Serendipity: Mansi

5 August 2025, by INEL-Webredaktion

Photo: Claudia Love via unsplash.com

Serendipity is a scientific term that describes accidental, fortunate discoveries. Our research assistants are constantly making discoveries to which this word applies. Here you can read about some of the ethnolinguistic peculiarities of the Mansi people:

• Typical of the Mansi tradition is the idea that a person has several souls. A man has five souls, a woman only four. Souls are thought to be life forces that can leave the human body for a short time, e.g. during sleep or in connection with a faint. Souls can also materialize in different ways, e.g. as a visible shadow, as a breath of air, as a reflection in water or as a bird. After death, some souls go to the realm of the dead, while others remain on earth for a certain period of time, where they can cause harm to those left behind.
• The Mansi do not store their clothes, furs and food supplies in their homes, but in small wooden storehouses built on four stilts. These storehouses are located both close to their homes and further away, e.g. in areas where they hunt at certain times of the year, so that they do not always have to take everything with them when the family is elsewhere. The elevated design serves to protect the possessions from wild animals.
• In the oral tradition of the Mansi, the wolf was created by the ruler of the underworld. The wolf is therefore seen as an animal that brings bad luck and represents a constant threat to reindeer-breeding families. This negative connotation is also reflected on a linguistic level, as the wolf is not named directly wherever possible. When people talk about them, they use numerous euphemisms, such as ‘wild animal with teeth’, ‘long tail’ and ‘wild animal of the reindeer’.
• After the death of a person, the Mansi made a small figurines out of wood or metal, which was dressed according to social norms: Figurines for deceased women were given a headscarf and breast ornament, while figurines for men were given a belt. The figurines were kept in a birch bark box, which was taken out at mealtimes and was also given food and drink. These memorial figures for the dead were kept for five years in the case of men and four years in the case of women.
• The special interdependence between the Mansi culture and the surrounding nature is also visible in the names of the months, which differ from group to group, but nevertheless have one thing in common - the reflection of natural phenomena in the designation of the time units of the month. April, for example, is called the ‘great snow crust’, while May is called the ‘ice-going month’. Here, the phenomena of the thawing and refreezing of the upper snow cover and the final melting of the ice on the river were the motivating factors for the Mansian month names April and May.