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The experts or uligershins were the carriers and keepers of the ancient epical traditions. They enjoyed a great honor and esteem of the people. It is evidenced by the following proverb: “The uligershin is to be seated on a pillow-olbok whereas the singer on a hill” or “The uligershin is treated to the dry milkskin and sour milk or yogurt, he is seated on a carpet or a pillow”.
At the time when the epical tradition was of demand almost all the people, at any rate many of them knew the uligers. Found out even now by way of interrogation, inquiry, poll of the people of the elder generation are the names of many storytellers who performed the uligers as early as the 30-es. Not every expert at uligers could have become a good uligershin.
Only the best according to skills and memory, only those possessing the proper gift could have made good uligershins. A storyteller was to possess irreproachable memory in order to tell the lengthy epopees consisting of thousands of verses without any omissions, distortions and any other kind of misrepresentation. The uliger was not to be shortened or somewhat remade. The performance was to be estimated by the listeners who knew the contents of the uligers quite well.
The performer was to possess a sonorous, resonant, ringing and rich voice, have a good ear for music, possess the gift of fluent speech, otherwise of eloquence, and foremost he was to be able of getting inspired for he “was sort of the inspired poet”. The storyteller as if got reincarnated or transformed into the hero, self-forgetfully; (с воодушевлением) with self-forgetful inspiration; enthusiastically giving himself up to singing, with the voice, peculiar intonation, gesture or playing the musical instrument – the khur he tried to convey the peculiarities of the events taking place in the epic.
It is only in the presence of the listeners and “in a certain exciting and stimulant environment” that a proper state of mind and emotions comes to the uligershin, as writes Th. Jamtsarano. Thus, a good uligershin was an actor, musician and poet in one person. Such requirements were conditioned by the life itself and were accounted for the syncretical nature of the ancient art. And therefore it is not surprising that “with a good rhapsode the listeners either cry in the significant tragical fragments or express a true joy when the truth triumphs all of a sudden”.
The Buryat storytellers were not professionals. Fond of telling uligers were quite often plain workers, poor peasants by birth who worked as farm laborers when they were young.
The storytellers perceived and grasped, just took them in since childhood, mainly in the family environment. The parents or grandfathers and grandmothers of most of them were storytellers. Besides the family the source for the repertoire might be the folklore experts from one’s own or neighboring ulus or settlement.
Thus uligershin P. Petrov in his childhood heard the folklore pieces from his father as well as from a storyteller coming from a neighboring village, Tabaran Dorjiev by name.
In due course the repertoire of the storyteller perceived and acquired along the relatives’ line got in fact widened and expanded. Most often that occurred in the localities where got together the people from the various districts.
In the opinion of the epic experts the poetics of the “Geser” epic is quite complex, the verbal text is rich in metaphors, hyperbole, antithesis and the other artistic and pictorial means. The storytellers themselves had a good sense of the rhythm and metre, made proper use of the various techniques of acceleration and slowing down of the rhythm. They were good at varying the assonance and accord and made use of the alliterations, internal and external rhymes. The storytellers frequently made use of such a technique as parallelism, both psychological and syntactical.
The epithet is noted for its freshness and novelty, although traced was as is typical for any epic a certain frequency of some preferred definitions: the black and the yellow color are as a rule of negative nature whereas the yellow color of certain objects such as the handle of a sword, the tassel of a hat or head dress is taken to be positive. The positive colors are always the white, red and silver colors.
The uliger performance was taken to be quite a complicated deed and pursues not only entertaining purposes. As a rule it was timed to some social event. Ts. Zhamtsarano noted: “The uliger is recited (sung) with the aim of achieving the various benefits, for example, recovery and healing of the sick, recovery of the sight of the blind, success in field and trade, in hunting and catching fish, etc.: the uliger helps succeed in battles”.
The production and ritual significance of reciting the epic has been of great importance for a long period of time. Reciting of the epic in the past days was an indispensable constituent element in the everyday life of an ancient collective. Thus the concrete purpose of the uliger finds its reflection in the ritual of hunter’s preparation of the taiga hunters who were to enter the world of the forest beasts. “On arrival at the hunting place the Buryats performed certain rites with the aim of pleasing the spirits of the beasts and forests responsible for the result of hunting”.
Then in the evening before going to bed the singer spread in the hut or shelter of branches a piece of white felt, on it he put the burnt branches of juniper , a cup full of hard liquor or milk, stuck an arrow into it and in a long-drawn style recited the epopee for the whole night up to the first flashes of the morning dawn; without this ceremony the hunting could not be successful as the Buryats believed.
That was how the uligershins understood the essence and the meaning of their storytelling activity. The uligershins were M. Imegenov,Ye. Shalbykov, L. Bardakhanov with whom Ts. Zhamtsarano worked for a long time at the beginning of the XXth century. He noted that to perform an epic one needs a proper or relevant audience who know the contents of the epical poems and are aware of the nuances of the storytelling art.
However the esthetical characteristics of performing the epic became all the more tangible and perceptible and began to predominate in the reciting process. In the old ages, at the time of active epical activity the uligers were performed either at the definite time or in the certain circumstances. Thus, storyteller P. Petrov did not perform the uligers in summer time (after the winter cold, to be more exact) and at day-time. Usually the uliger was performed in the autumn and winter evening among the fellow-villagers.
The listeners perceived the uligers as the reminiscences of the historical past of the people. The perception of the uliger is marked with the deep and earnest essence, its impact was “purifying” and affected the spiritual mentality of the listeners. Along with it one should take into account the artistic and creative affect that was caused by performing the uliger.
