SHAMAN Articles in this volume are dedicated to Vilmos Voigt An outstanding scholar of religious studies, and a member of the Editorial Board of Shaman. Journal of the International Society for Academic Research on Shamanism on the occasion of his seventy-fifth birthday Part Two 1 a Babulal threatens the onlookers, unable to control the supernatural being which has possessed him. Photo: Diana Riboli, 199?Riboli, 199? Front and back covers show motives taken from Sámi shamans’s drums, from Ernst Manker’s Die lappische Zaubertrommel (Stockholm, 1938). Copyright © 2016 Molnar & Kelemen Oriental Publishers, Budapest Photographs © 2016 Ágnes Kerezsi, Attila Király (Hungarian National Museum, Budapest), Eric J. Montgomery, Nenevi, Shetland Museum & Archives (Lerwick), Dávid Somfai Kara Map © 2016 Béla Nagy All rights resereved. No part of this publicaton may be reproduced, in any form or by any means, elec- tronic, photocopying or otherwise, without permission in writing from the publishers. 1 b Babulal threatens the onlookers, unable to control the supernatural being which has possessed him. Photo: Diana Riboli, 199?Riboli, 199? ISSN 1216-7827 Printed in Hungary SHAMAN Volume 24 Numbers 1 & 2 Spring/Autumn 2016 Contents Articles The Self-Definition of a Community: Shaman Stories among the Nganasan of Northern Siberia virág dyekiss 5 Garbal: A Western Buryat Shaman Song györgy kara 19 Characteristics of the Surgut Khanty Shamans ágnes kerezsi 47 Shamanism and Voodoo in Togo: The Life and Acts of Sofo Bisi eric james montgomery 65 Matthias Alexander Castrén, Lars Levi Laestadius and Antal Reguly: Pioneers of Northern Ethnography juha pentikäinen 93 The Last Yugur Shaman from Sunan, Gansu (China) dávid somfai kara 113 Common Law Customary Land Rights as a Catalyst for the Resurgence of Orang Asli Shamanism in Peninsular Malaysia: Some Lessons from the Semai and Temiar Peoples yogeswaran subramaniam with juli edo 133 The Hunting of the Vétt: In Search of the Old Norse Shamanic Drum clive tolley 155 Review Article Studies on Turkic Mythology: New Sources firdaus g. khisamitdinova 211 Book Reviews egon wamers (Hrsg.) Bärenkult und Schamanenzauber. Rituale früher Jäger (Michael Knüpper) 221 VOL. 24. NOS. 1-2. SHAMAN SPRING/AUTUMN 2016 The Self-Definition of a Community: Shaman Stories among the Nganasan of Northern Siberia VIRÁG DYEKISS BUDAPEST, HUNGARY Stories told among the Nganasan people of the Taĭmyr Peninsula in North- ern Siberia that recount the outstanding deeds of their shamans retain their central importance to this day. A significant proportion of these myths recount the unrepeatable deeds of the mythical shamans, the ur-fathers of the clans (Khoterie, Fala). The outstanding deeds of the shamans that followed him move beyond the general abilities of the shamans; they shock their audience and thus become suited for generations to recount them and to use a par- ticular shaman story as a reference to a particular clan as well. These deeds could be positive (for example, freezing a flowing river to make it crossable, resurrecting a person who has been dead for a year and curing a deity) or negative (for example, making a drum for himself out of the skin of an orphan girl). Each of the shaman’s deeds has an influence on the community with which he is entrusted. The figure of the shaman is therefore suitable to representing the entire clan. The Nganasan people (or Nya by their endonym), who are among the Northern Samoyed peoples, has traditionally led a nomadic lifestyle in the northern part of the Taĭmyr Peninsula. According to available data, they number around 1,000. They have tended herds of reindeer of relatively small size, and they were primarily engaged in hunting wild reindeer. Since these animals wandered to the north in spring, to the windswept wasteland of the tundra to avoid mosquitos as much as possible, and then in the autumn they again headed south to spend the winter in the forest-covered tundra areas richer in food, the basic expe- rience of the Nganasan traditional lifestyle was one of migration. More- over, catching wild geese, hunting various fur-bearing animals as well as traditional hunting and gathering also played an important role in their lives. Four or five extended families would migrate together with their sleighs filled with goods and passengers and pulled by domesticated 6 Virág Dyekiss reindeer. These groups were separated during the spring and summer seasons and moved to independent, smaller quarters and then united again in the autumn. Following the herds of reindeer, the Nganasan traveled a migratory route of over 8,000 kilometers and thus traversed the territory of their own clan. We know of altogether eight groups that once migrated together, and they were in close contact with the Dolgan who lived a bit further south (Popov 1966, 8–9). This lifestyle marked by following the migration of the wild reindeer with the purpose of hunt- ing and not focusing on keeping