Old written sources also tell of large buildings in which public religious ceremonies were held. These are, in fact, dwellings, but large ones. Prayers and sacrifices, bear holidays were held in them. To store bear skulls in the forest, small log cabins were built on poles ...The bear was called the forest man for a reason. In relation to this beast, two opposing views were combined: on the one hand, he is a beast, an object of hunting, a source of food, and on the other, former man relative, ancestor. This is even a superman, because once he was the youngest son of the god Torum, but the latter for disobedience lowered him from heaven to earth. By order of God the father, the bear intervenes in human destinies, punishing the guilty and freeing the innocent from punishment.

The relationship between the people who killed the bear and the bear itself is revealed at the so-called bear festival. Researchers see its purpose in the desire to reconcile the bear (his soul) with the hunters who killed him. In the rites of the holiday, he also appears in the two roles mentioned: as an animal - a source of food (a body without a skin) and as a relative of a person, his ancestor, an exalted being (in this capacity, a skin with an unseparated head and paws acts). Ceremonies throughout the holiday were directed to the address of the relative-ancestor.

Ideas about the bear are similar in all Ugric groups, the researchers suggest their common basis. Considering that the collapse of the Ugric community, i.e. the beginning of the Ob-Ugric time, refers to the turn of the 2nd and 1st millennium BC. e., it is not difficult to imagine how many historical epochs the bear holiday reflects. Here one can trace the ancient autochthonous Siberian layer, which manifests itself in the prohibition to kill an ancestor. In the costumes of dancers at the bear festival and in the puppet theater, forms well known throughout the Iranian world are revealed. In the dramatic scenes of the holiday, there is a resemblance to the famous Italian commedia dell'arte. Thus, the bear holiday provides the richest opportunities for the reconstruction of the history of the people. We will tell about the course of the holiday below.

In the Khanty's worldview, a bear is not only a forest animal, but also an exalted being. When he lived in heaven as a child, he was irresistibly drawn to the earth. The father - the supreme god - yielded to the requests of his son and lowered him to the ground in a cradle, instructing him to maintain order and justice here, not to harm people. However, the bear violates some of the instructions of the father, the hunters kill him and, as prescribed by God, arrange a ritual holiday in honor of the heavenly beast.

As follows from the stories of hunters and numerous descriptions, going after a bear, the hunters underwent ritual purification with the pronunciation of the corresponding incantatory texts. For everything related to the bear, a secret language was developed, which, according to experts, included about 500 words. He himself was called the “beast”, the skin - “soft clothes made by the mother”, snow - “white dust”, the gun - “thundering thing”, the bear is not killed, but “brought down” from the forest to the village.

The rise of the animal from the den is a prerequisite for its production. The skin from the dead bear was removed from the head and taken to the village. Here the "bear" was greeted with salutatory shots, and the hunters were sprinkled with water or powdered with snow. The bear was brought into the house, laid with his nose on his paws, put on a hat or scarf, jewelry, rings on his claws, birch bark circles or plaques on his eyes. They also provided refreshments. The bear was informed that he had been killed by an arrow or a Russian bullet, and asked not to frighten the women in the forest.

The fun began in the evening, people came to it from afar. The program began with songs telling about the bear's heavenly life and his earthly deeds. In the morning they sang a song of awakening to the bear, then laudatory ones were also performed; a Russian who got here could sing a ditty. Then the next part of the bear festival began - dramatic performances. The actors were only men in masks; when performing female roles, they put on women's clothes over their clothes. For several evenings, ten scenes from the everyday life of the Khanty were played out: they depicted a cowardly hunter, an unsuccessful matchmaking, overeating on bird cherry, a collision with an official, etc. Some scenes were of sexual content. No one dared take offense if the mocking scene referred to him. In the intervals between songs and scenes, dances were arranged to the music. Fortune-telling about hunting was also carried out. At the end of the holiday, bear meat was boiled and eaten. They took out the bear (skin) through the window with certain precautions. The skull, and sometimes the skin, was kept in special buildings.

The structure of the bear cult is most fully disclosed in the dissertation of Eva Schmidt, where about 30 motives for its perception are revealed. The image of the bear, as it were, is scattered over different spheres and worlds, appears in different guises - a bear-like spirit, a bear-man, a heavenly bear, forest, earthly and underground.

