The World of the Khanty Epic Hero-Princes
An Exploration of a Siberian Oral Tradition

This book deeply analyses the little-known tradition of oral heroic epic poetry of the Khanty, an indigenous people of Siberia.

Arthur Hatto (Author)

9781107103214, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 2 February 2017

294 pages, 8 b/w illus. 2 maps
22.8 x 15.2 x 1.6 cm, 0.53 kg

'Hatto's world-view as a deeply immersed comparative folklorist offers valuable reminders of the richness of ethnopoetics as a way to conceptualize past worlds of beauty, terror, and creativity.' Marjorie Mandelstam Balzer, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute

In his final book, the late Arthur Hatto analyses the Khanty epic tradition in Siberia on the basis of eighteen texts of Khanty oral heroic epic poems recorded and edited by a succession of Hungarian and Russian scholars in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The book examines the world view of an indigenous culture as reconstructed from its own words, demonstrates a flexible outline for organising an analytical dossier of the genre of oral heroic epic poetry in a specific culture, and presents an abundance of new information to compare with better-known heroic epics. Consisting of main sections on The Cosmos, Time, The Seasons, Geography, Spirits, Personae, Warfare, Armour and Weapons, and Men's Handiwork, the book also includes a section of background information on the Khanty people. Marianne Bakró-Nagy contributes specialist knowledge of the Khanty language to the linguistic interpretation of the texts, and there is an afterword by Daniel Prior.

1. Background: the Khanty
2. The eighteen Khanty heroic epics, their collectors and publishers
3. Introduction
4. The Cosmos
5. Time
6. The Seasons
7. Geography
8. Spirits
9. Personae
10. Warfare
11. Armour and weapons
12. Men's handiwork
13. Afterword: Arthur Hatto, ethnopoetics, and epic moments Daniel Prior.

Subject Areas: General & world history [HBG], Literary studies: general [DSB], Literature & literary studies [D]