The devil or chief evil spirit in Siberian mythology was named Erlik. He was sometimes said to have been a human who helped in the creation of the earth but then turned against Ulgan, the creator god. Erlik ruled the dead, and his evil spirits brought him the souls of sinners.
Shamans held a central role in Siberian religion and mythology. They were believed to travel between worlds by climbing the World Tree or by flying, and they communicated with the spirit world through ceremonies and trances. The healing magic of shamans involved finding or curing the lost or damaged souls of sick people.
Many Siberian myths deal with powerful shamans. The Buriat people of the Lake Baikal region told of Morgon-Kara, who could bring the dead back to life. This angered the lord of the dead, who complained to the high god of heaven. The high god tested the shaman by sealing a man’s soul in a bottle. Riding his magic drum into the spirit universe, Morgon-Kara found the soul in the bottle. Turning himself into a wasp, he stung the high god’s forehead. The startled god released the trapped soul, and the shaman carried it down to earth.
Animals appear in many myths, sometimes as the ancestors or mates of humans. The Yukaghir people, for example, told of an ancestral hero who was the offspring of a man who spent the winter in the cave of a female bear. The Evenk people had stories of mammoths, immense animals that roamed the land long ago. They explained how these creatures had shaped the earth by moving mud with their tusks, created rivers where they walked, and formed lakes where they lay.
World History
