The Altai–Sayan indigenous peoples have ancient traditions for living in harmony with the taiga. They have sacred trees and rules for respecting natural sites, and a shamanic and spiritual worldview that allows them to ‘think as nature’ in order to protect it.
The Altai and the Sayan mountain ranges spread their branching ridges across the very centre of Asia. Here the great Finno-Ugric peoples who settled across Europe began their travels, the ancestors of the Scythians found calm amid the permafrost, the Chinese set up their silk route, and Genghis Khan founded his great empire. Located on the cusp of the planet’s cold belt and arid zone, the landscapes of the Altai and the Sayan contain unique plant and animal communities. Here you can spot a camel and a reindeer, a polar partridge and a steppe-land bustard. Deserts and steppes shift into taiga forest that thins to alpine meadows, all splendidly topped with the snowy caps of grand mountain systems.
The indigenous peoples living here share land and fate. Their religious and ethical beliefs are tied to the Altai–Sayan environment, and there is a shared belief in the sacredness of the mountains. Here the people abide by and preserve the ritual traditions of their forefathers.
The ways of Siberian people are the only ones possible given their ecological niche. They have developed unique material and spiritual traditions allowing them to adapt to difficult conditions. A special relationship with the surrounding world had to be found that showed respect for all things present and for nature’s ever-evolving cycle of life. They are systematic in their gathering of information, relating what they learn to the sun and the moon, stars and the endless sky, thunder and lightening, clouds, rain and snow, calm and wind. These natural phenomena open people to flights of imagination, turning them into poets, thinkers and philosophers.
The worldview of Siberian peoples living among the Altai–Sayan mountains divides the universe into three worlds inhabited by people, animals, birds, deities and spirits.
In the upper world the major deity is Ul’gen who personifies a bright and happy beginning. Erlik, the ruler and master of the lower, underground world, is regarded as the frightening brother of Ul’gen. In the creation of the world and people, Ul’gen created the bodies, but Erlik instilled them with a spirit and claims them as his possession as their earthly life ends.
In the middle world, on earth, there are many spirits, the masters of mountains and rivers. Their worship is based primarily in the shamanic cult of tribal protectors against evil spirits.
Shamanism’s moral-ethical norms are a code for people going into nature: to mountain taiga to hunt, to valley and high mountain pastures, along mountain trails and passes, or to sacred mountains. Rules call for obeisance to the spirits of these sites and acknowledge dependence upon these spirits. From these rules and norms came prohibitions that protect nature’s calm and riches from human disturbance.
Central to the Altai–Sayan peoples’ beliefs is the tree. The tree is a universal symbol, the centre of the world, the vertical object that binds the land with the sky. All important events occurring in nature are associated with the tree, and a tree growing in the centre of the world has since ancient times been a cherished image in epic stories. Tales will often begin with a description of the hero’s native land, with vivid images of the mountain and the tree.
Trees and people act in the forest in much the same way. They think, breath and converse, they visit one another. Many native peoples believe that to see a tree fall in a dream is an omen that someone in the family will soon die. Within the forest there are shaman trees, trees that have a duel trunk or whose branches twin into a clump at the crown.
Each native group has its own sacred tree from which it arose. The tree of the Irkit, the Kypchak and the Komdosh is the birch; of the Kuzen and Shored, the pine; of the Chus, the spruce; of the Saal, the larch; and of the Kumandinets, the aspen. These peoples deeply respect their tree. They never cut it down, and if felling is necessary they ask someone from a different clan.
All Altai–Sayan peoples evoke a special, careful relationship with the forest and all its living things. No tree is ever to be cut for fire for there is ample deadwood to provide for this need.
When a child is born, a tree is planted next to the house. That person’s entire life and ultimate fate is connected with this tree. Should something happen to this tree, misfortune can be expected.
Peoples whose lives are inseparably connected with nature, and whose well-being depends on abundant pine nut harvests and on the grass growing in meadows, come to understand how their lives will be affected by a snowy winter or an especially hot summer. These connections to nature formulate their personal and collective understanding of the surrounding world and stimulate a powerful sense of inseparable connection to nature. People who depend entirely upon nature look to protect it.
The worldview of the indigenous people of the Altai–Sayan is based in a love for their native land; not a romantic love but a range of feelings from delight to reverence. This worldview arises from a person’s understanding of causality, of his/her total dependence on land, water and sky, and it ultimately gives rise to a sense of unity with the environment.
This is not some ancient religious viewpoint of out-of-touch peoples. It is a natural philosophy that has survived the test of centuries. A respect for and reference for Mother Earth is passed from generation to generation through stories, tales and legends, traditions and beliefs. People in the ancient land of the Altai–Sayan think as nature, in order to protect nature. They are part of an enormous, endlessly secretive and imperceptible world and they are its hope.
Alexander Arbachakov, Taiga Research and Protection Agency, Russia
Translator: Misha Jones, Pacific Environment, Russia |
