Preparing to enter “other” space, a hunter spends some time in a transitional state: distancing himself from the human world, limiting contact with people, and preparing to encounter a forest or water spirit, on whom not only the catch but his very life depends.

For hunting and fishing, people wore dirty clothes set aside for the purpose, smelling of the forest or fish, and did not shave. To act in untamed space, a person had to become partly “other” for a time and draw ritually closer to its nonhuman inhabitants.

Source: A. B. Moroz and N. V. Petrov (eds.), Wise People, Sorcerers, and Black Magicians: Witchcraft and Everyday Magic in the Russian North (2012), “Hunters and Fishers.”

Ivan Pokhitonov, “Hunter in the Forest.”