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The Religious Worldview of the Indigenous Population of the Northern Ob’ As Understood by Christian Missionaries Anatoliy M

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The Religious Worldview of the Indigenous Population of the Northern Ob’ As Understood by Christian Missionaries Anatoliy M The Religious Worldview of the Indigenous Population of the Northern Ob’ as Understood by Christian Missionaries Anatoliy M. Ablazhei; translated by David N. Collins n the eve of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, the Russian that enter during conflict with a different culture, thus increasing O Orthodox Church had at least nine missions operating the value of the sources used. among Siberia’s indigenous peoples. The Red victory in the ensuing Missionary documents as sources bear specific characteris- civil war led to the elimination of all missionary activity, whose tics stemming both from the particular worldview of the mis- resumption was possible only after the fall of the Communist regime sionaries as bearers of alien cultural traditions and from the type seventy years later. The few accounts of Christian missions published of relationships they had with the indigenous population. As a in the USSR were tendentious in the extreme. Only in the post- rule, the missionaries gained their information by indirect obser- Communist era have scholars in the former Soviet Union been free to vation, such as knowledge of one or another traditional rite explore the rich archival and journalistic resources left by the mission- obtained by chance or through disclosure during conversation aries. with a local inhabitant. Communications of the latter type were Anatoliy Ablazhei’s article was chiefly addressed to scholars in rather rare, considering the attitude of the overwhelming major- Russia. It explores the extent to which the newly available missionary ity of the missionaries to the native people’s cultural riches and accounts are useful sources for contemporary scholars investigating the staunch unwillingness of the latter to reveal their ancestral native religion and cosmology. His work is reproduced here in transla- secrets to outsiders. This limitation was compounded by the tion for several reasons. It exemplifies the new wave of Russian almost universal lack of knowledge of local languages and scholarship about missions history, giving us a glimpse of the mass of customs (especially characteristic of the earlier period of Ortho- documentary material available for researchers to use. Its critique of dox missions in the Northern Ob’) and, with rare exceptions, by Russian Orthodox perceptions of native religion and the imperfect a general unwillingness to investigate in depth the specifics of methods employed to spread Christianity in Siberia provides us with traditional culture. Serious attempts to become deeply involved material from a mission field little known in the outside world. This in the local milieu and fulfill the role of spiritual mentors, as well information can prove useful for comparative missiological investiga- as a sincere determination to enlighten the “lost natives” rather tions. Above all, however, its value lies in its contribution to the ongoing than simply formally baptizing them, date from the final years of debates about contextualization and syncretism, the validity of the the missions, mainly the early twentieth century. Gospel for all peoples, and the appropriation of Christianity by the world’s indigenous peoples. It exemplifies the errors of ignorance often Missionary Methods committed by outsiders trying to spread the Gospel within a thoroughly alien culture. As Terence Ranger reminded us in the first Adrian According to the 1822 [Russian government] Statute on the Hastings Memorial Lecture at Leeds University in November 2002, Administration of the Natives, the indigenous peoples were authentic Christianity is indeed possible among indigenous peoples. accorded full freedom of religious belief. Adoption of Orthodoxy The Holy Spirit can inspire a transformation of their lives and culture, was encouraged but was not obligatory, which ruled out the without an excess of Eurocentric accretions.1 methods of forcible baptism characteristic during the eighteenth century. This legislation forced the missionaries to seek new The fullest possible reconstruction of traditional worldviews modes of activity based more on seriously plunging themselves requires the use of a wide range of sources. Among these are the into the life of their existing and potential flocks. They began documents of the [Russian] Orthodox religious missions to the single-mindedly gathering information about the local peoples, pagans that operated in the Northern Ob’ region [of western studying their religious beliefs and the details of their everyday Siberia] for more than three hundred years. The present article lives. Study of the local languages was encouraged; missionaries uses materials relating to the concluding period of the missions’ in fact compiled several dictionaries, and portions of Sacred activity, from the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth centu- Scripture were translated. The Obdorsk branch of the missionary ries. The information of interest to us is found in various types of Brotherhood of St. Gury had a special “museum of the Brother- diaries, reports, and accounts emanating from missions as a hood, or repository for a collection on the ethnography of the whole and from individual missionaries, predominantly those peoples of the Tobol’sk North, whose aim was to assist the study who had interacted directly with the local population during of the life, customs, and mores of the natives by graphic means.”2 their missionary trips. Most of the material used for the analysis Several missionaries, particularly the hieromonk Irinarkh (Ivan is from the Obdorsk Mission, founded in 1854, which worked for Semyonovich Shemanovsky), published works on the ethnogra- the most part among the Nenets, Khanty, and Mansi popula- phy of the people of the Northern Ob’. tions, who knew very little or nothing about Christianity. There The main conditions for success in Christianizing in the are grounds for believing that in this case we are dealing with period under review consisted in making missionary trips through cultural traditions little affected by the alien cultural influences the localities where the baptized population had lived from time immemorial, relating to them within the confines of their cus- tomary dwellings and establishing close contact with represen- Anatoliy M. Ablazhei is a member of the Institute of Philosophy and Law of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, based in Novosibirsk. tatives of the various categories of traditional society. The mis- David N. Collins, translator, was Senior Lecturer and Head, Department sionaries frequently made no distinction between the peoples of of Russian and Slavonic Studies, University of Leeds, Leeds, England. Collins the north, lumping them together under the general term “na- has written extensively on Siberian missions and history, including editing the tives,” which demonstrated a lack of understanding of the differ- twelve-volume series Siberian Discovery (Curzon: 2000). ences between their ethnic cultures. Nevertheless, there were 134 I NTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH, Vol. 29, No. 3 instances of intelligent discerning of the discreteness of the missionaries pointed out that “the beliefs of the Ostiaks and cultures of the region’s peoples. The missionaries began to Samoyeds were formed partly under the influence of the condi- “hear” and “listen to” the voices of these cultures. Instead of a tions of life . economic, family, and social.”7 In the missionaries’ monologue, the predominant form of contact became dialogue, opinion, “the peculiar conditions of life of the natives inhabiting a clear example of which we see in the following missionary the region of the Obdorsk Mission, their distance from the parish account: “At first the conversation, as ever, was general. We church (between 300 and 600 versts [320–640 km. / 200–400 mi.]), talked of the daily life of the natives, about their troubles and their frequent absences from their dwellings for hunting, and in misfortunes, about buying and selling, about the lives of the general their nomadic way of life” also created obstacles in the Russians. We touched on Christ . an old pagan man said how path of Christianization.8 From the missionaries’ point of view much he liked the way the priest sings in church and how the the natural environment also determined various elements of the Russians pray. To my question ‘Why don’t you get baptized and worldview that arose through contemplating it: “The Ostiaks become a member of the church?’ the old man replied that the regard elevated locations and mountains as holy, because, as priest had spoken to him many times about this, but he did not they say, ‘God could see better’ from such places.”9 But “God want to be baptized now. The old man said . that we sees” through the eyes of people; in one of these high places a foreigners should also sacrifice reindeer to God.”3 missionary saw “a heap of antlers that, according to Vasia, were Two elements in this account are significant: the missionary placed on the summit to show the route.”10 view that conversation is the best form of communication with The missionaries considered that strict observance of ritual the native population (which can also be found in other docu- was another extremely important facet of the indigenous ments) and the mention of sacrifices to “God.” It is not clear population’s spiritual life. As one observed, “The kernel or which “God” is meant—Christ, the icon of St. Nicholas the leaven of morals, rituals, and beliefs of tundra paganism is Miracle Worker (whose identity was transmuted through
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