Lamb shoulder in the ritual practice of the Buryats

Purpose. The article deals with identifying the role of the lamb shoulder «honinoy dala» in traditional Buryat traditions. Our objectives included defining the semiotic status of the lamb shoulder in the culture of the Buryats, reconstructing the traditional Buryat divination on the shoulder bone of a sheep, analyzing the genetic origin of the Buryat traditional divination using a lamb shoulder blade. Results. Based on the analysis of the literary and archival sources of the XVIII - beginning of the XX century and the field data collected, the author proves that a lamb shoulder was valued as an item with a high semiotic status in the culture of the Buryats. According to the traditional guest etiquette, it was among honorary dishes, and its use was strictly regulated as it could be served only by men, on the territory of Buryats South Western Transbaikalia by shamans or buddhist priests. A lamb shoulder was included into the ritual food used during various collective sacrifices and was supposed to attract mythical deities and spirits. It was also used in some rituals during the human life cycle (birth, marriage and death ceremonies). In addition, a blade acted as a symbolic expression of the mother’s family line. One of the functional aspects of using a lamb shoulder was conducting scapulimantia. Presumably, in the hunting environment of the Mongolian peoples, there was an alternative soulimani tradition of divination which may be rooted to taiga-hunting and was practiced at least until the XIX century. The Buryat folklore recorded different options of using lamb shoulder blades for predictions. Such diversity was caused by historical facts, such as the need to explain the Buryat branch of the Mongol world and the absence of a written tradition and to strengthen the position of Buryat shamanism. Scapulimantia was practiced widely by shamans, lamas and ordinary people. When choosing scapula bones for divination, they took into account the gender approach. The Buryats are strictly adhered to these and other rules for divination, in particular, to the choice of an animal and the process of conducting the ceremony. We compared the Buryat method of divination using a lamb shoulder blade and the information on similar rituals practiced by the medieval Mongol and Tibetan-Mongolian lamas, which showed both common and distinctive features. The similarities in divination practiced by buddhist monks and the Mongols of the thirteenth century is explained by their common archaic Central Asian traditions. The Buryats inherited the traditions known in medieval Mongolia but included their own features into the interpretation of predictions. In the XIX century, with part of the Buryats adopting Buddhism, the Tibeto-Buddhist way of scapulimantia spread. Conclusion. According to our analysis, a lamb shoulder took a very important place in the ritual practices of the Buryats of the XVIII - beginning of the XX century.