Vadul nyanmen chadyunel, weather-conjuring blade

nyanmen chadyunel (нянмэн чадюнел)

Source term: вращаемая деревянная пластина или щепка

nyanmen chadyunel: the long whirled weather blade of the Vadul. mumdei: a centre-pierced spinning buzzer, a different instrument.

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.

с их помощью шаманы, так же как и у чуванцев, «ворожили погоду»

with them shamans, as among the Chuvans, "conjured the weather"

T. I. Ignatieva, Traditsionnaya kul'tura 1(45) (2012), p. 83

Particulars

Object

A long wooden plate or splinter with a hole at one end for a cord; whirled, it gives a low hum.

Function

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.