{"id":"IGNATIEVA2012-001","label":"Vadul nyanmen chadyunel, weather-conjuring blade","people_or_site":"Vadul (Tundra Yukaghir), Lower Kolyma","country_current":"Russia","historic_region":"Lower Kolyma tundra, Nizhnekolymsky district, Sakha (Yakutia)","macroregion":"Siberia / Arctic Siberia","local_name":"nyanmen chadyunel (нянмэн чадюнел)","source_term":"вращаемая деревянная пластина или щепка","source_language":"Russian","object_description":"A long wooden plate or splinter with a hole at one end for a cord; whirled, it gives a low hum.","function_summary":"Used by shamans to conjure the weather, as among the Chuvans, according to Lower Kolyma tradition-bearers; such sounding tools later survived as children's toys with protective power.","attestation_type":"ethnographic_attestation","source_key":"ignatieva2012_yukaghir_phonoinstruments","source_type":"scholarly_article","source_url":"https://folkcentr.ru/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/1-192.pdf","page_or_plate":"p. 83; field-material key pp. 88-89","map_confidence":"high","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Andryushkino (Getty TGN 8749233), one of the three Lower Kolyma field communities of PM 72; not a recorded place of use.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"On the Kolyma tundra, Vadul shamans worked on the weather with a low wooden drone. The nyanmen chadyunel was a long plate or splinter of wood with a hole at one end for a cord; whirled, it gave a deep hum, and with it the shamans conjured the weather, as the shamans of the Chuvans did on the Anadyr. The Vadul, the Tundra Yukaghir of the lower Kolyma, were hunters and fishers on foot, and they kept a smaller whirler as well, the mumdei, a little plate threaded through holes at its centre. Over the twentieth century such sounding tools lost their magic and passed to children, but even as toys they kept the power of a charm.","pull_quote":"с их помощью шаманы, так же как и у чуванцев, «ворожили погоду»","pull_quote_translation":"with them shamans, as among the Chuvans, \"conjured the weather\"","pull_quote_cite":"T. I. Ignatieva, Traditsionnaya kul'tura 1(45) (2012), p. 83","term_gloss":"nyanmen chadyunel: the long whirled weather blade of the Vadul. mumdei: a centre-pierced spinning buzzer, a different instrument.","cls":"weather","class_label":"Weather / fertility magic","color":"#2F6FA3","is_candidate":false,"flags":["weather"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"sources":[{"citation":"T. I. Ignatieva, 'K voprosu o bytovanii fonoinstrumentov u yukagirov', Traditsionnaya kul'tura 1(45) (2012), pp. 81-89, at p. 83","url":"https://folkcentr.ru/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/1-192.pdf"}],"source_citations":"T. I. Ignatieva, 'K voprosu o bytovanii fonoinstrumentov u yukagirov', Traditsionnaya kul'tura 1(45) (2012), pp. 81-89, at p. 83","source_display":"T. I. Ignatieva, 'K voprosu o bytovanii fonoinstrumentov u yukagirov', Traditsionnaya kul'tura 1(45) (2012), pp. 81-89, at p. 83","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"A long wooden plate or splinter with a hole at one end for a cord; whirled, it gives a low hum.","function_display":"Used by shamans to conjure the weather, as among the Chuvans, according to Lower Kolyma tradition-bearers; such sounding tools later survived as children's toys with protective power.","confidence_display":"high","attestation_label":"ethnographic attestation","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"vadul","display_name":"Vadul nyanmen chadyunel, weather-conjuring blade","image":{"full":"assets/objects/RUSIN-002_mqb_71_1911_20_42_rig.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/RUSIN-002_mqb_71_1911_20_42_rig_thumb.jpg","alt":"Chukchi rig with serrated blade, sinew thread, and wooden handle.","credit":"© Musée du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac, 71.1911.20.42.1-2 (coll. Nikolai Gondatti, entered 1911)","license":"N/A","source_page":"https://www.quaibranly.fr/en/explore-collections/base/Work/action/show/notice/334184","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"Chukchi rig with serrated blade, sinew thread, and wooden handle","pool_id":"auto-RUSIN-002_mqb_71_1911_20_42_rig","last_modified":"2026-10-20"},"slug":"ignatieva2012-001-vadul-tundra-yukaghir-lower-kolyma"}