ABSTRACT
Nenets converts negotiated tensions between cultural continuity and religious rupture, forming a distinctive “Nenets Christianity.” They reinterpreted traditional practices, rituals, cosmologies, and nomadic lifeways through Christian frameworks, casting ancestral elements as spiritually significant and analogous to biblical traditions. Many framed their past as “Old Testament” Nenets, presenting nomadic life, moral codes, and rituals as precursors to Christianity and aligned with divine law. Key figures in Nenets cosmology, like Num and Nga, were linked to God and the Devil, integrating indigenous beliefs into a monotheistic soteriology. This reindigenization allowed converts to assert cultural authenticity, maintain social norms, and claim spiritual and ethnic legitimacy. Conversion also became a tool for political mobilization, enabling claims to indigenous rights and local authority under state restrictions.
