Extracts
from M. A. Czaplicka, Aboriginal
Siberia, Clarendon Press,
My comments are between [ ]. This
electronic version is my own scan of the original text. I
kept Czaplicka’s Oxford English spelling.
A non
commented version is available at : www.sacred-texts.com
and, once there, follow the links religion, then shamanism. About this electronic version, note however that, besides a
few unimportant mistakes (such as the martyrdom of poor Troshchanski’s name),
Etugen is not a hearth-goddess but an earth-goddess, and the koekchuch
never is kockchuch,
or koekchtech, nor koekuch.
This text from 1914 expresses
very clearly the idea that a social transgendering, independent of sex, might
exist in some primitive societies. I would be extremely grateful to an
ethnologist who could cite an earlier reference to this idea. Until then, I
claim Czaplicka discovered this important concept.
Dedication: “This exceptional woman
committed suicide, a shame I carry in my heart.” Yves.
CHAPTER XII
SHAMANISM AND SEX.
IN this chapter I propose to deal not only with the male and
female shamans and their relation to each other, but also with a curious
phenomenon - the mystical change of sex among shamans, by which a male shaman
is ‘transformed’ into a female, and vice versa.
Nearly all writers on
Krasheninnikoff ascribes the shamanistic gift among the
Kamchadal almost exclusively to women; Steller, who travelled through
Among the Palaeo-Siberians, women receive the gift of
shamanizing more often than men. ‘The woman is by nature a shaman,’ declared a
Chukchee shaman to Bogoras.
2 Siberian News, 1822, pp. 19-39. 3 ii.
82-4.
4 Sieroszewski;
Potanin.
5
Remains of Paganism among the Yakut, ‘
She does not need to be specially prepared for the
calling, and so her novitiate is much shorter and less trying. Ventriloquism,
however, is not practised among female shamans.
Taking into account the present prominent position of female shamans among
many Siberian tribes and their place in traditions,1 together with
certain feminine attributes of the male shaman (such as dress, habits,
privileges) and certain linguistic similarities between the names for male and
female shamans,2 many scientists (Troshchanski, Bogoras, Stadling) have been led to express the opinion that in
former days only female shamans existed, and that the male shaman is a later
development which has to some extent supplanted them.
Concerning the supposed evolution of the shaman from
female to male there is no certain knowledge ; one can
only surmise. The different views of the origin of shamanism naturally affect
the theory that shamans were originally female.
1 Among several tribes traditions exist
that the shaman’s gift was first bestowed on woman. In Mongolian myths
goddesses were both shamans themselves - like the Daughter of the Moon - and
the bestowers of the shamanistic gift on mankind.
2
Neo-Siberians nearly all have a common name for the woman-shaman, while each of
these tribes has a special name for the man-shaman. The Yakut call him ayun; the Mongols, buge;
the Buryat, buge and bo; the Tungus,
samman and khamman
; the Tartars, kam; the Altaians, kam and
gam; the Kirgis,
baksy; the Samoyed, tadibey.
The Yakut, it is curious to note, though they have the word khamna, nevertheless do not call the shaman by a
name similar to that in use among other Neo-Siberians, but give him a special
appellation. This, according to Troshchanski (p. 118), may be explained by the
fact that when the Yakut appeared in the present Yakut district they did not
possess a man-shaman, but they had already a woman-shaman, for whom all these
tribes have a name in common. Among Mongols, Buryat,
Yakut, Altaians, Turgout,
and Kirgis, the following names for the woman-shaman
occur, utagan, udagan, ubakhan,
utygan, utügun, iduan, duana. All these words
come from a root the meaning of which has not been certainly determined. In some Tartaric dialects üdege, ‘female shaman’, means also ‘housewife’
and ‘wife’. In Tungus, utakan
means ‘sorcerer’ and ‘cannibal’;
but utagan seems to be a Mongol word in origin. According to
Potanin and Banzaroff, the term in question is etymologically connected with
the Mongol word Etugen, ‘earth-goddess’
(Etugen-eke, ‘mother-earth’).
