Ethnoterritorial Groups of Buryats and Their Marital Preferences: the Image of the Other

Abstract

Nowadays the Buryat people are a community characterized by multiple levels of ethno-social identity ― from the level of individual clans and tribal associations to that of the Buryat people as a unity with its proximity to the Mongolic world. The relevance of belonging to a clan, tribe, and some administrative-territorial formation or political community ― including interaction of different Buryat ethno-territorial groups ― has been topical enough. The formation of the bulk of these representations is associated with certain stages in the development of Buryat society. Belonging to a clan / tribe had constituted the basis of self-identification for Buryat ethnic formations in the pre-Russian period. The annexation of their ancestral lands to the Russian Empire established a new vector for the development of ethnic processes in accordance with the territorial principle prescribed by the structure of the Russian state. The isolated conditions of life of the Buryat groups were aggravated by the boundaries of Buryat self-government districts — the Steppe Duma. Other transformations in the administrative structure of Siberia, in particular, the separation of Transbaikalia from Irkutsk Governorate in 1851, resulted in subsequent ethnic development of the Buryats within two large communities ― ‘Irkutsk Buryats’ and ‘Transbaikal Buryats’. This administratively and territorially determined separation was subsequently intensified by the priority influence of shamanism and Orthodoxy in Irkutsk Governorate ― and that of Buddhism in Transbaikalia. Thus, the religious factor became a key one for the differentiation between the ‘western’ and ‘eastern’ groups of Buryats.
Representations that form images of ‘strangers’ and ‘kinsmen’ are especially required in situations of close communication, e. g., when it comes to establish some conjugal unions. Drawing of verbal ‘portraits’ to characterize foreigners is a special genre of Buryat folklore. Special songs were traditionally performed at weddings. In accordance with the traditional worldview, such images clearly exaggerated both virtues of the clan (tribe) the singer belongs to ― and the otherness and shortcomings of the other clan (tribe). The traditional social hierarchy of Buryats was characterized by the absence of such aspects in inter-clan / inter-tribal relations: differences in social status existed only within clan structures.
Such detailed ‘portraits of foreigners’ are currently distributed poorly enough in Buryat society, once vivid epithets and characteristics have been forgotten. However, the process of forming new ‘portraits’ still continues up to the present days. Clan and tribal identity used to be the main and most informative layer of individual and group identity. These have not lost their significance for Buryats, especially in rural areas. Other levels of ethnosocial identity typical for the 19th century have disappeared. Those were replaced by ones based on the administrative and territorial structure of federal subjects of the RSFSR and the Russian Federation (Irkutsk Oblast, Republic of Buryatia, Zabaikalsky Krai): the ‘Bokhanskie’, ‘Alarskie’, ‘Zakamenskie’, ‘Aginskie’ and others. So, the differentiation of Buryats not only persists but also develops new meanings of ‘westernness’ and ‘easternness’. Once borrowed from the religious sphere such differences get transformed into attributed traits of character and even claim to explain vocational abilities and inclinations.