The west wind is cold or warm. Local winds, the reasons for their formation
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An ancient Nenets legend tells that once a year, when the Great Sun reigns in the sky, the Solar Baba rises from under the frozen and lifeless earth, carrying in her womb a baby who is destined to become the spirit of fertility.
Another legend among the Mansi people tells how a golden idol crossed the Ural stone belt, but was stopped by an old shaman who considered himself its owner. The angry golden idol roared with a thunderous voice, from which all living things in the area died, and the daring shaman himself turned into stone.
Another narrative related to the Yakut heroic epic tells of a copper statue standing in the middle impassable swamps, which, when enemies approached, began to make a sound similar to the chirping of many crickets and emit a blue glow into the sky.
These legends, like dozens of other similar legends of northern and Siberian peoples, are associated with one of the most mysterious phenomena pagan culture of the Eurasian continent - the Golden Baba.
The squad never returned...
The first official mention of it that has survived to this day dates back to the Sofia Chronicle of 1398. The chronicle tells about the death of St. Stephen of Perm, who brought the light of Orthodoxy to the peoples living in northern forests and those who worshiped fire, stone and the Golden Baba. The next time this name appears is two hundred years later. In 1595, one of the maps of the medieval cartographer G. Mercater was published, on which, in the area of \u200b\u200bthe mouth of the Ob River, there is an inscription that translates as “Golden Woman”.
In the 15th century, the Ushkuiniki Novgorodians, who were actively engaged in trade, brought to Rus' information about “unknown people in Eastern country, small in stature, eating each other and praying to the golden idol.”
Already in the 16th century, legends about the mysterious golden idol were well known in Muscovy. This is evidenced by the memoirs of the Austrian ambassador S. Herberstein, dated 1520, which describe rumors that beyond the Urals in a stone sanctuary there was a large golden idol in the form of a pregnant woman emitting a deafening roar. In 1578, the Italian writer A. Guagnini mentions stories he heard about an idol standing “behind the cold and gloomy country of Muscovy,” the roar of which, like a trumpet, can be heard among the mountains.
That is why the first Cossack troops of Ermak, who crossed the Stone Belt in 1582, were driven by an ineradicable thirst for enrichment, in addition to exploring the mysterious lands of the Trans-Urals, and cherished the dream of finding the famous Golden Woman.
This is indirectly confirmed by the 17th century writer and historian Yu. Krizhanich, exiled to Siberia, in his “Manuscript about Siberia and its peoples.” So, in particular, Y. Krizhanich writes that, having sailed to the Irtysh, Ermak Timofeevich equipped a detachment of twenty Cossacks, who were ordered to move to the northeast for the “golden idol”.
This detachment never returned to its chieftain, who three months later, according to stories local population, learned that his envoys had disappeared without a trace in the Shaim swamps.
Hypotheses, hypotheses, hypotheses
The history of the origin of the Golden Woman has excited the minds of historians, geographers and travelers for centuries. In his multi-volume academic work “History of Siberia,” the 18th century historian G. Miller suggests that golden pagan idols were made from different materials(gold, bronze, bone, stone) by many peoples of Siberia, since mentions of them are present among the Khanty, Evenks, Yakuts, Buryats and Khakass.
Already in the 20th century, in the study “Siberia in the news of foreign travelers and writers,” M. Alekseev made the assumption that the Golden Baba is a statue of the Bodhisattva of mercy Avalokiteshvara, who received in Chinese Buddhism female image goddess Guanyin. To support his hypothesis, he mentions the Guanyin statues in Tibet, which have a white shell that makes unusual sounds when exposed to wind.
Novosibirsk historian N. Uspensky, not without reason, believes that the pagan golden idol migrated to Siberia from Italy. When in 410 AD. e. Rome was attacked by tribes of barbarians; they carried out a golden statue of the goddess Juno from the plundered and burned city, with which they returned to their homeland, to the Arctic Ocean. Since then, the ancient statue has become an idol of the northern peoples.
