Features of the peoples of Siberia

In addition to anthropological and linguistic features, the peoples of Siberia have a number of specific, traditionally stable cultural and economic features that characterize the historical and ethnographic diversity of Siberia. In cultural and economic terms, the territory of Siberia can be divided into two large historically developed regions: the southern one is the region of ancient cattle breeding and agriculture; and northern - the area of ​​commercial hunting and fishing economy. The boundaries of these areas do not coincide with the boundaries of landscape zones. Sustainable economic and cultural types of Siberia developed in antiquity as a result of historical and cultural processes of different time and nature, which took place in a homogeneous natural and economic environment and under the influence of external foreign cultural traditions.

By the 17th century among the indigenous population of Siberia, according to the predominant type of economic activity, the following economic and cultural types have developed: 1) foot hunters and fishermen of the taiga zone and forest-tundra; 2) sedentary fishermen in the basins of large and small rivers and lakes; 3) sedentary hunters for sea animals on the coast of the Arctic seas; 4) nomadic taiga reindeer herders-hunters and fishermen; 5) nomadic reindeer herders of the tundra and forest-tundra; 6) pastoralists of the steppes and forest-steppes.

In the past, some groups of foot Evenks, Orochs, Udeges, separate groups of Yukagirs, Kets, Selkups, partly Khanty and Mansi, and Shors belonged to the foot hunters and fishermen of the taiga in the past. For these peoples, hunting for meat animals (elk, deer) and fishing were of great importance. A characteristic element of their culture was a hand sled.

The settled-fishing type of economy was widespread in the past among the peoples living in the basins of the river. Amur and Ob: Nivkhs, Nanais, Ulchis, Itelmens, Khanty, part of the Selkups and the Ob Mansi. For these peoples, fishing was the main source of livelihood throughout the year. The hunt had an auxiliary character.

The type of sedentary hunters for sea animals is represented among the settled Chukchi, Eskimos, and partly settled Koryaks. The economy of these peoples is based on the extraction of sea animals (walrus, seal, whale). Arctic hunters settled on the coasts of the Arctic seas. The products of the marine fur trade, in addition to meeting personal needs for meat, fat and skins, also served as a subject of exchange with neighboring related groups.

Nomadic taiga reindeer breeders, hunters and fishermen were the most common type of economy among the peoples of Siberia in the past. He was represented among the Evenks, Evens, Dolgans, Tofalars, Forest Nenets, Northern Selkups, and Reindeer Kets. Geographically, it covered mainly the forests and forest-tundra of Eastern Siberia, from the Yenisei to the Sea of ​​Okhotsk, and also extended west of the Yenisei. The basis of the economy was hunting and keeping deer, as well as fishing.

The nomadic reindeer herders of the tundra and forest-tundra include the Nenets, reindeer Chukchi and reindeer Koryaks. These peoples have developed a special type of economy, the basis of which is reindeer husbandry. Hunting and fishing, as well as sea fishing, are of secondary importance or are completely absent. The main food product for this group of peoples is deer meat. The deer also serves as a reliable vehicle.

Cattle breeding of the steppes and forest-steppes in the past was widely represented among the Yakuts, the world's northernmost pastoral people, among the Altaians, Khakasses, Tuvans, Buryats, and Siberian Tatars. Cattle breeding was of a commercial nature, the products almost completely satisfied the needs of the population in meat, milk and dairy products. Agriculture among pastoral peoples (except for the Yakuts) existed as an auxiliary branch of the economy. Some of these peoples were engaged in hunting and fishing.

Along with the indicated types of economy, a number of peoples also had transitional types. For example, the Shors and Northern Altaians combined sedentary cattle breeding with hunting; The Yukaghirs, Nganasans, Enets combined reindeer herding with hunting as their main occupation.

The diversity of cultural and economic types of Siberia determines the specifics of the development of the natural environment by indigenous peoples, on the one hand, and the level of their socio-economic development, on the other. Prior to the arrival of the Russians, economic and cultural specialization did not go beyond the framework of the appropriating economy and primitive (hoe) agriculture and cattle breeding. A variety of natural conditions contributed to the formation of various local variants of economic types, the oldest of which were hunting and fishing.

At the same time, it should be taken into account that "culture" is an extrabiological adaptation, which entails the need for activity. This explains such a multitude of economic and cultural types. Their peculiarity is a sparing attitude to natural resources. And in this all economic and cultural types are similar to each other. However, culture is, at the same time, a system of signs, a semiotic model of a particular society (ethnos). Therefore, a single cultural and economic type is not yet a community of culture. The common thing is that the existence of many traditional cultures is based on a certain way of managing the economy (fishing, hunting, sea hunting, cattle breeding). However, cultures can be different in terms of customs, rituals, traditions, and beliefs.

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General characteristics of the peoples of Siberia

The number of the indigenous population of Siberia before the beginning of Russian colonization was about 200 thousand people. The northern (tundra) part of Siberia was inhabited by tribes of Samoyeds, in Russian sources called Samoyeds: Nenets, Enets and Nganasans.

The main economic occupation of these tribes was reindeer herding and hunting, and in the lower reaches of the Ob, Taz and Yenisei - fishing. The main objects of fishing were arctic fox, sable, ermine. Furs served as the main commodity in the payment of yasak and in trade. Furs were also paid as bride price for the girls who were chosen as their wives. The number of Siberian Samoyeds, including the tribes of the southern Samoyeds, reached about 8 thousand people.

To the south of the Nenets lived the Ugrian-speaking tribes of the Khanty (Ostyaks) and Mansi (Voguls). The Khanty were engaged in fishing and hunting; in the region of the Gulf of Ob they had reindeer herds. The main occupation of the Mansi was hunting. Before the arrival of the Russian Mansi on the river. Toure and Tavde were engaged in primitive agriculture, cattle breeding, and beekeeping. The area of ​​settlement of the Khanty and Mansi included the regions of the Middle and Lower Ob with tributaries, pp. Irtysh, Demyanka and Konda, as well as the western and eastern slopes of the Middle Urals. The total number of the Ugric-speaking tribes of Siberia in the 17th century. reached 15-18 thousand people.

To the east of the settlement area of ​​the Khanty and Mansi lay the lands of the southern Samoyeds, the southern or Narym Selkups. For a long time, the Russians called the Narym Selkups Ostyaks because of the similarity of their material culture with the Khanty. The Selkups lived along the middle reaches of the river. Ob and its tributaries. The main economic activity was seasonal fishing and hunting. They hunted fur-bearing animals, elk, wild deer, upland and waterfowl. Before the arrival of the Russians, the southern Samoyeds were united in a military alliance, which was called the Pegoy Horde in Russian sources, led by Prince Voni.

To the east of the Narym Selkups lived tribes of the Ket-speaking population of Siberia: the Kets (Yenisei Ostyaks), Arins, Kotts, Yastyns (4-6 thousand people), who settled in the Middle and Upper Yenisei. Their main occupations were hunting and fishing. Some groups of the population extracted iron from ore, products from which were sold to neighbors or used on the farm.

The upper reaches of the Ob and its tributaries, the upper reaches of the Yenisei, the Altai were inhabited by numerous Turkic tribes that differed greatly in their economic structure - the ancestors of the modern Shors, Altaians, Khakasses: Tomsk, Chulym and "Kuznetsk" Tatars (about 5-6 thousand people), Teleuts ( white Kalmyks) (about 7-8 thousand people), the Yenisei Kirghiz with their subordinate tribes (8-9 thousand people). The main occupation of most of these peoples was nomadic cattle breeding. In some places of this vast territory, hoe farming and hunting were developed. The "Kuznetsk" Tatars had developed blacksmithing.

The Sayan Highlands were occupied by the Samoyed and Turkic tribes of Mators, Karagas, Kamasin, Kachin, Kaysot, and others, with a total number of about 2 thousand people. They were engaged in cattle breeding, breeding horses, hunting, they knew the skills of agriculture.

To the south of the habitats of the Mansi, Selkups and Kets, Turkic-speaking ethno-territorial groups were widespread - the ethnic predecessors of the Siberian Tatars: the Baraba, Terenin, Irtysh, Tobol, Ishim and Tyumen Tatars. By the middle of the XVI century. a significant part of the Turks of Western Siberia (from Tura in the west to Baraba in the east) was under the rule of the Siberian Khanate. The main occupation of the Siberian Tatars was hunting, fishing, cattle breeding was developed in the Baraba steppe. Before the arrival of the Russians, the Tatars were already engaged in agriculture. There was a home production of leather, felt, edged weapons, fur dressing. Tatars acted as intermediaries in transit trade between Moscow and Central Asia.

To the west and east of Baikal there were Mongolian-speaking Buryats (about 25 thousand people), known in Russian sources under the name of “brothers” or “brotherly people”. The basis of their economy was nomadic cattle breeding. Farming and gathering were ancillary occupations. The iron-making craft has received a rather high development.

A significant territory from the Yenisei to the Sea of ​​​​Okhotsk, from the northern tundra to the Amur region was inhabited by the Tungus tribes of the Evenks and Evens (about 30 thousand people). They were divided into "deer" (bred deer), which were the majority, and "foot". The "foot" Evenks and Evens were sedentary fishermen and hunted sea animals on the coast of the Sea of ​​Okhotsk. One of the main occupations of both groups was hunting. The main game animals were moose, wild deer, and bears. Domestic deer were used by the Evenks as pack and riding animals.

The territory of the Amur region and Primorye was inhabited by peoples who spoke the Tungus-Manchurian languages ​​- the ancestors of modern Nanais, Ulchis, Udeges. The Paleo-Asiatic group of peoples inhabiting this territory also included small groups of Nivkhs (Gilyaks), who lived in the neighborhood of the Tungus-Manchurian peoples of the Amur region. They were also the main inhabitants of Sakhalin. The Nivkhs were the only people of the Amur region who widely used sled dogs in their economic activities.

The middle course of the river. Lena, Upper Yana, Olenyok, Aldan, Amga, Indigirka and Kolyma were occupied by Yakuts (about 38 thousand people). It was the most numerous people among the Turks of Siberia. They raised cattle and horses. Animal and bird hunting and fishing were considered auxiliary trades. Home production of metal was widely developed: copper, iron, silver. They made weapons in large numbers, skillfully dressed leather, wove belts, carved wooden household items and utensils.

The northern part of Eastern Siberia was inhabited by the Yukaghir tribes (about 5 thousand people). The boundaries of their lands stretched from the tundra of Chukotka in the east to the lower reaches of the Lena and Olenek in the west. The north-east of Siberia was inhabited by peoples belonging to the Paleo-Asiatic linguistic family: the Chukchi, Koryaks, Itelmens. The Chukchi occupied a significant part of the continental Chukotka. Their number was approximately 2.5 thousand people. The southern neighbors of the Chukchi were the Koryaks (9-10 thousand people), very close in language and culture to the Chukchi. They occupied the entire northwestern part of the Okhotsk coast and the part of Kamchatka adjacent to the mainland. The Chukchi and Koryaks were divided, like the Tungus, into "deer" and "foot".

Eskimos (about 4 thousand people) were settled throughout the coastal strip of the Chukotka Peninsula. The main population of Kamchatka in the XVII century. were Itelmens (12 thousand people). A few Ainu tribes lived in the south of the peninsula. The Ainu were also settled on the islands of the Kuril chain and in the southern tip of Sakhalin.

The economic occupations of these peoples were hunting for sea animals, reindeer herding, fishing and gathering. Before the arrival of the Russians, the peoples of northeastern Siberia and Kamchatka were still at a fairly low stage of socio-economic development. Stone and bone tools and weapons were widely used in everyday life.

An important place in the life of almost all Siberian peoples before the arrival of the Russians was occupied by hunting and fishing. A special role was assigned to the extraction of furs, which was the main subject of trade exchange with neighbors and was used as the main payment of tribute - yasak.

Most of the Siberian peoples in the XVII century. Russians were caught at various stages of patriarchal-tribal relations. The most backward forms of social organization were noted among the tribes of northeastern Siberia (Yukaghirs, Chukchis, Koryaks, Itelmens, and Eskimos). In the field of social relations, some of them showed features of domestic slavery, the dominant position of women, etc.

The most developed socio-economically were the Buryats and Yakuts, who at the turn of the XVI-XVII centuries. patriarchal-feudal relations developed. The only people who had their own statehood at the time of the arrival of the Russians were the Tatars, united under the rule of the Siberian khans. Siberian Khanate by the middle of the 16th century. covered an area stretching from the Tura basin in the west to Baraba in the east. However, this state formation was not monolithic, torn apart by internecine clashes between various dynastic groups. Incorporation in the 17th century Siberia in the Russian state has fundamentally changed the natural course of the historical process in the region and the fate of the indigenous peoples of Siberia. The beginning of the deformation of traditional culture was associated with the arrival in the region of a population with a productive type of economy, which suggested a different type of human relationship to nature, cultural values ​​and traditions.

Religiously, the peoples of Siberia belonged to different belief systems. The most common form of beliefs was shamanism, based on animism - the spiritualization of the forces and phenomena of nature. A distinctive feature of shamanism is the belief that certain people - shamans - have the ability to enter into direct communication with spirits - patrons and helpers of the shaman in the fight against diseases.

Since the 17th century Orthodox Christianity spread widely in Siberia, Buddhism penetrated in the form of Lamaism. Even earlier, Islam penetrated among the Siberian Tatars. Among the peoples of Siberia, shamanism acquired complicated forms under the influence of Christianity and Buddhism (Tuvans, Buryats). In the XX century. this whole system of beliefs coexisted with an atheistic (materialistic) worldview, which was the official state ideology. Currently, a number of Siberian peoples are experiencing a revival of shamanism.

