Eastern Khanty Bear Ceremonialism, Western Siberia, Russian Federation (2019-2023)

• Main Authors: Andrew Wiget, Olga Balalaeva
• Format: Dataset
• Language: unknown
• Published: Arctic Data Center 2023
• Subjects: Khanty; bears; Coexistence; Human-wildlife interaction; Indigenous populations; Russia; khanty; Siberia
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.18739/A2ZP3W211

The four Eastern Khanty bear ceremonies that are the subject of this project took place in Surgut Region, KhMAO-Iugra between 1995 and 2021. Three of these were documented prior to the grant period --1995 Larlomkiny, R. Bolʹshoi Iugan; 2010, 2016 Kiniamino, R. Malyi Iugan – and one, 2021 Pesikova Settlement, R. Pim, during the grant period. Publicly available materials in this dataset include a description of the eastern Khanty Bear Festival as well as an annotated trilingual transcription of the “Song of the Coming of the Bear” available online at https://eloka-arctic.org/bears/eastern-khanty. Materials not yet available for public dissemination include photographic and raw video documentation of these Eastern Khanty Bear Festivals filmed by the researcher or made available to him, as well as transcriptions of songs and skits in Khanty language with rough translations in Russian, and some also in English: from 1995 Larlomkiny, 31 songs and 16 skits; from 2010 Kiniamino, 21 songs; from 2016 Kiniamino, one; 2021 Pesikova, 4 songs. Conservation regimes and governmental relations with Indigenous peoples both vary widely. Successfully resolving conficts arising from human-wildlife interactions (HWI) is complicated by the existence of multiple ontologies not only among various publics but within historically-marginalized and fragmented Indigenous communities. Current models of HWI are being reevaluated in order to better understand how humans and animals, including large carnivores, have learned to coexist. We outline the potential of such an ethos for developing moreinclusive and just management policies and practices focused on tolerance and coexistence, while also identifying some limitations on developing such policies that emerge from acculturative stresses