Historical Origins of Circular Dance Ohuokhai: Structure, Semantics, Symbolism

Abstract

The relevance of studying is determined by the ongoing renaissance of the ohuohai dance in the cultural practice of modern Yakut people. The novelty of the research is seen in the proposal of a scientific version: circular dances following the course of the sun (from east to west) signified movement downward, while dances against the course of the sun (from west to east) signified movement upward. It is noted that the west and east reflected different worlds, and movements in a circle symbolized a journey along the fragile boundary between the two worlds. The work implements a comprehensive approach to the subject of study using historical-comparative, structural-semiotic, functional types of analysis, synthesis and generalization of folklore, ethnographic, linguistic, leading to a unified picture of the semantics of circular movements. The authors conclude that the modern name ‘ohuohai’ dance is an innovation of the Soviet period, absent in sources from the pre-revolutionary and early Soviet periods, in which the term ‘үҥкүү’, equally meaning the circling-dance of the shaman, is consistently mentioned. It is emphasized that the ohuohai round dance included ecstatic elements of shamanism, clearly similar to the shaman’s beliefs about transitions to other worlds.