Abstract
The article examines a complex of syncretic beliefs of one of the peoples of Dagestan – the Tsakhur. The beliefs include surviving relics of traditional myths, holidays, rituals and customs, as well as the cult of Muslim saints. Despite the fact that the Tsakhur are among the first peoples of Dagestan who adopted Islam, their traditional spiritual culture (zoolatry, hunting myths, orolatria, agrarian holidays and ceremonies, fancy ritual bread, calendar and maternity rituals, healing magic, demonological representations) preserved in pagan mythological characters of the former pagan pan-theon and pandemonium. Rudiments of pre-monotheistic beliefs are hunting myths, in which the patronage of wild animals and the hunt appears. Over time, this deity evolves into a Muslim saint, patronizing the revered wild animal of the Tsakhur – the white urus. The veneration of Muslim saints among the Tsakhur was expressed in the construction of ziyarats on their graves, with their attributes used in the rituals of healing magic for diseases of livestock. This same veneration was also associated with another ancient belief of the Tsakhur – orolatria. In the calendar ritual of the Tsakhur, the most popular holiday was the festival of spring and the beginning of Navruz, a new agricultural year, when special ritual fancy bread was baked. Their meteorological magic has pre-served a unique winter rite of the gode, when boys dressed in women's clothes walked with a song and carried a doll. The ritual was performed during heavy snowfall to stop it. According to the au-thor, these circumstances indicate the syncretic nature of the traditional beliefs of the Tsakhur, re-vealing a mixture of early forms of religion and Muslim ideology and culture. This syncretism of Tsakhur beliefs makes it possible to refer them to the so-called “popular” or “everyday Islam” wide-spread in Dagestan, which can serve as one of the arguments in the struggle against religious ex-tremism.
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