The opposition of the Nganasans ritual and non-ritual folklore music styles as a reflection of the ideas of the spatial organisation

The article discusses the interrelations between the musical thinking and spatial benchmarks in the culture of the Nganasans, an aboriginal people of the Arctic. Based on a study of the shamanic rituals from the music theory prospective, the author distinguishes typical signs of a musical style inherent in the ritual and non-ritual genre. The available data on the functioning of the genres and the related set of persuasions are interpreted in the light of the music theory data by identifying the correlations between the spatial benchmarks and the genres of the musical folklore (the vertical line is representing shamanic rite, while horizontal — the epic). The research has been undertaken on the basis of the field materials of 1980–2000.