Images of dead people in traditional culture of the Ob-Ugric peoples: material and symbols

The paper analyses images of dead people (ittarmas) ofthe inhabitants of Western Siberia - the Ob-Ugric peoples. The author studies the evolution of manufacturing materials, places and periodsof their storage, characterizes their importance. Originally, a wife of a dead man made an image after the death of her husband, or closerelatives made one after the death of an important person. In the 20th century ittarmas were made for all dead people. There were differencesin the periods of keeping the images in the house, and their usage after this period. In the 18th-19th centuries ittarmas had been keptin the house for a period from 6 months to 3 years, then they were buried. In the 20th century these periods depended on gender: if a mandied - five or fifty days, or five years, if a woman died - four or forty days, or four years. After the end of this period the image was kept inthe house, put in a tomb or burned. In the 18th-20th centuries wood was used as a basis for ittarmas. So, it was an archaic material for makingittarmas. Generally, the evolution of images made of wood is the same: wooden images without face, with a button or a coin instead ofthem,  images with an outlined face - images with carved eyes, nose and mouth. All ittarmas had clothes. Images made of soft materialswere originally fixed as produced of a fabric and hair without clothes; later  in clothes, and in the 20th century they consisted of clothesonly. In the 20th century ittarmas were made from metal. Originally, they represented images with outlined faces, later - with carved ones.According to the traditional ideology of the Ob-Ugric peoples, the soul is set only in the image with a face. So, face is a symbol of the soul.As faces of images were represented by buttons, coins, hair, these subjects were also thought of as symbols of the soul. Probably, the set ofsymbols, expressing the idea of the human soul, reflected the complexity of representations about the spiritual substance of the person, intrinsicto the Ob-Ugric peoples. All ittarmas have clothes regardless the material they are made of and type of face. The great attention givento clothes is not occasional. As clothes are treated as a form of an external image of the human, it is possible to make a conclusion that ittarmasreflected the material in the person. So, ittarmas are symbols of an intermediate state of the person, which expressed the idea of psychosomaticunity of the person in traditional ideology of the Ob-Ugric peoples.

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