AtDtDA(28): God Didn't Do This?

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

 rich :
"Agdy, their God of Thunder" . . . .

Before Kulik's expedition arrived on the scene, an 
ethnographer, Innokenty Suslov (1893-1972) set 
out to try to find out what had happened from the 
Evenk (Tungus) who lived here. In the political 
atmosphere of the time, Suslov's work could only 
be published if used as part of the government 
campaign against the shamans and their influence. 
So it was published in 1931, as "The Struggle 
against Shamanism" and in 1932 as "Shamanism 
as a hindrance to social construction". In 1983 it 
was translated into German by Karl Menges and 
was quoted by Joachim Otto Habeck in an paper 
for the SPRI.

The genuine ethnography buried in these tracts had 
the effect of preserving the traditional rituals and 
customs to be used as guidence when they were 
revived after the end of the Soviet Union.

Suslov discovered that the Evenk (Tungus) attributed 
the blast to a great shaman called Magankan. He 
would get people to fire a rifle at him - he could catch 
the bullet when it came out of his body and show it to 
everyone there. He would stab a knife into his chest 
and no wound could be seen.

For a long time there had been war and feuds between 
the Tungus clans living along the right tributaries of the 
Lower Tunguska. This led to the rival shamans sending 
their evil spirits against each other causing diseases 
and other troubles.

Then Magankan called on the Agdy. The Agdy is the 
God of Thunder (who looks like an old man) but also 
the Agdy birds - the Thunderbirds - big, black and 
made of iron, with fiery eyes. The beating of their 
wings causes thunder and lightning flashes from their 
eyes. Ancestors of the Agdy live in Khergu - the 
underworld as do the souls of shamans, so many of 
them were friends with shamans and this relationship 
had been passed on to their descendants - an evil 
shaman can call on the Agdy to do harm to anyone 
he bears a grudge against.

This happened in the early morning of 30th June 
1908. A flock of Agdy were called by the shaman 
Magankan. The Agdy came down on the territory 
of the Shanyagir clan. Tents were blown into the air. 
People were hurt. 250 reindeer from the herd of 
Andrei Onkoul disappeared without trace - and other 
reindeer and also dogs were killed. The wooden 
storage houses on platforms, where they kept all 
their food, clothes and equipment were totaly 
destroyed in just a few seconds. The taiga forest 
was flattened for about 10,000 square kilometres 
in the areas of the rivers Chambe, Zhilushmo, and 
Kushmo. There was a great noise like thunder and 
great cracks in the earth. People fled leaving all 
their possessions. Two people died in the blast.

Although the local people had lost everything they 
needed for survival - no investigation or aid was 
every received from either local or national 
adminstrative and government bodies.


http://homepage.ntlworld.com/heather.hobden1/Tunguska.htm