Concept "forest/forester" in the ethnonymy of the ancient Dauria

The article is devoted to the problems of the reconstruction of the conceptual picture of the world of the aboriginal populationof Dauria. Peoples belonging to the tribal society determined their comprehension of themselves as inseparable from nature. Thetranscendent source of mentality of a tribal person is revealed in the ethnonym, which is of symbolic origin. The scientific study of tribalproper names makes it possible to find connections between the ancient names of Northern Asia (Dulu/Dulga, Oyrat, Daur/Dagur), thenames of kins of Dauria (Tabanguud, Tungus-Duligaad) and one and the same semantics of forest/forester. The socionym forest/forester united tribes and kins who led a particular type of life - living in thick wood, having nomad camps in wood, migrating inthe wooden zone of Eastern Siberia, hunting and, probably, deer-breeding. Among those tribes of forest people/foresters during theMongol period of history of the Middle Age of Asia, the Tumen-Oyrat or Oyrat are mentioned according to the text of The Sacred MongolStory. The ethnonym means forest people/foresters where oy- means forest/wood + orod meaning people as D. Banzarovsuggested. In the 19th century a famous explorer of Mongolia G.N. Potanin wrote a legend about the Oyrat-Dyurbyut, the name we mayinterpret as four forest peoples. We suppose that a more ancient ethnonym is Dagur/Daur, which literally means forester or forestwanderer in the Old Turkish language. The names of Buryat kins: the Tabanguuds and they are semantically identical to those ancientethnonyms. We unite these names as they are one lexical origin - the Ket word tabang (forest). The kins name of the Nerchinsk Tungus(Duligaad/Duligar/Dular/Dolotsky) can also be correlated with the semantics of the ancient tribal name of the Dolgans - tya-kihi. It isworth mentioning that the Dolgans use another ethnonym for naming themselves and the neighbouring Evenks - tya-kihi, which meansforest/forester or forest nomad. So the etymology of some ancient and Middle Age ethnonyms of Northern Asian tribes and kin letus state that the concept forest/forester existed in the reconstructed picture of the world. The concept reveals the hidden cognitiveprinciples of tribal nomination of nomad mentality when forest was realized as a universal dwelling for a forester. A forester comprehendedhimself as a necessary part of forest which symbolized the universe for him. We suppose that such names representation of theancient picture of the world through the tribal and kins names reveals an archetype of wood or tree as a natural energy with manbearingfunctions. Legends say that the Khori-Buryats, for example, descend from the birch-tree.

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