A number of other researchers put forward the version that the Golden Baba is nothing more than that same giant golden pagan idol that, before baptism, Kievan Rus stood on high bank Dnieper, and then disappeared without a trace in the 10th century. According to one legend, stubborn pagans, saving their shrine from the Grand Duke Vladimir, who ordered the golden idol to be used to decorate the temples under construction, managed to secretly transport it beyond the Stone Belt and bury the sacred idol for future descendants.
Some researchers are inclined to think that the Golden Woman should not be understood as a statue of a woman made of precious metal, but the most ordinary bell, only of gigantic size.
Alien robot
But perhaps the most unusual is the hypothesis put forward by a number of ufologists and claiming that the Golden Woman is actually an object of extraterrestrial origin, a robot made of an unknown metal that looks like gold, capable of moving and making sounds.
According to ufologists, this object could have been left by representatives of an alien intelligence as a kind of information machine that transmitted “sacred” knowledge to representatives of the indigenous peoples of Siberia, moving across its huge territory. It is no coincidence that references to the Golden Baba are found in the legends of almost all indigenous peoples of the North and Trans-Urals from the upper reaches of the Kama, Vyatka and Northern Dvina to Lake Baikal.
In support of their fantastic hypothesis, ufologists refer to legends associated with the heavenly chariot and the Sun God who descended on it, leaving his wise daughter on earth. When enemies came to the sacred lands, the daughter of the Sun God turned into a formidable statue, frightening uninvited guests with her terrible voice.
Over time, ufologists believe, the mechanism of the alien robot failed and the object disappeared under centuries-old layers of soil. However, even today there is a chance to discover this mysterious object, which, quite possibly, sends some signals from underground to the surface. One of the mysterious radio signals was recorded in the mid-70s of the last century during geological exploration work carried out using ultra-sensitive equipment installed on a helicopter in the area of the city of Salekhard. However, the signal was so weak that it was not possible to determine the location of its source.
In the mid-80s, a group of Tomsk scientists-enthusiasts traveled to those remote northern places and conducted research using echo and dowsing equipment. As a result of two months of work, they established the presence of a certain massive object resting in the swamps at the confluence of the Ob and Poluy rivers. However, due to lack of necessary funding, the research was stopped.
To this day, the mystery of the mysterious Golden Woman has not been solved. It is quite possible that it never existed in the form in which it appears in numerous legends and traditions. However, I would like to believe that the day will come, and this pagan idol will shine before us in all its pristine grandeur and original beauty..
The so-called Golden Woman, a mysterious statue serving as a cult object of indigenous peoples Western Siberia, has been the object of varied discussion for many years in the science of the peoples of Siberia, in popular literature about the history of Siberia and among the sacred secrets of the culture of its peoples.
Despite the fact that historians strive to discuss reliable facts, and archaeologists and ethnographers prefer to deal with specific material objects, stories about the Golden Woman require serious consideration, if not in terms of a possible reflection of some reality, then at least in the aspect of existence some cultural concept that changes over time.
As I.N. Ionina writes,
“The oldest mention of the mysterious Golden Woman is found in the Novgorod (which? - A.B.) chronicle for 1398. It was written down after the missionary activity of Stephen of Perm, who walked the Perm land: “Teach the Perm land the faith of Christ, but before they bowed to the beast and the tree, water, fire and the Golden Woman.” Following Stefan, the archers followed and destroyed the pagan sanctuaries of the Permians, and built churches in their place.
Foreign scientists also wrote about the Golden Baba. IN Western Europe Interest in the unknown Ugra (the country of the Ugrians) arose thanks to the writings of the Italian Julius Pomponius Lat, who believed that the Ugrians - the ancestors of modern Hungarians - participated in Alaric’s campaign against Rome and in the sack of the city. “On the way back,” writes Pomponius Laetus, “some of them settled in Pannonia and formed a powerful state there; some returned to their homeland to the Arctic Ocean and still have some copper statues brought from Rome, which are worshiped as deities.” The Italians believed that the Golden Woman was taken from Rome by the Ugrians, who, in alliance with the Goths, destroyed the Roman Empire, and the Golden Woman was supposedly a statue of Juno.
