Very little is known about the Chukchi religion. For most people, it begins and ends with a shaman with a tambourine and rituals.
Meanwhile, they have a very interesting idea of the world. Shamans summon spirits and order them to do some work. This is clear. However, sometimes spirits force the shaman to do something in our world. Moreover, these requests seem completely stupid or meaningless. One shaman was forced by spirits to wear a woman's dress.
The other had to live strictly in a certain place, within the outlined boundaries and could not leave this patch of land. Moreover, the animals themselves came to the shaman. He killed them and thus fed. Sinister spirits, the shamans themselves and all people are called for some reason evil spirits. They try in every possible way to take possession of our will and subjugate it. So understand how you want this reality.
The Chukchi believe in the rebirth of souls. Here they have a complete understanding with the Buddhists. The Chukchi believe this: the soul goes to heaven, lives there for some time and then can choose where to be born again. Naturally, all the souls of the deceased Chukchi choose to be born in the body of the Chukchi. Moreover, the place of birth is made up for their own camp or the family of their friends.
Therefore, when a small child is just beginning to understand words, special old women perform a ceremony over him and ask him: what is your name? The child is given the names of recently deceased acquaintances of the Chukchi. Show their personal belongings. They say that in this way the Chukchi often find the souls of their deceased relatives.
According to the Chukchi beliefs, every object in this world, every thing has its own soul. Or as they say: has an owner. Even human excrement has a life of its own. Moreover, the souls of these things and objects communicate with each other, conduct some business, argue, conclude deals, sometimes they can harm a person.
There are stories when a person was dirty with his own turd. Or, for example, a stone suddenly breaks off and hits the person he wanted to hurt. Any item can convince a person to pick it up and make him his amulet.
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The skins in the sacks also talk at night. With the onset of darkness, they turn into deer and leave to graze. The horns on the graves of the deceased move around the graves in a wagon train, and in the morning they return to their original place. It happens that the dead themselves get up and come to the living. Who knows what business? The trees in the forest are talking to each other.
Even the shadows from the walls make up a separate tribe. Shadows live in tents and go out to hunt. Rainbows and sunbeams also have their masters. They live on the highest part of the rainbow.
The intoxicating fly agarics are a special tribe called the janra-varat. They are very strong. With their sturdy hats, they cut through the dense roots of trees, sprout through stones and crush them into small pieces. Fly agarics come to people in a strange humanoid form.
For example, one fly agaric came in the form of a one-armed and one-legged person, while the other looked like a stump without arms, without legs. There are fly agarics similar to the sorcerer Gandalf from "The Lord of the Rings". They have the same robes, full-length hats and staffs in their hands. What is interesting: a person sees exactly as many fly agaric people as he has just eaten mushrooms. Why do they even eat these mushrooms?
Well, for example, it is customary for us to visit deceased relatives in the cemetery. We bring drinks and snacks there, we perform some rituals on the graves and so on. The Chukchi also visit their dead. They perform a special ceremony, eat fly agarics and seem to fall into another reality. At some point, fly agarics suddenly appear in the circle of the participants in the action.
They take a man by the hand and lead him to the next world. “They show him everything that is there, do the most incredible things with him. Amanita's paths are winding. They visit the country where the dead live. Fly agaric people bring the Chukchi to their deceased relatives and they communicate with them directly. Find out some questions, innuendo. The dead can help with advice. The killed tell who killed them and how. In general, there is a full-fledged conversation.
The Chukchi believe that the current civilization on Earth is not the first. For example, boulders in the mountains are former people. They lived in these places long before the arrival of the Chukchi. Stone people became the first creatures of the Creator. But they turned out to be so ugly that the Creator turned them into boulders and instead created animals and modern people.
Reading about the Chukchi universe, it seems as if the Marvel film studio simply shamelessly ripped up all the legends they had and adapted them to the American way. Since ancient times, the Chukchi have a man-stone, man-mouse, man-lightning, man-bear and so on. Straight Guardians of the Galaxy and Avengers all rolled into one.
An interesting spirit called Kelet. He constantly attacks people, tries to harm them in every possible way. Kelet know how to change their appearance. Many shamans told: it is difficult to make out how tall he is. You look - and you see: he is small, like a mosquito; while you look, he grows up, becomes like a man and suddenly sits on a mountain, and his legs rest on the ground. Look again - again it is no bigger than a finger.
According to shamans, the war of people and spirits goes on without dying down for a minute. A person cannot somehow take and die. The Chukchi generally do not believe in the natural death of a person. If someone died, then an evil spirit killed him.
According to legends, once the Creator strictly forbade the spirits to attack people. And then for a time immortality reigned in the world. People stopped getting sick and dying. However, over time, the spirits became severely hungry and gradually began to kill people again.