Spiritual Culture

The Khanty beliefs were formed over thousands of years, and as such, they are a fusion of myths, rituals, magic, totemism, shamanism, and various cults associated with hunting and fishing. The ancient images of Mother Earth and Father Sky were supplemented with numerous deities and ancestor spirits, family protectors, and master spirits of rivers, groves, forests, stones, trees, animals, fish, etc. The heavenly god Torum ( Numi-Torum ), whose name means “sky,” “universe,” and “weather,” took the leading position. He is also called “luminous,” “golden,” and “great.”

In the mythology of the Northern Khanty, the Universe is divided vertically into three worlds. The progenitor gods inhabit the upper world. According to one version, Numi-Torum lives on the highest level of the heavens, and his youngest son As tyi iki ( Mir-vannty-kho ) circles the Earth riding a white horse. Kaltasch rule the Middle World, the wife of Numi-Torum, who lives here with their children and the spirits protecting territories, villages, clans, and families. The Lower World is ruled by the spirit of death Khin iki, and the evil spirits that bring illness and death, as well as the souls of the dead, dwell there.

On Earth, all creatures, including humans, are mortal. In the underground, in the world of the dead, time flows in the opposite direction. All large and small rivers dive underground to make their way back and reappear on Earth in the form of their own outlets. Similarly, a person, having lived among his relatives in the underworld to the moment of birth, returns to Earth in the form of a newborn. The person living would then die again, but death provides them with another life. Sometime after death, one of his souls might be reborn in a newborn child. Before the funeral, a container in the form of a small wooden or metal doll was made for the soul. Being kept in a chest or box, the family would “feed” it during family meals, put it to bed at night, and give it gifts. There is a direct connection between those living on Earth and in the underworld: when one sleeps at night, he/she observes what happens in the underworld during the day and, of course, must take all this into account. For some time after death, the deceased will use the items they have been buried with as these objects are more familiar in the new surroundings. Communication between the living and the creatures of the underworld was carried out in certain places where sacred barns had been built, with images of spirits and gifts for them kept there.

The Khanty imagined the horizontal structure of the Universe to have the shape of a river. Its outlets are located in the south and are associated with the Upper World. They imagined the middle part to be the area where people live, while the lower reaches in the north were the “Lower World,” the realm of the dead. This is the place where the sun sets, and it is considered dark and evil. It is from there that the disease-carrying spirits ascend to people.

The traditional Khanty worldview assumes a firm conviction of the existence of supernatural beings of various ranks, especially spirits. The world of spirits is so vast that it is hardly possible to know their number or names.

The spirits can have both a positive and a negative effect on a person. One can try to win over the spirit by making a sacrifice or an offering, presenting it with animal skins, jewelry, or other objects. According to their strength, the patron spirits are divided into the universal, the local, and the domestic. The patron spirits of clans are seen as animals (frog, hawk, beaver, elk, etc.). Their images are kept in special sacred places, usually in barns built in the forest or on the outskirts of the village.

In the Khanty society, there was a whole category of people who were believed to be able to see and touch spirits, coming into contact with them. The authority of such individuals exceeded even the respect reserved for craftsmen who made boats, skis, etc. These people are generally called shamans, and they can heal, harm, predict future events, etc. However, a well-known image of a person with a tambourine and a beater had been historically preceded by individuals who only vaguely resembled the well-known textbook shaman. In the Khanty society, there were prophetic dreamers ulomvert-ku (lit. “a person/make/dream”), to whom spirits appeared during sleep and predicted the fate of the person desiring to know it.

Older people still believe in the reality of this phenomenon as well as in the fact that spirits will not come to anyone doubting their existence. Special persons arekhta-ku (lit. “song/man”) were believed to be able to summon spirits by playing a string instrument. The nyukulta-ku (lit. “representation/man”) enjoyed the greatest authority. The goal of this “representation” was to predict the outcome of the hunt, which was the basis of the subsistence of the Khanty. There were other special individuals in the Khanty society: the so-called fly-agarics eaters (able to communicate with spirits after eating fly agarics), storytellers (able to heal the sick by fairy tales), fire diviners and others, but none of the categories, including shamans, were regarded as professional.

Traditional holidays

Some holidays were specific occasions, others were periodic and reflected in the folk calendar. Many Khanty holidays were of a ritual nature. People attended such offerings and celebrations in clean holiday clothes. Part of the celebration included the feeding of imaginary spirits and real people with the meat of the sacrificial animal and other food. Various events including competitions, dance parties, and staged performances were a part of the celebration. The most common competitions were tug-of-war and archery.

In the south, there existed a form of soccer; some game involving throwing a leather ball was even mentioned in epic songs. Dances and sketches accompanied by music mainly presented episodes of struggle and depicted events that inspired the actors personally or through stories.

The cult of Bear the Ancestor distinguished the spiritual culture of the Khanty, and the associated system of myths and rituals (the Bear Festival) is of great importance. The Bear festival is called voy yak , “the animal dance” and langkh yak , “the dances of spirits”). It took place in the house of the hunter who had killed this powerful beast. Everyone would come over to conduct the now mysterious rituals for several evenings and nights. It was this event to be later known as the Bear Festival, its main goal being to reconcile the beast and the people who killed it, as well as to ensure the revival of the animal, and its return to life. In this regard, the indispensable rule of the bear cult is the preservation of its bones and skull. Bear claws and teeth (fangs) were used as amulets.

In the past, the Moose Festival was part of the Khanty culture as well. The image of the moose is present in myths, folklore, and all kinds of folk sayings and signs. The moose is associated with the upper world, the sky, and the sun (the North Star is called the Moose by the Khanty). This animal is a symbol of prosperity, abundance, and health, a bringer of good luck. The theme of the Moose Festival was the revival of animals, so esse it can be classified as a hunting cult.

Protective rites for children were carried out at women's holidays, in particular, the Crow Day, which the northern Khanty associated with the ancestor goddess Kaltasch. The Khanty considered the crow a pure bird that flies to the southern lands and brings menstruation to pure girls. During the holiday, a table was set up on the edge of the village and an offering was made to the crow: steaming porridge and hot tea.

Over time, Christian holidays entered the life of the Khanty, and the traditional rituals began to be associated with some of them. So, on the Irtysh, the spring offering is carried out on Easter, and the autumn offering around Simeon Day. During Soviet times, the Khanty began to celebrate state holidays as well: The New Year, the Seventh of November, the First of May, Fisherman's Day, Reindeer Herder's Day, etc. In recent years, a lot of efforts have been made to revive and restore the traditional Khanty holidays in the autonomous area.

Wedding and maternity rites were quite simple. Weddings took place after matchmaking, following the betrothal. The dowry and the kalym (the bride-money) were often equal. If the groom did not have the bride-money or the parents did not agree to the union, the couple could elope. The husband could also agree to work for several years in his father-in-law's household. The wedding was accompanied by a feast in the houses of both the bride and the groom. The woman gave birth in a separate room in the corner of the house or a specific building in the yard. Elderly women would ritually determine whose soul had entered the newborn by rocking the cradle and chanting the names of the recently deceased relatives.

The funeral and memorial rites of the Khanty aimed to appease the souls of the deceased, getting them to settle in the afterlife, eventually reviving it in a newborn, and protecting the living from possible harm coming from the dead. During the burial, the Khanty placed all the belongings of the deceased in the grave. In ancient times, they had buried the dead in boats. More recently, they started building house-like structures with windows over graves.