RITUALS AND BELIEFS OF SHARKAN UDMURTS IN THE LOCALITY OF PISLEGOVO

Abstract

The article is devoted to the description of the rituals and beliefs of the Sharkan Udmurts in the Pislegovo locality. It is based on the materials of the ethnographic expedition conducted in 1993 and 2001 in the Sharkan district of the Udmurt Republic at the watershed of the Cheptsa and Kama Rivers' basins. The work contains the information on the demographic indicators, settlement area, dialect terms used by this local Udmurt group. Here is given the characteristic of the cult places, family and calendar rites of the following settlements as the villages of Pislegovo, Bol’shoy Bilib, Malyj Bilib, Stary Baibek, Verkh-Sjurzja, Badjarvyr, Kykva, and others. The secret (undeclared) public center of the settlement was the village of Pisegovo. The Kargurez’ elevation as a kind of sacred value of the local Udmurts is situated near the village. The traditional public prayers of Badgym busy vös’ (‘great prayer in a field’) were held in the nearby village. There were sacrificed foals and sheep. It was revealed that the border between the settlement areas of two Udmurt ethnographic groups, such as the northern ( vatka palios “residents of the Vyatka side”) and southern ( kuzon palios “residents of the Kazan side”), went through the locality.