VOL. 20. NOS. 1-2. SHAMAN SPRING/AUTUMN 2012 The Shaman Tree and the Everyday Life of the Evenki: A Photographic Analysis TATIANA SAFONOVA and ISTVÁN SÁNTHA BUDAPEST The Evenki of Siberia are modern hunters who live in the extreme environments of the taiga. Their social organization has traits of egalitarianism which present a living alternative to the Western form of social organization based on hierarchical structures. This egalitarian social organization maintains its coherence through other mechanisms, which exclude planning, direct management, and authoritarian orders. Our project deals with one particular aspect of the practical implementation of egalitarianism—how the egalitarian principles of Evenki social organization are expressed in their behavior and forms of interaction. The Evenki’s activities are coordinated not through strict rules, orders, or other verbal forms of communication, but through skills and the experiences of collaborative enactments. The project is devoted to the study of Evenki everyday life, with a special focus on the role of nonverbal information in social interaction, and is based on photographic and videofilm analysis. The study we present here is devoted to a detailed analysis of the patterns of interaction in the everyday life of the Evenki people, with a particular focus on nonverbal forms of communication. Because of this interest, the research methods of anthropology, such as the observation and interviewing of our subjects, were supplemented by collecting visual materials, such as photographs and film records, as the main data for this research project. These materials were used for analysis and coding, which helped to formulate categories that describe the main forms of nonverbal communication and coordination of actions 60 Tatiana Safonova and István Sántha in everyday life. Ethnographic methods based on observations and fieldwork notes usually leave such information off the record. The total and systematic film recording and photo shooting enabled us to document those instances and moments of interaction which are impossible to describe within the framework of verbally based ethnographic accounts (i.e. reports based on field notes). In 1942 the world anthropological community was presented with one of the most outstanding results of anthropological fieldwork—the book by the well-known anthropologists Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead about the Balinese character (Bateson and Mead 1942). The book contained 100 tables with more than 700 photos, selected from 25,000 Leica negatives made in the course of their collaborative fieldwork in Bali. Photographs played the main role in the book and were organized according to categories, which the anthropologists elaborated during the coding and analysis of their visual data and ethnographic field notes. This book became one of classical handbooks for visual anthropologists (Pink 2007), but also raised reflexive feedbacks both from anthropologists (Grimshaw 2001) and researchers from other social sciences (Silverman 1993). The attempt was a success according to most reviewers and was repeated by Mead in collaboration with Frances Cooke Macgregor (Mead and Macgregor 1951), although on this occasion the outcome was more an illustrative work in which the photographs (taken by Bateson) were illustrated (by the authors) with preexisting categories that were used in psychological theory. Later, Jensen and Suryani repeated the project, keeping to the structure of the book that Mead and Bateson had used in 1942, but using other categories and even trying to reexamine and criticize the earlier interpretation of Balinese culture (Jensen and Suryani 1991). Critical and supportive discussions very often are accompanied by materials collected in fieldwork in the same areas where the authors of the classical studies worked. The most famous examples are the refutation of Mead’s work on Samoa (Mead 1928) by Freeman (1983) and the less controversial study of Naven ritual among the Iatmul conducted by Houseman and Severi (1998) after Bateson (1958 [1936]). The attempts to conduct similar research with explicit associations in methodology and theoretical background but in other areas are much rarer. The Shaman Tree and the Everyday Life of the Evenki 61 In our research described here we conducted the photographic analysis according to the same logic and scheme as was employed by Bateson and Mead in 1942, but based on materials collected recently among the Evenki people, modern hunter-gatherers who live in Siberia. The research methodology that Mead and Bateson proposed appears to be very effective for the study of the Evenki, because it provides the possibility to include nonverbal elements basic to this egalitarian society both at the stage of analysis and when the results are presented. Methodology From September 2008 to November 2009 we worked at three different field sites in Baunt, in East Buriatia, among the Evenki people. The autumn of 2008 and the first half of the winter we spent in Ust’-Jilinda, an Evenki village. In the middle of the winter we moved to Ilakachon, and stayed there until the spring to study the life of an isolated reindeer-herding Evenki community. The following summer and autumn we moved to another Evenki group living near the Taloi and Kudur rivers. These Evenki people kept in touch with nephrite miners for most of the year. István Sántha had visited this region and conducted two months fieldwork in 2004, his first visit. When we started the present fieldwork, the aim was to write a book about the situated nonverbal aspects of Evenki culture that would be based on an analysis of video and photographic materials. Tatiana Safonova worked with a simple Konica Minolta DiMAGE Z3 digital photocamera in autumn of 2008 and in spring of 2009. Then she changed to a Pentax K1 mirror reflex camera, which was equipped with a 2/35 millimeter normal Pentax digital objective. She shot black and white photos with the Konica Minolta, and then made color pictures with the Pentax. Sántha worked with a Nikon-FM2a with a 1.4/50 millimeter normal Nikkor manual objective using Kodak Elitechrome slide-positives. Safonova shot photos mostly around campsites, while Sántha worked more in the taiga. Safonova took around 14,000 images, and Sántha around 3,000 during this period. Besides making photos, we wrote diaries and made videos (almost 100 hours in total). We tried to shoot photos randomly to col- 62 Tatiana Safonova and István Sántha lect a wide spectrum of materials not restricted by any preconceptions we might have to analyze afterward, giving us a chance to recognize things that had not been noticed in the field. The 17,000 photographs were analyzed by selecting and categorizing. The situations that occur and are possible in Evenki country have a so-called emic (Evenki) logic of development. These logical lines reconstructed through photos were significant to an examination of the flexible (and situated) culture of modern hunter-gatherer Evenki. Before presenting the tables with selected photos explaining the particular categories, we would like to discuss a characteristic of scientific investigation that was first mentioned in anthropological studies by Bateson (1979: 210)—that analysis moves forward, in iterative fashion, between data and conceptual interpretation. In our case, as with Bateson and Mead (1942), photographs were the starting-point; then we came up with titles for the plates—which more or less turned out to be our main categories; later we wrote about the relationships between photos and the details of each photo; and finally, we wrote descriptions of the relations between the plates. These descriptions could also serve as summary of this paper. We will now describe the preliminary categories and present our thoughts about the further use of these categories. We organized pages in accordance with the titles based on the final categories; to do this we had had to elaborate the logical order for the photos collected on each page. At the bottom of the right-hand page of a 2-page spread, a description of each photo is given based on what can be seen in the photos; these are captions without any attempt at abstraction or symbolic interpretation and further explanation. In addition to this, at the top right we wrote more abstract thoughts about the connections between the photos on a plate. In the conclusion of the article we gave a less structured summary of the relations that exist between plates (and categories). Now we turn to the story—how the photographic analysis helped us to see new things in the shaman tree, which was not far from one Evenki campsite. The photographic analysis is mainly based on photos, with some exceptions when we did not find suitable photos and used stills from our video recordings. We found more than 2,000 photos of The Shaman Tree and the Everyday Life of the Evenki 63 the shaman tree and related topics in our recordings shot between 2008 and 2009. We chose 500 photos in the first step of the analysis, and finally used 146 photos to compile 20 plates for this article. We organized our photos in the following way. First, we identified our theme of “sacred tree” when we were thinking about the kind of article we could write about Evenki shamanism to contribute to this volume of Shaman,
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an outstanding scholar of Manchu-Tungus studies1 and Sántha’s Evenki language teacher, on the occasion of her 85th birthday. Then we added the second main category, “sack.” The study of these two basic categories helped us to develop further related categories, such as “hunting hut,” “bread,” “cigarette,” “tea,” “matches,” “sacred,” “amulet,” and, furthermore, “binding” and “hanging” categories. In a further step of the analysis some additional categories, such as “cookies” (sweets) and “table,” evolved. Some categories were split into subcategories, like “hanging outside” and “hanging inside.” Some categories were merged into bigger, more complex categories—for example, “hunting hut,” “autonomous hunter,” and “sacred places” constituted the category of “microcosmos.” Other categories were too broad, so we needed to devote two plates to their description. This happened with “shaman tree,” which we subdivided into “putting” and “taking” plates; and with the “matches” category, which in practical terms was represented in the “fire” and “being smoked” plates. And, finally, some categories, such as “sacred” and “amulet,” were omitted altogether. During the analysis we used the Picasa3 program, which allowed us to label photos simultaneously for more than one category. Consequently, some photos appeared on more than one plate when the logic of the texts accompanying the plates demanded this. 1

