Article

Name: Textology of Altai and Teleut shamanic texts dedicated to the deities of the Upper World

Authors: N. R. Oynotkinova

Institute of Philology SB RAS, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation

In the section Study of folklore

Abstract: For the first time, the textual features of two shamanic texts dedicated to the deities of the Upper World are considered. The purpose of the work was to compare these works and identify common syntagmatic (compositional, stylistic) and semantic (characters, sacred chronotope) elements. The main research method is the structural-semiotic method, which allows considering these cultural texts as signs. Despite the fact that these texts differ greatly in their volume and poetic language, they have common elements. Different shamans performed these texts and at different times with the communicative aim to obtain the blessing of the light deities, the souls for the birth of children. Common elements are observed both in semantics (in the organization of sacred space, in the time of rituals, in the system of characters) and in syntagmatics and style. The addressees of the rituals were deities and spirits, and the acting characters were people. The names of the deities of the Upper World embodied the personification of the sky and natural phenomena, characteristic of archaic mythologies. The syntagmatic structure of the texts is characterized by certain stability of the poetic structure of the texts, supported by repeated episodes of the shamanic rite, common places, and poetic formulas. The presence of formulas indicates a common poetic shamanic tradition of the Altaians and the Teleuts.

Keywords: textual criticism, ritual folklore of Altaians, shamanic text, shamanism of Altaians and Teleuts, theonyms, sacred chronotope

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