Siberian Cosmologies

DMITRIY FUNK
Moscow State University, Russia, and Tomsk State University, Russia

Siberia, which is considered here to comprise the whole of North Asia, including its
northeast and far east, is a territory traditionally inhabited by several dozen indigenous
ethnic groups. According to linguistic classifications, which also largely reflect the
cultural specificities of these groups, they are combined into Ugric, Samoyed, Altai
(Turkic), Mongolian, Manchu–Tungus, Chukotka–Kamchatkan, Eskimo–Aleut, and
Paleo-Asian language families or groups. None of the currently known Siberian ethnic
groups appears to be a cultural entity, as can clearly be seen from the descriptions of
their cosmological ideas, which have been broadly stabilized in their details since the
first third of the eighteenth century. Establishing common features of basic beliefs
about the world in general among the peoples of Siberia and inside language groups
is greatly complicated by the specificity of these beliefs at the level of clans and their
associations, and at the level of lineages, ritual specialists, and narrators. On top of this
complex picture, there are overlapping images and beliefs derived from the world’s
religions, in particular from Buddhism and Christianity, and since the closing decades
of the twentieth century particularly from Protestant denominations, various branches
of the New Age, and the media, including the internet.

The creation of the world

Water is present in the vast majority of recorded cosmogonical mythological stories.

Water is the primary global ocean, from the bottom of which a bird (a duck, loon,
swallow, or swan) pulls up the earth, gradually increasing the earth’s size (this story
is present among almost all of the peoples of Siberia). Often it is not one but two birds,
only one of which meets the challenge while the other is unable to face it. These birds
can be associated (e.g., among the Khakass people) with the supreme good and evil
deities. The association of a bird, pulling up the earth (or organizing the process of
bringing it up from the bottom of the sea), with the celestial deity is characteristic of
the Turkic-speaking peoples of Siberia. According to the Altai myth:

When there was no heaven, no earth, but the bottomless sea all around, one Ulgen flut-
tered and flied above it. He stretched out his wings like a bat and did not know where
to land. Then he caught sight of a stone. He sat on it and started creating. Suddenly,
Aq ene—white mother—came out of the water. She taught him. Thus Ulgen created the
earth, and then created the heaven. He placed the earth on three fish. (Verbitski 1893,
89, author’s translation)

The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology. Edited by Hilary Callan.

© 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2018 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/9781118924396.wbiea2237
2 S I BE R I A N COS MOL OGI E S

The gathering of the earth may not be the act of a bird alone. There exists a mytho-
logical story among the Evenki according to which:

In the beginning there was no middle world. There was water all around. A man had
nowhere to live. The mammoth sheli decided to help a man: it immersed its “horns”
into the water and took with them so much nyangnya (mud) out of the water, that it
was enough for all the people. The snake dyabdar helped the mammoth to even out
the lumps of earth taken out from the bottom. Where dyabdar crawled with its long
body rivers started flowing, where the land remained uneven mountains formed, where
the mammoth rested and walked deep basins (lakes) were left. (Anisimov 1959, 18–19,
author’s translation)

