In Yakutsk, there is a legend about the noisy spirit of a shamaness who haunted the watchmen who guarded the Yakutsk United Museum of the History and Culture of the Peoples of the North named after Yemelyan Yaroslavsky at night. The mummy of a shaman woman was exhibited there from 1937 to 1998.
Reports about the museum poltergeist were published in local newspapers, incredible details of mystical events were passed from mouth to mouth. The author of the article heard a story about a disturbing exhibit number 2104 from employees of the Department of Private Security of the ATC …
Burial required
At night, the museum watchmen heard footsteps, noise, knocks, sighs, and even complaints of the ancient deceased in the building because her body “is not buried, tortured the soul, mocked”. Sometimes shaman tambourines began to rumble in the halls. The frightened watchmen categorically refused to work at night, and the security service of the museum was transferred to the jurisdiction of the police. But even to seasoned policemen, the service in the museum did not seem like sugar.
The mummy was lying under glass in a wooden display case. It worked badly on especially impressionable visitors: sunken eye sockets and mouth, withered hands, blackened fingers made a depressing impression … And what was it like for lonely watchmen at night when they heard resounding footsteps and screams in an empty building! According to one of the watchmen, he "locked himself in his little room and feverishly recalled all the prayers to God!"
Furthermore! It turns out that in dreams she appeared to some of the museum visitors and demanded to bury her. There are records about this in the "Guestbook". In 1998, at the request of art critics and the administration of the village of Suola, Megino-Kangalassky district of Yakutia, a working expert commission was created. The Ministry of Culture issued an order to write off the museum exhibit "… in connection with physiological obsolescence, the increasing number of negative reactions from visitors." The burial ceremony for the remains of the shaman was performed on April 14, 1998.
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The silence of the museum workers
The author of the article started to conduct his own investigation of this story and went to the museum. The cashier, having learned what interests me, advised me to contact the senior researcher, she forwarded it to the chief custodian, then to the deputy director. There was a touch of administrative resistance: it was felt that the museum workers did not want to share information. I was even asked to write an application addressed to the director - they say, let me familiarize myself with the materials concerning the mysterious mummy.
Museum exposition
In the end, I ended up with the director of the museum, Yegor Spiridonovich Shishigin, a local historian and museologist, a researcher of the history of the Russian Orthodox Church, as well as the spiritual culture of the peoples of Yakutia. To my surprise, Yegor Spiridonovich greeted me warmly. In a conversation with him, it turned out that the restless mummy, disturbing people at night, “exhibit No. 2104”, is not a shaman at all!
Looking ahead, I will note: despite the director's order, the museum administration staff found various excuses to prevent me from acquainting myself with the materials concerning the mysterious exhibit! No photos, no documents, no files! They simply advised me to independently search the libraries for relevant literature on the history of the region. And yet I left the administrative building with a solid baggage of information - the experience of working in the Ministry of Internal Affairs influenced me. Now everything is in order …
The woman was a pagan, but not a shaman
In 1937, the Yakutsk Regional Museum. Yemelyan Yaroslavsky, on the crest of the wave of the struggle against religion in the Land of the Soviets, organized an archaeological atheistic expedition. The purpose of the expedition was the excavation of three tombs of the 18th century, located on the territory of the First Moyuruk (now Megino-Kangalassky ulus) and Chalginsky naslegs, in the Kisterbit area. There, in time immemorial, were buried the ancestor of the Myruk Yakuts, Aga Uos Diorho, his daughter-in-law, his grandfather Idelyya and uncle Akatta.
Not far from the burial, archaeologists excavated a massive grave structure, under which two burials were discovered - the son of Gyorho Muruku and his wife. In total, the expedition uncovered nine graves. Well-preserved things and the mummy of the daughter-in-law of Aga Uos Diorho - inventory number 2104 - became exhibits of the Yakut museum.
The grave structure was made in the form of a Chardaat-type monument. The very name "chardaat" means "attic", or "fence around the grave". It turns out that the buried woman was not a shaman. Shamans were buried not in the ground, but in a deck suspended above the ground - arangas. She was a pagan - her arms were stretched out along the torso. The grave contained a choron (Yakut dishes), a saddle, jewelry, household utensils - the woman was from a wealthy family. According to the ancient Yakut pagan beliefs, the deceased “on the other side of life” needed food and drink, because they continued to live in “other spheres”.
It should be noted that traditionally Yakut burials were only arangases, but Catherine II forbade aboveground burials, and the Yakuts began to be buried in the ground. This means that the found burials were created after 1763.
And the people continued to bury shamans in arangas.
Ancestral curse
Museum Director Yegor Spiridonovich also said the following. “With the connivance of the Ministry of Culture,” despite vigorous protests from the museum, the woman’s mummy and the entire burial complex were eventually handed over to her relatives, who were reburied in 1998. Relatives said: “The body of our progenitor lies on public display in the museum. Therefore, in our clan young people drink too much, people die early. We demand that the mummy be returned to us in order to bury it. We wish to bury the remains of our ancestor with dignity in order to remove the ancestral curse …
During the reburial, the family tried to comply with all traditions: on the site of the former grave, they made a new log cabin of the traditional pagan monument - Chardaat, and performed the corresponding ceremony.
Later, other sources told the author of the article that relatives initially stole the mummy from the museum. And only after that, the republican authorities, without making the case widely publicized, documented the official transfer of the remains. The scandalous proceedings between the old clan and the government dragged on for about six months and was classified. Perhaps this was also the reason for my refusal to familiarize myself with the museum documentation.
Trouble is inevitable
At the burial of the relics in April 1998, at the invitation of the relatives of the descendants of the deceased, Ediy Dora, a famous Yakut clairvoyant and healer, Fyodora (Dora) Innokentievna Kobyakova, was present.
She told those present that the spirit of the progenitor was telling her: “This spring, on nearby rivers and lakes, you cannot hunt game, ducks, for they will contain a part of my soul. If someone violates my demand, he will not escape trouble!"
The funeral was attended by a certain Vasily Yazykov, who had arrived from the village of Tabaga. For some reason, he did not warn his children about the ban on hunting, and that spring, his son still shot a duck. And the tragedy did not hesitate to follow: his daughter - a schoolgirl - soon committed suicide. The ancient curse of the family continued to operate!
Farm devils
The director of the museum suggested that in the post-Soviet period the Yakuts became overly superstitious, many psychics appeared, pagan rituals, worship of various spirits, the presentation of gifts to pagan gods, and much more were revived. But personally, being a Christian, he perceives all these rituals not as a manifestation of religion, but more as a Yakut folk tradition. Even Russian hunters, it happens, do not hesitate to tie a piece of cloth in the taiga to the branch of the so-called shaman tree.
Nevertheless, Yegor Spiridonovich admits: it happens that evil spirits can show themselves in some way. For example, residents of the Byram area of the Megino-Kangalassky district began to claim that devils were operating on their farm. Priests were called from Yakutsk to clean up the farm. At first, the clergy were very skeptical, but after the ceremony they were forced to admit that the village rights - abaasy - devils were present in the cowshed. After the prayer rituals of purification, the evil spirits left this place.
However, at the end of the conversation about the noisy museum exhibit No. 2104, Yegor Spiridonovich quite seriously referred to the "excessive impressionability" of the museum's night security. Perhaps he was hiding something; let us recall the administration's open reluctance to acquaint me with the materials on the "noisy mummy" But the story is impressive!
Andrey EFREMOV