ЗАХОРОНЕНИЯ В ЛОДКАХ У ПАЛЕОСЕЛЬКУПОВ

Abstract

The article presents the results of field and desk research of burials in boats left by the Narym (southern) Paleo-Selkup people (16th-17th centuries). It examines the burial structures, the form of the discovered boats, and details of burial and commemorative rituals. The study is based on the findings identified and studied by the author from mounds 13 and 13A of the Kustovsky burial ground, left by representatives of the locally-dialectal Shiyesgula group. Published data from paleoethnography and ethnography on similar rituals among other groups of Narym Paleo-Selkup people are used as comparative material. Burials were performed under small mounds in shallow pits, which were previously burned before the boats were placed in them as containers for the deceased in their entirety, without dismemberment. The boat bottoms were supported by beam supports, and the pits were covered with wooden planks. Carved boats of two types were used for burial: a pointed prow and a blunt-sterned dugout. The form of the prow corresponds to the ethnographically documented shamanic boat called“rontyk,” which is also a boat for guiding the dead to the aft erlife. The deceased were laid on their backs, with their heads in the stern and their feet downstream.”