Shor Shamanic Epic Folktales
available for purchase! click on title above!
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Project Director: Llyn Cedar Roberts and Jeff Eissfeldt
Project Update: First phase of English-language edition fulfilled. Raising funds for next phase of translation and publication in the Russian-language. This book includes two legends, recorded from the last Shorets storyteller of the Shor Mountain region of Siberia, Vladimir Tannagashev. Both legends narrate the life and fight of the Shorets heroes, who protected their land and people from aggressors and evil spirits. The book is compiled by ethnographer Luba Arbachakov and Luba's environmentalist husband, Alexander Arbachkov, both indigenous Shor. It is available for purchase in the English language at the link above. Please listen to the link to the audio file at the bottom of this page for a rare opportunity to hear the voice of the storyteller – which is the voice of the lands and the spirits and the ancestors, themselves. Before the 20th century the Shorets did not have a written language; therefore all information was transferred orally – from one person to the next. This is the way of all indigenous shamanic peoples. Storytellers and shamans were the keepers of history, traditions and language of their people. The history of people remained in the legends, the myths and the heroic story. For the Shorets, the earliest and most popular stories were the Heroic legends, accompanied by throat singing and playing on the two-stringed musical tool named the kay-komus. |
