Siberian cult figurines

Anthropomorphic figurines; the “skeleton” of each item is made of wood, wrapped in factory-made dyed and patterned cotton material, as well as with animal fur (squirrel). The eyes and mouth of the figurine 30609/MEK is made of glass beads, much like the single eye of figurine 30610/MEK.

Two small figurines carved out of wood, dressed in linen clothing and covered with animal fur. The first depicts a female figure with realistic facial features – a nose, mouth and eyes made of honey-hued beads. A string of similar coral beads is most probably wound around the corpus of the figurine, which can be seen through rips in the material made of dark-coloured fabric. The second figurine undeniably has hands and feet, a long corpus and a squared head with a schematically marked nose, yet it does not resemble a human being. Only one eye, made from a black coral bead, is visible, and is set in a deep orbit. It is covered in a printed cotton piece of fabric, tightly bound to the arms and legs. It is possible to see what lies underneath by uncovering a top layer made of squirrel fur. In a certain sense, the shape of the figurine, just as the complete animal-fur covering, dehumanises the entire figure and turns one’s attention to the existence of creatures of a mixed, demonic provenance, as well as to ideas which moot the enclosure of the soul in an animal’s body.

During our investigative study of the figurines, all the trails consistently led back to the Selkup – a Samoyedic people who currently reside in the basin of the Taz River in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug in western Siberia (Russia). The Selkup are animists who regard the affinity and unity of the surrounding elements which make up their world. The most important being of their pantheon is the “heavenly grandmother”, the goddess Ilympil Kota (a female deity who encompasses the cosmos; a mistress of fire and a protector of the world’s life-cycle). The first of the figurines resembles a woman, although her dress is not a reproduction of the typical Selkup costume. In their mythology, the god-like opponent of the “heavenly grandmother” was her dark son Kys – a demon who lives and reigns in the underworld. According to beliefs, her windows were lakes, through which he and his kin could see the sky, but also down the other way, to the depths of the underworld. What is of note is that he was a being related to the squirrel.

Among the Selkup, as well as other Samoyedic peoples, the boundary between the living and the dead is indistinct. The presence of many transitional and partial forms was also acknowledged. Trees were worshipped as a material, as creatures, and also a metaphor of ever-expanding space, the inside of which encases the never-ending cycle of life forms. The succession of these types of beliefs was the practice of burials in live trees (especially children). Families not only lived in an environment shared by other people and animals, but also among beings which we would call figurines, but which held a distinct identity. These creations were, on the one hand, deities, demons, and protective spirits, while on the other they provided shelter for the souls of deceased ancestors, family members and friends – a sort of living memory which had a physical shape, often made of wood.

The figurines are part of an assortment of some 350 items in the Kraków Ethnographic Museum’s Siberian collection. The collection is diverse, both in terms of the provenance of the objects, but also the biographies of the people who obtained them – indeed, these factors comprise an extraordinarily interesting field for research. From 2016, as part of the “Anthropological Reinterpretation of the Siberian Collection at the Ethnographic Museum in Kraków, from Objects Obtained by Polish Researchers in Siberia in the 19th Century” academic research project, the collection has become the object of a wide-ranging and interdisciplinary reflection. Thanks to a grant from the National Programme for the Development of Humanities, research is undertaken at the institution and in the field, with the aim to shed to light on the provenance, function, and history of these unique objects. In the case of these two described figurines, the way in which they became part of the Museum’s collection remains a mystery. We only see the name of the probable donor: J. Żórawski, and the date 1906 – the year in which they were entered into the collection of the now non-existing Technical-Industrial Museum in Kraków. On the basis of current conclusions, enquiries, and comparative analyses, we do know, however, that these two Selkup figurines, we are confronted with objects which are joined by the sphere of beliefs, as well as come within earshot of a personal history of a once-living people. Who they were, strictly speaking, what were their names, and what could they tell us if they could speak, still remain veiled, however.