Traditional kalmyk women’s costume in the system of folk art

• Published in: Nomadic Civilization: Historical Research 2021-12, Vol.1 (4), p.106-117
• Main Authors: Batyreva, K.P., Bembeev, E.V.
• Format: Article
• Language: eng ; rus
• Subjects: ethnography; kalmyks; myth; terlg; traditional costume; tsegdg
• ISSN: 2782-3377; 2782-3377
• DOI: 10.53315/2782-3377-2021-14-30-40-106-117

The article is devoted to understanding the role and place of folk costume in the system of traditional art of the Kalmyk people. The relevance of this study is due, first of all, to the need to analyze the functional nature of women’s national costume, the decorative value of folk clothing. The Kalmyk costume, being an extremely multifaceted phenomenon, is distinguished by its shape, cut, quantity of details, color, embroidery, ornamentation, etc. The costume is considered as a marker of the class and gender status of a person, its social and aesthetic functions are revealed. Of particular interest is the inseparable version of the complete everyday-festive women’s vestments, namely, the two-piece basis of clothing, designated by the authors as a pair of “terlg-tsegdg”. Analogs of the Kalmyk sleeveless jacket tsegdg, the upper dress for women, are such types of dress among the Buryats as the khubaysi and uuzh (the latter is also available among the Mongols), chegedeks — among the Altai, and segedeks — among the Khakass. The authors suggest that some difference in the name of a single type of clothing is based on the well-known custom of tabooing the name among the listed peoples, associated with the prohibition of pronouncing the name of the ancestor totem. It is concluded that the inseparability of clothing is explained by the image of the progenitor bird in Kalmyk folklore.