Николай Ссорин-Чайков

Evenki Shamanistic Practices in Soviet Present and Ethnographic Present Perfect

In this article, I explore cultural effects of Soviet religious policies in aboriginal Siberia by looking at the transformation of ritual identities and practices in a group of Evenki hunters and herders between the 1920s and the 1990s. I focus on meanings of buhadyl ( «spirits») which Evenki associate with old things and dead people. I read meanings and ritual frameworks of dealing with the buhadyl as sites for re-imagining Evenki identities and categories of belonging in the context of Soviet society and Soviet ethnographic gaze. In this article, I use results of my own field research in Central Siberia, as well as newly available Soviet archival materials.