Birds, Stars, Insects and Gods
Religious Fables, Folklore, Legends, and Stories
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Submitted by: Yuri Klitsenko

In Evenk shaman’s tent the space on the river between shaman’s island and the underworld was a prohibited zone.

There was a site, covered with grass, where large horned animals and Mammoth among them wandered. Further away tothe West there were lands of dead ancestors.

Mammoth described by Russian Avantgard Cubo-Futurist poet Velimir Khlebnikov in "The little devil" is close to Evenk shaman's tradition.

A futurist play called "Zangezi: A Supersaga in Twenty Planes" by Velimir Khlebnikov a sort of ecstatic drama written partly in invented languages of gods and birds.

The hero of the play is a man who attempts to explain the language of birds, stars, insects and gods to a gathered mass. He manages to do this by using the language of zaum.

One of the most striking uses of ZAUM appears in Khlebnikov’s science fantasy play "Zangezi: A Supersaga in Twenty Planes" (1922), staged by the constructivist artist Vladimir Tatlin in 1923. Khlebnikov’s superhero, Zangezi-the speach maker, is a human interpreter of birds, insects, Gods, and stars - and he attempts to explain transrational language to the gathered masses. Before the eternal figure Zangezi, the birds and gods appear, speaking in ZAUM language:

Mara-roma Beebah-bool Oook, kooks, ell! Rededeedee dee-dee-dee! Peeree, pepee,pa-papee! Chogi goona,geni-gan Ahl, Ell, Eeell! Ek, ak, oook! Gamch, gemch, ee-o! rr-pee! rrr-pee!

Yuri Klitsenko is a Russian living in Moscow.  He works for the Russian Orthodox Church.

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