The Three Duties of Good Fortune: 'Luck' as a Relational Process among Hunting Peoples of the Siberian Forest in Pre-Soviet Times

Abstract

This article is based on data from pre-Soviet Siberia, mainly, the West Buryat and Tungus Evenk groups. As a product that cannot be produced, game is an ideal example of something that requires 'luck'. Far from being passively received, luck requires an active behavior and implies controlled interactions with various types of agencies of the natural environment and within society. Luck is the outcome of a multirelational process that starts with multiple precautionary measures, continues with fostering, and ends with sharing practices. This action results, paradoxically, in challenging both equality and differentiation, social redistribution and individual responsibility. Throughout this process, luck is associated with meat and vital force (as a substance) and with love, play, and wealth (as a value).

Enacting rituals to improve self-control.

“…A large body of research suggests a general link between rituals and control, broadly defined: rituals are perceived as rendering order and stability, particularly in times of chaos (Romanoff, 1998;Turner, 1969), and superstitious rituals are often enacted with the purpose of restoring a sense of agency and control (Bleak & Frederick, 1998;Burger & Lynn, 2005;Keinan, 2002;Souza & Legare, 2011). Personal mourning rituals can help indi-viduals regain feelings of control after losses (Norton & Gino, 2014), and religious rituals have been linked to increased perceptions of control, including strengthening and instilling willpower for the achievement of virtuous goals (Ahler & Tamney, 1964;Anastasi & Newberg, 2008;Hamayon, 2012;Kehoe, 1970;Woods & Lamond, 2011). The reverse link is evident as well: people behave in more rigid and patterned ways after their sense of control has been diminished (Lang, Krátký, Shaver, Jerotijević, & Xygalatas, 2015;Whitson & Galinsky, 2008).…”

When Good Luck Is Bad Fortune: Between Too Little and Too Much Hunting Success in Siberia

“…Such a person, as the Altaian proverb says, keeps smiling (Petesheva 2007: 132), and his/her actions are successful. It can probably be argued that the meaning of yrys is close to the Buryat word hesheg, as interpreted by Hamayon (2012), and there seems to be a parallel in aiming to preserve it. The relative absence of these words in hunting narratives might suggest that yrys, like hesheg, is more of a pastoral concept of luck, to follow Hamayon's distinction.…”

“…It is telling that Ziker does not account in this way for other feasible statements by the local hunters, such as, for example, that their success in taking animals also depends on the hunter's experience and the quality of his gun and traps. Roberte Hamayon (2012) also seems to rule out the skill and equipment of hunters in her discussion of luck. Although we agree with Hamayon that "game cannot be produced by human initiative" (ibid.…”

Subjects of Luck: Contingency, Morality, and the Anticipation of Everyday Life

“…Good fortune thus wants to be 'legitimate' fortune." Our contributors to these special issues provide accounts of the problem of the morality of fortune in several different contexts: post-contact developments in Papua New Guinea (Mosko, this issue), neo-liberal economies in Mongolia (Pedersen, this issue), Buriad pastoral herders (Empson 2012), and Siberian hunting societies (Hamayon 2012). In this issue, three articles in particular-those by Broz and Willerslev, Swancutt, and Stafford-focus on this theme.…”