The ceremonies performed at the bear festival carry not only a sacred load. At the same time, this is a holiday where they rejoice at big booty and pay tribute to the courage of a person and his courage in hunting a bear: after all, in the views of the Khanty, this beast is an almost supernatural being. Equally important, the Bear Festival allows people living in these sparsely populated areas to meet. The Bear Festival, like others, brought variety to the difficult everyday life, relieved mental stress. Comic-critical scenes played an entertaining and educational role. According to modern concepts, this is a folklore holiday. And at present, individual traditional scenes of the bear festival are performed at concerts during official celebrations, at festivals of folk art.

In folklore stories about the bear, the Mos and Por people appear. According to the sacred legend, the woman Mos was born to a bear in the pre-human era. The northern groups have many tales about the rivalry of women Mos and Por. Another series of folklore works is dedicated to one of the most popular heroes, who appears under different names and is endowed with different functions. In myths and religious rites, he bears the names of Urt-lonk "Prince-spirit", Kantykh-kan "Khanty prince", Torum-pakh "Son of God", Masterko, Merchant of the upper world - Merchant of the lower world, etc. He acts as the initiator of the creation earth and man, a teacher in crafts, making fire, etc.: he is also a mediator between the worlds, the first shaman. In fairy tales under the names of Imi-hita, Alvali, he acts as an inventor, magician, deceiver. Fooling others, committing even petty crimes, he still remains a favorite hero, since his tricks are mainly directed against forces hostile to people.

Now children memorize the biographies of famous contemporaries from among their people; so, once in the plague, we heard from the lips of a girl a biography of the Khanty poet R. Rugin. But the traditional form of presenting the biography of this or that person was the "song of fate", composed by himself. This is just one of the genres of the so-called everyday or individual songs, male and female. Among them were both lyrical and epic, and something in between these categories. In them we often see a lengthy description of an event. It was customary for the Khanty to sing at the feast after their arrival a song about the trip of their own composition. Praise songs, lamentations, love songs, social conflict songs, songs dedicated to a child or an animal were also composed. The most important function of an individual song was the preservation of the name of the author - this is how the value and indispensability of the individual was emphasized in ancient societies. The songs had stable lyrics that were learned by other performers. There were also song improvisations, but the one who believes that the song folklore of the Khanty is limited to them is wrong. The song genre is quite flexible and open to new topics. In the XX century. songs were composed about collective farms, about Lenin, now they talk about new cities and professions, reflecting anxiety for the future.

The musical culture of the Khanty is rich, but it has been poorly studied. Most of all it is known about musical instruments. They were of several types. Tumran, or konkol-lonkol, is a bone or wooden plate with a cut tongue and a thread tied to it. It was brought to the mouth and, tugging on the thread, they extracted soft sounds, including imitation of animal voices, the sound of hooves, etc. There were two types of stringed bowed instruments with a wooden body: the nin-yukh and hum-yukh had an oval body, and for kugel-yukh - with a notch, like a violin. Two or three strings were made from tendon threads or horsehair, which was also pulled on bows. Nin-yukh is a chamber male instrument, played on it in a small society in the evenings.

Two well-known male instruments are more sonorous: nars-yukh, panan-yukh of the zither type and torus, harp-type torop-yukh. In the first case, the hull is hollowed out of a solid block and resembles a flat-bottomed boat with a protruding lower part. The upper part is bifurcated and connected by a jumper. Three, and more often five strings are made of tendons or deer intestines, wire. This instrument was used to perform heroic songs and dances at the bear festival. It was also used by shamans and singers-musicians-healers Arehta-ku.

Thor, thor-yuh has a birdlike appearance and is called in Russian "swan", "goose", "crane" (Fig. 23). This is an arched harp with a solid wood body and neck, with a bird's head and sometimes a horse's head carved at the end of the neck. In the corner space between the body and the neck, from 9 to 13 strings are stretched. The Khanty also have a wind instrument - a wooden pipe, apparently, a hunting one. A tambourine was also used as a musical instrument.

). It is a complex of rituals - from hunting a bear to its ritual butchering. All actions of the rite are strictly regulated.

