Geser. The Вuryat heroic epic

As we have already mentioned there are the totemistic features fairly well preserved inВ the epic. InВ aВ Khori genealogical legend ofВ Khoridoi-mergen the hero gets married toВ aВ celestial fairy that had been aВ bird previously. Very well known is the motive ofВ aВ swan, the ancestor ofВ one ofВ the tribes. InВ the Mongolian epic ofВ Geser two bulls are shown as fighting, one ofВ them being white, the other black. The white one is taken toВ be the protector ofВ Geser, the black ofВ the mangus.

The totemic ancestors of the Bulagats and the Ekhirits are the grey Bukha noyon bull and the black and white bulls. This motive has its parallel in a Tibetan legend which describes the fight between the white and black snakes coming out of the mangus’ nostrils or in the Tibetan version of the Geser epic where the two snakes fight having come out of the mangus’ ears.

The nomad tribes of Central Asia left the monuments resembling the “deer stones” or the stone slabs with the engraved inscriptions, the magical formulas.

In Transbaikalia and Mongolia they found the sacral writings on the rocks, the so-called rock paintings or petroglyph on which depicted most frequently was an eagle in flight. They date back to the second half of the second millennium B.C. They all are of the conventional nature and are given as symbol or sign. It is another evidence of the fact that there existed a written language though primitive. There is much in common between the drawings mentioned and the zurags (drawing) of the Balagan ongons. The ongons are the symbols of the ancestors’ spirits and the eagles are also thought to be the spirits of the ancestors. The Baikal region is abundant in the legends of the genealogical totems depicted in the form of a flying eagle. According to those legends the host of the Oikhon island was married to a tengri’s daughter. She gave birth into a son, Burged by name which means “eagle”. He adopted the eagles as sons. The latter gave the beginning to the kin of the Ol’khon shamans who were known as the shubuuni noyod – the lords of the birds. They say that earlier during the sacrifice ritual to Khan Khoto babai they made the three replicas of eagles out of birch bark.