Leaving footprints in the taiga: luck, spirits and ambivalence among the Siberian Orochen reindeer herders and hunters

摘要

This book examines a herding and hunting culture with an animist tradition despite a superficial Christian conversion and the subsequent years of Soviet atheism. The author spent 17 months in 2004-2005, 2010 and 2011 'among a small community of Orochen hunters and reindeer herders living east of Lake Baikal, mainly in the Tungokochen District of Zabaikal Province (ix)'. Brandisauskas is a Lithuanian who has worked in Aberdeen University's anthropology department. His childhood fascination with Native American cultures stemmed from his reading the Lithuanian translations of Grey Owl - that baffling British propagandist for North American native peoples. The book does not use the word 'animism'.