaic (Mongolian Turkic, Manchu-Tungus) and Uralic (Finno-Ugrian, Samoyed) peoples. Here it is presented as a cultural network of traditionally nomadic mountain-steppe peoples, who share the core complexes of shamanism and animism. In the Altai-Sayan and greater Altai Mountain region of Inner Asia, they also share traditional musics based on drones, tones, and timbres (see also Pegg 2001b and Pegg 2009).

Notes to Introduction

4. See Pegg 2001a for performance affiliations of Indigenous Western Mongols across contemporary borders of Mongolian and Russian Altais as well as Pegg 2021b for dronepartial vocal genres and instruments shared across the Greater Altai transborder region, and its relation to a series of mutually implicated cultural landscapes and global flows. 5. Because Indigenous Altaian, Khakas, and Tyvan peoples use the terms shamanic, shamanism, and shaman, I keep them here. 6. Shamanism, Buddhism, and the Russian Orthodox Church (ethnic Russian) were listed as “traditional confessions” in a Tyvan law passed in 1995 (Lindquist 2013, 75). 7. I do not discuss those spiritual complexes considered by local peoples as historical Russian confessions (e.g., Old Believers, Orthodox Christianity) and recent imports (e.g., Protestantism, Islam, Hinduism) rather than as Indigenous. For conversion to Orthodox Christianity, see Broz 2009; encounters between shamanism and Christianity, Znamenski 1999; influences of Manichaeism on Burkhanism (Ak Jang), Yamaeva 2010; and interactions between Buddhism and shamanism in the Altai Republic, Halemba 2003. Kazakhs, 6% of the Altai Republic’s population, practice Islam. 8. Transhumance is a seasonal type of nomadism in which herds are moved between low valleys in summer to cold high plateau in winter, where strong winds sweep snow from the ground allowing animals to graze. The northern Altai region became the center of an emerging culture of transhumance in the second half of the Bronze Age ( Jacobson-Tepfer 2015, 154). 9. The term “Mountain Altai”—used from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries and then under Russian colonization (Gorno-Altai Autonomous Oblast’) and the Soviet Union (Gorno-Altai Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic)—serves now to distinguish the peoples of the mountainous Altai Republic from the largely immigrant peoples and agricultural lowland region of Altai Krai, its northern neighbor. 10. krai: lit. border, end. Used for seven of Russia’s eighty-eight federal subjects located along its economic and geographic peripheries. 11. According to Potapov, Altai Kizhis have used this name since the seventeenth century. Soviet ethnographers called them sobstvenno altaitsy—“real” Altaians—which creates problems with other Altaian groups (Halemba 2001, 27). They live in Ongdoi and Kan-Oozy regions, central Altai. 12. Alt. Oirot; Mo. Oirat, Oirad. 13. Ru. Korennye malochislennye narody Severa, Sibiri i Dal’nego Vostoka. 14. After southern Siberia was incorporated into the Russian Empire in the seventeenth century, local Russians adopted the term Tadar (Ru. Tatar) to describe Turkic-speakers in the areas of Abakan, Minusa, and the Yenisei. 15. See Balzer (2004, 250) for “a schematic continuum depicting degrees of Russification” for various Siberian peoples. 16. For Tyvan “nomadic sensibility,” see Beahrs 2014. See also the website of professional Tyvan musician Radik Tülüsh “The Spirit of Tyvan Nomads,” www.tyulyush.com. 17. Russian shamanology draws heavily on psychology and ethnopsychology theorists, such as Karl Jung and Stanislav Grof. Literary classics and works on New Age shamanism are also read. Some Indigenous and Russian researchers of shamanism align themselves with

278

Notes to Introduction and Chapter 1

esoteric traditions (e.g., theosophy, occult philosophy, Kabbala, mystical Christianity) and individuals (e.g., Helen Blavatsky, Georgii Gurdjieff, Nikolai Roerich). Western scholars have reviewed Western and Russian perceptions of Siberian spirituality (e.g., Hutton 2001) as well as Siberian regionalist ethnographies and the Russian portrayal of Indigenous shamanism (e.g., Znamenski 2003). 18. Roerich traveled with his wife, Helena, through Altai, Tyva, Tibet, Mongolia, and the Himalayas from 1925 to 1928 and from 1934 to 1936, publishing a travel diary ([1929] 1983) and imaginative account ([1930] 2009). 19. An “altered state of consciousness” (ASC) is described by Harner ([1988] 1990, 48–49) as a component of the “shamanic state of consciousness (SSC)” that is needed to engage with nonordinary reality. It is used here for the varying degrees of psychic states used by Siberian spiritual specialists, including shamans. 20. The concept of “undertones” has been gaining momentum in popular global media discourse, although its meaning varies. It is used, for instance, to refer to the sounds produced when the drone is moved downward from the medium to lower range, as in the kargyraa drone-overtone vocal style (chap. 1). Some compare it to vocal fry [G2], in which the vibrational mode of vocal cords changes. Chapter 1. Performative Bodies

1. Buddhist monks also use the menge astrological system which includes color. 2. Early twentieth-century Western occultists used the “third eye” as the doorway to spiritual domains. Believed to connect to the pituitary gland, a small organ that lies between the two halves of the brain, its position also coincides with that of the sixth chakra. 3. Although visible manifestations of souls are often called human “doubles” (see Potapov 1991), Chebochakov Shaman saw multiples of himself engaged in simultaneous different activities, such as flying, walking, and resting (P). 4. Russian composer, musician, and researcher of Siberian shamanism and epics Andrei V. Anokhin (1869–1931) worked with the Shors from 1908 to 1916 and Altaians and Tyvans until 1931. He recorded the much-cited description of a shamanic journey to Ülgen and a shaman’s burial. 5. V. I. Verbitskii, nineteenth-century missionary of the Altai Ecclesiastical Mission, listed six souls among Altai-Sayan peoples: tin, kut, tula, süne, sür, and suzi ([1893] 1993, 97–99). However, the complex system of soul beliefs among Altai-Sayan Indigenous peoples cannot be reduced to a simple list. In his discussion of Siberian cosmologies, Funk distinguishes between living and posthumous existences of certain substances (2018, 7), and illustrates how Anokhin’s materials on Teleut shamanic beliefs incude üzüt, a posthumous essence that among Teleuts remains for forty days and may appear in the form of a wind (jal-salkyn), attempt to have conversations, or knock on the door of a home (Funk 2021, 80–82). 6. Tatár anchors the self in the Tyvan sünezin, which she describes as the “immortal soul” (2006, 366). However, the destination and fate of posthumous souls is not clear among AltaiSayan peoples. Will the soul go upward to live in light or downward to the dark underworld, causing illness in the living? Will it wander in this world as a ghost, go to the parallel world of

279

Notes to Chapters 1 and 2

the ancestors, or be reincarnated into another body? Depending on its successful dispatch, its senses of self may or may not survive the posthumous liminal period. And relations of personhood, an essential interactive element in the sensing of selfhood, must be readjusted in postdeath rituals. The immortality of the “self ” as generally understood from Christian and western perspectives is, then, inadequate for Altai-Sayan societies. 7. See Halemba (2006, 146) for süne as an aspect of personhood and an index of the occult. 8. See Pegg 2021a for “overtone-singing” in the Mongolian Altai and Pegg 2021b for the Altai Mountain range and its neighboring areas as the cradle of drone-overtone and timbrecentered music. 9. Realization of the presence of “undertones” and multiple voices in some styles has rendered the labels “overtone-singing” and “biphonic voice” inadequate. Initially “throatsinging”—taken from ethnographer and composer A. V. Anokhin’s use of Ru. gorlovogo penie ([1910] 2003)—seemed preferable since Tyvans use the Mongolian term (Tyv. khöömei, Mo. khöömii/höömi), which translates as “pharynx.” But this assumes the throat as center of production and that the sounds and techniques used are the same as in “singing.” Kyrgys’s proposal of khorekteer (“to use the chest”) ([2002] 2008) caused opposition from local performers. Khöömei is used as a generic term by those neighboring Mongolia in southern Tyva, and for one style by those in northern Tyva (Vainshtein 1979–80, 72). Moreover, khorekteer also means “to scold” or “to raise the voice,” and therefore has bad connotations. It is also confusing, because in Western classical music a “chest voice” involves different bodily techniques. “Throat-singing” sits more comfortably with Western techniques, usually learned in adulthood, in which sounds are manipulated mostly in the head and throat and bear little relationship to the bodily power of Altai-Sayan timbral body-music. 10. For a brief comparison of drone-overtone styles in the republics of Altai, Khakassia, Tyva, and Kalmykia, see van Tongeren 2004, 119–43. 11. See Pegg 1991 for the open end-blown flute of the Altai Urianghais (tsuur) and Tyvans (shoor) of Mongolian Altai. 12. For the practical interface between humans and musical instruments, see Baily 2006. 13. Alt. üch means “three”; engmek is the vulnerable yet energetically important spot on the crown of a newborn baby’s head (Mamyev P). Chapter 2. Human Communities

1. Alt. Oirot, Mo. Oirat or Oirad. 2. To avoid confusion, I spell this hero’s name “Shunu” even when referring to different epic versions, unless citing a title. Shunu’s ethnicity, identity, and historical role varies in oral accounts (Howorth [1876] 1966, 649; Radloff [1884] 1989, 169). The term is etymologically linked to the totemic animal of Turks and Mongols, ashina (wolf). 3. Jyrgal uses here the epic motif of a hero who transforms into the poor man Tastarakai. See, for instance, Maadai Kara, in which Kögödei Mergen transforms into Tastarakai twice (Marazzi 1986, 84–86). 4. Jyrgal here uses “this person” as name avoidance, a mark of respect.

280

Notes to Chapter 2

5. For Shunu in Mongolia, see Pegg 2001a. 6. I retain the translation “clan” but distance its use here from evolutionary ideas about society often attached to it. See Bulag (1998, 122) and Sneath (2007, 93–119) for alternative interpretations of the structure of Inner Asian steppe society. 7. See Potapov 1991, 263–74, for descriptions of Khaas and Piltïr clan rituals. 8. Tyvan groups who migrated north of the Sayan mountain range during the Jungar Khanate became known as Piltïrs and continue to share many words not found among Saghai and Khaas peoples. They settled along the Töö River Valley in Askhys region, south of Abakan, and both sides of the Upper Abakan River. By the end of the eighteenth century, they had moved from being trappers and smiths to practicing agriculture and eventually became wealthy stockbreeders (Levin and Potapov [1956] 1964). 9. There are more than thirty clans (sööktör) in Altai, of which the largest are Maima, Kypchak, Todosh, Töölös, and Irkit. 10. In a traditional aiyl dwelling, women sit on the ground of the left side (from the perspective of the eldest male who faces the door) and raise the left knee to block bad spirits from entering. They lower the right knee to show respect to the eldest male and honored northern section of the aiyl. 11. Alt. oidyk is the place in the aiyl where fire is made. 12. Cf. “Blessing to the Peak of the ‘Üch Sümer,’” track 18 on Bairyshev and Shumarov 1996D, “Üch Sümer maktal [praise-song],” track 1 on Shumarov 2003D, and “Üch Sümer maktal [praise-song],” track 1 on Shumarov 2004D. 13. See Urchimaev, track 11 on 2004D for “Ak Byrkan” in both song and alkysh song-chant form. 14. Bailu, literally “with prohibitions, subject to codes of conduct.” 15. See Small 1998 for discussion of the concept “muskicking.” 16. In a second version this became “red-eyed owl.” 17. Kh: sygharaylarym, lit. bird with a yellow liver. 18. Shaman Mountain is in neighboring Tashtyp region. 19. Kh. khara khorlghystygh silig. 20. These “bandits” (Kh. khaskhylar) were described by Ulturgashev as “people who had fled to the forest to escape from the rules of the Soviet authorities.” 21. Many Indigenous Khakas moved to Tyva in 1911, when their land was given to Russians, and later to avoid having to join cooperatives. The border’s position was moved when Tyva joined the Soviet Union in 1944. 22. See Charkova 2011D for songs and melodies drawn from Khyzyl and Khaas communities. 23. Khangza Pig is a Khakas legendary, epic, and historical character (Butanaev 1999, 178; Chadwick and Zhirmunsky 1969, 18), who also occurs in Teleut and Altaian oral traditions. 24. Traditional healers in Tyva (domchu) and Altai (emchi) also used the paws and claws of bears, which were highly valued as symbols of purity (D’yakonova 1981, 141–42). 25. According to Nyssen (2005, 21), when a takhpakh is performed by someone other than the author, it becomes a song (Kh. yr) because its text becomes fixed. However, these local performers introduced them as takhpakhs rather than songs.

281

Notes to Chapters 2 and 3

26. During the 1960s and 1970s, nation and nationality (denoting “ethnicity”) were used interchangeably in everyday interactions. Nation, though, was understood during this Soviet period as a cultural entity, held together by common language, traditions, folklore, mores, religion, and “ethnicity.” The core of the nation had to be “national in form, Soviet in content.” A degree of cultural identity was tolerated if it did not involve spiritual practices (Lindquist 2013, 70–72). 27. Yntai explained the meaning of “altyn” as a compound of tyn (breath) rather than alt (golden) (P). 28. Old Russian measures: arshin is equivalent to 71 cm; vershok is equivalent to 4.4 cm. Chapter 3. Spirit Actors, Spirit Places, Nomadic Landscapes

1. Hunters must never sprinkle milk from cows and goats because, like pigs and camels, they have cold noses and therefore belong to the Lord of the Underworld, Erlik Khan. 2. “Yellow” shamanism, found in southern Siberia and Mongolia, incorporates the rituals and traditions of Buddhism. 3. A possible explanation for illegitimacy and for being educationally challenged. 4. A “person of the sun” lives in the everyday visible Middle World and is mortal. 5. See Diószegi ([1960] 1968) for more on the Tagh Khargha clan, particularly Egor Kyzlasov, whom he met in the 1950s and who was considered after his death as a cheek-kham (black shaman, “soul devourer” [Butanaev 1999, 214]). 6. Butanaev (1999, 52) gives the phrase isken kham körïgjï, which associates the skill of clairvoyance with a novitiate or uninitiated shaman. 7. Butanaev (1996, 175) identifies various kinds of historical Khakas shamans (khamnar). A powerful shaman (pugdar) had up to nine drums, many tös spirit-helpers, and a costume and traveled during rituals to the Arctic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. The pugdar treated sterility by appealing to Umai, prevented epidemics, performed sacrifices and funeral ceremonies, and told fortunes. A less powerful shaman (pulgos) had a single drum and simple shamanic dress and traveled only locally. An uninitiated shaman (chalanjykh) did not have specialist attire or instruction (Butanaev 1999, 208). Kharitonova (2005, 230) identifies those who, because of communism, remained untaught by ancestors and uninitiated by teachers as unskilled pugdur and pulgos. These form a special category—shamans without a drum. 8. Tadi explained that in addition to being her drumstick (orba) and being used to purify the body, the shamanic hawthorn tös may be hung above the threshold of a house or barn to keep away malicious spirits. She also uses it to beat such spirits out of ill people. 9. Kham Tolgai was the eldest in Tadi’s eight-generation shamanic ancestry. 10. Adam is the spirit-protector of Khakas shamans. 11. This may be referring to the Saghai’s sacred mountain “Padyn-tagh” or “Kharatagh” situated in the upper reaches of the Mrass River in Mountain Shoria, from where they originated (Potapov 1981, 128). Tadi referred to her own people, perhaps meaning Saghai, as coming from Novokuznietsk, in Shor territory, and told how the Black Bull (Khara Bugha) clan had come from there. 12. The eeren category of Tyvan spirit actors is similar to Mo. ongon. The term ongut used to be widespread in southeastern Tyva (Vainshtein 1978, 457).

282

Notes to Chapters 3 and 4

13. Üstüü Khüree temple was to be incorporated into the Tyvan Buddhist Administration (of Kambo-Lama). Historically, Lower Chadaana Temple had been independent. 14. Throughout Buddhism’s development in Tibet, four great traditions emerged: first Nyingmapa, then Kargyudpa and Saskyapa, and finally the reformist Gelugpa (Pegg 2001a, 143–48). 15. In 2001, Karakol Valley received special national conservation status and became Karakol Ethno Nature Park (Karakol’skii Etno Prirodnyi Park). Its 38,256 hectares are divided into protection zones, of which 810 hectares constitute sacred territory in which activities are restricted. A guide must accompany tourists. 16. Askanakov does not distinguish “Ak” from “Altai” Jang because, he said, “Altaians perform rituals and live according to one way.” 17. See Pegg (2001a, 116–18) for Mongolian Altai Uriangkhai belief that these stars are epic heroes whom they enliven in epic performance when healing. Chapter 4. Ancestors and Archaeology

1. Following Jacobson-Tepfer (2015), I use “Scytho-Siberian” to refer to the distinctive cultures of the Altai-Sayan region, reserving “Scythian” for their westernmost relatives, the nomadic peoples who inhabited the Black Sea region of Scythia in the first millennium, and her use of “the Early Nomad period” for the Bronze–early Iron Age transition when Altai-Sayan herders began to ride horses and nomadize. Ru. kurgan is an archaeological term for deep wooden burial chambers accessed by perpendicular shafts filled with earth and covered by a stone mound. 2. Locks of hair and nails found in these graves suggest acknowledgment of the immortality of these bodily extensions and, since they may also house a soul, their importance as amulets. 3. Archaeologists named contemporaneous historical cultures differently in each republic following finds at specific sites. The Early Nomad period, for instance, is “Pazyryk” in Mountain Altai, “Tagar” in Khakassia, and “Arzhan” in Tyva. 4. S. I. Rudenko, who led the excavation of Pazyryk 1 in 1929 and Pazyryk 2 to 5 from 1947 to 1949, initially dated them between the fifth and fourth centuries BCE. New scientific methods suggest later periods of mid-fourth to early third centuries (Stepanova and Pankova 2017, 98) or c. 300–250 BCE for the earliest of the large Pazyryk burials ( Jacobson-Tepfer 2015, 277). 5. Although identified as a “horse-head fiddle” because of the presence of a carved horse’s head at the end of its neck, the Mongolian instrument maker carved it from a single piece of wood (rather than the spike fiddle construction of the contemporary morinhuur). Although dated to a later period (6–8 CE) than the Pazyryk harps, its construction connects it to those and to the topshuur lute of Mongolian Altai. 6. Archaeologists named the Ice Maiden’s burial site Ak-Alakha 3, kurgan 1, burial 2, one of a group of Ukok Plateau burials. 7. See Gatsak (1997b, 662) for Telengit epic performer A. G. Kalkin’s version of Ochy-Bala. 8. Petroglyphs are images created by scratching, engraving, or using percussive blows (pecking) to the rock’s surface; pictographs are images painted onto it.

283

Notes to Chapter 4

9. Appendages on the head and hanging from arms and body (“feathers”) recall the percussive sound producers on contemporary shamanic costumes, and tuning-fork shapes emanating from bodies and heads in early Bronze Age Okunev rock art. Sacred birds and their connection to the Sky are important in Siberian shamanism. See Matochkin (2006, 110) for bird-human images at Green Lake, Kök-Suu Oozy region, in which lifted “tails” suggest movement. 10. Jacobson-Tepfer identifies a “proto-shaman woman image” or “bird-woman” with black body and bird features (arm-wings, feathers over body and legs, clawed feet) (2015, 82–91). Kubarev and Zabelin (2006) also argue that these ancient images are connected to the first shaman-woman, a feature of Altaian, Tyvan, and Mongolian mythology. 11. Mamyev may have been alluding to the Denisova hominin, a new human subspecies discovered in a cave in the Altai Mountains in 2010. 12. Earthquakes, traffic pollution, and thieves are destroying many petroglyphs in BichiktüBoom, as in other rich petroglyphic sites, such as Kalbyk Tash. 13. Radiocarbon and ornamentation analyses dated Bashadar 1 and 2 to the early Pazyryk period (sixth to fifth centuries BCE), but recent investigations indicate the later fifth century BCE Iron Age ( Jacobson-Tepfer 2015, 283). Alt. bash: “head”; Alt. dar: (1) “home,” (2) “hit.” “Bashadar” references the shooting in the head of a Mongol leader on that mountain by local people during the Chinggis Khan period (Shumarov P). 14. Ara. sunduk, Tu., Ru. sandyk: “trunk, box, chest.” 15. The interdisciplinary field of astroarchaeology or archeoastronomy—how people in the past have understood the sky’s phenomena—has its roots in the antiquarianism of William Stukeley (1687–1765), pioneer of the archaeological investigation of England’s prehistoric sites of Stonehenge and Avebury and astronomical alignment there. Larichev cited Joseph Norman Lockyer ([1894] 2006) as the father of archeoastronomy. Initially controversial, the subject has gained more academic credibility in recent years. 16. Chaa tas, constructed during the Turkic Kyrgyz Khanate (sixth to thirteenth centuries CE), are a row of stelae often placed next to a burial mound. 17. In 1722, German naturalist and ethnographer D. G. Messershmidt—sent by the Russian Czar Peter the Great—excavated in the Yenisei Valley the first Scythian-type burial mound (Tagar kurgan), which, in its early phase, was contemporary to Pazyryk. 18. A drawing of Uibat burial site (L.-M. Kara, after Aspelin in Appelgren-Kivalo 1931, reproduced in Jacobson-Tepfer 2015, 42), shows small flat stones forming a square boundary of a burial site with its entrance in the east. Tall stelae mark its corners. One, a massive boat-shaped monolith bearing at its center and lower half an oval face, suggests a spirit-owner or guardian of the grave warning enemies and looters that this is a with-spirit place. 19. Lyrics: A. Kotozhekov; music: Sergei Charkov. 20. The term aja means both uncle and elder brother. 21. In the 1920s, archaeologists who worked in the Altai-Sayan mountains (including S. V. Kiselev and M. P. Gryaznov) elaborated a cultural chronological system (Bokovenko 2006, 860). As research methods evolve, however, archaeologists continue to debate the dating of archaeological eras and cultures ( Jacobson-Tepfer 2015, 66–69). 22. A Khakas shaman’s tös and the confluence of two rivers are also tuning-fork shaped, making both spiritually powerful.

284

Notes to Chapters 4 and 5

23. A three-eyed spirit motif consistently recurs in the four hundred stone pictures registered in Khakassia (Kotozhekov P). 24. State Hermitage Museum expeditions investigated the Salbyk Valley further in 1992, 1994, 1996, 1998, and 2008 (Marsadolov 2014, 59). 25. Of international importance and rich in sumptuous grave goods, its ornamentations revealed the very beginning of Scythian animal-style art, confirming Herodotus’s suggestion that the nomadic Scythians who dominated Asia entered the north Caucasus from the east ([1910] 1971, 55) and the belief that features that characterize western Scythian culture emerged first in Altai, Khakassia, and Tyva (Parzinger 2017, 338). 26. Tib. ‘chams. The origin of these masked dance-dramas is traditionally ascribed to the eighth-century CE Indian Tantric master Padmasambhava, founder of the Nyingmapa order of Buddhism. Although eventually performed by most major monasteries of the four orders (chap. 3n14), they were based on old Nyingmapa texts (Samuel 1993, 266). Chapter 5. The White Way

1. Alt. ak: “white.” In Ak Jang, it has connotations of purity. Oir. jang: (1) “authority,” (2) “faith, belief,” (3) “custom, law, principle,” (4) “canon, set of rules, habit” (Baskakov 2005, 47). Also “way of doing things” (Yamaeva 2010 MS, 5). Ak Jang is sometimes translated as “White Belief ” or “White Faith,” but since we are concerned here also with practice, I use its broader meaning “White Way.” 2. For earlier versions of my Ak Jang materials see Pegg 2010b and Pegg and Yamaeva 2012. 3. Whether Ak Jang is influenced by Indigenous spiritual complexes (Altai Jang, animism, Tengrism, shamanism) or imported ones (Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism, Buddhism, Christianity, the Roerich movement) has been argued elsewhere (Krader 1956, Znamenski 1999, Vinogradov 2003, Halemba 2006, Yamaeva 2010). Archaeological monuments and Yenisei inscriptions provide evidence of sun and moon worship (Roux 1984, 127). However, when outside elements are assimilated, they become transformed in Ak Jang practice. 4. “Kakha” Chekyrashev, Erke Yamaev’s grandfather, was a jaisang from 1887 to 1914. 5. At a conference in Gorno-Altaisk held in 2004 to mark the centenary of this event, Altaians demanded an apology from the Kazakhs for those atrocities. 6. Shinzhina cites materials from the Archive of the Control of the Federal Security Service RF (Upravlenie Federal’noi sluzhby bezopasnost RF). 7. The meaning of oboo in this Altaian ritual song is ambiguous since the heap of ash is in a sacred place and shaped like a stone cairn. 8. In 2002, as part of the reconnection process with Indigenous heroes in the post-Soviet period, a festival celebrating the two hundredth anniversary of Altaian hero Irbizek was held close to Yabogan, Kan-Oozy region (Scrase 2002, 7). 9. West Mongolian Oirats also circle dishes of food (including mutton) and ritual requisites (arrow and pail) during spring and autumn rituals to beckon “good fortune” (Mo. buyan kesig) (Chabros 1992, 17–19). 10. In Ak Jang, the two areas—Small Steppe Altai (including Barnaul) and Great Mountain Altai—are defined by the presence of three mountains, each area being represented by a three-cornered triangle, hence “six corners” (Shodoev and Kurchakov 2003, 79).

