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Tlingit - Khanty Bear-Feast Songs
http://haldjas.folklore.ee/folklore/vol6/steinitz.htm
Traditional Tlingits believe that people and animals are relatives who can cross into each others worlds. Animals have the ability to appear before people in human form and to interact with them in meaningful ways. In some Tlingit stories, such as The Woman Who Married the Bear, animals and humans even marry and raise families Bear, the most important land animal, typifies the relationship between humans and animals. In nature a bear behaves like a human and competes for the same resources. It can walk on its hind legs, fish for salmon, and use its dexterous paws to eat berries and nuts. When pursuing a bear, the hunter carefully carries out a special ritual, for he is killing a creature whose soul is akin to his own.
A bear hunt was an important event for which they prepared by long fasts and purgations. Before setting out they offered expiatory sacrifices to the souls of bears slain in previous hunts, and besought them to be favourable to the hunters. When a bear was killed the hunter lit his pipe, and putting the mouth of it between the bear's lips, blew into the bowl, filling the beast's mouth with smoke. Then he begged the bear not to be angry at having been killed, and not to thwart him afterwards in the chase. The carcase was roasted whole and eaten; not a morsel of the flesh might be left over. The head, painted red and blue, was hung on a post and addressed by orators, who heaped praise on the dead beast. Amongst the Nootka Indians of British Columbia, when a bear had been killed, it was brought in and seated before the head chief in an upright posture, with a chief's bonnet, wrought in figures, on its head, and its fur powdered over with white down. A tray of provisions was then set before it, and it was invited by words and gestures to eat. After that the animal was skinned, boiled, and eaten.
Note the similarity of "honour" among the people of Ob-Ugrians, Lokhtotgurt village that is close by Sherkaly, Samoyedic Khanty
Bear songs.
The songs called bear songs are performed during the first part of the day of the ceremony, they describe how the bear was let down on earth, its life in the forest, the arrival of a hunter and the killing of the bear. The hunters are usually various mythological beings. The songs are performed while standing in a line, holding hands and stooping, the singers wear special headgear, gloves and overalls. First, let's take a closer look at text no. 25, which describes the bear's life on earth. In this song, unlike several others, the bear does not violate prohibitions (does not destroy human sanctuaries or graves, nor eat the dead) but eats nicely berries and builds itself a lair in the autumn. He does not attack people either. Nevertheless, a hunter appears - the Tiny-elder-with-the-height-of-a-mouse. After the bear is killed, a text typical to bear songs follows, describing several rituals connected with bear hunting (a definite number of calls are shouted, the bear's buttons are opened(3)), how the bear is taken to the village and seated in a house, how it is offered food and drink, and how people dance and sing to honour it.
Songs for calling spirits and deities are performed in the latter part of the festival day and usually alone, with the singer's face partly covered. The first song is number 29, The song of the Lord-with-tributes-of-spring-squirrel-skin, where the World Surveyor Man is introduced. His abode is described with the following words:
Grown in the morning on the headland grown by golden lawn, grown in the evening on the headland grown by golden lawn; on hills covered with the feathers of spring grouse rooster, on hills covered with the feathers of autumn grouse rooster; in the height of a running cloud, in the height of a striding cloud, my sacred house in moon colours, my sacred house in sun colours on a golden chain's dear end hangs there, on a golden silver's dear end it hangs there. When from the southern throat a throatly wind starts to blow, with the clinking sound of a little silver, towards the dear waters of the northern Ob it moves there. When from the northern throat a throatly wind starts to blow, with the banging sound of a big silver, towards the dear waters of the southern Ob it moves there. In the inside of the sacred house in moon colours, of the sacred house in sun colours, close by the hoofly table with golden hooves, upon the hoofly table with golden hooves into the sacred book of spring squirrel hide, into the sacred book of autumn squirrel hide seven golden letters the master is writing, six golden letters he is writing there.
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