Stability, variability and other factors of deformation of traditional culture (to statement of the question)

In this article, the authors bring attention to the question of the necessity to improve the methodology of ethnographic investigations in general and of field-work in particular. The authors believe that for the long time the general methodology of humanities had been overemphasizing the economic factor. Other factors, supposedly, were considered to be the result of economic factor. Based on field research conducted by the authors in the cultural environment of Khants, Mansi, Selkup, Nenets and other peoples, they raise the question of not only an independent effect of each factor separately, but also of their complex intertwining. These factors include the following: ideological, ecological, demographic, scientific and school education, psychological, energy intensity (muscle energy) and possibly others (here the authors leave the question open). Deformation, translation and transformation of traditional culture can be exogenous and endogenous. Thus, changes can be of conscious and unconscious nature. This depends on the necessity of making a choice or its absence. In each case, any single factor can become determinant. For example, the Khants living on the Vasyugan river or on the Wah river believed that some places were sacred and forbidden not only for economic activities, but also for any human intervention. Such places were "inhabited" by fantastic or supernatural beings. Another category of forest kingdom or water space was less sacred: there fishery took place. However, fisher was not an owner and did not feel like owner: he had to ask permission from the owner’s spirit to be there. The factor of saving physical strength allowed a painless passing from the paddle to the use of outboard motors, all-terrain vehicles. Nevertheless, it was impossible to use the hardware for making burial pits, since such actions would violate the rest of the ancestors. The authors draw the reader's attention to the fact that the replacement of the old and traditional with something new is not a simple linear process and cannot be reduced only to the economy. Sometimes the new force has to step back due to the stability of ideological or any other factor.

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