Potanin further connects the word for Earth-Goddess among different Altaic and
Finno-Ugric tribes with the names of constellations, especially with the two
bear constellations. In one Tartaric dialect utygan
means ‘bear’. According to ancient Mongol and
Chinese myths, the gods of certain constellations are connected with the
protective spirits of the family hearth, just as they are connected with the
goddess of the earth. Thus these terms for female shamans are related to the
genesis of certain goddesses.
Jochelson1 expresses the opinion that there
is no doubt that professional shamanism has developed from the ceremonials of
family shamanism. The same author2 also states that in family
shamanism among the Koryak some women possess knowledge not only of those
incantations which are a family secret, but of many others besides, of which
they make use outside the family circle on request. From this we can see very
clearly how family shamanism among the Koryak has developed into professional
shamanism.
Some one with unusual gifts, often a woman, is requested
to use them on behalf of it larger circle outside the family, and thus becomes
a professional shaman. This is especially true of the Koryak. There is,
however, no evidence that among them the woman-shaman preceded the man. In the
old days, as at the present time, the women-shamans were considered as powerful
as the men, sometimes, indeed, an individual female
shaman is even cleverer than a man. The ‘transformed’ shamans are considered
very powerful also, though they exist merely in Koryak traditions. But since
the change of sex is ‘in obedience to the commands of spirits’,3
it seems to belong to another category of facts and to have no connexion with
the theory of an originally universal feminine shamanism.
Among the Chukchee,4
family shamanism, being quite simple and primitive, probably preceded
individual shamanism, and the latter seems to have grown out of the former. The
mother shares with the father the rôle of shaman in
the family ceremonials; she has charge of the drum and amulets, and in
exceptional cases it is she, and not the father, who performs the family
sacrifice. Thus shamanism is not restricted to either sex, but ‘the gift of
inspiration is thought to be bestowed more frequently upon women, though it is
reputed to be of a rather inferior kind, the higher grades belonging rather to
men. The reason given for this is that the bearing of children is generally
adverse to shamanistic inspirations, so that a young woman with considerable
shamanistic power may lose the greater part of it after the birth of her first
child.’5
The above statements of the two best authorities on the
Koryak and the Chukchee make it clear that among these people there are visible
traces that family shamanism preceded the individual, or professional, kind;
and although woman plays an important role in both, there is no sufficient
reason to suppose that in former times she alone could shamanize.
1 The
Koryak, i.
78. 2 Op.
cit., p. 47. 3 Op. cit., p. 52.
4 Bogoras, The
Chukchee, ii. 413. 5
Op. cit., p. 415.
Of course, the adherents to the theory of universal
mother-right would try to see in this case a proof of the former higher
position of woman in society, her moral supremacy, &c. As far as our
materials go, we do not see evidence either of a superior position in the
social structure or of the moral supremacy of women in these societies,
but only of the superiority of individuals of either sex.
A similar state of things may be observed among other
Palaeo-Siberians and Neo-Siberians, although among the latter a woman-shaman is
not very often met with.
In spite of the low social position of women among these
natives, it is personal ability, irrespective of sex, which is the decisive factor in the case of the
shamanistic vocation.
As proof that women were the
original shamans, certain authors adduce the fact that the professional shaman
does not possess his own drum. But neither is this the case with women or
men-shamans among those peoples where professional shamanism is not yet clearly
differentiated from family shamanism. As regards the female dress and habits of
the shaman, I shall have opportunity to discuss this point when dealing with
tribes whose shaman’s garment is more elaborate, i.e. the Neo-Siberians.
Troshchanski1 and, following him, Stadling2
believe professional shamanism to be a special institution which has no
direct connexion with the communal cult, though in the latter there are also
shamanistic elements. In the later stages of its development the office of
shaman is connected in certain cases with the communal cult, and thus ‘white’ shamanism
came into existence. Troshchanski develops his theory chiefly on Yakut
evidence, and though he tries to apply it to the whole of
Among them, where there are two categories of shamans,
the ‘white’, representing creative, and the ‘black’, destructive forces,
the latter tend to behave like women, since it is from women-shamans that they
derive their origin. In support of this theory of their origin Troshchanski
puts forward the following arguments:
1The Evolution of the Black Faith, 1902, pp. 123-7. 2 Shamanismen i Norra
Asien, 1912, pp.
