Reindeer in Siberian shamanism

Their religious beliefs reflect the spiritual philosophy of shamanism, and their traditions often involve reindeer in several steps of the process of practicing their religion.

Russian anthropologist S. M. Shirokogoroff wrote that by being transformed into a reindeer, the shaman feels himself to be "swift, vigilant, watchful, the best animal the Tungus know.

Soviet scholars perceived them as a version of the priesthood, but Willerslev posits that shamanism is a "broad-based activity practiced to varying degrees by common hunters rather than as a form of 'mysticism' under the control of a religious elite.

The shaman collects everything dropped by the deer, including all hairs, and brings everything to the swamp, where Ylyunda kotta, the mistress of the universe, lives.

Shamans invite spirits inside themselves by swallowing and yawning and treat them to reindeer blood and fat before using their influence to cast his baton to discover the most effective source of treatment.

These often relate to the well-being of the herd and the monetary benefits gained as a result, reflect the people's nomadic heritage, and express humanity's relationship to the cyclic progression of the seasons.

The people clean the butchered carcasses and consume raw muscle meat with salt and cooked stomach, heart, and liver.

[18] The Chukchi hold a similar celebration, where they greet the returning herd with a boisterous welcome, before slaughtering a series of both fawns and bucks, skinning their carcasses, and extracting marrow from the reindeer's bones as sustenance.

Reindeer skins, hooves and antlers hang in the trees, because it is believed necessary for the deity to receive the entirety of the animal being sacrificed.

They then wrap the bones in the skin and leave the bundle to the left of the grave, also positioning the head (with attached antlers) on the roof of the grave-house.

[21] The Evenks believed in spirits that inhabited the underground, so they buried their dead above ground by sewing the bodies into reindeer skins and placing the wrapped cadavers on high poles.

[22] Among the Chukchi, the burial ceremony provides the dead person with the means to travel to the underworld and to send them on their way, if not to carry them the whole distance.

Friends of the deceased carry the body out of the tent through its smoke hole or out the back and tie it to a new or freshly repaired sledge to which reindeer have been harnessed.