THE STORY OF LIFE IN MUSIC: AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SONGS OF THE NGANASANS

• Main Author: Triinu Ojamaa
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Chukchi; nenets; Nganasan*; samoyed*; Siberia
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.512.8714; http://folklore.ee/folklore/vol21/songs.pdf

In the traditional music of North Siberian peoples one can find songs that belong to a concrete person. The content of these songs is autobiographical. This musical genre may have its roots in very early history. Analogous songs make up an important part of the musical heritage of those Northern American indigenous peoples who lost contact with Eurasia thousands of years ago. Supposedly the final wave of large-scale migration from Siberia to the New World took place no later than in 8000 BC (Driver 1970: 15). The first written records marking the existence of autobiographical songs among Siberian peoples date back to the 19th century. The earliest researchers of Siberian culture refer to these songs. For instance, Vladimir Bogoraz, a linguist and ethnographer who stayed in Tshukotka during the 1890s, reports that every Chukchi family or even every member of athe family used to have their own song. Some of these were very old, since they had been passed on through inheritance, while others had been created by contemporaries (Bogoraz 1934 [1904–1909]: 23). The earliest observations on Samoyed songs appear in the notes of Matias Aleksanteri Castrén, whose travels to Siberia took place even earlier (1838–1849). Although his focus was mainly on linguistics, his manuscripts also contain nota-tions of Nenets songs; these are actually likely to be similar to the songs described by Bogoraz. The first half of the 20th century already provides somewhat more accurate information on autobiographical songs. This was the time when the first song texts and genre descriptions appeared in print, and also genre names were given. In 1901–1906 Finnish linguist and folklorist Juha Artturi Kannisto, organised expeditions to visit the Mansis. He denoted autobiographical songs as fate songs. J. A. Kannisto characterizes these as lyric songs, where the moods, ex-periences and fate of the author (a man or a woman) are described. He adds that these songs are also called vodka-drinking songs, since