On the issue of semantics of humanlike images among the Northern Samoyed
The article examines some features of the funeral rites of the two cognate peoples of Siberia - the Nenets and the Nganasan (their languages both belong to the Samoyedic filiation of the Uralic family). The author analyzes the semantics of humanlike images, so called «dolls of the dead», or substitutes of the deceased, and comes to the conclusion that there is a close relation between presence (or absence) of the anthropomorphic images (including children's toys), characteristic features of the funeral rites, and the notions of death and the dead.