82-92. 3 Op.
cit., pp. 123-7.
1. The shaman has on his coat two iron circles representing
the breasts.
2. He parts his hair in the middle like a woman, and braids
it, letting it fall loose during the shamanistic ceremony.
4. It is only on very important occasions that the
shaman wears his own garment; on lesser occasions he wears a girl’s
jacket made of foal’s hide.1
5. For three days after the birth of a child, at which
the goddess of fecundity, Aiasyt, is present, no man may enter the room where
the mother is lying, but only women and shamans.
Finally, according to Troshchanski, the female ‘black’
shaman was replaced by the male ‘black’ shaman. This transition was
effected by means of the smith, who, as the maker of the woman-shaman’s
garment, held an influential position, and whose power increased in proportion
to the length of his ancestry.2 Through
their contact with shamanistic implements they acquired mana and
themselves became sorcerers and shamans.
The evolution of the ‘white’ shaman took place,
he opines, on different lines. In family ceremonial the cleverest head of a family
or member of a community was chosen; he was elected anew for each ceremony
until eventually his tenure of the office became permanent.3
This theory of a dual evolution of shamans is not easy
to substantiate. In the first place, we find that the ‘white’ shaman’s
garment is made by a ‘white’ smith; which fact, by Troshchanski’s mode of
argument, would seem to imply a line of development for ‘white’ shamanism parallel
to, and not divergent from, that of ‘black’ shamanism.
Again, all the supposed feminine habits of the shaman of
today would not go to prove that the earlier female-shaman was the servant of abassy
alone. We find in the past as well as in the present that the woman can be
the priestess of the family cult and a professional shamaness, the servant of
either aïy or abassy. Among the
Yakut, however, where the worship of abassy is more developed than that
of aïy, the ‘black’ shamans, both men
and women, predominate.
1 Jochelson (The Koryak, i. 53) was
present at a ceremony in the
On the other hand, among the Votyaks,
where the cult of aïy, is more
developed than that of abassy, the ‘white’ shamans are much
more numerous, and form the whole hierarchy.1
All that has been cited concerning the feminine habits
of the present-day shaman was taken by Troshchanski as proof of his theory of
the evolution of the ‘black’ shaman from the ‘black’ shamaness and by Jochelson as ‘traces of the change
of a shaman’s sex into that of a woman’.2
Jochelson thus binds together the two questions dealt
with in this chapter – the relation of the shamaness to the shaman, and the ‘transformation of
shamans’, called also ‘the change of sex’. This latter phenomenon, following
J. G. Frazer,3 I should prefer to call ‘the change of dress’, since
(with the exception of the Chukchee, perhaps) the change of dress is not
nowadays -, at least, followed by what the physiologists would call ‘change of sex’.
Frazer4 says that the interchange of dress
between men and women is an obscure and complex problem, and thinks it unlikely
that any single solution would be applicable to all cases. In enumerating
instances of such cases among the priests of Khasis5 and the Pelew Islanders7 - instances, that is, of men
dressing and acting like women throughout life - he ascribes these phenomena to
the inspiration of a female spirit, which often chooses a man rather than a
woman for her minister and inspired mouthpiece.7
As to the people of
Even the earliest travellers record instances of this
phenomenon. Thus Krasheninnikoff in 1755,9
Steller in 1774,10 Wrangel11 in 1820, Lüdke in 1837,
12 and others.
1 Bogayewski, p. 123. 2 Jochelson, op. cit., i. 53.
3 J.
G. Frazer, Adonis, Attis. Oziris,
ed. 1907, pp. 384-433.
4
Op. cit., p. 433. 5 Major Gurdon. 6 J. Kubary.
7
Effeminate sorcerers and priests are found among the Sea-Dyaks
of Borneo (Ch. Brooke, Schwaner) ; the Bugis of South
Celebes (Capt. Mundy); Patagonians of South America (Falkner); the Aleutians,
and many Indian tribes of North America (Dall,
Langsdorff, Powers, and Bancroft). Frazer, Adonis, &c., p. 429.
