The Connection between Actional and Verbal Codes in Buryat Rituals for Childless Families

Introduction. The work is relevant enough for the issue of childlessness in Mongolic folklores and the connection between verbal and structural elements of the ritual remain understudied. The paper is first to secure a comparative diachronic insight into one rite and synchronic reviews of the other regional rituals, which makes it possible to reveal the relationship between verbal and actional codes. Goals. The study aims to identify the connection between actional and verbal components of the rituals. To facilitate this, it shall identify stable motifs and symbols preserved in cultural codes of the traditional rite. Methods. Structural-semiotic analysis tools and those of typologization prove instrumental in outlining the features of architectonics and semantics inherent to the ritual action. The study is conducted from the perspective of ‘participant observation’, which helps reveal how bearers of ethnic culture comprehend and explain their traditional ritual practices. Results. The article examines — in time and space — three ritual acts characteristic of the western Buryats in a comparative perspective. Ethnically, the Barguzin and Kabansk Buryats under study are western Buryats, namely Ekhirit clans that migrated from the Upper Lena to Transbaikalia three centuries ago. The Barguzin Buryat rite for childless families was held in the early twentieth century, and is closely related to their ancient mythological traditions of fire worship. In the rite referred to as ‘Judgment of Old Women’ and observed among western Buryats around the same time, the actional code differs by its pragmatic aspect, while the verbal part to a certain extent coincides with the semantics of the ritual action in the previous rite. The third rite of ‘worshipping grandmother Alya’ that dates back to the shamanic traditions of treating and appeasing angry and vengeful spirits was also held in the early twentieth century. In the modern version of this rite, only the actional code is relevant, and the verbal part has been preserved in earlier archival records. Conclusions. The paper shows the rituals differ compositionally and semantically in a synchronic perspective. In the rite of the Barguzin Buryats, it is the mythological component that retains primary importance: the shamanic ritual articulates a request for a child’s soul from the deity of fire. In the two other rites, it is the actual pragmatic aspect that is in greater demand: those serve to request the deities for increased reproduction strength. In a diachronic perspective, present-day ritual patterns tend to lose the verbal component, which actualizes the food code. So, the interdependence of actional and verbal codes during ritual efforts is revealed.

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