Tree in the Khakass Traditional Funeral Rites (Late 19th – Mid 20th Century)

Purpose . The sacralization of the tree and its involvement in ritual practice is one of the significant and widespread phenomena represented in the traditional culture of many peoples, including the Khakass. The life cycle of a person among this people ends with a funeral rite. The Khakass traditional funeral rite reflects the archaic ideas of people about the other world. Burial rituals were basically aimed at changing the semiotic status of a person and marked his transition from earthly life to otherness. Special importance in this process is given to the tree and its image. Results . The purpose of the article is to determine the place and function of the tree and its derivatives in the funeral rites of the Khakass. The chronological framework of the work is limited to the framework of the late 19 th – 20 th centuries. The choice of such time limits is determined by the state of the source base on the research topic. Ethnographic and folklore materials, both published and introduced into scientific circulation, served as a source base. Among folklore sources, heroic tales (alyptyg nymakhtar) are widely used, excerpts from which are presented for the first time in the author's translation in Russian. Leading in the study is the principle of historicism, when any cultural phenomenon is considered in development and considering a specific situation. The research methodology is based on historical and ethnographic methods: remnants (relic) and semantic analysis. Conclusion . As a result of the research, the author concludes that the tree and its image were given great importance in the Khakass traditional funeral rite. The specified plant had a wide semantic field, which included the idea of it as: an afterlife means of transportation – a boat / raft, a “world tree”, the sacred path of the human soul, the dwelling of the deceased, an apotropaic object, etc. In the traditional culture of the people under consideration, two main types of human burials have been identified: underground and aerial. In both cases, an integral ritual element of the funeral is a tree in its various manifestations and combinations.