285

Notes to Chapter 5

11. Shodoev stresses the scientific validity of Altaian traditions and their intellectual rather than spiritual foundations. 12. Bardin’s scheme, as represented in the Altaian Center (Altaiskii Tsentr), Chamal region, differs from that of Shodoev and Kurchakov in location of deities and burkhans in the Sky domains (Alt. chaikam). 13. Süt Köl (Milk Lake) is revered by Turkic peoples (Ukachina, Yamaeva, and Tolbina 1993, 144). It is also the name of a Tyvan lake and region. 14. In some forms of oral literature, Galdan is the son of Shunu (Chachiyakova P). 15. Khoits were subjects of the Dörbets. 16. Several groups in West Mongolian Altai perform the Jangar epic, including Baits, Dörbets, Zakchins, and Torguts (Pegg 2001a, 53–54). 17. Punishment falls on relatives and descendants who will suffer in life. In Ak Jang, good souls are reborn after seven generations through the blood of descendants. Others, after a trial in the “land of ancestors” (ada-öbököning jeri), undergo cycles in the Underworld before returning to that land to be reborn. 18. A manuscript of part of Yalatov’s Jangar epic is in the Museum in Shebalino, Shebalin region. 19. Milk must be from a mare or sheep—not a cow or goat, since the “cold noses” of the latter two indicate ownership by the black “other world” (altyn oro). The cow digs the earth and can reach the bones of the dead; the goat runs over those bones (Yamaev P). 20. The Ak Jang sudur, an appropriation of the Buddhist term sutra, contains the philosophical and ideological bases of Ak Jang. 21. The whip drives away malevolent spirits (körmös). 22. Used by jarlyks to cure, it may be shaped as a truncated cone (Ukachina, Yamaeva, and Tolbina 1993, 144). 23. Also used by jarlyks for healing. 24. An Ak Jang küree should contain an even number of altars (between two and twenty), made from flat stones (Yamaev P). 25. Deaconess Z. Khabarov, writing “Structure of Cult (Ritual Site)” in her journal of 1908, noted that heather was burned on the four corners of an altar by those wishing to pray to the spirit to which that altar was dedicated (cited in Shinzhina 2004). 26. This altar at Kulada küree has a rectangular back, but the front is shaped as a crescent moon. 27. The seven brothers of the “Big Bear” were already called yeti khan by the eleventh century (Roux 1984, 125). In Ak Jang and Altai Bilik, they are also the sons of Ülgen. 28. Valentina Chechaeva and Elena Mandaeva substituted mürgüül (Oir.) as name avoidance for shüüten in the same verse recited by Borboshev in 2006, meaning here “ritual event.” 29. Lit. “chess” pieces, but in this context “figurines.” 30. Altaian boorsok are like doughnuts but fried in mutton fat on an open fire. 31. This was not a ritual “staged” for recording but a community ritual to which I was invited. Arzhan Közörökov moved around the temple altars unpredictably, and—trying to not disrupt the ritual for the participants—I recorded as much as possible. Sometimes, even when within recording distance, Arzhan whispered or turned his head away. Oral poetry

286

Notes to Chapters 5 and 6

is notoriously difficult to translate, and Arzhan used ancient, specialist, and obscure terms. The sections I have translated, then, are those that were recorded clearly. 32. Alt. Talai, Mo. Dalai: “sea,” used here in the sense of lakes and rivers. 33. It is usual to warm the skin of an instrument’s face to stretch it before playing. 34. Arzhan used the intensifier alky, translated here as “pure.” See alky-möngön bai tagyl (deep-silver rich altar), an expression often used in epics. 35. The expression taiga-tash is possibly a respectful name for “mountain,” as is agash-tash, lit. “tree-stone.” 36. It is unclear whether “sisters” refers to human or spirit actors. 37. Participants interpreted this as referring to the ethnic cleansing in Uzbekistan earlier in 2010. Chapter 6. With-Spirit Epic Performers

1. Nineteenth-century collectors of Altaian epics include Turkologist, ethnographer, and linguist W. Radloff/V. V. Radlov (1837–1918), missionary V. I. Verbitskii (1827–90), ethnographer and historian G. N. Potanin (1835–1920), and ethnographer and composer A. V. Anokhin (1869–1931). Also important are the publications of linguist, ethnographer, and Turkologist N. A Baskakov (1905–96), ethnographer and researcher of Altaian shamanism L. P. Potapov (1905–2002), and linguist and folklorist V. M. Zhirmunskii (1891–1971). N. F. Katanov (1862–1922), a Khakas (Saghai) pupil of Radloff, contributed his collection of Khakas traditional materials (epics, poems, riddles, dream interpretations, anecdotes, folktales, legends, shamanic invocations) to the ninth volume of Radloff ’s Proben (Katanov 1907). Much attention has been given to secular aspects of epic performance, with emphasis placed on epics as poetry or literature adapted with textual exegesis for printed dissemination, particularly during the Soviet period when spiritual dimensions were not tolerated. Publications of Central and Inner Asian epic texts are usually in standardized language form, a “literary language” based on that of a chosen Indigenous group within a newly defined political and regional unit. Similarly, some European and American epic scholars sought to understand the production of content through textual analysis, literary criticism, and identification of oral formulae (Lord [1960] 2000, Parry 1971). Others, however, pointed to features that were paralinguistic (such as gestures, facial expressions) and prosodic (such as rhythm, speed, intonation, and pitch variations), oral narratives as performative, powerful, and social events (Bauman [1986] 1988, Bauman and Briggs 1990) and, while presupposing a traditional dimension, emphasized the uniqueness of each individual’s performance (Foley 1995, Pegg 2000, Reichl 2000), an approach at odds with the Parry-Lord approach of oral-formulaic theory that privileges tradition. 2. S. S. Surazakov (1925–1980) made audio recordings of A. G. Kalkin in the Altaian Institute of Language and Literature (now the Institute for Altaic Studies), Gorno-Altaisk. Later publications included the performer’s commentary on the texts. Marazzi (1986) translated his recording of Maadai Kara into English in 1964. Four variants of Kalkin’s performance of Ochy-Bala were recorded over thirty-six years, allowing detailed textual comparisons (Gatsak 1997b).

287

Notes to Chapter 6

3. See Gatsak 1997b for versions of Kan-Altyn by Chachiyakov and Savdin. Chachiyakov’s version was noted four times over twenty-two years by Indigenous researchers of the Altaian Institute of Language and Literature, Gorno-Altaisk. 4. See Yamaeva n.d. for comparison of Kan-Altyn versions by Chachiyakov and A. G. Kalkin. 5. See Koptelov 1941, Ulagashev 1941, 1985, and Shinzhin 2004. 6. Manuscripts of Kenel’s recordings are held in the Archive of the Khakas Research Institute, Institute of Language, Literature and History, Khakas N.F. Katanov State University, Abakan. 7. A few Khakas women broke the gender rule of only male performance of khai. For instance, Barun’ka Samozhikova performed from an early age (Kurbizhekov P). 8. Tyvan heroic epics were first noted by V. Radloff, N. Katanov, G. Potanin, and F. Kon at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. After the creation of the national writing system in 1930, the Tyvan Institute of Language, Literature and History became responsible for the epics’ collection, publication, and study. 9. See Pegg (2001a) for kai among Mongolian Altai Uriangkhais. 10. See van Tongeren 2004, 139–40, van Deusen 2004, 75–76, and Levin with Süzükei 2006, 165–66, for other versions of Ai Charykh’s initiation dream. 11. In European perspectives, possibly influenced by Freud, mountains are usually perceived as male. I was therefore surprised during my work in West Mongolia to encounter the female spirit-owner of the Altai Mountains (Pegg 2001a). 12. Southern Altaians accompanied epics with the “two-stringed fiddle” (Verbitskii [1893] 1993, 198) and northern Altaians with the komus fiddle or topshuur lute. Khakas Khyzyl musician Aleksandr Samozhikov remembered an old epic performer from Tyukhteev, about twenty years older than Pödör Kurbizhekov, who had used the khomys lute to accompany Khakas epics, and an old man taking part in an aitys takhpakh competition who played a khomys that was one hundred to two hundred years old. See Funk (2005) for Shor epic performance using kai-komys fiddle. 13. Yu. I. Sheikin field diaries 23, 26/2, 27, 38, from musical-ethnological expeditions (1984, 1985, 1987), cited in Sheikin and Nikiforova 1997, 51. 14. Myigak is an elk, a subspecies of the red deer (Ru. maral), not a reindeer (as sometimes mistakenly translated). It is common in the tundra, found in parts of Mountain Altai, Khakassia, and Tyva, and is the main domestic animal of northern peoples of the Russian Federation (Trifonov, pers.comm., 2008). 15. See Sychenko (Sytchenko) 2009a, 103, for Aleksei G. Kalkin’s identification and imitation of the different kai and performance manner of individual epic performers. 16. Khakas timbral vocal style kharygha or kharghyra is from khorlirgha, the Khakas word for “snoring” (Nyssen 2018, 20). 17. Among Altaians, it is difficult in everyday speech to distinguish between the consonants p-b, s-z, t-d, sh-zh. Voiceless consonants are preferred especially when initial. 18. I provide audio and visual examples rather than enter debates about phonetic/phonemic transcriptions. Of course, these are still removed from the live event but capture the tone, textures, and ambiance of the actual performance in ways that written documentation cannot.

288

Notes to Chapters 6 and 7

19. The epic Kan-Altyn is disseminated throughout the Ongdoi region of the Altai Republic and beyond, reaching as far as the borders of Kazakhstan and China. Chapter 7. Shamanic Roads

1. The celestial tribes Khoorlar and Azarlar sent the first shaman to earth in the shape of a bear (Kenin-Lopsan 1996, 34–36). 2. So called because either it is wrapped in bearskin or it has been carved out of a stag’s antlers. 3. Parallels have been drawn between southern Siberian musical practices and those of Bönpo, the Tibetan pre-Buddhist shamanic tradition. Both use a wide-framed single-headed drum with a “world chart” depicted on its skin, a short wooden vertical handle with horizontal iron rod, and wooden drumsticks that may be slightly curved, and both use their drums to fly to other dimensions. Cardinal divisions of the universe are also found on Bönpo and some Tyvan, Tofalar, and Altaian drumheads (Sagalaev 1981, 118–21). 4. Oir. tös; clan ancestor and protector (Muytueva 2004, 18) important for shamanic performance. 5. See also “motifemes” identified in Chukchi shamanic songs in Siikala and Hoppál 1992, 42. 6. Potapov describes how drum types and drawings differed according to tribe, clan, and gender. For instance, southern Altaian steppe peoples carved a one-headed figure onto a wooden perpendicular handle, while forest peoples (Chalkans, Kumandins, Tubas) carved a two-headed figure. Among Altai Kizhis, this ancestral shaman might also be drawn onto the drumskin, with arms outstretched bearing iron pendants and with arched stripes representing rainbows. Among Khakas Kachins, a white zigzag line painted between two red parallel lines dividing upper and lower drumskin sections was the “way of the shaman”; a perpendicular white line was used for flying on unknown roads; and drawings on the drumskin’s four sections portrayed spirit actor assistants, ways of divining, or means of orientation. A female shaman’s drum had only one horizontal line and never showed a worm, sent only by a male shaman into a patient to pull out the disease (Potapov 1968, 224–29). Tyvan Tozhu drums had cedar resonators around the frame and no drawings. Their handle shape, structure, and oval resonator distinguished them from those of steppe Tyvans. The first requisite for the Tyvan Tozhu shaman was the staff (dayak), while for Altaians it was the drum’s beater (Vainshtein 1968, 332–34). 7. The classical southern Siberian drum type—used by Indigenous peoples of the upper and middle Yenisei River basin—is round, with a diameter of up to one meter, a frame of up to twenty centimeters, and no resonator holes. Eastern Tyvans and Tofalars and some Khakas Khaas use this type. The Shor drum is traditionally oval, with resonator “bumps” and an artistically carved handle. 8. Teleuts do not animate their drums. Since they make the handle from a living birch tree, they consider it to be already “alive.” 9. On Khakas shamanic drumskins, only the eagle and crow may appear above the single dividing line. Although appearing in the Lower World on a Khakas drum described in 1901, the frog is known for its healing qualities (Kotozhekov P).

289

Notes to Chapter 7 and Coda

10. Referencing sounds as from “above” or “high” does not necessarily mean from the Sky. Ancestors, for instance, dwell on mountain summits. 11. See Tadagawa 2017 for an alternative interpretation of Tyvan Tozhu Dezhit Shamaness’s destination. 12. Humphrey (2007, 173) has argued that the Mongolian shamanic mirror embraces different perspectives—those of the humans looking at it and those of the spirit actors who are from the realm behind or inside the mirror. When divining, the shaman can see through it into the spirit world and when in an altered state of consciousness can enter it to interact with them. 13. White material, decorated with drawings and strips of fabric, bells, and buttons, is called a “drum” (tüngür) and used as a fan by Telengits of Kökörü village in Kosh-Agash (Ru. Kosh-Agach) region (Halemba 2006, 206n12). In Khakassia, a chilbegchi uses a fan to heal and to drive away spirits, and an el’bekchi uses one to influence the weather. In Tyva, a fan is used by a female el’bichi to summon her spirit-helpers, enabling her to “see” and influence the future. Origin theories of the shamanic fan differ. Some argue that it began in secret ceremonies after drums were destroyed during communist repression. Others suggest that it was used during Chinggis Khan’s time or is of Tyvan or Burkhanist (Ak Jang) origin (van Deusen 2004, 35–36). 14. Alt. bailu: “with bai”; refers to a phenomenon to which rules of behavior or taboos apply. 15. The Pole Star or Polaris is the brightest star in the constellation of Ursa Minor. 16. Arzhan used alyp-baatyr, a rhyming word combination of ancient Tu. alyp with Mo. baatar, both meaning “hero.” Coda

1. Altaians, Khakas, and Tyvans, as Indigenous peoples in “autonomous” republics, hope for group ownership, local community self-rule, and control over cultural resources. President Putin’s post-2000 calls for a “strong state” with a more unified and symmetrical federation and the creation of seven mega-regions (headed in the Far East, Siberia, and the Urals by former security officials) has caused anxiety among many citizens. Rhetoric that encourages “self-rule” for local communities is not matched by budgetary control or the rights of Indigenous groups to compensation for, or veto over, local energy development (Balzer 2004, 233–52). Representing over thirty-three minorities, the Moscow-based RAIPON (Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North) communicates with other Indigenous rights groups, such as the Inuit Circumpolar Conference and the Saami Nordic Council. However, it is dependent on international funding and structurally unable to provide the land-based security that Indigenous groups need to ensure multiple levels of identity affirmation in a flexible civic society (Balzer 1999).

290

Glossary

Vocal and Instrumental Sounds 1

Note: I limit the glossary to terms for vocal and instrumental sounds referred to in the book and explain spirit actors, ritual specialists, objects, actions, and “with-spirit” qualities in the text or endnotes. altai

alas: invocation during ritual performances. alkysh (Oir.): rhythmical poetical verses (song-chants), often in quatrain form, recited or sung during ritual events. Performed by a shaman, elder, or specialist to invoke, praise, thank, and request permission, protection, and/or blessing-fortune (alkysh-byian) from spirit actors. amyrgy: birchbark or willow conical or tapered hunting horn, placed at corner of mouth and played by inhalation. Traditional: used to lure Siberian stag (Ru. maral) by imitating its voice. Contemporary: professional musicians use it in concert performance. bailu-chümdü: paired word occurring in alkysh song-chants. chöök: (1) exclamation used in Ak Jang, in shamanic and epic performances, and during libations of milk or milk-spirit. (2) kneeling, genuflection. chörchök: tale, fairytale. chörchökchi kizhi: storyteller. dung: white conch-shell trumpet (with mouthpiece), blown by Buddhist monks to call human and spirit actors to rituals. ikili: two-stringed unfretted vertical fiddle, gripped by knees, played with arched bow. Oir. ikil, ikili. See Tyv. igil for fuller description. jadaan, jadagan, jayadaan: Scythian harp. jadan: synonym for the topshuur lute in Altaian heroic epics.

Glossary

jangar: Ak Jang praise-song, traditionally performed at clan rituals. jangar alkysh kozhong: alkysh in song form. kai (Oir.): a single-cavity, drone-partials vocal style, laden with harmonics. Traditional: used for epic performance. Contemporary: used in concert performances. kögüs kai: chest kai, without words. könö kai: epic performance style. kaichy: a kai person. kai chörchök: heroic epic. komus, jaa komus: (1) instrument consisting of flexible lamella/tongue within wooden, metal, or bone frame. Pressed against teeth with lamella moving freely to project sounds into oral cavity resonator. Til komus: small tongued jaw’s harp played by working women, used to calm animals or lull children. Kuchyn komus: simultaneous production of instrumental and vocal sounds. (2) two-stringed fiddle (northern Alt.). köömöi/köömei/kömei: drone-partials vocal music (throat-singing, body-music) including köömoi, sygyt, sybysky (könö), and karkyra styles and tumchik (nasal), tilgerek (tongue), and borbong (rolling) substyles. köömöichi: köömöi performer. kozhong: song. kabaidyng kozhong: lullaby. kurai: exclamation during rituals, used to call blessings and spirit actors. maktal: praise-song. orbo: (1) shamanic drum-beater (southern Alt.), made of wood covered in leather and fur, hung with percussive sound-producers. (2) switch of cloth strips, each representing a healed patient (Ch. Indigenous group). örökon: respectful term for ancestors, spirits actors, and Ak Jang burkhans. shoor (shagur), choor (Oir. shuur): End-blown flute made from willow or larch, played by herders using drone-partials vocal sounds. Traditional: two halves of hollowed-out wood covered with animal gut, bound by tendons or willow. Played by lodging over the teeth in the corner of the mouth and using the tongue. Fingerholes are at the pipe’s lower end. Playing styles: til shoor (tongue), ergek shoor (thumb/ finger shoor), tuyuk shoor (fingers used to close the end), achyk shoor (open end, no drone, two notes, whistle in center). sybyrga (Ch. Alt.): brush-like implement to sweep off small supernatural creatures. Makes rattling noise (Krachnakov P). taiak: shamanic staff, decorated with sound-producers (bells, shamanic mirror, ribbons). topshuur: long-necked, two-stringed lute. Tuning: interval of a fourth. Traditionally with skin face. See Tyv. doshpuluur. tüngür (Oir.): (1) single-headed shamanic frame drum. (2) Tel. shamanic white cloth fan. See Kh. tüür, Tyv. dünggür. khakassia

aitys: (1) conversation. (2) gathering of singers and storytellers. alas: see Alt. alas. alasta-: to fill with smoke from burning mountain thyme (irben ot), cleanse, spiritually purify, sanctify (Tybykova 2005, 22); alaschy: specialist who utters “alas” while ritually purifying people and places. alghys: see Alt. alkysh. alghys sösterï: words requesting blessings from spirit-owners. alyptygh nymakh: heroic epic. amyrga: see Alt. amyrgy. Lures the Siberian stag (Kh. syyn) by imitating its voice.

292

Glossary

attygh nymakh (epic “on horseback”): epic performed with khai timbral vocal technique and instrumental accompaniment (chatkhan zither, khomys lute) during wakes and to please the taiga’s spirit-owner before hunting; chazagh nymakh (“epic on foot”): unaccompanied epic (Butanaev 1999, 69). chatkhan, chadyghan, chattagan, jadagan: plucked, wooden, long-box zither with moveable bridges. Pentatonic tuning. Drone provided by one or two strings, tuned to an interval of a fifth or octave below the lowest melody string. Traditional: seven or nine strings, bone bridges. Played in intimate gatherings to accompany attygh nymakh. Contemporary: up to fourteen strings, wooden bridges, used to play independent melodies and accompanies lyrical songs in stage settings. Diatonic melodies and ornamentations, such as glides and vibrato, are sounded by pressing a string lightly to the left of a bridge. khai: drone-partials vocal music (“throat-singing”). Styles include küülïp or küveler (buzzing, humming), kharghyra/ kharygha or ulugh choon khai (khai of respected elders), and syghyrtyp (to whistle). khaiji: epic performer. Tadar khai: Khakas khai. khobyrakh, khobrakh (lit. hogweed) (Kha. Indigenous group): instrument made from longstemmed umbellate plant. Played as an open pipe without fingerholes by steppe-dwelling pastoralists. Fragile, seasonal. kholbogo, khonguros: metal objects hung along handle and perimeter of a shamanic drum. khomys: (1) jaw’s harp, see Alt. komus; timïr khomys, metal jaw’s harp. (2) two- or threestringed plucked lute. Traditional: cedar body and neck, twisted horsetail strings (see topchyl-khomys), and wooden tuning pegs (side inserted); aghas-khomys: with cedar sounding board. Contemporary: with gut or nylon strings and geared tuners. khongyraa, khongyro (Sag. Indigenous group küngür): metal percussive sound-producer (e.g., small bell, metal cone) attached to shamanic drum, beater, or gown. khongyros: leather rattle shaped as a shaman’s beater, filled with grain. kip-chookh: oral narrative about historical heroes, sharing many features of heroic epics. kögle-: to play an instrument, sing. kyiysh (Khyz.): spoon-shaped lute with skin face. nymakh: story, tale. nymakhchy: storyteller. orba: see Alt. orbo (1). pyrghy: see Alt. amyrgy. Contemporary: used to mark the beginning of ritual time during clan gatherings, shamanic sessions, and concerts (Nyssen 2005, 11–12). sanghyros: metal ring rattle. saryn: lyrical song (Sag., Pil. Indigenous groups). sarynjy: singer. seek, sek, söök: exclamation accompanying milk or milk-spirit sprinkling to a spirit-owner (ee) or shaman’s ancestral spirit-helper (tös) (Butanaev 1999, 120). shoor (Khyz.): see Alt. shoor. sybyragh, sybyraany: a vocal charm to avert illness and bad energies; sybyraghjy: whisperer, reciter of charms. sybyskhy: (reed) pipe, small birch whistle. sygyrtos: short end-blown flute with three or four fingerholes. syrtyp: chatkhan zither playing technique in which the right hand’s index finger strums the drone strings, while the thumb and index finger pluck the melody strings.

293

Glossary

syylas: open end-blown flute of mountain peoples played by covering the lower end with fingers. Traditional: from an umbellate plant, 60–80 centimeters long, with four finger holes on the top and one on the back. Contemporary: wooden or plastic, with three or six finger holes. syyt: personal lament in ritual contexts. takhpakh: improvised lyrical verses, minimum of four pairs, traditionally performed in contests. takhpakhchy: takhpakh performer. tapsa-: “to sound” for voice, instrument, speech, storytelling, and rock’s echo. tart-: to be “pulled,” to inhale, an inhalation of breath when playing a wind instrument; to pluck an instrument. topchyl-khomys: two-stringed long-necked lute, plucked, with skin sounding board. tüür: shamanic frame drum, single-headed with skin face. Handle of crossed vertical and horizontal wooden sticks. Traditional: vertical stick carved with the instrument’s ee spiritowner and hung with sound-producers. Contemporary: played in musical ensembles and decorated with chalama ritual ribbons. tyrna: lit. “crane”; flute made by hunter-fisherman Lazar’ Tyumerekov from an umbellate plant to lure cranes. ün: voice. ür-: to blow (a wind instrument) or exhale. yöreel: wish-prayer. yr (Kha., Khyz., Khoi. Indigenous groups): lyrical song. yykh: two-stringed fiddle. See Tyv. igil. tyva

alas: see Alt. alas. algap iöreer: to perform praises. algysh/tar: see Alt. alkysh. algyshkyn iöreel: benediction, blessing, parting words. amyrga: see Alt. amyrgy. aryn: sounding board (face) of instrument. ayalga: melody, music, motif, dialect, accent, pronunciation. byzaanchy: four-stringed, long-necked, spike fiddle. Played vertically, resting on the knees. Traditional: four horsehair strings with the first and third tuned in unison and played simultaneously and the second and fourth played as another pair. Interval of a fourth or fifth between the pairs. Strings pressed gently from below by top third of finger, including nail, creating harmonics. Playing by an arched bow with divided horsehair threaded through strings allows use of both upper and lower surfaces of the horsehair. Cylindrical or hexagonal body from materials suited to voice, for instance, wood or (for weak voices) bull horn. Resonator (“face”) from goat, snake, or fish skin. Neck surmounted by bull’s head. Tyv. byzaa means “calf.” cha: bow. chadagan: plucked box zither similar to the hammer-dulcimer, with moveable bridges. Related to but shorter than the Kh. chatkhan and Mo. yatga. Two long bridges run beneath up to sixteen strings, with pentatonic tuning.

