Pon
Yukaghir · deity · Yukaghir traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
Pon, glossed by Jochelson as roughly 'something' or 'the Owner', is the supreme being of Yukaghir cosmology. Unlike anthropomorphic high gods of neighbouring Siberian peoples, Pon is a diffuse, almost impersonal power seated on the firmament who owns the world and to whom people appeal in time of hunger or sickness. Pon presides over, but is conceptually distinct from, the more vividly characterized master-spirits (pogil) of the earthly middle world.
Domains
- supreme being
- sky firmament
Powers
- to own and oversee the whole world from the firmament
- to relieve hunger and sickness for those who appeal upward
Epithets
- PoméWaldemar Jochelson, The Yukaghir and the Yukaghirized Tungus, Memoirs of the AMNH XIII (1926) (secondary)
Sources
- Pon (also Pomé, 'the Owner') is the diffuse, impersonal supreme being of the Yukaghir, dwelling on the firmament and standing above the master-spirits of nature.: Waldemar Jochelson, The Yukaghir and the Yukaghirized Tungus, Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural History XIII (1926) (secondary); Thomas Ross Miller, 'Reading the Ethnographic Past in the Present: Waldemar Jochelson and The Yukaghir', in E. Kasten (ed.), Jochelson, Bogoras and Shternberg (Kulturstiftung Sibirien, 2019) (secondary)