The relicts of hunting and fishing in the folk tradition of the Kalmyks and peoples of the cross-border cultures (article 2)

The essence of the scientific problem in question is to study the features of the hunting economic and cultural type, preserved as relics in the traditional culture of the Kalmyks and peoples of the so-called ‘cross-border regions'. The identification, systematization and research of folklore relics, as well as the usage of historical and ethnographic material, will help reconstruct traditional hunting in its integral and systematic forms. The structure of this study allows us to trace the stages of the development and transformation of the hunters' living, and how the system of traditional knowledge was built, as well as to identify typological features in the culture of the neighboring peoples. The study showed that the folklore traditions of the Kalmyks and the Turkic-Mongol peoples of Central Asia and southern Siberia have the archaic layer of hunting themes quite steadily preserved in the form of certain relic phenomena. It is obvious that in the life of a nomad pastoralist, hunting played an important part, it was both an entertainment for the nobility and a way to train soldiers, as well as a means of obtaining additional food. This part of the study reconstructs such types and methods of hunting as hunting with hunting birds, dog hunting, fox chasing, and round-up hunting. In folklore, the remnants of tribal relations related to hunting have been preserved; the ancient social institutions related to the rite of initiation, the socialization of men in “male unions” and “men's homes” have been preserved. The folklore materials, on the one hand, reflect real scenes of hunters' lives, and on the other, the ancient mythological views caused by taboos and totemistic cult, beliefs in spirits and deities, rites and rituals aimed at successful hunting. The cult and special veneration of animals (bear and wolf) and taboo (the prohibition to kill certain animals more than was necessary to meet the necessities) are determined by the corresponding ideological views in the culture of the people and hunters' community. In the Turkic-Mongol peoples' tradition, successful hunting was due to a complex of certain magical rituals