294

Glossary

chanzy, shanzy: long-necked spiked lute with round skin resonator and heart-shaped or round wooden body, three strings, unfretted. bichii chanzy: small chanzy. Tuned one octave higher than the larger version. dayak, tayak: shamanic birchwood staff used by eastern Tyvans (Vainshtein 1990, 157–58, 171–72). doshpuluur, toshpuluur: plucked or strummed long-necked lute. Body may be trapezoidal or heart-/tear-shaped. Traditional: skin body (both faces), two dried sheep-intestine (gut) strings tuned to an interval of a fourth or fifth. Accompanies epics. Contemporary: wooden body or wild goatskin stretched across a wooden frame. Three strings: first and second tuned to a fifth, third tuned to an octave with the first; four strings: the extra string doubles the fifth on an octave (G2). Nylon or gut strings used for concert performances. dünggür, tüngür: shamanic frame drum, single-headed, with metal sound-producers on the handle (usually wooden, on the underside of the skinhead) and around the rim. Beaten by a felt-covered stick (orba) or fingers of one hand. The other hand’s fingers moderate sounds by touching the skin’s underside. khei dünggür: an invisible drum sounded by female spirit-owners of earth and water. duyug (pl. duyuglar): percussive instrument made from a pair of boiled and dried horsehoofs or animal leg bones clapped rhythmically to create trotting sounds. eder-: to make sounds, sounding. ediski: small birchbark whistle, folded and held between teeth, sounded by exhalation and inhalation. Traditional: a hunter’s lure that imitates female musk deer and cub cries (R. Tülüsh P) and other animal and bird sounds. egin manchak: shoulder lacing on shamanic gown. ep: harmony. et-: to sound, give voice. igil: Long-necked unfretted fiddle. Tear-shaped body. a’t bashtyg igil: horse-headed fiddle. Held vertically, gripped between the knees. Traditional: two strings of multiple horsehairs, wooden tuning pegs (side-inserted), neck and body from single block of pine or larch with skin sound-table. Strings tuned to an internal of a fifth and fingered lightly from the side, not pressed to the fingerboard. Contemporary: professional musicians use two (sometimes three) gut strings tuned to an interval of a fourth or fifth and geared tuners instead of pegs. tever igil: traditional playing style in which the player sits on the ground and the igil is tucked into a boot. iöreel, iöreer: poetical invocation that praises and requests blessing or protection. kargysh: a curse causing serious illness or misfortune (see Zorbas 2021). kenggirge: Double-sided goatskin frame drum, tapped by fingers or struck with curved beater. Straps around the frame are adjusted for tuning. Traditional: used in Buddhist rituals. Contemporary: also used by shamans and professional musicians. khomus: jaw’s (jew’s) harp. See Alt. komus for description. cha-khomus: arched bow played by placing the mouth on one end of the bow’s hairs and striking them in the center with smaller bow or stick. charty-khomus: mouth-resonating flat rectangular wooden chip with lamella activated by finger. daya (honeysuckle) khomus. demir (iron) khomus. khyl (horsehair) khomus. kuluzun/sheleer (reed, rush, bamboo) khomus, with pull string attached to

295

Glossary

lamella (“tongue”). söök (bone) khomus. söösken (mountain rose willow) khomus. yyash (forked twig) khomus. khöömei: generic term and one style of drone-partials vocal music (“throat-singing”). For other styles and substyles see chap. 1. kongguluur: medium-sized Buddhist handbell. Traditional: used in Buddhism. Contemporary: also used by shamans and professional musicians. kongguraa, khongyraa, kynggyraa: (1) bronze handbell used in Buddhist rituals. (2) small metal sound-producer attached to a shaman’s gown, drum’s periphery, or horizontal handle. kozhong: four-line sung refrain. küzünggü: shamanic mirror and ritual instrument; flat polished brass disk. mak: praise; makta- to praise. murgu (eastern Tyvan name of amyrga). Traditional: end-blown open hunting horn from birchbark or angelica stalk. Made without fingerholes; fingers control airflow by opening and closing the lower end. Seasonal, fragile, and impermanent. Contemporary: wooden, plastic. öpei yry: lullaby. orba: see Alt. orbo (1) for description. Also used for divining the outcome of a ritual. örshee: have mercy. örshee khaiyrakan: exclamatory request for protection from malevolent deeds. shoor: see Alt. shoor. podrazhanie shoory: thumb shoor (no instrument). shyngyrash, syngarash: set of small bells based on horse-riding tackle, attached to kenggirge drum to evoke the sound of trotting horses. sygyt: related in legends to the sound of a bow string (Kyrgys [2002] 2008, 32). Drone-partials vocal style used for grand occasions, such as honoring a champion wrestler or awaiting a racing horse (Khyrkhaas D). tool: epic. maadyrlyg tool: heroic epic. toolchy: epic performer. tung: See Alt. dung. ün: sound, voice. yr: song. kyska yr: short song. yrla-: to sing. yraazhy: singer. yyt: sound, voice. yyt chok: silent, silence. Western Musical Terminology 2

chord: group of notes sounded together, as a basis of harmony. drone: sustained tone cluster on a single pitch, heard as one note. fret: a thin strip of material, usually metal wire, inserted laterally along the neck or fretboard of a stringed instrument to assist the player in producing clear notes. fundamental: lowest tone in the harmonic series; the root tone of a chord. Since the fundamental is the lowest frequency and perceived as the loudest, the ear identifies it as the pitch of the musical tone. harmonic series: the sequence of frequencies or tones in which each frequency is an integer multiple of a fundamental.

296

Glossary

key: group of pitches, or scale, which forms the basis of a Western musical composition. monophony: production of one note at a time. multiphony: production of several different tones that sound simultaneously, not necessarily harmonic or melodic. octave: a progression of eight notes on a musical scale. overtone: a frequency greater than the fundamental frequency of a sound; a musical tone, part of the harmonic series above a fundamental note, that may be separated from a drone and amplified to sound simultaneously with it. partial: any of the sine waves or “simple tones” (von Helmholtz and Ellis [1885] 1954, 23) of which a complex tone is composed, not necessarily with an integer multiple of the lowest harmonic. It is one of the component vibrations at a particular frequency in a complex mixture and need not be harmonic. pentatonic: a scale with five whole tones (no half-tone intervals). polyphony: simultaneous combination of several musical parts, each forming an individual melody. timbre: tone quality. tone: vocal or instrumental sound characterized by its duration, pitch, intensity, and timbre. vocal fry: the lowest register of the voice characterized by a deep guttural growl at the back of the throat.

297

References

Note: Sources other than printed material are designated in text citations with abbreviations following the author’s name: D (discography), OS (other sources). The abbreviation PFNSiDV stands for the series Pamyatniki fol’klora narodov Sibiri i Dal’nego Vostoka (Folklore Monuments of the Peoples of Siberia and the Far East). Printed Sources

Aksenov, Aleksei N. (1964) 1973. “Tuvan Folk Music.” Asian Music 4 (2): 7−18. Alekseev, Nikolai A. (1987) 1997. “Shamans and Their Religious Practices.” In Balzer, Shamanic Worlds, 49–109. Alekseev, Nikolai A., E. E. Alekseev, and V. M. Gatsak. 1997. Alyptygh nymakh: Ai Khuujyn (Kh.) / Khakasskii geroicheskii epos Ai-Khuuchin (Ru.) [The Khakas heroic epic AiKhuujyn]. Bilingual edition. Performed by P. V. Kurbizhekov. Collected and translated by V. E. Mainogasheva. PFNSiDV 16. Novosibirsk: Nauka, Sibirskoe predpriyatie RAN. All-Russian Population Census (2010), vol. 1. 2011. [In Russian] Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat). Almashev, Chagat D., N. A. Iurkova, and I. A. Kudachinova, eds. 2015. Nature and Culture without Borders [Alt. Kolbulu ar-bütken le kul’tura]. Translated by N. A. Iurkova. Altai Assistance Project, Foundation for Sustainable Development of Altai (FSDA), and GornoAltaisk State University (GASU). MS given to author. Anderson, Gregory D. S. 1998. “Living in a Subterranean Landscape: Identity Politics in Post-Soviet Khakassia.” In Surviving Post-Socialism: Local Strategies and Regional Responses in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union, edited by Sue Bridger and Frances Pine, 52–65. London: Routledge.

References

Anderson, Gregory D. S., and K. David Harrison. 2020. “Hunter-Gatherers in South Siberia.” In The Language of Hunter-Gatherers, edited by Tom Güldermann, Patrick McConvell, and Richard A. Rhodes, 495–516. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi .org/10.1017/9781139026208.019. Anokhin, Andrei. V. (1910) 2003. “Shamanizm sibirskikh tyurkskikh plemen” [Shamanism of Siberian Turkic tribes]. Anokhin Papers, Archive of the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (MAE), Kunstkamera’ Museum, St. Petersburg, folio 11, list 1, file 144. 1–16, back. In Znamenski, Shamanism in Siberia, 117–45. ———. (1924) 1994. Materialy po shamanstvu u altaitsev [Materials on Altaian Shamanism]. Gorno-Altaisk, Altai Republic: Ak Chechek. Arbachakov, Alexander N., and Luba N. Arbachakova. 2008. The Last of the Shor Shamans. Winchester, UK: O Books. Atkinson, Jane Monnig. (1992) 2004. “Shamanisms Today.” In Znamenski, Shamanism: Critical Concepts in Sociology, vol. 3, 117–45. London: Routledge. Austin, John L. (1962) 1975. How to Do Things with Words. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Avvakum, Petrovich. (1672) 2001. “The Shaman: ‘A Villain of a Magician Who Calls Demons.’” In Narby and Huxley, Shamans through Time, 18–20. Baily, John. 2006. “John Blacking and the ‘Human/Musical Instrument Interface’: Two Plucked Lutes from Afghanistan.” In The Musical Human, edited by Suzel Reily, 107–24. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate. Balzer, Marjorie Mandelstam, ed. (1990) 1997. Shamanic Worlds: Rituals and Lore of Siberia and Central Asia. Armonk, NY: North Castle Books. ———, ed. 1995. Culture Incarnate: Native Anthropology from Russia. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe. ———. 1999. The Tenacity of Ethnicity: A Siberian Saga in Global Perspective. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ———. 2004. “Whose Homeland Is It? Shifting Boundaries and Multiple Identities in the Russian Federation North.” In Properties of Culture—Culture as Property: Pathways to Reform in Post-Soviet Siberia, edited by Erich Kasten, 233–56. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer Verlag. Barbora, Sanjay. 2005. “Regions and Country Reports: International Processes, the Circumpolar North, Northeast Section (India), Russia.” In The Indigenous World, edited by Diana Vinding and Sille Stidsen, 390–407. Copenhagen: IWGIA. Barbora, Sanjay, with Dolly Kikon. 2004. “Report on Experiences of Indigenous Peoples in Northeast India.” In International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA) Yearbook 2004. Guwahati, India: North Eastern Social Research Center. https://onlineministries .creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/NESRC/Sanjay.html. Basilov, Vladimir N. (1984) 1997. “Chosen by the Spirits.” In Balzer, Shamanic Worlds, 3–48. Baskakov, Nikolai A. 1948. Altaiskii folk’lor i literature [Altaian folklore and literature]. Barnaul, Russia: Altaigiz. ———, ed. 2005. Oirotsko-Russkii Slovar’ [Oirot-Russian dictionary]. Gorno-Altaisk, Altai Republic: Ak Chechek. Baskakov, Nikolai A., and Nina A. Yaimova. 1993. Shamanskie misterii Gornogo Altaya [Shamanic mysteries of Mountain Altai]. Gorno-Altaisk, Altai Republic: Gorno-Altaisk Institut Gumanitasnykh Issledovanii.

300

References

Basso, Keith H. 1970. “‘To Give Up on Words’: Silence in Western Apache Culture.” Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 26 (3): 213–30. Bauman, Richard. (1986) 1988. Story, Performance and Event: Contextual Studies of Oral Narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bauman, Richard, and Charles L. Briggs. 1990. “Poetics and Performance as Critical Perspectives on Language and Social Life.” Annual Review of Anthropology 19:59–88. Beahrs, Robert O. 2014. “Post-Soviet Tuvan Throat-Singing (Xöömei) and the Circulation of Nomadic Sensibility.” PhD diss., University of California, Berkeley. ———. 2019. “Tuning a Throat Song in Inner Asia: On the Nature of Vocal Gifts with People’s Xöömeizhi of the Tyva Republic Valeriy Mongush (b. 1953).” In The Oxford Handbook of Voice Studies, edited by Nina S. Eidsheim and Katherine Meizel, 314–42. Oxford: Oxford Handbooks Online. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199982295.013.35. ———. 2021. “Gifts of the Sygytchy-Sons: Tethering Melodies to Land, Kin, and Life Energy at the Khöömei Ovaa, Tyva Republic.” Asian Music 52 (2): 72–107. Blacking, John. 1973. How Musical Is Man. Seattle: University of Washington Press. ———. (1973) 1983. “The Concept of Identity and Folk Concepts of Self: A Venda Case Study.” In Identity: Personal and Socio-Cultural, edited by Anita Jacobson-Widding, 47–65. Stockholm: Almquist and Wiksell. ———. 1992. “The Biology of Music-Making.” In Ethnomusicology: An Introduction, edited by Helen Myers, 301–14. London: Macmillan. ———. 1995. “Music, Culture and Experience.” In Music, Culture and Experience: Selected Papers of John Blacking, edited by Reginald Byron, 223–42. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Bokovenko, N. A. 2006. “The Emergence of the Tagar Culture.” Antiquity 80:860–79. Bolle, Kees W. 1978. Foreword to The Cult of Tara: Magic and Ritual in Tibet, edited by Stephan Beyer, v-ix. Berkeley: University of California Press. Brightman, Marc, Vanessa E. Grotti, and Olga Ulturgasheva. 2012. “Animism and Invisible Worlds: The Place of Non-humans in Indigenous Ontologies.” Introduction to Animism in Rainforest and Tundra: Personhood, Animals, Plants and Things in Contemporary Amazonia and Siberia, edited by Marc Brightman, Vanessa E. Grotti, and Olga Ulturgasheva, 1–27. New York: Berghahn Books. Broz, Ludek. 2007. “Pastoral Perspectivism: A View from Altai.” Inner Asia 9 (2): 291–310. ———. 2009. “Conversion to Religion? Negotiating Continuity and Discontinuity in Contemporary Altai.” In Conversion after Socialism: Disruptions, Modernisms and Technologies of Faith in the Former Soviet Union, edited by M. Pelkmans, 17–37. New York: Berghahn Books. Brunton, Bill. 1994. “Tuva, Land of Eagles—The Foundation’s 1993 Expedition to Tuva.” Shamanism 7 (1): 1–5 . hhtp:/shamanism.org/articles/article08.html. Bulag, Uradyn E. 1998. Nationalism and Hybridity in Mongolia. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Butanaev, Viktor Ya. 1995. “The Question of the Khakas Ethnonym.” In Balzer, Culture Incarnate, 70–79. ———. 1996. Traditsionnaya kul’tura i byt Khakasov [Traditional culture and way of life of the Khakas]. Abakan, Khakassia Republic: Khakas Book Publishers. ———. 1999. Khakassko-russkii istoriko-etnograficheskii slovar’ [Khakas-Russian historicalethnographic dictionary]. Abakan, Khakassia Republic: Khakassia Publishing House.

301

References

———. 2004. “Linguistic Reflections of Xakas Ethnohistory.” In Languages and Prehistory of Central Siberia, edited by Edward J. Vajda, 215–33. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing. Butler, Judith P. 1988. “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory.” Theatre Journal 40 (4): 519–31. Carruthers, Douglas. 1913–14. Unknown Mongolia. 2 vols. London: Hutchinson and Company. Casey, Edward S. 1996. “How to Get from Space to Place in a Fairly Short Stretch of Time: Phenomenological Prolegomena.” In Feld and Basso, Senses of Place, 13–52. Chabros, Kristina. 1992. Beckoning Fortune: A Study of the Mongol Dalalga Ritual. Asiatische Forschungen. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz. Chadwick, Nora K., and Victor Zhirmunsky. 1969. Oral Epics of Central Asia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chernova, Anna A., and Margarita Ch. Chumakaeva. 1992. Altaiskii Yazyk [Altaian language]. In Russian and Altaian. Gorno-Altaisk, Altai Republic: Ministery of Education, GornoAltaisk State Pedagogical Institute. Chugunov, K. V. 2017. “Early Nomads of Central Asia and Southern Siberia.” In Scythians: Warriors of Ancient Siberia, edited by St. John Simpson and Svetlana Pankova, 72–87. British Museum and BP exhibition catalog. London: Thames and Hudson. Cohn, Norman, trans. (1857) 1946. Gold Khan. London: Secker and Warburg. Preface by Arthur Waley. Translation of the epics Altyn-Khan, Ai-Mergen, and Ai-Doloi from M. A. Castrén, Versuch einer koibalischen und karagassischen sprachlehre. St. Petersburg: Kaiserliche Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1857. Connerton, Paul. 2008. “Seven Types of Forgetting.” Memory Studies 1 (1): 59–71. https:// doi.org/10.1177/1750698007083889. Csordas, Thomas J. 1996. “Imaginal Performance and Memory in Ritual Healing.” In The Performance of Healing, edited by Carol Laderman and Marina Roseman, 91–113. London: Routledge. Curtet, Johanni. 2021. “Khöömii, World Lists, and the Question of Representation.” Asian Music 52 (2): 108–38. Czaplicka, Marie A. (1914) 1969. Aboriginal Siberia: A Study in Social Anthropology. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Danilin, Andrei G. (1932) 1993. Burkhanizm: iz istorii natsional’no-osvoboditel’nogo dvizheniya v Gornom Altae [Burkhanism: From the history of a national liberation movement in Mountain Altai], edited by Vera P. D’yakonova. Gorno-Altaisk, Altai Republic: Ak Chechek. Daukeyeva, Saida. 2021. “(Re)Claiming a Vocal Vernacular: Revival and Modernization of Kömei in Contemporary Kazakh Music.” Asian Music 52 (2): 170–202. Dening, G. 1996. Performances. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press. Diószegi, Vilmos. (1960) 1968. Tracing Shamans in Siberia: The Story of an Ethnographical Research Expedition. Translated by Anita R. Babó. Oosterhout, Netherlands: Anthropological Publications. ———. (1962) 1998. “How to Become a Shaman among the Sagais.” In Hoppál, Shamanism: Selected Writings of Vilmos Diószegi, 27–34. First published in Acta Orientalia Ac. Sc. Hung. vol 15, 87–96. Dumont, Louis. 1977. From Mandeville to Marx: The Genesis and Triumph of Economic Ideology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

302

References

———. 1986. Essays on Individualism: Modern Ideology in Anthropological Perspective. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Durkheim, Émile. (1912) 1965. Elementary Forms of Religious Life. New York: Free Press. D’yakonova, Vera P. 1981. “Predmety k lechebnoi funktsii shamanov Tuvy i Altaiya” [On the subject of the curing function of the shamans of Tuva and Altai]. In Material’naya kul’tura i mifologiya, edited by B. N. Putilov, 138–52. Leningrad: Nauka. ———. 2001. Altaitsy: materialy po etnografii Telengitov Gornogo Altaya [Altaians: Materials on the ethnography of the Telengits of Mountain Altai]. Gorno-Altaisk, Altai Republic: Üch Sümer. Eliade, Mircea. (1951) 1971. The Myth of the Eternal Return. Translated by Willard R. Trask. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ———. 1989. Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy. Translated by Willard R. Trask. London: Arkana. Empson, Rebecca M. 2011. Harnessing Fortune: Personhood, Memory, and Place in Mongolia. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Emsheimer, Ernst. (1964) 2019. Studia ethnomusicologia eurasiatica. Stockholm: Musikhistoriska museet Shrifter I. Festscrift. Published online in Journal of the International Folk Music Council. Erokhonova, Ol’ga K. 2002. Agaru, Agaru, Agaru [Pure, pure, pure]. Gorno-Altaisk, Altai Republic: Republic Printing House. Evans-Pritchard, Edward. 1965. Theories of Primitive Religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Feld, Steven. (1982) 2012. Sound and Sentiment: Birds, Weeping, Poetics, and Song in Kaluli Expression. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Feld, Steven, and Keith H. Basso, eds. 1996. Senses of Place. Santa Fe: School of American Research Press. Fernandez, James W. 1986. “The Argument of Images and the Experience of Returning to the Whole.” In The Anthropology of Experience, edited by Victor W. Turner and E. M. Brumer, 159–87. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Filimonov, D. 2010. “The Curse of the Altai Princess.” Izvestiya Nauka [Scientific news]: 1–6. https://www.inauka.ru/english/article40985/print.html. Foley, John Miles. 1995. The Singer of Tales in Performance. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Forsyth, James. 1989. “The Indigenous Peoples of Siberia in the Twentieth Century.” In The Development of Siberia: Peoples and Resources, edited by A. Wood and R. A. French, 72–95. London: Macmillan. ———. 1992. A History of the Peoples of Siberia: Russia’s North Asian Colony 1581–1990. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Funk, Dmitri A. 2005. Miry shamanov i skazitelei: kompleksnoe issledovanie teleutskikh i shorskikh materialov [The worlds of shamans and storytellers: A combined study of Teleut and Shor materials]. Moscow: Nauka. ———. 2018. “Siberian Cosmologies.” In The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology, edited by Hilary Callan, 1–9. Oxford: John Wiley and Sons. https://doi.org/10.1002/ 97811189244296.wbiea2237.

303

[128.104.46.196] Project MUSE (2024-04-09 03:07 GMT) UW-Madison Libraries

References

———. 2021. “The Materials of Andrei Anokhin on the Evil Spirits in Teleut Shamanic Beliefs.” Shaman 29 (1–2): 65–92. Gatsak, Viktor M., ed. 1997a. Tyva ulustung maadyrlyg tooldary [Tyv.] / Tuvinskie geroicheskie skazaniya: Khunan-Kara, Boktug-Kirish, Bora-Sheelei [Ru.]. [Tyvan heroic epics: KhunanKara, Boktug-Kirish, Bora-Sheelei.] Bilingual edition. Translated by S. M. Orus-ool. PFNSiDV 12. Novosibirsk: Nauka Sibirskoe Predpiyatie Ran. ———, ed. 1997b. Altai kai chörchöktör [Alt.] / Altaiskie geroicheskie skazaniya [Ru.]: OchyBala, Kan-Altyn [Altaian heroic epics: Ochy-Bala, Kan-Altyn]. Bilingual edition. Translated by Z. S. Kazagacheva. Summary translated into English by S. McQuoid. PFNSiDV 15. Novosibirsk: Nauka Sibirskoe Predpiyatie Ran. Gatsak, Viktor M., and Z. S. Kazagacheva. 1997. “Tekstologicheskie printsipy i protsedury izdaniya” [Textual principles and the process of publication]. In Gatsak, Tyva ulustung maadyrlyg tooldary, 71–77. Gell, Alfred. 1998. Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ———. 1999. The Art of Anthropology: Essays and Diagrams. London: The Athlone Press. Glaskin, Katie. 2011. “Dreams, Memory, and the Ancestors: Creativity, Culture, and the Science of Sleep.” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 17 (1): 44–62. Goffman, Erving. (1959) 1978. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Penguin Books. Goody, Jack. (1977) 1995. The Domestication of the Savage Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2002. “The Anthropology of the Senses and Sensations.” La Ricerca Folklorica 45:17–28. Grimaldi, Susan. 1998. “Tuvan Shamanism Comes to America.” The Foundation for Shamanic Studies: 15–21. www.susangrimaldi.com/docs/tuvamerica.pdf. Gryaznov, Mikhail P. 1969. Sibérie du Sud (Southern Siberia). Translated by Marie Avril and Jean Marcadé. Archaeologia Mundi. Geneva: Nagel Publishers. Halemba, Agnieska E. 2001. Unity and Diversity: Contemporary Spiritual Life of the Telengits of Ere-Chui. PhD diss., University of Cambridge. ———. 2003. “Contemporary Religious Life in the Republic of Altai: The Interaction of Buddhism and Shamanism.” Sibirica 3 (2): 165–82. ———. 2006. The Telengits of Southern Siberia: Landscape, Religion and Knowledge in Motion. London: Routledge. ———. 2014. “The Power and Authority of Shamans in Contemporary Altai.” Shaman 33 (1–2): 5–25. Handelman, Don, and Galina Lindquist. (2011) 2013. “The Long Past Foregrounding the Short Present—Prologue and Introduction.” In Religion, Politics and Globalization: Anthropological Approaches, edited by Galina Lindquist and Don Handelman, 1–66. Haraway, Donna J. 1991. Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. London: Free Association Books. Harner, Michael J. (1988) 1990. The Way of the Shaman: A Guide to Power and Healing. New York: HarperCollins. ———. 2004. “Shamanic Counseling.” In Znamenski, Shamanism: Critical Concepts, 77–85.

