Revival of the Canonic Yakut Traditional Competitions at the Ysyakh Holiday

Abstract

At present, the modern competitive program of the Yakut holiday Ysyakh, which consists of sports events and is carried out according to modern sports rules, can no longer be considered a cultural code of the ethnic group in the future, since the study of archival documents describing the Yakut traditional games, as well as old photographs depicting the moments of the Yakut traditional competitive games revealed that the imposition of a sports status leads to significant and permanent changes in the rules of the competition, which ultimately leads to a radical change in the sport from the original version of the traditional game. Also, subject to the development of any ethnic type of competition as a sport in the international arena, there is a gradual loss of the ethnic identity of this sport. Therefore, we recommend that the competitive part of the ethnic ritual holiday of Ysyakh, consisting of the Yakut traditional types of competitions, be held according to the reconstructed old rules and canons; thereby, on the one hand, we contribute to the preservation of the authenticity of traditional competitive games, and on the other hand, we provide a connection between authentic traditional games and the types of competitions that have received sports status.