Hunting equipment of the Khakass people in the XIX-XX centuries

The article presents the complex characteristic of the hunting equipment of the Khakass used in the XIX and the XX centuries. The relevance of the topic is determined by the lack of studies thereof. The novelty lies in the fact that the paper presents the first-of-its-kind comprehensive ethnographic description and a comparative historical analysis of the Khakass hunters’ equipment and its transformation in the XX century. Some previously unused field materials of the author, as well as new museum and archival data are introduced into scientific circulation. The research methodology is based on the integrated approach principle and includes the descriptive and the comparative historical methods. The practical significance of the work lies in the possibility to use the research results for the reconstruction of the basic parameters of the culture of the South Siberian complex. The hunting equipment comprising special clothes, means of transportation and hunting tools met all the practical needs of the Khakass hunters and ensured successful hunting. During the XX century, the hunting equipment changed, with a number of hunting tools, one type of a net, pressure traps, bows and arrows, flintlock and percussion cap guns eventually going out of hunting practice. The means of transportation were affected by the changes to a lesser extent. At the time under study, the Khakass hunters stopped using hand-pulled hunting sleds and opted for skin-lined skis and riding horses as their universal “vehicles”.