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The peoples of Siberia on the eve of Russian colonization

Itelmens

Self-name - itelmen, itenmy, itelmen, itelmen - "local resident", "resident", "one who exists", "existing", "living". Indigenous people of Kamchatka. The traditional occupation of the Itelmens was fishing. The main fishing season was the time of salmon run. Fishing tools were constipation, nets, hooks. Nets were woven from nettle threads. With the advent of imported yarn, seines began to be made. The fish was harvested for future use in dried form, fermented in special pits, and frozen in winter. The second most important occupation of the Itelmens was sea hunting and hunting. They hunted seals, fur seals, sea beavers, bears, wild sheep, and deer. Fur-bearing animals were hunted mainly for meat. Bows and arrows, traps, various traps, nooses, nets, and spears served as the main fishing tools. Southern Itelmen hunted whales with the help of arrows poisoned with plant poison. The Itelmens had the widest distribution of gathering among the northern peoples. All edible plants, berries, herbs, roots were used as food. Sarana tubers, mutton leaves, wild garlic, and fireweed had the greatest importance in the diet. Gathering products were stored for the winter in dried, dried, sometimes smoked form. Like many Siberian peoples, gathering was the lot of women. From plants, women made mats, bags, baskets, protective shells. Itelmens made tools and weapons from stone, bone and wood. Rock crystal was used to make knives and harpoon tips. Fire was produced using a special device in the form of a wooden drill. The only pet of the Itelmens was a dog. On the water they moved on bats - dugout deck-shaped boats. The settlements of the Itelmens (“ostrogki” – atynum) were located along the banks of the rivers and consisted of one to four winter dwellings and four to forty-four summer dwellings. The layout of the villages was distinguished by its disorderliness. Wood was the main building material. The hearth was located near one of the walls of the dwelling. A large (up to 100 people) family lived in such a dwelling. In the fields, the Itelmens also lived in light frame buildings - bazhabazh - gable, single-slope and pyramidal dwellings. Such dwellings were covered with tree branches, grass, and heated by a fire. They wore deaf fur clothes from the skins of deer, dogs, marine animals and birds. The set of everyday clothes for men and women included trousers, a kukhlyanka with a hood and a bib, and soft reindeer boots. The traditional food of the Itelmens was fish. The most common fish dishes were yukola, dried salmon caviar, chupriki - fish baked in a special way. In winter they ate frozen fish. Pickled fish heads were considered a delicacy. Boiled fish was also used. Meat and fat of marine animals, vegetable products, poultry meat were used as additional food. The predominant form of social organization of the Itelmens was the patriarchal family. In winter, all its members lived in one dwelling, in summer they broke up into separate families. Family members were connected by ties of kinship. Communal property dominated, early forms of slavery existed. Large family communities and associations were constantly at enmity with each other, waged numerous wars. Marriage was characterized by polygamy - polygamy. All aspects of life and life of the Itelmens were regulated by beliefs and signs. There were ritual festivities associated with the annual economic cycle. The main holiday of the year, which lasted about a month, took place in November, after the completion of the fishery. It was dedicated to the owner of the sea Mitgu. In the past, the Itelmens left the corpses of dead people unburied or gave them to be eaten by dogs, children were buried in hollows of trees.

Yukagirs

Self-name - odul, vadul ("mighty", "strong"). The obsolete Russian name is omoki. Number of 1112 people. The main traditional occupation of the Yukagirs was semi-nomadic and nomadic hunting for wild deer, elk and mountain sheep. Deer were hunted with bows and arrows, crossbows were placed on deer paths, loops were alerted, decoy deer were used, and deer were stabbed at river crossings. In the spring, deer were hunted by paddock. A significant role in the economy of the Yukaghirs was played by hunting for fur-bearing animals: sable, white and blue fox. Tundra Yukaghirs caught geese and ducks during the molting of birds. The hunt for them was of a collective nature: one group of people stretched nets on the lake, the other drove birds deprived of the opportunity to fly into them. Partridges were hunted with the help of loops, during the hunting of sea birds they used throwing darts and a special throwing weapon - bolas, consisting of belts with stones at the ends. The collection of bird eggs was practiced. Along with hunting, fishing played a significant role in the life of the Yukagirs. The main object of the fishery was nelma, muksun, and omul. Fish were caught with nets and traps. Dog and reindeer sleds served as traditional means of transportation for the Yukagirs. On the snow they moved on skis lined with skins. An ancient means of transportation on the river was a raft in the shape of a triangle, the top of which formed the prow. The settlements of the Yukaghirs were permanent and temporary, seasonal. They had five types of dwellings: chum, golomo, booth, yurt, log house. The Yukagir tent (odun-nime) is a conical building of the Tungus type with a frame of 3-4 poles fastened with willow hoops. Deer skins serve as a covering in winter, larch bark in summer. They usually lived in it from spring to autumn. As a summer dwelling, the plague has been preserved to this day. The winter dwelling was golomo (kandele nime) - a pyramidal shape. The winter dwelling of the Yukagirs was also a booth (yanakh-nime). The log roof was insulated with a layer of bark and earth. The Yukagir yurt is a portable cylindrical-conical dwelling. The settled Yukagirs lived in log cabins (in winter and summer) with flat or conical roofs. The main garment was a knee-length swinging robe, made of rovduga in summer and reindeer skins in winter. Seal skin tails were sewn on from below. A bib and short trousers were worn under the caftan, made of leather in summer and fur in winter. Winter clothing made of rovduga was widespread, similar in cut to the Chukchi kamleika and kukhlyanka. Shoes were made of rovduga, hare fur and reindeer skins. Women's clothing was lighter than men's, sewn from the fur of young deer or females. In the 19th century Among the Yukagirs, purchased cloth clothing spread: men's shirts, women's dresses, scarves. Iron, copper and silver ornaments were common. The main food was animal meat and fish. The meat was consumed boiled, dried, raw and frozen. Fat was rendered from fish offal, offal was fried, cakes were baked from caviar. The berry was used with fish. They also ate wild onions, saran roots, nuts, berries, and, which was rare for the Siberian peoples, mushrooms. A feature of the family and marriage relations of the taiga Yukagirs was a matrilocal marriage - after the wedding, the husband moved to his wife's house. The families of the Yukaghirs were large, patriarchal. The custom of levirate was practiced - the duty of a man to marry the widow of his older brother. Shamanism existed in the form of tribal shamanism. The dead shamans could become objects of worship. The shaman's body was dismembered, and its parts were kept as relics, sacrifices were made to them. The customs associated with fire played an important role. It was forbidden to pass the fire to outsiders, to pass between the hearth and the head of the family, to swear at the fire, etc.

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Nivkhs

Self-name - Nivkhgu - "people" or "Nivkh people"; nivkh - "man". The outdated naming of the Nivkhs is Gilyaks. The traditional occupations of the Nivkhs were fishing, sea fishing, hunting and gathering. An important role was played by the fishing of migratory salmon fish - chum salmon and pink salmon. Fish were caught with the help of nets, seines, harpoons, and rides. Among the Sakhalin Nivkhs, marine hunting was developed. They hunted sea lions and seals. Sea lions were caught with large nets, seals were beaten with harpoons and clubs (clubs) when they climbed onto ice floes. Hunting played a smaller role in the economy of the Nivkhs. The hunting season began in autumn, after the end of the course of the fish. They hunted a bear that went out to the rivers to eat fish. The bear was killed with a bow or a gun. Another object of hunting for the Nivkhs was sable. In addition to sable, they also hunted lynx, column, otter, squirrel and fox. The fur was sold to Chinese and Russian purveyors. Dog breeding was widespread among the Nivkhs. The number of dogs in the Nivkh household was an indicator of prosperity and material well-being. On the sea coast, shellfish and seaweed were collected for food. Blacksmithing was developed among the Nivkhs. Metal objects of Chinese, Japanese and Russian origin were used as raw materials. They were reforged to fit their needs. They made knives, arrowheads, harpoons, spears, and other household items. Silver was used to decorate copies. Other crafts were also widespread - the manufacture of skis, boats, sleds, wooden utensils, dishes, bone and leather processing, weaving of mats, baskets. In the economy of the Nivkhs there was a sexual division of labor. The men were engaged in fishing, hunting, making tools, gear, vehicles, harvesting and transporting firewood, blacksmithing. Women's duties included processing fish, seal and dog skins, sewing clothes, preparing birch bark dishes, collecting plant products, housekeeping and caring for dogs. Nivkh settlements were usually located near the mouths of spawning rivers, on the sea coast and rarely had more than 20 dwellings. There were winter and summer permanent dwellings. Dugouts belonged to winter types of dwelling. The summer type of dwelling was the so-called. letniki - buildings on piles 1.5 m high, with a gable roof covered with birch bark. The main food of the Nivkhs was fish. It was consumed raw, boiled and frozen. They prepared yukola, it was often used as bread. Meat was rarely eaten. Nivkh food was seasoned with fish oil or seal oil. Edible plants and berries were also used as seasoning. Mos was considered a favorite dish - a decoction (jelly) made from fish skins, seal oil, berries, rice, with the addition of crumbled yukola. Other dainty dishes were talkk - raw fish salad dressed with wild garlic, and struganina. The Nivkhs got acquainted with rice, millet and tea while still trading with China. After the arrival of the Russians, the Nivkhs began to consume bread, sugar and salt. Currently, national dishes are prepared as holiday treats. The basis of the social structure of the Nivkhs was an exogamous * clan, which includes blood relatives in the male line. Each clan had its own generic name, fixing the place of settlement of this clan, for example: Chombing - “living on the Chom River. The classic form of marriage among the Nivkhs was marriage to the mother's brother's daughter. However, it was forbidden to marry the daughter of the father's sister. Each clan was connected by marriage with two more clans. Wives were taken from only one specific clan and given only to a certain clan, but not to the one from which the wives were taken. In the past, the Nivkhs had an institution of blood feud. For the murder of a member of the clan, all the men of this clan had to take revenge on all the men of the murderer's clan. Later, blood feud began to be replaced by ransom. Valuable items served as ransom: chain mail, spears, silk fabrics. Also in the past, wealthy Nivkhs developed slavery, which was patriarchal in nature. Slaves did only household chores. They could start their own household and marry a free woman. The offspring of slaves in the fifth generation became free. The basis of the Nivkh worldview was animistic ideas. In each individual object, they saw a living principle, endowed with a soul. Nature was full of intelligent inhabitants. The killer whale was the owner of all animals. The sky, according to the ideas of the Nivkhs, was inhabited by "heavenly people" - the sun and the moon. The cult associated with the "masters" of nature was generic in nature. A tribal holiday was considered a bear holiday (chkhyf-lekhard - a bear game). It was associated with the cult of the dead, as it was arranged in memory of the deceased relative. It included a complex ceremony of killing a bear with a bow, ritual treatment of bear meat, sacrifice of dogs, and other actions. After the holiday, the head, bones of the bear, ritual utensils and things were put into a special ancestral barn, which was constantly visited regardless of where the Nivkhs lived. A characteristic feature of the funeral rite of the Nivkhs was the burning of the dead. There was also the custom of burial in the ground. During the burning, they broke the sled on which the deceased was brought, and killed the dogs, whose meat was boiled and eaten on the spot. Only members of his family buried the deceased. The Nivkhs had prohibitions associated with the cult of fire. Shamanism was not developed, but there were shamans in every village. The duty of shamans was to treat people and fight evil spirits. Shamans did not take part in the tribal cults of the Nivkhs.

Tuvans

Self-name - tyva kizhi, tyvalar; an outdated name - Soyots, Soyons, Uriankhians, Tannu Tuvans. Indigenous population of Tuva. The number in Russia is 206.2 thousand people. They also live in Mongolia and China. They are divided into western Tuvans of central and southern Tuva and eastern Tuvans (Tuvans-Todzhans) of the northeastern and southeastern parts of Tuva. They speak Tuvan. They have four dialects: central, western, northeastern and southeastern. In the past, the Tuvan language was influenced by the neighboring Mongolian language. Tuvan writing began to be created in the 1930s, based on the Latin alphabet. The beginning of the formation of the Tuvan literary language also belongs to this time. In 1941, Tuvan writing was translated into Russian graphics

The main branch of the economy of the Tuvans was and remains cattle breeding. Western Tuvans, whose economy was based on nomadic cattle breeding, bred small and large cattle, horses, yaks and camels. Pastures were predominantly located in river valleys. During the year, Tuvans made 3–4 migrations. The length of each migration ranged from 5 to 17 km. The herds had several dozen different heads of cattle. Part of the herd was raised annually to provide the family with meat. Animal husbandry fully covered the needs of the population in dairy products. However, the conditions of keeping livestock (grazing throughout the year, constant migrations, the habit of keeping young animals on a leash, etc.) adversely affected the quality of young animals and caused their death. The very technique of cattle breeding led to the frequent death of the entire herd from exhaustion, starvation, disease, and from the attack of wolves. The loss of livestock was estimated at tens of thousands of heads annually.

Reindeer breeding was developed in the eastern regions of Tuva, but Tuvans used reindeer only for riding. Throughout the year, deer grazed on natural pastures. In the summer, the herds were taken to the mountains, in September the squirrels hunted on the reindeer. Deer were kept openly, without any fences. At night, the calves, along with the queens, were released to pasture, in the morning they returned on their own. They milked deer, like other animals, by suckling, with young animals being let in.

An auxiliary occupation of the Tuvans was irrigation farming with gravity irrigation. The only type of land cultivation was spring plowing. They plowed with a wooden plow (andazin), which was tied to a horse's saddle. They harrowed with drags from the branches of a karagannik (kalagar-iliir). The ears were cut with a knife or pulled out by hand. Russian sickles appeared among the Tuvans only at the beginning of the 20th century. Millet and barley were sown from grain crops. The site was used for three to four years, then it was abandoned to restore fertility.

From home industries, the manufacture of felt, wood processing, dressing of birch bark, processing of skins and dressing of leather, blacksmithing were developed. Felt was made by every Tuvan family. It was needed to cover a portable dwelling, for beds, rugs, bedding, etc. Blacksmiths specialized in the manufacture of bits, girths and buckles, stirrups, iron carts, flint, adzes, axes, etc. By the beginning of the 20th century. in Tuva, there were more than 500 blacksmiths-jewelers, who worked mainly to order. The range of wood products was limited mainly to household items: details of the yurt, dishes, furniture, toys, chess. Women were engaged in processing and dressing the skins of wild and domestic animals. The main means of transportation for the Tuvans was a saddle and pack horse, and in some areas - a deer. They also rode bulls and yaks. Of the other means of transportation, the Tuvans used skis and rafts.

The Tuvans had five types of dwellings. The main type of dwelling of nomadic pastoralists is a lattice felt yurta of the Mongolian type (terbe-Og). This is a cylindrical-conical frame building with a smoke hole in the roof. In Tuva, a version of the yurt without a smoke hole is also known. The yurt was covered with 3–7 felt tires, which were tied to the frame with woolen ribbons. The diameter of the yurt is 4.3 m, the height is 1.3 m. The entrance to the dwelling was usually oriented to the east, south or southeast. The door to the yurt was made of felt or plank. In the center was a hearth or an iron stove with a chimney. The floor was covered with felt. To the right and left of the entrance there were kitchen utensils, a bed, chests, leather bags with property, saddles, harness, weapons, etc. They ate and sat on the floor. They lived in a yurt in winter and summer, transporting it from place to place during wanderings.

