Ob-Ugric Institute of Applied Researches and Development, Khanty-Mansiysk, Russian Federation, [email protected]
ABSTRACT
Introduction: in traditional culture, there is an idea of spirit creatures “attached” to the main habitat: forest, water, border and other creatures. They are divided into benevolent and hostile to humans. The article analyzes one of the characters of Mansi fairy tales and bailichkas, who lives on the edge of a village and is known in traditional culture as the guardian, spirit or “power” of the village. The description of the external appearance of the character is given; his distinctive characteristics and functions, features due to the territorial and dialectal features of the language are analyzed.
Objective: to systematize the personal characteristics of Pāvyljerut in Mansi folklore against the background of ethnographic realities; to identify the peculiarities of visualization of his image.
Research materials: the author’s field materials, as well as published folklore works of various genres with stories about the Pāvyljerut, the dictionary by Munkácsi B., Kálmán B., the Dialectological Atlas of the Ob-Ugric and Samoyedic languages.
Results and novelty of the research: the article complements the scientific knowledge about Mansi folklore. For the first time, the image of Pāvyljerut is analyzed and the system of his functions is described. The similarities and differences of this creature among all local groups of the Mansi people are determined. For description of the character, the author used folk beliefs, prohibitions and other genres of oral folk tradition existing among the Mansi people, which helped to determine the boundaries and degree of interaction of people with Pāvyljerut. The article introduced new previously not published folklore material.
Key words: Pāvyljerut, character, anthropomorphic, invisible, Mansi fairy tale, bailichka
For citation: Panchenko L. N. Character structure of Mansi folklore: Pāvyljerut ‘a creature of a village’s edge’ (ethnolinguistic aspect) // Vestnik ugrovedenia = Bulletin of Ugric Studies. 2023; 13 (4/55): 699–708.