Authors

Discussion

The paper explores the role of powerful things called khekheq among nomadic Nenets reindeer herders in the Great Land Tundra near the Ural Mountains (Russia). It asks how the agency of khekheq is conceptualized when people deal with or talk about these sacred objects. By exploring historical contingencies, social relationships, human intentionalities and material affordances, I look at the biographical trajectories of people and objects. On the one hand, the paper discusses life stories of those people who use powerful things for healing, finding reindeer or for other purposes. On the other hand, the focus is on the life trajectories of khekheq – from making, finding or inheriting to giving away, leaving behind or destroying. In an animist ontology, these objects that people keep in their nomadic camps have their own will, personhood and biography, at the same time being also linked to more distant entities (gods, spirits, ancestors) whose personhood encompasses the sacred objects. Therefore, I suggest, the khekheq can be seen as part-persons. Although there are many overlapping and contradicting claims about these powerful things (including about their efficacy, names and shapes they come with), the most significant changes take place when one or another part is gained or lost. My ethnographic focus will be on the biographies of entangled humans and nonhumans in the context of heritagization and missionization, as various kinds of outsiders show interest in the khekheq, whether with an intention to preserve or destroy them.