The Transformation in Khanty Traditions and Religion in the 20th Century

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This essay presents and discuss about changes in Khanty religious life in the 20th century. The basis of my essay is Mark Soosaars ethnographic film „Father Son and Holy Torum” which I am analysing through other ethnographical and analytical articles. Material I have choosed to compare with each other is works from Estonian and Hungarian ethnologists like Art Leete, Anzori Barkalaja and Zoltan Nagy. The purpose of this essay is to analyse changes and affects in traditional ethoses caused by Western religions and customs. My mission is to find the main changes in Khantys religious life and to use that analyse to argue against Levi-Strauss’s thesis about system of customs. The Khanty (also know as Ostyaks, especially by Russians) are a Finno-Ougric ethos inhabiting the basin of the river Ob in Western Siberia. They subsist mainly on hunting and fishing, north of the river Kazym, they also rear reindeer. The Khanties were persecuted under the Soviet regime in the 1930s – their children taken and put in boarding schools and their many of their shamans were killed – but today it is oil companies which threaten them. Oil exploitation on Khanty land is polluting their forests and sacred lakes, killing the reindeer and scaring off other game. The oil companies often move in without consulting the Khanty, or trick them with false promises of compensation. Many Khanty have now been forced off their land and no longer have any reindeer.They are reduced to living in ‘National Villages’ away from their ancestral hunting grounds, and have become dependent on the administration and the oil companies for their survival. For the Khantys, the life and traditions have changed since oil was found on their land. The translation of beliefs into action became problematic in the Soviet period, when the major ritual leaders, shamans, were persecuted and all religion was

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