The Koryaks. Spiritual culture

            Koryaks’ traditional spiritual culture is based on ancient beliefs that perceive all natural things and phenomena as alive. In Koryaks’ ancient beliefs, the universe consists of five interrelated and vertically arrayed worlds. The Earth populated by people is the middle world. There are two worlds above it where the clouds float and the Supreme deity lives. There are two more worlds beneath the Earth where the dead and the evil spirits dwell separately. All the worlds are interpenetrable and interconnected. Life and death are merely two separate stages of existence. People live in much the same way in the world of the living and the world of the dead. In the world of the dead, as on earth, Koryaks is a separate community.

            The Great Raven Kutkinyaku (Kutkh, Kuykinyaku, Kutkhinyaku) is the central figure of the Koryak mythology and folklore. He is a demiurge the Supreme deity sent to the Earth to create people and help them settle the world. Kutkh can appear both as a person and as a raven and is often seen as Koryaks’ primal ancestor and their protector. Creation myths are universally linked with his name. After creating Koryaks, Kutkh showed them the ways to hunt sea animals, and catch fish. They also provided and dogs, taught Koryaks to dance, invented the first drum, etc. Koryaks felt Kutkh’s permanent invisible presence in their lives and assessed their actions by the possible reaction of the demiurge and his relatives. Kutkh’s name was a staple of Koryaks’ ritual magic ceremonies (shamanic incantations, etc.); their laughter culture, their holy days, and rituals are also connected with the raven.

            Koryaks believed the universe to be populated by innumerable good and evil spirits demanding that special etiquette be followed in communicating with them. Shamans often acted as intermediaries between people and spirits. Shamanism for Koryaks was largely a family endeavor and shamans were mostly women. Older women in the family were in charge of protective and healing magic. Professional shamans were both men and women, and there were also “transformed gender” shamans. Professional shamans held special “shamanistic” rituals, treated the sick, combated evil spirits, practiced divination, endowed objects with magical properties, etc. Shamans’ clothing had many decorations and amulets, but Koryaks did not have special clothes for performing rituals. Every family had a drum, the shaman’s main attribute, that, in addition to ritualistic functions, also served as a musical instrument.

Koryaks also had a sacrificial site ( appapel’ , yll-apil’ ) used for worshipping ancestors and hunting cults. Koryaks help principal worship rituals at feast days, for example, reindeer herders celebrated their herds’ return from summer pastures, calving, slaughter, etc. Coastal Koryaks celebrated animals killed while hunting (for example, whales, ringed seals, argali, etc.). Images of guardian spirits were worshipped, too. Settled Koryaks depicted their villages’ guardians as wooden poles with roughly hewn faces.

            Some Koryaks, mostly those living on the coast, are Orthodox; Orthodoxy was brought to Kamchatka by Russian missionaries between the 18 ^th and the early 20 ^th centuries. Missionary work was revived in Kamchatka in 2011. Furthermore, Protestantism gained some traction in the 1990s due to the efforts of foreign missionaries. Some Koryaks on the west coast of Kamchatka where Christianity gained a foothold back in the 18 ^th century practiced Orthodox family and household rituals with elements of archaic pre-Christian rituals and customs.