Drawings of the Golden Woman are different from different authors. M. Mekhovsky, for example, has a statue standing woman, in A. Vida - a woman with a cornucopia, and in S. Herberstein she is depicted as the goddess Minerva with a spear in her hand. Eight years later, his own Golden Woman resembles a seated Madonna with a child in her arms. The Italian Guagnini wrote that the Golden Woman was carved out of stone and represented a woman with two children, she held one child in her arms, the other stood nearby and was called her grandson.
The Golden Baba was also revered as a Slavic goddess. According to numerous reports from the Khanty, Mansi and Russian old-timers. Golden Baba for a long time was stored in Belogorye - an area on the Ob River near the confluence of the Irtysh River. This is confirmed by the Siberian Chronicle, which tells about the adventures of Bogdan Bryazgin (Bryazgi - A.B.), Ermak’s closest friend and ally. After the capture of the Ostyak town of Samar in 1583, he visited the Ostyak prayer site “to the ancient goddess” in Belogorye; a naked woman sitting on a chair with her son; accepting gifts from her own, and giving her remnants in every providence, and whoever does not give according to a vow, torments and torments; and whoever brings pity to her, he will die before her, having God's devouring and a great congress. When they heard Bogdan’s arrival, she ordered them to hide and run; and many of the idolatrous collections have been hidden to this day.”
After some time, the deity that had disappeared from Belogorye appeared in the Konda River basin. He was secretly transported there by the Belogorsk Khanty, but then traces of the Golden Woman are lost. Orthodox missionary Grigory Novitsky, who preached in early XVIII century Christian teaching to the Ostyaks, tried to find the hidden statue and destroy it, but he failed to do this. He was only able to collect a lot of valuable information about both the idol itself and the secret sanctuary in which the Golden Baba was kept” Ionina (Ionina, 2005, pp. 273-275).
“The Golden Baba, i.e. the Golden Old Woman, is an idol at the mouth of the Ob, in the Obdore region; it stands on the right bank. There are many fortresses scattered along the banks of the Ob and near neighboring rivers, the rulers of which, as is heard, are all subject to the prince of Muscovy. They say , or, more correctly, they say that this idol of the Golden Woman is a statue representing an old woman
Which holds her son in the womb, and that another child is already visible there again, who, they say, is her grandson. In addition, they claim that there are some instruments placed there that produce a constant sound like a trumpet. If this is so, then, in my opinion, this was done because the winds blew strongly and constantly into these instruments.
Russian scientists of the 18th century. (G.F. Miller, I.I. Lepekhin) developed the idea that the Golden Woman is an ancient Komi deity, whose statue was taken to the Ob by pagans who did not want to be baptized. The Finno-Ugric Yomala, Guanyin as one of the hypostases of Avalokiteshvara, the Mansi Sorni-Ekva or Kaltash-Ekva, an image of some ancient deity - Hera (Juno) or Athena - were supposed to be the personification of the Golden Woman.
In Tatar, the words “Golden Woman” should have sounded like Altyn-Apa, where apa is a common Turkic term for a mother or older relative. Known. that among the peoples of Siberia, with the help of kinship terms for ancestors, sacred, cult, sacrificial places are named, associated with the cult of ancestors or ideas about the spirit owners of areas as reincarnated ancestors. As for the first part of this naming, its understanding as the Turkic altun, altyn “gold” can be considered secondary and considered as a consequence of an imperfect understanding of the Tatar language.
Thus, it is quite possible that the basis of the onym Golden Woman is a combination of the words Al Tym-apa or Al Tyn-apa - the name sacred place in the lower reaches of the Tym River (the real right tributary of the Ob) or the river with similar name– Tyn, Son, Sym, etc. This name, being misunderstood or incorrectly translated into Russian from Tatar, initiated first among Russians, and then among European scientists, ideas about the goddess, in which the features of the Mother of God - the Virgin Mary and images of goddesses were synthesized Ancient Greece and Rome.