National names, personal songs, and family narratives as ways of transmitting family and ancestral history in Koryak-Chavchuven culture

The paper explores how the Koryak culture preserves and transmits family and ancestral values despite challenges such as assimilation, language decline, and economic structure transformations. Until the 1920s, the Chavchuven and Nymylan Koryak descendants, even those from mixed marriages, possessed both national names and names recorded in official documents. The choice of name is conditioned by the idea of reincarnation that implies the soul of an ancestor to be reborn in a descendant. The recollection of older relatives can be preserved by performing their personal songs. In the context of rituals, such a performance of ancestors’ songs is regarded as a form of communication with them. This study analyzes the compositional and harmonic features of personal songs of relatives performed by N. S. Kuznetsova-Kerguvie (Nuteŋewyt, 1949–2023). The paper provides the notes of the songs accompanied by links to audio and video illustrations. Family narratives under analysis offer a comprehensive account of the life histories of ancestors, reflecting traditional Koryak cultural practices such as matchmaking, bride kidnapping, conspiracy, and marriage under the law of levirate. The peculiarity of family narratives lies in the specifics of their functioning: they are the heritage of a narrow family circle. The enduring relevance of borderline life situations experienced by ancestors persists within the descendants of the family, thereby ensuring their transmission from one generation to the next.

Art · Family history · Genealogy · Literature · Narrative · Folklore, Mythology, and Literature Studies · History · Medicine · Soviet and Russian History