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  64 Tatiana Safonova and István Sántha The Shaman Tree in the Process of Photographic Analysis The word shaman can ultimately be traced back to the Evenki language (Shirokogoroff 1929). Thus, most scholars who have conducted investigations among the Evenki people have written about shamanism and have tried to add details based on personal experience to the discussion generated around shamanism. The effort presented here is no exception to this tendency. One of the most common and general topics of the research on Evenki shamanism is the shaman tree. We can see shaman trees along the roads to Evenki villages or on the borders of Evenki territories. When they pass by a sacred tree, people bind ribbons on to it as a sacrifice. Everybody you meet near these trees can explain what he or she sees using the interpretations that are provided by their cultures. However, these Evenki verbal explanations do not help us to understand the phenomenon, because they have also been constructed in accordance with the expectations of strangers. There are very strong and prevailing stereotypes about the Evenki among members of major surrounding societies. The contrast between the neighboring majority and the Evenki groups, which is continuously reestablished during the constant interaction between the Evenki and strangers, is so strong that it is easier for the former to repeat the existing strong stereotypes about themselves rather than try to gain acceptance of themselves as they are. During long centuries they have found that the easiest way to handle the pressure exerted by the neighboring major societies is to correspond to the expectations about them. There are also linguistic limitations on outsiders’ understanding of them. At our field site, only 20–30 people out of an Evenki group of 200–300 people can now speak Evenki. This is the reason why in general it is rare to hear Evenki spoken, and consequently no story about the shaman tree in Evenki language has been recorded. When in 2009 we worked in Ilakachon, the shaman tree that grew in the forest not far from the winter camp was one of the first things we got to know. After several weeks, when the situation seemed hopeless because of lack of food and the impossibility of getting supplies, Rita, an Evenki reindeer-herder with whom we stayed, went to the shaman The Shaman Tree and the Everyday Life of the Evenki Fig. 1. Shaman tree with ladders to the sky in the neighborhood of the Evenki village Ust'-Jilinda, Baunt District in northeast Buriatia. Photo: István Sántha, February 2009. 65 66 Tatiana Safonova and István Sántha tree. She baked a small cake with the last flour she had left, tied it to the tree, and arranged things around it and on the table attached to the tree. The tree looked like a Christmas tree, mainly because of the colored cellophane sacks she bound to the branches. We watched in amusement how Rita touched each sack, investigating the condition of their content. Finally she found two packs of cigarettes, tea, and matches and carried them to the winter camp. Later, when we once again had plenty of food, she returned to the sacred place. She brought packs of cigarettes, matches, and tea, put them back into small waterproof sacks, and hung them back on the branches. It was one of the most important and exciting moments of our stay in Ilakachon, when we saw the shaman tree in a dynamic process. The Shaman Tree and the Hunting Hut Following the methodology described above, the functions of the shaman tree and the hunting hut were seen to be similar. Lioha, another reindeer-herder who lived at the same camp as Rita, built a new hunting hut at the middle of the path between the two old winter hunting huts, where he could stay overnight and from which he could hunt on surrounding territories. He built it himself. The door and the window were very small, it was difficult to enter the hut, and we got only a limited view from the path. Not long ago, before the end of the 1970s, the Evenki nomads lived and moved around in tents and, at the start of the new season, would leave clothes and equipment that were not needed in very similar storehouses with small doors and without windows or stoves. Lioha insulated the corners of the hut with empty flour and rice sacks. Several wooden figures of animals made by Lioha were left on the table. We went with Arkasha (another reinder-herder, Rita’s husband) to the hunting hut looking for remaining foodstuff in the surrounding hunting huts. We were only able to collect around 100 grams of rice and flour and some packs of cigarettes. We found a kettle with frozen tea on the stove in the hut, prepared by Lioha, and firewood, to get warm as quick as possible. When we left the hut, we also boiled a kettle of tea for those who would come. All of the things mentioned The Shaman Tree and the Everyday Life of the Evenki 67 above remind us of the basic function of the hunting hut—namely, storage. We also went to other hunting huts to collect the remaining foodstuff. When the expected foodstuff has been transported to the taiga before the hunting season, the Evenki go to those huts where they plan to hunt. They renovate the huts, and sometimes abandon those in bad condition, or, as in Lioha’s case, build new ones, and restock with food and forage (for dogs and reindeer) in preparation for the hunting season. The amount of food left over is small and enough only to stay at the hut for one or two days of hunting. The Objects Hanging on the Shaman Tree and the Everyday Life of the Evenki People The functional similarity of the two phenomena described above opens a perspective from which to study the shaman tree and the objects hanging on it in the context of everyday life. For example, the same objects are left in hunting huts by hunters. In other words, we can see the praviant, the set of necessary provisions without which a hunter cannot go to the taiga, stored on the shaman tree. Our experiences in Kudur and Taloi in 2009 also supported the observation that Evenki shamanism exists only in the context of everyday life, especially for those who still live in the taiga. We saw that the Evenki sprinkle fresh tea into the fire and toward the rising sun (and toward the other three corners of the world) every morning. This is a repetitive and almost unconscious behavior. Evenki do not start to drink until they have sacrificed the fresh tea. These actions are not special and are not opposed to other actions as in some way more sacred; thus shamanic elements are embedded in the routines and it is impossible to separate them from the activities of everyday life. Everything people do in the taiga is somehow connected with shamanism, and everything that can be connected with shamanism we can find in everyday situations. 68 Tatiana Safonova and István Sántha 2 1 3 4 5 6 7 The Shaman Tree and the Everyday Life of the Evenki 69 The Shaman Tree I The shaman tree is an ordinary young cedar that grows five minutes walk from the winter hut. Several small sacks and ribbons hang on its branches. There is also a small table attached to it. The small sacks are made of plastic waterproof tea bags and contain various kinds of things, such as tea, sugar, cigarettes, and boxes with matches. Small pieces of bread also hang on the cedar’s trunk. As we have observed, these were not untouchable things, but a kind of storage in case of emergency. All the things collected on this tree are devoted to spirits and are essential in hunting—they are the provisions that a hunter takes with him when he sets off into the taiga to hunt. The shaman tree is not an untouchable construction, but alive, a young tree that grows, with things that are valuable not because of their market price but due to their roles in hunting. When people get new provisions they take pieces of these and hang them in sacks on the tree. When there are unlucky times of hunger or deficiency, they take these things from the tree for their own consumption. As a result, the life of a shaman tree is not a representation of an ideal everaffluent state, but correlates with the life of people, with its ups and downs. (1) The shaman tree with a little table, small sacks, and ribbons. The sacks are made of plastic, are waterproof, and preserve their contents from humidity. They contain sugar, cigarettes, matches, tea, and flour. (2) Rita came to the tree when we were out of cigarettes and other important provisions. While searching for the sacks with cigarettes she was also holding an unleavened cake, cooked with leftover flour. She brought this cake and hung it on the tree. At the time we were starving, waiting every day for provisions that would be brought to the camp by relatives. (3) Rita was very happy to finally find the sack with cigarettes. She remembered that there were two such sacks, and opened the second sack also. (4) The sacks are tied up with ribbons exactly like those that are simply hanging on the branches of the tree. (5) Rita took out the cigarette packs, opened them and took out one cigarette. She put this cigarette back into the sack so that it was not left completely empty. (6) She then tied the sack back in the tree. It was not important to place it exactly where it had hung previously. (7) After that, Rita put things—such as a small cup—that were on the small table in order and left the place with the cigarettes. During this episode she did not say any special spells, but talked about their circumstances when they had tied things up on a previous visit to the tree. She was in a good mood and did not complain about the situation that made her take cigarettes from the tree. Basically she acted like a forager who had found something and felt happy about it. 70 Tatiana Safonova and István Sántha 1 2 3 4 5 6 The Shaman Tree and the Everyday Life of the Evenki 71 The Shaman Tree II The shaman tree makes connections between times of plenty and times of shortage. From this perspective it is a kind of time machine, which helps people to come back to the moments when provisions are plentiful, when in reality they are short of them. They not only can collect small portions of the things that are important for hunting, but they are also given a reminder of the circularity of life’s processes. They remember how lucky they were when they hung those objects on the tree. And when their luck returns, people remember the hard times, come back to the tree, and hang the spirits’ share of their provisions on its branches. The sacredness of the objects is not in their material or form, or in the narratives attached to them, but in the part they play in the reversible flow of things in the environment. People come back to the tree, bring things to it, and take things from it. This is a ritual practice, as well as being very routine and pragmatic. In this way this practice and the shaman tree itself are expressions of Evenki shamanism, and we can think of the shaman tree as a scheme of a shamanic ritual. (1) When we finally received provisioning, Rita went back to the tree with a slice of freshly baked bread and a pack of cigarettes. (2) She put the slice of bread on the trunk of the tree. (3) Rita untied the sack in which a single cigarette had been left. (4) She put the new pack of cigarettes into the sack and tied it back on the tree. (5) The new things that she brought were of better quality, both the bread and cigarettes. On the tree they were mixed with old things without any obvious order or privileged position. (6) After this she left. On this occasion the mood was slightly different, there were fewer jokes and more tranquillity, although the context of the situation was much happier than on the previous visit. 