domesticated reindeer is unique in the region. The northern part of the Taĭmyr Peninsula is primarily a flat area about 100–110 meters above sea level. The plain is divided by lakes and small hills of 100–200 meters in height. The most significant lake in the region is Lake Taĭmyr, which is 700 sq. km in size and collects water from a number of rivers. These water courses and the catchment areas of the Rivers Pyasina and Khatanga that run into the sea played an important role in Nganasan hunting. During the hunt they would force the migrating reindeer into the rivers, at which point hunters lying in wait could easily aim their arrows at the animals scrambling about in the river and make the fatal shot. This method called for close coopera- tion among the hunters and ensured that they would outlive the winter. Knowing the migratory routes and the best hunting spots comprised an important part of the knowledge they required for survival. The Nganasan of Avam, who considered themselves a separate tribe, migrated in three groups to the plain territories bordered by the Rivers Avam, Pyasina, Ugarnaia, Buotankaga and Dudypta, which were occasionally dotted with hills; the overwhelming majority currently lives in the small settlement of Ust'-Avam. The Avam Nganasan group includes members of the Momdye, Ngamtusuo, Turdagin, Chunanchar and Porbin clans. In addition to origin, a network formed on the basis of territory was also very important.1 The other large group of Nganasan is that of the Vadeyev. Nganasan, who live further south; it consists of seven clans—the folklore material collected among them is very small. The language of the Nganasan falls within the Northern Samoyed branch of the Uralic language family and is closely related to Nenets and Enets. The Avam and Vadeyev Nganasan speak two different dialects. 1 For the Khanty, see Ruttkay-Miklián 2012, 29–39. The Self-Definition of a Community... 7 Unfortunately, language loss is currently very much advanced, and this process seems to be unstoppable due to changing life conditions. The traditional lifestyle of the Nganasan was not completely altered by the process of agricultural collectivization, since members of the three collectives organized in the 1930s continued to engage in fishing as well as hunting and keeping reindeer. Settling the nomad groups and building up Ust'-Avam began in 1970. In 1971, the Taĭmyr State Farm was established, which collected the hunters of the collective into a large organization. The prey had to be transferred to the col- lection centers so that they could fulfill the economic plan, so it was not efficacious to move away from urban centers (Ziker 2002). Within the state farm, an increasing number of Russian hunters arrived on the territory in the hopes of finding easy prey (Gracheva 1973). Therefore, a disproportionately large-scale destruction of the reindeer was now underway. In the 1980s, the domesticated reindeer died from contami- nated lichen. The nomadic lifestyle and migration therefore came to a halt. The use of new means of transport became common among the Nganasan (motorboats and motorized sleighs), but maintenance, repair and imported parts were unavailable to them. Moreover, these means were not suitable to transporting large amounts of prey, even though traditional hunting methods enabled them to bag a great deal at once. The lifestyle of this group of people therefore changed so dramatically that it had to lead to the large-scale transformation of its culture. By now the structure of the traditional culture has broken down, and the environmental and lifestyle conditions that created it have disappeared from daily life. However, elements can naturally be found in contempo- rary settled environments and even urban ones as well. Based on Nganasan folkloric texts, we also gain insight into a spiritu- ality and worldview that was integrally tied to their traditional lifestyle. As with other Siberian peoples, the shaman occupied a central place among the Nganasan as well in dealing with the problems that had emerged in their communities. Stories of shamans play an extremely significant role in the folklore. A small proportion of these stories are about mythical shaman ancestors who lived long ago, while other sto- ries commemorate the deeds of the shamans with outstanding talents within the various shaman clans. The mythical shamans used to live on earth before contemporary humans and had a hand in the formation of the world. We do not find proper names in these stories, and there is no sign of these shamans 8 Virág Dyekiss being the founders of the shaman dynasties that exist today. Two types of texts fall under this category, texts about: (1) shaman families that departed to the upper and lower worlds and (2) the shaman stranded on the moon. In the first case, one of the families, not having found prey on this earth, flew into the sky on its sacrificed reindeer, while the other headed downriver.