Article

Name: Ethnocultural identity of the Buryats in oral folk prose

Authors: Badma-Khanda B. Tsybikova

Institute for Mongolian, Buddhist and Tibetan Studies of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Ulan-Ude, Russian Federation

In the section Study of folklore

Abstract:

The paper examines the ethnocultural identity as manifested in the oral prose of the Buryats of Inner Mongolia of China. The nomadic way of life of the Aryats contributed to a simple, uncomplicated, and practical character of everyday life and a diet consisting of meat and dairy products. A distinctive feature of the oral prose of the Buryats of Inner Mongolia is the presence of narratives with mythological ideas about characters of heavenly origin, controlling everyday life, and possible scenarios of human destiny. The verbal prose of the Chinese Buryats is syncretistic in its cultreligious preferences: Buddhist religious foundations prevail, and at the same time, shamanistic views and elements of ancient mythological consciousness are preserved. Verbal and figurative formulas regulate the norms of human behavior: what can or cannot be done. Oral didactic stories are the most expressive in this regard. The presence and use of a rather significant layer of Russian words mastered and preserved by the first generation of migrants and used today by modern representatives of the Buryat enclave serve as the most striking ethnomarker distinguishing them from other ethnic communities in the multinational sociocultural space of China. The analysis of the oral folk prose material revealed the specificity of the ethnocultural landscape based on the peculiarities of economic and household activities and sociocultural traditions that conditioned the mental attitudes of the ethnos.

Keywords: oral narrative folklore, Buryats of Inner Mongolia of China, ethnocultural identity, ethnic constants, cultural attitudes

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