Spiritual Culture: Mythologies, Traditional Beliefs, Holidays, and Rituals

The mythological worldview of the Tubalars is similar to the ideas of all the indigenous peoples of the Altai Republic. It is reflected in folklore. Myths and fairy tales of many sub-genres represent the Tubalar fairy tale tradition. Fairy tales with different content often display similar features. When telling tales, the narrators naturally included symbolic onomatopoeia and song episodes in the text.

These melodic fairytale elements are the ethnic markers that distinguish the Tubalar tales from their related Chelkan and Kumandin tales. Currently, the fairytale tradition of the Tubalars is fading away. The common Altai term chorchok/shyorshyok, a generic word for fairy tales and heroic epics, designates the fairy tales. The epic tales occupied the highest level in the system of cultural values. They were a set of cosmological, ethical, aesthetic, and historical ideas of the people, performed with throat singing and designated by the term kai, which had a special sacred status. The epic was accompanied by the sound of the topshuur, a two-string plucked instrument.

There was another form of performing the epic – the recitative. The kai singing existed only among men, yet women could perform the recitative act. The female storyteller of the most renown in the first half of the 20th century was the famous Natalia Chernoeva (1925–1978). She learned over forty tales from her grandfather Kabak Chernoev and her repertoire included such heroic Altai-wide tales as “Altai-Buuchay,” “Ak-Taichy,” “Altyn-Bize,” “Kan-Altyn,” “Er-Samyr,” “Kan-Kapchykai,” “Kan-Tuutai,” “Toimon-Koo.”

Fairy tales usually differ from epics. These differences relate to the cultural status of fairy tales, their plots, the length of the narrative, and intonation. The similarity with the epic manifests in a serious attitude to the genre, associated with the belief that with a fairy tale, one can establish contact with mythological characters inhabiting different worlds: heroes, monsters, spirits, etc

Not every person qualified for such contacts, for initiation was an important part of the process. Therefore, fairytales were the realm of the storytellers and were told in situations similar to those described in the epic. The Tubalars told fairy tales and epics during the hunting ritual held twice a year, accompanied by an offering to spirits. Fairytales were also narrated during hunting in the taiga to bring pleasure to the master spirit of the Altai and receive a reward (the quarry). In these situations, the narrator invited for this purpose performed a specific repertoire and was guaranteed a reward.

The telling of fairy tales was also tied to a certain period of the year and the day. The chorchok was always told on winter evenings and attracted listeners of all ages. Based on the belief of the Turki of Siberia, the renewal of the world began in winter. The transition period from the old world plunged into darkness to the newly emerging one was considered very dangerous due to the awakening of evil spirits. The narration of fairy tales and myths at this time had a magical significance since it served the protective function and contributed to the establishment of world order. The narration of fairy tales is allowed at other times of the year, but then they are told mainly for the entertainment of listeners after a hard day’s work and have no magical purpose.

The Tubalar folklore describes the sacred ancestral mountains. According to several legends, these mountains were once heroes who defended and protected their families from enemies. Each seok has its own ancestral mountain: Mount Karagaya is worshiped by the Yys, Mount Albagan by the Komnosh, Bald Mountain by the Yaryk, Salop by the Kuzen, Eestobe by the Chagat. The Tubalars offered prayers to the ancestral mountains and their master spirits in the spring-summer period and at the beginning of autumn, and asked for prosperity, health, and peace.

The mythological stories of the Altaians about the master spirits of the tag/tuu eezi (mountains) and suu/sug eezi (rivers, lakes) are associated with ancient animistic views and the cult of nature. The ancestral mountains were revered as aru tos , the clan protectors, “the pure spirit of the patron-ancestor” on whose goodwill the well-being of the entire clan depended. They turned to the master spirit of the mountain when making any important decision: at the birth of a child, marriage, asking for quarry, prosperity in the household, livestock, and children. The mythological stories about master spirits establish religious and ethical norms of behavior when hunting and visiting the sacred mountains. These rules were associated primarily with the veneration of the master spirits of a particular area; they boiled down to various taboos that protected the peace of the master spirits and their wealth.

The holidays currently celebrated by the Tubalars are Yylgayak and Yuruk Bayram. Yylgayak is a calendar holiday of welcoming the new year and seeing off the old one based on archaic folk traditions. Its name could mean a “skating/sliding holiday”: on this day, it was customary to ride down the mountains on skins, beat the snow with sticks so that it would melt faster, and spring would come sooner, bringing warm weather. Yylgayak took place closer to the day of the spring equinox. Yuruk Bayram is a holiday in honor of the ripening of cedar nuts, held towards the end of summer and the beginning of autumn. Its name indicates the role of cedar as a provider of life and food not only to humans but also to the inhabitants of the taiga: squirrels, nutcrackers, and bears.

The Tubalars are shamanists. According to their traditional beliefs, everything in nature, all its material objects (including stones, rocks, mountains, terrains, rivers, lakes, elements, trees, and animals) have an “master”, ee (plural eeler ). Shamanism was based on animism, a set of ideas about the spirituality of nature. The kam (shamans) served as intermediaries between the people and the natural world, the master spirits of objects and elements, and the world of the deities of the upper and lower layers of the universe.