Sheep (ram) symbolism in folklore, rituals and customs of the Bashkirs

The paper analyzes the remnants of the sheep (ram) cult among the Bashkirs, which was one of the revered animals in their religious and mystical views. The consecration of the sheep (ram) by the ancient Bashkirs is based on the remnants of the totemic way of primitive people thinking about the identity, unity and blood relationship of man and the sheep (ram). Their vestiges are manifested in fairytale folklore, folk games, tribal ethnonymy and anthroponyms of the Bashkirs. The existence in the oral stories of the Bashkirs of a character – a king with ram’s horns – shows that the ancient Bashkirs revered as their first ancestor a mythical creature in the guise of a half-man-half-ram. In the role of the totemic ancestor the sheep (ram) in Bashkir folk art and beliefs acts as a patron, guide, savior, benefactor and healer of people, a guardian of life, a soothsayer and predeterminer of their destinies, an escort of the souls of the dead to paradise, symbolizes fertility, prosperity, prosperity and happiness. In some elements of the traditional Bashkir wedding and the sacrifice of a ram, a superstitious attitude towards the skull and links of the cervical vertebra of a sheep (ram), traces of the ancient holidays of the sheep (ram) with rituals of totemic taboo, collective communion with meat and blood, magical resurrection and reproduction of a totem animal are visible. In Bashkir legends, riddles and vocabulary, the evolutionary paths of ideas about the totemic ancestor of the sheep (ram) are traced, as well as the formation on their basis of views about sheep (rams) – supernatural divine beings, personifications of stars, attributes and companions of the gods.