Chief Researcher (Ph. D. H. Sc.), Department of the North and Siberia,

Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Russian Academy of Sciences 

Anna Sirina 

Evens.  Spiritual culture (mythological worldview, traditional beliefs, festivities and rituals) 

Mythological worldview . The Even world model had a vertical orientation: there was the middle world of people, the lower world of the dead and the upper world of the god and angels. They also had ideas about the horizontal organisation of the worlds connected by an invisible river. Only shamans and tradents who often were one and the same person were often privy to more or less the full extent of knowledge about these worlds. Evens’ world view was influenced by Christianity. The Evens living in Gizhiga started to equate the upper world with the Christian paradise and the lower world with the hell. 

The Even myths preserved the ideas about the birth of the human being and of the reindeer from a tree, about the creation of the world from the sparks struck by the flintstone of a supreme god, among whom Evens thought were the Sun, the Moon and the Earth, about the beginning of the world from the body of an eight-legged deer. Many myths about the origin of the Earth and the human are intertwined with Christian texts. God (Hevki) created birds, animals and people. First people – man and woman – were created in the south from clay. 

Worship of animals, nature and host spirits. Animals were regarded as relatives and helpers. The necessity to hunt them was compensated by a belief of rebirth of the spirit of a killed animal and by a belief that it offered itself to people, or that it was offered by the host spirit of the animal. 

The bear was considered to be a relative to humans, one could not call it by its name and speak ill of it – it was believed the bear could hear what people spoke about at a distance. After killing a bear, hunters held a ritual in order to ensure its rebirth, which involved a certain order of skinning and taking it apart and preserving its bones. Men celebrated a bear holiday called urkachak on their camping site. 

Evens believed that everyone had their own hevek – an animal (a deer or a dog) with which they had a special connection. This animal would take on itself everything evil intended for this person. When treating a sick person, this animal got chosen by the shaman. 

There were sacred white reindeer in Evens’ herds, protectors of the herd: white or multicoloured reindeer were used to ship sacred ceremonial objects of the family including icons and crosses.  

Host spirits . According to Evens’ beliefs, every object, phenomenon of the reality, natural object, element, plant and animal had its own spirit – muran/musan . Host spitits were thought to be have a shape of a woman or a man, but they could look like animals too. Evens thought there were also harmful spirits called arinkal/arisal . Another spirit well known throughout the north-east of Siberia was the spirit of the mountains, heyek (a fantastical creature, or a Koryak, or a Chukchi). 

The Magadan Evens called their supreme spirit Hevki , it was the host spirit of any taiga. Some Yakutised Evens thought the supreme spirit was tangara (a common name for the deity of sky among Turks). The ancient idea of the female host spirit Hevki in the places of contacts with Yakuts coexists with beliefs in Bayanay – host spirits of the forest, earth, hunt, animals and birds. These ideas of host spirits of a locality are closely connected with images of fire. The host spirit of fire is an old man with a family. Evens feed fire with bits of best food all the time, and they listen to it during hard times. 

Evens made sacrifices to host spirits everywhere, at river fords and mountain passes they built delburge sacrificial posts. As a sacrificial gift, they could bring deer fur from under its neck, cloth pieces, cigarettes, bullets, coins, in some very special cases, silver objects. Sometimes, they slaughtered a deer there. 

As intermediaries between people and host spirits, Evens used edik/edek amulets and hevkichen pebble amulets. Hunting amulets included claws, teeth, bones and albino hides. Reindeer herding amulets were made of small lumps which looked like bags full of fur, which were occasionally found under the skin of a deer. 

As familial sacred object, Evens kept small wooden anthropomorphic images of the khait spirit, the guardian of the family. 

Evens had a system of ethical rules of behaviour in nature and among people, which we can discern through the system of taboos and protective charms. The foundation of hunting ethics is the principle of revival of life expressed in the animal’s rebirth. Nature is a living and sacred phenomenon; people have to respect nature and its host spirits; people have respond to nature’s gifts with gratitude and reciprocal gift; wrong behaviour is certain to be punished. 

 Evens practised shamanism, and it was hereditary. Shamans knew ethnic customs, traditions, folklore, they healed the sick. Shamans had costumes and paraphernalia (a tambourine to travel through the worlds of the universe and learn the future), ways of treating people from their illnesses. The shaman could not treat close relatives, they invited a shaman from a different family for that. One of the methods of treatment was making anthropomorphic healing amulet figurines. 

Ideas about the soul. It was thought that every dead person who lived through their life in the world of the dead could either come back into the world of the living as a new-born baby or he/she could depart to the layer of the world which is lower than the world of the dead. It was believed that the soul ( khinyan/khanyan – “shadow”, “reflection”, “ghost”) of the dead relative comes back with a baby. Some groups of Evens had beliefs in the multiplicity of souls (up to three). Old people held rituals of recognition of the returning souls: they talked to little children, watched their words and actions and divined by a hung pebble. 

Unlike other ethnic groups of the North East, Evens took to Orthodox Christianity very profoundly, especially those living around the Kolyma and the Okhotsk coastline, the area where the missionary of the North and America, st. Innokentiy Veniaminov, worked. All Evens wore their baptismal crosses, every yurta had icons in it. They celebrated Sundays and important Orthodox holidays. They prayed when the day began and ended. Fig. 45. 

Evens’ system of beliefs in the 20 th century was quite complex with Orthodox Christian ideas evolving into a tradition. In the 1990s-2000s, younger Evens were influenced by Protestantism, in 2010-2020s, Orthodox Christian missionaries gained momentum in the North. 

In the late 1980s-early 1990s, the Even intelligentsia revived the festivity of seeing the new year in in summer – Evinek, Hebdenek, Hebdek, Nurgenek – the celebration of seeing the New Year in, meeting the Sun and meeting the relatives after the long winter migration. It was revived by enthusiasts following the materials of ethnographic books and descriptions by old people. In Yakutia, they hold the Even ritual festivity, Aianna Myalanni (“Re-awakening of nature and birth of fawns”). In Allaikhovski Ulus in Yakutia, they celebrate the traditional festivities of “Meeting the Sun” (in late January), “The blooming of the tundra” (late May-early June). In Kamchatka, they revived some elements of Even wedding ritual and the Gulydek bear ritual festivity.