In Buryatia, the imperishable body of Dashi‐Dorzho Etigelov, a prerevolutionary Buddhist monk, is said to be a “scientifically proven miracle” endowed with healing powers. I argue that this claim provides a focal point for the renegotiation of Soviet discourses on science and religion. I demonstrate that Soviet modernist discourse produced religion and science as mutually constitutive categories. Although subsequent political transformations have shifted the valences of religion and science, this mutually constitutive relationship remains central to understanding health, healing, and religious practices in post‐Soviet Russia. [religion, science, postsocialism, healing, Buddhism, Buryatia, Russian Federation]
Traditionally" Buriat shamanism is clan-based. Ritual practice embedded kinship relations within a sacred geography, linking the living and the dead through a relationship to the landscape, reaffirmed at yearly tailgan ceremonies. In Buriatiia, Soviet modernization transformed the Buriat relationship to the land, and with it, the conditions of shamanic practice. As a result, many urban Buriats either do not know their clan affiliation, or no longer hold clan ceremonies. In response, two urban shaman's organizations have begun to hold tailgans on behalf of the residents of the city. The new ritual form relieves anxiety at the loss of tradition and underscores that loss. However, by redefining the ritual community around the city instead of the clan, the ritual community becomes multiethnic.A young woman walks around the edge of a group of people gathered for the spring tailgan, instructing people how to prepare questions for the ongons (ancestor spirits). 1 "Write down your name, your birth year, your clan affiliation, and the question. In Buriat, if you can. If not, write it in Russian, and we'll help you translate it." People beg sheets of paper off me, the anthropologist-the only person who can always be counted on to bring paper and pens to a ritual."But what if I don't know my clan?" a woman asks, anxiously. Her question is echoed through the gathering crowd, most of whom do not
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