8 Similar
changes of sex were observed by Dr. Karsch (Uranismus oder Päderastie und Tribadie bei den Naturvölkern, 1901, pp. 72-201) all
over the American continent from
They do not give complete accounts, but merely mention the
fact. It differs, however, in their description from ordinary homosexualism in that there is always reference to
shamanistic inspiration or evil biddings.
More detailed descriptions are to be found in the
excellent modern works of Bogoras and Jochelson. Bogoras describes the facts
relating to the Chukchee in a chapter on ‘Sexual Perversion and Transformed
Shamans’.
‘The sexual organs play a part in certain shamanistic
ceremonies,’ says Bogoras.1 ‘The shaman is said to be very often
naked during his incantations, e.g. that
used to invoke the moon, and to mention his genital parts.2 The
change of sex is called in Chukchee ‘soft-man-being’, yirka-laul-vairgin, ‘soft man’ (yirka-laul) meaning a man transformed into a being of the weaker sex. A
man who has ‘changed his sex’ is also called ‘similar to a woman’ (ne uchica), and a woman in
like condition ‘similar to a man’ (qa čikicheča). These latter transformations are
much rarer.
Bogoras distinguishes various degrees of ‘transformation’
among the Chukchee:
1. The shaman, or the sick person at the bidding of a shaman,
arranges and braids his hair like a woman.
2. The change of dress : Kimiqai, for instance, wore woman’s clothes by
order of the spirits. In his youth he had been afflicted by an illness and had
been greatly benefited by the change of dress. At the time described he was an
elderly man with a beard, and had a wife and four children.3
3. The change in the habits of one sex is shown when the
man ‘throws away the rifle and the lance, the lasso of the reindeer herdman, and the harpoon of the seal-hunter, and takes to
the needle and the skin-scraper’.4 He learns the use
of these quickly, because the ‘spirits’ help him all the time. Even his
pronunciation changes from masculine to feminine. His body loses its masculine
appearance, and he becomes shy.
1
The Chukchee, ii. 448. 2
Op. cit., p. 449.
3 Op.
cit., p. 450. 4
Op. cit., p. 451.
The marriage is performed with the usual rites, and the
union is as durable as any other. The ‘man’ goes hunting and fishing, the ‘woman’
does domestic work. Bogoras thinks they cohabit modo
Socratis, though they are sometimes said to have
mistresses in secret and to produce children by them.1 The wife does not, however, change her name, though the
husband sometimes adds the name of his wife to his own.
Public opinion is always against them,2 but as the transformed shamans are very dangerous, they are not opposed and
no outward objections are raised. Each ‘soft man’ is supposed to have a special protector
among the ‘spirits’, who is usually said to play the part of a supernatural
husband, the ‘kele-husband’
of the ‘transformed’ one. This husband is supposed to be the real head
of the family and to communicate his orders by means of his ‘transformed’
wife. The human husband, of course, has to execute these orders faithfully
under fear of prompt punishment.3
Sometimes the shaman of untransformed sex has a ‘kele-wife’ in addition to his own.
Bogoras himself was best acquainted with a ‘soft man’
called Tiluwgi, who, however, would not allow himself to be inspected fully. His human husband described
him as a normal male person. In spite of this, his habits were those of a
woman. The husband of Tiluwgi was an ordinary man and
his cousin. The ‘transformed shamans’ generally chose a husband from among their
nearest relations.
Bogoras never met a woman transformed into a man, but he
heard of several cases. One transformed shamaness was a widow, who had children
of her own. Following the command of the ‘spirits’, she cut her hair,
donned the dress of a man, adopted the masculine pronunciation, and even
learned in a very short time to handle the spear and to shoot with a rifle. At
last she wanted to marry and easily found a young girl who consented to become
her wife.4
Jochelson5 states that he did not learn of
the transformation of women-shamans into men among the Koryak of to-day ; we find, however, accounts of such transformation in
legends. Neither did he meet any men-shamans transformed into women.
