Leather Bag For Kumys
date: label: Accession Date
content: 24 Jul 1931
name: label: Donor Name
content: Museum Of Academy Of Sciences Leningrad
notes: label: Notes
content: From card: "Resembles a large deep saddle bag."
label: Notes
content: Identified by Zinaida Ivanova, Arctic Institute of Culture and Arts, Yakutsk, Sakha (Yakutia) Republic, Russia Federation, 11-7-2012 as a bag/container used for mare's milk. A dasher like E352217 was used with it to churn up the milk, as part of process to ferment mare's milk to make koumiss.
label: Notes
content: Kumys (kumis, kumiss or koumiss) is a fermented milk product traditionally made from mare's milk (though industrial-scale production today generally uses cow's milk), which is popular in Central Asia, parts of Russia, and Eastern Europe. It is consumed both as food as well as an alcoholic drink.
label: Notes
content: Reference: Ivanova-Unarova, Zinaida, 2017. Siberian Collections in the U.S. Museums. Yakutsk. Object is identified there: Leather bellows for kumys. Simir. 19th century, second half. Bull hide, sinew. Smoking, sewing. H.: 97, W.: 63.7. Made from a smoked bull's hide. The shape of this leather bag resembles a Sakha ornament keger, because of which it is also called kegersimir. The leather at the neck is cut in a toothed shape make the bag look festive. Simir holds a large amount of mare milk with addition of special kumys ferment, some water and cow milk. To make kumys a kenkeley funnel is inserted into the mouth of simir, then a khamnatar churn stick is put through it and churned until the milk ferments. Simir is put on top of a low wooden support. A metal ring is attached to the centre of this bag's neck, to which a long strap made from alternating white and black horsehair should be attached. The strap is tied to a house roof or a special pillar so that the bag would not fall over. The strap of this particular simir is missing. Finished kumys is poured into siriihit or kholloghos leather barrel, from which it is poured into chorons using udja ladle. All items needed for preparing and ritual drinking of kumys are considered to be sacred.
label: Record Last Modified
content: 26 Nov 2019
label: Specimen Count
content: 1
place: label: Place
content: Aldan & Lena Rivers Area, Siberia, Russia, Asia
topic: label: Topic
content: Ethnology
culture: label: Culture
content: Yakut (Sakha)
setName: label: See more items in
content: Anthropology
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: NMNH - Anthropology Dept.
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: 103666
label: USNM Number
content: E352248-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Bag
physicalDescription: label: Height - Object
content: 97 cm
label: Width - Object
content: 63.7 cm