A mythological number: Nine in altai- folk epics” / Мифологическое число «девять» в алтайских героических сказаниях

Abstract

Giving meanings to words and commenting the meanings gave way to some symbolist, mystical and philosophical movements, which extend up to mythological ages used to think that everything has some relations to gods, spirits or demons, and they believed that the mystery of some numbers were asked for help “to provide some benevolence of some spirits, and enchants people”. In the belief of folks from the mythological ages to the present some numbers are loaded with special meanings. In folk beliefs some numbers like “three”, ”four”, “five”, “seven”, “nine” and “forty” are loaded with special meanings and considered to be auspicious. These numbers have some important position in Altai folk epics in terms of accepting and developing attitudes have roots in mythological ages and some have developed through various cultures and beliefs in history. The result of this research has revealed that mythological numbers in Altai epic about folk beliefs have a great deal of common aspects with Turkic world folk beliefs, and have a very rich source for researchers who wish to do a research on “the symbolism of numbers”. The numbers used in Turkic folk culture products have common and different meanings and function in Altai-Turkish folk culture. This research aims at revealing the meanings of the number “nine” from mythological ages to the modern times, tracing the changes in symbolic meanings in Altai-Turkish folk culture products and epics, and in folk beliefs of Altai Turks living in South Siberia.