72 Tatiana Safonova and István Sántha 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 The Shaman Tree and the Everyday Life of the Evenki 73 The Table The table is a common detail of a comfortable environment—people stand and sit around tables producing and consuming things, just talking with each other, or resting. The table is a stage for sharing: you can put things out for everyone present around on the table. The sharing of food is parallel with the sharing of ideas, opinions, and information, all of which happens at the table. The egalitarian ethos of hunters, whereby almost everything is shared, is materialized in the form of the table. The table is not a symbol of the hunting ethos, but a pragmatic extension of it. At the shaman tree people need a table on which to assemble items of food and cups with drinks to share not only with spirits, but with their own selves when caught in an emergency. (1) A small table is nailed to the trunk of the shaman tree. The several small plastic cups standing on the table are occasionally filled with vodka. Alcohol evaporates and is never stored at the shaman tree in other ways, mainly because it is a product that cannot be stored at all and should be consumed as soon as a bottle is opened. Vodka is never a part of the hunting provisions; it is the essence of sharing, something that cannot be stored for a moment but should be shared and collectively consumed immediately. (2) Tables are not exclusively used for sharing—sometimes types of tables are built in the forest to store meat and keep it from wolves and other animals. But meat cannot be kept like this for a long time. Such tables are used only if a hunter has managed to kill more than he can bring home, so he stores the meat so that he can return and collect it later. (3) Drinking and having a party are unimaginable without a table around which people can sit drinking and talking with each other. A winter camp house also has such a table at which occasional guests who bring alcohol are welcomed. (4) Soup is the predominant dish at everyday meals, as are also warm tea with sugar and bread—which are accepted as a dish on their own. Poverty dictates the domination of dishes that are warm and liquid, rather than rich in calories and concentrated. During times when it is more difficult to store food, both soup and tea tend to become more watery and hot. Without a table it is almost impossible to consume such hot and liquid meals. (5) The table is a workbench at which people do not just eat and cook, but where they clean and calibrate their guns, carve wooden things, sew and make other repairs. Usually there is one table that has such multifunctional usage. (6) In the evening an oil lamp is the only light in the house and the table becomes a center of the hunting hut, like a fire for those who sleep in the forest during hunting trips. (7) The ponyaga—a wooden plate that hunters carry on their backs, to which they bind sacks with provisions or meat—is also used as a mobile table in the forest. (8) The table of the administrator is a new thing in the life of the Evenki. Ira is the only Evenki woman who works in the local village administration. Most of her duties are also connected with sharing and distribution. She helps other Evenki to collect the documents they need to claim state allowances for disability or in case of the loss of a family’s breadwinner, paid to a single mother or pensioner. 74 Tatiana Safonova and István Sántha 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 The Shaman Tree and the Everyday Life of the Evenki 75 Bread All the products that are carried into the taiga and are used as provisions for hunting (and hanging on the shaman tree) are not only nutritious but also help to establish relationships with animals and are essential for relaxation. Bread is one of the most obvious examples of a kind of reinforcement, which people consume themselves and share with their animal partners. Like other provisions, flour has a strange origin in the hunting context. To obtain flour, hunters have to earn money (whether through hunting or through other jobs or allowances) and to integrate into the wider context of a market economy. Hunting consists of periods of isolation, but it is always dependent on supplies from the outside world. The shaman tree with its items of hunting provisions is a display of the rate of interaction with strangers. For example, bread is baked differently when flour is plentiful—which indicates that interaction with the outside world is intensive—than when people are short of it due to their exclusion from exchanges with other people. Pieces of bread that have been baked in the oven hanging on the tree are a sign of the former, and a little cake prepared in the pan reflects the latter situation. (1) When flour is plentiful, it is important to save it from frosts and humidity. Even in the house, appropriate conditions for storage cannot be guaranteed, so large amounts of flour tend not to be stored. This predetermines the occasional periods of a deficit of flour. (2) Baking bread in the oven is possible only when flour is in excess, and an excess of flour usually results in the production of an excessive number of loaves. Making yeasty dough and preparing an oven take the same amount of time and effort whether three loaves are baked or ten. Consequently, people tend to bake more loaves at one time, eat more bread, and exhaust their flour supply faster. (3) When there is less flour, people start to bake unleavened cakes with soda. These cakes are cooked in pans. When in the taiga people usually bake such cakes, but in the village they are rarely made. The cakes are called orochonskie lepëshki and are associated with traditional Evenki food. (4) In villages you can find not only home-baked bread on the table, but also fancy cakes bought in shops. This luxury is mostly bought for children. But baking bread at home is still the main trait of an Evenki household, even in the village. (5) Thin slices of bread covered with jam made from forest berries are the most widely spread and popular refreshment, and are usually consumed with hot sweet tea. People of all ages and genders seem to like this repast. (6) Bread with tea constitutes a basic part of every meal taken in the forest. When people go for a week or longer and know that they will be staying in distant hunting huts, they take flour and bake unleavened cakes. But for meals eaten by a fire in the open air bread is the optimal form of food. (7) Bread is one of the main types of provision taken into the forest. (8) Little pieces of sweet crusts of bread are given to the dogs after a successful hunt for sable to calm them down. Bread is a substitute for wild meat. (9) Bread is also shared with reindeer. In practice, salt and bread are the main forms of inducement to make reindeer return home from the taiga. Even when there is not enough for people, small pieces of bread are given to the reindeer. 76 Tatiana Safonova and István Sántha 2 1 3 4 5 6 7 8 The Shaman Tree and the Everyday Life of the Evenki 77 Tea Tea makes people feel fresh and active. It also cures flu, warms, and calms, as required. People begin every day by boiling water and preparing fresh tea, the first drops of which they share with the fire in the oven and sprinkle in the direction of the sun and the other corners of the earth. These drops are devoted to the spirits to bring luck. The way people drink tea is very individual, as everyone has his or her preferences whether to add sugar and milk, or to drink it hot or cold. Drinking tea together is common and the most basic collective action, but this practice also leaves space for personal experiences, as holding a cup and drinking provides a moment for concentration on your personal feelings, thoughts, and experiences. When people drink tea they rest. Drinking tea constructs a point which helps to start new circles of activities and projects. This moment of calm and slow movements, when people warm themselves and relax, is also a moment of communication, when ideas and emotions can be shared with others. Like other provisions that are important in hunting, tea as a substance helps to mark certain points in the flow of actions which can be used as points for synchronization of the actions of different people and creatures. At these moments, when people rest, they share what they have experienced and establish relationships with others (companions, dogs, prey, spirits, and so on). (1) Hunters bring tea into the forest. Their trips are punctuated by rest stops for tea. Such a rhythm is physically and psychologically important for them if they are to stay healthy in an environment full of emergency and unpredictability. (2) Drinking warm tea in the forest is important not only in winter, but all year around. Every time fresh tea is made on the fire the first drops are sparkled into the fire. This action is so common and so much part of a routine that people do not reflect on it and do it almost automatically. (3) When people drink tea they do not need to keep eye contact with each other; they are assembled not for a ritual or in response to an order, but by the opportunity to have a warm drink. Warm tea is the focus of the gathering, and people have to coordinate their actions not with each other, but with the temperature of the drink. Drinking tea provides a focal and external point for the