PREFACE . . 9 
INTRODUCTION BY THE EDITOR . . 13
BASIC PRINCIPLES OF THE ENCYCLOPAEDIA . . 15 


THE SELKUP PEOPLE . . 19 
Dialects of the Selkup Language . . 19 
The Southern (Narym) Selkups . . 20 
The Northern (Taz-Turukhan) Selkups . . 27 

THE LITERATURE AND THE SOURCES OF SELKUP MYTHOLOGY AND FOLKLORE . . 38 
The History of Collection and Research . . 38 
  The History of the Study of Southern Selkup Folklore . . 38 
  The History of the Collection of Northern Selkup Folklore and Mythology . . 43 
  The Foreign Publication of Selkup Folklore Material . . 48 
The Genre Classification of Selkup Texts . . 50 

THE TRADITIONAL WORLD-VIEW AND RELIGIOUS AND MYTHOLOGICAL NOTIONS . . 54 
The Southern Selkups . . 54 
  Cosmogonic Myths . . 54 
  Myths about the Creation of the World . . 55 
  Anthropogenic and Ethnogonic Myths . . 56 
  The Structure of the Universe . . 58 
  Notions of the Soul . . 62 
  Shamanism . . 65 
The Northern Selkups . . 68 
  Myths about the Origin of the World . . 69 
  Anthropogenic Myths . . 72 
  Ethnogonic Myths . . 73 
  Mythological Notions about Animals . . 74 
  Myths about the Origin of Vegetation and Geographical Objects . . 77 
  The Modern Attitude of the Selkups to the Traditional Beliefs . . 78 


ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF SELKUP MYTHOLOGY A-Z . . 83 

APPENDIX 1 
Southern Selkup Texts . . 269 
Northern Selkup Texts . . 272 

APPENDIX 2 
The Archive of L. A. Varkovitskaya . . 277 

ABBREVIATIONS . . 281 
REFERENCES . . 283 
INDEX . . 293 
Selkup-English Glossary and Index . . 293 
English-Selkup Glossary and Index . . 306 
Siberian Dialect and Other Russian Terms . . 320