The traditional costume in the worldview and rite of Buryats and Khakasses

The authors of this article consider the theme of the traditional costume in worldview and ritual culture field among such South Siberian native peoples as Buryat and Khakasses. Basing on literary sources and field study they mark out the general and specific traits, associated with this theme, in the cultures of the peoples mentioned above. The social status in the Buryat and Khakass tradition was weigh in the balance on such criteria as a condition of the costume (his good condition and looks) in particular. Both native peoples used the elements of traditional costume as the one-size-fits-all means of reciprocal exchange (it came in full force in wedding ritualism). They were instrumental in the main rites of the life cycle. Buryats tucked a lambskin or an old textile shirt round a newborn, Khakasses used a textile shroud aborning. The age differences were reflected in their costume, especially female (the girls and married women had the different costumes). Some elements of the Buryats and Khakass mourning costume act as a magical protection of alive from the effects of dead. The traditional worldview endued with sacral qualities the individual elements of the casual costume: they could be used for healing, prognostic, protective, sacrificial and other goals in some cases. The sacral significance of the costume was a specific trait of Khakass culture, which conduced to bring the individual elements to the level of fetish - tös (for example, Chage/Shaga tös). This study showed that Buryat and Khakass traditional worldview and ritualism has the similar symbols and semantics of native costume and its elements. At the same time, each of this native people had distinctive features.