Domain / Function

This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.

Siberian Deities gathers two figures from two distinct Siberian shamanic traditions, one governing the animals a hunting people depends on and the other standing at the head of an entire regional cosmology.

Bugady Enintyn is the Mother of Animals in Evenki and wider Tungusic Siberian shamanic tradition, a guardian spirit believed to control the abundance of game and to whom hunters address ritual requests and offerings before a hunt, a role that reflects how central successful hunting is to Evenki taiga life. Numi-Torum is the supreme sky god of the Khanty and Mansi peoples of Western Siberia, father of the culture hero Mir-Susne-Khum and the source of law and order in Ob-Ugric mythology, paired with the earth goddess Kaltash-Ekwa as the two great powers of Ob-Ugric religion.

The two figures belong to different peoples within the wider family of Siberian shamanic tradition rather than to one shared pantheon, Bugady Enintyn's concern with the animals a hunter needs sitting beside Numi-Torum's concern with the sky's law and order and the culture hero he fathered to carry it into the human world. Neither is described in the atlas beyond what published ethnography of each people records, and this entry follows that same limit rather than filling the gap between two separate traditions with an invented connection.