Religion
Alongside Russian Orthodox beliefs, Yukaghir still practice shamanism. The dominant cults are ancestral spirits, the spirits of Fire, Sun, Hunt, Earth, and Water. The spirits can act as protectors and as enemies of people. The highest is the cult of Sun, the highest judge in all disputes. The spirits of the dead go to “Aibidzi” where they are continually watching and helping. Every clan had a shaman “Alma”. After death every shaman was treated as a deity. The body of the dead shaman was dismembered and kept by the clan as relics.
Read more about this topic: Yukaghir People
Famous quotes containing the word religion:
“It must appear impossible, that theism could, from reasoning, have been the primary religion of human race, and have afterwards, by its corruption, given birth to polytheism and to all the various superstitions of the heathen world. Reason, when obvious, prevents these corruptions: When abstruse, it keeps the principles entirely from the knowledge of the vulgar, who are alone liable to corrupt any principle or opinion.
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—David Hume (1711–1776)
“The proper office of religion is to regulate the heart of men, humanize their conduct, infuse the spirit of temperance, order, and obedience; and as its operation is silent, and only enforces the motives of morality and justice, it is in danger of being overlooked, and confounded with these other motives.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)
“The only human beings I have thoroughly admired and respected in the world have been those who carried the load of the world with a smile, and who, in the face of anxieties that would have knocked me clean out, never showed a tremor. Such men and women end by owning us, soul and body, and our allegiance can never be shaken. We are only too glad to be owned. Religion is nothing but this.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)