20.01.2022 An (woman shaman) turns the tables of power on Soviet officals in the most hilarious way: ""The legendary woman shaman Alykhardaakh is said to have best...ed Sakha Soviet authorities, whom she invited to her cabin for a seance. After dancing and drumming herself into a trance, she called forth water, and the men's ankles were submerged. Then she called forth a large fish, which she caught in her hands. Finally, she asked the officials to remove their pants and hold their male organs. [!!!] The men, caught in this embarrassing position when she emerged from her trance, vowed never to bother her again." Other accounts exist of North Asian shamans who resisted Russian colonization: "In the Siberian Far East, a story told by the Sakha (Yakut) people recounts how some of their shamans escaped Soviet jails: they simply turned into birds and flew away. "The Sakha elder Somogotto recalled that one revered curer, Nikon, was arrested as part of the Soviet persecution of shamanic practitioners. Handcuffed to a policeman, the unprotesting shaman was led to the courthouse. But when they got there, instead of an old shaman, there was just a piece of tree branch handcuffed to the policeman, whom the magistrate accused of being drunk. "For the past ten years, I have collected many such tales of the powers of shamans, their prowess as curers and wiliness in the face of state-led persecution. These tales have not only helped to keep shamanic traditions alive in the Sakha Republic (Yakutia), they have also become a vital source of ethnic identity and resistance to absorption by the dominant Russian culture. Despite centuries of suppression and ridicule by church and state, some ancient worldviews are being reintegrated into the chaotic post-Soviet debates. "The shaman Konstantin of the Abyi region and two others captured by local officials reportedly were released after they made an entire roomful of Party functionaries believe they saw wild bears and snow inside a Young Communist League hall." From Balzer, Marjorie Mandelstam, at link. I'll post her book this is excerpted from, and more, in comments. Shown: a Sakhá . This word for female shamans is related to many other words for same across Eurasia. More on that too in comments. (You'll often see the Sakhá referred to as "Yakut" in Russian sources, but this is gradually being remedied.) https://www.questia.com/mag/1P3-11168480/soviet-superpowers Edit: I forgot to add that these are photos of a Sakhá iduan, some 30 years earlier than the Soviet repression, not a picture of Alykhardaakh. It's not like tsarist officials and Russian missionaries didn't interfere with Indigenous spiritual ways before. I don't have much information on that. But it got really bad around 1930.
13.01.2022 Shor (shaman) with a huge drum painted with her dreamings, southern Siberia, 1927. Russian colonizers persecuted Shor spirituality, as they did that of a...ll Indigenous people in North and Central Asia. First tsarist Christians painted their religion as "devil-worship" and subjected them to forced conversions. Later, Soviet officials declared the to be enemies of the state and outlawed . Both groups confiscated and burned Shor drums, ceremonial robes and regalia, desecrated their sacred grounds. or carried their treasures off to museums (as settlers did in North America too). The Shors live in the Tomsk region, and overlap into neighboring Khakassia and the Altai Republic. They are related to the Nentsy and Kets, though in the middle ages they began to speak a Turkic language after they came under the rule of the northern Kirghiz. Later they absorbed Mongolian words under that empire. Russian armies conquered their country in the early 1600s, after which settlers started to stream into their lands. Like all other North Asian peoples they were subject to pay yasak (tribute) in furs to the Russian state. The results of over-hunting parallel the results of the fur trade in the colonization of North America, including the disruption of the traditional economy. The Shors were iron-workers and they lost this trade to Russian settlers. When the Soviets took over, there was a brief window for local self-government. That was soon overturned by 1930, so that the region could be exploited for mining. They brought in Russian workers and many Shors were driven off their land, with the usual social ills that accompany such displacements. A cultural resurgence started in the late 80s after glasnost' opened things up, but only after huge inroads had been made on the Shor language, culture, and economy.
04.01.2022 Akem, a with her drum in the Altai region of Central Asia. Found while searching for a photo of Alykhardaakh, the Sakhá shaman known for dramatically vanq...uishing officials sent to block her from continuing her ceremonies. (See several posts down for this amazing story.) Over the course of several years, the repression drove the spiritual leaders of the Tuva and other Central and North Asian peoples deep underground, a situation that continued until Gorbachoff created an opening for them to reemerge, with glasnost' policies. A resurgence and reclamation of the old ways has been underway since then. See more