‘The father of Yulta, a Koryak from
the village of Kamenskoye, who died not long ago and who had been a shaman, had
worn women’s clothes for two years by order of the spirits ; but
since he had been unable to obtain complete transformation he implored his
spirits to permit him to resume men’s clothes.
1 Op.
cit., p. 451. 2 The
italics are mine.
3
Op. cit., p. 452. 4
Op. cit., p. 455. 5 The
Koryak, p. 53.
His request was granted, but on condition that he should put
on women’s clothes during shamanistic ceremonies.’1
This is the only case familiar to Jochelson of the
change of sex, or rather change of dress. The Koryak call the transformed
shaman kavau or keveu ; they
are supposed to be as powerful as women-shamans.
The narratives concerning the Kamchadal koekchuch
are much confused, for Krasheninnikoff does not rightly explain either who they
were, or whether they were men or women. The koekchuch wore women’s
dress, did women’s work, and were treated with the same lack of
respect as is shown to women. They could enter the house through the
draught-channel, which corresponds to the opening in the roof of the porch of
the Koryak underground house,2 in the same
way as the women and the Koryak qavau. Piekarski3 finds that Krasheninnikoff
contradicts himself in his statements concerning ‘koekchuch women, who do not come into contact with men’.
Krasheninnikoff’s descriptions of koekchuch are as follows : ‘The Kamchadal have
one, two, or three wives, and besides these some of them keep koekchuch who
wear women’s clothes, do women’s work, and have nothing
to do with men, in whose company they feel shy and not at their ease’
(p. 24, ed. 1755).
‘The Kamchadal women are tailors and shoemakers, which
professions are considered useless to men, who are immediately regarded as koekchuch
if they enter these vocations’ (p. 40, ed. 1755).
‘The women are not jealous, for not only do two or three
wives of one man live together in peace, but they do not even object to the koekchuch,
whom some Kamchadal keep instead of concubines ‘ (p. 125, ed. 1755). ‘Every woman,
especially an old one, and every koekchuch, is a sorcerer and interpreter
of dreams’ (p. 81, ed. 1755).4
[Follows a long insert of YK]
[I found back these citations in the 1972 American edition “the only
complete and unabridged English translation of Stepan
Petrovitch Krasheninnikov’s
monumental Opisanie Zemli Kamchatki …” made by the Oregon Historical Society. The
changes in pages are as follows: p. 24 à p. 209 of the American edition, p. 40 à p. 221 (with no mention of any ‘koekchuchei’ but stating that “any man
who had hand in it would be immediately castigated and accused of performing a
demeaning task.”, p. 81 à p.
244, p. 114 (in note 2, below) à p.
213, p. 125 à p.
268. The American edition, p. 213, specifies: “The Cossacks, who in the
beginning could not become accustomed to moving through the smoke, left by the
zhupana, set aside for the use of the wives and the koekchuchei ; and so
the Kamchadals looked down on them as if they had been of that sex.” See the
joined figure and description to understand the organization of the yurt.
Illustration p. 210 of the American edition. From its style, I guess that this illustration should come
from the 1770 French
translation, published in
1 Op. cit., p. 53.
2
Krasheninnikoff, ii. 114; see Troshchanski, op. cit., p.
120.
3 See
Troshchanski, op. cit., p. 120.
4 ‘The female sex
being more attractive and perhaps also cleverer, more shamans are chosen from among women and koekchuch
than from among men,’ p. 15. ‘The
natives of the
From the above quotations the koekchuch seem rather to be of the
eunuch type, though sometimes they play the role of concubines.
The koekchuch who was regarded by the community
as being of an unusual type probably enjoyed special privileges higher than
those of a sorcerer or a shaman. The worship of the pathological may have
verged here into the worship of the supernatural.
The ‘change of sex’ is met with only among the
Palaeo-Siberians,1 whilst among the
Neo-Siberians only does the shamanistic dress more often resemble female
garments. It is true that among Yakut men-shamans traditions exist of their
bearing children,2 but this is connected
rather with the idea of the power of shamanistic spirits which makes such
miracles possible. As a rule, child-birth among the Palaeo-Siberian shamanesses results in either a complete or at least a
temporary loss of the shamanistic gift. In a Koryak tale3 the
shamanistic power of Ememqut, son of Big-Raven, ‘disappeared after the
mythical Triton had bewitched Trim and caused him to give birth to a boy. His
power was restored to him after his sister had killed the Triton’s
sister, by which deed the act of giving birth was completely eliminated.’
