Бурятские народные сказки: О животных. Бытовые. - 2000. [Т. 20.]

SUMMARY The first volume o f the Buryat folk fairy tales of the s e ries “Folklore Monu- mcnts of the Peoples of Siberia and th e Far East” contains tlie magic fairy tales. The second volume is compil e d out of 62 texts of fairy tales about animals and dom e stic life, with 36 of them being published for the first time. This volume starts with the fairy tales about animals - the oldest genre variety of oral poetic art of the Buryat people. The closeness of an ancient hunting man to the nature c ontributed to the appearan c e of real as well as fantastic stories about animals, birds, th e creation of mythologi c al plots about totems, mast e rs of mountains and the taiga world. Faiiy tales about animals can conventionally be divided into the etiological and allegoric ones. The etiologi c al fairy tal e s that explain the origin of animals or birds, their habits and peculiarities are older than the allegori c fairy tales. А significant place in the repertoire of the Buryat fairy tale-tellers is given to the plots in whicli the people’s most ancient ideas and notions about tlie world of animate nature are reflected. Thus, in the mythological interpretation of the bear image the id e as connected with totemism and hunting ceremonial rites are reflected. But with an animal cult gradually dying off there develop e d an ironic attitude towards them. А bear who had once been respected and revered highly in the mythological fairy tale plots was later found in the role not correspond- ing to its former status in the animal hierarchy. А bear and а wolf are comic personages of allegoric fairy tales of а later period. Changes of the specific historical conditions in the life and outlook of the Buryat people resulted in the creative re~evaluation of the previously known fairy plots and motifs. In particular, many traditional fairy tales about animals had thus acquired а new social colouring. The allegoric form rnakes it possible to reveal social injustice and to expose people’s vices and drawbacks. The tales about animals are simpler in th e ir composition and more laconic, thus differing from magic and domestic. fairy tales and they have always been an educating means of bringing up the younger generation. Their didactic inferences reflect moral id e as and concepts of an ethnos.