304

References

———. 2005. “The History and Work of the Foundation for Shamanic Studies.” Shamanism 18 (1 and 2): 1–5. Harrison, K. David. 2005. “A Tuvan Hero Tale, with Commentary, Morphemic Analysis, and Translation.” Journal of American Oriental Society 125 (1): 1–30. Harrison, Simon. 1999. “Identity as a Scarce Resource.” Social Identity 7 (3): 239–51. Harvilahti, Lauri. 2000. “Altai Oral Epic.” Oral Tradition 15 (2): 215–29. Hastrup, Kirsten. 1995. A Passage to Anthropology: Between Experience and Theory. London: Routledge. Hatto, Arthur T. 2000. “Textology and Epic Texts from Siberia and Beyond.” In Textualization of Oral Epics, edited by Lauri Honko, 129–60. Trends in Linguistics Studies and Monographs 128. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Herodotus. (1910) 1971. The History of Herodotus, vol. 1. Edited by Edward H. Blakeney, translated by George Rawlinson. London: J. M. Dent and Sons. Heywood, Paolo. 2017. “The Ontological Turn.” www.anthroencyclopedia.com/entry/ ontological-turn. Hirsch, Eric. 1995. “Landscape: Between Place and Space.” Introduction to The Anthropology of Landscape: Perspectives on Place and Space, edited by Eric Hirsch and Michael O’Hanlon, 1–30. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hodgkinson, Tim. 2005–6. “Musicians, Carvers, Shamans.” Cambridge Anthropology 25 (3): 1–16. Holbraad, Martin, and Morten Axel Pedersen. 2017. The Ontological Turn: An Anthropological Exposition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hoppál, Mihály. 1997a. “Life and Works of Mongush B. Kenin-Lopsan.” In Kenin-Lopsan, Shamanic Songs and Myths of Tuva, xix-xxiii. ———. 1997b. “Tracing Shamanism in Tuva: A History of Studies.” In Kenin-Lopsan, Shamanic Songs and Myths of Tyva, 123–36. ———, ed. 1998. Shamanism: Selected Writings of Vilmos Diószegi. Bibliotheca Shamanistica 6. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó. Howard, Keith, and Catherine Ingram, eds. 2020. Presence through Sound: Music and Place in East Asia. New York: Routledge. Howes, David, ed. 1991. The Varieties of Sensory Experience: A Sourcebook in the Anthropology of the Senses. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Howorth, Henry H. (1876) 1966. History of the Mongols, from the 9th to the 19th Century. Vol. 1, The Mongols Proper and the Kalmyks. London: Ben Franklin. Hughes-Freeland, Felicia, ed. 1998. Introduction to Ritual, Performance, Media, edited by Felicia Hughes-Freeland, 1–28. ASA Monographs 35. London: Routledge. Humphrey, Caroline. 1995. “Chiefly and Shamanist Landscapes in Mongolia.” In The Anthropology of Landscape: Perspectives on Place and Space, edited by Eric Hirsch and Michael O’Hanlon, 135–62. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ———. 2007. “Inside and Outside the Mirror: Mongolian Shamans’ Mirrors as Instruments of Perspectivism.” Inner Asia 9 (2): 173–96. Humphrey, Caroline, with Urgunge Onon. 1996. Shamans and Elders: Experience, Knowledge, and Power among the Daur Mongols. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

305

References

Hutton, Ronald. 2001. Shamans: Siberian Spirituality and the Western Imagination. London: Hambledon and London. Hymes, Dell. 1975. “Breakthrough into Performance.” In Folklore: Performance and Communication, edited by Dan Ben-Amos and Kenneth S. Goldstein, 11–74. The Hague: Mouton. Ingold, Tim. 2000. The Perception of the Environment: Essays in Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill. London: Routledge. Israel, Alexandra. 2011. “Tales from before the Long, Long Ago: A Study of Tuvan Ethnopoetics.” BA diss., Swarthmore College. Jacobson-Tepfer, Esther. 2015. The Hunter, the Stag, and the Mother of Animals: Image, Monument and Landscape in Ancient North Asia. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jacquemoud, Clémont. 2015. The Altaians: A Turkic People from the Mountains of Siberia. Switzerland: Fondation Culturelle Musée Barbier-Mueller. Jettmar, Karl. (1962) 1967. Art of the Steppes: The Eurasian Animal Style. Translated by Ann E. Keep. London: Methuen. Kapchan, Donna. 2007. Travelling Spirit Masters: Moroccan Gnawa Trance and Music in the Gobal Marketplace. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press. Kapferer, Bruce. 1988. Legends of People, Myths of State. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press. Kara, Dávid S., and László Kunkovács. 2014. “Black Shamans of the Turkic-speaking Telengits in Southern Siberia.” Shaman 22 (1–2): 151–62. Karunovskaya, L. E. 1935. “Predstavlenie Altaitsev o vselennoi (materialy k altaiskomy shamanstvu)” [Altaian conceptions of the universe (Materials on Altaian shamanism)]. Sovetskaya etnografiya 4–5: 160–83. Katanov, Nikolai F. 1907. Mundarten der Urianchaier (Sojonen), Abakan-Tataren und Karagassen [Dialects of the Uriankhai (Soyon), Abakan-Tatar (Khakas) and Karagass]. In Radloff (1967a and 1967b). Katashev, S. M. 1997. “Altaiskii geroicheskii epos” [Altaian heroic epic]. In Gatsak, Altai kai chörchöktör, 11–46. Kenel’, Aleksandr. 1955. Khakas chonynyng kögleri (Kh.) / Narodnoe musykal’noe tvorchestvo Khakasov (Ru.) [Khakas folk melodies]. Abakan, Khakassia Republic: Khakknigizdat. Kenin-Lopsan, Mongush B. 1993. Magia Tuvinskikh Shamanov [Magic of Tyvan shamans]. In Tyvan, Russian, and English. Kyzyl, Tyva Republic: Novosti Tuvy. ———. 1996. Problemy etnograficheskogo izucheniia Tuvinskogo shamanstva: po materialam shamanskogo fol’klora [Problems in the ethnographic study of Tyvan shamanism: Using shamanic folklore materials]. St. Petersburg: Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology. ———. 1997a. Shamanic Songs and Myths of Tuva. Edited by Mihály Hoppál, translated by Christiana Buckbee. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó and International Society for TransOceanic Research (ISTOR). ———. 1997b. “Tuvan Shamanic Folklore.” In Balzer, Shamanic Worlds, 110–52. ———. 2000. “Mifologicheskie korni tuvinskikh shamanov” [Mythological roots of Tyvan shamans]. Etnograficheskoe obozrenie 2:80–86. Kharitonova, Valentina I. 2005. “Old Woman Tady’s Virtual Drum: Traditional Saghai Shamanism: Relics at the Boundary of the Millennia.” Acta ethnographica hungarica 50 (1–3): 227–39.

306

References

Kidaish-Pokrovskaya, N. V., ed. 1988. Altyn-Arygh: Khakas Chonnyng Alyptygh Nymaghy [Altyn-Arygh: Khakas people’s heroic epic]. Moscow: Nauka. Konunov, Arcadii A. 2010a. “Kalkin Aleksei Grigor’evich.” In Konunov, Demchinova, and Yntaev, Altaidyng kaichylary, 41–42. ———. 2010b. “Ulagashev Nikolai (Myklai).” In Konunov, Demchinova, and Yntaev, Altaidyng kaichylary, 16–18. Konunov, Arcadii A., Mira A. Demchinova, and Vladimir I. Yntaev. 2010. Altaidyng kaichylary (Alt.) / Kaichy Altaya (Ru.) [Altaian epic performers]. Gorno-Altaisk, Altai Republic: Altai Republic Ministry of Culture, GUK RA Republican Center of Folk Arts, and S. S. Surazakov Scientific Research Institute of Altaic Studies. With compact disc. Koptelov, Afanasii, ed. 1941. Altai-Buchai. Oirotskii narodnyi epos [Altai-Buchai: Oirot folk epic]. Novosibirsk: Ogiz. Kovelant, Kevin. 2015. “Imaginal.” In Ghosts, Spirits, and Psychics: The Paranormal from Alchemy to Zombies, edited by Matt Cardin, 127–30. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-clio. Krader, Lawrence. 1956. “A Nativistic Movement in Western Siberia.” American Anthropologist 58 (2): 282–92. Kubarev, Vladimir D., and V. I. Zabelin. 2006. “Avian Fauna in Central Asian Rock Art: Archaeological and Ethnological Evidence.” Archaeology, Ethnology and Anthropology of Eurasia 2 (26): 87–103. Kuper, Adam. 2003. “The Return of the Native.” Current Anthropology 44 (3): 389–402. Kurbizhekova, Anna. 2008. Khan Mirgen: Khakas Epic Poem. Recorded by G. Kuzhakova, translated from Khakas to Turkish by Timur B. Davletov. Ankara: Turksoy Publications. Kyrgys, Zoya K. (2002) 2008. Tyvan Throat Singing: Ethnomusicological Investigation. Translated by Konstantin Khlynov. Kyzyl, Tyva Republic: International Scientific Center “Khöömei.” ———. 2013. The Mystery of Tuvan Khöömei (Throat Singing). Kyzyl, Tyva Republic: International Scientific Center “Khöömei.” Lambert, Helen, and Maryon McDonald, eds. 2009. Social Bodies. New York: Berghahn Books. Latour, Bruno. 1996. “On Actor-network Theory: a Few Clarifications.” Soziale Welt 47:369– 81. Lattimore, Owen. (1940) 1988. The Inner Asian Frontiers of China. Oxford: Oxford University Press. First published New York: American Geographical Society (Research Series 21). Lawergren, Bo. 1990. “The Ancient Harp from Pazyryk.” In Beiträge sur allgemeinen und vergleichenden archäologie, Band 9–10, 111–18. Mainz am Rhein: Verlag Philipp von Zabern. Le Breton, David, and Carmen Ruschensky. 2017. Sensing the World: An Anthropology of the Senses. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003086628. Lefort, Claude. (1974) 2014. “Maurice Merleau-Ponty.” In Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, xviii-xxix. London: Routledge. Leont’ev, Nikolai V., and Vladimir F. Kapel’ko. 2002. Steinstelen der Okunev-Kultur. Archäologie in Eurasien, Band 13. Mainz: Verlag Philipp von Zabern. Lessing, Ferdinand D., ed. (1960) 1982. Mongolian-English Dictionary. Bloomington, IN: Mongolian Society.

307

References

Levin, Maxim G., and Leonid P. Potapov, eds. (1956) 1964. The Peoples of Siberia. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Levin, Theodore C., and Michael E. Edgerton. 1999. “The Throat Singers of Tuva.” Scientific American 281 (3): 70–77. Levin, Theodore, with Valentina Süzükei. 2006. Where Rivers and Mountains Sing: Sound, Music, and Nomadism in Tuva and Beyond. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Lindquist, Galina. 2006. Conjuring Hope: Healing and Magic in Contemporary Russia. New York: Berghahn Books. ———. 2013. “Ethnic Identity and Religious Competition: Buddhism and Shamanism in Southern Siberia.” In Religion, Politics and Globalization: Anthropological Approaches, edited by Galina Lindquist and Don Handelman, 69–90. New York: Berghahn Books. Lockyer, Joseph N. (1894) 2006. The Dawn of Astronomy: A Study of the Temple-worship and Mythology of the Ancient Egyptians. London: Cassell. Lord, Albert B. (1960) 2000. The Singer of Tales, edited by Stephen Mitchell and Gregory Nagy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Maikova, A. A., and I. V. Kudachinova. 2015. “Natural and Cultural Landscapes.” In Almashev, Iurkova, and Kudachinova, Nature and Culture without Borders, 6–26. Mainogasheva, Vera E. 1988. “O variantakh eposa ‘Altyn-Arygh’ i ego skazitel’akh” [On variants of the epic Altyn-Arygh and its storytellers]. In Kidaish-Pokrovskaya, Altyn-Arygh: Khakas Chonnyng Alyptygh Nymaghy, 557–59. Moscow: Nauka. ———. 1997. “O khakasskom geroicheskom epose i alyptykh nymakhe Ai-Khuuchin” [On the Khakas heroic epic and the heroic tale Ai-Khuuchin]. In Alekseev, Aleekseev, and Gatsak, Alyptygh nymakh, 11–47. Malinowski, Bronislaw. (1922) 2002a. Argonauts of the Western Pacific. London: Routledge. ———. (1935) 2002b. Coral Gardens and Their Magic. Vol. 2, The Language and Magic of Gardening. London: Routledge. Mamyev, Danil’. (2015) 2017. “Cultural Landscapes: Message from Our Ancestors.” In Conserving Cultural Landscapes: Challenges and New Directions, edited by Ken Taylor, Archer St Clair, and Nora J. Mitchell, 144–59. New York: Routledge. Marazzi, Ugo, ed. and trans. 1986. Maaday Qara: An Altay Epic Poem. Series Minor 25. Naples: Instituto Universitario Orientale. Marsadolov, L. S. 2014. “The Great Salbyk Barrow in Siberia (Archaeoastronomical Aspects of its Study).” Archaeoastronomy and Ancient Technologies 2 (2): 59–65. www.aaatec.org/ art/a_ml. Matochkin, E. P. 2006. “Petroglyphs at Green Lake: an Altai Bronze Age Monument.” Archaeology, Ethnology and Anthropology of Eurasia 26 (1): 104–15. Mauss, Marcel. (1934) 1979. “Techniques of the Body.” In Sociology and Psychology: Essays of Marcel Mauss, translated by B. Brewster, 97–123. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. ———. (1938) 1991. “A Category of the Human Mind: The Notion of Person, the Notion of Self.” In The Category of the Person: Anthropology, Philosophy, History, edited by Michael Carrithers, Steven Collins, and Steven Lukes, translated by W. D. Halls, 1–25. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

308

References

Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. (1945) 2014. Phenomenology of Perception. Translated by Donald A. Landes. London: Routledge. Merriam, Alan P. 1964. The Anthropology of Music. Evanston, IL: Northwestern Press. Mol, Anne-Marie. 2002. The Body Multiple: Ontology in Medical Practice. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Munn, Nancy D. 1996. “Excluded Spaces: The Figure in the Australian Aboriginal Landscape.” Critical Enquiry 22 (3): 446–65. Muytueva, V. A. 2004. Traditsionnaya religiozno-mifologicheskaya kartina mira altaitsev [Traditional religio-mythological map of the Altaian world]. Gorno-Altaisk, Altai Republic: Gorno-Altaiskaya Tipografiya. Nagler, A., and H. Parzinger. 2006. Arzhan—A Scythian Royal Necropolis in Tuva, Southern Siberia. Deutsches Archäologisches Institut. http://web.archive.org/web/20090118010640/ http://www.dainst.org/index_596_en.html. Narby, Jeremy, and Francis Huxley, eds. 2001. Shamans through Time: 500 Years on the Path to Knowledge. London: Thames and Hudson. Nyssen, Liesbet. 2005. “Traditional and Modern Khakas Conceptions of Sound and Music.” Oideion: Performing Arts Online 4 ( July). www.iias.nl/oideion/journal/issue04/ nyssen/2.html. ———. 2010. “How to Classify the Recalled Syyt Lament from Musical and Extra-musical Points of View.” In Chatkhan: History and Present (materials of the 4th International Symposium on chatkhan music and throat-singing), edited by Valentina N. Tuguzhekova, 14–20. Abakan, Republic of Khakassia: Khak. Knizh. Izd. vo KhGU. ———. 2013. Liner notes for Ülger Ensemble, Traditional Songs of the Khakas People, 1–3. Face Music. FM 50049, 50050, 50061. ———. 2018. Liner notes for Ülger Ensemble, Traditional Songs of the Khakas People, 4–6. Face Music 50065, 50066, 50067. ———. 2020. “Noise and Other Undesirable Sound and Music Making—Part 1.” In Traditsionnaya kul’turai sovremennoe obrazovanie: problemy, traditsii, innovatsii (materials of the Fifth International Scientific and Practical Conference, Abakan), edited by O. V. Evusyak, 28–37. https://www.academia.edu/70262693/Noise_and_other_undesirable _sound_and_music_making_Part_1. Oelschlägel, Anett C. 2004. Das weisse weg: Naturreligion und divination bei den West-Tyva im Süden Sibiriens. Leipzig: Leipziger Universitätsverlag. Ondar, S. 2019. “It Takes a Long Time to Tell a Tale,” 1 and 2. Translated by H. Jindrak. In The New Research of Asia, 1–17. www.Tuva.asia. Ondar, T. A. 1997. “Shamanizm v Tuve.” Gosudarstvo, religiia i tserkov’v Rossi za rubezhom [State, religion, and church in Russia at the border] 2:48–54. Ong, Walter J. (1982) 2002. Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word. London: Routledge. Orus-ool, S. M. 1994. Liner notes to recordings accompanying Tuvinskie geroicheskie skazaniya [Tyvan heroic tales]. PFNSiDV 12. M32 32581/M32 32582. Vinyl EP. ———. 1997. “Tuvinskie geroicheskie skazaniya” [Tyvan heroic epics]. In Tyva ulustung maadyrlyg tooldary, PFNSiDV 12, 10–38.

309

References

Parry, M. 1971. The Making of Homeric Verse: The Collected Papers of Milman Parry. Edited by A. Parry. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Parzinger, H. 2017. “Burial Mounds of Scythian Elites in the Eurasian Steppe: New Discoveries.” Journal of the British Academy 5:331–55. www.doi.org/10.8571/jba/005.331. Pedersen, Morten Axel. 2003. “Networking the Nomadic Landscape: Place, Power and Decision Making in Northern Mongolia.” In Imagining Nature: Practices of Cosmology and Identity, edited by Andreas Roepstorff, Nils Bubandt, and Kalevi Kull, 238–59. Denmark: Aarhus University Press. ———. 2007. “Talismans of Thought: Shamanist Ontologies and Extended Cognition in Northern Mongolia.” In Thinking through Things: Theorizing Artefacts Ethnographically, edited by Amiria J. Henare, Martin Holbraad, and Sari Wastell, 141–66. London: Routledge. Pedersen, Morten Axel, and Rane Willerslev. 2010. “Proportional Holism: Joking the Cosmos into the Right Shape in North Asia.” In Experiments in Holism: Theory and Practice in Contemporary Anthropology, edited by Ton Otto and Nils Bubandt, 300–319. WileyBlackwell. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com. Pegg, Carole A. 1991. “The Revival of Ethnic and Cultural Identity in West Mongolia: The Altai Urianghai tsuur, the Tuvan shoor and the Kazakh sybyzgy.” Journal of the AngloMongolian Society 8 (1–2): 71–84. ———. 1992. “Mongolian Conceptualizations of Overtone Singing (xöömii).” British Journal of Ethnomusicology 1 (1): 31–54. https://doi.org/10.1080/09681229208567199. ———. 2000. “The Power of Performance: West Mongolian Heroic Epics.” In Reichl, The Oral Epic, 171–90. ———. 2001a. Mongolian Music, Dance and Oral Narrative: Performing Diverse Identities. Seattle: University of Washington Press. With compact disc. ———. 2001b. “Inner Asia.” In The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed., edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan/Grove Music Online. https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.05283. ———. 2006. “Tuning in to Place: Emergent Personhood in a Multi-Sensory Khakas Shamanic Ritual.” Musiké: Music and Ritual (1):27–39. ———. 2009. “Inner Asia: Throat-singing, Timbral Tapestries, Sonic Spirits.” In The Rough Guide to World Music: Europe, Asia, and Pacific, edited by Simon Broughton, Marc Ellingham, and John Lusk, 628–37. London: Rough Guides. ———. 2010a. “Re-sounding the Spirits of Altaian Oral Epic Performance: Kai Throatsinging and Its Repercussions.” In Language Documentation and Description 8:125–39. ———. 2010b. Altaian Heroic Epics: Ritual Practices and Beliefs. University of Yale and University of Cambridge. Pegg 2013OS. ———. 2012. “Nomads, States and Musical Landscapes: Some Dilemmas of Khöömii as Intangible Cultural Heritage.” Paper presented at the Musical Geographies of Central Asia conference, London, May 16–18, 2012. www.akdn.org/akmi/musicalgeographies -central-asia/carole-pegg. ———. 2021a. “Performative Bodies: Overtoning Self and Personhood among Nomadic Musicians and Shamans of the Altai-Sayan Mountains of Southern Siberia.” In Music, Dance, Anthropology, edited by Stephen Cottrell, 167–93. Canon Pyon, UK: Sean Kingston Publishing.

310

References

———. 2021b. “Cradle of Drone-Overtone and Timbre-Centered Music: Cultural Landscapes of the Indigenous Peoples of the Altai Mountain Range and Its Neighboring Areas.” Asian Music special issue: Transregional Politics of Throat-Singing as Cultural Heritage in Inner and Central Asia, 52 (2): 11–45. ———. 2022. “Choduraa Tumat and Her Byzaanchy: Beacon of Tyvan Female Throatsinging.” Songlines 175. https://www.songlines.co.uk/features/the-tyvan-word-byzaa -refers-to-the-mooing-sound-made-by-a-calf-choduraa-tumat. Pegg, Carole, and Stanislav Ugdezhekov. 2006. “Performing Ethnic Personhood in Contemporary Khakassia: Academics and Musicians.” Journal of Inner Asia 7 (2): 185–91. Pegg, Carole, and Elizaveta E. Yamaeva. 2012. “Sensing ‘Place’: Performance, Oral Tradition, and Improvisation in the Hidden Temples of Mountain Altai.” Oral Tradition 27 (2): 291–318. www.oraltradition.org/issues/27ii/pegg-yamaeva. Pimenova, Ksenia. 2013. “The ‘Vertical of Shamanic Power’: The Use of Political Discourse in Post-Soviet Tuvan Shamanism.” Laboratorium 5 (1): 118–40. Polos’mak, Natalya V. 2005. “Purpur i zoloto tysyacheletii” [Purple and gold of the millennia]. Otkrytie Sibiri: NAUKA—iz pervykh rukh [Discovery Siberia: Nauka—At First Hand] 1 (4): 32–50. Potapov, Leonid P. 1953. Ocherki po istorii altaitsev [Essays on the history of Altaians]. Moscow: Nauka. ———. 1968. “Shamans’ Drums of Altaic Ethnic Groups.” In Popular Beliefs and Folklore Tradition in Siberia, edited by Vilmos Diószegi, 205–34. The Hague: Mouton and Co. ———. 1969. Etnicheskii sostav i proiskhozhdenie altaitsev: Istoriko-etnograficheskii ocherk [Ethnic composition and origin of Altaians: An historical-ethnographic essay]. Leningrad: Nauka. ———. 1972. “Ymay—bozhestvo drevnikh tyurkov v svete etnograficheskikh dannykh.” Tyurkologicheskii sbornik 1972: 265–86. ———. 1981. “Shamanskii buben kachintsev kak unikal’nyi predmet etnograficheskikh kollektsii” [The shamanic drum of the Kachins as unique subject of ethnographic collections]. Collection of manuscripts (Sbornik) in the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (MAE), 37: Materialnaya kul’tura i mifologiya [Material culture and mythology]: 124–37. Leningrad: Nauka. ———. 1991. Altaiskii shamanizm [Altaian shamanism]. Leningrad: Nauka. Prokof ’eva, E. D. 1971. “Shamanskie kostyumy narodov Sibiri” [Shamanic costumes of Siberian peoples]. In Religioznye predstavleniya i obryady narodov sibiri v XIX—nachale XX veka [Religious representation and rituals of the peoples of Siberia in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries), edited by L. P. Potapov and S. V. Ivanov, 5–100. Leningrad: Nauka. Radcliffe-Brown, Alfred R. 1952. Structure and Function in Primitive Society. London: Cohen and West. Radloff, Friedrich W. (Vasili V. Radlov). (1866) 1967a. South-Siberian Oral Literature: Turkic Texts, vol. 1. Uralic and Altaic Series, edited by T. A. Sebeok. Bloomington: Indiana University Publications. Photographic reproduction of 1866 Proben der Volkslitteratur der türkischen Stämme Süd-Sibiriens und der Dsungarischen Steppe I/1: Die dialecte des eigentlichen Altai: der Altaier, Teleuten, Lebed-Tataren, Schoren und Sojonen. [Dialects of the actual Altai: Altaians, Teleuts, Lebed-Tatars, Shors, and Soyons]. St. Petersburg: Akademii Nauk.

