Indigenous Heritage in Siberia

This book on indigenous heritage in Siberia focuses on sacred objects, their power, use, and meaning over time. The volume approaches this vast multi-ethnic region by exploring the shifting politics and spirituality of material objects and their role in the construction of ethnic heritage.

It is a unique assessment of resilience among Native cultural groups made even more important by the overarching dominance of the Soviet state and now modern Russia, which has had and continues to have conflicted bureaucratic views towards Siberian ethnic groups and heritage protections. Siberian shamanism is described in detail with its deep implications for religious studies and cultural preservation around the globe.

Regional case studies include ritual rugs, indigenous clothing, Buddhist relics, and wooden carvings. The collection makes clear the implications of this study for a wide range of contemporary debates, in anthropology, religion and the wider social sciences and humanities, including animism, human-animal relations, shamanism, secularisation, global repatriation of cultural objects.