collective actions of people, who coordinate their actions without verbal direction. (4) Poverty is obviously reflected through the cup of tea. Weak tea, not colored with milk and without sugar, may be the only entertainment during times when supplies are scarce. (5) In times of plenty everybody gets the chance to enjoy tea according to their own taste, with three or even more spoons of sugar or with canned cream. Abundance leads to individuation, and scarcity is associated with unification. (6) Individuals who have experienced life in jail sometimes continue to drink a very strong brew of tea, which has a mild narcotic effect. (7) Morning starts with fresh tea and the tea offering, which is done almost mechanically. (8) Sprinkling of tea can be more or less theatrical, depending on the temperament and habits of the person. There is no single rule that says how this should be conducted 78 Tatiana Safonova and István Sántha 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 The Shaman Tree and the Everyday Life of the Evenki 79 Sweets Sweets and sugar are vital products in hunting, because they give energy fast and are easy to carry. Sweets also provide entertainment during long and boring periods of inactivity, when people are waiting for someone to turn up or changes in weather conditions. The addiction to sugar as an easy source of energy manifests itself in various forms. First of all, it is obvious that most Evenki have dental problems. Old people frequently cannot take anything but very sweet tea (with three or even more spoons of sugar per cup), because they simply do not have teeth to chew the meat that they may get through hunting. The dependence on alcohol in adulthood has its prototype in childhood. Children are obsessed with sweets and cannot stop themselves from eating all of them until none are left. In the same way, Evenki adults drink until all the alcohol resources are exhausted. Among these resources is sugar, from which people prepare home brew. The parallels between vodka and sweets can also be followed by looking at patterns of sharing. Alcoholism destroys the Evenki self when the balance between sharing and individual consumption is broken. Just as vodka is an essential vehicle for sharing, so are sweets, which are always shared with animals, spirits, and other people. And such sharing is also a way to establish relationships with others. Thus, sweets, sugar, and alcohol provide not only supplies of energy for hunting activities in harsh circumstances; like all other stimulants, their consumption should be limited, and sharing provides the means to control it. (1) Honey cakes and sweets were the products that Evenki from the reindeer camp regularly ordered and received in enormous amounts. The presence of bowls loaded with sweets on the table was a main sign that provisions were abundant. (2) Old men sometimes cannot eat even bread without moistening it in a cup of sweet tea because they have almost no teeth. (3) Bread with jam is a delicious entertainment, and people eat it with unconcealed pleasure. (4) Drinking home brew made from sugar is the other form of entertainment during melancholic periods. It can lead to unpredictable consequences, such as fights and suicides, which are preferred to boredom. (5) Evenki like to mix various things together, and their tastes can look rather extravagant. Tinned fish with chocolate is a variation of a more traditional combination for Evenki—bear fat with berries. (6) Children cannot be stopped from eating all the sweets at their disposal. Nevertheless, parents never store or hide sweets they have from children. (7) It’s not just people who are fond of sweets. Horses, dogs, and reindeer also like them, and people always share sweets with their animals. (8) Sweets and cookies are kept in the box with sacred things. People also throw sweets into the oven or fire when conducting sacrifices. 80 Tatiana Safonova and István Sántha 2 1 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 The Shaman Tree and the Everyday Life of the Evenki 81 Cigarettes Nonsmokers are the exception among the Evenki. Most Evenki are very autonomous and independent persons. But most of them need cigarettes, which help them to establish contact with other people and relax with them. Smoking articulates breathing as a form of communication between a person and the world. Breathing not only reveals the emotional state of a person, but through the focus on breathing their state changes. When people smoke together, they synchronize their body rhythms and exchange important emotional messages without verbalizing. Such a form of nonverbal communication is very important in Evenki culture, where there is considerable caution about verbal messages which may be interpreted as a form of demand and spoil egalitarian patterns of interaction. Smoke becomes a kind of medium through which people communicate not only with other people, but also with animals and spirits. (1) Smoking together is an experiencing of co-presence. The exchanging of words is less important than just hearing each other breathing. Eye contact also does not play an important role. People concentrate on their own thoughts and emotions, which are frequently parallel and similar. They do not need to exchange their different perspectives to find a compromise. (2) Frequent smoking of cigarettes is a spontaneous and almost unconscious reaction to any problem or accident. (3) People can smoke doing practically anything, like breathing. (4) What seems disturbing to us is not disturbing for the Evenki. They can talk and smoke at the same time. (5) Cigarette ends are never thrown away but are collected. When cigarettes run out, people start to smoke cigarette end collected before. They even have a special cigarette holder for this purpose. (6) When in a house, people smoke near the oven. The smoke from cigarettes becomes an integral part of the oven fire and its smoke. Through this practice people become connected with the house as a kind of organism. (7) When smoking outside, people often do it around the fire. (8) Smoking stimulates merry moods, jokes, and laughs. (9) Cigarettes are played with and can provoke jokes about smoking itself. 82 Tatiana Safonova and István Sántha 1 2 3 4 5 The Shaman Tree and the Everyday Life of the Evenki 83 Matches I Matches are indispensable in the taiga. Usually they are carried together in a kind of set with cigarettes, but of course the sphere of their application is much wider. In an analysis of Evenki shamanic epistemology, matches could be used as a paradigmatic example of a provision that satisfies two needs in the same way as other forms of hunting provisioning—through the initiation of a new circle of activities and communication with other species. These two functions are two sides of the same phenomenon, or two phases of the same circular process. To initiate a new circle of activities an individual (self, body, or system) needs to open itself to the environment and establish a relationship with some outside actor. And, conversely, to enter the communication process an individual needs to initiate a new circle of activities within him/her/itself, so that the interaction will be framed and will be fresh and, at the same time, have a shared context so that it is comprehensive for all the participants. When struck, matches give a distinct visible sign and a point that signifies the start of a new circle of activities. These can be making a fire in the forest or in a stove to prepare food or warm yourself, or lighting a cigarette to smoke on your own or to share with others. And this moment creates a new perspective, when people see their surroundings with new eyes, hear sounds they failed to recognize before, or realize their own pain or tiredness. (1) During hunting people light a match to smoke a cigarette when they are cold, tired, or feel that nothing important is going on. This means that the previous frame of their actions is no longer effective or urgent and they feel they need to change it. This may happen when they have had no luck for some time and are tired of trying to catch sight of an animal or its fresh tracks. (2) The same happens after one has had luck in hunting, when the prey is lying on the ground and the dogs have been tethered to trees so that they cannot steal from the carcasses. The action is over and the hunter needs to switch to new tasks connected with butchering, storing, and transporting the meat. (3) Both lighting a cigarette and making a fire at the site of a kill play the same role of marking a switch of activity, with the initialization of a new cycle of activities. (4) Lighting a fire in the oven is a sign that daytime duties, most of which are conducted outdoors, are over and that from then on people will stay mainly in the house. They will be cooking, eating, and doing small tasks, like repairs and sewing. (5) Sharing a light for cigarettes is a focal point when the two functions of the products that are usually taken into the taiga—tea, bread, cigarettes, sweets, and matches—are most explicitly connected. All these products help people to switch from one particular activity to begin another, as well as to communicate with each other and with other species. 84 Tatiana Safonova and István Sántha 1 2 4 3 5 6 7 The Shaman Tree and the Everyday Life of the Evenki 85 Matches II The communication initiated by a sparking match is mediated by smoke. Some species are frightened of smoke; others are attracted by it precisely because of this fear felt by others. Smoke marks territory as a zone of human interference with the prey–predator relationships between various animals and even insects. When people make smoke to connect with spirits they also mark the territory as transformed. Communication with others through smoke is a play with natural hierarchies, a way to reorganize the relationships in ecological settings. At the same time these manipulations are conducted not to control and subordinate other species to their will, but to change the system itself, so as to initiate new circles of communication, action, and experience. (1) A special smudge (fire) is made to protect the horses from insects. (2) Reindeer also gather around smudges. In the morning they set off into the taiga to find moss and grass. When insects become intolerable they come back to the camp. (3) Smudges are also made from old tree stumps that stand in the forest. These smoldering and smoking monuments can be used in various ways, either to frighten and force out wolves from areas where the reindeer are grazing or as a kind of olfactory signpost so that people can find their way back to a place by smelling the smoke from a distance. (4) Making a smudge in the forest is a tricky and special task. The smudge should not be dangerous and should not cause a forest fire. At the same time it should keep smoking for as long as possible. (5) When a sable hides in a den, which can be an extended network of passages between stones or rocks, the hunter makes a fire at the entrance and blows the smoke into the den by flapping his clothes. The dogs are looking on attentively as the panicked sable, attempting to escape the smoke, may appear from anywhere. (6) After a series of hunting failures a gun is cleaned with a special smoke so that it will bring luck. (7) Ribbons are also cleaned by the smoke from a fire before they are tied to tree branches at the sacred place. 