The dwelling of the Tuvan-Todzhans, hunters-reindeer herders, was a conical tent (alachykh, alazhi-Og). The design of the plague was made of poles covered with deer or elk skins in winter, and birch bark or larch bark in summer. Sometimes the design of the plague consisted of several felled young tree trunks attached to each other with branches left at the top, to which poles were attached. The plague frame was not transported, only tires. The diameter of the chum was 4–5.8 m, and the height was 3–4 m. 12–18 deer skins sewn with reindeer tendon threads were used to make tires for the chum. In summer, the tent was covered with leather or birch bark tires. The entrance to the chum was carried out from the south side. The hearth was located in the center of the dwelling in the form of an inclined pole with a loop of hair rope, to which a chain with a boiler was tied. In winter, tree branches lay on the floor.

The plague of Todzha cattle breeders (alachog) was somewhat different from the plague of hunters-reindeer herders. It was larger, did not have a pole for hanging the boiler over the fire, larch bark was used as tires: 30-40 pieces. It was laid like a tile, covered with earth.

Western Tuvans covered the tent with felt tires fastened with hair ropes. In the center they put a stove or made a fire. A hook for a cauldron or teapot was hung from the top of the tent. The door was felt in a wooden frame. The layout is the same as in the yurt: the right side is female, the left side is male. The place behind the hearth opposite the entrance was considered honorable. Religious objects were also kept there. Chum could be portable and stationary.

Settled Tuvans had four-walled and five-six-coal frame-pillar buildings made of poles, covered with elk skins or bark (borbak-Og). The area of ​​such dwellings was 8–10 m, height - 2 m. The roofs of the dwellings were four-pitched vaulted-domed, sometimes flat. From the end of the 19th century settled Tuvans began to build rectangular single-chamber log cabins with a flat earthen roof, without windows, with a hearth-fire on the floor. The area of ​​dwellings was 3.5x3.5 m. Tuvans borrowed from the Russian population at the beginning of the 20th century. technique for constructing dugouts with a flat log roof. Wealthy Tuvans built five or six coal log houses-yurts of the Buryat type with a pyramid-shaped roof covered with larch bark with a smoke hole in the center.

Hunters and shepherds built temporary shed or gable frame dwellings-shelters from poles and bark in the form of a hut (chadyr, chavyg, chavyt). The skeleton of the dwelling was covered with branches, branches, grass. In a gable dwelling, a fire was lit at the entrance, in a single-slope dwelling, in the center. Tuvans used log-built above-ground barns, sometimes sprinkled with earth, as economic buildings.

Currently, nomadic pastoralists live in felt or log polygonal yurts. In the fields, conical, gable frame buildings and shelters are sometimes used. Many Tuvans live in settlements in modern standard houses.

The clothes of the Tuvans (khep) were adapted to nomadic life until the 20th century. carried stable traditional features. She was sewn, including shoes, from dressed skins of domestic and wild animals, as well as from purchased fabrics purchased from Russian and Chinese merchants. According to its purpose, it was divided into spring-summer and autumn-winter and consisted of everyday, festive, commercial, cult and sports.

Shoulder outerwear-robe (mon) was a tunic-shaped swing. There were no significant differences between men's, women's and children's clothing in terms of cut. She wrapped herself to the right (left floor over right) and was always girded with a long sash. Only Tuvan shamans did not gird their ritual costumes during the ritual. A characteristic feature of the outerwear-robe was long sleeves with cuffs that fell below the hands. Such a cut saved the hands from spring and autumn frosts and winter frosts, and made it possible not to use mittens. A similar phenomenon was noted among the Mongols and Buryats. The dressing gown was sewn almost to the ankles. In spring and summer, they wore a dressing gown made of colored (blue or cherry) fabric. Wealthy Western Tuvan herdsmen wore robes made of colored Chinese silk in the warm season. In summer, silk sleeveless jackets (kandaaz) were worn over the robe. Khashton, which was sewn from worn deer skins or autumn roe deer rovduga, served as a common type of summer clothing among Tuvan reindeer herders.

Various trade cults and mythological representations played a significant role in the beliefs of the Tuvans. The cult of the bear stands out among the most ancient representations and rituals. Hunting him was considered a sin. The killing of a bear was accompanied by certain rituals and spells. In the bear, the Tuvans, like all Siberian peoples, saw the master spirit of the fishing grounds, the ancestor and relative of people. He was considered a totem. He was never called by his real name (Adyg), but allegorical nicknames were used, for example: khaiyrakan (lord), irey (grandfather), daai (uncle), etc. The cult of the bear manifested itself in the most vivid form in the ritual of the “bear holiday”.

Siberian Tatars

Self-name - sibirtar (inhabitants of Siberia), sibirtatarlar (Siberian Tatars). In the literature there is a name - West Siberian Tatars. Settled in the middle and southern parts of Western Siberia from the Urals to the Yenisei: in the Kemerovo, Novosibirsk, Omsk, Tomsk and Tyumen regions. The number is about 190 thousand people. In the past, Siberian Tatars called themselves yasakly (yasak foreigners), top-yerly-khalk (old-timers), chuvalshchiks (from the name of the chuval oven). Local self-names have been preserved: Tobolik (Tobolsk Tatars), Tarlik (Tara Tatars), Tyumenik (Tyumen Tatars), Baraba / Paraba Tomtatarlar (Tomsk Tatars), etc. They include several ethnic groups: Tobol-Irtysh (Kurdak-Sargat, Tara, Tobolsk, Tyumen and Yaskolba Tatars), Baraba (Baraba-Turazh, Lyubey-Tunus and Tereninsky-Cheya Tatars) and Tomsk (Kalmaks, Chats and Eushta). They speak the Siberian-Tatar language, which has several local dialects. The Siberian-Tatar language belongs to the Kypchak-Bulgar subgroup of the Kypchak group of the Altaic language family.

The ethnogenesis of the Siberian Tatars is presented as a process of mixing of the Ugric, Samoyedic, Turkic and partly Mongolian groups of the population of Western Siberia. So, for example, in the material culture of the Baraba Tatars, features of similarity of the Baraba people with the Khanty, Mansi and Selkups, and to a small extent with the Evenks and Kets were revealed. The Turin Tatars have local Mansi components. Regarding the Tomsk Tatars, the point of view is maintained that they are an aboriginal Samoyed population, which experienced a strong influence from the nomadic Turks.

The Mongolian ethnic component began to be part of the Siberian Tatars from the 13th century. The Mongol-speaking tribes had the most recent influence on the Barabans, who in the 17th century. were in close contact with the Kalmyks.

Meanwhile, the main core of the Siberian Tatars were the ancient Turkic tribes, who began to penetrate the territory of Western Siberia in the 5th-7th centuries. n. e. from the east from the Minusinsk basin and from the south from Central Asia and Altai. In the XI-XII centuries. the most significant influence on the formation of the Siberian-Tatar ethnos was exerted by the Kipchaks. As part of the Siberian Tatars, tribes and clans of Khatans, Kara-Kypchaks, Nugays are also recorded. Later, the Siberian-Tatar ethnic community included the yellow Uyghurs, Bukhara-Uzbeks, Teleuts, Kazan Tatars, Mishars, Bashkirs, Kazakhs. With the exception of the yellow Uighurs, they strengthened the Kipchak component among the Siberian Tatars.

The main traditional occupations for all groups of Siberian Tatars were agriculture and cattle breeding. For some groups of Tatars living in the forest zone, a significant place in economic activity was occupied by hunting and fishing. Among the Baraba Tatars, lake fishing played a significant role. The northern groups of the Tobol-Irtysh and Baraba Tatars were engaged in river fishing and hunting. Some groups of Tatars had a combination of different economic and cultural types. Fishing was often accompanied by grazing or caring for plots of land sown in fishing grounds. Foot hunting on skis was often combined with hunting on horseback.

Siberian Tatars were familiar with agriculture even before the arrival of Russian settlers in Siberia. Most groups of Tatars were engaged in hoe farming. Barley, oats, spelt were grown from the main grain crops. By the beginning of the XX century. Siberian Tatars were already sowing rye, wheat, buckwheat, millet, as well as barley and oats. In the 19th century the Tatars borrowed the main arable implements from the Russians: a single-horse wooden plow with an iron coulter, “vilachukha” - a plow without a limber, harnessed to one horse; "wheel" and "saban" - front (on wheels) plow harnessed to two horses. When harrowing, the Tatars used a harrow with wooden or iron teeth. Most of the Tatars used plows and harrows of their own manufacture. Sowing was done by hand. Sometimes the arable land was weeded with a ketmen or by hand. During the collection and processing of grain, sickles (urak, urgish), a Lithuanian scythe (tsalgy, sama), a flail (mulatto - from the Russian “threshed”), pitchforks (agats, sinek, sospak), rakes (ternauts, tyrnauts), a wooden shovel (korek) or a bucket (chilyak) for winnowing grain in the wind, as well as wooden mortars with a pestle (keel), wooden or stone hand mills (kul tirmen, tygyrmen, chartashe).

Cattle breeding was developed among all groups of Siberian Tatars. However, in the XIX century. nomadic and semi-nomadic pastoralism has lost its economic importance. At the same time, at that time, the role of domestic stationary cattle breeding increased. More favorable conditions for the development of this type of cattle breeding existed in the southern regions of the Tara, Kainsky and Tomsk districts. Tatars bred horses, large and small cattle.

Cattle breeding was predominantly commercial in nature: cattle were raised for sale. They also sold meat, milk, skins, horsehair, sheep's wool, and other livestock products. Horses were bred for sale.

Livestock grazing in the warm season was carried out near the settlements in specially designated areas (pastures) or on communal lands. For young animals, notches (calves) were arranged in the form of a fence inside the pasture, or cattle. Cattle were usually grazed without supervision, only wealthy Tatar families resorted to the help of shepherds. In winter, cattle were kept in log flocks, thatched baskets or in a covered yard under a canopy. Men took care of the cattle in winter - they brought hay, removed manure, fed. Women were engaged in milking cows. Many farms kept chickens, geese, ducks, sometimes turkeys. Some Tatar families were engaged in beekeeping. At the beginning of the XX century. gardening began to spread among the Tatars.

Hunting played an important role in the structure of the traditional occupations of the Siberian Tatars. They hunted mainly fur-bearing animals: fox, column, ermine, squirrel, hare. The object of hunting was also a bear, lynx, roe deer, wolf, elk. Moles were hunted in the summer. Geese, ducks, partridges, capercaillie and hazel grouse were harvested from birds. The hunting season began with the first snow. Hunted on foot, skiing in winter. Among the Tatar hunters of the Baraba steppe, horse hunting was widespread, especially for wolves.

Various traps, crossbows, baits served as hunting tools, guns and purchased iron traps were used. The bear was hunted with a horn, raising it from the den in winter. Moose and deer were hunted with the help of crossbows, which were installed on elk and deer trails. When hunting for wolves, the Tatars used clubs made of wood with a thickened end, upholstered in an iron plate (checkmers), sometimes hunters used long bladed knives. On the column, ermine or capercaillie they put bags, in which meat, offal or fish served as bait. On the squirrel they put cherkany. When hunting for a hare, loops were used. Many hunters used dogs. The skins of fur animals and the skins of elk were sold to buyers, the meat was eaten. Pillows and feather beds were made from feathers and fluff of birds.

Fishing was a profitable occupation for many Siberian Tatars. They were everywhere engaged in both rivers and lakes. Fish were caught all year round. Fishing was especially developed among the Baraba, Tyumen and Tomsk Tatars. They caught pike, ide, chebak, crucian carp, perch, burbot, taimen, muksun, cheese, nelma, sterlet, etc. Most of the catch, especially in winter, was sold frozen at city bazaars or fairs. Tomsk Tatars (Eushtintsy) sold fish in the summer, bringing it to Tomsk alive in specially equipped large boats with bars.

Nets (au) and nets (scarlet) served as traditional fishing tools, which the Tatars often wove themselves. Seines were divided according to their purpose: yaz seine (opta au), cheese seine (yesht au), crucian (yazy balyk au), muksun (chryndy au). Fish were also caught with the help of fishing rods (karmak), traps, various basket-type tools: muzzles, tops and korchags. They also used wicks and nonsense. Practiced night fishing for large fish. It was mined by the light of torches sharp (sapak, tsatsky) from three to five teeth. Sometimes dams were arranged on the rivers, and the accumulated fish were scooped out with scoops. At present, fishing in many Tatar farms has disappeared. It retained some significance among the Tomsk, Baraba, Tobol-Irtysh and Yaskolba Tatars.

The secondary occupations of the Siberian Tatars included the gathering of wild-growing edible plants, as well as the collection of pine nuts and mushrooms, against which the Tatars had no prejudice. Berries and nuts were taken out for sale. In some villages, hops growing in willows were collected, which was also sold. A significant role in the economy of the Tomsk and Tyumen Tatars was played by carting. They transported various cargoes on horseback to the major cities of Siberia: Tyumen, Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk, Tomsk; carried goods to Moscow, Semipalatinsk, Irbit and other cities. Livestock products and fishery products were transported as cargo, in winter they transported firewood from cutting areas, timber.

Of the crafts, the Siberian Tatars developed leatherwork, the manufacture of ropes, sacks; knitting nets, weaving baskets and baskets from wicker, making birch bark and wooden utensils, carts, sledges, boats, skis, blacksmithing, jewelry art. Tatars supplied tal bark and leather to tanneries, firewood, straw and aspen ash to glass factories.

Natural waterways played an important role as means of communication for the Siberian Tatars. In spring and autumn the dirt roads were impassable. They traveled along the rivers in dugout boats (kama, keme, kima) of pointed type. Dugouts were made from aspen, nutcrackers - from cedar boards. The Tomsk Tatars knew boats made of birch bark. In the past, the Tomsk Tatars (Eushtintsy) used rafts (sal) to move along rivers and lakes. On dirt roads in summer, goods were transported on carts, in winter - on sledges or firewood. To transport cargo, the Baraba and Tomsk Tatars used hand-held straight-dust sleds, which the hunters pulled with a strap. The traditional means of transportation of the Siberian Tatars were skis of a sliding type: ceilings (lined with fur) for moving in deep snow and naked ones - when walking on hard snow in spring. Horse riding was also widespread among the Siberian Tatars.