The mammoth as an important character of the creation of the terrestrial relief is also
known to other northern peoples (e.g., Dolgan and Nenets).
The motif of diving under water and taking out earth is not unique. The creation of
the world out of an egg is also known. According to the Tofalars: “In the beginning
there was nothing. The first duck was flying solely. It landed and laid an egg. The egg
hatched. The liquid from her egg poured out and turned into a lake. Its shell turned it
into the earth. So the earth was created” (Rassadin, Rassadin, and Dobzhanskaya 2008,
314, author’s translation).
The Nganasan people have a particular record of creation, according to which “when
the earth was being created,” it was all covered with pure ice, like with bark. A white
man lived in a rawhide tent in the middle of the ice, and he married the Mother of Life.
He produced vegetation, which gradually covered the ice and formed tundra. Mean-
while, the deer of the earth struggled with winged deer, which sought to destroy the
earth. An analog of this story was found in southern Mansi mythology, in which Kalm
(a spirit-messenger) on the orders of Numi-Torum (a deity) strikes a “bark-covered
earth-mother” three times with a “live snake-whip” in order for a surface suitable for
human life to appear (Napol’skikh 1991, 27).
A number of indigenous groups, particularly in the far north and the far east (e.g.,
Asian Yupiks, Chukotka, and Koryaks), have no records of holistic cosmogonic myths;
however, beliefs about a creator or deities appear everywhere, and such divinities are
said (with the help of birds) to create light, then create people, animals, and birds, and
to teach people to multiply, sew clothes, and make fire.
The world is not seen as perfect in these stories. Laying riverbeds and roads, creating
mountains, building bridges across rivers, and fighting with the original evil forces are
all associated with cultural heroes, appearing in the image of a person (e.g., Sartaqpay
in the Altai) or a bird (e.g., a raven named Kurkyl, Kutkh, or Kutkynyaku among the
Chukotka, Kereks, Koryaks, and Itelmens).
Nor is the world seen as eternal. There exist widely known eschatological myths,
according to which the earth and all life on it are going to face a flood or in which
the flood has already happened. People (righteous men and/or deities) survived after
the flood and re-created the earth and all living things (as believed by, e.g., the Altai
people). According to some beliefs, the universe is associated with a living being and
identified with images of animals. A good illustration of this is a drawing by Savely
Hatunka, an Oroch shaman, depicting the universe (see Figure 1). A hornless moose,
 S I BE R I A N COS MOL OGI E S 3

Figure 1 Oroch picture (or map) of the universe.

Source: Avrorin and Koz’minskiy 1949. Reproduced with permission from the collection of the
Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera), Russian Academy
of Sciences.

embodying the middle world of the universe, is placed in the center of the drawing; in
the lower right corner of the drawing there is a bear—the master of the animals. The
mouth of the river, which leads to the upper world, links to the rump of another moose.
The head of this river rests on the upper earth of the universe. A salmon, symbolizing
the island of Sakhalin, is drawn to the east of the middle earth.

The areas and layers of the universe

The most common scholarly understanding of indigenous views of the world involves
a tripartite structure that is believed to be inherent in almost all nonindustrial cultures,
in particular in those where shamanism is present. There must exist the upper, middle,
and lower worlds, connected by an axis (this may be the world tree and/or the world
mountain), with an almost mandatory habitation of heaven by the supreme deity and
other good deities, the middle earth by people, and the underworld by the evil deity and
its assistants as well as the “souls” of dead people (for details see Eliade 2004, 259–87).
Into this standard description fall the cosmologies of the majority of the peoples of
Siberia. A typical example is the belief of the Khakas people, according to which the
universe is divided vertically into three worlds. The upper one, chayan chiri, is located in
heaven and is the home of nine creators (chayans), whose head is Chalbyros-Chayachy.
The creators represent a good beginning. They created the earth, vegetation, a man, and
cattle. The Khakas put an emphasis on the goddess Umai: she dwells among the heavenly
4 S I BE R I A N COS MOL OGI E S

