Turkomstaris-Sredazkomstaris-Uzkomstaris: the Forming of Institutions and Ethnocentric Division of the Cultural Heritage of Central Asia

Abstract

The article examines the practice of feeding ancestors and spirits that is encountered among the Asiatic Yupik. The most organized and ritualized way of feeding can be seen in the commemoration of the dead. The author describes in detail the contemporary commemoration ritual of the Asiatic Yupik; he shows its variations as well as individual traits of the present social and ritual context, in which the commemoration ritual is performed.