ABSTRACT

This chapter focuses on contextualise practical, social and symbolic dimensions of Mansi land use within broader historical transformations. The Mansis are a Finno-Ugric people dwelling in Northwestern Siberia. Starting with an introduction to the Mansis, the chapter explores how the Russian conquest of Siberia brought an extended period of culture contact, bringing traditional Mansi culture into confrontation with Orthodox missionary activity and later with Soviet atheism. The main body of the chapter examines the constituents of traditional' Mansi sacred landscapes. The chapter focuses on ethnographic literature, archival data and my own observations during short-term field research periods among the Pelym and Lozva Mansis in 2002 and 2003. It explores the Mansi sacred landscape from two perspectives: as a cultural arena in which long-term histories of culture-contact were played out; and as a more localised reflection of Mansi cosmology.