{"id":911,"date":"2007-07-22T23:21:00","date_gmt":"2007-07-22T23:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=911"},"modified":"2007-07-22T23:21:00","modified_gmt":"2007-07-22T23:21:00","slug":"drumming-to-save-their-lives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=911","title":{"rendered":"Drumming to Save Their Lives"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ReutersOn the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia’s Far East (across from Alaska), indigenous people are engaged in a work of cultural survival<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“Everyone of my generation speaks the Koryak language, knows the customs, dances, dishes like in the ancient times. But some of our children don’t know anything at all,” said folk performer Lidia Chechulina, slightly breathless after dancing to the beat of a deer-skin drum and the music of her own voice.<\/p>\n

Her songs, sung in a guttural language reminiscent of Chinese, describe the beauty of the tundra, volcanoes and the sea, she explains. She adds that songs, one for each person, accompany Koryaks all their lives and act as a charm.<\/em><\/p>\n

Soviet Communism, with all its Marxist talk about the dignity of labor, etc., had about the same effect on the Siberians peoples as Christianity did on the American Indians–especially when the Bureau of Indian Affairs used to hire missionaries as Indian agents. But then both Christianity and Marxism are monotheisms, in a sense.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia’s Far East (across from Alaska), indigenous people are engaged in a work of cultural survival. “Everyone of my generation speaks the Koryak language, knows the customs, dances, dishes like in the ancient times. But some of our children don’t know anything at all,” said folk performer Lidia Chechulina, slightly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[30,24,53],"class_list":["post-911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-anthropology","tag-christianity","tag-russia"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-eH","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5970,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5970","url_meta":{"origin":911,"position":0},"title":"So You Want to Worship the Old Gods . . .","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 22, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"There are people who think that in order to do so, you have to learn \"their\" language, as spoken centuries ago, because the gods don't keep up or something, let alone communicate in non-verbal ways. All right, then. You want to deal with Werunos (Sanskrit, Varuna), keeper of cosmic order?\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"archaeology\"","block_context":{"text":"archaeology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=archaeology"},"img":{"alt_text":"Hipster-Jon-Snow-game-of-thrones-23594329-362-500","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Hipster-Jon-Snow-game-of-thrones-23594329-362-500.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5474,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5474","url_meta":{"origin":911,"position":1},"title":"The PC PC as Sacrificial Victim","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 30, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Guidelines for the politically correct police constable who finds him- or herself in the Wicker Man. A Police Federation spokesman said: \u201cDuring stressful situations there is a tendency to use hurtful or insensitive language, especially if you\u2019re trapped in a massive, highly flammable corn dolly while an entire village gambols\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"England\"","block_context":{"text":"England","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=england"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":955,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=955","url_meta":{"origin":911,"position":2},"title":"An Immigrant’s Story","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 19, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"So here I am at the final joint annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion and the Society for Biblical Literature. The book show is always one of the best parts. It is of the size that is usually measured in \"football fields.\" Naturally books relating to Christianity dominate,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":642,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=642","url_meta":{"origin":911,"position":3},"title":"Why Men Really Hate Going\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 31, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Why Men Really Hate Going to ChurchWMHGTC, by Alaska TV writer David Murrow, is the umpteenth try to understand the \"feminization\" of American Christianity, The pro baseball player-turned-preacher Billy Sunday (1862-1935) was just one manly man who fought the same fight.Murrow is a little shaky on pre-Reformation church history: he\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":35,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=35","url_meta":{"origin":911,"position":4},"title":"‘Sacred’ but not ‘Religious’","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 30, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"A school teacher in my former home of Ca\u00f1on City, Colorado, is in trouble with a cowboy-hatted pastor (his photo not on the web version) over alleged 'pagan' practices at the school. See how she employs the language of public-education casuistry.","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":817,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=817","url_meta":{"origin":911,"position":5},"title":"Where are the Irish-speakers–in Ireland?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 10, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Now and again among North American Pagans, I run into an earnest student of Gaelic.When M. and I honeymooned in Ireland (back when the Celtic Tiger was still a kitten), I learned to puzzle out the signage and to go through the door marked \"Fir.\"But outside of Co. Kerry, I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Celts\"","block_context":{"text":"Celts","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=celts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=911"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/911\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}