The Evenki are a Tungusic-speaking people of the Siberian taiga from the Yenisei basin to the Sea of Okhotsk, with communities in Mongolia and China as well. Wikipedia, Evenki people The older outside name "Tungus" came to Russian through Yakut; Evenki is the official name, and some groups use names such as Orochen. Wikipedia, Evenki people The word shaman itself is Evenki. Everyculture, Evenki Religion and Expressive Culture Beliefs differ between regions and clans, and most published accounts are 20th-century ethnography.
Worldview
Evenki describe the universe as three worlds. Kind spirits live in the upper world. The lower world holds the ancestors, who live much as on earth, and, on another level, harmful spirits. Ordinary people do not visit either, but shamans do during their rituals. Everyculture, Evenki Religion and Expressive Culture Alexeyeva and Alexeyev, working with Even and Evenk shamans in Yakutia, give the names Dulyn Buga for the Upper World and Hargy Buga for the Lower. They report that the Upper World is pictured as reindeer or elk antlers, with levels of seven, nine and twelve heavens. The Northern Review, Shamanic Cosmology Among the Tungus People of Eastern Siberia
A person dies when the soul (omi) leaves the body for good. The soul keeps living in this world until a shaman takes it to the world of the dead, usually one to three years after death. The souls of suicides cannot enter it and wander the earth. Everyculture, Evenki Religion and Expressive Culture
Deities and Spirits
Buga is the highest being. The word also means sky or universe. Among the eastern Tungus he is a remote figure with no description, and people pray and make offerings to him without a shaman's help. In Evenk his proper name is given as Shavaky-Savaky. Wikipedia, Buga (deity) The Northern Review, Shamanic Cosmology Among the Tungus People of Eastern Siberia
Seveki is named as a kind spirit of the upper world and guardian of plants and animals. Everyculture, Evenki Religion and Expressive Culture
Beyond these, the evidence is of classes of spirits. Among the Reindeer Evenki of northeast China, researcher F. Georg Heyne reports that spirits live in the sky, sun, moon and stars, clouds and wind, trees and mountaintops, rocks, the taiga, the earth, and in animals and plants. Success, failure, illness and death are all attributed to them. Clans share clan spirits (seva) and traditionally had their own shaman. Asian Folklore Studies, The Social Significance of the Shaman among the Chinese Reindeer-Evenki
Myths and Stories
The Cosmic Hunt of Kheglen
In the story gathered by the Russian ethnographer A. F. Anisimov, the Big Dipper is a hunt. In one version Kheglen, an elk (or moose), steals the sun and brings lasting darkness. The hero Main chases the animal on winged skis from east to west, shoots it at midnight and brings back the daylight. In other versions Kheglen is a female with a calf pursued by three hunters, the Milky Way is the track of their skis, and in what is called the oldest version the hunter is the ancestral bear-man Mangi. Spring rites once re-enacted the hunt, with participants shooting arrows at a wooden image of the animal and sharing the pieces. University of Oregon, Talking Stories: Evenk Astronomy
Origin of the Bear Feast
An Evenki legend, as retold by Russia Beyond, says a girl lost in the forest fell into a bear's den and spent the winter there. In spring she went home and bore a bear cub, whom she raised as a son, and later bore a human son. When the brothers grew up they fought and the human killed the bear. The dying bear told his brother how bears should be hunted and buried. Russia Beyond, Siberia's 'cult of the bear' explained
The Making of the World
A Tungusic creation story attributed to the Transbaikal Tungus in an 1824 account has Buga burn away a primordial sea to reveal land and make a man and a woman from iron, fire, water and earth. A figure named Buninka challenges him and loses, and is allowed to take the wicked after death. The account names the Tungus of Transbaikalia, and not specifically the Evenki. Wikipedia, Tungusic creation myth
Creatures and Spirit Beings
The bear is the best-documented being. Some Evenks call the bear by kinship words, such as grandfather or father, and hold that each hunter may kill only a set number of bears. After a kill the hunter explains himself to the animal, the head and bones are placed in a small log structure, and a shared meal follows in a ritual called takamin. Russia Beyond, Siberia's 'cult of the bear' explained A multi-day celebration follows a bear kill to placate its spirit. Everyculture, Evenki Religion and Expressive Culture
Mangi, the ancestral bear-man of the oldest Kheglen version, is a further being of this kind. University of Oregon, Talking Stories: Evenk Astronomy
Shamans and Practice
Each clan had one or more shamans. The role usually passed down in the family, as the spirit of a deceased shaman chose a descendant, and women and men both served. A costume with metal pendants and often metal antlers, and a drum, helped the shaman journey to other worlds. Shamans protected the clan from hostile shamans' spirits, forecast, and healed. Other ceremonies included the consecration of sacred reindeer, hunting rites, and the induction of a bride into her husband's clan. Everyculture, Evenki Religion and Expressive Culture
Today
Russians pressed the Evenki to convert to Orthodoxy from the 17th century, and groups in close contact developed a mix of Christian and shamanic practice. Soviet authorities persecuted shamans, especially in the 1930s. By the late 20th century only fragments of the religion were visible, although Everyculture cautions that the system may be more alive than outsiders suspect. Everyculture, Evenki Religion and Expressive Culture Many Evenki in Russia still hunt, fish and herd reindeer, and Soviet-era forced settlement and schooling damaged language and tradition. Wikipedia, Evenki people