We observe also that in many Siberian communities a
woman-shaman is not permitted to touch the drum.
The question of the change of sex, especially as it
concerns the most powerful shamans, cannot be explained on a purely physical
basis. Several perversions occur among these people, as they do in all primitive
and even in more civilized societies ; but it does not
follow that every pathological individual is the subject of magical worship. On
the contrary, when reading the detailed description of the transformed shamans
in Bogoras and Jochelson, we see that in nearly every case these shamans are at
first normal people and only later, by inspiration of spirits, have to change
their sex. As described in previous pages, some of them have secretly, along
with an official husband of the same sex, normal sexual relations with a person
of the other sex, and we may even assume that some of them actually became
sexless, although in certain cases the outward show required by religious
considerations may cover abnormal passions.
It is scarcely possible to see in these cases a
religious conception of a divine two-sexed shaman embodying in one being a
perfect man- and woman-nature.
1 The Yukaghir form an exception.
Jochelson says: ‘I found no
indications of such an institution among the Yukaghir, except in the dress of the
shamans, which includes articles of female attire.’ (The Yukaghir and Yukayhirized Tungus, p. 112.)
2 Sieroszewski. 3 Jochelson,
op. cit., p. 55.
We do not find such gods or spirits among the
Palaeo-Siberians, though we encounter this idea among the more advanced
Neo-Siberians. In the religion of the natives of the Altai this idea is
expressed by the name ‘mother and father of the man’, given to the Supreme
Being.
It may be that the most satisfactory basis for an attempt at
the solution of this problem would be the sociological one.
The extraordinary rights granted by the community to the
shaman are clearly evident in the exceptional position he occupies. Shamans
(male and female) may do what is not permitted to others, and indeed they must
act differently, because they have a supernatural power recognized by the
community.’1
Taking some of the characteristics ascribed to shamans
in previous chapters, we see that, inspired by the spirits, ‘they may cut and
otherwise injure their bodies without suffering harm.’2 They may, during shamanistic performances, ‘ascend to the sky
together with the shaman’s drum and sacrificial animal.’3
They may give birth to a child, a bird, a frog, &c.,4 and they may change their sex if they are ‘real shamans’,
with supernatural powers, with a true vocation.
Socially, the shaman does not belong either to the class
of males or to that of females, but to a third class, that of shamans. [The
idea of a possible social transgendering of the shaman, regardless of his sex
is here clearly expressed]. Sexually, he may be sexless, or ascetic, or have
inclinations of homosexualistic character, but he may
also be quite normal. And so, forming a special class, shamans have special
taboos comprising both male and female characters. The same may be said of
their costume, which combines features peculiar to the dress of both sexes.
The woman-shaman is not restricted to taboos
specifically female, for her social position is much higher than that of the
ordinary woman : whilst purely male taboos are not
applied to the man-shaman, who has, together with certain male taboos, some
privileges of a woman ; e.g. among the Yakut, access to the house of lying-in
women during the first three days after the birth of a child.
1 From
this point of view it would appear that the high respect shown in individual
cases to the female shaman is due to the position which a shaman, as such, of
whatever sex, occupies in society, and does not imply au earlier general female
shamanism.
2
Jochelson, The Koryak.
3 Sieroszewski, 12 Lat
w Kraju Yakutów p. 403. 4 Op.
cit., pp. 399.
Shamanhood is separated from society by a boundary-line of many taboos.
When the shaman cannot keep these taboos he or she ceases to be a shaman ; e.g. the woman during the period of child-birth and
menstruation, when she again belongs to the community of women.
