Zhenia Tarlin’s Recollections of the Bear Festival

"Hunters came here, and it was good that they had a good dog. He was quite fearless. I was told that the dog had found the bear. Then they all joined forces and killed the bear. After that, they 'undressed' it (took off its fur). They brought it to the other side of the Kazym River, to an autumn camp. There, they held a bear ceremony. That was in the 1960s. My late father told me: ‘It was around 1968 or 1969, yes. Around that time.’ My uncle Vania was still alive back then. He told me that everyone had gathered for the bear ceremony. He said they sang in our house. Back then, there were still singers. My uncle Vania was alive then. He always performed, sang and danced. My late father said that’s how they learned to sing.

At the time, they weren’t allowed to hold bear ceremonies. It was forbidden. He said they did it quietly, inside the house. And he mentioned that Uncle Vania knew many songs — he knew 300 songs. My late father told me he had learned to sing from him. That was earlier, in 1940, he said. The war hadn’t started yet. He told me that back then, during the autumn camps when they went bear hunting, my great-grandfathers, grandfathers, and Uncle Vania sang, and he always listened. ‘I was only ten years old,’ he said. There, he said, he heard all the songs and understood them, learned their lyrics and melodies. These songs were forbidden back then. They would have been persecuted if anyone found out. Things were very strict in those days. That’s why they held the bear ceremonies secretly in huts in the forest. That’s where my father learned the ceremonies and the bear songs. He knew bear songs and sang sacred songs — he knew 65 songs. They are called animal songs.

My late father wrote them down for me. And then my brother Mishka came and threw them into the stove. He threw them into the stove, and they burned. Some others of us are writing the songs down now. My late father had written down the sacred songs. And they burned them in the stove. I started looking, but they had burned the notebooks in the stove. Now people are asking for them, and I think they should have been given to a museum. These are sacred songs, you can’t treat them like that. He said he hadn’t known what kind of papers they were. He just threw them into the stove."

Recorded by Stephan Dudeck, 2021.