86 Tatiana Safonova and István Sántha 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 The Shaman Tree and the Everyday Life of the Evenki 87 The Sack—Contents The sack is a practical metaphor for the body. Among the sacred things that are kept in a special box are figures of people that also resemble small sacks. In practice, the sack is also associated with the most important aspects of the body: like the body, a sack may be used to contain something fluid, which is stored in it only for some time and not forever; it isolates this content from the outer world, though this isolation is not absolute; sacks are moved around, often being transported from one place to another; and, finally, sacks are tied to other sacks and to people with ropes. The content of sacks can be very different, from flour to soap and nails. But these powders, materials, and objects are never stored in sacks for long—mainly just for the period of transportation. After that things can be kept for some time in the sack, but after a while they are removed, either to be consumed immediately or to be stored in the house, where it is easier to protect them from humidity and freezing. Even when frozen, meat is not stored in a sack because it may become difficult to separate the frozen meat from the sack. Since important things are stored in sacks from time to time, sacks always arouse curiosity. The shape of a sack is never enough to predict accurately what might be in it, just as you can never judge the character of a man by looking at his body. Sacks attract not only curiosity, but also desire. Thus they can be used as an appeal or a lure to attract animals and make them follow you. (1) Mixed fodder for reindeer is one of the only things that is always kept in sacks. But it is consumed so fast that it never is kept for long enough to spoil. (2) Soap is exceptional example of something that may be kept in a sack for a long time. (3) The sacred things of the family included small sack-like figures. These were kept in another small sack, which in turn was hidden in a special bag or box made of birch bark. (4) The preparations for a hunting trip consist mainly of packing up, when various sacks are filled with provisions. (5) After successful hunting, people pack the same sacks with meat that they take to the village to sell things or exchange them for provisions. (6) Vegetables are only kept in sacks when they need to be transported. Usually they are stored under the floor of the house in a special basement. Without ventilation, or unless they are frozen, vegetables rot rapidly. (7) Once we saw how an Evenki carried a cat in a sack when moving from summer to winter camp on horses. The cat was put into a sack whose top was tied and which was then attached to the saddle of a horse. (8) Reindeer follow a man with a sack of mixed fodder. When there is no fodder, reindeer have to be caught and led from the forest to the camp on a rope. 88 Tatiana Safonova and István Sántha 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 The Shaman Tree and the Everyday Life of the Evenki 89 The Sack—Isolation Isolation is a way to separate things and create a boundary between wet and dry or cold and warm, depending on the purpose of the isolation. Isolation prevents interaction and slows down the processes usually associated with nature. And here we see the problem of the boundary between living and nonliving, which can never be absolutely nontransparent. Likewise, the sack can never guarantee the total isolation of its content from the environment. The act of isolating is a process of keeping a balance between change and conservation. All things are to some extent alive, changing over time because they are influenced by the environment. They absorb water, disintegrate, become rusty, or turn sour. To store and conserve things, one has to destroy the relationships that exist between them and the environment. This can be compared with cutting them out of their context. But this is a process that has several stages. Taken as they are, items like meat or berries will rot when isolated in a sack because they still contain enough water to maintain the process of change. Hence, before putting things into a sack, one has to keep them on the sack so that the water they contain can evaporate. If people want to protect their house—as a kind of body that also needs to be isolated from the outer world—then they have to isolate things brought from outside that have not yet gone through the first stages of isolation. (1) A hunter skins a squirrel on a sack so as not to scatter blood on the wooden floor of the hunting hut. (2) The same precautions are taken when a bird is plucked. (3) People sometimes put sacks on the walls to stop draughts. This is frequently done when hunters have to overnight in hunting huts, when they have the time and the opportunity to renovate and insulate them. (4) After an animal has been killed in the forest, the first butchering is conducted on sacks laid on the ground. This is done to prevent the meat from becoming contaminated by dirt. Such precautions also help to reduce the traces of blood left where the animal was killed that might otherwise attract predators. In winter the use of sacks helps to prevent meat from becoming frozen to the ground. (5) Moss gathered to insulate a new hut is collected in a sack. This lot was stored for some time in the sack, but people worried that it would rot there. So they did their best not to delay the building of a hut so that the effort spent collecting moss would not be wasted. Once begun, the process of insulation needs the attention and actions of people. Otherwise it reverses back, canceling all previous human efforts. (6) Berries are dried and separated from leaves on a sack. The sack is used as a kind of table on which objects are displayed and detached from their previous contexts. (7) From time to time nails and screws are taken out of the boxes or bags in which they are stored to dry and air them, so as to prevent rusting. 90 Tatiana Safonova and István Sántha 1 2 3 4 5 6 The Shaman Tree and the Everyday Life of the Evenki 91 The Sack—Transportation The most important function of sacks is their use to transport things and substances. Sacks are suitable for logistics in the taiga because they are neither too rigid nor too loose, so things can be assembled and kept together, but at the same time in a sufficiently flexible state to change shape in response to external pressures. Sacks are moved in a moving environment and are attached to unsteadily moving creatures—people, horses, and reindeer. The flexibility of the sack and the strength of the material from which it is made are its most valued characteristics. But these qualities also need to be constrained, because there is always a possibility that in some circumstances a sack will have to be cut to empty it quickly, get rid of it, or free an animal from it. The same is true of the requirements in respect of the quality of clothes and other covering materials: they should never be so tough that they constrain people in emergency situations. Sacks, people, and animals all move in a moving environment, and so they must also be to some extent open to possible changes. (1) Horses carry quite heavy loads. People sew special sacks to hang on the saddle, and sacks with provisions are put into these saddle sacks. If anything untoward happens, provision sacks are easily removed from the saddle sacks. (2) Reindeer can carry less than horses and their back-sacks are therefore made smaller. Reindeer move more smoothly and, if they bolt, crash with less force into bushes and trees. Their back-sacks are made of leather, not from tarpaulin like those for the horses. They are lighter, more flexible, and give more possibilities to distribute the weight evenly on the back of the animal. (3) To carry provision sacks themselves, people bind them to thin wooden plates, called ponyaga, which are then attached to one’s back. Ponyaga can be used as a table on which to cut meat or serve food in the forest. Other important implements, such as axes, are also bound to the ponyaga with ropes. (4) Rucksacks are also widely used. They are preferred when the hunter is accompanied by a horse, because he does not need to carry provisions himself and carries only essentials and other small items in his rucksack. (5) When all-terrain vehicles are used to transport things, sacks are less convenient and boxes are preferred. The luggage module of the vehicle is like a big box, allowing square and rigid forms to be compactly packed. When these vehicles are on the move the ride can be very rough, so anything carried needs to be suitably packed and placed in a strong container, such as a box. Items carried should also be distributed between relatively small units to make loading and unloading easier. (6) Sacks are used when things are transported by car, although in this case they are never attached to each other or to the car, as is usually necessary when horses are used. Here also the processes of loading and unloading are more important than fitting or arranging things inside the vehicle. The car is basically a kind of box that is relatively isolated from the environment. 