Mansi Hypothesis

[Charles]

Hello,

Reading about the DPI, I was first surprised with the easy rejection of the Mansi hypothesis: "the Mansi are known to be peaceful people" was given as an argument. This affirmation is not serious, there is no such thing as a "peaceful people" on Earth, and there was never, ever. All people are violent and warlike if they feel the need and have the ability to kill.

Why would the Mansi kill the Dyatlov group ? What could trigger such a violent action ? If the Mansi did it, it was not to steal the Russians's equipment, not to punish them for trespassing on hunting grounds, not for stealing any goods, not even for trespassing on sacred territory. There is one motive which I have never heard of and it is to prevent the Russian for reporting an illegal activity, such a serious one that it would cause a severe punishment from the Soviet authorities. The hypothesis I submit to you is the following : the Mansi attacked the Russians to prevent them from discovering and reporting an illegal activity.

What illegal Mansi activity could happen on that mountain in the winter of 1959 ? There is only one that could justify a covered up by the Soviet authorities : human sacrifice.

Because there is such a deep reluctance to accept this reality, such a shame, despite of hundreds and thousands of human sacrifices still perpetrated in 2022 all around the globe (in Africa, India, Oceania, Asia, Latin America...). See for example : https://www.nrc.no/perspectives/2016/where-dead-childrens-bodies-are-big-business/ Child sacrifice was recently a UNICEF cause. And you can also see Gentle Cannibals, a documentary from Oxford Humanities dealing about the same issue. Or read the book Gods and Vampires written by the anthropologist Nathan Wachtel. In India, villagers killed a little girl a few years ago and offered her liver to the goddess in the hope to win the jackpot at the national lottery... In India, a country which sends rockets into space but also where in the remote countryside, villagers sacrifice human beings to the gods. In all countries where it still happens, human sacrifice is legally banned and punished, but people secretly perpetuate the tradition. And in some cases, the ban is respected but the tradition re-emerges due to circumstances, even after decades.

So, if the Mansi performed a human sacrifice at the place called don't go there (which, in terms of any traditional religious culture, always means we make it there) and believed that the Russian students were rushing right into the spot, they would have done anything to prevent the discovery of their crime.

They could have attacked the Russians at night, just forced them to leave the tent under the threat of rifles, fired some shots in the air to frighten them and just made sure the tent was ruined: there is no need of more to kill somebody in that cold... just make them run in the night, wait a few minutes... and flee the place on your skis.

What about the Soviet authorities ? They investigate honestly until they find the motive: the cover up of a human sacrifice, and then, they close the file, they cover up the cover up, because it would be unthinkable, an absolute shame, that such a thing ever happened in the very rationalist, very advanced Soviet Union.

The "mystery", the unthinkable, is very often a shame which so great, that our minds refuse to consider the possibility of its reality. Extreme violence, human sacrifice, mass murder, incest, are such realities... these are shameful realities not only for the authors but also for the others, and even much more for the others. And very precisely, the one who is the most ashamed, is neither the author, neither a complete stranger, but a relative: a parent, a fellow citizen... this one is the most interested into hiding this type of crime, into the cover up. As for the death of Michael Clark Rockefeller in 1961, everybody was interested not to find its cause... Even the most serious archeologists prefer to hide the ugly truth, when denial is not possible, as in the following case :

"So far, the team has excavated over 150 skulls. (The researchers chose not display the skulls because the sacrificed people may have historic ties to people of today's indigenous cultures.)" https://www.livescience.com/26611-ancient-human-sacrifice-site-discovered-in-mexico.html

So, if the Mansi killed the Russian students, it could have been for a motive which was also a motive for the Soviet Authorities to cover up the murder. And such a motive is conceivable... That was just to answer "the Mansi are peaceful people".

That's all, greetings

PS: My personal conviction goes to the avalanche hypothesis, the most probable according to me. (Edit: goes to mass murder, of school-shooting type, either from the inside or from district 41 origin)

[Manti]

I think this hypothesis is viable and needs to be explored more. For example, are there other records of human sacrifice among the Siberian indigenous cultures?


(By the way my name is just a Finnish name, not related to "mansi")

[Charles]

Thank you for your answer.

For example, are there other records of human sacrifice among the Siberian indigenous cultures?

I don't know. Old records, I am quite sure. But recent records, it's more difficult as the more a society is rationalist, the more it is reluctant to hear about human sacrifice. For example, there was a lake recently discovered in Nepal, filled with dozens of frozen bodies, offerings to the goddess of the Pass made by the caravans. They don't want to dig and reach a clear and serious anthropological statement, they pretend it is still "mysterious"... https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-11357-9 They have hundreds of bodies but they absolutely refuse to record them as human sacrifice. There is a psoitive effort not to see the reality.

