Calendar myths as the basis of the genesis of early forms of religious beliefs: according to folklore texts of the peoples of Northern Eurasia

The formation of early forms of religious beliefs in archaic societies closely related, to the economic and cultural type (“survival strategy”), therefore, their research needs to rely primarily on calendar realities. In the tundra, this is the time of collective production of migrating ungulates, corral hunting for lynx birds, in the taiga, hunting for cover, fishing for passing fish, etc. Therefore, it is important to identify their place and role in the calendar myth. The novelty of this work lies in the application of the method of ecological approach developed by the author to the analysis of early religious beliefs among the peoples of Sayan-Altai. The purpose and objective of the study is to identify the transformation of the “basic myth” of the Indo-Europeans in the ecological realities of Siberia, using the example of Sayan-Altai. The research method is a comparative analysis of folklore, as well as calendar vocabulary of the peoples of Sayano-Altai. An analysis of folklore texts, and the calendar vocabulary of North Asia peoples, shows that their main plots formed (“born”) at a certain calendar time (season). The cyclicity expressed in the death and rebirth of the characters, the heroes, and their opponents, which ensures the cycle of life, is a sign that the plot belongs to the calendar myth (CM), a set of mythologized ideas about the course of time in nature, correlated with the peculiarities of the climate during their formation or transformation. The examined papers shown the genesis and transformation of two Eurasian myths based on a calendar. The first is about the God of thunderstorms (“main myth” of the Indo-Europeans), whose history dates back thousands years. The second, about the “son of heaven”, known from ethnographic data (no more than 300 years). Periodic and multidirectional changes in humidity in Western Eurasia stimulated population migration to the east, and contributed to intensive ethnic and cultural contacts, with the inevitable transformation of social ideology. Although the etymology of the theonyms, the functions of the main actors (the gods of Heaven, the spirit of the underworld, God of thunderstorms, etc.) of the СМ of the population of Southern Siberia, as well as their external relations, are the subject of a separate study, the author considers it necessary to at least outline its contours. In the texts studied, the difference in the functions and semantics of the main actors of these two myths is almost imperceptible. The symbolism of the images of a mixed, zoo/anthropo-morphic nature, therefore, an analysis of the calendar semantics of its components is necessary, using the example of the chipmunk, flying squirrel and burbot. Using the texts from Sayan-Altai, Buryatia, and Western Mongolia, the transformations of these images and the main actors (the God of Thunderstorms, the son of heaven) in the context of the calendar myth shown. The same indicated in epic and folklore texts of the indigenous peoples of North Siberia, Urals and the Amur region (Khanty, Mansi, Evenk, Jukagir, Oroch and other).

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