Cultural codes of the shamanic ritual to the deity Ulgen among the Altai and Teleuts

This article is devoted to the characterization of cultural codes in the texts of the shamanic ritual to the deity Ulgen among the Altai and Teleut peoples. The aim of the study is to determine the semantics of the cultural codes in these ritual texts. The research material is based on two texts of shamanic rituals of the Altai and Teleut peoples, recorded in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The study utilized structural-semiotic and lexical-semantic methods of text analysis, as well as a methodology for describing linguocultural codes. The novelty of the study lies in the identification of linguocultural codes that model a complex of collective shamanic understandings of the world order.

As a result of the research, the author came to the following conclusions: the shamanic text and ritual are secondary sign systems in which the set of symbolic images that comprise the ethnoculture serves as the plane of expression. Cultural codes perform an accumulative function: they store the accumulated experience of knowing the world and the system of value orientations of shamanic culture. In these texts, each code is conditioned by the particular religious worldview of the shamans. The spatial code embodies the idea of a lack of boundaries between the real earthly and the otherworldly, celestial worlds, between which contact is established mentally. Toponyms mentioned in the text, denoting the dwelling places of the shaman’s spirit helpers, outline the sacred space of the ritual. The object code is objectified by the symbolic meanings imbued in ritual objects. The character code is determined by the role functions performed by the participants in the ritual: the shaman, his assistant, and the spectators. The various sounds emitted by the shaman, imitating the sounds of a goose or horse on which he sets out on his journey, demonstrate the playful nature of the ritual. The symbolism of the ritual actions of the shaman and his assistant, expressed in their actions, allows us to distinguish the actional and sound codes. The theonymic code consists of the personification of cosmic phenomena. The category of deities includes cosmic objects, as well as ancestral spirits who once enjoyed high social status. The spiritual values for which these rituals were performed define the axiological code. The color code reflects the shamanic perception and evaluation of spatial objects. The semantics of order and quantity are expressed by numerical symbols.

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