The Urals have become a real melting pot for peoples and their beliefs. The first man appeared here about a hundred thousand years ago. Once upon a time there lived a strange people - "the white-eyed chud", and later - the Mansi and Khanty, Komi and Mari, Bashkirs and even Tatars. And if now there are two main religions in the Urals: Orthodoxy and Islam, then in the old days beliefs were bizarre and diverse.
Golden woman
The Finno-Ugric peoples believed that the world was divided into three parts: heaven, earth and underground. Torum ruled the heavens, the evil Khul-otyr was the main one in the dungeon, and Ma-ankva ruled in the ordinary world - she was responsible for fertility and gave people health and strength. Most likely, it was she who became the source of people's faith in the Golden Woman, whom they worshiped and made rich sacrifices.
Russian chroniclers wrote about a heavy golden idol in the form of a woman, to whom they offered abundant sacrifices. Scientists are still debating where this woman could have come from. Some believe that she came to the Urals from Ancient Rome back in 410, others point to a Chinese trace and think that this is a statue of a Buddha. And still others prove that it could have been a statue of the Madonna and Child.
There were many who wanted to find the Golden Woman and get their share of fame and fortune, but she has not been found so far.
Mistress of Copper Mountain
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Other scholars believe that the gold idol was not gold. It was copper. Polished copper sparkled in the sun, and then “extinguished” - covered with oxides. Hence the belief in the Mistress of the Copper Mountain, who wore a green dress with gilding and possessed green minerals. Perhaps, under the influence of Slavic legends, the supreme goddess of the Ugrians, Sorni-Ekva, turned to the Mistress. She was considered the progenitor of peoples, and according to legends, she gave newborns a soul. It is also indicated by the mythology of the Ugrians, according to which the human soul can turn into a lizard, and the goddess herself could turn into it. The image of the Ural Mistress in our view is inextricably linked with the lizards, which the craftsmen portrayed as jewelry.
Great snake
The Great Snake has become the most incredible and mystical creature in which they believe in the Urals. This belief came from the Mari, who had a great black snake "shem gut". The Mari believed that the snake is the owner of these places and actually exists. Its dimensions reach the size of a large tree. The body is like a log, and the length is at least 15-16 meters. Mansi called the snake "yalpin uy" - "sacred beast" and believed that it is immortal and turns into ammonite.
Witnesses saw the snake several times. For example, in 1924, workers extinguishing a fire near Lake Sungul decided to swim and noticed a huge snake in the water, from the body of which waves scattered. Seeing this, the workers retreated to the shore.
The mammoth beast
This monster came from that distant time when the Ural hunters hunted the mammoth. The Ugrians called him Vitkas - a water monster. It was a supernatural water spirit.
The tusks and remains of these animals were most often found along the banks of rivers, and the animal in the minds of people who did not know it, became associated with the water element and with the underground world, because the tusks often stuck out of the ground. Sometimes they believed that Vitkas was an ordinary, albeit a mysterious beast, and lived according to animal laws. But more often the mammoth was endowed with mythical powers of destruction and creation. He changed grief and riverbeds, ruled over underground waters, owned wells and springs and even treasures. Bochages and hollows, lakes and sinkholes - all these were his traces. Later they began to say that the Mammoth Beast "walks underground like a fish in water, and if it gets into a ravine, it will die there." And they even indicated the caves where the mammoth lived, for example, Kungurskaya. Some linguists associate the Mammoth Beast with the demon Mamon, which in the minds of the ancients could merge with the beast.
It is believed that a fabulous Earth cat came from the mammoth, which showed gold veins to the prospectors.
Great Elk
We all remember the fabulous Silverhoof Deer, which knocks out precious stones with its hooves. The Great Elk became its prototype, which in the legends of the Ugrians carried the sun itself on its huge, mossy horns. Only a truly powerful shaman could summon the Elk to the ground. And so that he could stand on it, huge silver dishes were placed under the elk's hooves, on which the gifts of the Ural semi-precious stones were poured. This custom did exist. These dishes are exhibited in the city of Cherdyn, in a museum, and they appeared in the Urals after the accession of Islam in the Middle East. Then dishes with animal ornaments were exchanged for furs. Shamans used overseas utensils for their rituals, engraving their own designs over the eastern engraving.
The Russians changed the myth in their own way, and the legendary Elk turned into the Silver Hoof Deer, which snapped gems out of the Ural stones.
Maya Novik