Rituals and their sequence

• Hunting

The holiday begins with a bear hunt. According to the beliefs of the Kets, the bear itself surrenders to the mercy of the hunter, standing up on its hind legs and opening its vulnerable belly. The Kets believe that at this moment one of the already deceased relatives is reborn into a bear. Usually these are older relatives, but there may be sons. A surrendering bear is a relative who wants to go to visit his own. Death is not terrible for him - he will be reborn. Thus, one person after death can look at his relatives several times in the guise of several animals. Hunters, on the other hand, will never say about a killed bear that they killed him, a bear cannot be killed, he only surrenders.

• divination

When a dead animal is dragged home, the first thing they do is cut off its right front paw, which is used for divination. The animal is laid belly up, after which the oldest hunter asks a question and throws up his paw. If it falls with the hair up, then this means that the bear gave a negative answer. If palm up, then positive. The first step is to find out the identity of the bear, that is, who he was when he was a man. In addition, the bear is asked a number of other things, up to the desired length of stay at a party.

• Butchering and eating a bear

After divination, skinning and butchering of the animal takes place. For the Kets, behind this process there are no complex and lengthy rituals, meanings and sequences of actions. In this they noticeably differ from other northern and especially from the Far Eastern peoples. First the skin is removed, then certain layers of fat are cut out, then dismembered and removed internal organs, some of which are sent to the fire for frying. Fat is cut off from different parts of the body, in different proportions, and given to the resulting types of pieces. Various types names. These names symbolize the animals that the hunter wants to lure, etc. Only men manage the process. At the same time, there used to be prohibitions on eating certain parts of the body by women, or even by all people, since according to superstitions, this could cause problems in the future. However, now all these superstitions have practically disappeared. Although some of the organs (organs of the respiratory system) are thrown away.

• visiting bear

Since most of the bear's torso is carefully butchered, for the next part of the ritual it is necessary to make something like a symbolic body of a bear. This symbol represents the bear for a further feast. The bear is symbolized by an assembly of several pieces of birch bark, on which the animal is depicted, and assembled in such a way that this assembly is voluminous. They make a kind of bed or room for the bear and lay it with its head to the fire. So the bear becomes a guest. While he is staying, bear meat and fat are not eaten in the house. Then the bear is revived. To do this, the symbol is supplied with separate parts of the animal's body, copper plates, matches-ribs, caps and a magic ring from a cedar twig. At the end of the ritual, the hunter dressed up in the skin of a bear (and previously put on a bear's nose in a special way) and thus, in the guise of an animal, they seemed to lure prey to the hunters.

Stylization and simplification

In the case of the Kets, the meaning of most rituals has long been lost. Already in the pre-war period, even the oldest Kets could not always explain which ritual was performed for what purpose. Nevertheless, Soviet ethnographers managed to establish that initially the Bear Holiday among the Kets differed from that of other northern and Far Eastern peoples (for example, among the Nivkhs) not so seriously as to single it out as something separate. The Ket bear festival has undergone a serious stylization. If earlier a full-fledged, perhaps even uncut torso of a bear could have been placed in the house as a guest, then gradually this part of the ritual was simplified - at best, a symbol of birch bark and some other materials remains from the bear. Among ethnologists, it is generally accepted that the use of copper symbolizes the transition of the Kets from the Stone Age to the Bronze Age. Now this curious complex of rituals is most likely completely lost, it can only be judged from the records of ethnographers.

The peoples of the North conduct an ancient ritual with a beautiful festival that lasts several days.

Previously, this was arranged in honor of a dead bear. The duration of the holiday among such peoples as the Mansi and Khanty depended on who was killed by the hunters.

If it was a male, then they celebrated at least 5 days, for a female - 4 days, and for cubs 2-3 days.

Then the holiday began to be held not constantly, but no less than once every seven years.

Often, each of us could hear such expressions as "Clumsy as a bear", "Clumsy bear", "A bear stepped on the ear." But very often you can hear about him affectionate - "Father Bear", respectful - "Mikhail Potapych", "Forest Old Man", "Guest", "Old Prince". Many peoples of the world have a special relationship. After all, this is a beautiful, dexterous animal. Few animals would dare to attack him. Only a human can be a rival for this species.

By ancient legend the bear was the youngest son of God Torum. That's why he's so strong and agile. God sent his son to Earth and asked not to destroy the villages and not to kill. But because of hunger and the attacks of the midge, the father's order was violated. Therefore, punishment fell upon the bear. The beast became mortal, and the hunters had the right to kill him for disobedience. The soul remained immortal and had to return to Torum. The bear is also called the forest man. People revere him and even celebrate the Bear Festival.

