A ''serge'' ( bua, сэргэ; ) is a hitching post,

property mark A house mark was originally a mark of property, later also used as a family or clan emblem, incised on the facade of a building, on animals, in signet and similar in the farmer and burgher culture of Germany and Scandinavia. These marks hav ...

er, and

ritual A ritual is a sequence of activities involving gestures, words, actions, or objects, performed according to a set sequence. Rituals may be prescribed by the traditions of a community, including a religious community. Rituals are characterized, b ...

pole used among the

Buryats The Buryats ( bua, Буряад, Buryaad; mn, Буриад, Buriad) are a Mongolic ethnic group native to southeastern Siberia who speak the Buryat language. They are one of the two largest indigenous groups in Siberia, the other being the Ya ...

and

Yakuts The Yakuts, or the Sakha ( sah, саха, ; , ), are a Turkic ethnic group who mainly live in the Republic of Sakha in the Russian Federation, with some extending to the Amur, Magadan, Sakhalin regions, and the Taymyr and Evenk Districts ...

Property marker

The is placed to indicate that the place in question has an owner. For example, a stands as a pole at the entrance to a yurt or at the gate of a house to indicate that as long as the is there, the family will live there. Traditionally, a cannot be destroyed, but can only decay.

Religious use

The is connected to the

horse cult Horse worship is a spiritual practice with archaeological evidence of its existence during the Iron Age and, in some places, as far back as the Bronze Age. The horse was seen as divine, as a sacred animal associated with a particular deity, or as ...

, as both the hosts and the guests tied their horses to it. It is also a symbol of the world tree that unites the three worlds: Three horizontal grooves are cut on the pole, the upper one intended to bind the horses of the heavenly inhabitants of the upper world, the middle one intended for the horses of men, and the lower one for the horses of the underworld. Three s made from birch trees (generally dug up by the roots) were used at the initiation of the

shaman Shamanism is a religious practice that involves a practitioner (shaman) interacting with what they believe to be a Spirit world (Spiritualism), spirit world through Altered state of consciousness, altered states of consciousness, such as tranc ...

. One has ribbons tied to it, the colors of the ribbons indicating whether the shaman is to be a

black Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white ha ...

yellow Yellow is the color between green and orange on the spectrum of light. It is evoked by light with a dominant wavelength of roughly 575585 nm. It is a primary color in subtractive color systems, used in painting or color printing. In ...

shaman, or serve both good and evil. Another has a bell attached to it and a horse, as a sacrifice. A third is to be climbed by the new shaman. For black shamans, this rite is called ; for yellow shamans, (or , "golden hitch"). At the cemeteries of the shamans very high s were placed for the unification of gods and spirits. s in the form of stone obelisks were also placed on these cemeteries ( deer stones). The most famous of these stones is the ("golden pole") located in the Tamchinsky datsan, in the Buryat village Gusinoye Ozero.

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References

{{Sister bar, auto=yes, wikt=сэргэ Buryat culture Yakut culture Wooden sculptures Types of monuments and memorials

Property marker

Religious use

Gallery

See also

References