92 Tatiana Safonova and István Sántha 1 2 4 3 6 5 8 7 9 The Shaman Tree and the Everyday Life of the Evenki 93 The Sack—Integration Sacks are connected to other sacks, creatures, bodies, and constructions. Often they are elements of an elaborate system and, as such, they are integrated into these systems. In practical terms, sacks are embodied, which means that they become part of the body of a carrier. The ties that connect a sack to one’s body should not be too strong and should provide a flexible bond that can be cut when circumstance dictate. When sacks are assembled around a carrier, the main task is to balance their weights and shapes. The body of the carrier is reshaped as new elements are added. These additions should not prevent the body from moving freely, and this is the most difficult and delicate task to perform. Integration and balance are the two sides of one coin. If the system is imbalanced, it will immediately fall apart. Also, if any part separates, especially when the carrier is on the move, it will become unstable. (1) People never hurry when tying bags and sacks to the ponyaga. This task must be done carefully so that the load won’t disturb the hunter when walking. At the same time the hunter should be able to feel the weight so that he can tell if something goes missing. (2) Sacred things are assembled together and represent a complicated system of things that balance and counterpoise each other. (3) The correct distribution of weight on the horse’s back is important, because this can prevent injuries and some accidents. (4) Loading a reindeer is an even more difficult task, because reindeer are more delicate than horses. (5) Sacks are often tied to the walls inside and outside the hunting hut. This protects them from animals, humidity, and freezing. The way these sacks are connected with each other and the house can be very complicated. (6) People spend a lot of time on the preparations before a hunting trip. Provisions are graded and distributed between various sacks, which will be connected with each other and loaded on a horse. (7) Small sacks containing poisonous bait are tied to the bone and hung high above the ground on stakes. These constructions are placed in the forest far enough from the camp that the hunting dogs won’t scent the bait. The idea is that the bait should attract wolves, which are believed to be more skilled than dogs and able to reach the bait. (8) There is no need to assemble and tie together sacks and boxes transported by vehicles. Instead, these need to be easily separated from each other so that they can be quickly loaded and unloaded. (9) Accidents—when a tied load comes apart—are rare and usually happen with young people who are not experienced enough to assemble things so that different parts balance each other when on the move. Accidents also can happen when the embodiment is not complete, for example the person that leads a caravan does not feel its margins. 94 Tatiana Safonova and István Sántha 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 The Shaman Tree and the Everyday Life of the Evenki 95 Binding the Living to the Living The small sacks that were hung on the shaman tree were bound to the branches with ropes. When animate and inanimate objects are bound together they constitute one system, which cannot be definitely recognized as fully alive or not alive. Here is the point of transition between life and death. If two living creatures are bound together, their relationship takes the material form of the rope that connects them. The tension that rope experiences is also a tension of interaction, and here we see that social facts have a physical, even mechanical, existence. Abstract thoughts have concrete prototypes in everyday life and do not need special symbols to be grasped and described. When a man takes a dog hunting, he leads her on a rope. At first, when the hunter takes the leash in his hands, the dog is usually very expressive and active. Her excitement may be so strong that it may not be clear whether the dog is attacking the hunter or playing with him. Superficially this might look like a fight, which ends after the relationship between the hunter and the dog settles down and takes a form of subordination, with either the hunter leading the dog, which happens more often, or the dog showing the direction. The same thing happens whenever men take other animals on rope anywhere, although these moments of instability may last only seconds and not be observable. Nonetheless, people are always prepared for them and the possibility that an animal may try to reestablish the form of the relationship. Any external accident can upset the relationship and provoke an animal into revolt. (1) The hunter and his dog feel each other’s movements through the tension of the rope and can assess each other’s emotional state not only by looking, but also through this constant physical contact. (2) Horses are often hobbled to stop them wandering too far. This does not fix the animal to a certain point but limits its freedom of movement. This is an explicit example of how the redundant relationships within the system—which add no new elements to it—become a burden that makes the system inefficient. (3) It is enough to catch one reindeer and bring it to the camp on a rope to get other reindeer to follow it. When animals notice that one of them is moving steadily in a particular direction, they follow. Having established a relation with one creature, a man can manipulate its behavior and create a pattern for the behavior of others, ultimately controlling the whole herd. (4) Sometimes people construct complex systems with several layers, with themselves leading a horse to which a dog is attached on a leash. This makes traveling through the taiga faster, but such a fragile system can come apart any time because of the increased number of couplings. (5) The same is true when reindeer are used for transport, when several animals may be roped in a train. (6) When people stop to have a rest the moment of a possible sudden rebellion comes. The attempts to reestablish the relationship or even to escape it frequently take the form of play. (7) Sometimes it is impossible to identify who is leading whom. (8) Stressful situations, such as vaccination, may provoke animals into showing real resistance. At such times, when it takes several men to drag the creature on a rope, one can see how fragile is human dominance over animals. 96 Tatiana Safonova and István Sántha 1 2 4 3 5 6 7 The Shaman Tree and the Everyday Life of the Evenki 97 Binding the Living to the Not Living When people bind or tether animals to other objects, they limit their movements, fix their position in the environment, and make them less active. Binding a living thing to an inanimate object is a kind of deactivation—which could lead to a total blocking that spells death for a living creature. When people bind animals there is always the potential for killing them. In fact, various traps are constructed according to this principle: either they simply immobilize a trapped animal or they throttle it. Therefore, tying an animal to a fence, a post, or a tree is always an act of violence, and animals only accept it with patience or a struggle. The ambivalence of the situation may even be reinforced when people use these moments to pet the tethered animal. In this context it is impossible to distinguish violent and kind actions. They merge and constitute one flow of interaction between an animal and a man. Care and killing become two aspects of one phenomenon. (1) A man tethers a horse to a fence to unload the sacks that it was carrying. This is a transitional moment when the horse is practically unbound from the man to be set free. (2) After a sable has been successfully driven into a tree, the hunter tethers his dogs so that they will not be able to get at its body after it has been shot. The hunter deactivates the dogs because their part in the hunt is over. The dogs likely see this in a different way. (3) When a horse is tethered it is easy to be both tender and violent with it. (4) At camps dogs are usually tied to their owners’ huts; here they spend days or maybe even weeks waiting for the opportunity to run free during hunting. (5) Long periods of waiting make dogs more enthusiastic and effective when they finally get the chance to hunt. (6) To prevent reindeer from becoming wild, people bring them into camp from time to time and leave one of the animals tethered so that the others stay around and feel that they are safe. (7) Before being killed, a cow is tied to a fence. Usually very passive and quiet, they can become aggressive and dangerous when they sense what is going to happen. 98 Tatiana Safonova and István Sántha 1 2 3 4 5 6 The Shaman Tree and the Everyday Life of the Evenki 99 Binding the Not Living to the Living Because the binding of a living creature to an inanimate object can lead to an irreversible change, such as its death, a mediating move should be made to prevent such a drastic transformation of the system. There is a pattern of action that helps to deactivate deactivation; in other words, if you need to exclude the creature from a system, you bind the living to the nonliving, and if you want to smooth this process, you bind the inanimate object to the living creature. The object is fixed on the body of the animal, or the animal is attached to the external object, not directly, but through a kind of mediating chain. By binding nonliving objects to living creatures, people do not exclude them from the environment but create a potential to include them in their own personal systems of action. (1) Sacks with provisions are never directly bound to horses or reindeer, because they could be dangerous and can injure the animal in emergency situations, when its reactions may be wild and unpredictable. A light saddle is first bound to the reindeer, as well as a collar, which absorb the tension which a rope and a load can cause. (2) A collar on a dog also helps the hunter to control it when he needs to exclude it from the action. (3) A hunter has various useful things, such as gloves, attached to him. This makes them easy to find when needed, and he can forget about them when they are not required. These bound items carry a potential of being used. (4) All horses have collars, which they wear all the time so that they can be caught when needed. (5) Not every reindeer wears a collar and a bell. Only those with a good temper—which are easily caught and which people distinguish from others and like for some reason— wear such collars. Collars and bells are markers that people leave on those animals with which they have most experience and through which they establish relationships with others from the herd. Here we see a chain of markers, which also play the role of mediators, through which various elements of the system connect with each other. (6) Dangerous items like knives, axes, and guns are also attached to the hunter’s body using a kind of pocket or sack, although not directly to avoid risk of injury. 