Hello, I'm Eleanor Peers, Arctic Information
Specialist at the Scott Polar Research
Institute library in Cambridge.
This video is part of the Museum
Remix: Unheard
project. This
is a Syadei, made by a member of the Nenets
People.
Who are a reindeer herding indigenous
community in North Siberia.
It's about that long,
and it's in good condition. This is a
small Syadei
Others were large statues in the
landscape.
A Syadei might be described as a material
version
of a God, Spirit guardian or Ancestor.
Some people have said that Syadei were sent
by sacred powers,
The Khekhe, to accept sacrifices from people.
It's difficult to describe Syadei exactly
because they are part of a very
different way of seeing the world,
which we in Europe generally don't
understand.
We do know that Syadei, for Nenets  people were
and
are alive. They see,
feel, communicate and act.
It's important to treat them with
respect by feeding them with reindeer
blood, for instance,
and dressing them in clothes.
They are part of the way Nenets
people communicate with their landscape,
reindeer game and ancestors.
They can help a family to flourish, for
example by preventing disease,
but if they are treated badly they can
also cause problems.
This Syadei was brought to the UK from
the Island of Vaygach
off Russia's north coast by the explorer
Frederick
George Jackson in 1894.
His wife gave it to the Polar museum
after Jackson's death.
Vaygach is a sacred island for the Nenets
before the 19th century it contained
large complexes of Syadei,
which were sites of pilgrimage. But by
the time Jackson visited Vaygach
the large city had been destroyed by
Russian Orthodox
missionaries. Nenets people continued their
relationships with Syadei
but surreptitiously. Weaving their old
ways
into the christian practices brought by
the Russian missionaries.
They would carry Syadei with them as they
travelled.
They also left Syadei at unobtrusive holy
places in the landscape,
or exchanged them for other Syadei left
at these places.
The Nenets family with whom Jackson
travelled had both
christian crosses, and Syadei.
It's possible that the Syadei belonged to
this family.
Another possibility is that Jackson
picked this Syadei up from a holy place.
This Syadei could also be a Ngytarma Syadei
i.e a member of the family that was
recently deceased.
It is significant that the Syadei is
undressed.
A household Syadei, or Ngytarma Syadei
would normally be carefully clothed and
fed
as a member of the family.
Jackson's writing gives us reason to
hope that he paid, in some way, for the
Syadei
if he took it from his hosts.
But at the end of the day we don't know.
Jackson barely knew any Russian or
Nenets,
and very unfortunately his interpreter
had been left behind
by accident.
There are likely to have been many
misunderstandings,
although he parted with his hosts on
good terms,
according to his account. I've chosen
this object
because it evokes so many unheard voices.
For instance, there are the voices of
Jackson's Nenet's hosts.
Could they have given the Syadei to him
willingly?
Perhaps because they had taken its
clothes which held a great deal of its
sanctity.
Or did they give it to him because they
knew they shouldn't be seen to value
Syadei?
There are unheard voices in the sacred
island itself.
Silenced with unprecedented violence by
the atheist soviet administration of the
20th century.
First, they destroyed the christian
chapels and Syadei that remained on
Vaygach,
and then they built a forced labour camp,
zinc mines,
and still later introduced intensive
reindeer farming, and hunting.
All of which caused a great deal of
environmental damage.
And finally, there's the unheard voice of
this Syadei.
Who is he or she? And what might he
or she say? There are many things to
think about.
For example, if this is a person,
or a holy power, how should he or
she be treated?
Can we really display him or her in a
museum case,
unclothed?
And more generally how can we allow
sacred landscapes and their inhabitants
to speak?
But what you do, as a response, is
entirely up to you.
 
