Symbolism and Functions of Birds’ Images in the Folklore of the Kuril, Sakhalin and Hokkaido Ainu

Osipova Marina V

doi:10.21209/1996-7853-2020-15-3-145-152

Abstract

Symbolism and Functions of Birds’ Images in the Folklore of the Kuril, Sakhalin and Hokkaido Ainu

Highlights

The researchers of the XIX–XX centuries mentioned in their works dedicated to the Ainu spiritual culture the exceptional role of birds as a mythopoetic classifier
Birds became an object of worship and a special wildlife symbol, and among the Ainu there was even a cult of representatives of this animal world
The question of the reasons of the origin of this cult and the question of their place in the traditional way of life have so far not been investigated by the ethnographers, though it is well known, that the most revered birds were brought up by the people in the settlement for a certain period of time and “sent off” as deities with the special honor to the heaven

Summary

Introduction

The researchers of the XIX–XX centuries mentioned in their works dedicated to the Ainu spiritual culture the exceptional role of birds as a mythopoetic classifier. Не менее значим в жизни айнов культ птиц, важны и его истоки, отражённые в многочисленных фольклорных произведениях, а также происхождение и появление пернатых на земле, отметим, что данным вопросам не уделялось внимание исследователей. Однако были и такие птицы, которым люди не поклонялись, но всё-таки обращались с ними как с божествами.

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