During this ancient and interesting ceremony, traditional rituals are held, theatrical performances are arranged, accompanied by music, singing, dancing, dressing up in various costumes. There is even a special ritual dance with seven arrows. All days they praise the bear and shift the blame for killing the beast to the gun, and for eating the meat to the crows. Only then they boil and eat the whole bear.

The holiday itself begins with a staging of a hunt with many rules. For this, a bear is specially grown up to the age of three. Then they make a meeting. Meals are distributed. Most often coins, sweets. Dress up and animal. Silver coins are placed over the eyes and nose. The bear is put on a birch bark muzzle. The she-bear, on the other hand, receives a scarf and beaded jewelry on her head.

Songs are sung with apologies that the bear had to be killed. Even a sacrifice is made in the form of a deer. The number of songs is always odd. The songs praise the bear as a representative of the whole nation. There are special songs that are performed on this occasion, in costumes and masks of animals. People imitate their habits and dances. Ravens act as thieves who want to steal the meat and soul of the bear. People are trying to protect and prevent the kidnapping of an immortal soul.

After the chants, sports competitions and dramatic performances begin. The hunters compete in accurately hitting the target with steles, prepare bear meat for dinner in compliance with the rules and rituals, after which the meal begins. After dinner, people collect all the bones to bury in a special place, believing that the bear will be able to be reborn.

The skin, part of the muzzle, lips, skull are considered sacred and are kept separately. At this holiday, you can not only watch the performance, but also buy a lot of souvenirs that depict a bear. For women, beaded jewelry, knitted rugs, fur. Men will be conquered by knives that have an image of a totem animal on their handles, handmade leather products. National costumes are also beautiful. And what kind of masks can you find and hang to decorate the interior of your apartment! For children there are toys in the form of a bear.

In Russia, the bear has also been revered since ancient times. There is even an East Slavic holiday of the awakening of the bear. This holiday was connected with Shrovetide. But after the adoption of Christianity, the celebration of the awakening of the bear was postponed to an earlier time and they stopped worshiping this beast. On March 24, there were mummers in clubfoot costumes, which were made from bear skins. There was a merry festivity with burning stuffed animals, rolling burning wheels and dancing real bears with buffoons. The owner of the forest looked like the Russian God Veles or, as he is called in another way, Volos. Veles was considered the patron saint of cattle, was shaggy and hairy. Even the Magi put on a bearskin.

Until now, the love of the people for this beautiful, powerful animal has remained. If you have the opportunity, then you should definitely go to the festival, which is held by the peoples of the Orochs and Udeges. Today, this national festival has turned into a competition of agility and strength, backgammon races, mass dances with singing, which are accompanied by playing national musical instruments.

And, of course, one cannot fail to mention the Olympic Bear - the favorite of the people, the mascot of the two Olympic Games held in Russia in 1980 and 2014.

(Mans. yany yikv - "big dances", nivkh. chkhyf lerand - "bear game") - a complex of rituals associated with the bear cult. The rituals are accompanied by playing musical instruments, ritual and entertaining dances, and singing. Conventionally, a bear holiday consists of several parts: a ritual, in compliance with all the rules and prohibitions of hunting or a staged hunt for a bear grown for this bear (sometimes keeping a bear skin for the holiday), in compliance with the rules, prohibitions and rituals of skinning it, delivering skinned carcasses and skins with his head to the village, where the bear was greeted as a guest, presented with presents and treated to, excusatory rites (assignment of guilt for the murder to the “Russian gun”, and for eating meat - to the crows); singing of the beast as an ancestor of a clan, phratry or relative (bear folklore); animal and bird dances, dramatic scenes and performances, in some cases - and sports; ritual preparation of bear meat and meals; rituals of burial of bones, skull, designed to revive the bear; keeping the skin, skull, mink (parts of the muzzle), lips and paws as sacred.