The class of shamans, in which the woman acquires
certain attributes of a man, and the man certain attributes of a woman, seems
in
The shaman class, through the exclusion of its members
from both the male and the female sections of society, may in some cases be
pathological, but this is in no sense a significant or indispensable
characteristic, since in the only instances where the ‘marriage’ of transformed
shamans with persons of the same sex has been observed in our time (i.e. among
the Chukchee) it is always disapproved by public opinion.2
The magico-religious and
sociological explanation of the change of dress among shamans does not,
however, apply satisfactorily to the koekchuch, for professional
shamanism among the Kamchadal was not organized and developed to the point of
producing a distinct section of society inspired by shamanistic spirits.
Neither does this explanation cover cases in which men are dressed in women’s
costume without being shamans at all. Perhaps we may here find aid in the suggestions
put forward by Mr. Crawley3 in treating of the belief, very
widespread among primitive peoples, in the possibility of the transmission of
feminine qualities, especially weakness, by contagion. He cites many instances
of -the custom of degrading the cowardly, infirm, and conquered to
the position of females’ by putting women’s clothes on
them.
1
Op. cit., 1907, pp. 384-433.
2
Since this chapter was written I have been able to familiarize myself with a
very interesting pamphlet by the prominent Russian sociologist, A. Maksimoff, dealing with the same subject under the title ‘The Change of Sex’, Russian Anthrop. Journ., xxix. I
was glad to see that Maksimoff also is not satisfied
with the physiological explanation of this phenomenon. He gives two reasons for
his doubts: (1) The phenomenon, in common with the shamanistic practices, is in
decadence everywhere in Siberia; and if it were only due to sexual perversions
it would probably be rather on the increase during the present period of
colonization, when we know that all sorts of diseases and every kind of sexual
licence have increased among the Siberian natives. (2) In many similar cases
among other peoples we can see that this phenomenon is purely ritualistic, e.g.. in the case of the Mujerados of New Mexico (pp. 17-18).
3 ‘Sexual Taboo: a study in the Relations of the Sexes,’ Journal
of the Anthrop. Inst., xxiv. 124-5.
Quoting from L. Morgan (The League of the Iroquois, p. 16) he says: ‘When the Delawares were denationalized by the Iroquois and prohibited
from going out to war, they were, according to the Indian notion, “made women”,
and were henceforth to confine themselves to the pursuits appropriate to women.’
Is it not reasonable to suppose that we have in the koekchuch of the
Kamchadal simply another instance of a similar practice, especially when we
consider the accounts given by Jochelson, Bogoras, and others of the treatment
of slaves among some other Palaeo-Siberians? The object aimed at in the
treatment referred to by Mr. Crawley is the weakening to the point of
emasculation of the character of enemies held captive or in subjection, so as
to reduce their capacity for working mischief to the conquerors to a minimum.
Jochelson, speaking of slavery as it formerly existed among the Yukaghir, says: ‘The slave (captive)
stayed in the house with the women ... and did the housework on equal terms
with the women.’1 He makes a similar statement about the status of
the captive slaves formerly held by the Koryak.2 Close association
with women, the primitive argues, produces effeminacy in a man, by contagion.
Keep him with the women, put their clothes on him, and he is no longer
dangerous, if hostile, and may be made useful in occupations suited to females.
In the absence of satisfactory evidence for the other hypothesis put forward,
and taking into consideration the attitude towards captive slaves of other
Palaeo-Siberians as exhibited above, it would seem at least probable that the koekchuch
of the Kamchadal were, or had developed from, a class of captive slaves.
Though Bogoras, in his account of the slave-class which
existed until comparatively recent times among the Chukchee, does not refer to
any definite attempt made by these people to feminize their captives, his
statement that the word ämulin applied to
such slaves means primarily ‘weakling’, and that all the other terms applied to
captive slaves have an implication of contempt, supports the assumption that
the Chukchee held the same view as other Palaeo-Siberians, including the
Kamchadal, of what was the ideal condition of a slave-class.
1 Jochelson, The Yukaghir, p. 133. 2
The Koryak, p. 766.
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In the memory of
Maria Antonina Czaplicka (1886-1921)
This photograph is found in her
book My Siberian Year, Mills &
Boon, 1916
Nothing is
known of her personal life, except that she had a correspondence with
Malinowski and Wladyslaw Orkan, one of the best known Polish poets of her time.