311

References

———. (1868) 1967b. South-Siberian Oral Literature: Turkic Texts, vol. 2. Uralic and Altaic series, edited by T. A. Sebeok. Bloomington: Indiana University Publications. Photographic reproduction of 1868 Proben der Volkslitteratur der türkischen Stämme Süd-Sibiriens und der Dsungarischen Steppe I/2: Die Abakan-Dialecte (der Sagaische, Koibalische, Katschinzische), der Kysyl-Dialect und der Tscholym-Dialect (Küerik) [Abakan-dialects (Saghai, Koibal, Kachin) of the Kyzyl and Chulim (Küerick) Turks]. St. Petersburg: Akademii Nauk. ———. (1884) 1989. Iz Sibiri (From Siberia). Translated by K. D. Shivinoi and B. E. Chistovoi. Moscow: Nauka. Raygorodetsky, Gleb. 2017. The Archipelago of Hope: Wisdom and Resilience from the Edge of Climate Change. New York: Pegasus Books. Reichl, Karl, ed. 2000. The Oral Epic: Performance and Music. Intercultural Musical Studies 12. Berlin: Verlag für Wissenschaft und Bildung. Roerich, Nicholas. (1929) 1983. Altai-Himalaya: A Travel Diary. Brookfield, CT: Arun Press. ———. (1930) 2009. Shambhala. Ulaan Baatar: Polar Star Books. Roux, J. P. 1984. La religion des Turcs et des Mongols. Paris: Payot. Rudenko, Sergei I. (1953) 1970. Frozen Tombs of Siberia: The Pazyryk Burials of Iron-Age Horsemen. Translated by M. W. Thompson. Berkeley: University of California Press. Ruggles, D. Fairchild, and Helaine Silverman, eds. 2009. Intangible Heritage Embodied. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer. Sachs, Curt. 1977. The History of Musical Instruments. London: J. M. Dent and Sons. Sagalaev, Andrei M. 1981. “Udarnie instrumenty v ritualakh Lamaisma i iuzhnosibirskogo shamanstva” [Percussion instruments in rituals of Lamaism and southern Siberian shamanism]. Sovetskaia etnografiia 5:117–24. ———. 1992. Altai v zerkale mifa [Altai through the mirror of myth]. Novosibirsk: Nauka. ———. 1999. “Naturfilosofskie nachaia Sibirskogo shamanizma (k postanovke voprosa)” [The nature-philosophy beginning of Siberian shamanism: Raising the question]. Metodologicheskie i istoriograficheskie voprosy istoricheskoi nauki [Methodological and historiographical questions of historical science] 25:118–28. Sagalaev, A. M., and I. V. Oktyabr’skaya, eds. 1990. Traditsionnoe mirovozzrenie tyurkov yuzhnoi Sibiri 3: Snak i ritual [The traditional worldview of the Turkic peoples of south Siberia: Sign and ritual]. Novosibirsk: Nauka. Samuel, G. 1993. Civilized Shamans: Buddhism in Tibetan Societies. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press. Savinov, D. G. 1997. “K voprosu o formirovanii okunevskoi izobrazitel’noi traditsii” [On the question of the formation of the Okunev graphic art tradition]. In Savinov and Podol’skii, Okunevskii sbornik, 202–12. Savinov, D. G., and M. L. Podol’skii, eds. 1997. Okunevskii sbornik: kul’tura, iskusstvo, antropologiya [Okunev collection: Culture, art, anthropology]. St. Petersburg: Russian Academy of Sciences. Schechner, Richard. (1986) 1992. “Victor Turner’s Last Adventure.” Preface to The Anthropology of Performance, by Victor W. Turner, 7–20. New York: PAJ Publications. Schechner, Richard, and Willa Appel, eds. 1990. By Means of Performance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

312

References

Schieffelin, Edward L. 1996. “On Failure and Performance: Throwing the Medium out of the Séance.” In The Performance of Healing, edited by Carol Laderman and Marina Roseman, 59–89. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315538860. ———. 1998. “Problematizing Performance.” In Hughes-Freeland, Ritual, Performance, Media, 194–207. Scrase, Richard. 2002. Altai Ethnomusicology Expedition 2002: Final Report. www.imperial .ac.uk/media/imperial-college/be-inspired/exploration-board/public/2002Altai-pdf. Searle, John 1969. Speech Acts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Severi, Carlo. (2007) 2015. The Chimera Principle: An Anthropology of Memory and Imagination. Translated by Janet Lloyd. Chicago: Hau Books. Sheikin, Yuri I., and V. S. Nikiforova. 1997. “Altaiskoe epicheskoe intonirovanie” [The intonation of Altaian epics]. In Gatsak, Altai kai chörchöktör, 47–70. Shinzhin, I. B. 1996. Kaichy A. G. Kalkin. Gorno-Altaisk, Russia: Gorno-Altaiskoe otdelenie altaiskogo knizhnogo izdatel’stva. ———. 2004. Altai Baatyrlar (Alt.)/Altaiskie Bogatyri (Ru.) [Altaian heroes], 13. Bilingual texts of epics performed by N. U. Ulagashev, A. G. Kalkin, T. A. Chachiyakov, N. P. Chernoevoi, and N. K. Yalatov. Gorno-Altaisk, Altai Republic: Altaian Institute S. S. Surazakov. ———. 2010. “Yalatov Nikolai Kokurovich (1927–2002).” In Konunov, Demchinova, and Yntaev, Altaidyng kaichylary, 43–44. Shinzhina, Z. Sh., ed. 2004. Burkhanizm—Ak Jang: dokumenty i materialy [Burkhanism—Ak Jang: Documents and materials]. Gorno-Altaisk, Altai Republic: Üch Sümer-Belukha. Shirokogoroff, Sergei M. (1935) 1999. Psychomental Complex of the Tungus. Berlin: Reinhold Schletzer Verlag. Shodoev, Nikolai A. (2011) 2012. Spiritual Wisdom from the Altai Mountains: Altai Bilik. Translated by Joanna Dobson. Winchester: Moon Books. Shodoev, Nikolai A., and Rustam S. Kurchakov. 2003. Altaiskii bilik—drevnie korni narodnoi mudrosti Rossi [Altai Bilik: Ancient roots of folk wisdom of Russia]. Kazan, Russia: Tsentr Innovatsionnykh Tekhnologii. Shul’gin, B. M. 1973. “Ob altaiskom kae” [On Altai kai]. In Surazakov, Pukhov, and Baskakov, Maadai-Kara, 454–59. Siberian Times. 2016. “Legal Bid Fails to Rebury Remains of 2,500 Year Old Tattooed ‘Ice Princess.’” February 3, 2016. https://siberiantimes.com/other/others/news/n0574-legal -bid-fails-to-rebury-remains-of-2500-year-old-tattooed-ice-princess/. Siikala, Anna-Leena, and Mihály Hoppál. 1992. Studies on Shamanism. Ethnologica Uralica. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó. Small, Christopher. 1998. Musicking: The Meanings of Performance and Listening. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England. Sneath, David. 2007. The Headless State: Aristocratic Orders, Kinship Society, and Misrepresentations of Nomadic Inner Asia. New York: Columbia University Press. Stepanova, E. V., and S. V. Pankova. 2017. “Personal Appearance.” In Scythians: Warriors of Ancient Siberia, edited by St. John Simpson and Svetlana Pankova, 88–151. British Museum and BP exhibition catalog. London: Thames and Hudson.

313

References

Stokes, Martin, ed. 1994. Ethnicity, Identity and Music: The Musical Construction of Place. Oxford: Berg. Stoller, Paul. 1989. The Taste of Ethnographic Things: The Senses in Anthropology. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. ———. 1997. Sensuous Scholarship. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Strathern, Marilyn. 1988. The Gender of the Gift: Problems with Women and Problems with Society in Melanesia. Berkeley: University of California Press. ———. 1991. Partial Connections. Savage, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. ———. 2009. “Using Bodies to Communicate.” In Lambert and McDonald, Social Bodies, 148–69. Subrakovoi, O. V. 2006. Khakassko-russkii slovar’ [Khakas-Russian dictionary]. Novosibirsk: Nauka. Sukhovskoi, Rev. Vasilii 1901. “O shamanstve v Minusinskom krai” [On shamanism in Minusinsk Krai]. Izvestiya Obshchestva arkheologii istorii i etnografii pri Imperatorskom Kazanskom universitete 17 (2–3): 147–55. Sundberg, Johan. 1980. “Acoustics, §V: Voice.” In The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, edited by Stanley Sadie, 1:82–87. London: Macmillan. Sundström, Olle. 2012. “Is the Shaman Indeed Risen in Post-Soviet Siberia?” Scripta Instituti Donneriani Aboensis 24: 350–87. Surazakov, S. S., I. V. Pukhov, and N. A. Baskakov, eds. 1973. Maadai-Kara: Altai kai chörchök (Alt.) / Altaiiskii geroicheskii epos (Ru.) [Maadai-Kara: Altaian heroic epic]. Epos narodov SSR [Epics of the peoples of the Soviet Union]. Moscow: Nauka. Süzükei, Valentina Yu. 1993. Burdonno-overtonovaya osnova traditsionnogo instrumental’nogo muzitsirovaniya tuvintsev [The drone-overtone basis of Tyvan traditional instrumental music-making]. Kyzyl, Tyva: Tyvan Research Institute of Language, Literature and History. ———. 2007. Muzykal’naya kul’tura Tuvy v dvadtsatom stoletii [The musical culture of Tuva in the twentieth century]. Moscow: Izdatel’skii Dom “Kompozitor.” ———. 2009. “Why the Drone String? (Part 2).” Tuva Online. https://en.tuvaonline.ru/ 2009/09/08. Sychenko (Sytchenko), Galina B. 2009a. “A Comparison of Oral Transmission of Epic and Shamanic Traditions among Turkic Peoples in Southern Siberia.” In Sacred Knowledge: Schools or Revelation? Master-Apprentice System of Oral Transmission in the Music of the Turkic-Speaking World, edited by Razia Sultanova, 97–106. Köln: Lambert Academic Publishing. ———. 2009b. “Shamanic Cosmology and Its Reflection in Shamanic Texts: The Chalkan Shamaness’s Case Study.” Journal of Ethnography and Folklore 1 (2): 25–40. Tadagawa, Leo. 2016. “Asian Excavated Jew’s Harps: A Checklist (1)—Lamellate Jew’s Harps.” Institute of Ethnomusicology Bulletin of Tokyo College of Music 5:57–70. ———. 2017. “‘The Khomus Is My Red Deer on Which I Fly through the Middle World’ (Khomus in the Shamanic Practice of Tuva: Research Issues).” The New Research of Tuva 2:165–76. https://doi.org/10.25178/nit.2017.2.7. Tambiah, Stanley J. 1968. “The Magical Power of Words.” Man (new series) 3 (2): 175–203. https://doi.org/10.2307/2798500.

314

References

Tatár, Sarolta. 2006. “Concepts of the Soul in Tuva: A Philosophical Approach.” In Man and Nature in the Altaic World, edited by Barbara Kellner-Heinkele, Elena V. Boykova, and Brigitte Heuer, 360–76. Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag. Tatarintsev, Boris I. 1998. Problems of Origin of Tuvan Throat-singing / Tuvinskoe gorlovoe penie. Problemy proiskhozhdeniya. Bilingual edition. Kyzyl, Tyva Republic: International Scientific Center “Khöömei.” Törbat, Tsagaan, Dunbüree Batsükh, Jan Bemmann, Thomas D. Höllmann, and Peter Zieme. 2009. “A Rock Tomb of the Ancient Turkic Period in the Zhargalant Khairkhan Mountains, Khovd Aimag, with the Oldest Preserved Horse-head Fiddle in Mongolia—A Preliminary Report.” Current Archaeological Research in Mongolia, 366–83. https://www .researchgate.net/publication/322420021. Turner, Victor W. 1969. The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. ———. 1974. Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors: Symbolic Action in Human Society. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. ———. 1982. From Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of Play, edited by Brooks McNamara and Richard Schechner. New York: PAJ Publications. ———. (1986) 1992. The Anthropology of Performance. New York: PAJ Publications. Tybykova, L. N. 2005. Altai Morphological Dictionary. Gorno-Altaisk, Altai Republic: Gorno-Altaisk Publishing House with Gorno-Altaisk State University (GASU). Tylor, Edward B. (1871) 2010. Primitive Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tyukhteneva, Svetlana P. 1999. “‘Neoshamanstvo’ na Altae v 1980–1990kh ss.: yasnovidenie i snovidenie v praktike shamanstvuyushchikh” [Neoshamanism in Altai 1980–1990: Clairvoyance and dreaming in the practice of shamanic performers]. In Materaly mezhdunarodnogo kongressa ‘Shamanizm i inye traditsionnye verovaniya i praktiki’ [Materials of international congress “Shamanism and Other Traditional Beliefs and Practices”], edited by Valentina I. Kharitonova and Dmitri A. Funk. Moscow: RAN Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, 92–98. Ukachina, K. E., E. E. Yamaeva, and M. A. Tolbina. 1993. Altai alkyshtar. Gorno-Altaisk, Altai Republic: Ak Chechek. Ulagashev, Nikolai U. 1941. Altai-Budai: Oirotskii narodnii epos [Altai-Budai: Oirot folk epic]. Edited by A. Koptelov. Novosibirsk: Ogiz. ———. 1985. Alyp-Manash: Altai kai chörchök [Alyp-Manash: Altaian heroic epic]. GornoAltaisk, Altai Republic: Altaidyng bichikter chygarar izd-vozynyng tuulu bolugi. Vainshtein, Sev’yan I. 1968. “The Tuvan (Soyot) Shaman’s Drum and the Ceremony of Its ‘Enlivening.’” In Popular Beliefs and Folklore Tradition in Siberia, edited by Vilmos Diószegi, 331–38. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó. ———. 1978. “The Eerens in Tuva Shamanism.” In Shamanism in Siberia, translated by S. Simon, edited by Vilmos Diószegi and Mihaly Hoppál, 457–67. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó. ———. 1979–80. “A Musical Phenomenon Born in the Steppes.” Soviet Anthropology and Archaeology 18 (3): 68–81. ———. 1990. “Ocherk Tuvinskogo shamanstva” [An essay on Tyvan shamanism]. In Traditsionnaia obriadnost’ i mirovozzrenie malikh narodov Severa [Traditional rituals and world-

315

References

view of small peoples of the north], edited by Il’ya Gurvich and Zoya P. Sokolova, 150–95. Moscow: Institut Etnografii. van Deusen, Kira. 2004. Singing Story, Healing Drum: Shamans and Storytellers of Turkic Siberia. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. van Gennep, Arnold. (1909) 1977. The Rites of Passage. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Vannini, Phillip, Dennis Waskul, and Simon Gottschalk. 2012. The Senses in Self, Society, and Culture. New York: Routledge. van Tongeren, Mark C. 2004. Overtone Singing: Physics and Metaphysics of Harmonics in East and West. Amsterdam: Fusica. Vasilev, D. 2005. “The Sayan-Altai Mountain Regions and South-Eastern Siberia.” In History of Civilizations of Central Asia, 6. From the Mid-nineteenth to the End of the Twentieth Century, edited by A. Tabyshalieva, 319–32. www.unesdoc.unesco.org. Verbitskii, Vasilii I. (1893) 1993. Altaiskie inorodtsy [Native Peoples of Altai]. Gorno-Altaisk, Altai Republic: Ak-Chechek. Vinogradov, Andrei. 2003. “Ak Jang in the Context of Altai Religious Tradition.” MA diss., University of Saskatchewan. Vitebsky, Piers. 1995. The Shaman: Voyages of the Soul. London: Duncan Baird Publishers. Viveiros de Castro, Eduardo. 1998. “Cosmological Deixis and Amerindian Perspectivism.” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 4 (3): 469–88. von Helmholtz, Hermann L. F., and Alexander J. Ellis. (1885) 1954. On the Sensations of Tone as a Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music. London: Longman’s Green. von Lankenau, H. 1872. “Die schamanen und das schamanenwesen” [Shamans and shamanism]. Globus 22, 278–83. Waddell, L. Austin. 1972. Tibetan Buddhism: With Its Mystic Cults, Symbolism and Mythology, and Its Relation to Indian Buddhism. New York: Dover Publications. Wagner, Roy. 1991. “The Fractal Person.” In Big Men Are Great Men: Personifications of Power in Melanesia, edited by Maurice Godelier and Marilyn Strathern, 159–73. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Yamaeva, Elizaveta E. 2002. Preface to Erokhonova, Agaru, Agaru, Agaru [Pure, pure, pure], 3–4. ———. 2010. “Kul’ty i iverovaniya burkhanizma v kontekste religioznogo naslediya uigurovmanikheev (po materialom sravnital’noi leksi drevnetyurkskogo slovarya)” [Cults and beliefs of Burkhanism in the context of the religious heritage of Uigur-Manichaeans (Using materials from the comparitive lexicon of Ancient Turkic Dictionary)]. Scientific Bulletin of Gorno-Altaisk State University 5:138–50; MS given to author, 1–10. ———. n.d. “The Tale ‘Kan-Altyn.’ Versions by T. A. Chachiyakov and A. G. Kalkin: Burkhanist and Shamanic Traditions.” MS given to author, 1–16. Yamaeva, E. E., C. Pegg, and U. Terkina. n.d. Katalog burkhanistskikh khramov (kure) v Gornom Altae [Catalog of Burkanist temples (küree) in mountain Altai]. MS. given to author. Yasser, J. 1926. “Musical Moments in the Shamanistic Rites of the Siberian Pagan Tribes.” Pro Musical Quarterly 4 (19): 4–15. Zhirmunsky, Viktor. 1967. “Epic of Alpamysh and the Return of Odysseus.” Proceedings of the British Academy 52:267–86.

316

References

Znamenski, Andrei. A. 1999. Shamanism and Christianity: Native Encounters with Russian Orthodox Missions in Siberia and Alaska, 1820–1917. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. ———. 2003. Shamanism in Siberia: Russian Records of Indigenous Spirituality. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. ———. ed. 2004. Shamanism: Critical Concepts in Sociology. Vol. 3. London: Routledge. Zorbas, Konstantinos. 2021. Shamanic Dialogues with the Invisible Dark in Tuva, Siberia: The Cursed Lives. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars. Zuckerkandl, Victor. 1956. Sound and Symbol: Music and the External World. Translated by W. R. Task. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Selected Discography [D]

Ai-Chürek. 2003. [No title]. Pure Nature Music PNM 005. CD. Ailanys. 2004. Through Ages’ Arrow. Independent release. CD. Alash. 2017. Achai [Father]. Smithsonian Folkways Recordings SFW 40578. CD. AltaiKAI. 2002. Where Altai Is in Rise: Musical Traditions of Altai People. AltaiKAI, Sanatorii Altai West, and I. Haitman. CD. ———. 2005a. XXI century. AltaiKAI. Remix 2006. CD. ———. 2005b. Khan Altai. AltaiKAI. CD. Bairyshev, Bolot. 2000. Kai of Altai/Alas. Seven Seas Music. CD. ———. 2005. Tengerining Sudazy (Axis of Heaven). Eki Attar Records EF11 102. CD. ———. 2012. “Pazyryk” (tale of Pazyryk kurgan). Track 13 on Alas. Bolot Bairyshev Music Ltd. CD. Bairyshev, Bolot, and Nogon Shumarov. 1996. Bolot & Nohon—Üch Sümer [Three peaks]: From the Golden Mountains of Altai. Face Music FM50018. CD. Bulgarian Voices “Angelite” with Huun-Huur-Tu, Sergey Starostin, and Mikhail Alperin. 1996. Fly, Fly My Sadness. JARO 4212–2. CD. Charkova, Yulia. 2011. My Seven-stringed Chadyghan [Chity khyllygh chadyghanym]: Songs from the Khakas North. PAN 2114. Liner notes by Liesbet Nyssen. CD. Chirgilchin. 1996. The Wolf and the Kid. Shanachie 64070. Huun-Huur-Tu. 1993. 60 Horses in My Herd: Old Songs and Tunes of Tuva. Shanachie 64050. Liner notes by Theodore Levin. CD. ———. 2010. Ancestors Call. World Village 468107. Transcription and translation by Radik Tülüsh, Paula Powers, and Geneviève Bégou. CD. Khyrkhaas. 2005. Songs of Our Elders: Music from the Mountain-Steppes of Khakassia. Seven Star Records SSCD 50. Recordings and booklet by Carole Pegg. CD. Modorova, Tandalai (Raisa). 2007. Tandalai—Erjine [Tandalai—the pearl]. Sketis Music SKMR-041. CD. New Asia (Novaya Aziya). 2006. Zov prepkov [Call of the ancestors]. Novaya Aziya. CD. Ondar, Kongar-ool. 1999. Back to the Future: The Adventure Continues. With Willie Nelson and Randy Scruggs. Warner Bros. Records 9 47131–2. CD. Ondar, Kongar-ool, and Paul “Earthquake” Pena. 1996. Genghis Blues: Music from the Motion Picture. Six Degrees Records. CD.

317

References

Pegg, Carole, and Radik Tülüsh. 2014. Goshawk. Recordings and booklet by Carole Pegg. 7-Star Records SSCD52. Carolepegg.bandcamp.com/album/goshawk. CD. Shumarov, Nohon (Nogon). 2000. Altai Maktal: From the Golden Mountains. Face Music FM 50020. CD. ———. 2003. To Future Generation. Ermatell Records EFM CD1003. CD. ———. 2004. Bööl-Bööl. Azia AZ-NO-CD-1268. CD. Shumarov, Nogon, with Rada i Ternovnik. 2013. Ükok. World Wildlife Fund Russia. CD. Terkishev, Emil. 2003. Attar [Horses]. AltaiKAI and AltaiWest. CD. TriO & Sainkho. 2005. Forgotten Streets of St. Petersburg. Leo Records CD LR 439. CD. Tülüsh [Tyulyush], Radik. 2007. Tyva: Spirits of My Land. Recordings and booklet by Carole Pegg. Seven-Star Records SSCD 51. CD. Tumat, Choduraa. 2007. Belek [The gift]. 2nd ed. Sketis Music SKMR-021. ———. 2021. Byzaanchy. PAN Records. 232. CD. Tuva Ensemble. Tuva: Echoes from the Spirit World. 1992. PAN Records. 2013CD. Liner notes by Bernard Kleikamp. CD. Tuva: Voices from the Center of Asia. 1990. Smithsonian Folkways SF 40017. Recordings and notes by Eduard Alekseev, Zoya Kyrgys, and Theodore Levin. CD. Tuva, among the Spirits: Sound, Music and Nature in Sakha and Tuva. 1991. Recordings by Joel Gordon and Ted Levin. Smithsonian Folkways Recordings SFW 40452. CD. Tyva Kyzy. 2005. Setkilimden sergek yr-dyr [A cheerful song from my soul]. www.tyvakyzy .com. CD. Ulugbashev, Evgenii. Belosnezhnye taskhyly. 2004. Abakan. CD. Ülger Ensemble. 2013. Traditional Songs of the Khakas People, 1–3. Face Music FM50049, FM50050, FM50061. Liner notes by Liesbet Nyssen. 3 CDs. ———. 2018. Traditional Songs of the Khakas People, 4–6. Face Music. Altyn kook FM5065, Köcheg FM50066, Alyptygh Nytagh [Heroic epic] FM50067. Liner notes by Liesbet Nyssen. 3 CDs. Urchimaev, Sarymai. 1999. Aiaiym [My Altay]. Pure Nature Music PNM CD 004. CD. ———. 2004. Altaian. AltaiKAI. Altapress. CD. Voices from the Land of Eagles. 1991. Soloists Kaigal-ool Khovalyg, Gennadi Tumat, and Kongar Ondar. PAN Records 2005. Liner notes by Bernard Kleikamp. CD. Yat-kha. 2000. Aldyn Dashka: Music and Throat Singing from the Altai-Sayani Mountains of Tuva. Produced by Lu Edmonds. Yat 001. Liner notes by Albert Kuvezin. CD. Yntaev, Urmat. 2008. Ulu Kaan [Ulagan]. Black Cat Sound Studio and AltaiKAI. CD. Zawinul, Joe. 1996. My People. ESC Records, ESC 03651–2. Germany. Other Sources (OS)

Huun Huur Tu. 2007. Been Away for a While: Huun-Huur-Tu in Tyva. GreenWave Music, Moscow. DVD. Khovalyg, Shoidak-ool. 1970. “Boktu Kirish: A Tuvan Epic.” Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages. www.endangeredlanguages.com/lang/7309/samples/3923.

318

References

Pegg, Carole. 2005. Khakas master craftsman and musician Sergei Charkov making the zither (chatkhan), fiddle (yykh), and end-blown flute (khobyrakh). Horniman Museum, London. Videos. ———. 2013. Altaian Heroic Epics: Ritual Practices and Beliefs. World Oral Literature Project, University of Cambridge. www.dspace.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/244521. Video of Lower Talda Ak Jang Ritual and epic performer Elbek Kalkin, audio recordings of jangar songs by Valentina Chechaeva and Elena Mandaeva, and photographs. Polos’mak, N. 1997–98. Interview. “Ice Mummies: Siberian Ice Maiden.” Nova. Documentary. BBC Horizon and NOVA/WGBH Boston co-production. Scrase, R., producer. 2009. Maadai-Kara. BBC Radio 4 documentary. With Benjamin Zephaniah and Carole Pegg. Süzükei, Valentina. 2021. Tuvan Music. Virtual Speaker Series. American Center for Mongolian Studies. http://mongoliacenter.org/vss-9.