There are myths about how the bear festival rituals originated. An Evenki myth tells of a girl who went into the forest, fell into a bear's den and spent the winter there. In the spring, she returned to her parents and gave birth to a bear cub, which they raised. Later, the girl married a man and gave birth to a boy. Both brothers grew up and decided to measure their strength. The younger brother - the man killed the elder - the bear. Dying, the bear told how to hunt him and how to bury him. In the myth of the Khanty and Mansi, a bear who ate a porikh plant and gave birth to two cubs and a girl says to her daughter: “People will come tomorrow. They will kill me, your brother and sister, and take you with them. When people cook my meat, you, look, do not eat, but by night come to the back corner of the house. And so it happened. At the appointed place, the girl met a mother bear, who for three nights instructed her how to behave and how to deal with meat and bones. Among the Kets, Kaigus-bear wants to marry a girl and kidnaps her. But he is pursued, he releases the girl and tells her what needs to be done for his rebirth after death.

The cult of the bear (special attitude, worship, service to him) is characteristic of all the peoples of the North, the bear festival is only for a part of them. Conventionally, three main variants of the bear holiday can be distinguished: 1 - of a general nature (conditionally), characteristic of the Evenks, Evens, Kets, Northern Yakuts, etc., 2 - Ob-Ugric (among the Khanty and Mansi), 3 - Amur-Sakhalin (among the Nivkhs , Ulchi, Udege, Oroch, Orok).

The first option is most clearly represented among the Evenks and Kets. It is dedicated to bear hunting, and the main thing in it is a meal. Bear meat is eaten at night during the entire holiday (up to three days), and in between meals they arrange dances, games, and sing.

Among the Evenks, the eldest of the hunters killed the bear, and the relative (nimak) skinned it. Removing the skin from the bear’s head along with the cervical vertebrae, they said: “Grandfather (grandmother), we’ll take off our fur coat, there are a lot of ants running around, they will bite.” The fat was separated, divided between families, the carcass was delivered to the village on sleds, which were then broken. In the village, they continued to skin the hunted animal: they cut off the head, took out the lungs, heart, liver, eyes, cut out the ears, tongue, nose, genitals (they were kept until the end of the holiday). To acquire the properties of a bear, nimak - a relative of a hunter - ate raw meat.

Fires were lit by a large tree. On the first day, the neck part was cooked. The youth played, danced and led round dances. At midnight, the "cry of the raven" heralded the start of the meal. They ate in silence by the fire and dispersed. On the second day, finely chopped heart and entrails were boiled, in other cauldrons - meat. The youth again had fun, led round dances. After midnight, the “crow of the raven” was heard again, everyone answered “bird”, smeared their faces with soot and, calling each other oli - raven, sat around the fire. Nimak handed out spoons and passed the vessel with the heart and entrails around. They ate bear meat, dispersing through the plagues. On the third day they continued to cook the meat and performed rituals with the head, genitals of the bear, the meat from the head was eaten at midnight. The skull was wrapped in birch bark and buried. The skin of the bear was given to the nimak (in return he gave the hunter a deer), it was fumigated and kept in the family along with shrines. The paw was hung in the tent as a talisman or given to the shaman to make a beater.

The Khanty and Mansi had not only sporadic bear holidays (on the occasion of a successful bear hunt), but also periodic ones. In the distant past, when it was forbidden to kill the bear, the ancestor of the Por phratry, and eat its meat, apparently only periodic holidays were held, to which only members of the Por phratry were admitted. Over time, when the prohibitions weakened, strangers were allowed to attend the holiday, and later foreigners as well. To revive the beast and ward off guilt, they began to hunt a bear, eat its meat and hold sporadic bear festivals.

Periodic holidays - "bear games" - were held in the winter for seven years, followed by a seven-year break. They began in December, at the winter solstice, and ended in March, at the vernal equinox. At first they “played” four nights in a row, then after 5-7 days of a break during January and February - 1-2 nights each, as people gathered from the surrounding villages. At the beginning of March they “played” for seven nights, before the full moon the “games” ended.

