The Nenets are a Samoyedic-speaking people living in the tundra of northern Russia, from the Kola Peninsula to the Taymyr Peninsula, with their main centre on the Yamal Peninsula. They are among the most numerous indigenous peoples of the Russian North and many of them still practise nomadic reindeer herding, with seasonal migrations covering hundreds of kilometres. Their traditional religion is deeply bound to this way of life.
Num and Nga
The Nenets cosmos is organised, as in other Siberian traditions, into superimposed levels. Above reigns Num, the supreme celestial power, creator and distant, to whom white reindeer were sacrificed. Below is Nga, the power of the lower world, linked to death and illness, to whom dark-coloured reindeer were offered.
Between these two extremes, the land of the living is inhabited by many spirits: the masters of places, waters and animals, and the protective spirits of families. An important female figure is Ya-nebya, «Mother Earth», associated with birth and the protection of women.
The tadebya
The Nenets shaman is called tadebya. Ethnographic sources describe him as a specialist who, with drum and song, enters into relation with the spirits in order to:
- find the causes of a misfortune or illness according to traditional ideas;
- accompany the souls of the dead;
- consult the spirits before important decisions;
- lead sacrifices at sacred sites.
Scholars have noted that among the Nenets there were different grades and types of shaman, distinguished by the powers they related to and the level of their training. As elsewhere in Siberia, the vocation was often hereditary and manifested itself through a crisis.
The sacred sites
One of the most distinctive aspects of Nenets religion is the sacred sites scattered across the tundra. These are specific points in the landscape, such as hills, headlands and islands, where collections of ritual objects are found:
- anthropomorphic wooden figures, sometimes simple posts carved with a face;
- skulls and antlers of sacrificed reindeer;
- stones of particular shape;
- various offerings, such as coins, cloth and metal objects.
The wooden figures, called khekhe in Nenets in some transcriptions, represent or house the spirits. Each sacred site was tied to a family, a clan or a wider community, and reindeer caravans passing nearby would stop to leave an offering.
Alongside the great shared sites, each camp had its own sacred sledge, on which the family's ritual objects were carried during migrations. It was a special sledge, which women could not approach at certain times, and which was placed in a set position in relation to the tent.
Vaygach Island
The most important sacred place in Nenets tradition is Vaygach Island, between the Barents Sea and the Kara Sea. Its Nenets name is commonly rendered as «sacred land». It held numerous sanctuaries with wooden figures and deposits of offerings, visited by Nenets from very distant regions.
The European travellers and explorers who reached those waters in the 16th and 17th centuries, in search of a northern route to Asia, left some of the earliest descriptions of these sanctuaries, with their hundreds of carved figures. Later, Orthodox missionaries destroyed many of these idols during the conversion campaigns of the 19th century.
Continuity and change
In the Soviet period the Nenets underwent collectivisation, forced schooling in boarding schools and repression of the tadebya. Yet nomadic life in the tundra, far from administrative centres, allowed many practices to survive: the sacred sites continued to be visited, and the sacred sledges continued to follow the migrations.
Today the Yamal Peninsula is at the centre of large gas extraction projects, and the protection of sacred sites and pastures is a concrete issue for Nenets communities. Studio Esoterico Cornelio sees in this tradition a living example of a religion that moves with its people, together with the reindeer and the seasons.
In short
- The Nenets are nomadic reindeer herders of the Russian tundra, centred on the Yamal Peninsula.
- Num is the supreme celestial power, Nga that of the lower world.
- The tadebya is the shaman, with different grades and specialisations.
- The sacred sites of the tundra hold wooden figures, reindeer skulls and offerings.
- Vaygach Island is the most important sanctuary, the «sacred land» of the Nenets.
