CUSTOMS RELATED TO DOMESTIC GEESE AMONG THE BASHKIRS: TRADITIONS AND INNOVATIONS

Abstract

In the modern life of the Bashkir population in the Republic of Bashkortostan, a large number of different beliefs, customs and rituals associated with poultry, including geese, have been preserved. Despite the fact that tyhe Bashkirs started poultry farming relatively late, domestic birds occupy an important place in their daily and ritual practice.
 
 The purpose of the article is to consider the customs associated with geese amongBashkirs, including the custom of collective help – kaҙ omahe and “kaҙ yula” (“Goose Road”), in the middle of the XX – beginning of the XXI century.
 
 Materials and methods. The article uses general scientific methods: scientific description, analysis and systematization of empirical material, as well as the comparative historical method. When conducting field research, traditional ethnographic methods were used: in-depth interview, observation, photo fixation. The article is based on historical and ethnographic studies on the ethnography of the Bashkirs and peoples of the Ural-Volga region, museum collections of Archeology and Ethnography Museum at the Institute of Ethnological Research named after R.G. Kuzeev of Ufa Federal Research Center under the Russian Academy of Sciences and the National Museum of the Republic of Bashkortostan, as well as field materials collected by the author in 2019, 2023 in southern, south-eastern, western, central regions of the Republic of Bashkortostan and Kuvandyksky district of Orenburg region.
 
 Results. The customs associated with domestic geese among the Bashkirs are analyzed from the point of view of traditionality and innovations, and the problems of preserving the rituals of kaҙ omahe and “kaҙ yula” in modern conditions are also examined. The author examines some parallels in ritualism among the peoples living next door to the Bashkirs (the Tatars, the Udmurts, the Kryashens).
 
 Conclusions. It is revealed that the rituals of kaҙ omahe and “kaҙ yula” with elements of collective help are firmly rooted in the ritual culture of the Bashkirs and have not lost their significance up to the present time. Currently, they are held in the north-western, western regions of the Republic of Bashkortostan. According to a long-established custom, neighbors, relatives, unmarried girls are invited. Traditional food is set on the table: porridge cooked in goose fat, pancakes greased with the same fat, in some areas – noodle soup. As before, they give out ulyush (olosh – share). In some areas of the Republic of Bashkortostan in recent decades, the rite is carried out in the form of holidays-festivals.