Article

Name: Symbols and motives of religious syncretism in the Buryats Folklore (on the example of Buryat fairy tales from the series “Monuments of Folklore of the Peoples of Siberia and the Far East”)

Authors: V. V. Lygdenova, O. B. Dashinamzhilov

In the section Повествовательный фольклор

Abstract: The paper is dedicated to the motive analysis of the Buryat fairy tales that are included into the series “Monuments of folklore of the Peoples of Siberia and the Far East”. The main purpose of the article is to research and to reveal the elements of the religious syncretism. Structural-typological analysis of the fiction that was developed by V.Ya. Propp is applied in the research. Religious syncretism is defined as interaction of different forms of religion that happened during different historical periods. In our case such type of syncretism that appeared as a result of interrelations between local polytheistic cults with one of the world religions – Buddhism – is chosen: though Shamanist and Tengerian cults are preserved in the analyzed texts, however, Buddhist elements have already been found in the main motives. The interdisciplinary character of the work makes it current and new: specific features of the Buryatian religious syncretism are revealed in the written texts of fairy tales and legends in the end of the XIXth – beginning of the XXth centuries by structural-typological analysis of motives. The local peculiarities of the religious syncretism research make the analysis current. The paper analazes the texts of Pre-Baykalian and Transbaykalian Buryats which are compared to reveal how a traditional religions like shamanism and Buddhism are represented there depending on the territory of their settlement. Revealing the character of the Buddhist ideology influence on Shamanist believes by motive analysis of the fairy tales is the main problem that is solved in the paper. As a result, it is concluded that in the middle of the XXth century Buddhist written resources had a great impact on the Buryats that live in the Southern regions close to Mongolia and also in the northern and Pred-Baykalsky regions of Buryatia. Original plots, archaic mythological motives have been preserved in these regions. Several layers of different religion traditions are observed in the fairy tales: totems – heroes, animals that symbolize specific totems, – bear, bull, boar, etc.; Tengeri – shamanistic believes in the sky gods\ defense; Buddhist motives – Buddhist written sources and religious attributes. In general, the motives of the fairy tales represent the evolution of the religious syncretism and its specifics precisely that is illustrated by the structural motive analysis of the fairy tales.

Keywords: religious syncretism, Shamanism, Buddhism, Tengriism, motive, fairy tale, the Buryats, folklore of the peoples of Siberia, ethnography

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