319

Index

A letter following a page number denotes: f for figure, m for map, and t for table. For abbreviations, see page 267t3. Abaev, Nikolai: on energetical body nodes 51; on sacred mountains and fire, 119 Adygaev, Nikifor: on mountain people, kut soul, and song contests, 103–5 Ai Chürek, 19, 90, 222f; drone-overtone styles and spirit actors, 221; headband feathers for Upper World journeying, 233; jaw’s harp for soul-location, 230; kargyraa for hunters, 97; khöömei, in ritual events and places, 41, 114, 221; matrilineal shamanic descent, 217; neoshamanic influences on, 259; shamanic illness, as algysh and kargyraa sounds, 48, 221; Sky origin, 217; sygyt, kargyraa, and celestial phenomena; 221–22; at Üstüü Khüree Festival, 152 Ak Jang, clan rituals, 161–70; clan members 169–79; cosmic substances, deities, burkhans, 165–67; epic hero protectors, 159, 167–68; mountain temple as gatherings of knowledge and living architecture, 162–64 —Kulada: bowing, blessings, and place, 170–72, 171f; performing kaleidoscopic connections, 170–76; preparations and

purifications, 162; ritual and jangar songs, 172–76, 174f; ritual movements and energy circulation, 163–64; ritual participants, 162–70; ritual specialists, 168–69; Sary Bürler [Yellow Leaves], 69, 70 —Lower Talda, 161–70; improvising traditions, 176–88; bowing, blessing-fortune, and place, 181–82; epic motifs, throatsinging, topshuur lute, 183–87, 180f5.3D; multisensory and extrasensory experiences, 187–88; preparations, 176–77; postritual celebrations, 187; preparations, 176–77; ritual actions, 177–81, 178f, 179f, 180f5.3C; ritual figurines, 177, 178f; spirit-interceders, 182–83 Ak Jang [White Way], 3; Altaian suffering, 157–58; beginnings, re-creating, unsounding, 156–59; domestic rituals, 159–61; and flowers, 30; and Jungar Khanate, 155, 158; ontology, 156, 165, 166, 167; ritual whip, 192; and shamanic Ülgen, 166; Sky domains, 165, 182; sound avoidance, 46, 157, 159; and spirit-owners, 28; as spiritual complex, 9 Aksenov, Alexsei N., 39 Alekseev, Nikolai A., 33, 224, 233 Altai Bilik [wisdom, knowledge], 119; and Ak Jang, 155, 163; in epics, 213; and Golden Stake, 237. See Shodoev, Nikolai

Index

Altai Eezi [Spirit-owner of Altai]: Ak Byrkan, 97, 166; in Alt. clan rituals, 157, 162, 165, 175, 183; and Buddhist music, 114; epic prelude invocation, 207; jokes for, 187; and kinship with humans, 209; and Moon-father, 172; as nature’s spirit owners, 172; in rituals, pre-festival, 84, 85; Üch Kurbustan, emanation of, 172 Altai Jang [AltaianWay]: ritual kai, 41, 283n16 AltaiKai Ensemble, 86, 118, 126; topshuur lute song, 255–56 Altai Kizhi (Alt. Indigenous group), 13, 84, 278n11; and Ak Jang, 157; drum’s ancestor figure, 289n6; epics, epic performers, 85, 192, 212; Oirot connections, 207; shamanic headband, 233 Altai Mountains, 3, 4, 5, 10, 12, 14; Ch., Mo., and Ru., 5, 16, 278n4; and Greater Altai, 4–6, 18, 277nn3–4; as kin and “with spirit,” 12; as range, 12; as umbilical, 181 Altai Republic (Mountain Altai, Gorny Altai), 8, 11, 12–14, 278n9; as body, living, 52; epic performers, 190–93; fieldwork sites, 13m; landscape, gendered, 46; Pazyryk heroes, harp, and drums, 124–32; spiritowner of, 121; spiritual specialists, 20. See UNESCO Altai-Sayan: Indigeneity, heritage and history, 54; Indigenous peoples, ontological musicality and sonicality, 22–24; Inner Asian and Siberian influences, 9; lateral and vertical place, 122; mountain-steppes, 4, 5, 5m1, 9, 18, 277n3; soundscape, 6 Altyn-Arygh, Kh. epic, 193, 194, 201, 203 Altyn Tan Tayas (Ru. Anya Burnakova), 83; spirit-human animal protection, 99 ancestor(s): archaeological removal of, 47; Black Hand, 130–31; as Byrkan, 160, 165; as energy, circulating, 164; hearing and seeing, 103–4; Khoorai-Khan, mythical, 58; land of, 286n17; musicking past kin, 71–75; pure (Alt. aru tös), 162, 166; and senses of place, 149; as shamanic spirit actors, 145–46, 233; social presence in landscape, 53; spirit as drum handle, 228; spirit-roads of, 106; and traditions, 78–79. See HuunHuur-Tu animal-style art, 136, 139, 140, 284n17; in Arzhan burial complex, 150; emergence of, 285n25

animism: definitions of, 7, 92; living rocks and stones, 53; shamanic-animist universe, 6–7; and spirit-owners, 7; as spiritual complex, 9 Anokhin, Andrei V., 30, 279nn4–5; Alt. kai, 38; Alt. shamanic alkysh, 33; costume attachments for Ülgen rituals, 233; horse consecration; 162; protection, 233; shamanic journeying and obstacles, 224; shamanic melodies, 224; on Tele. souls, 279n5; “throat-song,” 280n9; vocal interjections, 224 Anzhiganova, Larissa: on “mountain people,” 103 archaeological eras, 283nn3–4, 284n13, 284n17, 284n21 Askanakov, Aleksandr: Ak Jang and Altai Jang, 155, 283n16; Ak Jang mountain temple dispute, 157; Ak Jang participatory acts, 95; Alt. spirit-owners, kai and musical sounds, 99; Jeti Kan, mountains, and rainbows, 120–21; mürgüül kai, 41 Austin, John L., 38, 58 Bairyshev, Bolot, 281n12; Alt. heroes in performance and song, 127–28; Maadai Kara, 191; Ochy-Bala and Ukok songs, 130 Bairysheva, Müngülchi, 64; Byrkan Jang song, 174; jangar songs, 160–61 Balzer, Marjorie: Alt. alkysh, 34; on Indigenous groups, 290n1; on Russification, 278n15; on Tyv. language affiliation, 16 Basilov, Vladimir, N., 8 Baskakov, Nikolai A., 121, 285n1 Beahrs, Robert: kinship with land, 122; on nomadic sensibility, 278n16; shamanic sickness and sygyt cure, 48; on Tyv. ancient statue, 150 Blacking, John: music, body, and self, 27, 247 bodies, performative, 25–54, 249; ancestral, archaeological, 53; gendered, 45–46; Indigenous, 54; instrumental, 38–45; and khai eezi, 213; landscaped, 50–54; of living rocks and stones, 53; multisensory, extrasensory, 29–34; multisouled, 34–37, 41; as musical ensemble/ multiphonic instrument, 38; of musical instruments, living, 42–45; patrilineal “bone,” matrilineal blood, 65; and place, senses of, 21; respectful, 46–47; of shamanic staff, 50; shamanic supra-body,

322

Index

25, 37, 48–50, 223; social, 26–29; of spirit, place of spirit, 145–46; with-spirit, 48–50; and tattoos for transition, 124; traditional, 45–47; tuning, 38–41, 40t; as vitalities, 54 body-music: and false vocal cords, 39; timbral, 19, 21, 23, 38, 39, 41. See drone-partials: as body-music Boktug-Kirish, Bora-Sheelei, Tyv. epic, 196, 198, 213 borbangnadyr (Tyv.), borbong (Alt.). See drone-partials: vocal styles Borboshev, Kumdus, 67; Ak Byrkan, 168; Ak Jang beginnings, clan rituals, and temple, 158, 163–64, 170; alkysh as song, “words,” and blessing-fortune request, 68, 70, 170; alkyshchy, with-spirit, 169; mürgüül demonstration, 170, 171ff Borgoyakov, Mikhail: takhpakh with chatkhan, 82 Borgoyakov, Pavel: Chinggis Khan resistance takhpakh, with kai and chatkhan, 60; on “mountain people,” 103–105; Sag. takhpakh, local and social place in, 81; on spirit-owners, 95–98 boundaries, borders: between worlds, 136; and clan ritual transitions, 161; emplacement and movement, 115–22; epic performer and hero, crossing, 198; otherworld, 117–21; pathways, sonic dimensional, 7; porous, 198; presence and permeability, 121–22; ritual performances for safe movement, 115–16; sexual, bodily, 190, 198; territorial, 115–17; topographical, 117; bow-harp (Tyv.), 41–42 Broz, Ludek: Ak Jang ritual discord, 157; Alt. religious conversion, 278n7; Chaga Bairam, 85; spirit-owner’s “domesticated” animals, 96, 204 Buddhism, 6, 9, 18; accommodations and contestations, 111–15; Alt. Ak Byrkan organization and temple ritual 70, 112–13; dance-drama, 100, 285n26; Green Tara, White Tara, 113; and Indigeneity, 261–62; karma, 95; menge, 113, 279n1; musical instruments, 112, 143, 144, 152, 295, 296; rituals, music, spirit-protectors, and land, 111–14; stupas, 113–14, 151; Tib. monks in Tyva, 111; traditions of, 283n14; Tyv. temple ritual, case study of, 111–12

burkhan(s): in Ak Jang clan rituals, 166; Byrkan Jang ritual song, 174; and Sky domains, 165, 182; White Burkhan, 70, 156, 163, 172, 175 Burkhanism. See Ak Jang [White Way] Burnakova, Tadi, 106–10. See Mountain Shamaness Butanaev, Viktor, 14, 281n23, 293; clan boundary, 116; Kh. double-sighted and clairvoyant people, 30; Khoorai-Khan, 58; Kyrgyz topographical names, 58–59; takhpakh performers, 80; “soul devourer” shaman, and shamanic types, 282nn6–7 Butler, Judith P., 45 Casey, Edward: performances as fulcrum, 250; phenomenological account of place, 148 celestial phenomena: Golden Stake, 165, 211; Great Bear, 121; Pleiades and epic performance, 197; rainbow, 120–21, 239; Three Cosmic Deer, 211; thunder as ritual event initiator, 162. See Jeti-Khan Chaa Tas, War Stones, 15m3, 284n16; of Uibat steppe, 134–36 Chachiyakov, Tabar: epic performance mode, 212; lineage, epics, accoutrements, 192 Chachiyakova, Jyrgal, 280nn3–4; Altai’s ear, 162; kai and shamanic rituals at Ak Jang temple, 168–69; Shunu Baatar tale, 62–64, 286n14 chakras, 279n2; and living souls, 36 Chalkan (Alt. Indigenous group), 11, 193; Abasheva shamaness, 33; characteristics of, 12, 14; drum handle ancestor figure, 289n6; drum spirit animal, 226; illness by üzüt spirit actor, 37; kai performance taboo, 45; lament, 83 Chambal, Dugul-ool: hunting rituals, 96–97; kargyraa drone partials vocals, pre-hunting, 205; Khertek clan and Chinggis Khan, 62 Charkov, Sergei: and bull totem, 138; drumhead design, 137, 138f; fiddle neck, monolith design, 137; Kadyshev’s Shira melody and takhpakh, 194; as Khaas, southern,75; khai and chatkhan zither for posthumous soul, 205; as Khyrkhaas, 67; Sunduki rituals, 133; Uibat Steppe and Epic Performers, 135; UK performance rituals, 90; at the War Stones of Uibat Steppe, 134–36

323

Index

Charkova, Yulia, 281n22; and khai dronepartials gender challenge, 45, 255; khai for epic extracts, 55; as Khyrkhaas, 67; lament as song, 83; Okunev bull totem on chatkhan zither, 138, 139f; Song for Our Elders, 46, 135; UK performance rituals, 90; at the War Stones of Uibat Steppe, 134–36 chatkhan. See zither Chebochakov, Valerii: body-soul threads, 31, 32; multiples of self, 279n3; spirit-owners, duetting with, 102 Chebodav, Oleg: Khanza Pig as takhpakh poet, 82 Chechaeva, Valentina, 52, 64; Ak Jang clan ritual food taboos, 162; Altai’s six corners, 164, Our Burkhan Creator, 174 Chinggis (Genghis) Khan: and Bashadar burial site, 204n13; and clan flight, 62; and Mo. Empire, 59–62; and takhpakh, 60–62; Tumat poetic resistance to, 59–60 Christianity, 6, 279–80n6; Ru. Orthodox, 14, 278nn6–7; and shamanic ritual, 107, 108, 109; soul beliefs, 129 Churopov, Aidar: Mt. Üch Sumer as bearded actor, 53. See also Shunu clan(s): Alt., 281n9; Alt. ülgen spirits, 162; belonging, senses of, 57; boundaries, territorial, 115; epic performance tradition, 80; healing spring ritual performances, 68–70; Kh. shamanic, Tagh Khargha, 107, 282n5, 282n9, 282n11, 282n12; of Küchen, 136; and lineage as circulating energy, 164; of Oirot alliance, 158; ovaa rituals, Tyv. 115–16; Pazyryk nomadic, 124; revival of, 12, 256, 281n6; ritual ancestral hero of, 236–37; Ru. Empire restructuring of, 64; Ru. protection, 84, 158; seal, 117; and shamanic initiation, 220; and shamanic clients, 238; shamanic spiritprotector, 66f2.1B, 67; spirits, ancestral road, shamanic initiation, 218–21; spirits, pure ancestors, and horse consecration, 162; stone as pilgrimage site, 65; and territorial markers, 115–16. See Ak Jang clan rituals; Kulada; Lower Talda codes of conduct: bailu; at portals, 118, 281n14, 290n14; mountain as bailu place, 118–19 color: of Ak Jang ribbons, 159; of shamanic costume and universe, 146–47; sound

and body, 29. See menge astrological system communities, human: the festive nation, 83–89; Indigenous and global, 89–90; lineages, kinship, land, 64–80; local and social, 80–83; musicking past kin, 71–75; nomadic khanates and empires, 58–64; pilgrimage, to ancestral place of, 75–77; praise-songs and blessings in the singing forest, 67–71 consciousness, altered state of (ASC), 260, 279n19, 290n12; and ancestor spirit-helper, 228; of audience members, 199; in epic performance, 190–97; of khai person, 197; percussive sounds, as enablers of, 48, 229, 232; of shamans, 8, 20, 48, 220; by vibrations and spinning, 243 Csordas, Thomas J., 91 Curtet, Johanni: state ownership of “throatsinging,” 18 Czaplicka, Marie A., 10 Damyran, Ailangmaa, 41–42 Danilin, Andrei: Ak Jang rituals, 160; Ak Jang triple hero motif, 167; Burkhanism and White Burkhan, 155, 156; jarlyk ritual leader and “white shaman,” 172; Üch Kurbustan, 162, 166 Daukeyeva, Saida, 5 Diószegi, Vilmos, 16; Alt. tyn soul, 35; ancestral clan road, 219; Sag. shamanic gift and spirit inheritance, 217; on shamanic Tagh Khargha clan, 282n5; shamanic vocal dexterity, 223; song-chant motifs, 223; soul release from drum, 227; staff, healing “on foot,” 230 divination: Tyv. 41 stones, sheep’s shoulder blade, 97 Dopchun-ool, Kara-ool: and bioenergetical theories, 259–60; shamanic inheritance, origin tensions, and traditions, 217, 218 dreams, 31–32; as consciousness-soul, 35; epic initiation in, 199–100; gifting in, 34, 201, 208; and “mountain people,” 104, 105–6; and punishment, 203 drone-partials (drone-overtone): as body music, 25, 53; as book’s theoretical structure, 22, 38; communist suppression of, 10; horizontality and verticality, 6, 23; as music and model, 7, 8, 9, 34, 38; national

324

Index

variants, 84; as ontological musicality and sonicality, 22–23; as “overtone-singing,” 38, 280n8; and personhood, 38; and senses of self, 27, 38; and shamanic spirit actor invocations, 252; shamanic styles, 221; and spirit-owner’s body-place, 100; terminology, problems of, 38, 280n10; as timbral body music, 280n9; in Tyv. shamanic ritual, 79; vocal music, 6, 8, 33, 38–41; vocal styles, 39–41, 40t, 150, 280n10; vocal technique, 41; as world music, 254. See also Alt., kai; Kh. khai; Tyv. khoomei; throatsinging drum, shamanic, 6, 8, 10, 74; choice of, 31, 219; as clan seal, 76; construction, ornamentation, 226–27; in core shamanism, 19; drumskin animal spirits, divisions, images, 145, 219, 226–27, 289n9; handles, 145, 226, 289n6; in Pazyryk kurgan, 126, 127f; ritual performance, 79; ritual sounds, origin and purpose of, 228; Salbyk shamanic ritual, 141, 142f4.4B, 143, 144; Siberian types of, 298n7; spirit-helpers, percussive sounds of, 226–29; sound-producers on, 146, 219, 228; spirit-owner of, 145, 146–47, 226; and Tib. Bönpo, 289n3; virtual, 106, 109 drumstick, beater: Alt. first shamanic requisite, 289n6; as ancestral spirit-helper and body purifier, 282n8; ancient, 219; ATC and percussive attachments, 229; body balancing, 145, 147; and drum’s animal spirit-owner, 146, 229; with kargyraa and khöömei to lull spirit-owners of land, 100; metamorphosis, healing, 229; for ritual divination, 261 Durkheim, Émil: emotional effervescence, 148, 250; rituals as performances, 250–51 D’yakanova, Vera P: bear body parts for healing, 281n24; shamanic staff and fan, 231 Edgerton, Michael: throat-singing body techniques, 39 Eliade, Mercia: on energy, circulation of, 164; Tyv. shamanic costume, ornithophily of, 232; shamanic universe, 8 Empson, Rebecca: aesthetics of propriety, 93 epic performers and performance: apprenticeship, 202; and kai-khai, 8, 39–41, 190; delivery modes, 212; epic collectors, 287n1, 288n8; skillful, 212–15; sounds, ethnopoet-

ics, paralinguistics, 34, 212–13; and steedinstrument, 207–8; timbral vocal sounds, 34, 22 —Alt.: balance, relations, and place, 209; as boundary transition, 210–11; characters and sounds, 215; event framing, 206; and festival disputes, 85; and healing, 211; and improvisations, 212, 213; kai chörchök, 63; lineages, 190–93; mode, 63, 184; musical epic hero and epic world, 214–15; as national icon, 84; and punishment, 203; spirit-owner judges of, 202–3; as spiritual complex, 190; as tongue-twisters, 212; traditional-global encounter, 205–10; universe domains, 8 —Kh.: and disguise for safe passage, 124; escorting a soul, 41, 204, 205; “on foot,” 194; as heritage, 135; and hunting, 197, 204–5; initiation of, 199–200; khai styles as cues, 212–13; lineages, 193–96; in Naa Aal, 76; “on horseback,” 86, 193; and protection, 211; and punishment, 203; as ritual activity and rock art, 133–34, 134f ; spirit-owner judges, 202– 3; spirit-owners, 28–29; “with war,” 193 —Tyv.: balance, relations, place, 209; clans, schools, 196–97; and hunting, 197, 204; khoomei styles, 196; and recitative or melodic narrative poetry, 196 Erokhonova, Ol’ga: Ak Jang clan rituals, 169, 188; kai and Ak Jang, 184; word power and sound avoidance, 157, 159 ethnicity: epics, tales, poetry, oral histories, 58–64 Evans-Pritchard, Edward, 258 extrasensory: blessing-fortune energy, 188; body, 188; epic hero, 198; epic performer, 191, 212; invisible forces and personhood, 148; moon ear, 32–33; moon eye, “seeing,” third eye, 30–31, 279n2; in shamanic healing, 260; sounding and sensing spirits, 29–34 ezengileer. See drone-partials: vocal styles Feld, Steven, 29, 252 festivals: Alt. 84–86, 285n8; and boundary transitions, 210; and dramas, 84–85, 86; Kh. 58; 85, 86–88, 114; Indigenous group and nation, 85; and Mo. Three Manly Sports, 89; and place, 57; Tyv. 88–89, 90, 115, 134. See also Üstüü-Khüree

325

Index

fiddle, 6, 32f, 87; Kh, horn-shaped, 31f; Khyz. kyish egel, 75; monolith neck carving on, 137; Tyv. igil and spirit-owner of wind, 101; as Tyv. national icon, 88; at War Stones of Uibat Steppe, 135 fire: and Ak Jang, 120, 160–61, 170, 180, 185; at epic performer initiation place, 102; feeding, 120, 143; as festival ritual, 84, 85, 87; for food and communitas, 147; Mother, 73, 97, 120, 161, 176; and posthumous soul, 37, 50; and prohibitions, 47, 160; ritual, Ak Jang domestic, 160; in ritual, pre-hunting, 97; in shamanic ritual, 79–80, 120, 243; smoke as pathway, 120, 140, 148; as spirit actor portal, 148 flute, end-blown, 32, 41, 42, 87, 280n11; duet with spirit-owner, 101; in epics, 192, 203, 209, 214–15; Indigenous terms, 213; Khyz., 75; Soviet suppression of, 42; techniques, 69; in transborder soundscape, 6; and vocal partials, 42 Foley, John Miles, 247, 287n1 Forsyth, James, 10 Funk, Dmitri: Siberian cosmologies and Tele. posthumous essence, 279n5; Sh. epic accompaniment, 288n12; Sh. soul theft, 36 Gell, Alfred, 26, gender: in Ak Jang rituals, 115–16, 176, 177, 179; in epics, 198; kai-khai performance taboos, 194, 288n7; and respectful behavior, 97–98; of ritual bodies, instruments, and vocal styles, 45; and shamanic ritual place, 147; of shamanic trees, 218; of spirit-owners, 102, 177 Genghis Khan. See Chinggis Khan Goffman, Erving, 25; presentation of self, 26, 247, 249 Golden Stake (Pole Star): as epic character, 211; as hero-protector, 181; in shamanic ritual, 237; as tethering post of universe, 181 Goody, Jack, 29, 249 Halemba, Agnieska, 14, 19, 278n7, 278n11; Alt. ecological animists, 114; on festival Buddhist controversy, 114; on personhood, 28, 280n7; on shamanic fan, 231, 290n14; on sound avoidance, 47; on Tel. souls, 30, 36, 37, 169, 280n7 Haraway, Donna J., 27 Harner, Michael: core shamanism, shamanic state of consciousness (SSC), and Foun-

dation for Shamanic Studies (FSS), 18–19, 279n19 harp, Alt. Mountain: Bashadar, fragment of, 131; innovations, 126; Mo. Alt. cave burial and classifications, 125–26, 283n5; Pazyryk, 123, 124–25, 125f; in shamanic and epic performance, 126; and topshuur lute, 126 Harvilahti, Lauri: Altai Eezi as epic transmitter and protector, 207; on A. G. Kalkin, epic inheritance and tuning the body for khai, 202; on G. I. Kalkin, 191 Hastrup, Kirsten: theaters of self, 26 heritage, intangible, cultural: and Indigeneity, 11, 38; of the Ice Maiden, 129–30; ownership debate, 262–63; protection of, 259; as socio-cultural development, 87; Ukok Plateau as, 128 Herodotus, 189 Hirsch, Eric: on mutual implications, 93 hitching post: Alt. domestic, 116–17; as axis mundi, 163, 181; as border marker, 65, 116; and Maadai Kara epic, 117; Pole Star as, 181; vertical and horizontal place, 117 Hodgkinson, Tim, 30 Holbraad, Martin, 24 holism: Altai-Sayan cosmos and anthropolgical theories of, 258–59 Hoppál, Mihály: sygyt, weather, and war, 222 horizontality: of Alt. Pazyryk harp, 126; of shamanic animist universe, 6; of soundscape and topographies, 6 Howard, Keith, 252 Howes, David: sensory experiences, 249 Humphrey, Caroline: chiefly and shamanic nomadic landscapes, 122; mapping domestic place onto space, 149; “otherworld,” 21; propitiatory exchange 93; shamanic costume, independence of, 49, 232; shamanic mirror, 290n12, shamanic “signature tunes,” 224 hunting: and epic performance, 197; 205; horn, 42, 86, 97, 98f; Mo. Alt. harp, scenes on, 126; and a mountain girl’s advances, 105; rituals and drone-partials offerings for, 97, 205; and song-chant entreaties, 96–97 Hutton, Ronald: shamanism and Western imagination, 279n17 Huun-Huur-Tu, 90; Ancestors Call, and Ancestors, 150; Been Away for a While, 151; at Üstüü Khüree Festival, 152

326

Index

Hymes, Dell, 63, 213; breakthrough into performance, 249 Ice Maiden, Princess Ukok, 47, 53, 128–30; as ancestor, 53; burial site, 283n6; as cultural heritage, 130; as epic heroine Ochy Bala, 84, 128, 130; as epic performer or shaman, 130; excavation controversy, 129; as festival drama, 84; and Indigenous rights, 128; and personhood, 128; and songs, 130; soul of, 129; spirit protector, epic heroine, musical icon, 128–30; “tree of life” headdress, 129, 150; violations of, 47, 129 Indigeneity: definition, 253; in epics, tales, poetry, oral histories, 58–64; and land rights, 253–54; and Okunev culture, 136–39; and ontology, 156; performance of, 54, 253 Indigenous groups, peoples, 11–12, 277n1; alterity of, 18; and ancestors, 53 —Alt., 12–14; clans, tribes, 64, 281n6; northern, southern, 12–13; oral traditions and spiritual complexes of, 13; steppe and mountain, 14. See also Altai Kizhi; Chalkan; Telengit; Teleut; Todosh, Töölös (Teles); Tuba —Kh.: and languages, 76; performance and identities, 12; Russification policies, 12; and traditions, 87; 18. See also Khaas; Khoibal; Khyrgyz; Khyzyl; Piltïr; Saghai; Shor —Tyv., 16. See also Kyrgys, Mongush, Tozhu, Tülüsh, Tumat Inner Asia, 4, 5, 9, 113, 121, 277n3 ISPNSFE (Indigenous Small-numbered Peoples of the North, Siberia, and the Far East), 14, 278n13 Jacobson-Tepfer, Esther, 147, 278n8, 283n1, 283n4, 284n13; archaeological eras, dating of, 284n21; Arzhan, coiled feline, 150; female proto-shaman or bird-woman image, 284n10; Ice Maiden, 129; Kh. petroglyph and monolith, 137; Uibat burial mound, 284n18 Jacquemoud, Clémont: jarlyk costume and “white shaman,” 172 jangar (Ak Jang ritual songs): and heroes, 160–61; in historical clan rituals, 169; as Indigenous resistance, 161; Kulada, performances, 172–76, 174f; as meditation, 188;

motifs, 175–76; performance mode, senses of place, 173; in postritual celebrations, 187, and shatra figurines, 175; and singers, 163, 175; styles, 173–74, 175 Jangar, epic: Alt. version, 168, 286n18; performance times, 210 jaw’s harp, 6, 8, 10, 41–42; and Bashadar, 132; bone, 150; duet with crickets, 101; in Kh. dream, 32; and Lower World, 230; shamanic, 229–30; Tozh., wooden, 16, 229–30 Jeti-Khan, constellation, 44, 121; in Ak Jang clan rituals and songs, 173, 286n27; in Alt. shamanic rituals, 234; as epic heroes and characters, 211 journeying: in Altai-Sayan shamanism, 260; in Harner’s core shamanism, 19; in horizontal Middle Worlds, 7–8; in vertical landscapes, 8–9 Jungar Khanate, 62–64; fall of, 12, 157–58; as festival drama, 84–85; Oirot heritage, 62; of White Way origin, 155 Kadyshev, Sömön, 40, 87, 193–94; khai, ASC, and audience experiences, 199; khai performance prohibition, 202; space-time, beginning of, 210 kai (Alt.), khai (Kh.), 6; in epic performance, 8, 197; sound culture centrality, 189 —Alt.: in Ak Jang epic performance and doctrine, 181, 184; in blessing-fortune appeal, 184–85; in Buddhist ritual, l13; at healing spring, 68–70; kai-time, epic space-time, 210; and Lower Worlds, 192; as national identity icon, 84; in shamanic rituals, 207, 238, 239, 240 —Kh.: gender performance rule, 288n7; and “mountain people,” 104; as national identity icon, 86; performance taboos, 202; as rock art, 137; spirit-owner of, 199–201; as spiritual gift and reincarnation, 199; styles, as epic scene cues, 212; in takhpakh, 80–81 kai-khai person, with-spirit, 197–204; apprenticeship, 202; chosen by spirits, visionary dreams, 199–201; extending sensibilities, crossing boundaries, 197–99; initiation, performative gifts, codes of performance practice, 199–204; respect, accuracy, punishment, 202–3; revitalization, enlivenment, word-power, 201–2 327

