F.A. FIELSTRUP’S MATERIALS ON KHAKAS FOLK MEDICINE IN THE IEA RAS ARCHIVE

Abstract

The article presents previously unpublished field materials on Khakas folk medicine of the ethnographer-turkologist F.A. Fielstrup, who in 1920 worked in the Minusinsk region among the Kachin, Sagai, Beltiri and Kyzyl groups. The materials are stored in the IEA RAS Archive. They contain descriptions of shamanic treatment sessions; methods of treating certain diseases by cauterization, pouring, whipping with clothes, which can be used by both a shaman or a healer, and an ordinary person; information about medicines of plant and animal origin; tesyah – family and ancestral patron spirits, capable, according to the Khakas, of protecting a person from certain diseases; as well as linguistic material that may indicate knowledge of the anatomy among the Khakas, local flora and fauna. Fielstrup’s materials are not cohesive and complete. Their value lies in the new details with which they complement the material accumulated to date on traditional Khakas treatment methods. Fielstrup’s research expands our understanding of the history of the study of Khakas folk medicine in the 1920s, clarifies its periodization.