Sacral Landscape as a Factor of Development of Ethnic Ecological Thinking: A Case Study of the Highland Mari People of the Mari El Republic

Specifics of sacral landscapes (SLs) are discussed with reference to the Mari people in the Republic of Mari El. The SL is a multicomponent system penetrating all elements of the traditional rural ethnic-cultural landscape, from habitation and mansion houses to sacral shrines. SLs are determined to most fully manifest themselves in sacral shrines and traditional land management. SLs are demonstrated to be a key component of the ethnical culture of the highland Mari people and have archaic, traditional, and modern aspects. The paper presents results and analysis of the questionnaire survey of Russian and Mari villages and hamlets in the Gornomariiskii District of the Mari El Republic with the application of nonparametrical mathematical statistics. Data on the attitude of neighboring peoples to nature reveals both similarities and significant differences of the ecological thinking of the Russian and Mari people. Nevertheless, these data convincingly demonstrate that the worldviews of the peoples are closely related to the natural environment and provide sound grounds for the conclusion that SLs are an important factor of the origin, evolution, and stability of ethnical thinking and traditional land management. The latter is, according to the authors, the basis of ethnical ecological thinking. The authors arrive at the conclusion that ecological ethics of the present and future should rely, first and foremost, on rational land management, which is based on historically established and verified traditional land management and on traditional ethnic nature-oriented mentality, whose stability and vitality are maintained by sacral cultural landscapes.

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