Alba Regia. Annales Musei Stephani Regis. – Alba Regia. Az István Király Múzeum Évkönyve. 2.-3. 1961-1962 – Szent István Király Múzeum közleményei: C sorozat (1963)

Tanulmányok – Abhandlungen - Makkay János: An Important Proof to the Prehistory of Shamanism. II–III, 1961–62. p. 5–10.

ears are like a wolf's. His hands are imitated by the paws of a bear or a lion, his costume was doubtless completed by a horsetail in the back. His male character is well emphasized. In all this incoherence the scratched outlines reveal his human character unmistakeably. As a consequence, the painted stripes between the incisions signify the naked human body under the animal skin, reflected to the outside of the animal-hide costume. Only the two lower arms are missing from the whole. But we know that the painting is strongly damaged just in this part 2. We might think that the incised contours represent the human body together with the animal hide covering it. In this case the painted stripes cannot mean anything but the huimn skeleton, i. e. that of the man himself, wearing the mask. The most important proof of this view is the mentoined self-standing presence of the left patella and the portrayal of the feet Here namely painted stripes mark the five toes of each foot separately, inside of the unitary outlines. In our judgment, this portrait is the presentation of a subject observed in reality, a man wearing an animal mask and performing a religious activity, a magical dance. Therefore the reason, the meaning and the explanation of such portrayal must be looked for in its role played in actual life. The human body and the bones respectively would hardly have been marked by painting on an actual mask and costume, made of animal hides. It was possibly done by sewing on skins of a different colour. We endeavour to give an answer to the question of the use of this devise in the following. We may remark beforehand that, on the basis of the statements made above, the whole painting gives the impression as if it wanted to emphasize repeatedly and decidedly that there is a man hidden in the mask and under the animal hide. It seemed to be expedient to mark the human character unmistakeably especially on the cave-painting, nay on the costume of the sorcerer or shaman performing the actual rite too. It would Ьэ superfluous to array data as to the fact that with backward peoples the sotrce

r

ers performing the mimic dance, nay also the simple warriors and women are imbued by the performed act intensively. At the same time the picture incised and painted on the ceiling of the cave-corridor was not intended for an everyday occasion. In this case it was especially important to express that the artist imagined a human figure under the animal hide. This method of making a mask and a costume, howerer, together with the emphasis on the body of the man wearing it, proved to be of a very long duration. The cave-painting was brought to light from the millennary darkness almost at the very moment when the nearly exact parallel of its costume has been discovered among the forest-folk of to-day. 5 U. HARVA, Die religiösen Vorstellungen der altaischen Völker. Folklore Fellows Communications 125 (1938) 510—514; V. F. TROSCHANSKY, Evolutsya tchernoy veri u Yakutov (Chazan 1902) 136, N. P. DIRENKOVA, Palutchenye samanskovo dara po vozrenyam turetskich p'emen. Sbornik Muzea po Anthro^o'ogii i Ethnographii pri Academi Nauk 9 (1930) 273—274; H. FINDEISEN, Schamanentum. Urban—

Bücher 28. (Stuttgart 19"i7) 86; A. FRIEDRICH, Knochen und Ske^tt in der Vorstellungswelt Nordasiens. Wiener Beiträge zur Kulturgeschichte und Linguistik 5 (1913) 212, etc. К U. HARVA, op. cit.; К. DONNER, Über die JenisseiOstjaken und ihre Sprache. Journal de la Société Finno-Ougrienne 44 (1930) 15; H. FINDEISEN, Der Mensch und seine Teile in der Kunst der Jenissejer. Earlier data have informed us already that mainly the Yakuts

5 and the Yenisey-Ostyaks

6 used to fasten on the shaman costume plates made of bone or iron respectively. This appliqué works imitated the parts of the human skeleton It is important to add that these plates were placed always on the appropriate places, related to the body of the shaman wearing the costume. We refrain from quoting further examples from earlier ethnographic gatherings, as they are all based on superficial observations, far from penetrating to the essence of the problem. On the other hand we want to draw attention to the exact data of V. Diószegi, going into the details too. We are justified in stating that no exact and meritorous information would be available on this important partial problem of shamanism without his recent collecting work and publications. In one of his studies

7 he writes the following on the costume of the Karagas shamans: on the frontal part of the pectoral plate there is a vertical white appliqued trimming, called "the breast-bone". From this one nine stripes, named "the rib-bones", executed with an appliqué technique aire starting to the right and to the left equally. Other appliqued trimmings are also to be found, as "sternum", "the tail of the breastbone" (i. e the lower, cartilaginous part of the sternum?) etc., always on the anatomically appropriate places. Nor are similar decorations missing from the mantle of the Karagas shamans either. This shows appliqued trimmings portraying the respective human bones more or less faithfully; they have names like "rib", "rib of the thorax", "shoulder-joint", "arm bone", "finger", "backbone", "spinal vertebra" etc.

8 Their colours differ from those of the cloak or the breastplate, and they are sewn on the worn mantle in the relation of the human body, following the anatomical situation. (Fig. 2.) We find similar ones on the boot too, made with an appliqué technique or sometimes embroidered, having the names of „knee-joint", "ankle", "shin-bone", "toe" etc V. Diószegi quotes the communications of S. V. Ivanov, saying:

9 "On the whole the portraits represented a skeleton, made up of the spine, the chest, the pelvis, together with the bones of the arms and the feet. As to the designs of fur trimmed, diadema-shaped hairdresses decorated with erected feathers, these are symbolizing the parts of the human face, being the natural corollaries of the skeleton shown on the costume presumably." He adds: "The shaman costumes drawn by us, further the names of the decorative elements ard pendants of the attire, are the more convincing us that the costume of the Karagas shamans has represented a human figure." He quotes innumerable proofs for this view. ZfE 63 (1931) 296—315; K. DONNER, Ethnological Notes About the Yenisey-Ostyaks. Mémoires de la Société Finno-ougrienne 66 (1933) 80; ID., Beiträge zur Frage nach dem Ursprung der Jenisseü-Ostyaken. Journal de la Société Finno-Ougrienne 38 (1928) 1—21, especially p. 15. 7 V. DIÓSZEGI, The Problem of the Ethnical Uniformity of the Karagas Shamanism (in Hungarian)' NÉ 41 (1959) 156—161. « Ibid. У S. V. IVANOV, К voprosy о zhnatchenyi izhobrazhenyi na starinnych predmetach kulta y narodov SayanoAltayskovo nagorya. Sbornik MAE 16 (1955) p. 250; V. DIÓSZEGI, op. cit. 161. 6