"Even Teenagers Practiced Shamanism": Routine of Shamanism in Yakutia in 1920s as Described in the Autonomous Yakutia Newspaper

Abstract

The article describes the social role of shamanism in Yakutia in the 1920s. The newspaper of Autonomous Yakutia served as the main source. The research is the first-of-its-kind attempt to study Yakut shamanism as a socio-cultural phenomenon based on a comprehensive analysis of local mass media. The newspaper described the shamanic practices, people’s attitude, and anti-shamanism measures. The editorial office received many letters from villagers and medical workers that described the everyday life of the Yakuts, as well as their attitude to traditions and Soviet modernization. Some letters came from former shamans themselves and contained a public denunciation of the craft. The research relied on the historical-anthropological methodology as an integrated approach that united systematic, historical-comparative, and content-analytical methods. The information potential of the periodical press proved to be a valuable source for regional historical studies, e.g., the history of Yakutia in the first decade after the Revolution of 1917. The results develop the scientific ideas about the nature of Yakut shamanism and its historical development, thus expanding the research source base in the field of regional everyday-life history. The obtained conclusions can be used for further research of Yakut shamanism in the XX century and regional mass media as a source on everyday history.

Keywords

• newspapers
• history of everyday life
• periodicals
• shamanism
• yakutia