The holiday was held in the center of the phratry Por - the village of Vezhakory on the Ob. The bear was represented by his skin, which was usually kept in a sacred barn. The first part of the holiday included songs, stories about the bear and the origin of the Por people, and dances of the ancestors. The "bear songs" told about the origin of the bear, the establishment of rituals. Then followed the sacred part - "call songs" and "bird dances", during which they turned to common deities, called their ancestors, men performed dances with sabers or swords. However, songs and interludes were also ordered to be performed by men dressed in special costumes (foxes, roosters, cranes, etc.), with birch bark and wooden masks on their faces. Costumes and accessories of the holiday (sabers, swords, etc.) were kept in a sacred barn or in a special public house - a "dance hut". On the last night of the holiday, sacred performances were played, depicting the main spirits - the Great Spirit, Kaltash-Ekva, Mir Susne Khum, dances dedicated to them. Traditional dances and interludes depicted the confrontation between the bear, the ancestor of the phratry Por, and the Crane, representing the phratry Mos. The bear and all those present were also attacked by mosquitoes, an owl, a fiery fox, and a raven. The dance of the fiery fox was performed in winter clothes, to which a straw tail was tied. During the dance, the tail was set on fire - this was supposed to lead to the cleansing of the premises and the participants of the holiday. They danced and sang to the accompaniment of the five-stringed musical instrument sangultapa. The final episode of the holiday is the arrival of seven forest spirits - menkvs (spirits of the phratry Por) for a redemptive sacrifice in the form of two wooden figurines of a man and a woman. They were taken to a secret sanctuary and burned. Later, this ritual took the form of a puppet show. The dolls acted as antagonists of the bear, and the death of the doll, which ended the performance, was perceived as a redemptive sacrifice.

If a bear was killed, then the bear festival of the Ob Ugrians lasted five nights, if a bear - four, and if a bear cub - then 2-3 nights (the same number of "bear songs" were performed at the beginning of the holiday). The sporadic holiday was an abbreviated version of the periodic one. It had more entertainment elements. When the bear's carcass was brought to the village, a purification ceremony was held: in summer they poured water on everyone, in winter they sprinkled it with snow. The holiday was held in the house of a hunter who got a bear. The skin with the head and paws was laid in the front corner on the table in a sacrificial position - the head was placed on outstretched paws. The bear's head was covered with a scarf, mugs of birch bark or coins were placed over her eyes, her paws were decorated with rings and ribbons. Treats were placed in front of the head, figures made of dough, depicting sacrificial deer (they used to sacrifice deer and horses), for fumigation - smoking chaga. Everyone who came to the celebration bowed to the bear, kissed his paw (women - through a scarf). At the festival, they sang songs about the bear, its life in the forest, about how it was hunted. An important place was occupied by the rites of "renunciation": the hunters turned to the bear and said that they were not to blame for his death. At first, the blame was assigned to members of the phratry Mos, later - to foreigners ("Russian weapons are to blame"). For several nights they performed bear folklore, dances, songs and performances - performances in masks (tuli paws). They had both sacred and entertaining significance. All roles, including women's, were performed by men. Women danced, covering their faces and hands from the bear with a large scarf. Instructive-satiric nature were scenes depicting braggarts, cowards, thieves, lazy people, sluts. Any person, including those present at the celebration, could become an interlude object. No one was offended by the actors. Moreover, the well-known actors were, as it were, anonymous: when, after the performance and dressing, they returned to the house, the owner asked them: “People were having fun here, where were you all evening?” To which they replied: “We don’t know this at all: we were fast asleep all the time.”

The culmination of the holiday is a performance with rag dolls mounted on the legs of an artist lying on his back, or with wooden figures controlled by a musician playing the sangultap. Bear meat was eaten only on the last night of the holiday. Only men cooked it, in a special place and in special boilers. They ate with their hands or with special sticks (metal objects could not be used), the bones were divided into joints. Men ate meat from the front of the carcass, women - from the back. (The head, paws and heart were cooked by the men later, in the forest, and eaten separately). During the meal, they croaked like crows, diverting blame from themselves. They said: "The crows have come, the crows are eating." They cleansed themselves: doused themselves with water, igniting shavings, captured the flame with their mouths, ran their hands over the fire, tapped their teeth with a knife blade. After that, a man with a burning tinder went around all the corners of the dwelling and shouted like a bird; opened the door, "chasing" the birds out into the street - the house was cleared of violators of the ban. Then they turned off the light and pretended to fall asleep. A voice was heard: “It rises to the upper spirit” (bear). The bones of a bear were buried in a forest or a lake, the skull was hung on a high stump or kept wrapped in a scarf in a sacred chest.