Index

kai styles —Alt., 39, 99, 212, 288n; karkyra, 39, 127, 132, 237, 242; kög kögüs (chest), 69; könö (or sybysky), for epic performance, 39, 212; köömoi, 39; mürgüül, 41, 99; substyles, 39, 242; sygyt, 237, 242 —Kh., 39–40, 212, 213; for heroic epics, 121, 212; kharghyra, kharygha (ulugh chon khai, “of the respected elders”), 40, 40t, 288n16; küülip or küveler (“buzzing,” “humming”), 39, 135, 193; in shamanic rituals, 221, 241; for song, 46; substyles, 39; syrghyrtyp, 212 Kalkin, Elbek, 206f; and Altai Eezi, 206, 207; on Alt.K. and Tel., 207; festival epic-ethnicity debate, 85; festival judge, 86; lineage, 190–91; Maadai Kara, 206; Oirot Khan song, 157; performance arena, 205–7; spirit-owners of kai-khai, epic tale, and words, punishment by, 48, 202; steed instrument, 207–9; traditional-global encounter, 205–10 Karakol, 12, 13m2; Nature Park (Üch Engmek), 130, 283n15; and pilgrimage, 132; Valley, 118–19, 126 Katanov, Nikolai, 10, 288n8 Kenel’, Aleksandr, 193, 194, 288n6 Kenin-Lopsan, Mongush, B., 9; and Buddhism, 114; communist restrictions, 232; and Harner’s core shamanism, 259; jaw’s harp, 230; and Lappalainan controversy, 114; as Living Treasure of Shamanism, 19; research guidance, 100; shamanic headbands, face decoration on, 233; shamanic mirror, celestial connections of, 231; shamanic power, sources of Tyv. 217, 289n1; shamanic spirit drumming, 106; shamans, training of, 224; sound avoidance, 47; spirit-helper, choice, and ritual purpose, 225; supra-body’s sound producers and synesthesia, 33; sygyt, weather, and war, 222; Tyv. shamanic drum sounds, 228; on Tyv. souls, 35, 36, 37 Khaas (Kh. Indigenous group), 14; ancestry, 138; epics, 58; Mo. invasion, resistance to, 61; northern and southern, 75, 133; shamanic drum construction, 227; shamanic drumskin decorations, 199, 289n6; Shaman Mountain, 7 Khaiyrakan Mountain: as Bear Mountain, 151; neoshamanic ritual controversy at,

114–15; as Tyv. shamanic and Buddhist ritual site, 77, 151 Khakassia, republic of, 14–16, 132–49; epic performers, 193–96; fieldwork, 14, 15m3; spiritual specialists in, 20; and UNESCO, 18 Khangza Pig: as character, epic hero, historical, legendary, 281n23; Mountain, history, songs, 76; as poet, 82 Kharitonova, Valentina: on Alt. aina spirit of illness, 111; on mountain shamaness, and virtual drum, 107, 109 Kherlii, Boris, 3, 8, 36, 151 Khoibal (Kh. Indigenous group), 14; singing, flute, language, 75 khöömei (Tyv.): breathing techniques, 39; in clan rituals, 221; festival of, 88; as generic term, 280n10; and hunting, 97, 205; as icon, 88; Lower World and transitional connections, 23; myth of origin, 208; styles, 39, 40, 40t, 115, 221, 222; substyles, 93 Khovalyg, Shoidak-ool, 196–97 Khyrkhaas, 45, 46, 80, 83, 135, 194 Khyzyl (Indigenous group), 14; epic performers, 193–95, 212; language and instruments, 75–76 kinship: connections, 65; lineages, and land, 64–80; musicking, 71–75 Kishteev, Viktor, 142f4.5C; ancestors, as ritual spirit-helpers, 217; bearskin drum, 145; bells and drum rhythms for flying, 228; cliff “door,” as portal, 118; colors and dimensions, 29; drum and beater, energizing, 141; drum and beater skin, 227; fire, feeding the, 120; helmet-mask, 143, 233; initiation, 219; opening the way, 252; portals, as lakes, rivers, streams, 120; reincorporation, 145–47; shamanic powers, rejecting, 220; shamanic illness as snake vision, 221; spirit invocations, with dronepartials, 252; spirit-owners, nomadizing, 116; third eye, 147 Kokov, Nikolai (Georgii): ee as epic performer’s double, 199; Khyz. language, 75; Kurbizhekov, memories of, 198, 212; takhpakhs, 80–81 Kokova, Galina: blessing request to Ülgen, 224; bodily threads, 31; and chakras, 260; drum, percussive attachments to, 228;

328

Index

drum handle, 226; drum resonators as ancestral spirits, 227; eeren protectors, 228 Kotozhekov, Aleksandr: frog image on Kh. drumskin, 289n9; on initiation, 220; khomys lute origin, 208; Kh. whisperers, 20; lyrics by, 284n19; moon ear, 33; “mountain people,” 103; rock art and sound, 137, 138– 39; as shamanic ritual assistant, 139–49, 142f4.5; spirit-owned animals, 96; third eye, 139, 285n23 Közörökov, Arzhan, 11, 20, 235f, 261; ancestor spirit actors, 217; ASC in clan ritual, 188; bodily threads, 30, 226; drone-partials spirit invocations, 252; epic formulae in Ak Jang ritual song, 185; as epic performer, with-spirit, 191–92; epics for healing, 211; epics for hunting, 96, 204; epics, kai and topshuur as Alt. icons, 85; feeding the fire, 120; jaw’s harp and Lower World, 230, 239; kai and birthplace, 93, 221; kai and cosmic levels, 225; kai in ritual space-time, 41; kai and topshuur lute in clan ritual, 183, 184; kopchi spirits, 34, 225; poetry, 187; ritual kai, karkyra and sygyt, 221, 225, 237, 241, 242; as ritual leader and song-chant specialist, 176, 180f5.3D; shamanic inheritance, 217; shamanic instruments, communist destruction of, 231; shamanic power, sources of, 217; on shamanic staff, 50, 231; song chants, whispered, 182, 223, 248; spirit actor embodiment, 241; spirit actors and portals, 117; tradition and improvisation, 185–87; universe, connecting to, 51; vibrations, 226; whistling for ASC, 226. See also Ak Jang clan rituals: Lower Talda Küchen, Ai Charykh Saiyan (Ru. Vyacheslav Kuchenov): clan boundary ritual, 116; epic as daytime gift, 201; epic initiation dreams, 102, 200, 288n10; epic performance, “on horseback,” 86; epics and khai as protection, 211; fiddle pegbox, Okunev design, 138; instrument designs, dream inspired, 31–32, 31f, 32f, 209, 256; Kurbizhekov’s takhpakh, 194; ladder, symbol of seven souls, 139; on “mountain people” and spirit-roads, 103, 104, 106; posthumous senses, 82; posthumous soul accompaniment, 205; punishment by spirit-owners, 48, 200–2001, 2003; Sag. melodies, 82; and silence, 102, 136, 248; “with spirit,” 195–96

Kulada (village), 13m; performing kaleidoscopic connections, 170–76 Kumandins, Kumandu, (Kh. Indigenous people); characteristics of, 12, 14, 193; drum handle figure, 289m6 Kungaa, Tash-ool Buu oglu, 89; yellow shamans, 100; shamanic jaw’s harp, 230 Kurbizhekov, Aleksandr: epic performer’s initiation, 200; epic reception in dreams, 2001; ethnicity, Indigeneity and chatkhan construction, 87, 88; on “mountain people,” 103, 104; parents and heritage, 194, 198; soul accompaniment, 41; spirit-owner of the word, 201 Kurbizhekov, Pödör, 104; ASC in epic performance, 198; epic reception in dreams, 201; fatality for spirit-owner disrespect, 203; lineage, repertoire, influence, 193, 194; skills of, 212; 288n12; and spirit-owners, 198; takhpakh emplacement, 80; with-spirit, 76 Kurbizhekova, Anna: background, repertoire, 193, 194–95; and gender performance taboo, 202; syyt lament and song, 83 Kyrgys, Zoya, 4; drone-overtone references in Tyv. epics, 254; drone-overtone vocal substyles, 93; entreaty for river passage, with küüler drone partials, 120; entreaty, for hunting, 96; kai, historical, 38; kargyraa, 23, 115; khöömei, breathing techniques, 39; khorekteer, 280n9; ovaa clan rituals, 115–16, 122; on sygyt, 296; whistling and melodies, shamanic, 225 Kyrgyz: oral history of, 59; war stones, 134– 36; Yenesei (Turkic) Khanate, 58–59 laments (Kh. syyt), 82–83 land: kinship, lineages and, 64–80 landscape: as actor, 149; ancestral, tuning in to, 140–43; in horizontal Middle Worlds, 7–8; and melodic tempos, 88; nomadic “shamanic” and “chiefly,” 122; as performative bodies, 26, 50–53; and personhood, 149; powerful places, boundaries, verticality, and laterality, 121–22; ritual, 124, 140; sonic pathways, in vertical, 8–9; takhpakh emplacement, 80–82 Larichev, Vitalii: astroarchaeology, 284n15; on Sunduki as astronomical, astrological, and epic performance center, 133–34 Lattimore, Owen, 277n3

329

Index

Lawergren, Bo: Bashadar harp, 131; Pazyryk harp, 125, 126 Levin, Theodore, 3, 4, 16, 22, 23, 27; epic initiation dream, 209, 288n10; khai performance and the moon, 211; Kh. epic reception, 201; landscape as musical performer, 53; throat-singing body techniques, 39 liminality: Ak Jang clan ritual, pre-liminal separation rites, 162; in Kh. multi-sensory shamanic ritual, 123, 140, 148; megalith burial site, 136; of posthumous soul, 36; sensing, 143–45; slab images as liminal bodies, 131; of territorial and social positions, 249; of timbral body music, 38. See also Turner, Victor Lindquist, Galina: Altai Mountains, reverence for, 14; integrity of the entirety, 258; Khaiyrakhan funeral controversy, 115; “nation” during Soviet period, 282n26; Ru. shamanology and magic, 19; Tyv. Buddhist sounds, 114; Tyv. groups, 16; Tyv. traditional confessions, 278n6 lute, 6, 87; in Ak Jang clan ritual, 185; as Alt. national icon, 84; for Alt. praise-songs and blessings, 68–70; Alt. Topshuurym song, 255–56; with eagle totem, 66f2.1B, 67; and Elbek Kalkin, 157; in epic performance, 34, 200, 207–8; in festival drama, 86; and instrument’s breath, 43; as shamanic drum substitute, 243; with-spirit, 121; as steed instrument, 207–9; at Sunduki, 133; Urchimaev’s ritual performance, 69–70 Maadai Kara epic, 85, 117, 183, 191, 192, 204, 209, 280n3; alkysh prelude, 25; heavenly hunt, 210–11; musicality of hero and nature, 214 Mainogasheva, Vera E., 193 Makarovna, Anna: kai gender restrictions, 45; Ch. lament, 83; spirit actor, social misdemeanor, and sickness, 37 Malinowski, Bronislaw, 28, 29, 258 Mamyev, Danil’: on bailu (with prohibitions) places, 47, 118–19; Bashadar kurgans and sacred geometry, 131; Denisova hominin, 284n11; energetical significance, 118, 280n13; gendered landscape, 46; hitching post and place, 116–17; kinship, excavations and rock art, 130–31; nature as kin, 92; ritual ribbons, 132; rock art as energetical

locks, 131; spirit-owner of Mt. Üch Engmek, 119; spirit-owner of place, 116; spiritual specialists, 20; umbilical connections, 51; whispering to spirits, 132, 248 Mandaeva, Elena, 52, 68; Ak Jang ritual process, 173; Altai, parallel, 188; Altai’s six corners, 164, 173; Our Burkhan Creator, 174; postritual celebrations, 187; purifications, pre-ritual, 162; Sun-mother and Moonfather altars, 172 Manzyrykchy, Dorju Oglii Stepan, 30; ancestral ritual spirit-helpers, 217; drone-partials spirit invocations, 252; drum, capturing spirits in, 227; eeren spirit protectors, 48, 110, 228; vocal tones, 223 Marazzi, Ugo, 8, 280n3; Maadai Kara, rhythms of space and time, and musicality of epic hero, 214, 287n2; topshuur lute, myth of origin, 208; numbers and heroic epics, 183; tree as conduit between worlds, 119 Mauss, Marcel, 26, 28, 38 melody: community, 82; Sag., range, 82, 136; stylistic differences, 136 menge astrological system: for body and life pathway, 78; Buddhist and shamanic, 279n1; colors, numbers, chalama ribbons, 29, 78 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice: self in the visible world, 26; sounds, sight, and color of, 34 Merriam, Alan, 247 Mol, Anne-Marie, 25 Mongush, Anisiya: headband feathers, cowrie shells, face decoration, 233 Mongush, Lazo: of ancestral and Sky-origin, 217; autumn fire rituals, 218; costume, activator of pathways, 232–33; drone-partials spirit invocations, 252; drum and khöömei, 41; drum beater, predictive, 229; drum beater, tone qualities of, 100, 229; drum handle, sound producers on, 228; drumming, of shamanic spirit, 106; drumskin, beating on, 227; drum swing to dispel illness and spirits, 228; eeren, 27, 48; energy lines, 31, 48, 225; menge colors, 29; at Mt. Khaiyrakan, 151; musician and actor, 90; reenergizing from land and mountain, 95; ritual cairn locations, 115; ritual preparations, 77–78; ritual sygyt and kargyraa, 22; spirit actors within fire, 120; spirit-owners

330

[128.104.46.196] Project MUSE (2024-04-09 03:07 GMT) UW-Madison Libraries

Index

of land, calming, 100; spirit-owners of place, 116, 117; summer tree ceremonies, 217–18; supra-body gown as percussive orchestra, 48–50, 49ff1.3A and 1.3B; as traditional shaman, 259; and traditions, 218; whistling as invocation, 226; and Turner’s liminality-as-theatre, 251 mountain: in AK Jang clan rituals, 121, 164; as bailu (“with-injunction”), 118–19; energetical significance of, 118–19, 121; as navel, 70; as portal, 118–119; as purgatory, 109–10; Shaman Mountain, 75, 281n18; spirit-owners of, 96; 115, 164; World Mountain, 119 Mountain Altai. See Altai Republic mountain people: abduction by, 99–100; ancestors, hearing and seeing, 29, 103–4; ancestral mountain women, 33; ancestral spirit-roads of, 106; as epic audience, 207; “mountain-born singer,” 105; musical gifts from, 104–6; and punishment for disrespectful behavior, 104; size and features, 103 Mountain Shamaness: and nature’s spiritowners, 107–9; shamanic ancestry of Tagh Kargha clan, 107, 282n9; with virtual drum, 106–10 multisensory: bodily experiences, 147–8; and dreams, 94; Kh. shamanic ritual, 139–49; performances, 28, 252; and spirit actors, 91; synesthesia, 33–34 Munn, Nancy: on mutual implications of body, self, personhood, and place, 93 musical instrument: as epic performer’s steed, 207–9; as living actor, 208; as living body, 42–45; as relation of personhood, 42, 45; and rock art, 137–39. See also Buddhism narrative, oral: Kh. body-stone, 53 nation: festive, musical soul of, 83–89; and nationality in Soviet period, 282n26 nomads: ancestral culture, 130; Early Nomad period, 283n1; global, 90; and identity, 4; khanates and empire, 58–64; movement and belonging, 252; pastoralists and sounds, 29; pre-Soviet pastoralist kin-based groups, 6, 16; ritual calendar, 89; seasonal camps, 68; as seasonal transhumant pastoralists, 7, 123, 126, 278n8; and sensibilities, 18 Nyssen, Liesbet: dirge songs, 83; kharghyra, etymology of, 288n16; Kh. epic perfor-

mance, syghyrtyp for, 40; Kh. epic styles, 193; Kh. ritual laments, 82, 83; pyrghy end-blown flute, 293; sound volume and malicious spirits, 248; takhpakh verbal contests, 80, 281n25 Ochy-Bala epic, 130, 189, 191, 198; rhythmic fillers, 213, 283n7, 287n2; and sound avoidance, 20, 159 Oelschlägel, Anett C., 7 Oirat (Alt.), Oirot, Oirad (Mo.): Alt. homeland, 5; heritage, 62; in Mo. Altai, 42, 285n9; Oirot Khan, 156–58, 167–68. See also Jungar Khanate Ong, Walther J., 27 Onon, Urgunge, 49, 93; shamanic costume, independence of, 232; shamanic “signature tunes,” 224 ontological musicality and sonicality: as interrelational complexes and book’s structure, 22–24; and Indigeneity, 54; kai-khai person as purveyor of, 190; and lateral and vertical place, senses of, 122; and ontological turn, 24; as self-drone and partials of personhood, 25 ontology: of epic characters, 205; shared, 5; Indigenous, 149, 248; meaning and relations, 22 Oorzhak, Nikolai: bird sounds, rainbow, 225; color system, 29; costume attachments and cosmic pathways, 232, 233; on flute, end-blown, 7; on khoomei, ritual, 41, 225; khoomei jazz, 90; on locating a lost soul, 95; ritual sygyt and kargyraa, 221; songchant as spirit activator, 13, 223; percussive costume and ASC., 232; as neoshaman, 259 Otykov, Oirot: clan, lineage, and performances, 65–67, 66f, 191 pathways, roads, conduits: to Ak Jang mountain temple, 163; and energetical sites, 50; in horizontal Middle Worlds, 7–8; mimesis and origins, 225; and shamanic supra-body, 48; sonic, between Middle and Upper Worlds, 155; sonic, in vertical landscapes, 8–9; sonorous and visual, 237; state, national, and global, 259–63 Pazyryk: heroes, harp, and drums, 124–25; songs, with karkyra and topshuur, 127

331

Index

Pedersen, Morten Axel, 24, 50; nomadic landscape model, 121, 122; proportional holism, 259 Pegg, Carole, 90, 285n2; Ochy-Bala song, 130 performance, arena: in Ak Jang mountain temple, 163, 177–78; and Altai-Sayan shamanic landscape, 122; of Alt. shamanic healing ritual, 234, 239; of book and fieldwork, 21–22; 24, 28; of Kh. multisensory shamanic ritual, 141, 141f, 147–48; of multiple thresholds, 148; as ritual gatherings of activation, 250–52; and sonic emplacement, 24; of soul dispatch ritual, 37; of Tyv. shamanic lineage-strengthening ritual, 79; transitions and transformations in, 250–52 performance and performativity, 248–49 person: concept of, 26; human, spirit and posthumous, 28 personhood (relations of), 28–29; emergent, 149; first act of, 35, 238; of human and spirit actors, 26, 28, 197, 199; of initiated epic performer, 199; with living instrument, 43, 45; Middle-World, 37; multispecies, 248; as partials of self-drone, 28; as sonic relations, 249; Soviet remolding of, 50; with spirit-imbued landscape, 140; with visible and invisible forces, 148 perspectivism, 24, 48; ontological, 27 pilgrimage: to Big Shamans, Little Shamans, 75–77; to Karakol Valley, 132; to lineage clan stone, 65 Piltïr (Kh. Indigenous group), 14, 71, 261, 281n8; classification of, 64; shamanic drum construction, 227; Sky rituals, 65; Ulturgashev’s initiation, 219, 220 place: in Ak Jang clan rituals, 164, 250; as ancestral lineage and spirits of land, 77–80, and archaeological monuments, relocation of, 132; bodies, sounds, 147–49; of clients in Alt. shamanic ritual, 238–39; with codes of conduct, 95; colonial, 57; and dronepartials musical model, 24; of epic characters, 211; global 89–90; Indigenous, 57; in-place, 4, 7, 53, 250; and khoomei, ritual, 221; and living souls, 34–36; local and social, 80–83; and movement, 252; multiphonies of, 256; out-of-place, 4, 34, 36, 37;

from out-of-place to in-place, 357–58; past in the present, 256–57; and prohibitions, 47; questions, 4; senses of, 21, 24, 102, 175; sounding, 256–63; in space-time, 164; of spirit, 145–47; and thresholds, 164; vertical and horizontal, soundings of, 24, 122, 45, 248 Polos’mak, Natalya: Ice Maiden and afterlife, 129; Ice Maiden, shaman, epic performer, and spiritual significance, 128, 130 portal: as circular performance arena, 147; between dimensions, 117–29; and ritual performances, 117; spirit actors, boundaries, codes of conduct, 118 Potapov, Leonid P., 12, 13, 51, 278n11, 279n3; Alt. drum types and drumskin drawings, 227, 289n6; ancestors and shamanic ATC, 228; Kha. Pil., 281nn7–8; on mountains and trees, sacred, 119; Sag. origin, 282n1; shamanic drum handle as wild animal, 145; shamanic ancestry and cosmic capabilities, 217; Umai and death, 129 praise-song (Alt. maktal): in Ak Jang clan rituals, 153; Altai Maktal, 68; and blessings in singing forest, 67–71; Kozhongchy Aral, 68; Üch Sümer(ge) Maktal, 68, 281n12 Prokof ’eva, E. D., 49; shamanic costume pendants as pathways and skill indicators, 232; shamanic headgear, of Siberian peoples, 233 Radcliffe-Brown, Alfred R., 258 Radloff, Friedrich W., 10, 12; Abakan Tatars and Kyrgyz, 58; Bai Ülger appeals, sound avoidance in, 224; Kha. and Sag. epics, 58, 87, 288n8; multisensory epic performance, 204; musical instruments, of Sag., and Kha., Khoi., and Khyz. Turks, 87; on Shunu, 280n2; on soul capture, 36; Tele. shamanic song-chants, structures of, 224 ritual: for Pazyryk harp reconstruction, 126; performances, 250–57; Pil. Sky, 65; ribbons, 68, 78, 79, 160, 162, 177; rite-of-passage, 140; scarves, 79 ritual cairn: at Adar Tösh, 111; in Alt. ritual song, 285n7; as boundary marker, 65, 115; in Charkova’s song, 135; as ecological landscape marker, 114; and kinship rela-

332

Index

tions, 122; above Kyzyl, 28, 111; in mountain passes, 151; and seasonal changes, 89; shamanist and Buddhist, 100; at Sunduki, 133; and sygyt drone-overtone vocal music, 100; at Tyv. Mt. Khairykhan, 151 rock art: destruction of, 284n12; and epic narrative, 133–34; and musical instruments, 136–39 Roerich, Nicholas: disciples of, 19; travels, 279n18 Rudenko, Sergei I., 124, 283n4; Alt. Pazyryk drums, 126–27, 127f; Alt. Pazyryk harp, 125; Bashadar burial site, naming of, 131 Saghai (Kh. Indigenous group), 14, 64, 194; epic performers, 199–200; epics, 58; clan boundary, 116; Mo. invasion and Chinggis Khan, 61–62; musicians, 137; shamanic drum construction, 227; shaman’s ancestral road and instrument choices, 219; as taiga forest people, 136 Salbyk, Valley of the Khans, 15m3, 285n24; Gateway to, 139–49 Samozhekov, Aleksandr, 44; and chatkhan zither, 45, 88, 195f, 202; on epic performance, 88, 199, 202, 205, 212; khai person, consciousness of, 198; khai of spirit-owner 99; khai training, 202; on khomys lute, 288n12; on melody and performance style transmission, 213; pilgrimage to ancestral place, 75–76; punishment by epic spiritowners, 203; seeing posthumous souls and spirits, 205; spirit-owner and epic performer, 200–201; on Sunduki performances, 133–34 Samozhikova, Stepinova (“Stesha”): Sunduki, performances at, 133–34 Sat, Nadia: animist songs and rhythms, 8; colors, energy, protection, rhythm, 29; initiations and song-chant gifts, 224; percussive healing rhythms of nature’s spiritowners, 228 Sayan Mountain range: petroglyphs, 151; taiga forests, 16; western and eastern, 3, 4, 5, 16, 150. See also Altai-Sayan Schieffelin, Edward: performative rituals and emergent reverberations, 249 Searle, John: speech acts, 38

self, selfhood: concept of, 26; multiples of, 279n3; and placenta burial, 35; posthumous, 279n6; presentation of, 58; seedsounds of, 35; self-drone, sonically embodied, 26–28, 249; senses of, 25, 26, 27, 35; Soviet remolding of, 50 senses: common, 29; in protection and healing, 211–12; sensuous scholarship, 249–50 Sevek, Aldyn-ool, 42, Tyv. drone-overtone sub-style, 93; Tyv. kargyraa, 39 Severi, Carlo, 25 shamanic costume: headgear, 25–27, 233; and pathways, 8, 48–49, 232–33; sound producers and Okunev rock art, 284n9 shamanic fan, 231, 290n13 shamanic mirror: celestial, drum substitute, 231–32; as costume pendant, 232; for divination, 231, 290n12; as eeren spirit actor, 110, 231; malicious spirits, deflection, 147; on staff, 50, 231 shamanic rituals, case studies of —Alt.: ancestral clan hero, enlivenment, invitation of, 234–38; creating, opening, unblocking the road, 234; distressed young woman; 241–42; infertile couple, 242–43; patient actions, 244–45; placing clients, 238–39; shaman’s healing, 234–45; terminally ill baby, 239–43; vibrating, spinning, seeing journeying, 243–44. See also Közörökov, Arzhan —Kh.: Gateway to Salbyk, multisensory shamanic, 139–49, 140–49, 141f, 142f4.5B, 144f; mountain shamaness with virtual drum, 106–10. See also Kishteev, Viktor —Tyv.: ancestors and traditions, 78–79; bonding, coloring, and re-placing a Tyv. family, 77–80; encircling the shamanic tree, 79–80; posthumous soul dispatch, 37, 48–50; preparations, 77–78. See also Mongush, Lazo shamanic staff: Alt., 230–31, 235f shamanic vocalizations: Alt. consonants, 288n17; bird and animal imitations, 225; song-chants, melodies, interjections, exclamations, 223–25; spirits and journey, 222–25; throat-singing, whistling, yawning, coughing, 225–26; whispering, 79, 197, 223; whistles in Alt. rituals, 225–26, 236, 239, 241, 242