white clouds and is invisible to the common people. It is in her “temple” of Mount
Ymay-tas (or Amay) that baby soul-embryos are kept. The lower world, aina chiri, is
ruled by seven underground deities (irliks), whose head is Irlik-Khan or Chinges-Khan.
They represent evil and are the creators of creeping reptiles, insects, mountains,
diseases, and shamans. The middle world (kÿnnig chir) is inhabited by people.
This worldview has many local variants, sometimes considerably differing from
each other not only between different territorial groups of the same ethnicity but also
between different shamans within a group. Some Tuvan shamans believe that there
are three worlds of the universe (the upper, lower/earth, and underground), while
others believe in only two (the upper and lower/earth); furthermore, according to
some shamans the land of the dead is in the underworld, while others believe that it is
located on the edge of the earthly world, in the far north.
An image of the world in a horizontal plane is characteristic of those Siberian groups
that are settled along the banks of major rivers that generally flow from south to north.
For example, the Khanty believe that the upper world is the southern part of the world,
from where the Ob River originates, and that the lower world is the part of the world
somewhere in the northwest, near the sea, to which the Ob River flows. At the same time
the sunset side—where the spirits of diseases come from—is also considered to be the
lower world. This side is opposed by the south and east, where light, warmth, and health
come from. However, the same Khanty also describe a vertical model of the universe
with a division into the upper world (inhabited by deities and ancestors), the middle
world (inhabited by people of the second generation of deities and spirits), and the bot-
tom world (where the creatures hostile to people live alongside the souls of the dead).
A unique worldview can be found in the beliefs and ritual texts of the Teleuts. Accord-
ing to this people, the universe is divided vertically and horizontally into five worlds.
Our earth (pu jer)—in the form of a plate—rests on the backs of four gray bulls and
is populated by humans and spirits (yiyq) of the ground, rivers, lakes, and forests. The
“earthly way” (jer joly), extending between the horizon and the real earth, surrounds this
land in a wide ring. In the east and south of this land live a few tens of spirits (payana),
who are generally sympathetic toward humans. The real earth and the “earthly way” are
covered from above by the heavenly sphere (temir qapqaq—an iron cover). Far to the
east of the earth, “beyond the empty space,” there are two lands of truth (čyn jer), on
which live the mighty deities Adam (Ada-kiži) and Jöö-Qaan (see Figure 2). Adam is
considered a particularly powerful deity who is not only able to give a baby to a childless
couple but also to create heavenly deities at his own wish.
The heavenly world for this group consists of sixteen spheres or layers, on each of
which, except the first two, live one or another deity whom Teleuts designate by the
general term ulgen. However, Ulgen (Pai Ÿlgen) is also a proper name. “Mother Pai
Ulgen” is at the top of the universe, but at the same time is not considered very strong
and powerful in comparison with other ulgens. Ulgens are considered to be the patrons
of particular Teleut clans. The underground area, the so-called lower world, the land of
evil (t’er-alys), or “hell” (Taamy), is known the least of all. It consists of nine layers under
the ground. To designate the inhabitants of this land, Teleuts use the collective names
such as körmös, edü, and aina as well as proper names. These worlds are believed to
have been interpenetrated by spirits and deities as well as by shamans and their helpers,
 S I BE R I A N COS MOL OGI E S 5

Figure 2 Teleut Pyotr Todyshev feeding somdor (birch trees, erected for spirits/children of the
deity Jöö-Qaan) with milk. Ulus village, Kemerovo region, 1982.
Source: Courtesy of Dmitriy Funk.

various ritual specialists (exorcists, those who see, those who hear, etc.), storytellers,
and also ordinary people, who can sometimes reach the otherworld.
The path that connects the worlds of the universe is usually imagined quite clearly
in the form of a hitching post, a ladder, or a tree with notches (“steps”); it can also be
seen as the tree of life or a mountain. The door leading into the mountain is believed to
have served as the entry point into the otherworld—a special world of mountain people.
After rising to the top of the mountain, one could find oneself in groves of paradise, but
also, oddly enough, in the underworld. A striking image of the world tree, the tree of
life, is known in the cosmology of the Yakuts. This tree, aal luuk maas, sprouted through
all the heavens and its roots went through the ground, thus connecting all three worlds
of the universe.
Beliefs about the structure of the universe sometimes exhibit significant differences
not only between shamans within the boundaries of one ethnic group but also between
storytellers (in spite of the significant closeness of shamans and storytellers in many
traditions; for details, see Funk 2005). The names and functions of the supreme or
6 S I BE R I A N COS MOL OGI E S

