AllatRa by Anastasia Novykh 2 www.allatra.org

AllatRa by Anastasia Novykh
Figure 7. Petroglyphs of Altai Mountains
(Kosh-Agachsky Distict, the Altai Republic, Russia).
Thirdly, the human Soul which was associated with the higher worlds was generally
called “the motherly”. Peoples of the North such as Yakuts still preserve interesting
records. In ancient times, their ancestors believed that, for man to live and to think
normally, he must bear the following soul-koot components obtained by him upon his
birth: the motherly soul (iye-koot), the vital and psychic power (sur), the earthly soul
(buor-koot), the air soul (sulgyn-koot). It’s considered that after man’s death his
motherly soul and psychic power (sur) return to their creators, the earthly soul goes to
the earth with dust, whereas the air soul disappears in the air. At that, in shamans each of
these souls obtains a special upbringing and a special incarnation.
Anastasia: This is amazing. It’s a great pity that rarely anyone pays attention to
archaeological and ethnographic researches of smaller peoples of the globe, while the
latter, as it turns out, preserve the same knowledge as the one contained in currently
popular religions and modern beliefs. When you’ve been just telling about the peoples of
the North of Russia, I have recalled how I found quite interesting information in
research works dealing with this subject. For example, Yakuts had a special attitude to
certain animals the ritual worship of which is associated with an idea of a dying and
resurrecting animal. The latter was revered by Northern peoples in either a bear, or a
whale character. It was considered that the god of Knowledge (Bilgeh Khaan) lived on
the seventh sky. Furthermore, Yakuts had a rite of “making a nest of a child’s soul”, i.e.
in a special nest was constructed in a special eight-trunked tree for the child’s future
Soul. Shamanian mythology includes a motif of the world creation from an egg, a notion
of the Soul as a bird, records on the human afterlife destiny, on God’s gift (koot-sur)
which you’ve mentioned and which determines the entire human life track, and also
many other Knowledge which I’m already aware of thanks to you. And the most
interesting point is that they assigned an important part to the sign system embodied in
special ornaments on their cloths, adornments, magic items. They ascribed this to the
secret knowledge, just like other world nations did. As for the four Aspects, as you’ve
said, Yakuts also had an idea of shaman’s assistant spirits.
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