100 Tatiana Safonova and István Sántha 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 The Shaman Tree and the Everyday Life of the Evenki 101 Binding the Not Living to the Not Living Objects are bound together to be compact, something that is especially important for transportation. Other reasons to bind or attach nonliving objects to other nonliving objects are to store, dry, or process them. In practice, transported things are already in a state in which they can be stored. Binding things together frequently presupposes that they are disintegrated or separated from their previous contexts or systems, of which they were part. When bound to each other, the bond between two or more nonliving objects can always be seen in a context of some active system of things that is assembled around some active, living agent, whether these nonliving things are directly bound to this agent or are marked for potential use. In other words, nonliving things migrate between various living agents, either being bound to them or having a place in the field of the living agents’ prospective action. All objects circulate around living creatures, as if drawn by some gravity of life. The little sacks with provisions that are tied to the shaman tree can be seen as such objects that are connected to the living tree, but which from time to time can be transferred into the field of men’s actions. (1) The best way to dry and store medicinal herbs is to tie bundles of herbs to the string hanging from the roof of a hut. (2) To butcher a wild roe carcass, men bind its legs and hang it so that it won’t get soiled and the ground soiled by blood also will be limited. (3) Poison for wolves is attached to a hut-like construction built in the taiga. It is waiting its time to be involved in the wolf’s sphere of action. (4–5) Tree trunks are bound to a tractor or an all-terrain vehicle. Until recently they had to be sawn up into smaller logs to be carried by a reindeer or a man to the camp. Now that new means of transport make it possible to transport huge trunks, the procedure of disintegration is postponed, although at some point logs still have to be cut and chopped. Logs are separated from their previous context and integrated into new systems of action, in which vehicles are merely mediating objects between trees and the people who drive the vehicles. (6) The old way of transporting firewood on sledges conforms to the same pattern. (7) The ribbons that are bound to the branches of sacred trees are in the domain of the spirits. As such they are extensions of these spirits, just as other objects and instruments attached to the hunter are parts of his system of action. 102 Tatiana Safonova and István Sántha 2 1 3 4 5 6 7 The Shaman Tree and the Everyday Life of the Evenki 103 Hanging Outside Objects that have been hung outside a house or a hut are in transition—they have neither been stored yet, nor consumed, nor set free. Their status of either being living or nonliving objects is also in question, as hanging is a (sometimes reversible) process of transition from life to death. The most frequent form of suicide among the Evenki is by hanging. Those who feel they lack freedom and mobility may hang themselves outside the house or a bathing house, preferably in the taiga, while those who lack social bonds or a stable point in their lives choose to hang themselves inside buildings. An object hanging outside a house is only temporarily inactive and can be included into a scheme of action on demand. Jokes and play based on the pretense that living things are dead often use hanging as a pattern, or motif, to express this idea. (1) Guns—which are usually hung outside houses and huts—are always loaded and ready to fire. This is especially important in the taiga, where wild animals such as reindeer or bear can intrude at any moment, so one always needs to be ready to defend oneself. This practice is often dangerous for people too, because if anyone loses their temper (for example during drinking) loaded guns kept outside the house can be used at once, giving no time for thought or discussion. (2) The food in the sack that has been hung on the top of this hut-like construction is there to be kept out of the reach of the hunting dogs. In fact this rarely helps because such a form of temporary storage provokes the dogs even more, as the wind spreads the smell of food. When poisoned meat is hung in the forest for wolves, its smell spreads over a much larger area than when something is stored on the ground, and hence it attracts predators. (3) The bowl with water suspended over a fire in the forest is part of a living system, the creation of which and interaction with which are essential to the hunter if he or she is to stay alive. (4) The carcass of a still warm animal hangs in the yard. It is being butchered quickly because this is possible only when it is fresh, not frozen, the muscles have not yet hardened, and the blood has not coagulated. Some basic characteristics of a living body— warmth and flexibility—are still present. (5) Hanging is a predominant principle used with various traps, because animals that are caught should not be killed immediately; if they are, their bodies will freeze and it will not be possible to skin them. Trapped animals, usually sable or hares, hang half alive, sometimes unconscious, waiting to be collected by a hunter. (6) Cats, because of their similarities in size and constitution with sable, are commonly the object of jokes. (7) Children also play with the idea of being hung and swaying in the wind, like the sacred things that hang on sacred trees. 104 Tatiana Safonova and István Sántha 1 2 4 3 5 6 7 8 The Shaman Tree and the Everyday Life of the Evenki 105 Hanging Inside Objects that are temporarily or permanently hung inside the house are parts of the internal order in the organization of various things. Those things that are left hanging for a long time tend to be associated with the house itself and add something to the life of the house; examples might be amulets that bring hunting luck, or photographs giving a sense of the presence of those who are far away, traveling, or dead. Other things hang in the house for a more limited time, whether to be kept in sight for some reason or to be dried; in both cases such items are already involved in the system of some projected action, whether they are to undergo further transportation or be stored. When something is hung in the house it is assimilated into the system of the house. It is not only assembled with other hanging things according to the inner logic of the distribution of weights and volumes (the same logic that is behind how sacks are organized on the body of an animal during transportation), but it is also affected by the microclimate of the house with its daily changes in temperature and humidity. At the same time these things themselves add some new character to the atmosphere of the house—for example through their smell. Because objects that are hung in the house are more exposed than if they were stored away, they absorb other smells and water from the air, and as such they also play a role in the regulation of internal climate. The Evenki prefer to hang things rather than put them aside somewhere and isolate them in boxes or cupboards. They have few possessions, and often all that they do have is in use, so they do not need to put them away. At the same time, the limited number of things they have can be easily displayed and organized, as well as readily packed and transported. (1) Sacred things have been hung in the corner in a special box made of birch bark, where they are not totally isolated. (2) During the preparation for a trip important items like a horse bridle are hung for some time inside the house, where they can be dried and kept warm. To accustom a horse to it more quickly, a bridle should be warm and to some extent feel like a living thing. (3) The skin of a rare white sable is the best kind of hunting amulet and is hung near the entrance. (4) The skins of freshly killed sable have been hung out to dry on the walls or under the roof. (5) Photos of loved ones hang on the walls in a display that usually includes both living and dead members of the family. (6) Clothes are normally hung outside to dry even in winter, when they immediately become frozen. People avoid taking wet things inside so as not to increase the humidity of the air in the house. Some food may also be cooked outside for the same reason. (7) Various sacks hanging on the inside and outside walls of the house resemble their mini-versions hanging on the shaman tree not far away in the forest. (8) Large skins are hung outside the house but under the roof. Drying takes more time, but the house is protected from the rather special smells associated with the skins of such animals as bear. 106 Tatiana Safonova and István Sántha 2 1 3 5 4 6 The Shaman Tree and the Everyday Life of the Evenki 107 Microcosmos The traveling man, the hunting hut, and the shaman tree are autonomous units that exist in an environment characterized by movement. They all represent kinds of gravitational centers, with things circulating on the orbits around them. They are also self-regulating, as the movements and positions of the things surrounding them are balanced, or as changes lead to reactive changes in the organization. Things that are essentially provisions are packed into sacks that partially isolate them from the outer world, and these are integrated with each other into a net. Living and nonliving objects are bound together, and these relationships provide a potential for transition and change, when living things become nonliving, and vice versa. Life has its pulse and reaches all the objects involved in the microcosmic system of the man, the house, or the shaman tree. (1) The man on the horse forms a moving, autonomous unit that wends it way through the ever-changing environment. (2) The sacred place with several shaman trees shares many traits with the man and the house. For example, living and nonliving objects are bound to each other. (3) A hunting hut may look nonliving at first sight, but as soon as a fire is lit in the stove and hunting provisions have been hung on the walls a microclimate is formed, affecting and accommodating all the objects together into one system. (4) Some sacred places and shaman trees provoke bypassers into certain actions—for example, these ladders have been placed to attract anyone passing by to climb them to take something from the tree or to hang something in the tree themselves. This invitation to contribute to the circulation of life in the system by adding something is a step toward integrating a person and a shaman tree together into the frame of one system of action. (5) The man, his dog, a gun, a sack with provisions—all are integrated into one system. Man