The traditional settlements of the Siberian Tatars - yurts, auls, uluses, aimaks - were located mainly along river floodplains, lake shores, along roads. The villages were small (5–10 houses) and located at a considerable distance from each other. Characteristic features of the Tatar villages were the lack of a specific layout, crooked narrow streets, the presence of dead ends, and the scattered residential buildings. Each village had a mosque with a minaret, a fence and a grove with a clearing for public prayers. There could be a cemetery near the mosque. Wattle, adobe, brick, log and stone houses (s) served as dwellings. In the past, dugouts were also known.

Tomsk and Baraba Tatars lived in rectangular frame houses, woven from twigs and smeared with clay - mud huts (utou, ode). The basis of this type of dwelling was made up of corner posts with transverse poles, which were intertwined with rods. The dwellings were backfilled: earth was covered between two parallel walls, the walls outside and inside were coated with clay mixed with manure. The roof was flat, it was made on sleds and mats. It was covered with turf, overgrown with grass over time. The smoke hole in the roof also served as lighting. The Tomsk Tatars also had mud huts, round in plan, slightly deepened into the ground.

Of the outbuildings, the Siberian Tatars had pens for cattle made of poles, wooden barns for storing food, fishing tackle and agricultural equipment, baths arranged in black, without a pipe; stables, cellars, bread ovens. The yard with outbuildings was surrounded by a high fence made of boards, logs or wattle. A gate and a gate were arranged in the fence. Often the yard was fenced with a fence made of willow or willow poles.

In the past, Tatar women ate food after men. At weddings and holidays, men and women ate separately from each other. Nowadays, many traditional food-related customs have disappeared. Foods that were previously forbidden to be eaten for religious or other reasons, in particular pork products, have come into use. At the same time, some national dishes from meat, flour, and milk are still preserved.

The main form of the family among the Siberian Tatars was a small family (5-6 people). The head of the family was the eldest man in the house - grandfather, father or older brother. The position of women in the family was humiliated. Girls were given in marriage at an early age - at 13 years old. His parents were looking for a bride for their son. She was not supposed to see her fiancé before the wedding. Marriages were concluded through matchmaking, voluntary departure and forced kidnapping of the bride. Practiced payment for the bride kalym. It was forbidden to marry and marry relatives. The property of the deceased head of the family was divided into equal parts among the sons of the deceased. If there were no sons, then half of the property was received by the daughters, and the other part was divided among relatives.

Of the folk holidays of the Siberian Tatars, the most popular was and remains Sabantuy - the holiday of the plow. It is celebrated after the completion of sowing work. On Sabantuy, horse races, races, competitions in long jumps, tug-of-war, sack fights on a log, etc. are arranged.

The folk art of the Siberian Tatars in the past was represented mainly by oral folk art. The main types of folklore were fairy tales, songs (lyrical, dance), proverbs and riddles, heroic songs, legends about heroes, historical epics. The performance of songs was accompanied by playing folk musical instruments: kurai (wooden pipe), kobyz (reed instrument made of a metal plate), harmonica, tambourine.

Fine art existed mainly in the form of embroidery on clothes. Plots of embroidery - flowers, plants. Of the Muslim holidays, Uraza and Kurban Bayram were widely distributed and exist now.

Selkups

The basis of the Nivkh worldview was animistic ideas. In each individual object, they saw a living principle, endowed with a soul. Nature was full of intelligent inhabitants. Sakhalin Island was presented as a humanoid creature. The Nivkhs endowed trees, mountains, rivers, land, water, cliffs, etc. with the same properties. The killer whale was the owner of all animals. The sky, according to the ideas of the Nivkhs, was inhabited by "heavenly people" - the sun and the moon. The cult associated with the "masters" of nature was generic in nature. A tribal holiday was considered a bear holiday (chkhyf-lekhard - a bear game). It was associated with the cult of the dead, as it was arranged in memory of the deceased relative. For this holiday, a bear was hunted in the taiga or a bear cub was bought, which was fed for several years. The honorable duty to kill the bear was given to the narkhs - people from the "son-in-law family" of the organizer of the holiday. By the holiday, all members of the family gave supplies and money to the owner of the bear. The owner's family prepared treats for the guests.

The holiday usually took place in February and lasted several days. It included a complex ceremony of killing a bear with a bow, ritual treatment of bear meat, sacrifice of dogs, and other actions. After the holiday, the head, bones of the bear, ritual utensils and things were put into a special ancestral barn, which was constantly visited regardless of where the Nivkhs lived.

A characteristic feature of the funeral rite of the Nivkhs was the burning of the dead. There was also the custom of burial in the ground. During the burning, they broke the sled on which the deceased was brought, and killed the dogs, whose meat was boiled and eaten on the spot. Only members of his family buried the deceased. The Nivkhs had prohibitions associated with the cult of fire. Shamanism was not developed, but there were shamans in every village. The duty of shamans was to treat people and fight evil spirits. Shamans did not take part in the tribal cults of the Nivkhs.

In ethnographic literature until the 1930s. The Selkups were called Ostyak-Samoyeds. This ethnonym was introduced in the middle of the 19th century. Finnish scientist M.A. Castren, who proved that the Selkups are a special community, which in terms of conditions and way of life is close to the Ostyaks (Khanty), and in language is related to the Samoyeds (Nenets). Another obsolete name for the Selkups, the Ostyaks, coincides with the name of the Khanty (and Kets) and probably goes back to the language of the Siberian Tatars. The first contacts of the Selkups with the Russians date back to the end of the 16th century. There are several dialects in the Selkup language. An attempt made in the 1930s to create a single literary language (based on the northern dialect) failed.

The main occupations of all Selkup groups were hunting and fishing. The southern Selkups led a mostly semi-sedentary way of life. Based on a certain difference in the ratio of fishing and hunting, they had a division into forest inhabitants - majilkup, who lived on the Ob channels, and Ob - koltakup. The economy of the Ob Selkups (Koltakups) was focused mainly on mining in the river. Obi fish of valuable breeds. The life support system of the forest Selkups (majilkups) was based on hunting. The main game animals were elk, squirrel, ermine, Siberian weasel, sable. Moose were hunted for meat. When hunting for him, they used crossbows installed on the trails, guns. Other animals were hunted with a bow and arrows, as well as various traps and devices: mouths, sacks, jags, cherkans, snares, dies, traps. We also hunted bears

Hunting for upland game was of great importance for the southern Selkups, as well as for many peoples of Siberia. In the autumn they hunted capercaillie, black grouse and hazel grouse. Upland game meat was usually harvested for future use. In summer, moulting geese were hunted on the lakes. Hunting for them was carried out collectively. Geese were driven into one of the bays and caught with nets.

In the Tazovskaya tundra, fox hunting occupied a significant place in hunting. Modern hunting is developed mainly among the northern Selkups. There are practically no professional hunters among the southern Selkups.

For all groups of the southern Selkups, fishing was the most significant in the economy. The objects of fishing were sturgeon, nelma, muksun, sterlet, burbot, pike, ide, crucian carp, perch, etc. Fish was caught year-round on rivers and floodplain lakes. She was caught both with nets and traps: cats, snouts, snares, wicks. Large fish were also caught by spear and archery. The fishing season was divided into "small fishing" before the water decline and exposure of the sands, and "big fishing" after the exposure of the sands, when almost the entire population switched to the "sands" and fished with nets. Various traps were set on the lakes. Ice fishing was practiced. In certain places at the mouths of tributaries, spring constipation from stakes was arranged annually.

Under the influence of the Russians, the southern Selkups began to breed domestic animals: horses, cows, pigs, sheep, and poultry. At the beginning of the XX century. The Selkups began to engage in gardening. The skills of cattle breeding (horse breeding) were known to the ancestors of the southern Selkups at the beginning of the 1st millennium AD. The problem of reindeer breeding among the southern groups of the Selkups remains debatable.

The traditional means of transportation among the southern Selkups are a dugout boat - an oblos, in winter - skis lined with fur or golitsy. They went skiing with the help of a stick-staff, which had a ring below, and a bone hook on top to remove snow from under the foot. In the taiga, a hand-held sledge, narrow and long, was widely used. The hunter usually dragged it himself with the help of a belt loop. Sometimes the sled was pulled by a dog.

The northern Selkups developed reindeer husbandry, which had a transport direction. Reindeer herds in the past rarely numbered 200 to 300 deer. Most northern Selkups had from one to 20 heads. The Turukhansk Selkups were without deer. Deer have never been herded. In winter, so that the deer would not go far from the village, several deer in the herd were put on wooden “shoes” (mokta) on their feet. Reindeer were released in the summer. With the onset of the mosquito season, the deer gathered in herds and went into the forest. Only after the end of fishing, the owners began to look for their deer. They hunted them down in the same way as they hunted down a wild beast on a hunt.

Northern Selkups borrowed reindeer in a sleigh from the Nenets. The sledge-free (Turukhansk) Selkups, like the southern Selkups, used a hand-held sledge (kanji) when walking to hunt, on which the hunter carried ammunition and food. In winter, they moved on skis, which were made of spruce wood and glued with fur. On the water they moved on dugout boats - oblaskas. Rowing with one oar, sitting, kneeling and sometimes standing.

The Selkups distinguish several types of settlements: year-round stationary, supplemented seasonal ones for hunters without families, stationary winter combined with portable ones for other seasons, stationary winter and stationary summer. In Russian, Selkup settlements were called yurts. Northern Selkup reindeer herders live in camps consisting of two or three, sometimes five portable dwellings. Taiga Selkups settled along the rivers, on the banks of lakes. The villages are small, from two or three to 10 houses.

The Selkups knew six types of dwellings (tent, truncated-pyramidal frame underground and log underground, log house with a flat roof, underground made of beams, boat-ilimka).

The permanent dwelling of the Selkup reindeer herders was a portable tent of the Samoyed type (korel-mat) - a conical frame structure made of poles, covered with tree bark or skins. The diameter of the chum varies from 2.5–3 to 8–9 m. The door was either the edge of one of the chum tires (24–28 reindeer skins were sewn together for tires) or a piece of birch bark hung on a stick. In the center of the plague, a hearth-bonfire was arranged on the ground. The hearth hook was attached to the top of the plague. Sometimes they put a stove with a pipe. Smoke escaped through a hole between the tops of the frame poles. The floor in the chum was earthen or covered with boards to the right and left of the hearth. Two families or married couples (parents with married children) lived in the chum. The place opposite the entrance behind the hearth was considered honorable and sacred. They slept on deerskins or mats. In the summer they put mosquito nets.

The winter dwellings of the taiga sedentary and semi-sedentary fishermen and hunters were dugouts and semi-dugouts of various designs. One of the ancient forms of dugouts - karamo - one and a half to two meters deep, with an area of ​​​​7-8 m. The walls of the dugout were lined with logs. The roof (single or gable) was covered with birch bark and covered with earth. The entrance to the dugout was built in the direction of the river. The karamo was heated by a central hearth-fire or chuval. Another type of dwelling was a semi-dugout "karamushka" 0.8 m deep, with unreinforced earthen walls and a gable roof made of slabs and birch bark. The basis of the roof was a central beam resting on a vertical post mounted against the rear wall and two posts with a crossbar mounted against the front wall. The door was wooden, the hearth was outside. There was also another type of semi-dugout (tai-mat, poi-mat), similar to the Khanty semi-dugout. In dugouts and semi-dugouts, they slept on bunks arranged along two walls opposite the hearth.

Buildings in the form of a shed barrier (booth) are well known among the Selkups as a temporary commercial dwelling. Such a barrier was placed during a stay in the forest for rest or overnight stay. A common temporary dwelling of the Selkups (especially among the northern ones) is a kumar - a hut made of semi-cylindrical willow with birch bark. Among the southern (Narym) Selkups, covered birch-bark boats (alago, koraguand, mass andu) were common as a summer dwelling. The frame was made of bird cherry rods. They were inserted into the edges of the sides of the boat, and they formed a half-cylinder vault. From above, the frame was covered with birch bark panels. This type of boat was widespread in the late XIX - early XX centuries. Narym Selkups and Vasyugan Khanty.

In the 19th century many Selkups (southern Selkups) began to build Russian-type log cabins with gable and four-slope roofs. At present, the Selkups live in modern log houses. Traditional dwellings (semi-dugouts) are used only as commercial outbuildings.

Among the traditional farm buildings, the Selkups had pile barns, sheds for livestock, sheds, hangers for drying fish, and adobe bread ovens.

The traditional winter outerwear of the northern Selkups was a fur parka (porge) - a fur coat open in front made of deer skins sewn with fur on the outside. In severe frosts, sakui was worn over the parkas - deaf clothes made of deer skins, with fur outside with a sewn hood. Sakui was only for men. The parka was worn by both men and women. Underwear men's clothing consisted of a shirt and trousers sewn from a purchased fabric, women wore a dress. The winter footwear of the northern Selkups was pim (pem), sewn from kamus and cloth. Instead of a stocking (sock), combed grass (sedge) was used, which was wrapped around the foot. In the summer they wore rovduga shoes and Russian boots. Hats were sewn in the form of a hood from a "pawn" - the skins of a newborn calf, fox and squirrel legs, from the skins and neck of a loon. The ubiquitous headdress for both women and men was a scarf, which was worn in the form of a headscarf. Northern Selkups sewed mittens from kamus with fur outside.

Among the southern Selkups, fur coats made of "combined fur" - pongzhel-porg, were known as outerwear. These coats were worn by men and women. A characteristic feature of these fur coats was the presence of a fur lining, collected from skins of small fur-bearing animals - paws of a sable, squirrel, ermine, column, lynx. Combined fur was sewn together in vertical stripes. The color selection was done in such a way that the color shades passed one into another. From above, the fur coat was sheathed with cloth - cloth or plush. Women's coats were longer than men's. A long women's coat made of combined fur was a significant family value.

Men wore short fur coats with fur outside - karnya - made of deer or hare skins as trade clothes. In the XIX-XX centuries. sheepskin coats and dog fur coats - winter road clothes, as well as cloth zipuns - were widely used. In the middle of the XX century. this type of clothing was replaced by a quilted sweatshirt. The lower shoulder clothing of the southern Selkups - shirts and dresses (kaborg - for shirts and dresses) - came into use in the 19th century. They girded shoulder clothing with a soft woven belt or a leather belt.

