Yukaghir Shamanism

The Yukaghirs hunted deer, moose and sable in the Kolyma basin of north-eastern Siberia, and their tribal groups reached from the Lena to the mouth of the Anadyr when the Russians arrived in the seventeenth century. They worshipped the spirits of their ancestors, fire, the Sun, hunting, earth and water. The most important was the Sun, the highest judge in every dispute.

Every clan had a shaman, who after death was treated as a deity: his body was dismembered and the clan kept the parts as relics. Dog sacrifice, a cult of the elk with its hunting taboos, and an epic poem about crows belonged to the old hunting life.