UDC

165.21

DOI

10.37482/2227-6564-V011

Authors

Nikolay M. Terebikhin
Northern (Arctic) Federal University named after M.V. Lomonosov; prosp. Lomonosova 2, Arkhangelsk, 163002, Russian Federation;
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2981-285X e-mail: terebihinn@mail.ru

Abstract

In order to reconstruct the sacred morphology of the northern traditional maritime culture, we need to consider it through the prism of comparative analysis. This procedure allows us to identify all the missing elements and fill up the vacant cells of the ritual-mythological system as a generic core of the sacred oceanology of northern seafarers. Comparing it with classical maritime cultures appears to be most effective. The results of the systematic study of these cultures can be transformed into a research paradigm (discipline matrix) considering the traditional maritime culture as a semiotic system. Among such symbolic paradigm constructions we can name the model of traditional maritime culture of indigenous peoples of Oceania, Polynesians (the “Vikings of the East”) in the first place. Polynesians’ maritime culture is rooted in their ritual-mythological tradition, in the symbolic ensemble of the primal New Year celebration. The most important result of the research is the development of the basic model of sacred morphology of the sea peoples’ traditional culture. It includes the following topical sections of sacred oceanography: mythological conception of the first ship; sacred status of the ship carpenter; image of the patron god of shipbuilding; ritual cycle of building a ship (material selection, building sacrifice rite, rituals of ship assembly; the rites of consecration and naming of a new ship); cosmogonic and eschatological aspects of sea and ship mythology; poetic creativity and deified memory within the structure of sacred sea studies (omniscience). Such is the invariant structure of sacred maritime knowledge as the generic core of the sea peoples’ traditional culture. Hierophants-shipbuilders and poets-navigators were the keepers and exegetes of sacred oceanography. They charted and laid the “divine course” in the ocean with their shipbuilding craft and world-ordering poetry.
For citation: Terebikhin N.M. The Image-Symbolic Fund of Sacred Oceanography of the Sea Peoples (Part 2). Vestnik Severnogo (Arkticheskogo) federal’nogo universiteta. Ser.: Gumanitarnye i sotsial’nye nauki, 2020, no. 2, pp. 106–113. DOI: 10.37482/2227-6564-V011

Keywords

sacred morphology, traditional maritime culture, sacred oceanography, sea peoples, Polynesians

References

1. Tereshchenko E.Yu. Religiya v sisteme morskoy kul’tury Kol’skogo Severa [Religion in the System of Maritime Culture of the Kola North]. Vestnik Russkoy khristianskoy gumanitarnoy akademii, 2016, vol. 17, no. 2, pp. 299–307.
2. Tereshchenko E.Yu. Morfologiya sovremennoy morskoy kul’tury Kol’skogo Severa [Morphology of Modern Maritime Culture of the Kola North]. Kul’tura i tsivilizatsiya, 2016, no. 1, pp. 208–219.
3. Stingl M. Očarovaná Havaj. Prague, 1981. 637 p. (Russ. ed.: Stingl M. Ocharovannye Gavayi. Moscow, 1983. 332 p.).
4. Gulyaev V.I. Dokolumbovy plavaniya v Ameriku. Mify i real’nost’ [Pre-Columbian Voyages to America. Myths and Reality]. Moscow, 1991. 192 p.
5. Lebedeva A.A. Morekhodnoe iskusstvo narodov Mikronezii [Seafaring Skills of the Peoples of Micronesia]. St. Petersburg, 2013. 172 p.
6. Putilov B.N. Mif-obryad-pesnya Novoy Gvinei [Myth–Rite–Song of New Guinea]. Moscow, 1980. 383 p.
7. Fedorova I.K. Ostrov Paskhi. Ocherki kul’tury XVIII–XIX vv. [Easter Island. Essays on the Culture of the 18th – 19th Centuries]. St. Petersburg, 1993. 288 p.
8. Hīroa T.R. Moreplavateli solnechnogo voskhoda [The Vikings of the Sunrise]. Moscow, 1959. 253 p.
9. Eliade M. Izbrannye sochineniya. Ocherki sravnitel’nogo religiovedeniya [Selected Works. Essays on Comparative Religious Studies]. Moscow, 1999. 488 p.
10. Sharp C.A. Ancient Voyages in the Pacific. Wellington, 1957. 239 p.

Received: 13 September 2019
Accepted: 24 December 2019