Paper long abstract:

This paper focuses on the ontological link between the earliest layer of the Central Eurasian (chiefly Hungarian, Ossetian, Mongolic, Tibetan and Turkic) heroic epic tradition, namely the deer chasing motive sequence (AaTh/ATU 401: The Enchanted Princess), and a current field research data of a year-end fertility ritual (rite of passage) in a Moldavian Csango (a bilingual - Hungarian and Rumanian - Roman Catholic ethnographic group) village, Arini, Bacău County, Romania.

According to the original sujet of this especially archaic oral narrative type and ritual, the doe ("wonderful deer"; Hummel [1973] 1998; Mátéffy 2017) leads the male hero (hunter/shaman) to the otherworld, where it transforms into a human shape (princess), they get married (totemic marriage) and return home (from the shamanic journey). The figure of the doe was an ancestress symbol (Mother or Master of the animals; Jacobson 1983, 1987; Jacobson-Tepfer 2015; Vitebsky 1995: 32) in the indigenous ontologies of the North and Central Eurasian hunter-gatherer and later nomadic communities for a long time. This Neolithic (Okladnikov 1972, Martynov 1991), Bronze and Iron Age (e.g. Rudenko 1970) shamanic and totemic belief has survived and spread of the world religions (Buddhism, Islam and Christianity) and it was adopted as a communal ritual, in which, as maintained by the Moldavian Csango folk traditions, one performer wears a deer costume and the other members lead it (actually: her) into a dance and sell it as a bride in the wedding. According to the data of ethnographic records (e.g. Diószegi/Forrai/K. Kovács 1951: NM FILM 086; Ethnographic Museum, Budapest, online film archive) and of field work interviews, the members of this ritual were until 1989 predominantly the village bachelors, but after that the age-group has partially changed.

In this paper, the author follows an ontological approach (e.g. Hallowell 1960, Pedersen 2001, 2007) and the paper is based on the topic related theories of cultural anthropology, on folklore texts and on field research conducted in 2015 and 2016. The presenter aims to argument the theory, that the deer has a female character universally in every North Asian and Central Eurasian indigenous ontologies (e.g. Willerslev 2007: 109; Endres 2015: 134), irrespective of the real biological sex of the hunted game, which ontological category has survived and has been transmitted to the 20th and 21th centuries new-year fertility rite of the Moldavian Csangos.

Paper long abstract:

This paper focuses on value conflicts among Kyrgyz Muslims who started to be heavily engaged in discussions related to the proper way of living. One of the visible changes in the idea of leading a healthy lifestyle is linked to the revival of Islam in post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan. The supporters of the version of Islam that is currently spreading in Kyrgyzstan follow the religious norms mentioned in the Quran and other Islamic sources. This has affected people's traditional lifestyle, beliefs and practices and brought changes in their cultural values and social relations. Many old practices that they used to follow are now seen as 'unhealthy'. The value conflicts become especially visible when it comes to the notion of bringing up a "healthy" child. Children's healthy growth is not only limited to their physical health; it also means the development of a child with proper moral education, the conduct of culturally defined health and life-cycle rituals, as well as a child who is 'culturally nourished'. This work is based on recent ethnographic materials collected in the northern part of Kyrgyzstan between 2012 and 2013 on the topic of personhood, childhood and children's healthy growth. By concentrating on the topic of the "healthy lifestyle", in this paper I aim to look at the relationship between contrasting values of Kyrgyz Muslims. Mainly, this paper deals with value conflicts caused by reformed Islam and Kyrgyz salt (Kyrgyz tradition). I argue that in the time of uncertainty, where this uncertainty itself is seen 'unhealthy', religion serves as a resource that promises to grant health and good life to people, by making the salt vs. Islam contradiction even more explicit.

Paper long abstract:

Headscarves are often discussed in connection to religiosity, in the case of Central Asia in connection to Islam. While women use different styles of wearing headscarves to perform religious identities in many regions of the world, in Central Asia this is only one aspect of what headscarves are made to symbolize. Based on long term ethnographic field research in a village in Kyrgyzstan in 2011-12 and 2016 the talk closely examines the every-day use of headscarves as markers of ritual transformation of persons and their social relations.

Headscarves are the most frequent gifts, which are gifted to women at important moments of transformation of their own lives and of social relations in general marked by weddings, and death rituals. Some cheaper quality headscarves are sold at the bazaar only for the purpose of gifting them, like the cheap kalpaks, and cheap shirts intended for men.

Women start to wear a headscarf when they get married. The women from the older generation tie white headscarves around the head of the newcomer-bride. Wearing a headscarf is one of a whole set of practices through which a daughter-in-law disguises her sexuality in front of her in-laws. At the wedding other women involved in the transformation of social relations, like the bride's mother and mother-in-law also receive headscarves.

Headscarves also symbolizes the transformation of closely related persons. Upon the death of their parent, sibling, or child women are dressed in blue clothes, or after the death of their husband in black clothes. Their clothes mark their status as women mourning a close relative. This phase of mourning ends when their children and brother's wives dress them in white clothes at the one year commemoration feast for the deceased.

While the use of headscarves as markers of increasing religiosity is central to discourses about the growing importance of Islam in Central Asia, this stands in striking contrast to the everyday use of headscarves in the village under study. It can help us to re-think the usefulness of such grand discourses for understanding the everyday-life of people and start looking for alternatives.

Paper long abstract:

After the fall of the Soviet Union, a notable increase of religiosity has occurred among Muslim communities throughout Central Asia. This new wave of religiosity tends to be concentrated among the younger generations defined as those who grew up after the fall of the Soviet Union. In contrast, the older generations Kazakhs have not totally abandoned secular beliefs and practices associated with the socialist past. This paper focuses on the rise of Muslim piety and religious participation among young Kazakh women in post socialist Mongolia. I will examine how revival of Islam phenomena is being exercised, and conflicted between two generations: secular and religious Kazakh Mongolians. In this paper, I refer to "secular generations" people above 30 whose identities have been impacted by anti religious politics of Soviet Russia until 1990s, whereas "religious Kazakhs" refers to younger generation (under 30) Kazakh Mongolians who have been intensively practicing their newly constructed Muslim identity after freedom to religious practices in 1990s.

This paper will be based on the data collected through my pilot study, which I plan to conduct between June 15 to August 15, 2018 in Bayan Ulgii- a Kazakh dominated Western province of Mongolia. The pilot study will examine the following questions: 1) how young Kazakh Muslim women construct their religious identity within a society that is defined by religious and cultural diversity, and 2) what tensions may exist between two generations of Kazakhs Muslims whose religious identities were formed within distinct socio-political contexts?