The traditional food of the Selkups consisted mainly of fishery products. Fish were harvested in large quantities for future use. It was boiled (fish soup - kai, with the addition of cereals - armagay), fried over a fire on a stick-spindle (chapsa), salted, dried, dried, prepared yukola, made fish meal - porsa. Fish for the future was harvested in the summer, during the "big catch". From fish entrails, fish oil was boiled, which was stored in birch bark vessels and used for food. As a seasoning and addition to the diet, the Selkups used wild-growing edible plants: wild onions, wild garlic, saran roots, etc. They ate berries and pine nuts in large quantities. The meat of elk and upland game was also eaten. Purchased products were widely used: flour, butter, sugar, tea, cereals.

There were food prohibitions on eating the meat of some animals and birds. For example, some Selkup groups did not eat the meat of a bear, a swan, considering them to be close in “breed” to humans. Hare, partridge, wild geese, etc. could also be taboo animals. In the 20th century. The diet of the Selkups was replenished with livestock products. With the development of gardening - potatoes, cabbage, beets and other vegetables.

The Selkups, although they were considered baptized, retained, like many peoples of Siberia, their ancient religious beliefs. They were characterized by ideas about the spirits-masters of places. They believed in the master spirit of the forest (machil vines), the spirit master of water (utkyl vines), etc. Various sacrifices were made to the spirits in order to enlist their support during the hunt.

The Selkups considered the god Num, who personified the sky, to be the creator of the whole world, the demiurge. In the Selkup mythology, the underground spirit Kyzy acted as an inhabitant of the underworld, the ruler of evil. This spirit had numerous helper spirits - vines that penetrated the human body and caused illness. To fight diseases, the Selkups turned to the shaman, who, together with his helper spirits, fought evil spirits and tried to expel them from the human body. If the shaman succeeded, then the person would recover.

The land of habitation seemed to the Selkups initially flat and flat, covered with grass-moss and forest - the hair of mother earth. Water and clay were her ancient primary state. All earthly heights and natural depressions were interpreted by the Selkups as evidence of past events, both earthly (“battles of heroes”) and heavenly (for example, lightning stones dropped from the sky gave rise to swamps and lakes). The earth (chvech) for the Selkups was the substance that gave birth to everything. The Milky Way in the sky was represented by a stone river, which passes to the earth and flows r. Ob, closing the world into a single whole (southern Selkups). Stones that are placed on the ground to give it stability also have a heavenly nature. They also store and give heat, generate fire and iron.

The Selkups had special sacrificial places associated with religious rituals. They were a kind of sanctuary in the form of small log barns (lozyl sessan, lot kele) on one leg-rack, with wooden spirits installed inside - vines. In these barns, the Selkups brought various “sacrifices” in the form of copper and silver coins, dishes, household items, etc. The Selkups revered the bear, elk, eagle, and swan.

The traditional poetry of the Selkups is represented by legends, the heroic epic about the cunning hero of the Selkup people Itta, various types of fairy tales (chapte), songs, everyday stories. Even in the recent past, the genre of song-improvisation of the type “what I see, I sing” was widely represented. However, with the loss of the Selkup speaking skills in the Selkup language, this type of oral art has practically disappeared. Selkup folklore contains many references to old beliefs and related cults. The legends of the Selkups tell about the wars waged by the ancestors of the Selkups with the Nenets, Evenks, Tatars.

The average number of peoples - West Siberian Tatars, Khakasses, Altaians. The rest of the peoples, due to their small number and similar features of their fishing life, are assigned to the group of “small peoples of the North”. Among them are the Nenets, Evenks, Khanty, noticeable in terms of numbers and the preservation of the traditional way of life of the Chukchi, Evens, Nanais, Mansi, Koryaks.

The peoples of Siberia belong to different language families and groups. In terms of the number of speakers of related languages, the first place is occupied by the peoples of the Altai language family, at least from the turn of our era, which began to spread from the Sayano-Altai and the Baikal region to the deep regions of Western and Eastern Siberia.

The Altaic language family within Siberia is divided into three branches: Turkic, Mongolian and Tungus. The first branch - Turkic - is very extensive. In Siberia, it includes: the Altai-Sayan peoples - Altaians, Tuvans, Khakasses, Shors, Chulyms, Karagas, or Tofalars; West Siberian (Tobolsk, Tara, Baraba, Tomsk, etc.) Tatars; in the Far North - Yakuts and Dolgans (the latter live in the east of Taimyr, in the basin of the Khatanga River). Only the Buryats, settled in groups in the western and eastern Baikal region, belong to the Mongolian peoples in Siberia.

The Tungus branch of the Altai peoples includes the Evenki (“Tungus”), who live in scattered groups over a vast territory from the right tributaries of the Upper Ob to the Okhotsk coast and from the Baikal region to the Arctic Ocean; Evens (Lamuts), settled in a number of regions of northern Yakutia, on the coast of Okhotsk and Kamchatka; also a number of small peoples of the Lower Amur - Nanais (Golds), Ulchis, or Olchis, Negidals; Ussuri region - Orochi and Ude (Udege); Sakhalin - Oroks.

In Western Siberia, ethnic communities of the Uralic language family have been formed since ancient times. These were Ugrian-speaking and Samoyedic-speaking tribes of the forest-steppe and taiga zone from the Urals to the Upper Ob. At present, the Ugric peoples - Khanty and Mansi - live in the Ob-Irtysh basin. The Samoyedic (Samoyed-speaking) include the Selkups in the Middle Ob, the Enets in the lower reaches of the Yenisei, the Nganasans, or Tavgians, in Taimyr, the Nenets, who inhabit the forest-tundra and tundra of Eurasia from Taimyr to the White Sea. Once upon a time, small Samoyedic peoples also lived in Southern Siberia, in the Altai-Sayan Highlands, but their remnants - Karagas, Koibals, Kamasins, etc. - were Turkified in the 18th - 19th centuries.

The indigenous peoples of Eastern Siberia and the Far East are Mongoloid according to the main features of their anthropological types. The Mongoloid type of the Siberian population could genetically originate only in Central Asia. Archaeologists prove that the Paleolithic culture of Siberia developed in the same direction and in similar forms as the Paleolithic of Mongolia. Based on this, archaeologists believe that it was the Upper Paleolithic era with its highly developed hunting culture that was the most suitable historical time for the widespread settlement of Siberia and the Far East by “Asian” - Mongoloid in appearance - ancient man.

Mongoloid types of ancient “Baikal” origin are well represented among modern Tungus-speaking populations from the Yenisei to the Okhotsk coast, also among the Kolyma Yukaghirs, whose distant ancestors may have preceded the Evenks and Evens in a significant area of ​​Eastern Siberia.

Among a significant part of the Altaic-speaking population of Siberia - Altaians, Tuvans, Yakuts, Buryats, etc. - the most Mongoloid Central Asian type is widespread, which is a complex racial-genetic formation, the origins of which date back to Mongoloid groups of early times mixed with each other (from ancient times until the late Middle Ages).

Sustainable economic and cultural types of the indigenous peoples of Siberia:

1. foot hunters and fishermen of the taiga zone;
2. wild deer hunters in the Subarctic;
3. sedentary fishermen in the lower reaches of large rivers (Ob, Amur, and also in Kamchatka);
4. taiga hunter-reindeer breeders of Eastern Siberia;
5. reindeer herders of the tundra from the Northern Urals to Chukotka;
6. sea ​​animal hunters on the Pacific coast and islands;
7. pastoralists and farmers of Southern and Western Siberia, the Baikal region, etc.

Historical and ethnographic areas:

1. West Siberian (with the southern, approximately to the latitude of Tobolsk and the mouth of the Chulym on the Upper Ob, and the northern, taiga and subarctic regions);
2. Altai-Sayan (mountain-taiga and forest-steppe mixed zone);
3. East Siberian (with internal differentiation of commercial and agricultural types of tundra, taiga and forest-steppe);
4. Amur (or Amur-Sakhalin);
5. northeastern (Chukotka-Kamchatka).

The Altaic language family was formed at first among the very mobile steppe population of Central Asia, outside the southern outskirts of Siberia. The demarcation of this community into proto-Turks and proto-Mongols occurred on the territory of Mongolia within the 1st millennium BC. Later, the ancient Turks (ancestors of the Sayan-Altai peoples and Yakuts) and the ancient Mongols (ancestors of the Buryats and Oirats-Kalmyks) settled in Siberia later. The area of ​​origin of the primary Tungus-speaking tribes was also in Eastern Transbaikalia, from where, around the turn of our era, the movement of foot hunters of the Proto-Evenki began to the north, to the Yenisei-Lena interfluve, and later to the Lower Amur.

The era of early metal (2-1 millennium BC) in Siberia is characterized by many flows of southern cultural influences, reaching the lower reaches of the Ob and the Yamal Peninsula, to the lower reaches of the Yenisei and Lena, to Kamchatka and the Bering Sea coast of the Chukotka Peninsula. The most significant, accompanied by ethnic inclusions in the aboriginal environment, these phenomena were in southern Siberia, the Amur region and Primorye of the Far East. At the turn of 2-1 millennia BC. there was a penetration into southern Siberia, into the Minusinsk basin and the Tomsk Ob region by steppe pastoralists of Central Asian origin, who left monuments of the Karasuk-Irmen culture. According to a convincing hypothesis, these were the ancestors of the Kets, who later, under pressure from the early Turks, moved further to the Middle Yenisei, and partially mixed with them. These Turks are the carriers of the Tashtyk culture of the 1st century. BC. - 5 in. AD - located in the Altai-Sayan Mountains, in the Mariinsky-Achinsk and Khakass-Minusinsk forest-steppe. They were engaged in semi-nomadic cattle breeding, knew agriculture, widely used iron tools, built rectangular log dwellings, had draft horses and riding domestic deer. It is possible that it was through them that domestic reindeer breeding began to spread in Northern Siberia. But the time of the really wide distribution of the early Turks along the southern strip of Siberia, to the north of the Sayano-Altai and in the Western Baikal region, is, most likely, the 6th-10th centuries. AD Between the 10th and 13th centuries the movement of the Baikal Turks to the Upper and Middle Lena begins, which marked the beginning of the formation of an ethnic community of the northernmost Turks - the Yakuts and the obligated Dolgans.

The Iron Age, the most developed and expressive in Western and Eastern Siberia, in the Amur Region and Primorye in the Far East, was marked by a noticeable rise in productive forces, population growth and an increase in the diversity of cultural means not only in the shores of large river communications (Ob, Yenisei, Lena, Amur ), but also in deep taiga regions. Possession of good vehicles (boats, skis, hand sleds, draft dogs and deer), metal tools and weapons, fishing gear, good clothes and portable dwellings, as well as perfect methods of housekeeping and food preparation for the future, i.e. The most important economic and cultural inventions and the labor experience of many generations allowed a number of aboriginal groups to widely settle in the hard-to-reach, but rich in animals and fish taiga areas of Northern Siberia, master the forest-tundra and reach the coast of the Arctic Ocean.

The largest migrations with extensive development of the taiga and assimilation intrusion into the “Paleo-Asiatic-Yukaghir” population of Eastern Siberia were made by Tungus-speaking groups of foot and deer hunters of elk and wild deer. Moving in various directions between the Yenisei and the Okhotsk coast, penetrating from the northern taiga to the Amur and Primorye, making contacts and mixing with foreign-speaking inhabitants of these places, these “Tungus explorers” eventually formed numerous groups of Evenks and Evens and Amur-Primorye peoples . The medieval Tungus, who themselves mastered domestic deer, contributed to the spread of these useful transport animals among the Yukagirs, Koryaks and Chukchi, which had important consequences for the development of their economy, cultural communication and changes in the social system.

Development of socio-economic relations

By the time the Russians arrived in Siberia, the indigenous peoples, not only of the forest-steppe zone, but also of the taiga and tundra, were by no means at that stage of socio-historical development that could be considered deeply primitive. Socio-economic relations in the leading sphere of production of conditions and forms of social life among many peoples of Siberia reached a fairly high level of development already in the 17th-18th centuries. Ethnographic materials of the XIX century. state the predominance among the peoples of Siberia of relations of the patriarchal-communal system associated with subsistence farming, the simplest forms of neighborly kinship cooperation, the communal tradition of owning land, organizing internal affairs and relations with the outside world, with a fairly strict account of “blood” genealogical ties in marriage and family and everyday (primarily religious, ritual and direct communication) spheres. The main social and production (including all aspects and processes of production and reproduction of human life), a socially significant unit of social structure among the peoples of Siberia was a territorial-neighbor community, within which they reproduced, passed on from generation to generation and accumulated everything necessary for existence and production communication material means and skills, social and ideological relations and properties. As a territorial-economic association, it could be a separate settled settlement, a group of interconnected fishing camps, a local community of semi-nomads.

But ethnographers are also right in that in the everyday sphere of the peoples of Siberia, in their genealogical ideas and connections, for a long time, living remnants of the former relations of the patriarchal-clan system were preserved. Among such persistent phenomena should be attributed generic exogamy, extended to a fairly wide circle of relatives in several generations. There were many traditions emphasizing the holiness and inviolability of the tribal principle in the social self-determination of the individual, his behavior and attitude towards people around him. Kindred mutual assistance and solidarity, even to the detriment of personal interests and deeds, was considered the highest virtue. The focus of this tribal ideology was the overgrown paternal family and its lateral patronymic lines. A wider circle of relatives of the paternal “root” or “bone” was also taken into account, if, of course, they were known. Proceeding from this, ethnographers believe that in the history of the peoples of Siberia, the paternal-tribal system was an independent, very long stage in the development of primitive communal relations.

Industrial and domestic relations between men and women in the family and the local community were built on the basis of the division of labor by sex and age. The significant role of women in the household was reflected in the ideology of many Siberian peoples in the form of the cult of the mythological “mistress of the hearth” and the associated custom of “keeping fire” by the real mistress of the house.

The Siberian material of the past centuries, used by ethnographers, along with the archaic, also shows obvious signs of the ancient decline and decay of tribal relations. Even in those local societies where social class stratification did not receive any noticeable development, features were found that overcame tribal equality and democracy, namely: individualization of the methods of appropriation of material goods, private ownership of craft products and objects of exchange, property inequality between families , in some places patriarchal slavery and bondage, the separation and exaltation of the ruling tribal nobility, etc. These phenomena in one form or another are noted in documents of the 17th-18th centuries. among the Ob Ugrians and Nenets, the Sayano-Altai peoples and the Evenks.

