Video-story Vladimir Arseniev's Basic Principle in Acquisition of Ethnographic Collections

Udege; Oroche

2022

The preservation of the fragile heritage of the spiritual traditional culture of the aboriginal peoples of Primorye and the Ussuri Territory is one of the most important results of the long-term expeditionary work of the researcher of the Far East, local historian-encyclopedist Vladimir Arseniev (1872-1930). Arseniev highly valued the possibility of direct communication with indigenous peoples in the daily course of life's worries: "between times and during the journey, hunting, fishing, repairing boats, etc." Arseniev's calm, serious attitude to the stories of local people made him a confidant of secrets, confidential stories about how the centuries-old order of communication with natural phenomena and the surrounding world works. The indigenous peoples of Primorye and the Ussuri Territory trusted Arseniev with images of sevokhi - assistants in hunting and curing illnesses, assistants in communicating with the masters of water and forest worlds, amulets, elements of shamanic vestments. The collections and expeditionary information collected by Arseniev allow preserving the meanings of the unique cultural monuments of the peoples of the Far East.