“Khanty Mythology. Encyclopaedia of Uralic Mythologies”

The Encyclopaedia of Uralic Mythologies offers a comparative base for the study of the roots and present forms of Finno-Ugrian and Samoyedic mythologies and ethnic religions. The peoples speaking the Uralic language are indigenous peoples of Northern Eurasia in the territory extending from Fennoscandia to the Taimyr Peninsula. Along with their complicated histories and cultural differences, the Uralic groups have maintained and created original religious and mythological traditions, where traces of archaic religious systems, e.g. shamanism, animal ceremonialism and astral mythology, merged with ancient foreign influences and more recent religions.

Mythology is understood in a broad sense, including not only myths proper but also information about religious beliefs, connected rituals, the sphere of magic and its specialists.

The volumes offer basic information about the people in question and an overview of the history of the research. The central part of each volume is an explanatory and etymological dictionary of mythological terms for the tradition concerned. A list of literature, an index of mythical concepts and names are included in each volume.

Khanty Mythology is the second volume of the series. The forthcoming Mansi and Selkup volumes have already been completed in Russian.

The editors-in-chief of the Encyclopaedia are Professor Anna-Leena Siikala (Helsinki University), Dr. Mihaly Hoppal (Hungarian Academy of Sciences) and Prof. Vladimir Napolskikh (Udmurt State University).