The Yakuts have a deeply fatalistic attitude towards the future and human fate. According to local beliefs, everyone's planid is recorded in a special book by one of the supreme Yakut deities, Chyngys Khaan, even before his birth. Therefore, belief in prophecies, various fortune-telling and prophetic dreams does not at all contradict the root religion of the Yakuts: since the future is completely predetermined, it means that you can look into it.
It is believed that in heaven a person can be bestowed "complete" or "incomplete" destiny. Anyone who has been awarded a "complete" fate is not afraid of any misfortunes and hardships: he can lead the most reckless way of life, but he will die in old age, lying in a warm bed. But a person with an “incomplete” destiny risks going to the forefathers in the prime of his strength and health, becoming a victim of an absurd accident.
Below we will give two typical stories about the lucky ones with a "complete" destiny.
Princely bastard
This happened in pre-revolutionary times in one of the remote corners of Yakutia. The local prince, in his old age, was tired of his fat, middle-aged and, moreover, barren wife, and he embarked on love affairs. After a while, a poor servant girl gave birth to a boy for her master.
There was no limit to the joy of the prince, who had long dreamed of a son. It is worth saying that the attitude to the illegitimate offspring of noble persons was much better in these parts than, say, in Europe. Therefore, the prince not only did not hide the birth of the bastard, but publicly announced that the illegitimate son would become his full heir. The boy's mother remained to live under the roof of her lover in a privileged position.
It is clear that the prince's wife was not delighted with this turn of events, but she could not argue with her husband, since women in the patriarchal Yakutia of the nineteenth century did not have the right to vote. Then it occurred to her to eliminate the baby.
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The offended princess went to a neighboring village where a famous predatory shaman lived, who did not disdain to play the role of a murderer for a decent reward. The guest brought the sorcerer money and gifts and said that she wanted to get rid of the born bastard. In those days, babies often died of natural causes, and this played into the hands of the shaman: hardly anyone would suspect him of the death of a child. The sorcerer accepted the payment and assured the customer that he would do his best to fulfill her request.
Without postponing the matter until later, he began a ritual that same evening. First, the shaman summoned evil spirits to his hut, obeying him. Then he stamped his foot on the ground (in many booths then there was no floor), the ground collapsed - and the resulting pit began to fill the so-called "dead" water of inky black color. The sorcerer took a piece of birch bark, instilled in him the spirit of a baby and let him swim in a puddle.
After that, the shaman and his supernatural assistants began to throw stones at the improvised boat to sink it and force the child's soul to leave the body forever. With all their efforts, they could not cope with this seemingly simple task. Either the hand of the sorcerer trembles, or the birch bark seems to dodge the danger itself. Even the spirits couldn't do anything about it. All the stones in the area were used, but the shaman did not achieve what he wanted. At dawn, the "dead" water went underground, and the ritual was forced to end.
When the prince's wife came again, the sorcerer told her that the baby was born with a "complete" destiny, and therefore it was not possible to destroy him. The shaman also warned the woman not to make such attempts anymore, otherwise she would incur trouble.
Taiga danger
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Yakutia attracted many people who wanted to get rich quickly. Thousands of romantics, honest workers and, of course, adventurers from all over Russia came to the gold mines in the city of Bodaibo. As usual, robbery began in these places, and many "lucky ones" lost huge fortunes even faster than they earned.
The hero of our story, a young prospector from Yakutsk, at a certain moment felt that he had earned enough and decided to return home to his relatives. The way back led him to a staging point, of which there were a great many in the taiga. In such a place it was possible to have dinner, drink and relatively safely spend the night.
It just turned out that all the rooms in the house are occupied and the owner can place the newly arrived guest only in the barn. He did not pick and choose, closed from the inside with a heavy bolt, settled down on the trestle bed and soon fell fast asleep.
And he had a terrible dream: as if he was lying on the same plank bunk and could not move, and from under the trestle bed he could hear quiet sobs, whispers and fuss. The guy with an effort turned his head and saw in the faint light of the moon pouring through the window, as a naked woman crawled out from under the bunk on all fours. When she got to her feet, it became clear that the unfortunate woman's throat was cut, and her tongue was hanging from her throat. The dead woman approached the young man and kissed him on the lips with such an icy kiss that he immediately woke up in a cold sweat.
To calm down a little, the guy lit a lantern and wanted to go out into the yard to smoke. He pushed the bolt on the door - and it suddenly fell to the floor. "Blende!" - the guest understood, and the next second he discovered that the barn was locked from the outside. The guy rushed to the trestle bed and pushed it aside - under the bunk there was a carefully disguised door to the underground. Opening it, the young Yakut saw with horror below a whole mountain of corpses, which was crowned with the body of a woman with a slit throat.
The young man staggered back from the pit and put out the lantern. Now everything became clear: the owner of the transshipment point, it turns out, trades in robbery. He kills his guests and dumps them into an ice cellar, where, thanks to the permafrost, the bodies do not decompose.
Meanwhile, quiet voices were heard from the yard. Having closed the underground, the guy put the trestle bed in its place and threw clothes under the blanket so that in the dark this heap was mistaken for a sleeping person. Armed with a fake bolt, he froze near the door. Soon it quietly opened, and two entered the barn - crept up to the bed and stabbed the blanket several times with a knife.
Without thinking about anything else, the young man rushed into the courtyard, where the owner, in the company of another bandit, was waiting for his accomplices. Zvezdanuv the bewildered leader with a heavy bolt on the head, the guy rushed away from the terrible place. The three other robbers rushed after him.
The chase lasted a long time, and the young prospector, exhausted, began to mentally say goodbye to life. He considered himself a good runner, but the intruders did not seem to be inferior or even surpassed him in stamina. The distance between the fugitive and his pursuers was inexorably closing …
Suddenly, a deep ravine, several meters wide, appeared ahead. Deciding that it would be better to die by falling from a height than to be stabbed to death, the young man accelerated and made a huge jump. He almost fell off the opposite edge, but still managed to keep his balance. And one of the bandits, who wanted to repeat this trick, fell into the ravine and crashed. The other two did not want to risk it and stopped chasing. “Lucky you, creature! Probably your destiny is "complete"! " - one of them shouted in pursuit of the failed victim.
And our hero, having run off to a safe distance and catching his breath, suddenly realized that all this time he had been carrying a heavy backpack with the obtained wealth. This is how a young Yakut guy, who was rewarded with a "full" fate by the higher powers, saved not only his life, but also the money earned by honest labor.
