V. I. Rogachev Mordovia State Pedagogical University named after M. E. Evseviev, Saransk, Russian Federation, rogachev-v@bk.ru
Е. N. Vaganova National Research Ogarev Mordovia State University, Saransk, Russian Federation, waganowa@mail.ru
ABSTRACT
Introduction: Based on extensive material, the article considers the existence of the sky burial rite among the ethnic groups of the Volga region and the Urals and its projections on spiritual culture. The problem is investigated at the comparative
level of a number of facts, followed by the construction of an overall picture of the rite, its mythological basis and folklore component.
Objective: to identify the cause-and-effect relationships of the emergence of the rite of the sky burials.
Research materials: archival materials, folklore and literary texts, scientific articles on the problem.
Results and novelty of the research: the article presents one of the first experiments of comparative analysis on the problem, which allows us to hypothesize the formation and existence in the mythological consciousness of the forest dwellers of Eurasia, Finno-Ugric tribes, animistic ideas about the World Tree as a form of organization of space and time, the axis of the Universe connecting earth and sky, the other world, the world of the living, with heavenly deities and forefathers who received a place in heaven due to their special sanctity and merits to their fellow tribesmen. The World Tree appears as a
kind of ideological universe, around which mythological concepts are built in the form of traditional archetypes, ideas about life and death, about immortality and eternity, about the possibility of continuing life after death. These pagan constructions were projected onto everyday consciousness, influenced the formation of rituals and customs, including the emergence of the Finno-Ugrian sky burial rite, which existed from the ancient period until the middle of the XX century. An appeal to a wide range of folklore and ethnographic sources allowed us to come to the conclusion about the prevalence
of this rite among the Finno-Ugric ethnic groups of the Volga region and the Urals. The similarity of their rite associated with the mythological, ideological ideas of the proto-Finno-Ugric peoples about the World Tree, as a form of organization of the Universe and a way of connecting three worlds: lower, middle and upper. The article reconstructs and explains the reasons for the existence of the rite, based on animistic and totemic mythologems and archetypes of antiquity. In conclusion, the authors of the study concluded that the sky burial rite existed in close connection with a system of developed animistic ideas about the unity of man and nature, the ability of a spirit to possess a tree, about the role of trees and birds in the reincarnation.
Key words: Finno-Ugric peoples, rite, sky burials, folklore, World Tree, animism, cult of trees, ancestors, spirit, reincarnation, anthropomorphism, symbol, embroidery, ornament
For citation: Rogachev V. I., Vaganova E. I. To the question about sky burials of the Finno-Ugric peoples (based on rites and folklore) // Vestnik ugrovedenia = Bulletin of Ugric Studies. 2025; 15 (1/60): 143–154.