Modern Culture and Crafts, Folklore Groups, Professional Art

Ulchi folklore features diverse genres: cosmogonic myths, telungu legends, ningman fairy tales, songs, tongue twisters, sekhuri, or fairy tales with adapted plots, as well as shamanic songs. Ulchi folklore reflects animistic beliefs and the features of their worldview. They performed their folklore pieces daily. Adults would tell children fairy tales and telungu legends that described the norms of human conduct in nature and in society. These legends recounted the origins of their clans. Fairy tales and legends were believed to magically help children, baby animals, baby fish, and baby birds grow.

Ulchi folk music is functionally determined by combining musicology, ethnography, and folklore studies. The Ulchi sing and play musical instruments when they ride in sleds and boats, work, and communicate with supernatural beings, with their totemic ancestor. Music has communicative, ritualistic, aesthetic, and other functions as well.

Musical folklore includes songs, hunting, and fishing incantations, fairy tales, ditties, tongue twisters, musical improvisations, and songs performed during shamanic rituals. The musical log’s rhythms were a staple at the bear games and various rites. Ulchi songs were divided into work songs, lullabies, guest songs, the bear holiday songs, ritualistic recitations, songs performed during shamanic rituals, personal songs, songs included in fairy tales, love songs, songs about the homeland, and about new life. Work songs and tunes made for smooth teamwork. Before hunting or fishing, while making a boat or weaving fishing nets, the Ulchi recited incantations for the masters of the sky, taiga, and water. The Ulchi made extensive use of various types of birdcalls: birch tree and willow tree whistles, reed pipes. They performed lullabies and guest songs. Currently, guest songs are only performed by folklore ensembles.

The Ulchi had percussive, wind, and string instruments. The udyadyupu sound log is an idiophone, a dugout fir tree. The log would be hung on a tripod and played with two thin wooden sticks. The log was played at the bear holiday, at the birth of twins, and at the funeral of twins and their mother. Other idiophones include a shaman’s belt with its pendants, a set of sticks, and rattles. Plated and metal mouth harp were used in specific types of worship and were also widely used in everyday life. Membrane percussive instruments include the drum used during shamanic rituals, for recitations accompanying twin worship, at wakes, and for recitations dedicated to the masters of the taiga and water. String instruments included a one-string instrument sounding somewhat like the alto. Its resonator is a hollow birch bark cylinder with a fulcrum made of a fir tree; it was played with a bow made of horsehair or a moose tendon. The Ulchi widely used various pipes, whistles, and birdcalls with different sounds depending on the number of holes therein. The Ulchi’s music folklore and musical instruments demonstrate the deeply unique sources of their culture.

The Ulchi’s traditional dance culture is an integral part of their rites and holidays. The most original dances were performed at the bear holiday; they imitated the movements of a bear walking on its hind legs. The movements used at shamanic rituals were largely improvisational depending on the purpose of a given ritual. Shamanic dances included mimetic, imitative, and emulative elements. The shaman’s movements would represent their communications with supernatural forces.

 

 

The village of Bulava which celebrated its 210th anniversary in August 2022 is traditionally deemed the center of Ulchi culture. The anniversary was celebrated with a special program featuring folk ensembles’ performances, Paksi arts and crafts exhibition, Amta, an Ulchi cuisine tasting, master classes in applied arts, Bachuvu Khupuku ethnic sports competitions, an impressive gala concert, the Mevkhu contest, inauguration of an Ulchi ethnic culture center, and The Nani, People of the Earth theatrical performance. Mentored by Kiris Kile and Dmitry Angin, children at the Bulava school studied the history and arts of the Ulchi people and learned wood carving and fabric working. At the art school, gifted children learn applied arts and crafts from renowned masters and artisans such as Ivan P. Rosugbu, Nikolay N. Dyavgoda, Yuri N. Kuysali, and others.

Today, the village of Bulava is a kind of an ethnic museum. It is famous for The Ulchi Village, an open-air ethnographic exhibition. It holds traditional district holidays such as “The First Fish Holiday,” Paksi arts and crafts exhibitions, Amta ethnic cuisine competitions, Pudin beauty pageant, Bachuvu Khupuku competitions that include jumping over sleds, spear throwing, and triple jump competitions. This is the venue where the village’s three performing groups (Giva, or “Dawn” in Ulchi, led by Galina Vetkan, Khosta, children’s folklore ensemble, and Diro) present their concert programs.