The Turkic-speaking peoples of Southern Siberia, the Buryats and Yakuts at that time were characterized by a specific ulus-tribal organization that combined the orders and customary law of the patriarchal (neighborly-kindred) community with the dominant institutions of the military-hierarchical system and the despotic power of the tribal nobility. The tsarist government could not but take into account such a difficult socio-political situation, and, recognizing the influence and strength of the local ulus nobility, practically entrusted the fiscal and police administration to the ordinary mass of accomplices.

It is also necessary to take into account the fact that Russian tsarism was not limited only to the collection of tribute - from the indigenous population of Siberia. If this was the case in the 17th century, then in subsequent centuries the state-feudal system sought to maximize the use of the productive forces of this population, imposing on it ever greater payments and duties in kind and depriving it of the right to supreme ownership of all lands, lands and riches of the subsoil. An integral part of the economic policy of the autocracy in Siberia was the encouragement of the commercial and industrial activities of Russian capitalism and the treasury. In the post-reform period, the flow of agrarian migration to Siberia of peasants from European Russia intensified. Centers of an economically active newcomer population began to quickly form along the most important transport routes, which entered into versatile economic and cultural contacts with the indigenous inhabitants of the newly developed areas of Siberia. Naturally, under this generally progressive influence, the peoples of Siberia lost their patriarchal identity (“the identity of backwardness”) and joined the new conditions of life, although before the revolution this happened in contradictory and not painless forms.

Economic and cultural types

By the time the Russians arrived, cattle breeding had developed much more than agriculture. But since the 18th century agricultural economy is increasingly taking place among the West Siberian Tatars, it is also spreading among the traditional pastoralists of the southern Altai, Tuva and Buryatia. Accordingly, material and everyday forms also changed: stable settled settlements arose, nomadic yurts and semi-dugouts were replaced by log houses. However, the Altaians, Buryats and Yakuts for a long time had polygonal log yurts with a conical roof, which in appearance imitated the felt yurt of nomads.

The traditional clothing of the cattle-breeding population of Siberia was similar to the Central Asian (for example, Mongolian) and belonged to the swing type (fur and cloth robe). The characteristic clothing of the South Altai pastoralists was a long-skinned sheepskin coat. Married Altai women (like the Buryats) put on a kind of long sleeveless jacket with a slit in front - “chegedek” over a fur coat.

The lower reaches of large rivers, as well as a number of small rivers of North-Eastern Siberia, are characterized by a complex of sedentary fishermen. In the vast taiga zone of Siberia, on the basis of the ancient hunting way, a specialized economic and cultural complex of hunters-reindeer herders was formed, which included Evenks, Evens, Yukaghirs, Oroks, and Negidals. The fishing of these peoples consisted in catching wild elk and deer, small ungulates and fur-bearing animals. Fishing was almost universally a subsidiary occupation. Unlike sedentary fishermen, the taiga reindeer hunters led a nomadic lifestyle. Taiga transport reindeer breeding is exclusively pack and riding.

The material culture of the hunting peoples of the taiga was fully adapted to constant movement. A typical example of this is the Evenks. Their dwelling was a conical tent, covered with deer skins and dressed skins (“rovduga”), also sewn into wide strips of birch bark boiled in boiling water. With frequent migrations, these tires were transported in packs on domestic deer. To move along the rivers, the Evenks used birch bark boats, so light that one person could easily carry them on their backs. Evenki skis are excellent: wide, long, but very light, glued with the skin from the legs of an elk. Evenki ancient clothing was adapted for frequent skiing and reindeer riding. This garment, made of thin but warm deer skins, was swinging, with floors that did not converge in front, the chest and stomach were covered with a kind of fur bib.

The general course of the historical process in various regions of Siberia was drastically changed by the events of the 16th-17th centuries, associated with the appearance of Russian explorers and, in the end, the inclusion of all of Siberia into the Russian state. The lively Russian trade and the progressive influence of Russian settlers made significant changes in the economy and life of not only the cattle-breeding and agricultural, but also the fishing indigenous population of Siberia. Already by the end of the XVIII century. Evenks, Evens, Yukaghirs and other fishing groups of the North began to widely use firearms. This facilitated and quantitatively increased the production of large animals (wild deer, elk) and fur-bearing animals, especially squirrels - the main object of fur trade in the 18th-early 20th centuries. New occupations began to be added to the original crafts - a more developed reindeer husbandry, the use of the draft power of horses, agricultural experiments, the beginnings of a craft based on a local raw material base, etc. As a result of all this, the material and everyday culture of the indigenous inhabitants of Siberia also changed.

Spiritual life

The area of ​​religious and mythological ideas and various religious cults succumbed to progressive cultural influence least of all. The most common form of beliefs among the peoples of Siberia was.

A distinctive feature of shamanism is the belief that certain people - shamans - have the ability, having brought themselves into a frenzied state, to enter into direct communication with the spirits - patrons and assistants of the shaman in the fight against diseases, hunger, loss and other misfortunes. The shaman was obliged to take care of the success of the craft, the successful birth of a child, etc. Shamanism had several varieties corresponding to different stages of social development of the Siberian peoples themselves. Among the most backward peoples, for example, among the Itelmens, everyone could shaman, and especially old women. The remnants of such "universal" shamanism have been preserved among other peoples.

For some peoples, the functions of a shaman were already a specialty, but the shamans themselves served a tribal cult, in which all adult members of the clan took part. Such “tribal shamanism” was noted among the Yukagirs, Khanty and Mansi, among the Evenks and Buryats.

Professional shamanism flourishes during the period of the collapse of the patriarchal-tribal system. The shaman becomes a special person in the community, opposing himself to uninitiated relatives, lives on income from his profession, which becomes hereditary. It is this form of shamanism that has been observed in the recent past among many peoples of Siberia, especially among the Evenks and the Tungus-speaking population of the Amur, among the Nenets, Selkups, and Yakuts.

It acquired complicated forms from the Buryats under the influence, and from the end of the 17th century. generally began to be replaced by this religion.

The tsarist government, starting from the 18th century, diligently supported the missionary activity of the Orthodox Church in Siberia, and Christianization was often carried out by coercive measures. By the end of the XIX century. most of the Siberian peoples were formally baptized, but their own beliefs did not disappear and continued to have a significant impact on the worldview and behavior of the indigenous population.

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Literature

1. Ethnography: textbook / ed. Yu.V. Bromley, G.E. Markov. - M.: Higher school, 1982. - S. 320. Chapter 10. "Peoples of Siberia".

The number of the indigenous population of Siberia before the beginning of Russian colonization was about 200 thousand people. The northern (tundra) part of Siberia was inhabited by tribes of Samoyeds, in Russian sources called Samoyeds: Nenets, Enets and Nganasans.

The main economic occupation of these tribes was reindeer herding and hunting, and in the lower reaches of the Ob, Taz and Yenisei - fishing. The main objects of fishing were arctic fox, sable, ermine. Furs served as the main commodity in the payment of yasak and in trade. Furs were also paid as bride price for the girls who were chosen as their wives. The number of Siberian Samoyeds, including the tribes of the southern Samoyeds, reached about 8 thousand people.

To the south of the Nenets lived the Ugrian-speaking tribes of the Khanty (Ostyaks) and Mansi (Voguls). The Khanty were engaged in fishing and hunting; in the region of the Gulf of Ob they had reindeer herds. The main occupation of the Mansi was hunting. Before the arrival of the Russian Mansi on the river. Toure and Tavde were engaged in primitive agriculture, cattle breeding, and beekeeping. The area of ​​settlement of the Khanty and Mansi included the regions of the Middle and Lower Ob with tributaries, pp. Irtysh, Demyanka and Konda, as well as the western and eastern slopes of the Middle Urals. The total number of the Ugric-speaking tribes of Siberia in the 17th century. reached 15-18 thousand people.

To the east of the settlement area of ​​the Khanty and Mansi lay the lands of the southern Samoyeds, the southern or Narym Selkups. For a long time, the Russians called the Narym Selkups Ostyaks because of the similarity of their material culture with the Khanty. The Selkups lived along the middle reaches of the river. Ob and its tributaries. The main economic activity was seasonal fishing and hunting. They hunted fur-bearing animals, elk, wild deer, upland and waterfowl. Before the arrival of the Russians, the southern Samoyeds were united in a military alliance, which was called the Pegoy Horde in Russian sources, led by Prince Voni.

To the east of the Narym Selkups lived tribes of the Ket-speaking population of Siberia: the Kets (Yenisei Ostyaks), Arins, Kotts, Yastyns (4-6 thousand people), who settled in the Middle and Upper Yenisei. Their main occupations were hunting and fishing. Some groups of the population extracted iron from ore, products from which were sold to neighbors or used on the farm.

The upper reaches of the Ob and its tributaries, the upper reaches of the Yenisei, the Altai were inhabited by numerous and greatly differing in economic structure Turkic tribes - the ancestors of modern Shors, Altaians, Khakass: Tomsk, Chulym and "Kuznetsk" Tatars (about 5-6 thousand people), Teleuts ( white Kalmyks) (about 7-8 thousand people), Yenisei Kirghiz with their subordinate tribes (8-9 thousand people). The main occupation of most of these peoples was nomadic cattle breeding. In some places of this vast territory, hoe farming and hunting were developed. The "Kuznetsk" Tatars had developed blacksmithing.

The Sayan Highlands were occupied by the Samoyed and Turkic tribes of Mators, Karagas, Kamasin, Kachin, Kaysot, and others, with a total number of about 2 thousand people. They were engaged in cattle breeding, breeding horses, hunting, they knew the skills of agriculture.

To the south of the habitats of the Mansi, Selkups and Kets, Turkic-speaking ethno-territorial groups were widespread - the ethnic predecessors of the Siberian Tatars: the Baraba, Terenin, Irtysh, Tobol, Ishim and Tyumen Tatars. By the middle of the XVI century. a significant part of the Turks of Western Siberia (from Tura in the west to Baraba in the east) was under the rule of the Siberian Khanate. The main occupation of the Siberian Tatars was hunting, fishing, cattle breeding was developed in the Baraba steppe. Before the arrival of the Russians, the Tatars were already engaged in agriculture. There was a home production of leather, felt, edged weapons, fur dressing. Tatars acted as intermediaries in transit trade between Moscow and Central Asia.

To the west and east of Baikal there were Mongolian-speaking Buryats (about 25 thousand people), known in Russian sources under the name of “brothers” or “brotherly people”. The basis of their economy was nomadic cattle breeding. Farming and gathering were ancillary occupations. The iron-making craft has received a rather high development.

A significant territory from the Yenisei to the Sea of ​​​​Okhotsk, from the northern tundra to the Amur region was inhabited by the Tungus tribes of the Evenks and Evens (about 30 thousand people). They were divided into "deer" (bred deer), which were the majority, and "foot". The "foot" Evenks and Evens were sedentary fishermen and hunted sea animals on the coast of the Sea of ​​Okhotsk. One of the main occupations of both groups was hunting. The main game animals were moose, wild deer, and bears. Domestic deer were used by the Evenks as pack and riding animals.

The territory of the Amur region and Primorye was inhabited by peoples who spoke the Tungus-Manchurian languages ​​- the ancestors of modern Nanai, Ulchi, Udege. The Paleo-Asiatic group of peoples inhabiting this territory also included small groups of Nivkhs (Gilyaks), who lived in the neighborhood of the Tungus-Manchurian peoples of the Amur region. They were also the main inhabitants of Sakhalin. The Nivkhs were the only people of the Amur region who widely used sled dogs in their economic activities.

The middle course of the river. Lena, Upper Yana, Olenyok, Aldan, Amga, Indigirka and Kolyma were occupied by Yakuts (about 38 thousand people). It was the most numerous people among the Turks of Siberia. They raised cattle and horses. Animal and bird hunting and fishing were considered auxiliary trades. Home production of metal was widely developed: copper, iron, silver. They made weapons in large numbers, skillfully dressed leather, wove belts, carved wooden household items and utensils.

The northern part of Eastern Siberia was inhabited by the Yukaghir tribes (about 5 thousand people). The boundaries of their lands stretched from the tundra of Chukotka in the east to the lower reaches of the Lena and Olenek in the west. The north-east of Siberia was inhabited by peoples belonging to the Paleo-Asiatic linguistic family: the Chukchi, Koryaks, Itelmens. The Chukchi occupied a significant part of the continental Chukotka. Their number was approximately 2.5 thousand people. The southern neighbors of the Chukchi were the Koryaks (9-10 thousand people), very close in language and culture to the Chukchi. They occupied the entire northwestern part of the Okhotsk coast and the part of Kamchatka adjacent to the mainland. The Chukchi and Koryaks were divided, like the Tungus, into "deer" and "foot".

Eskimos (about 4 thousand people) were settled throughout the coastal strip of the Chukotka Peninsula. The main population of Kamchatka in the XVII century. were Itelmens (12 thousand people). A few Ainu tribes lived in the south of the peninsula. The Ainu were also settled on the islands of the Kuril chain and in the southern tip of Sakhalin.

The economic occupations of these peoples were hunting for sea animals, reindeer herding, fishing and gathering. Before the arrival of the Russians, the peoples of northeastern Siberia and Kamchatka were still at a fairly low stage of socio-economic development. Stone and bone tools and weapons were widely used in everyday life.

An important place in the life of almost all Siberian peoples before the arrival of the Russians was occupied by hunting and fishing. A special role was assigned to the extraction of furs, which was the main subject of trade exchange with neighbors and was used as the main payment of tribute - yasak.

Most of the Siberian peoples in the XVII century. Russians were caught at various stages of patriarchal-tribal relations. The most backward forms of social organization were noted among the tribes of northeastern Siberia (Yukaghirs, Chukchis, Koryaks, Itelmens, and Eskimos). In the field of social relations, some of them showed features of domestic slavery, the dominant position of women, etc.

The most developed socio-economically were the Buryats and Yakuts, who at the turn of the XVI-XVII centuries. patriarchal-feudal relations developed. The only people who had their own statehood at the time of the arrival of the Russians were the Tatars, united under the rule of the Siberian khans. Siberian Khanate by the middle of the 16th century. covered an area stretching from the Tura basin in the west to Baraba in the east. However, this state formation was not monolithic, torn apart by internecine clashes between various dynastic groups. Incorporation in the 17th century Siberia in the Russian state has fundamentally changed the natural course of the historical process in the region and the fate of the indigenous peoples of Siberia. The beginning of the deformation of traditional culture was associated with the arrival in the region of a population with a productive type of economy, which suggested a different type of human relationship to nature, cultural values ​​and traditions.