333

Index

shamanism, 7, 9; communist purges of, 10; creative, 9–11; drum, spirit-helpers, percussive sounds, 226–29; first shaman-woman, 284n10; and Indigeneity, 260; neoshamanism, New Age, 19, 114; in Okunev monolith and slab art, 137; pathways of origin, 216–22; purification and protection, 244–45; renaissance, 18–21; shamanhood and power, 216–18; shamanic gift, refusal of, 219–20; and shamanology, 278n17; shamanic words, 73–74; Sky, 36, 225; slab images of proto-shamans, 137; sonic modes of travel, 226–34; sounding enlivenment and invitation, 234–36; spirit embodiment and mimesis, 225; and spirit-owners, 28; and spirits,106–10; throat-singing, place, power, 221–22; timbral vocal tones and transitions, 23 types, 10, 282nn6–7; urban, 89; vocalizing spirits and journey, 222–25; Western students of, 89; yellow, 100, 282n2 —Alt.: aina, in drama, 86; melodies and spirit-animal contours, 224; soul eater, 111 —Kh.: Adam Khan, shaman ancestor and protector, 109, 220, 282n10; ancestral spirit and drum design, 219; aza singer and soul stealer, 110–11; Big Shamans, Little Shamans, 75–77; clan, ancestral road, initiation, 218–21. See also Mountain Shamaness —Tyv.: albys singer, 110; ancestral descent, 217; eeren, 110–11, 282n12; neoshamans, 259–61; spirit drumming, 106; spirit embodiment and mimesis, 225, 241 Shinzhin, I. B., 191, 192, 210, 288n5 Shirokogoroff, Sergei M., 10 Shodoev, Nikolai: Altai, six cornered, 285n10; Altai Bilik, 155, 160, 165, 181; Alt. traditions, 286n11; burkhans, 156; Ice Maiden as Ochy-Bala, 130; interceders, 156; Sky domains, 165, 182, 234, 286n12; subtle world (kangyi) as World Egg, 165; Umai Mother, 165 Shor (Indigenous group), 13, 14, 33; and Anokhin, 279n4; drum spirit animal, 226; and Mo. invasion, 61; shamanic headgear, 233; souls, 35, 36 Shumarov, Nogon, 281n12; with Bairyshev, 128; Bashadar, jaw’s harp, evocation and oral narrative, 132, 284n13; drone-partials styles, tripartite universe, and body, 51; El

Oiyn Festival, 84; jaw’s harp and Lower World, 230; Maadai Kara epic, 191; ritual praise-songs at clan’s healing spring, 67– 69, 71; spirit-owners, permission from, 94; Ukok song and concert program, 130 Shunu, 280n2; as Ak Jang hero protective spirit, 167; in Alt. shamanic ritual, 243; in epic and storytelling performance modes, 62–64; as Oirot Khan’s messenger, 64; in oral literature, 286n14; songs, 64. See also Chachiyakova, Jyrgal Siberia: southern, 3, 4, 5, 12, 278n14; and Inner Asia, 277n3; shamanism, 9, 10, 12, 284n9 silence: as agency, 248; in Alt. shamanic ritual, 240; and mountain climbing, 117; and requests, 25, 38, 94–95, 162, 173, 182; respectful, 117, 123; in a sacred place of khai, 102; at Tagar megalith site, 136, 248; Ukok Quiet Zone, 128 song-chant (ritual verses), 8, 10, 223–24 —Alt., 33, in Ak Jang clan rituals, 170, 172; at clan healing spring, 67–71; in epic performance, 205–6; and Golden Stake, 237; in karkyra kai, 240; to open a white road, 37, 240; in pre-festival rituals, in shamanic rituals, 33, 223, 238–39; 241–42; to sound enlivenment, 235–36; and spirit-owners, 68, 132 —Kh.: in epic initiation dream, 200; and shamanic drum rhythms, 228 —Tyv.: and retrieval, 36; in shamanic ritual, 33, 79 soul(s), 34; abduction of, 104, 225; Alt. 235, 238, 240, 242, 248; in-place, living, 34–36; Kh., 31, 34, 205; Kh. mountain, purgatory for, 110; Kh. Sag., escorted to Adam Khan, to, 219; as Kh. symbol design, on instrument or sculpture, 139; multiple, 34, 50; out-of-place, and posthumous, 36–37, 83, 86–88, 114, 279n6; of Tyv. shaman, 35 —national musical: Alt., 84–86; Indigenous, 83–84; of festive nation, 83–89; Kh., 86– 88; Tyv., 88–89 sound(s), sounding: avoidance, 46, 47, 179, 182; and epic narrative, 190; for flying and spirit invocations, 147–148; metaphor in oral poetry, 159; multiphonies, 256; musical aesthetic, shamanic, 27; of names,

334

Index

186, 286n28, 236; for nomads, 137, 139; the past in the present, 256–57; power of, 47; shamanic sound producers and Okunev rock art, 284n9; and silence, 247–48; sonic modes of travel, 226–34; a sonorous road, creating, 237; timbre-centered complex, 3; unsounding, 155, 156–59; volume and quality of, 248; as word power, 155–56, 202. See also rock art; vibrations soundscape, musical: horizontal-vertical, drones-partials, and mountain-steppes, 6; multidimensional connections, 9; of Russian state and global flows, 9; transborder Altai-Sayan and Greater Altai, 5–6 Soviet: cultural policy, 83; nationalities policies, 11; pre-Soviet shamanic traditions, 218 speech acts, 38; for body gendering, 45, 46 spirit actors: called by vocal and percussive sounds, 147; in Salbyk shamanic ritual, 145; sonic arrival of, 236 spirit-owner(s), 7; in Ak Jang clan rituals, 166, 182, 183; angering local, 114–15; of animals, wild and domestic, 96, 99; blessings at healing spring, 68; bodies of, 51–52; 12; of chatkhan zither, 138; of epic and accompanying instrument, 201, 208; as epic audience, 207; feeding for reciprocity, 140; gendered, 46; as grave protector, 284n18; kai, enjoyment of, 167; of khai, 199; mountain, 96, 107; musical tastes of, 94; ownership, principles of, 92; permission from, 94; and personhood, 7, 28–29; of place, 93, 126; and shamans, 95; of wind, 145; of the word, 201. See also spirit-owners of nature spirit-owners of nature, 92–102; in Ak Jang rituals, 94; Alt. request for blessing from, 68–69; body-place, 93, 100; capricious, powerful, 29; charming for hunting and animal husbandry, 95–99; duetting with, 100–102; gender and sex of, 46; and epics, 96, 197; and Indigeneity, 52; as kin, 92; magnitude, orders of, 92; musicality of, 99–100; punishment by, 95; respecting and serenading, 94–95; in shamanic rituals, 107; and shoor flute, 69; social relations with, 119; of springs, 68, 177; of taiga forest, 197, 204; as Tyv. eeren, 110; of water, 80; of wind, 145 spirit-protector/s: Alt. epic heroine OchyBala as, 130; in drum attachments, per-

cussive, 228; as shamanic accoutrements, 78–79; on shamanic supra-body, 48; Tozh. shamanizing with, 229–30; as Tyv., eeren bundle, 78 spiritual specialists: person who feels, 94; person who hears, 94, 106, 131; person who knows, 84, 107, 114, 131; person who sees, 94, 103, 107, 133, 146, Pödör Kurbizhekov, 198; whisperer, 106, 109 spring, healing: Alt. clan, 68, 70–71; Tyv. clan, 77; and spirit actors, 120 state and global flows, 18–21, 259–63; AltaiSayan neoshamanism, 259–61; Buddhism and Indigeneity, 261–62; cultural heritage, ownership of, 262–63; shamanic renaissance and Harner’s global core, 18, 19; UNESCO, the Russian state, nomads, world music, 18–21 Stokes, Martin, 252 Stoller, Paul: anthropology of the senses, 249 Strathern, Marilyn: instruments and body, 45; internal sociality, 26; personhood, 28 Sukhovskoi, Rev. Vasilii: drum beater for healing, 229; on drum handle attachments, 229; on shamanic drumskin drawings, 227 Sundström, Olle, 19, 21 Sunduki: as astrological and ritual center, 19–20, 75, 133; epic narrative as rock art, 132–43; as fieldwork site, 15m3; as Tagar observatory, 140 Süzükei, Valentina, 3, 4, 10, 16; drone-overtone references in Tyv. epics, 254; epic initiation dream, 209, 288n10; instrument construction, seasonal, 42; Kh. epic reception, 201; khöömei as light-glass prism model, 22, 29; landscape as musical performer, 53; sonic universe, relations in, 23; timbre-centered musical sound complex and timbral listening, 3, 4, 27; undertones, 22 sygyt (Alt. Tyv.), syghyrtyp (Kh.): Alt., 39; Kh., 40; in shamanic rituals, 221, 225; Tyv., 40t; in Tyv. consecration rituals, 100; at Tyv. ritual cairn, 122; in Tyv. song, 150; Upper World vertical new connections, 23. See also drone-partials: vocal styles Sychenko (Sytchenko), Galina B: on Abasheva Shamaness, 33; on kai performance manners, 288n15

335

Index

Tadagawa, Leo: Tyv. bone jaw’s harp, 41; on Tyv. Tozhu Dezhit shamaness’s journey, 290n11 Tadar (Kh.) (Ru. Tatar): as contemporary Kh. identity, 58; and “mountain people,” 103; in Ru. Empire, 278n14 takhpakh (Kh.): on clan epic performance tradition, 80; improvised verses, 80–82; Kurbizhekov’s, 81; musicking past kin, 71; performer of, 104; performing local and social place, 80–83; personal lyrics of, 80 Tambiah, Stanley, J., 28 Tatár, Sarolta: Tyv. self and souls, 279n6 Telengit (Alt. Indigenous group), 11, 13, 14, 67, 120, 124; clan relations, 65; epic performers, 190–91, 206–7, 212, 213; festival, 85, 114; kai, 41; as mountain people, 207; personhood, 28; posthumous soul, 37; shamanic headband, 233; soul-retrieval rituals, 36; spring ritual, 157 Teleut (Alt. Indigenous group), 13, 14, shamanic drum construction, 227, 289n8; shamanic headband, 233 Tenger, Tengrism, Tengrist, 3, 6, 155, 156; Kh. Khan Tigïr offerings, 6, 97; as spiritual complex, 9; Tyv. tengri as shamanic power, source of, 217 third eye, 279n2; on Charkov’s drumheads, 137; Kh. rock art registrations, 285n23; on Küchen’s fiddle pegbox, 138; on Okunev monuments, 137 throat-singing (overtone-singing), 3, 5, 10, 41; as body music, 38–41; etic and emic terminologies, 38, 280n9; festival of, 86; in global space, 18, 89; ownership controversy, 254, 262–63; place and power, 221–22; in shamanic rituals, 223, 225; and Tyv. identity, 196; as world music sonic icon, 254 Todosh (Alt. Indigenous group), 281n9; clan relations, 65 Toloeva, Didii, 64; Byrkan Jang, 174; jangar songs, 160–61 Tom, Sibdei (Ru. Sergei Mainagashev): chatkhan as soul of Khakas nation, 88; Okunev petroglyph on khomus lute, 137 Töölös (Teles) (Alt. Indigenous group), 13, 67, 130, 261, 281n9; and Ak Jang altar construction, 164; clan leader, 158; epic

performers, 190, 191–92, 213; and shamanic ritual emplacement, 238 Topoev, Pyotr, 32; birth of musical instruments, conveyor of souls, 105–6; gendered lute strings, 45; human body and landscape, 51; instrument as living body, 42–45; instrument repair in dream, 43; khai eezi and Sag., 200; khuiakhtany ritual, 43–44, 44f; Kyrgyz lute origin, 59; shaman’s soul as whirlwind, 44 Tozhu (Tyv. Indigenous group), reindeer herders, 16; shamanic drum, 226–27, 289n6; shamanic jaw’s harp and staff, 229–30, 289n6 tree: and Altai-Sayan heroic epic, 128–29; birch, as axis mundi, 163, 173, 177; cedar, 183, 185; of life, 128; shamanic, 79, 119; on shamanic drumskin, 227; summer ceremonies, 218; world-tree, 128, 183, 185 Tuba, pl.Tubalar, (Alt. Indigenous group), 11, 193; characteristics of, 12, 14; drum handle figure, 289m6; shamanic headband, 233; shamanic staff as spirit animal, 231. See also Ulagashev, Nikolai Tülush, Radik, 4, 59, 247, 278n16; alkysh with shoor flute, 42; duetting with spirit-owners, 101; on ediski hunter’s lure, 295; family, 100–102; fiddle (igil) tradition and innovation, 256; hunting and shoor, 99; jaw’s harp, 41; on khoomei and nomadic identity, 3, 23–24; Mt. Bai Taiga as spirit actor, 52; musical offerings at ritual cairns, 100, 151; musical spirit offerings in Khandargatai Pass 101f; Ochy-Bala song, 130; philosophy, 3, 22, 24; rituals in UK, 90; spiritowner animal protection, 99; spirit-owner of place and igil fiddle, 94; spirit-owners of land, performing for 30; and throat-singing cultural heritage controversy, 262; at Üstüü Khüree Festival, 152 Tumat, Choduraa: and clan, 59–60; and drone-partials performance taboos, 255; and gender, 45; at Üstüü Khüree Festival, 152 Turner, Victor, 247; communitas, 140, 149; liminal and liminoid, 251; liminality-astheater theories, 37, 251; ritual process, 140, 148; and van Gennep’s theory, 140, 148 Tyukhteneva, Svetlana, 30, 112

336

Index

Tyumerekov, Lazar: chatkhan, ritual connections of, 88; end-blown flute, traditional making of, 42 Tyva (Tuva): Arzhan burials, 149–50; epic performers, clans, schools, 196–97; as ethnonym, 16; fieldwork sites, 17m4; Indigenous peoples, 18–20; Lappalainen as FSS field associate, 19; neoshamanism, 19, 20; republic of, 14, 16–17, 149–51; shamanic history and centers, 20–21; spiritual complexes, 20; traditional confessions, 278n6 Tyva Kyzy Ensemble, 42, 45, 255; at Üstüü Khüree Festival, 152 Üch Kurbustan: in Ak Jang autumn clan ritual, 162, 166; Ak Jang creator of Jangar epic hero, 168; in Alt. shamanic rituals, 234, 236, 243; as burkhan, 166; as epic character, 167; food offerings to, 180f5.3C; and jangar songs, 175; in Maadai Kara, 117; origins, properties, and ontological location of, 166; and shamanic pathways, 234; and shatra ritual figurines, 177; song-chant to, 159; sound avoidance, 159; as source, 184; and Sun-mother altar, 172; verbal communication with, 182, 183; Upper World of, 209 Ugdezhekov, Stanislav, 14, 58 Ukok: plateau as UNESCO Quiet Zone, 128 Ulagashev, Nikolai, 28, 59; Alyp-Manash epic, Kyrgyz origin of, 59; heritage and epic repertoire of, 192–93, 288n5 Ülger Ensemble, 80, 83, 86, 99, 193, 194 Ulturgashev, Nikadim, 281n20; body-stone, out-of-place, 53; with chatkhan, 73f; Chinggis Khan takhpakh, 61; clan totem song, 67; on epic performer-shaman roles, 261; kinship and village, 71; kinship song, 72– 73; matrilineal and patrilineal genealogies, 71, 72f; on mountain-born singer, defeat by, 105; on “mountain people,” 98, 104, 105; musicking past kin, 71–75; Pil. Sky rituals, 65; shamanic instruments, dream choices, 31, 220; shamanic “words” and drum, of mother, 73–74; songs of matrilineal kin, 74–75; takhpakh emplacement, 71; takhpakh, and territory, 65 Ulturgasheva, Olga: animism, definition of, 7; living souls, materiality and corporeality of, 34

Ulugbashev, Evgenii: epic performance “on horseback,” 86; Kadyshev’s Altyn-Arygh and Shira melody, 194 Umai: in Ak Jang Sky domains, 165; in Alt. shamanic rituals, 236, 242; Kh. shamanic appeals to, 282n7; shamanic “words,” 74 undertones, 99, 279n20, 280n9, 282n7 UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization): and Altai Republic, 12, 18, 124, 278n9; Kh. heritage conference, funder of, 87; web, intangible cultural heritage ownership, and Indigenous peoples, 254–55 universe: Alt. Sky domains, 8, 234; bodies of, 11; landscape-style, 8–9; shamanic animist, 6–11; and tripartite human body correlation, 50–51 Urchimaev, Sarymai: Ak Jang, branch of Buddhism, 155; on Ak Jang ancestors, 70; alkysh as song-chant and spirit-owner invitation, 70; alkyshchy and consciousness, 169; bird and animal sounds, 41, 100; as Buddhist temple ritual officiant, 112–13; Byrkan Jang song, 174; as festival judge, 86; Jungarian Buddhist mandala and Ak Jang temple architecture, 163; rituals in UK, 90; mountains as “navels” 51, 70; in singing forest, 67, 69–70, 71, 281n13 Üstüü Khüree, 283n13; Buddhist dancedrama, 151; fieldwork site, 17m4; monastery, temple, and festival, 30, 44, 89, 90, 111, 112, 151–52 Vainshtein, Sev’yan I., on khoomei, 280n9; shamanic mirror as drum substitute, 232; Tozh. Dezhit shamanizing with jaw’s harp and eeren, 229–30, 289n6; on Tyv. eeren, 110, 282n12; on Tyv. shamanic staff, 295 van Deusen, Kira: epic initiation dream, 288n10; epic performance, fatality, 203; Indigeneity and landscape, 52; on Kh. aza, spirit of illness, 111; Kh. life-force soul, 35; posthumous süne soul; ritual fan origin, 290n13 van Gennep, Arnold, 117; tripartite ritual structure, 140, 148 van Tongeren, Mark: drone-overtone vocal styles, 280n10; epic initiation dream, 288n10

337

Index

Verbitskii, Vasilii I., 12; Ak Jang epic warrior protectors, 167; Altai-Sayan souls, 279n5; southern Alt. epic performance instruments, 288n12 verticality: and laterality, 121–22; Alt. Pazyryk harp, 126; chiefly nomadic landscape, 122; and hierarchical lineages, mountains, tripartite shamanic animist universe, 6, 122; and ritual kyuira cloth, 132; senses of, 122; of topography and soundscape, 6 vibrations: in Alt. shamanic ritual, 211, 234, 236–37; for ASC journeying, 243–44; of bodily threads, 226; of body-instrument, 39; of jaw’s harp, 41; of kai for shamanic journeying, 244; of person and ritual place, 145; as rock art, 138–39; and spacetime, journeying in, 244 Vinogradev, Andrei: Ak Jang, influences on, 286n3; Ak Jang ribbon interceders, colors of, 159–60; burkhans, 167; jarlyk ritual leader as embodiment of Ak Byrkan, 172; kinship of Ak Jang heroes with Üch Kurbustan, 168; ülgen “pure ancestors,” 162, 166 Vitebsky, Piers, 9 Viveiros de Castro, Eduardo, 24; ontological perspectivism, 27; perspectivism theory, 48 vocalizations: Alt. spirits and journey, 222– 25; bird and animal imitations; interjections, exclamations, 223–25; melodies, 224; shamanic dexterity, 223; song chants, 223–24; throat-singing, yawning, coughing; whistles, 225–26, 236, 239, 241–42; whispering, 223, 248 Wagner, Roy, 26, White Old Man: in Buddhism, 112; and jarlyk costume, 172; at Üstüü Khüree festival, 151 Willerslev, Rane: proportional holism, 259 word power: from ancestors and spirit-owners, 201–2 world music: throat-singing as sonic icon in, 254

Yamaev, Erke: Ak Byrkan’s vocal invitation to ritual place, 172; Ak Jang altar construction, 286n24; Ak Jang ritual bodily purifications, 162; Ak Jang ritual, timing of, 169; and animals, 286n19; Burkhanist movement, suppression of, 158–59, 285n4; Fire-Mother, 161; fire oboo altar at Kulada temple, 172; fire-offering ritual song, 11, 160; Milk Lake, flowers, and Kudai, 166; Moon-Father as homeland epithet, 172; oboo hearth stone, 161 Yamaeva, Elizavetta E., 278n7; on Ak Jang, 157, 159, 168, 278n7, 285n1, 285n3; Ak Jang temple site survey, 163; Chachiyakov’s Jylangash-uul epic, 209; clan temple and ritual movements, 163; “closed” end-blown flute in Alt. rituals, 192; epic numbers, 184; Jangar epic, 168; jangar ritual song performers, 169; Milk Lake, 286n13; moon ear, 33; mürgüül, full, 170; ritual bowl divination, 162; Tengrism, Manichaeism, Zoroastrianism, 155; Üch Kurbustan, origins and properties of, 166 Yntai (Ru. Yntaev), Urmat, 14, 27, 124, 191, 282; on epics, 85, 86, 201, 210, 212; on kai drone-overtone music and epic performance, 254; on Mamyev as knowledge bearer, 118; with Oirot Otykov, 65, 66f; on Pazyryk harp reconstruction, 126; vocal styles and substyles, 39 Yudanov Anton, 28; ritual poem, Golden Lake, 52; Ulagashev’s epic heritage and memorial, 192–93 Zhirmunsky, Viktor, 59 zither, long box, 6, 32, 34, 87; Indigenous and Ru. variants, 87; and Kh. “mountain people,” 104; as Kh. musical soul, 88; posthumous player of, 40–41; and posthumous soul, 205; and rituals, 88, 103 Znamenski, Andrei, 278n7, 279n17; Ak Jang, influences on, 285n3; on Anokhin, 224; shamanic drum, 10; on Vainshtein, 230 Zorbas, Konstantinos, 295; shamanic ritual, tensions in, 218

338

carole pegg is an anthropologist, ethnomusicologist, and senior researcher at the University of Cambridge. She is the author of Mongolian Music, Dance and Oral Narrative: Performing Diverse Identities.

The University of Illinois Press is a founding member of the Association of University Presses.

University of Illinois Press 1325 South Oak Street Champaign, IL 61820–6903 www.press.uillinois.edu

“The fruit of decades of musicianship, energetic fieldwork, and thoughtful reflection, Pegg’s monumental book is one of those once-in-a-generation works. It will be of great interest to anthropologists, musicologists, and people interested in shamanism, oral poetry, performance theory, human geography, landscape, archaeology, spirituality, ecology, and ethnic/Indigenous studies. In dialogue with local understandings and feelings, the author is vividly present while always foregrounding the people and their music, and showing how their music animates the cosmology and landscape through which it, too, comes alive.”

PIERS VITEBSKY author of Reindeer People: Living with Animals and Spirits in Siberia

Based on more than twenty years of collaborative research, Carole Pegg’s long-awaited participatory ethnography explores how Indigenous nomadic peoples of Russia’s southern Siberian republics (Altai, Khakassia, Tyva) sound multiphonies of place in a post-Soviet global world. Inspired by the mountain-steppe ecology and pathways of nomadism, soundscapes created in performative ritual events cross political and multiple-world boundaries in a shamanicanimist universe, enabling human and spirit actor interactions in a series of sensuous worlds. As with the “throat-singing” for which Indigenous Altai-Sayan peoples are famous, senses of place involve sonic relations, rootedness, movement, and plurality. Three strands form the book’s multivocal drone, the partials of which sound in each chapter: ontological sonicality and musicality that enables emplacement and movement; the importance of shamanism-animism—at the core of Indigenous spiritual practices—for personhood and community; and the agency of sonic performances. Sounding place, Pegg demonstrates, is essential to the identities, ways of life, and very senses of being of Indigenous Altai-Sayan peoples.

CAROLE PEGG is an anthropologist, ethnomusicologist, and senior researcher at the University of Cambridge. She is the author of Mongolian Music, Dance and Oral Narrative: Performing Diverse Identities. Cover images: Lazo Mongush Shaman performs a spring clan bonding ritual, Western Tyva, 2006, © C. Pegg; Altai-Sayan Mountain landscape with nomadic camp, 2005, © C. Pegg. Cover design: Dustin J. Hubbart

Publication of this book was supported in part by the University of Illinois Press Fund for Anthropology.