underground deities and spirits may differ, as may the ideas about the structure of the
universe, the number of layers of the upper and underground worlds, and ways for a
human to enter them and come back.
There is also the question of the correlation between the traditional ideas about the
world held by shamans, storytellers, and lay people, but this issue has not been prop-
erly studied in relation to Siberian materials (see Kharitonova 2006). It is known, for
example, that most of the Altai people cannot name the deities of the upper world but
can talk confidently about the spirit master of Altai and even tell of their own expe-
rience of meetings with the reincarnated spirits of one or another area. Information
about everyday life and everyday ritual practices collected from many Siberian groups
allows us to speak about an extraordinary diversity in ideas about the world, as well
as ritual practices in which the (apparent) ease of communication with the otherworld
and ignorance of the details of the ritual are the norm rather than the exception.

Beliefs about spirits and souls (or counterparts)

“The world is inhabited by different sorts of subjects or persons, human and nonhu-
man, which apprehend reality from distinct points of view” (Viveiros de Castro 2012,
45). Like any “formula,” this vivid statement, central to American Indian and cosmo-
logical perspectivism, is neither complete nor accurate enough when applied more
widely. Taking into account the undeniable fact that all that is known in indigenous
mythologies about the appearance and especially the thoughts, feelings, speech, and
behavior of animals, insects, plants, and spirits and deities is revealed to us in narratives
(mostly in folklore material) and the actions and ritual practices of people, this world
should instead be considered broadly anthropomorphic. This is a good explanation of
why bears (in the beliefs of the Nivkh), celestial deities (as in the beliefs of the Evenki,
Khakass, and Teleuts), and the inhabitants of the land of the dead (in the beliefs of
the Nivkh and Tofalars) live like people in houses or palaces with their shamans and
guards, finding and preparing their own food and clothing and building the same
relations between each other and with people as are considered culturally acceptable
in the human community. At the same time, people enter into a special relationship
only with those animals considered important by them in a ritual or practical sense.
The spirits that fill the surrounding world of a person, as a rule, are deprived of simple
evaluations such as good or evil. Teleut payana spirits are generally benevolent but can
also punish a person for certain actions. Celestials, as well, are not necessarily always
supportive of a human. According to the Yakuts, among the celestial characters are,
for example, abaasy (evil spirits), which total nine tribes or thrice nine genera. Their
head, Uluutuyar Uluu Toyon (Great Lord), lives in the upper world at a distance of three
times nine shaman stops from the earth, and his children—the heads of the upper evil
spirits—live in the sixth heaven. Uluu Toyon is the patron of the great shamans and the
father of ravens.
The spirits, deities, and epic characters have the ability to transform not only their
appearance (taking at will the appearance of animals, fish, reptiles, and insects) but also
 S I BE R I A N COS MOL OGI E S 7

