A ''serge'' (; ) is a hitching post, property marker, and

ritual A ritual is a repeated, structured sequence of actions or behaviors that alters the internal or external state of an individual, group, or environment, regardless of conscious understanding, emotional context, or symbolic meaning. Traditionally ...

pole used among the

Buryats The Buryats 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 Yakuts. The majority of the Buryats today live in their ti ...

and

Yakuts The Yakuts or Sakha (, ; , ) are a Turkic ethnic group native to North Siberia, primarily the Republic of Sakha in the Russian Federation. They also inhabit some districts of the Krasnoyarsk Krai. They speak Yakut, which belongs to the Si ...

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 A yurt (from the Turkic languages) or ger (Mongolian language, Mongolian) is a portable, round tent covered and Thermal insulation, insulated with Hide (skin), skins or felt and traditionally used as a dwelling by several distinct Nomad, nomad ...

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 tree A birch is a thin-leaved deciduous hardwood tree of the genus ''Betula'' (), in the family Betulaceae, which also includes alders, hazels, and hornbeams. It is closely related to the beech-oak family Fagaceae. The genus ''Betula'' contains 30 to ...

s (generally dug up by the roots) were used at the initiation of the

shaman Shamanism is a spiritual practice that involves a practitioner (shaman) interacting with the spirit world through altered states of consciousness, such as trance. The goal of this is usually to direct spirits or spiritual energies into ...

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

black Black is a color that results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without chroma, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness.Eva Heller, ''P ...

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 t ...

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 stone Deer stones (), sometimes called the Deer stone-khirigsuur complex (DSKC), in reference to neighbouring khirigsuur tombs, are ancient megaliths carved with symbols found mainly in Mongolia and, to a lesser extent, in the adjacent areas in Siber ...

s). The most famous of these stones is the ("golden pole") located in the

Tamchinsky datsan The Tamchinsky datsan (, ''Tamchyn Dasan''), also called the Tamchinskii datsan or Gusinoozyorsk Datsan, is a Tibetan Buddhism, Buddhist monastery founded in the mid-18th century in the village of Gusinoye Ozero (rural locality), Gusinoye Ozero, l ...

, 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