This study investigated the significance of several home animals, wild animals and plants that are considered to be most closely related to their daily life or considered as totems among the various animals and plants in Tuva.
The Tuvines, who live in the middle of the Siberian coniferous forest and the Mongolian grasslands, are affected by a variety of climatic zones, such as the taiga and the steppes in the north, and the desert and semidesert in the south.
Tuvine traditionally considered animals to be shaman’s spirit helpers, mythical ancestors and they believed that the beasts(звери) belonged to the Master spirit (дух-хозяин) of a taiga. They also were close and worshiped home animals such as sheep, horses, dogs, vwild animals such as wolves, bears, rabbits, and birds, such as eagles, swans, crows. Among the plants, broad-leaved trees including white poplar and birch were considered sacred. So Tuvine worshiped the broad-leaved tree, called as the “shaman tree,” “tree of life,” “the world tree,” “the axis of the world,” and “the universe tree.”