The Amur-Sakhalin Bear Festival was also held periodically or on the occasion of a successful bear hunt. It is most clearly represented among the Nivkhs. Members of the family, led by the oldest hunter, participated in the bear hunt. He sat on the back of a dead bear and shouted: "Uuuu!" three times if a male was killed, and four times if a bear. To appease the beast, tobacco was placed in his left ear. After skinning the carcass, they delivered it to the village - they carried it head first, warning their relatives with a cry. Women met the bear by playing on a musical log. The carcass was placed in the barn, the skin with the head - on the platform, where the bones, skulls, and genitals of previously mined bears were already stored. There were also hunting equipment. They put all kinds of treats, fried bear meat was distributed to those present. The meal was accompanied by playing on a musical log.

Much more, the Amur peoples have developed a ritual of a periodic bear holiday - with a bear grown in a cage, which was held in January-February, during the full moon. On the one hand, it was associated with a fishing cult (accompanied by a ritual of feeding the owners of the land, forests and mountains), on the other hand, with a wake for a deceased relative, whose soul allegedly passed into a bear.

A bear cub found in the forest was raised for three years in a cage. The hostess at first even breastfed him, calling him "son." The holiday was divided into several stages: 1 - making sacred shavings of inau, 2 - killing a bear, 3 - placing the animal's head on the platform, 4 - feeding guests with bear meat, 5 - sacrificing dogs, 6 - traveling guests.

On the appointed day, the owner of the bear poured wine for the household spirit and asked him to forgive him for not being able to keep the bear any longer, although he treated him well all the time. Then, with the guests, he went to the cage and treated the animal. The bear was taken around the village, he was joyfully greeted in every house, treated to fish, special fish skin jelly, wine, bowed to him - this was supposed to bring prosperity to the house. Everyone danced to the sounds of a musical log, pantomime depicting the future journey of the bear to the ancestors.

The son-in-law (or son-in-law) killed the bear on a specially prepared site (“shooting range”). The bear was skinned, the skin with the head was lowered into the house through the smoke hole. Dogs were sacrificed. We started eating cooked meals. Between meals, dances, dog racing, fencing with sticks, archery were arranged, women played on a musical log. Bear meat was boiled on a fire made with the help of a family flint, it was taken out with a special scoop with the image of a bear, and served in wooden ladles made for the celebration. The bear's head and meat were decorated with inau shavings. The bones were collected and given to the owners, attaching some gift to them (a spear, a knife, a belt, even dogs, women - a cup of food). All the gifts, along with the bones, were allegedly sent to the "forest people" - the bears. Before the end of the holiday, the old people sat all night near the bear's skull, ate ritual foods and talked with him.

The skulls were kept in a barn or on a tree, in spring and autumn, when they started fishing, they were "fed" them.

The bear holiday of the peoples of the North combined elements of totemism (ceremonies of the rebirth of the bear - the ancestor and owner of animals) and a fishing cult. It also reflected the widespread myth of the dying and resurrecting beast.

article from the encyclopedia "The Arctic is my home"

Bear Holiday

Animals, which the Ainu still sacrifice, are also considered as messengers to the kamuy with requests.

But the sacrifice of a bear raised in captivity is of exceptional importance. Like many Eurasian peoples, the Ainu have a tradition of raising wild animals in captivity, but only the bear is treated as a member of the family.

The bear, revered as the ancestor of the Ainu, is surrounded by them with special honor. The killing of a bear is considered as a gift of the beast to the people of its flesh, while its soul returns to the world of spirits.

This is well illustrated in the following Ainu parable.

“In ancient times there lived a family, a husband and a wife. One day the husband fell ill and soon died, leaving no children, and the wife was left all alone. The neighbors saw that the woman was going to have a child, and some of them said, "Surely this woman has remarried." Others said, "No, her late husband has risen from the dead." But the woman herself said that a miracle happened to her, and described it as follows: “One evening, a creature, similar to a man dressed in black clothes, entered her hut. He said, “Woman, I am the God who dwells in the mountains—a bear, but I have now assumed the bodily form of a man. Your husband is dead and you are alone. I saw it and I came to tell you that you are going to have a baby. He will be my gift to you." And having said this, he left. From the deity, the woman gave birth to two sons, a man and a bear. Once a man, having entered into a duel with his brother bear, defeated him. Dying, the bear asked, in the name of human well-being, to organize a funeral and a holiday for all bears killed while hunting, where, according to the bequeathed ritual, people will have to ceremonially eat bear meat. Defined prohibitions for a woman - the mother of her child - a bear (do not eat the meat of the beast). The human son became the father of many children. Thus, it turns out that many of the Ainu are still considered relatives of the bear.

