The “wild man” in Southern Siberia

The article is devoted to a comparative analysis of the features associated with the “wild man” characteristic in the folklore of the peoples of Southern Siberia, as well as to the comparison of plots in which these characters appear. The material for the analysis includes non-fairy tale prose of the Altaians, Telengits, Shors, Tuvans, Khakas, and Buryats. The «wild man» in this case is understood as a type of folklore character that combines a number of specific traits and is consistently associated with certain folklore motifs and plots (for example, in a number of remote regions, the “wild man” appears in narratives describing the abduction of a woman (or – if it is a “wild woman” – of a man), their cohabitation, the appearance and subsequent fate of their children). The features significant for the character appear in different configurations across various traditions. For such characters in Southern Siberia, what proves important are not so much the qualities typical of “wild men” in other traditions (particularly, the inability to speak human language or the presence of thick hair covering the entire body), but rather the features inherent to the demonological characters of the region.

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