A collection of shaman tambourines from the National Museum of the Republic of Tuva

Abstract

This article is an attempt to bring together data relating to the shaman's tambourine and its features, based on the materials of the shaman collection in the National Museum of the Republic of Tuva. The collection holds more than 500 objects of shamanic ritual, including 14 tambourines and a number of beaters, which always come together with the former. Each of the tambourines once was property of a shaman. The article also looks at the issues of collecting, acquiring and preserving tambourines, relying on the acquisition and storage books. It is also accompanied by photos of the tambourines in the museum’s permanent collection. The museum’s tambourine collection began in the middle of the 20th century, with the earliest piece arriving, allegedly, in 1951. The article provides detailed metadata on a number of tambourines, including their provenance, dating, maker, material, current state and inventory number, among other parameters. The authors have discovered that tambourines differ by the way they are made and decorated with various accoutrements. It has also been proved that tambourines made in western Tuva differ from their counterparts in the east of the region, the major difference lying in the use of skins of various animals, composition of the tambourine’s wooden frame, the symbolism of the handle, the number of cavities in the rim, and the use of additional elements inside the tambourine. The composition and structure of the collection make it one of the best among its competitors, since almost all of the ritual attributes of Tuva shamans are features on it. At present, the collection is being expanded to include objects of used by neo-shamans.

Keywords

• Национальный музей Тувы
• шаманская коллекция
• бубен
• шаманизм
• шаманский бубен
• тувинский шаманизм