THE “MOSQUITO SHAMAN’S” SONG-SPELL (BLOOD-SUCKING INSECTS IN THE CULTURE OF THE NENETS AND OB UGRIANS)

Abstract

The article examines the attitude of the Nenets and Ob Ugrians to blood-sucking insects. Winged (mosquito, midge, woodlouse, gadfly) and wingless (louse) blood-sucking insects are considered by the Nenets and Ob Ugrians as belonging to the Lower World. In folklore, their appearance is associated with the witch Parne and other representatives of the dark worlds (dungeons, forest thickets, water depths), whose ashes turn into midges and are carried by the wind. The mosquito years are a living hell for the inhabitants of the tundra and taiga. The description of meetings with bloodsuckers is close to the rhetoric of war. At the same time, they turn out to be similar to a person in their behavior and appearance (they wear fur and iron clothes), but folklore also emphasizes their otherness, contains indications of ethnic opposites (for example, comparison with hostile neighbors). In the view of the forest Nenets, the song-spell performed annually with the rite of sacrifice to the “mosquito shaman” makes it possible to somehow influence on the number of insects flying out during the flowering of the vermilion. It is believed that the Nenets shamans, whose costumes were decorated with metal castings of insects (gadflies and their larvae), were able to regulate blood-sucking insects, annoying people and deer. Archaeological finds in the north of Western Siberia of metal figurines of blood-sucking insects indicate the antiquity of a special attitude towards them. We can talk about a wider inclusion of blood-sucking insects in the structure of the universe of the Samoyeds than among the Ob Ugrians (the names of the summer months, the existence of the genus Nenyang (Mosquito), a folklore plot with the punishment of a person for disrespectful attitude, the use of images as spirits-assistants of shamans and in the funeral rite). At the same time, the wide distribution of various folklore plots with the participation of insects among the Ob Ugrians and the findings of figurines of gadflies (ranked as blood-sucking) at the archaeological sites of the Lower Ob region suggests that this is a rather ancient layer of the culture of the population of Western Siberia.