Василий Васильевич УШНИЦКИЙ

(Vasiliy Vasilyeviç USHNITSKY)

The article is devoted to the study of religious beliefs of the Yakuts. Totemism, animism, the cult of ancestors, fetishism, monotheism, shamanism - all these kinds of pagan cults can be found in Yakut religious beliefs. The pagan beliefs of the Yakuts are divided into black and white shamanism. Black shamans are considered to be sorcerers and folk ministers working with black magic. Servants of ceremonial ceremonies of the cult of Deities are considered to be priests of the Religion of Ayyy. The article deals with the connection of Yakut mythology with religious cults. The article uses excerpts from the works of G.F.Miller, V.F.Troshchansky, N.S. Gorokhov, A.A.Savvin, A.A.Popov, T.V.Zherebina, G.S.Popova, M.Eliade. They consider the cult of the heavenly deities Yuryung Ayyy Toyon and Jessege, the complex hierarchy of the cult of light deities, the fusion of the Yakut beliefs of Aiyy itegal with Orthodoxy, the birth of a monotheistic worldview. Totemism among the Yakuts is seen in the cult of the Eagle and Cygnus, considered as the progenitors of the Yakut clans. Fetishism can be seen through the term ymyy - fetish. The commercial cult is traced in the veneration of Bayanaya - the deity of hunting.

Key Words: religious beliefs, mythology, ethnography, shamanism, the cult of the Sun and Heaven, yakutology, historiography, polytheism and monotheism, totemism, fetishism, animism, ancestor cult