Religiously, the peoples of Siberia belonged to different belief systems. The most common form of beliefs was shamanism, based on animism - the spiritualization of the forces and phenomena of nature. A distinctive feature of shamanism is the belief that certain people - shamans - have the ability to enter into direct communication with the spirits - patrons and helpers of the shaman in the fight against diseases.

Since the 17th century Orthodox Christianity spread widely in Siberia, Buddhism penetrated in the form of Lamaism. Even earlier, Islam penetrated among the Siberian Tatars. Among the peoples of Siberia, shamanism acquired complicated forms under the influence of Christianity and Buddhism (Tuvans, Buryats). In the XX century. this whole system of beliefs coexisted with an atheistic (materialistic) worldview, which was the official state ideology. Currently, a number of Siberian peoples are experiencing a revival of shamanism.

On the ethnic map of Russia, Siberia occupies a special position, determined by the level of socio-economic development of the indigenous population, the policy of the state authorities in relation to it, the demographic situation and geography of the region.

From a geographical point of view, Siberia is a subregion of North Asia, within which it occupies an area of ​​13 million square kilometers. km, which is about 75% of the territory of Russia. The western border of Siberia corresponds to the geographical border between Europe and Asia (the Ural Mountains), the eastern border corresponds to the coast of the seas of the Pacific Ocean basin.

In natural terms, Western Siberia (West Siberian Plain), Eastern Siberia (Middle Siberian Plateau and mountain systems of the North-East of Siberia), Southern Siberia, Primorye and Amur Region form a separate region - the Far East. The climate is sharply continental, severe, with a negative balance of average annual temperatures. Up to b million sq. km of the surface of Siberia is occupied by permafrost.

Siberia is well watered. Most of the great rivers of Siberia belong to the basin of the seas of the Arctic (Ob, Yenisei, Lena, Yana, etc.) and Pacific (Amur, Kamchatka, Anadyr) oceans. Here, especially in the zone of forest-tundra and tundra, there are a large number of lakes, the largest of which are Baikal, Taimyr, Teletskoye.

The territory of Siberia is distinguished by a rather diverse latitudinal zonality. With the dominance of the taiga zone - the main territory of the commercial economy, in high latitudes, the forest-tundra strip passes to the north into the tundra zone, in the south to the forest-steppe and further to the steppe and mountain-steppe areas. Zones south of the taiga are often defined as mostly plowed.

Features of the natural environment largely determined the nature of the settlement and the characteristics of the culture of the population who had mastered this region.

At the end of the XX century. The population of Siberia exceeded 32 million people, of which about 2 million were indigenous people of the region. These are 30 peoples, of which 25 with a total number of about 210 thousand, form a community of "indigenous peoples of the North and Siberia." The latter are united by such features as a small number (up to 50 thousand people), the preservation of special types of economic management of nature (hunting, fishing, reindeer herding, etc.), nomadic and semi-nomadic lifestyles, and the maintenance of traditional social norms and institutions in public life. .

The All-Russian population census of 2010 gives an idea of ​​the size of the indigenous population of Siberia. Of the relatively large peoples, these are the Yakuts (478 thousand), Buryats (461 thousand), Tuvans (265 thousand), Khakasses (73 thousand), Altaians (81 thousand), Siberian Tatars (6.8 thousand). In fact, the small peoples are the Nenets, including European groups (44.6 thousand), Evenks (37.8 thousand), Khanty (30.9 thousand), Evens (22.4 thousand), Chukchi (15.9 thousand), Shors (12.9 thousand), Mansi (12.2 thousand), Nanais (12 thousand), Koryaks (7.9 thousand), Dolgans (7.8 thousand), Nivkhs (4 6 thousand), Selkups (3.6 thousand), Itelmens and Ulchis (about 3 thousand each), Kets, Yukagirs, Eskimos and Udeges (less than 2 thousand each), Nganasans, Tofalars, Enets, Aleuts, Orochi , Negidals and Uilta/Oroks (less than 1,000 each).

The peoples of Siberia differ from each other linguistically, anthropologically, as well as culturally. These differences are based on the relative independence of ethnogenetic and ethnocultural lines of development, demography, and the nature of settlement.

With a fairly certain dynamics of modern linguistic processes in Siberia, which for small peoples demonstrate almost complete mastery of their native language in older age groups and the transition to Russian in younger ones, linguistic communities have historically formed here, most of which are of local origin.

Within the territory of Western Siberia, peoples who speak the languages ​​of the Ural-Yukagir language family are settled. These are the Samoyeds - the Nenets (a zone of forest-tundra and tundra from the Polar Urals in the west to the Yenisei Bay in the east), the Enets (the right bank of the Yenisei Bay), in Taimyr - the Nganasans. In the West Siberian taiga on the Middle Ob and in the river basin. Taz - Selkups.

The Ugric group is represented by the Khanty languages, which are widely settled in the Ob basin and its tributaries from the forest-tundra to the forest-steppe. The ethnic territory of the Mansi extends from the Urals to the left bank of the Ob. Relatively recently, the Yukaghir language was included in the Uralic language family. Back in the 19th century linguists noted the uraloid substratum in the language of this people, that, despite the territorial remoteness, the Yukagirs live in Eastern Siberia in the basin of the river. Kolyma - allows, as a reflection of the ancient migrations of the Ural-speaking peoples, to single out the Yukaghir language group among the Urals.

The largest in terms of the number of native speakers in Siberia is the Altaic language family. It consists of three groups. The Turkic group includes the languages ​​of the peoples of the Sayano-Altai. Altaians settled from the west to the east of Southern Siberia. They include a number of ethno-territorial groups, which, according to the 2002 census, were for the first time recorded as independent ethnic groups (Teleuts, Tubalars, Telengits, Kumandins, etc.). Further to the east - Shors, Khakasses, Tuvans, Tofalars.

In the forest-steppe zone of Western Siberia, West Siberian Tatars are settled, which include groups of Baraba, Chulym, Tara and other Tatars.

A significant part of the territory of Eastern Siberia (the basins of the Lena, Anabara, Olenek, Yana, Indigirka) is inhabited by Yakuts. The northernmost Turkic-speaking people of the world, the Dolgans, live in the south of Taimyr. The Mongolian-speaking peoples of Siberia are Buryats and Soyots.

The Tungus-Manchurian languages ​​are widely spoken in the taiga zone of Eastern Siberia from the Yenisei to Kamchatka and Sakhalin. These are the languages ​​of the northern Tungus - Evenks and Evens. South, in the river basin. Amur, live peoples who speak languages ​​belonging to the southern, Amur or Manchurian branch of the Tungus-Manchurian group. These are Nanai, Ulchi, Uilta (Oroks) of Sakhalin Island. Along the banks of the left tributary of the Amur, the river. The Amguns are settled by the Negidals. In the Primorsky Territory, in the Sikhote-Alin mountains and on the coast of the Sea of ​​Japan, live the Udege and Orochi.

The northeast of Siberia, Chukotka and Kamchatka, is inhabited by Paleo-Asiatic peoples - the Chukchi, Koryaks and Itelmens. The concept of "Paleo-Asiatic" is quite consistent with the idea of ​​antiquity and the autochthonous nature of the origin of their cultures. The fact of their genetic linguistic unity is not obvious. Until recently, without using the concept of "family", linguists united their languages ​​into a "group of Paleoasiatic languages". Then, taking into account a number of signs of similarity, they were separated into the Chukchi-Kamchatka language family. Within its framework, a greater relationship is observed between the languages ​​of the Chukchi and Koryaks. The Itelmen language, in relation to them, demonstrates not so much a genetic as an areal correspondence.

Native speakers of languages ​​belonging to the Eskimo-Aleut family (Escaleut) are mainly settled outside of Russia (USA, Canada). Small groups of Asian Eskimos (the coast of the Gulf of Anadyr, the Chukchi Sea, Wrangel Islands) and Aleuts (the Commander Islands) live in the North-East of Siberia.

The languages ​​of two Siberian peoples, the Nivkhs (the Amur Estuary and the north of Sakhalin Island) and the Kets (the Yenisei River basin), are classified as isolated. The Nivkh language, due to the fuzzy expression of the genealogical beginning in the Paleo-Asiatic languages, was previously assigned to this group. The Ket language represents a legacy that linguists trace back to the Yenisei language family. Speakers of the Yenisei languages ​​(Asans, Arins, Yarintsy, etc.) in the past settled in the upper reaches of the Yenisei and its tributaries and during the 18th–19th centuries. were assimilated by neighboring peoples.

The historical connection of linguistic communities with certain territories is confirmed by the facts of racial polytypy, which is established at the level of anthropological classification. The peoples of Siberia belong to the local population of northern Mongoloids, which is part of the great Mongoloid race. The taxonomic assessment of the variations of the Mongoloid complex makes it possible to single out several small races in the population of the region.

Carriers of complexes of the Ural and South Siberian races settle in Western Siberia and in the north-west of the Sayano-Altai. In the general classification, such taxa are defined by the concept of "contact". They are characterized by a combination of at least two complexes of signs of racial types adjoining geographically. Representatives of the Ural (Ugrians, Samoyeds, Shors) and South Siberian (Northern Altaians, Khakasses) races are characterized by a weakening of Monhaloid features in the structure of the face and eye area. Unlike the Urals, for whom lightening (depigmentation) of the skin, hair, eyes is typical, the South Siberian groups are more strongly pigmented.

The population of Eastern Siberia, including the areas of Primorye and the Amur region, demonstrates almost the maximum degree of expression of Mongoloid features, even at the level of the Mongoloid race as a whole. This concerns the degree of flattening of the face and nose, a significant proportion of the epicanthus ("Mongolian fold" that covers the lacrimal tubercle and is a continuation of the upper eyelid), the structure of the hairline, etc. These signs are characteristic of representatives of the North Asian race. It includes Baikal (Evenks, Evens, Dolgans, Nanais, and other peoples of the Amur region) and Central Asian (Southern Altaians, Tuvans, Buryats, Yakuts) anthropological types. The differences between them are manifested primarily in the increased pigmentation characteristic of the Central Asian Mongoloids.

In the north-east of Siberia, the Arctic race is widespread, whose representatives, relative to the anthropological features of the Baikal type, on the one hand, demonstrate a weakening of the Mongoloid complex in the structure of the face (more protruding nose, less flat face), on the other hand, increased pigmentation, protrusion of the lips. The last signs are associated with the participation in the formation of the Arctic race of the southern groups of the Pacific Mongoloids. The internal taxonomy of the Arctic race suggests the possibility of distinguishing continental (Chukchi, Eskimos, partly Koryaks and Itelmens) and insular (Aleuts) groups of populations.

The originality of the two Siberian peoples is fixed in special anthropological types. These are the Amur-Sakhalin (Nivkhs), most likely, mestizo, which arose on the basis of the interaction of the Baikal and Kuril (Ainu) populations, and the Yenisei (Kets), dating back to the anthropological features of the Paleo-Siberian population.

In many respects, the similar level of socio-economic development and geographical zoning of Siberia, as well as the historical and cultural interaction of northerners with neighboring peoples, determined the formation of a cultural landscape specific to the region, which is represented by the classification of the peoples of Siberia according to the KhKT.

In historical sequence, it is customary to distinguish the following complexes: hunters of the wild deer of the Arctic and Subarctic; foot taiga hunters and fishermen (in a later period this type was modified due to the introduction of transport reindeer herding into its composition); sedentary fishermen of the Siberian river basins (partly the Ob, Amur, Kamchatka); hunters of the sea animal of the Pacific coast; South Siberian commercial and cattle-breeding forest complex; pastoralists of Siberia; nomadic reindeer herders in the tundra of Siberia.

Classification estimates demonstrate the regional correspondence of language features, anthropology, and economic and cultural characteristics, which makes it possible to single out territories within which the commonality of historical destinies gives rise to the stereotyping of a number of cultural phenomena of peoples with different ethno-genetic origins in the past. This state of ethnic cultures is described within the boundaries of the IEO. For Siberia, these are the West Siberian, Yamalo-Taimyr, Sayan-Altai, East Siberian, Amur-Sakhalin and North-Eastern IEOs.

Man began to explore Siberia quite early. On its territory there are archaeological sites dating back to different periods of the Stone Age in the range from 30 to 5 thousand years ago. This was the time of the formation of the Paleo-Siberian cultures, in the final of which there is a territorial isolation of local cultural traditions, corresponding to the placement of the HCT noted above. On the one hand, it demonstrates the tendencies of "cultural radiation", the development of optimal, from the point of view of the ecological characteristics of the regions, adaptive strategies. In the history of the indigenous population of Siberia, it was rather a cultural and genetic period. On the other hand, there is a correspondence of local cultural dynamics to the location in Siberia of future large ethnolinguistic communities - Ural, Altai, including Tungus, Paleo-Asiatic.

The ethnogenesis and ethnic history of the peoples of Siberia is most often comprehended in the process of developing the so-called ethnogenetic problems.

For Western Siberia it is "Samoyed problem ", which was formulated at the beginning of the 18th century. Scientists of that time tried to establish the ancestral home of the Samoyeds. Some of them settled in the north (modern Nenets, Enets, Nganasans and Selkups), while others (Kamasins, Mators, etc.) in the foothills of Altai and Sayan. In the 18th-19th centuries, the South Siberian groups of the Samoyeds were either Turkified or Russified. Thus, mutually exclusive hypotheses were formulated about the Arctic (F. I. Stralenberg) and the Sayan (I. E. Fisher) ancestral home of the Samoyeds. The last hypothesis, in in the form of the formula "The Samoyeds came from Altai", owned by the Finnish researcher M.A. Kastren, has become dominant since the middle of the 19th century.

Domestic Siberian researchers during the 20th century. concretized the picture of the ethnogenesis of the North Samoyedic peoples. It is believed that this was not a simple migration, followed by the adaptation of the southern (pastoral) culture of the newcomers to the natural environment of high latitudes. Archaeological monuments in the north of Western Siberia indicate the existence of a pre-Samoyed (folklore "Siirtya") population here, which also took part in the formation of modern Samoyed peoples. Migration to the north covered a significant period of time, possibly the entire 1st millennium AD. and was determined by the ethnic processes of the formation and settlement of the Central Asian peoples - the Huns, Turks, Mongols.

