“Father, Son and Holy Torum”
Film by Mark Soosaar
Essay by Elo Liiv

In this world of stars…

…in this seven layered world…

…I turn to you from

here under the sacred tree…[1]

Siberia is a huge country, home of plenty of small nation groups, whom we can divide throw language, ethnicity, lifestyle, traditions, belief system or place of living. The relationship between a people and a language is quite straight-forward in Siberia particular: the fundamental characteristic of a people is its own language. In other words, linguistic criteria are decisive in determining ethnic boundaries, while cultural, political and religious factors play only a secondary role. For instance, the Khanty, Selkup and Ket cultures are in broad terms fairly similar, to the extent that before M.A.Castrén´s expedition they were regarded as a single people called the Ostyaks, despite the extreme linguistic differences between Khanty, Selkup and Ket. On the lower course of the Ob river, the basics of reindeer husbandry and many other features of material culture are shared by the Northern Khanty and the Tundra Nenets, but there as well, the language and its reflections in the original spiritual culture define the sense of ethnic affinity (T.Salminen 2002, 7)