Epic of Aina and Gaina – and the Gaina Bashkirs: Transformation of the Ancient Narrative into a Local Ethnogenetic Legend Revisited

Introduction. The article considers the Bashkir folk ethnogenetic legend of Aina and Gaina supposed to contain ancient mythological views of the ethnos, beliefs and traditions characteristic of archaic epic folklore. Goals. The work seeks to identify the Gaina Bashkirs’ ancient perceptions of the world and nature, their aesthetic traditions and customs traced in surviving variants of the ethnogenetic legend. Materials and Methods. It is known that epics take shape over centuries, passing from generation to generation, improved and polished. But at certain points, some of such epic narratives literally cease to exist as ones. This may be caused by that holistic elements of a once ancient epic simply sink into oblivion. Similarly, the surviving fragment of the once famous epic about the female demiurge Ar ― a mythical foremother of the Bashkir clan Gaina ― and the two brothers Gain and Aina (who saved the Sun) takes the form of a mythological legend, and quite a share of taletellers’ knowledge vanishes, which leads to the destruction of the epic plot, desacralization of ancient beliefs and rituals. Results. The paper shows this may have resulted from that the northwestern Gaina Bashkirs had been isolated from their historical homelands in the Republic of Bashkortostan. Assimilation, introduction of a different language and cultural elements led to the destruction of the archaic worldview and indigenous traditions: no long songs were sung, no epic recited. However, due to somewhat genetic memory of the Gaina people at least a fragment of the ancient epos has survived, even though in a different form. So, the core of the ethnogenetic legend of Aina and Gaina is the once widespread ancient mythological epic about the salvation of the Sun by brothers, their struggle against a mythical being, victory of good over evil, and the hero’s marriage to the mythical creature Аr, resulting in the emergence of the ancient Bashkir tribe.

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