their sex, playing, as a result, different gender roles. Sometimes the same spirits can
come to a person in the form of either a woman or a man.
The concept of “soul” has a special place in Siberian peoples’ perception of the uni-
verse. The use of this term, as has been noted repeatedly in the literature, imposes a
special flavor on indigenous (emic) beliefs, consciously or unconsciously casting over
them a Christian vocabulary. Attempts to replace it with other terms (e.g., “vitality” or
“counterparts”) have not been particularly successful because they either are charged
with particular meanings derived from the cultures of researchers or do not reflect the
diversity of indigenous beliefs.
Men and women may have different numbers of souls: the northern Khanty and
Mansi believe that men have five of them and women four. The Selkup people believe in
seven souls, which together make up a complex of essential elements (breath, life spirit,
the human soul, wisdom, man’s soul, the vital force, and the soul shadow). A plurality
of souls can also be noted in Paleo-Asiatic cultures. The Nivkh consider that a person
possesses three souls: one main and two shadows (akin to assistants). Other models
have been noted, according to which an ordinary person has one soul, a rich person
has two, and a shaman four.
A complex system of beliefs about the soul that cannot be reduced—at least
in academic observations—to a simple and categorical model exists among the
Turkic-speaking peoples of South Siberia. At least four relevant substances have been
evident: tyn (literally “breath”); kut/hut, which is the embryo that gives rise to human
existence and, at the same time, the life force that provides this existence; jula/čula,
which is the name for kut once it has been released from the body as well as the
counterpart of the shaman and his or her assistant; and sür, a materialized human
counterpart that, like kut and jula, can be separated from the person a few years before
death. After death the sür becomes a payana (spirit), from which the person has
received kut for his or her earthly existence.
Another large group consists of terms associated with the moment of a person’s death
or the postmortem existence of certain substances or counterparts. This category refers
above all to süne or sürün—a counterpart whose existence always starts at the moment
of a person’s death. After burial the süne or sürün goes away to the country of the dead,
üzüt-jer. An üzüt is a dead person. When a shaman reaches the land of üzüts, he or
she has to destroy the üzüts’ camp; a violation of this rule and consenting to sip the
wine of üzüts would lead to disaster. It is hard to determine whether üzüt is one of the
incarnations of the spirituality of humans or just a symbol of a dead person. Moreover,
whether üzüt is a final stage of transformation of the human kut remains unclear.
Finally, many peoples of Siberia maintain beliefs in the existence of a place to store
embryos (e.g., in the branches of a tree), which at the request of parents and/or by the
action of certain spirits or deities can be inserted into the womb of the future mother.

The impact of world religions and modern transformations

In all cases of contact with other cultures, including the world’s religions, indigenous
cosmologies, being extremely flexible, have been transformed, acquiring new features
8 S I BE R I A N COS MOL OGI E S

(including new characters in their pantheon) and changing their systems of beliefs
about the soul, the afterlife, good, and evil. The world according to the beliefs of the
peoples of Siberia is virtually limitless, which has allowed them to include any number
of gods, spirits, shamanic spaces, and roads. The image of King David in the Central
Asian silver platter of the eighth and ninth centuries, stored in a Khanty sanctuary in
one of the villages of Malaya Ob, is perceived as the picture of the long-haired deity
Tek-iki. As Radloff noted, the Shors believed that “there lives a god in the sky called
Kuday (a common Persian name of God among all the eastern Tatar tribes), who cre-
ated the earth. His name is Mukoly (distorted Russian name Nikolai, called by Russians
Wonderworker)” (1884, 351, author’s translation). Among the Yakuts, the concept of
the principal and good deity Urung Aiyy Toyon mixed with ideas about the principal
Christian God. The image of the god of thunder, Syuge Toion, was replaced by Elijah
the prophet, who went in an iron chariot across the sky, holding a stone ax. The func-
tions of the goddess Ieyiehsit, a patroness of humans and domestic animals, were close
to those of the Christian guardian angel and the Virgin Mary.
Modern Siberian cosmologies, even if retained, have generally become significantly
simplified, sometimes re-created (for instance as part of mass “popular” holidays) and
recorded on paper (as is the practice of modern shamans in Buryatia and Tuva), thereby
acquiring a canonical form. Sometimes people who appear to possess paranormal abil-
ities that enable them to engage in dream telling, fortune telling, divination, and so on
connect with “heavenly channels of information” (now widespread among the southern
Altai people), producing extremely complex models of the world based on a symbiosis
of school education with unique indigenous ideas about the world of gods and spirits.

SEE ALSO: Addiction; Alienation; Animism; Cosmologies; Indigenous and Local

Knowledge and Science: From Validation to Knowledge Coproduction; Mimesis;
Narrative and Storytelling; New Age, Wicca, and Paganism; Pilgrimage; Religion,
Health, and Wellbeing; Shamanism and Possession; Siberia, Anthropology in

REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING

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the Twentieth Century]. Novosibirsk, Russia: Nauka.
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Avrorin, Valentin, and Iosif Koz’minskiy. 1949. Oroch Concepts of Universe, Transmigration of
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 S I BE R I A N COS MOL OGI E S 9

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