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Olonkho. P. A. Oyunsky
Читать онлайн.Название Olonkho
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9781898823377
Автор произведения P. A. Oyunsky
Жанр Старинная литература: прочее
Издательство Ingram
In some Olonkho epics, the main hero and the Tungus hero are friends and allies; another epic shows the Tungus hero as the main hero. He struggles with Abaahy heroes and saves people. It is quite possible that the character of the Tungus hero in the role of the main hero is a result of late folk art, which suggests a higher plane of intelligence.
A significant role in Olonkho is taken by the hero’s talking and singing horse – a supporter, an adviser and an active participant at all the events in which the main hero is engaged. The horse not only gives advice to the main hero but also on occasion fights with an enemy horse and wins the battle. The heroic horse saves the defeated hero by carrying him away from the battlefield and by following his orders. Horse races are described as very exciting. The winner is the horse that comes first, so heroic horses go full speed and tear up hill and down dale, across the sky and under the ground. They are inbued with feelings – they rejoice in victory and regret defeat. The heroic horse is one of the most interesting characters of Olonkho. Olonkho-tellers describe it in detail, from point to point magnifying its strength, beauty and intelligence. Finally, this character more perfectly reflects the author of Olonkho – a genuine horse-breeder, a true horse devotee, a representative of his cattle-breeding culture.
As we have seen, Olonkho emphasizes a fantastic element as the means of expressing the heroic element. An Olonkho plot (which is both mythological and fantastic) shows the heroic nature of main heroes’ deeds which are not only related to the family. The Olonkho challenge is wider: it concerns the struggle for happiness and well-being of the whole tribe, which is the primary social entity. The main hero cherishes this idea of happiness, he struggles against evil, and he is always at the heart of events: the whole scene is focused on his life.
Therefore, biographical development of composition is typical of Olonkho: from the hero’s birth until his return home. His life is described as a chain of heroic deeds performed by him in order to achieve happiness for the whole world. The separate links of this chain of events form several episodes of Olonkho. The main story is sometimes interrupted by stories about misfortunes of other heroes of Aiyy kin attacked by monsters. Separate episodes and interwoven stories become a complete story only within a chain of all the events of Olonkho, and thus they are not inconsequential stories. They are elements of the whole story. In addition, here Yakut Olonkho-tellers show great imagination by inventing a huge number of stories and by weaving them into the fabric of the narrative. Such a composition is common to all Olonkho epics.
An olonkho warrior clubbing a demon
One of the main features of Olonkho as a genre is its specific historicism. Olonkho is created and represented as a history of humankind in the broad sense, indeed the history of the entire human society. Yet this story is unreal and fantastic and human society means only the epic tribe of Aiyy kin (ancestors of the Yakuts). The point is that any Olonkho epic describes the history of humankind since the origin of the universe, at least since ‘The Middle World’ settlement. Therefore, Olonkho describes thoroughly (in a fantastic and mythological manner) the life of the first people on Earth and their struggle for happiness, especially the life of the main Olonkho hero as his destiny is a reflection of the destiny of the whole tribe.
Olonkho is created in the lofty style in accordance with the significance of described events. At the beginning, the action gets off to a slow start but gradually events follow swiftly one after the other and turn into a flow of collisions. There are a number of symbols, archaic words as well as fantastic images in Olonkho. Its style is characterized by hyperbole, image contrast, parallel and complex constructions, traditional ancient poetical formulas – the ‘common places’, metaphors and figural expressions that move from one Olonkho epic to another. Olonkho is rich with different figures of speech especially with simile and epithets. Almost any broad description (Olonkho is full of descriptions as it is generally a descriptive work) includes not only separate similes but also complex simile constructions (several similes similar in form with many adjacent words with additional similes). Often epithets in Olonkho are complex as well. Sometimes similar syntactic constructions that enumerate objects are accompanied with characterizing epithets forming a common chain of epithets. All of this together creates a fascinating pattern, a sort of verbal arabesque. However, the elements of this pattern are not spread across but follow a strict inner system. Let us consider two examples to make the point. The first example describes the hero’s rising anger at having been insulted:
His hamstrings were strained,
Like a tough stem of a tree;
His legs were cramped,
Like a sash of a trap;
His large silver fingers,
Like ten grey weasels,
Pressed head to head,
His skin began to tear,
And his light clean blood
Sprinkled with convulsing trickles,
Like thin strands,
Of the horse with soft mane and tail,
His temple skin shrivelled,
Like bent bearskin bedding;
Lights of blue flame rose
Hissing from his temples;
Like a raked-up fire;
A flame large as a pot
Was dancing on top of the fire;
His eyes were scintillating with sparks,
Like sparks of a flint-stone;
When blood on his back
Boiled and roiled,
Approached his throat,
He spat and hawked
Splashes of scarlet blood.
This description is conditional (of course, Olonkho-tellers understand that such things are impossible). Its purpose is to extol the outstanding, fantastic, unique hero. The hero’s rising anger is depicted through changes to his appearance.
Similes make a deep impression although they are not impressive but simple: a trap, a weasel, strands of a horse’s mane, a bearskin bedding, fire, a pot, etc., i.e. those things that form part of the past life of the Yakuts (these similar similes create a parallelism of the whole phrase). Impression is deepened because all these simple things are compared with the fantastic events that happen to the hero in a tense moment. Such an effect is created by a contrast of scenes and the joining of ordinary and extraordinary things.
The same effect is created by epithets that describe a man’s condition and characterize objects offered for comparison. Let us look at this example:
(He) Built a winter dwelling
Along the endless southern ocean shore
Of the overflowing
Kys-Baigal-Khatyn ocean,
That throws out monstrous fish
As large as a three-year-old horse,
It emerged at the edge of the earth
And the snowy, white sky,
Dangling and touching (the ocean),
Like edges of sharp scissors,
Sowing a deep sprinkle of snow,
With buttons from bright stars,
With a whip of formidable lightning,
Accompanied with lumbering thunder,
Over-salted