Cultural codes in the ritual tradition of the Tuvans of China

The paper considers the folklore and the ritual of Tuvans of China as a single cultural text with twelve cultural codes: active, verbal, food, spatial, personal, temporal, playful, numerical, colour, subject, sound, and musical. The significance of each cultural code has been analyzed from the point of view of semantics and pragmatics in the ritual practice of Chinese Tuvan people. The verbal code is represented by independent genres of ritual folklore: spells ( chalbaryryr ), good wishes ( algaar / algysh / yorel ), praises ( atta algaar ), songs ( yr ), and verbal formulas: hymns, teasers, onomatopoeic words, appeals. The active component consists of certain types of ritual activities performed by ritual participants. Stable types of actions in the birth rite, wedding, New Year and summer rituals have been identified. The personal code is /determined by the function and role of participants in the performance of a particular rite, with important parameters being assigned to gender, age, marital status, the presence of healthy children, the relationship of kinship, ritual functions. The spatial code reveals the horizontal and vertical structures of space, the loci of the house/yurt, the micro-locations accentuated during the rituals. The object code includes obligatory ritual objects having different semantic fullness. The time code has the main condition of choosing a favourable date for the lunar calendar, as well as the annual season. The food code is associated with the semantics of dairy and meat products, which are both daily and festive meals. In traditional rituals these same products, as ritual food, were given a special sacral meaning. The game code is presented in the structure of family and calendar rituals by traditional competitions (horse races, wrestling, archery). The characteristic feature of the numerical code is the use of some well-established numbers that have a certain symbolism: 15 (full moon day as a favorable date for performing rituals), 3 (three rounds of the ritual place), 4 (four sides of the world), 5 (five types of color scheme used in rituals), etc. The colour code has the stable semantics, expressing the functional orientation of the ritual. The spectrum of the established colour scheme of rituals has been determined. The music code has been found in the calendar and some family-household rites because it depends on the semantics of a particular ritual. However, some cases with the music code being absent have been revealed. A characteristic feature of the sound code is the presence of binary oppositions, representing loudness - noiselessness.

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