Abstract
The article is devoted to the study of Kazakh shamanism baksylyk, which has very distinctive national features. Baksylyk as a syncretic phenomenon is of great interest not only in domestic ethnography, religious studies and folklore studies, but also in cultural studies, history, philology, art studies. The attention of musicologists to this problem is due to the role of the musical and poetic genre of baksy’s singing (saryn) and the ancient 2-stringed bowed musical instrument kobyz (kylkobyz) in the shamanic’s ritual (baksy ojyny). Based on the available scientific data in the field of Kazakh folklore, ethnography and ethnomusicology, the issues of further study of Kazakh shamanism, ritual and magical folklore, saryns of baksy and Kobyz in historical and cultural perspective are actualized. Conclusions are drawn that: 1) the shaman in his syncretic activity and ritual demonstrates the functional unity of healing (medicine), magic (religion), poetry and music; 2) despite the parallel line of evolution (transformation) of the shaman-baksy type in the Kazakh culture, baksylyk as a public institution existed until the beginning of the twentieth century; 3) the latter, along with other factors of traditional culture, testifies to the “spatial-chronological continuity” (S. Akataev) and the cyclical type of development of nomadism as a system that reproduces the foundations of its material and spiritual culture throughout history; 4) baksy's musical and poetic work is on the borderline of folklore and oral professionalism. This is important for musicology and for philology, history and cultural anthropology, because it allows us to identify some significant differences between Kazakh shamanism in comparison with elements of shamanism in other related Turkic-Mongolian cultures.