The Ulchi village is located on the premises of the Bulava children's art school that has for many years been headed by Yuri N. Kuysali, a member of Russia’s Union of Artists and a folk master. In 2018, Yuri N. Kuysali was awarded the Soul of Russia, a Russian government prize, for his contribution to developing folk art. Mr, Kuysali is a dedicated mentor to his students whom he teaches the basics of traditional applied arts. He regularly holds master classes in different Russian regions and teaches the skills required to practice Ulchi ornamental art. Yuri Kuysali’s works have been purchased by Russian and foreign museums.

Another village landmark and point of attraction for residents and tourists alike is the Ethnic Culture Center which has for many years been headed by the designer Lyudmila B. Khatkhil. The Center’s staff teach wood carving, sewing, and ornamenting, birch bark work, painting, ethnic cooking. Moreover, they regularly hold master classes. Ms. Khatkhil is the main driving force behind these projects and an inspiration for her staff. She has designed clothes made of fabric and fish skin and presented her designs at district, regional, and international exhibitions. She was the winner and a runner-up at the Ethno Erato international ethnic costume haute couture competitions (2010, 2011), she was awarded a special prize in the “Best Costume of the Peoples of the North, Siberia, and the Far East” nomination. Ms. Khatkhil’s works have been acquired by Russian and foreign museums for their ethnographic collections.

First Ulchi language textbooks were delivered to the Khabarovsk territory in 2018 As of today, six textbooks and study aids have been published. They were written by native speakers and teachers of Ulchi (Nadezhda P. Dechuli, Svetlana P. Dechuli, Tatiana B. Matveeva, Klavdia F. Dechuli, Vera A. Dechuli, Marina A. Odzyal), and linguists and pedagogy experts (Lidia I. Sem, Galina S. Skorospelkina). All books are compliant with the Federal State Education Standard. Svetlana V. Angina, teacher and author of the “Integrated Course of Mother tongue and Culture of the Amur Region” program, “The Ulchi Language in the First Grade” textbook and “Reading Literature.” “The Ulchi Language in Second Grade” was awarded the “Loyalty to the North” medal.

Tatiana B. Matveeva heads the MEDE children’s performing center in the village of Bogorodskoye. She teaches the Ulchi language through Ulchi songs, verses, and fairy tales. Her students performing Ulchi music on folk instruments are regulars at district and regional concerts. They repeatedly won prizes in various competitions, and in 2015, they came in second at Alexey Valdyu’s fairy tale staging competition.

The Ulchi went through some challenging stages in their historical development. Their traditional lifestyle changed when Slavs arrived in the Amur region bringing elements of European and Russian culture into the Ulchi’s everyday life. Furthermore, state-run projects such as collectivization, commercial fishing, and logging profoundly affected the group. However, the activities of those who care for the future of their people, including master artisans, ensure that Ulchi culture continues to develop on the foundations of a new worldview and mindset. Museums receive new exhibits from creators who have every right to see the world differently and to depict it in their works.

In the 2020s, the Ulchi, like other indigenous peoples of the Amur-Sakhalin region found themselves in dire straits economically, environmentally, and mentally as they were cut off from the basis of their culture being unable to catch spawning fish. Today’s Ulchi have their clans that attempt to adjust to the capitalist system.

Associations of indigenous small-numbered peoples of the North are doing massive work on reviving the Ulchi language, applied arts, ornaments, dances, and the dietary model. They regularly hold district and regional traditional culture festivals, athletic games, music festivals, and celebrations (The Drum of Friendship, Children of the Amur, The Living Spring, Talents of the Ulchi Land, Indigenous Peoples in the Past, Present, and Future (Nanisali: Balana, Eineni, Timana), folklore performance groups that make Ulchi robes and shoes, play ethnic instruments, and sing songs in Ulchi. These are, in particular, Diro, a model amateur performing group at the municipally funded further education establishment “Bulava Arts School” in the Ulchi municipal district; Giva, a folk song and dance ensemble at the Bulava village community center.

On the whole, despite many problems of today’s life, the Ulchi and their culture live on, and their art and musical folklore blossom with new colors and modern interpretations.