But the point is that as long as a religious tradition is alive, it regenerates its core. When a religion dies, we can observe a surge of ritual activity : more sacrifices because the rite loses its efficiency. And when a religion is repressed, we observe underground persistency, with resurgence after decades of no visibility. In the Roman Empire, human sacrifice was legally banned and punished, but when Barbarians reached the doorstep of Rome, the authorities performed a human sacrifice, of a man and a woman, to calm down the stressed Roman people...

In Siberia, they used to sacrifice bears, horses, elks, big animals, close substitutes to humans. In Spain, they sacrifice bulls but when a torero dies, it is a part of the rite. Religiously speaking, a successful festival implies the death of a participant, or at least a good splash of human blood.The same principles apply everywhere. When the Mansi sacrifice an elk, it is not for a single person, it's for a group, for a community, and an elk is quite close to a person as a victim. And as long as they solve their problems with the ritual killing of a scapegoat, they can shift back to human victims. Especially if the Soviet banned the bear sacrifice who was a much closer substitute to human victims than the elk, a bear being much more a person. They can't have bear victims anymore, but the elk victims do not produce such good effects, so they try humans, they return to the very source, to the origin... If the rite loses effectiveness, they need to make the rite more bloody, more violent... to restaure his efficiency, to make it meaningful again. The Soviets banned the bear sacrifice, but what was the bear a substitute of ? What was Michka impersonating ?

For me, it is not impossible that there was a resurgence of human sacrifice (if it ever completely disappeared) in Siberia in 1959. I don't say it happened, I just say it is not impossible.

And as I said, if the Mansi only killed the hikers to protect their common smuggling activities or whatever, it is not a big issue, it is simple criminal law, but if there is a pure archaic human sacrifice behind the scene, in the USSR at the age of atomic energy and two years after the launch of Sputnik (1957)... It becomes impossible... Triumphant modernity cannot have hunter-gatherer rites in its backyard... They clean and close the file...

[Charles]

For example, are there other records of human sacrifice among the Siberian indigenous cultures?

This is a record, for 9 victims:

Kholat Syakhl is called by Mansi "Mountain of the Dead" because legend goes nine Mansi hunters died mysteriously there. Others say they disappeared altogether.
Mount Otorten is called "Don't Go There" because these mountains, especially the "gates" between them are considered sacred and dangerous since ancient times.

And it makes Kholat Syakhl itself a sacred mountain.

[Charles]

are there other records of human sacrifice among the Siberian indigenous cultures?

And also "Purlakhtym-Sori - Mansi Пурлахтым-Сори means “Pass for Sacrifices”."

[Manti]

"Sori" might indeed mean pass (basing this on the distant linguistic relation between Finnish and Mansi).

But "Purlakhtym"? What is the source for this?

[Charles]

name
Purlakhtym-Sori
description
Mansi Пурлахтым-Сори means “Pass for Sacrifices”.

First map on the page : https://dyatlovpass.com/maps

Mansi also had "sacred lakes" were the used to drown victims. All sacred lake are filled with victims, whatever the culture and continent.

[Manti]

Now that I was thinking about all this, I remembered that one of the Mansi allegedly made a joke about "sacrificing a Russian baby", but nobody laughed. And also I have read in the interview with the modern Mansi rapper, that he had been told by his grandfather that at the bear ceremony, he has to dance on the dead bear.... Hmm, and we have victims with broken ribcages.....

[Charles]

Now that I was thinking about all this, I remembered that one of the Mansi allegedly made a joke about "sacrificing a Russian baby", but nobody laughed.

Yes, child sacrifice is the most common, whatever the culture, with special interest for orphans and disabled children.

And also I have read in the interview with the modern Mansi rapper, that he had been told by his grandfather that at the bear ceremony, he has to dance on the dead bear.... Hmm, and we have victims with broken ribcages.....

Interesting, but nine human victims for a one sacrifice implies a very big community attending the ceremony. It is more plausible to consider a forbidden rite with one victim and the Mansi in panic when understanding the hikers were heading straight into the sacrificial ground. It is useless to kill a victim if ritual conditions are not gathered: there is always a set of rigorous prescriptions to follow for the sacrifice to be successful. For example, does Mansi rite asked for the victim to be a exposed during a specified time... Was there in the surroundings the equivalent of the shrine found close to the tent :



but with a human victim under a branch shelter ?Someting like that :



 In that case, the Mansi send a man with a sledge-deer to clean the scene before the arrival of the Russian. "Up to now we are following a Mansi trail on which not so long passed a hunter with deer.", "Yesterday it seems we stumbled upon his resting stop.Deer didn't go any further. The hunter took the beaten trail by himself, we are following in his steps."... dated January 31, they were already deep in the Taïga... And these sentences are very strange: "Deer didn't go any further. The hunter took the beaten trail by himself"... Did the Mansi killed his reindeer of exhaustion ? And then left the carcass behind ? Rushing now on his skis ? Why such a hurry ?