Space and time in the mythical-historical memory of the mansis

Abstract

The paper is devoted to the reconstruction in historical retrospection of the images of the space-time continuum, expressed through the material world of the Mansis ethnic culture and concentrated in the folklore sphere. The methodology is set by the postulates about the specificity of mythological thinking, refracted in relation to time and space. The source base was made up of the Mansis folklore texts collected from the beginning of the 20th century. Following his predecessors, the author distinguishes three periods in the mythological and poetic history of the Mansis. The classification is based on the principle of generational affiliation of the main characters. The first period is associated with the era of primordial creation and the “old couple” or the supreme deity Num-Torum. Time and space in it are substantial and are expressed through the images of water and earth. Infinity, as the initial state of space, is replaced by a measurement through time, which emphasizes its finiteness and limitation. The principle of trinity dominates in the reckoning of time. The second period is set by the acts of the sons of the supreme deity - Taryg-peshch-nimal'-sova and the bear. The space is desribed multidimensional: the earth and near-earth spheres -the sky, the underground, the water and the southern land of Mortim-maa, as well as the underworld or the dead world. Particular attention is paid to the “bark soil”, which is characterized by landscape: first of all, rivers, but also swamps, thickets, mountains, manes. The idea of “one's own land” as a personal form of connection with space is fixed. The culture of the space is emphasized, the signs of which are villages, fortresses, barns, plague, and the sacred part - “sacred place” - stands out. The perception of time is also distinguished by multidimensionality. On the one hand, relativity is attributed to it due to the opposition “far -close”, correlated with movement, on the other hand, there is time reckoning with the help of the light and dark parts of the day, accentuation of morning and evening as the prologue and epilogue of the day. The third period becomes the arena of human action, and in various folklore forms of manifestation of human nature - Ekva-pyris, people-heroes, the progenitors of the phratries Por and Mos. The main thing here is activities and actions through which the feeling of timespace is transmitted. Space is thought of locally, although the degree of local concretization is different: on the one hand, an indefinitely distant territory, and on the other, a topographically verified reference to real settlements and geographical objects. The interpretation of time, and above all in the heroic epic, is as close as possible to the linear historical. During this period, there is the most developed system of calculating time, in which astronomical units dominate - the year as the sum of winter and summer, day and night. At the same time, the day is interpreted both as the time of human life and life itself. The presence of spatio-temporal portals intersperses the specifics of the expression of space and time, inherent in periods, in the general picture of the Mansis world.