The rite of sacrificing a captive-bred Ainu bear is called "Iomante", a bear farewell to mountain spirits - the owners of all animals.

In short, the essence is that the bear cub is fed in the village. Three years later, he is apologetically sacrificed at a bear festival. The meat is eaten, the bones are solemnly buried, and the soul is sent to the mountain spirits with all sorts of petitions.

From descriptions dug up from various sources, I made my own:

In order to protect oneself from the most formidable hostile forces, or diseases, a special inau is needed.

First, the hunters get a suckling bear, which they bring to the village.

From that day on, all the surrounding Ainu begin new life in anticipation of the holiday. You have to wait three to four years for it. But now people are not so afraid of diseases, hunger, wars. All troubles will go away, because the Holiday is ahead.

This weak bear "little man" was settled in one of the families, and the woman fed him with her milk. The grown bear ate the same food as people.

The bear cub was kept in a special cage:

It can be well seen in a watercolor depicting an Ainu camp:

And now, on a special full moon, peace comes around for many days (I remind you that the Ainu are warlike tribes). From different families, from the most distant places, guests come by land, guests sail by sea. They are greeted with joy and honor.

Sakhalin Regional Museum of Local Lore, painting. A feast during the bear festival. 1950

According to tradition, the owner, who brought up the sacred animal, put on display all his wealth - dishes, emblematic patterned kimonos, patterned fabrics, swords, quivers and treated everyone to sake.

Watercolor by Byozan Hirasawa

Photo by B.O. Pilsudski

It's time for games, competitions and dances. To the rhythmic sounds of "mukkuri" (a kind of khomus) and to the beat of blows on a spruce log lying on the goats, former enemies they draw each other into a dance, forgetting insults, stand side by side and slowly step in one direction or the other. The music itself makes you clap your hands, shake your heads. Laughter and songs are heard.

Then the main thing comes: the bear is taken out of the house-cage. All this time he was taken better care of than his own children.

Now people have come together to see off the dear guest to another world. The bear will remember and thank the Ainu for a long time. But first, let him pass between the rows of standing and sitting people, so that everyone can say goodbye to the "man."

The Ainu crowd into a huge cheering crowd. She leads the bear to a sacred platform, where “people” carved from wood, similar to him, are frozen figures of a bear.

Photo by B.O. Pilsudski

A bearded man comes out with a large bow, in his height. Two arrows hit the bear on the left side and release his soul into the wild.

Photo by B.O. Pilsudski

After all, she is the smartest, most skillful inau. Not one, many Kamuev can persuade. And then the Owner of the Forest - the bear - will give a happy hunt, and the Owner of the Sea - killer whale - will drive a sea animal to the prison or order fat whales to throw themselves ashore. If only the soul of the shaggy “man” remembered longer how real people loved him, living on islands scattered in the middle of the vast ocean.

During the funeral ceremony of a bear, a procession of men slowly moves along a path leading into the forest. In front they carry a head, planted on an inau, then the eyes of a bear wrapped in shavings, ears, a nose and two vertebrae, a lower lip, paws and esophagus, then bones in matting; at the end of the procession, dishes and sake were carried. Everyone stops in front of high inau driven into the ground. Those who came tie the brought bear organs to a thin inau, driven into the ground next to the rest. Everyone sits down and has to drink “sake”, sipping a little in front of the placed skull. Farewell occurs with the words: “Take it as a sacrifice ... Let the gods of the forest, river, mountains take part in this final scene of the feast.”

Turning to the gods, the Ainu did not forget themselves. So in the song to the gods at the bear festival it is sung: “Only I myself composed this song ... Whenever I made me listen to the gods ... So that the gods always remember me”

This is how the Ainu saw the structure of the world, “real people”, who believed that apart from the land where they live and hunt, there is no other land in the world.

HOLIDAY - In the Middle Ages, did they love holidays (except for church ones)? - They loved them very much. You could even say that people had a highly developed sense of celebration. Essentially, it is in equally the fruit of old pagan traditions (especially peasant ones), not obsolete or altered, and