Museification of Intangible cultural heritage of the Teleut people: Tomskaya Pisanitsa Museum reserve experience

This article investigates the ways of museification of the intangible cultural heritage of the Teleut people, based on the example of the Historical Cultural and Natural Museum Reserve Tomskaya Pisanitsa located in the Kemerovo region. Teleuts are indigenous peoples living in Kuzbass. According to the Russian Census, there are 2,643 reported Teleut people, 2,520 of whom live in the Kemerovo region. The Tomskaya Pisanitsa Museum Reserve currently doesn't have a permanent exhibit dedicated to the Teleut culture. Therefore, preservation, interpretation, transmission and presentation of the Teleut intangible cultural heritage at the Tomskaya Pisanitsa have their specific features. The main object of the museum interpretation is a Teleut collection, stored in the museum. Religious objects occupy an important position in the collection, followed by clothes. All these items contain information encoded in the form of different symbols. The museum's interpretation of the objects in the Teleut collection allows to reconstruct the Teleut spiritual beliefs, to better understand their customs, knowledge and skills related to many different areas of human life, to obtain information about the typical Teleut male and female occupations, farming methods and crafts. The scientific community, the museum visitors and students of different educational institutions of Kemerovo and Kemerovo region are the recipients of the information obtained as a result of the museum interpretation of the objects from the Tomskaya Pisanitsa Museum Reserve collections. Museum lessons, held with the extensive use of interactive methods, help to familiarize students with the Teleut spiritual beliefs. One of the main forms of presentation of the Teleut intangible cultural heritage is guided tours, conducted by the museum-reserve's researchers on the traveling exhibitions, organized in libraries and educational institutions of Kuzbass. The Teleut intangible heritage is manifested through annually held folklore festival Chyl-Pazhi or New Year celebration of the peoples of the Altai-Sayan region. For the tenth consecutive year (since 2006) on March 22 the Tomskaya Pisanitsa Museum Reserve hosts a festival featuring performances by traditional folk artists. Many museum visitors are introduced to the Teleut intangible cultural heritage through songs and dances. A shaman performs ceremonies culminating the Chyl-Pazhi festivities. Based on the foregoing, the article concludes that the intangible cultural heritage of indigenous peoples can be museified through the interpretation of museum ethnographic collections in order to identify the cultural codes and the subsequent transmission of the obtained information within the framework of the museum's cultural education activities. The Tomskaya Pisanitsa Museum Reserve's cultural and educational activities can be an example of museification of the intangible cultural heritage of the Teleut people.

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