and dog can survive and stay alive in the harsh environment of the taiga only by maintaining the integrity of this system. (6) This little house covered with provision sacks and hunting trophies lives its own life, even when people leave it for some time. When a hunter leaves one of his huts in the taiga, he always tries to leave some flour, sugar, cigarettes, and matches. Sometimes he may even leave a bowl with frozen tea, which you can warm and drink with fat when you come from the cold outside into the hut after a day-long trip. Sometimes people return to their huts and collect provisions that they left there, as they do when they go to the shaman tree and take cigarettes when their supply has run out. 108 Tatiana Safonova and István Sántha Conclusion Here we would like to outline the relations between the photographic plates and present a summary of the thoughts inspired by the shaman tree. Often these relations are not directly expressed in the plates. The suggestions we present in this concluding section are not simply a reformulation of the texts from the plates, but contain some additional original ideas. We have tried to reveal the conscious and unconscious strategies that are hidden in our research materials. The conclusion provides us with a final opportunity to reflect upon our materials once again and formulate exactly what kind of results we obtained throughout this project. The Evenki people take things to the shaman tree, leave them there, and then take the things back, and by doing this they support movement and change at a particular site. After each visit there is some sign that the shaman tree has been attended; often this may be a very small change, as when Rita put the plastic glass on the ground back on the small table attached to the tree. Each time she visited she would do something like this. The change demonstrates that there is an permanent movement at the shaman tree.2 Through moving, the sacred items are accommodated and become parts of everyday life. Items associated with tea drinking—such as bread, sweets, and sugar, as well as tea itself—are more frequently found on the table than other kinds of things. They are also signs of prosperity and are associated with abundance. When people lack any or all of these tea-associated items, their ability to establish a balance between various activities becomes very restricted. For example, when there is no sugar they cannot make brazhka (a fermented alcoholic drink) and have a party. Without tea itself, the Evenki cannot pause and have a rest, either at home or in the taiga. A lack of bread and flavor is a frightening indication that there has been no hunting luck or that the group is isolated from the outer world. 2

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shaman ancestor, on which the diviner tries to recognize changes. The Shaman Tree and the Everyday Life of the Evenki 109 The other significant form of behavior expressed through the plates is a pattern of sharing, which embraces not only relationships between people, but also their connections with animals and spirits. The spirits and elements of nature are not distinguished from each other; hunting luck depends on them, and to achieve that luck hunters need to establish egalitarian relations with animals. All these constitute selfcorrective circles. Some things are the sign that a successful phase of a circular process has been initiated, and possessing them is equivalent to having hunting luck. For example, a cigarette provides an opportunity to have a rest—in fact, a break in work is called perekur, ‘a break for smoking’, even for those, like Rita, who are not smokers. Fire gives warmth without which it is impossible to live in the taiga, not only during winter, but also in summer. The smoke of a fire can be smelled far away, and this helps people to find a particular place—for example, where an uncaught sable was left the previous evening because darkness fell. The next day the sable be relocated and pursued, even if there is a fresh covering of snow. Smoke attracts horses that have been left to graze freely on their own for the whole winter season. Evenki use smoke to call the horses to the huts. In the summer reindeer come in to take refuge in the smoke from mosquitoes and more dangerous midges. Smoke keeps wolves away from places where they are not wanted, even if people are not there. In Jilinda people smoke ribbons before hanging them on the sacred trees to conduct sacrifices to the spirits. The smoke maintains a border between domestic and wild animals and helps people to keep in touch with spirits. Along with the logic of presentation of materials the shifts from hunting luck to game and back can be recognized. The game can be seen as a content that is preserved, isolated, and transported, and hunting luck is what people want to achieve through various practices connected, for example, with integration. We saw an image of a particular aspect of Evenki culture that expresses itself in various forms of bindings or attachments. Attachment to static objects and to the bodies of moving creatures induces an inactive state in a tethered or load-carrying animal. Binding through intermediate elements, such as a collar, means putting an animal or 110 Tatiana Safonova and István Sántha a thing in a position to be ready for some use or activity. The latter measure is also necessary to protect the life of an animal when a direct attachment to a static object could become hazardous. Escape is a form of activation of the system, seen when a creature realizes its desire to live (in the plates this is observed in such categories as attention, concentration, and readiness for life). The situated character of Evenki life is connected with the cycles of birth and movement, and with the activation of autonomous units, such as a person, a hut, or sacred places. From this perspective, the Evenki character is shaped and expresses itself in the situated behavior of the Evenki people, in both the sacred and everyday aspects of life. References Bateson, Gregory 1958 [1936]. Naven: A Survey of the Problems Suggested by a Composite Picture of the Culture of a New Guinea Tribe Drawn from Three Points of View. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press. —. 1979. Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity. New York: E. P. Dutton. Bateson, Gregory, and Margaret Mead. 1942. Balinese Character: A Photographic Analysis. New York: The New York Academy of Sciences. Freeman, Derek 1983. Margaret Mead and Samoa: The Making and Unmaking of an Anthropological Myth. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Grimshaw, Anna 2001. The Ethnographer’s Eye: Ways of Seeing in Modern Anthropology. Cambridge, UK, and New York: Cambridge University Press. Houseman, Michael, and Carlo Severi. 1998. Naven, or the Other Self. A Relational Approach to Ritual Action. Leiden, Boston, and Köln: Brill. Jacknis, Ira 1988. “Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson in Bali: Their Use of Photography and Film.” Cultural Anthropology 3(2): 160–177. Jensen, Gordon D., and Luh Ketut Suryani. 1992. The Balinese People: A Reinvestigation of Character. Singapore and New York: Oxford University Press. Mead, Margaret 1928. Coming of Age in Samoa. New York: Harper Collins. Mead, Margaret, and Frances C. Macgregor. 1951. Growth and Culture: A Photographic Study of Balinese Childhood. New York: Putnam. Pink, Sarah 2007. Doing Visual Ethnography: Images, Media and Representation in Research. London and Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage. Shirokogoroff, S. M. 1979. [1929] Social Organization of the Northern Tungus. London: Garland Publishing Inc. Silverman, David 1993. Interpreting Qualitative Data. Methods for Analysing Talk, Text and Interaction. London and Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage. The Shaman Tree and the Everyday Life of the Evenki 111 %+2 !
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In Egidius Schmalzriedt und Hans Wilhelm Haussig (eds) Wörterbuch der Mythologie. I. Abteilung. Die Alten Kulturvölker. 27. Lieferung. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta. Tatiana SAFONOVA defended her PhD at the Department of Sociology, St Petersburg State University, in 2009. She works at the Center for Independent Social Research in St Petersburg. Her research topics include problems of nature and culture conservation, indigenous peoples in post-Soviet Russia, the anthropology of Siberia, and ethnomethodological studies. She is currently a visiting scholar at the Institute of Ethnology (from 2012 the Research Center for Humanities), Hungarian Academy of Sciences, in Budapest (2011–2013, supported by the European Council). She has conducted collaborative fieldwork among Evenki in Eastern Buriatia (2008–2009) and has published several articles about the Evenki. István SÁNTHA defended his PhD at the Department of Inner Asian Studies, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, in 2004. He is a senior researcher at the Institute of Ethnography (from 2012 the Research Center for Humanities), Hungarian Academy of Sciences (supported by the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund in 2009–2012). His research topics include problems of modern hunter-gatherer peoples in Siberia and their culture contact strategies with hierarchical societies. He was a member of the Siberian Studies Center at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle, Germany, in 2003–2004. He participated in a collaborative project on Power and Emotions in Russia (2008–2010), supported by the Wenner-Gren Foundation. He has conducted long-term fieldwork among the Western Buriats (in 2000) and the Evenki in Eastern Buriatia (2008–2009), and has published several articles about the Buriat and the Evenki. Recently he has been appointed a research associate at the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge and has been awarded a Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship for Career Development (2012–2014). This paper is based on a project entitled “Evenki Character—Photographic Analyses in the Study of Forms of Adaptation to Situations of Emergency and Risk: The Case of Egalitarian Social Organization of the Evenki People 112 Tatiana Safonova and István Sántha in East Siberia” which was supported by the Hungarian National Development Agency (NFÜ). The fieldwork was supported by the UNESCO/Keizo Obuchi Research Fellowships Programme, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the Hungarian Ministry of Education and Culture and the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund.