Auswahl der wissenschaftlichen Literatur zum Thema „Bashkir Riddles“

The paper analyzes the remnants of the sheep (ram) cult among the Bashkirs, which was one of the revered animals in their religious and mystical views. The consecration of the sheep (ram) by the ancient Bashkirs is based on the remnants of the totemic way of primitive people thinking about the identity, unity and blood relationship of man and the sheep (ram). Their vestiges are manifested in fairytale folklore, folk games, tribal ethnonymy and anthroponyms of the Bashkirs. The existence in the oral stories of the Bashkirs of a character a king with rams horns shows that the ancient Bashkirs revered as their first ancestor a mythical creature in the guise of a half-man-half-ram. In the role of the totemic ancestor the sheep (ram) in Bashkir folk art and beliefs acts as a patron, guide, savior, benefactor and healer of people, a guardian of life, a soothsayer and predeterminer of their destinies, an escort of the souls of the dead to paradise, symbolizes fertility, prosperity, prosperity and happiness. In some elements of the traditional Bashkir wedding and the sacrifice of a ram, a superstitious attitude towards the skull and links of the cervical vertebra of a sheep (ram), traces of the ancient holidays of the sheep (ram) with rituals of totemic taboo, collective communion with meat and blood, magical resurrection and reproduction of a totem animal are visible. In Bashkir legends, riddles and vocabulary, the evolutionary paths of ideas about the totemic ancestor of the sheep (ram) are traced, as well as the formation on their basis of views about sheep (rams) supernatural divine beings, personifications of stars, attributes and companions of the gods.

The article is devoted to folklore and traditional customs of the Chelyabinsk Bashkirs. The purpose of the study is to show the degree of knowledge of Bashkir folklore in this area. Archival data, expedition materials, publications of folklorists devoted to folk art and culture of the population of this region are used as sources, unique features of various folklore genres are highlighted. Many of the texts recorded by folklorists in this region have already been published in the volumes “Bashkir Folk Art”, at the same time there are many unpublished ones. The folklore of the Bashkirs of the Chelyabinsk region today is represented mainly by the following genres: rituals, religious and mystical legends, songs, lament songs, munajats, spiritual poems, proverbs, sayings, beliefs, omens, prohibitions, ditties. Calendar holidays such as Rook porridge, goose help, as well as sabantui, held in honor of the end of sowing, have been preserved in the villages. Of the religious rites, the most stable are Ayat ukutyu (reading the ayats of the Quran), Nikah ukutyu (reading nikah), Korban bayram (Feast of Sacrifice), and the performance of funeral rites in accordance with the canons of Islam. One of the peculiar rituals of the local Bashkirs is the holiday “Aumala bayramy” (Aumal Holiday). Of the family rituals, the wedding ceremony is most different, which has many features. For example, holding a kuresh fight during a wedding is associated with the ancient custom of choosing a groom. As it is known from Bashkir epics and fairy tales, in ancient times, a girl chose the husband of the one who won the kuresh fight. As evidenced by the materials of recent expeditions, informants well remember toponymic legends, anecdotes-kulyamas, riddles, proverbs, sayings, beliefs, omens and prohibitions. However, genres such as fairy tales, historical legends and legends, baits, and games have become less common. The author concludes that the folklore of three districts has been studied more systematically: Argayashsky, Kunashaksky and Sosnovsky, therefore there is a need to organize scientific expeditions to collect folklore and ethnographic material to the rest of the region, where Bashkirs live compactly.

The area of this study includes the south-east of the Republic of Bashkortostan (Abzelilovo, Burzyan, Baimak, Beloretsk districts) predominantly inhabited by the Bashkir people. The chronological framework of the research spans the 20th and early 21st centuries, i.e. the time when horse wedding decoration was still used by the Bashkirs in some locations, attesting to preser-vation of long-standing ethnic traditions. The aim of this study is to analyse decoration elements of horse in the wedding cere-mony among the south-eastern Bashkirs in the 20th and early 21st centuries, including caparisons, saddle blankets, breastplates, bellybands, and cruppers. The source basis includes author’s fieldwork materials collected during in 2010, 2017–2019 and 2023, as well as archival materials, museum collections in the city of Ufa and rural school museums preserving rare exhibits. Standard scientific methods, such as comparative historical research, scientific description and analysis, have been used. Du-ring the collection of field materials, traditional ethnographic research approach was also used, including observation, photofixa-tion and in-depth interviewing conducted in the Bashkir language, which allowed us recording local names of the wedding horse decoration. Analyzed were ornamented caparisons, saddle blankets, breastplates, bellybands and cruppers as attributes of the Bashkir wedding ceremony in the south-east of the Republic of Bashkortostan. The festive horse decoration was part of a bridal dowry; the bride herself participated in its making. The bridal horse decoration in the wedding ceremony performed social, sac-ral and aesthetic functions. It was enriched with sacral signs and symbols to protect from bewitching and evil spirits. A young wife moved to husband’s house on her horse decorated for wedding accompanied by her husband, girlfriends and close rela-tives. Until the 19th century, the bride would have ridden astride, but already at the turn of the 20th century that would be quite a rare phenomenon. However, in some villages there were single cases of the observance of this rite even in the mid-20th century. It has been found that in the 20th century in the south-east of the Republic of Bashkortostan several types of wedding capari-sons, different in their ornaments, materials and techniques, were used. There were several types of appliqué and kuskar em-broidery. The altered form of the wedding horse decoration has been preserved until the early 21st century.