Rock art animism in Siberian taiga: Contemporary rituality and materiality of evenki hunters and reindeer herders

• Main Author: Brandišauskas, Donatas
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2021
• Subjects: Perception of rock art; Evenki rituals; Yakutiia Republic; Amurskaia Oblast’; Evenki; taiga; Siberia
• Online Access: http://vu.lvb.lt/VU:ELABAPDB107701074&prefLang=en_US

This article is based on my ethnographic fieldwork research among indigenous Evenki reindeer herders and hunters in the Yakutiia and Amurskaia Oblast’ in 2016–2017 as well as on my long-term field research in the northern part of the Zabaikalskii Krai and the Buriatiia Republics. Here, this research aims to elaborate on contemporary indigenous perceptions of and engagements with the rock art sites in east Siberia. It demonstrates how socalled archaeological monuments have been serving as significant landscape features as well as a source of ritual and cosmological inspiration for local inhabitants for centuries. Thereby, it demonstrates some ethnographic evidence and interpretations proposing that different landscape features were used in creating permanent ritual sites and are standing as important monumental objects conveying cosmological ideas of the Evenki. This article also reflects on some practical aspects of how these ritual monuments were created, modified and used for centuries. It will also demonstrate how experiences of engagements with rock art sites play an important role in humans’ interactions with non-human beings and land use.