Facing the Fire, Taking the Stage : Ritual, Performance, and Belonging in Buryat Communities of Siberia / Joseph J. Long.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Long, Joseph J., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Buriats--Social life and customs.

Buriats.

Buriats--Rites and ceremonies.

Buriats--Kinship.

Long, Joseph J--Travel--Russia (Federation)--Siberia.

Long, Joseph J.

Irkutskai︠a︡ oblastʹ (Russia)--History.

Irkutskai︠a︡ oblastʹ (Russia).

Ustʹ-Ordynskiĭ (Russia)--History.

Ustʹ-Ordynskiĭ (Russia).

Siberia (Russia)--Social life and customs.

Siberia (Russia).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (304 pages)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Bloomington, Indiana : Indiana University Press, 2025.

Summary:

"In the mid-2000s, Russia's government began to merge autonomous regions (okrugs), including the two regions held by its largest indigenous population, the Mongolic-speaking Buryats, into its Siberian administrative territories. As state institutions used public performances of Buryat culture to show support for this separation of nationality from territorial sovereignty, the resurgence of everyday rituals reinforced the same custodial ties to Buryat lands which the National Cultural Autonomy policy was designed to eliminate. In Facing the Fire, Taking the Stage, Joseph J. Long provides new insights into the connections between inward-facing Western Buryat shamanist ritual practices and outward-facing institutionalized performing arts. Both forms of cultural expression have created a space for Buryats to constantly negotiate, renegotiate, and make public different kinds of belonging and, in some cases, have blurred the line between private and public. Based primarily on anthropological fieldwork undertaken in Western Buryat territory during the process of dissolution, this book provides firsthand accounts and original photographs of everyday ritual practices, hearth offering rites, tailgan ceremonies, and dance and folklore routines. Facing the Fire, Taking the Stage explores the relationship between shamanic rituals and formal performing arts, showing how post-Soviet public culture and performances are shaped by one another to create new symbols of national identity"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Contents

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Notes on Transliteration, Terminology, and Style

Acronyms and Abbreviations, Groups and Associations

Introduction

Mankhai, October 2005

1. Western Buryats in Context

2. Hospitality, Reciprocity, and Everyday Ritual

3. Kinship, Ritual, and Belonging in Western Buryat Communities

4. Constructing Culture, Framing Performance

5. Territorial Unification and National Cultural Autonomy in Cisbaikalia

6. Buryat Dance and the Aesthetics of Belonging

7. Institutionalized Shamanism and Ritual Change

8. Mankhai Revisited: Placemaking and Precedence after Territorial Autonomy

Conclusions, Returns, and Reflections

Bibliography

Index

About the Author.

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780253071200

0253071208