There is currently a resurgence of interest in the concept of the northern ancestral home of the Samoyeds. The genesis of the archaeological cultures of the Pechora and Ob region, presumably proto-Samodian, starting from the Mesolithic, demonstrates their gradual movement to the south, to the Middle Ob (Kulai archaeological community, the middle of the 1st millennium BC - the middle of the 1st millennium AD) and further to the Sayano-Altai regions. In this case, the Kulays are considered as the ethno-cultural basis for the formation of both northern and southern Samoyeds.

"Ugric problem "is formulated in connection with the existence of two linguistic communities - the Danube (Hungarians) and Ob (Khanty and Mansi) - Ugrians, as well as the presence in the culture of the latter of the steppe pastoral layer. The general scheme of the ethnogenesis of the Ob Ugrians was developed by V. N. Chernetsov. He believed that natives of the West Siberian taiga - hunters-fishermen and newcomers from the more southern, steppe regions - nomadic herders - Ugrians-Savirs, took part in their formation. .e to the first half of the II millennium AD in the taiga zone of Western Siberia.On the one hand, it developed along the line of dominance of the taiga commercial economy and material culture, on the other hand, the preservation of certain phenomena dating back to the steppe in different spheres of the culture of the Ugrians. cattle-breeding tradition (bread oven, horse handling skills, ornamental plots, individual characters of the pantheon, etc.).

At present, it is believed that such a culture could be formed along the line of integration of traditions of different ethnic origin within the boundaries of the entire territory of the settlement of the Khanty and Mansi and flowing synchronously. The path of local adaptation and formation of the proper Ugric culture is possible in a relatively limited area of ​​the forest Trans-Urals, Tobol, Irtysh in the south of the forest zone of Western Siberia. In this area, the continuity of archaeological cultures can be traced from the Late Bronze Age to the first centuries of the 2nd millennium AD. in the formation of an integrated commercial and livestock economy. The Ob Ugrians moved to the north from the end of the 1st millennium AD. under the pressure of the Turkic-speaking population. In the new territories, the ancestors of the Khanty and Mansi adapted to the new conditions in the direction of strengthening the taiga fishing complex and the loss of the skills of the cattle breeding component, which led to a change in their cultural appearance. Already in the conditions of high latitudes and in interaction with the Samoyedic-speaking neighbors, the process of formation of ethnographic and territorial groups of the Ob Ugrians took place.

"Ket problem". It is formulated in connection with the presence in the culture of the Kets of the so-called South Siberian elements, which allows us to consider modern Kets as descendants of one of the Yenisei peoples, or even a single Yenisei people who lived in South Siberia in the past. These are arins, asanas, yarintsy, baikogovtsy and kotty, which during the XVIII-XIX centuries. were assimilated by the peoples around them. Thus, the Yenisei components took part in the formation of separate groups of Khakasses (Kachins), Tuvans, Shors, and Buryats. Migration processes, which in Southern Siberia were associated with the ethnopolitical history of the Turks, also affected the Yenisei peoples. The beginning of the migration of the ancestors of the Kets is associated with the 9th-13th centuries, which led to the settlement of a few groups of the Ket-speaking population along the banks of the Yenisei and its tributaries. It was here, in contact with the Khanty, Selkups and Evenks, that the original Kst culture was formed.

The East Siberian and Amur regions are inhabited by peoples who speak the Tungus-Manchu languages. The vast territory, developed by relatively small peoples, the similarity of many elements of culture, including language and anthropological proximity, in the presence of ethnic and cultural local specifics, gave rise to Siberian studies "Tunguska problem".

It boils down to the search for the ancestral home of the Tungus-Manchurian peoples, within whose borders a marked unity was formed. It was localized by various researchers within "those countries that they occupy to this day" - the autochthonous hypothesis of G. F. Miller (XVIII century). Supporters of the migration hypothesis established the ancestral home locally - the left bank of the lower and middle reaches of the Amur and the adjacent regions of Manchuria, the forest-steppe regions of the Southern Baikal region, Transbaikalia and Northern Mongolia, and even in the interfluve of the Yellow River and Yangtze.

By the middle of the XX century. domestic researchers based on data from anthropology, archeology, linguistics, ethnography, etc. created a general scheme of the ethnogenesis of the Tungus-Manchurian peoples of Siberia. Their ancestral home, on the basis of archeological data, is associated with the genesis of the hunting Neolithic Baikal culture of the southern regions of Lake Baikal, and the process of formation of individual peoples of the Tungus-Manchu community, with the consistent differentiation of the Altai language community from the 3rd millennium BC. until the turn of our era.

The content of this process consisted in the primary separation in its composition of the ancestors of the Tungus (north) and the southern steppe population, on the basis of which the Turks and Mongols subsequently formed, and the subsequent isolation already within the boundaries of the Tungus-Manchu community of the speakers of the Manchu languages, who by the turn of our era had mastered the Amur basin and its tributaries. Around the same time, in connection with the advancement of the steppe, pastoral population to Baikal, the northern Tungus were divided into western and eastern, relative to the river. Lenas, communities. The Evens stand out in the eastern part, having mastered the eastern regions of Yakutia and the coast of the Sea of ​​Okhotsk, and in the 19th century. a small group of Evens moved to Kamchatka. An important moment in the history of the northern Tungus is their development, presumably in the 6th-7th centuries. AD, transport reindeer breeding. There is an opinion that it was the deer that "inspired the Tungus" and allowed them to master the vast expanses of Eastern Siberia. The breadth of settlement and constant contacts with neighboring peoples led to the formation of local features of the culture of the Tungus-speaking population of Siberia. This is clearly evidenced by the early Russian written sources, which mention "foot, deer, horse, cattle, seated Tunguses."

"The Paleoasian Problem" stems from the territorial isolation of the Paleo-Asiatic peoples, the specific position of their languages ​​(the group of Paleo-Asiatic languages), and many cultural features. These peoples are considered to be the natives of the region. In Kamchatka and Chukotka, archaeological sites of the Upper Paleolithic era have been discovered, indicating the formation in the region of the foundations of a culture of hunters of wild deer, which, in fairly stable natural and climatic conditions, existed here until the end of the 17th - beginning of the 18th centuries. There are several lines of ethnocultural development of Paleoasians.

So, the Chukchi and Koryaks are divided into ethnographic groups of coastal (sea St. John's wort) and deer, and therefore, there are numerous parallels in the culture of these peoples. Starting from the middle of the 1st millennium AD, the basis for the formation of the culture of the coastal Chukchi was determined by their contacts with the Eskimos. It was the interaction of two hunting traditions, continental and coastal. In the initial period, due to differences in almost all spheres of culture, it took place in the form of an exchange. Subsequently, part of the Chukchi, continental deer hunters, switched to a settled way of life and engaged in marine hunting.

The history of the coastal Koryaks is associated with the autochthonous basis for the formation of their culture. In the basin of the Sea of ​​Okhotsk, archaeologists have discovered sites of the so-called Okhotsk culture (1st millennium AD), which is defined as "the ancient Koryak culture of the Okhotsk coast." This is the culture of marine hunters, fishermen, and wild deer hunters, in which, in relative chronological continuity up to the ancient Koryak settlements of the 16th–17th centuries, features of the Koryak cultural tradition can be traced.

The history of the formation of the deer groups of the Chukchi and Koryaks is not so obvious, since this problem is connected with the history of Siberian reindeer herding as a whole. According to one point of view, reindeer husbandry in Chukotka emerges convergently with respect to other Siberian reindeer domestication centers on the basis of the local culture of wild deer hunters. According to another position, it is assumed that Paleo-Asians borrowed reindeer husbandry from the Tungus with its subsequent evolution from transport (Tungus) to large-herd (Paleo-Asians) already among the Chukchi and Koryaks.

A separate position among the Paleo-Asiatic peoples of the North-East of Siberia is occupied by the indigenous inhabitants of Kamchatka, the Itelmens, which is manifested in the language, anthropological and cultural features. The most ancient archaeological sites of the region were found in Central Kamchatka, testifying to the ties of its population with the American continent (a tool complex), here (Ushki I site) perhaps the oldest on Earth was found - about 14 thousand years ago - the burial of a domestic dog . These were cultures typologically similar to Chukotka and Kolyma, which probably influenced the correspondence between the culture of the Itelmens and their northern neighbors.

It includes a number of common elements characteristic of most of the Paleo-Asiatic peoples of the North-East of Siberia (the main types of economic activity, some types of residential and outbuildings, partly transport and winter clothing). Along with this, the direction and intensity of cultural contacts led to the interaction of neighboring peoples, or the adaptation by one of them of the cultural elements of another. Such connections of the Itelmen culture are established with the Ainu, Aleuts. The strongest links were between the Itelmens and their northern neighbors, the Koryaks. This is fixed anthropologically - the Koryaks and Itelmens oppose the Chukchi and Eskimos within the mainland group of populations of the Arctic race, the same is noted in the sphere of language. Interaction with the Russians, which began at the end of the 18th century. led to a radical transformation of their culture in the direction of syncretization. With sufficiently intensive marital contacts, a perceived ethnic group of Kamchadals was formed, which in ethnocultural terms differs from the Itelmens proper and gravitates towards the Russians.

"Escaleut problem". The history of the Eskimos and Aleuts, who mainly live outside the territory of Russia, is connected with the problem of the formation of the coastal cultures of Chukotka and Alaska. The relationship between the Eskimos and the Aleuts is recorded in the form of a proto-Esco-Aleutian community, which in ancient times was localized in the zone of the Bering Strait. Its separation, according to various estimates, took place from 2.5 thousand to 6 thousand years ago at the stage of continental culture, since the vocabulary of the Eskimos and Aleuts associated with marine hunting is different. This was due to the process of development by the ancestors of the Eskimos and Aleuts of various territories of Beringia and the American North.

The initial stage of the formation of the Eskimos is associated with a change at the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. ecological situation in the regions of Beringia - increased coastal migrations of sea animals. Their further development can be traced in the evolution of local and chronological variants of ancient Eskimo cultures. The Okvik stage (1st millennium BC) reflects the process of interaction between the continental culture of wild deer hunters and the culture of marine hunters. The strengthening of the role of the latter is recorded in the monuments of the ancient Bering Sea culture (the first half of the 1st millennium AD). In the southeast of Chukotka, the Old Bering Sea culture passes into the Punuk culture (VI–VIII centuries). It was the heyday of whaling and, in general, the culture of marine hunters in Chukotka.

The subsequent ethno-cultural history of the Eskimos is closely connected with the formation of the community of the coastal Chukchi, who came into contact with them at the beginning of the 1st millennium AD. This process had a pronounced integration character, which found expression in the interpenetration of many elements of the traditional everyday culture of the coastal Chukchi and Eskimos.

At present, the point of view about the formation of the Aleuts in the Aleutian Islands is more preferable. The most ancient archaeological evidence found here (Anangula site, about 8 thousand years ago) indicates the genetic connection of the local population with Asian cultures. It was on this basis that the Aleuts themselves subsequently formed. The insular nature of their formation is also confirmed by the anthropological specificity (an insular group of populations within the Arctic race), which develops as a result of insular isolation and adaptation to local conditions.

The history of the Russian Aleuts inhabiting the Commander Islands (Bering and Medny Islands) begins no earlier than 1825, when 17 Aleut families were resettled to Bering Island. This resettlement was associated with the development of the commercial territories of Beringia by the Russian-American Company.

The Khanty are an indigenous Ugric people living in the north of Western Siberia, mainly in the territories of the Khanty-Mansiysk and Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrugs of the Tyumen Region, as well as in the north of the Tomsk Region.

Khanty (the outdated name "Ostyaks") are also known as Yugras, however, the more accurate self-name "Khanty" (from the Khanty "Kantakh" - a person, people) was fixed as an official name in Soviet times.

Until the beginning of the 20th century, the Russians called the Khanty Ostyaks (possibly from "as-yah" - "the people of the big river"), even earlier (until the 14th century) - Yugra, Yugrichs. The Komi-Zyryans called the Khanty Egra, the Nenets - Khabi, the Tatars - ushtek (ashtek, expired).

The Khanty are close to the Mansi, with whom the Ob Ugrians unite under the common name.

There are three ethnographic groups among the Khanty: northern, southern and eastern. They differ in dialects, self-name, features in the economy and culture. Also, among the Khanty, territorial groups stand out - Vasyugan, Salym, Kazym Khanty.

The northern neighbors of the Khanty were the Nenets, the southern neighbors were the Siberian Tatars and the Tomsk-Narym Selkups, the eastern neighbors were the Kets, Selkups, and also nomadic Evenks. The vast territory of settlement and, accordingly, the different cultures of neighboring peoples contributed to the formation of three quite different ethnographic groups within one people.

Population

According to the 2010 census, the number of Khanty in the Russian Federation is 30,943 people). Of these, 61.6% live in the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug, 30.7% - in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, 2.3% - in the Tyumen region without Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug and YNAO, 2.3% - in the Tomsk region.

The main habitat is limited mainly by the lower reaches of the Ob, Irtysh rivers and their tributaries.

Language and writing

The Khanty language, together with Mansi and Hungarian, forms the Ob-Ugric group of the Ural family of languages. The Khanty language is known for its extraordinary dialect fragmentation. The western group stands out - the Obdorsky, Ob and Irtysh dialects and the eastern group - the Surgut and Vakh-Vasyugan dialects, which in turn are divided into 13 dialects.

Dialectal fragmentation made it difficult to create a written language. In 1879, N. Grigorovsky published a primer in one of the dialects of the Khanty language. Subsequently, the priest I. Egorov created a primer of the Khanty language in the Obdorsky dialect, which was then translated into the Vakh-Vasyugan dialect.

In the 1930s, the Kazym dialect served as the basis of the Khanty alphabet, and since 1940, the Sredneob dialect was taken as the basis of the literary language. At this time, writing was originally created on the basis of the Latin alphabet, and since 1937 it has been based on the Killillic alphabet. Currently, writing exists on the basis of five dialects of the Khanty language: Kazym, Surgut, Vakh, Surgut, Sredneobok.

In modern Russia, 38.5% of the Khanty consider Russian as their native language. Some of the northern Khanty also speak Nenets and Komi languages.

Anthropological type

The anthropological features of the Khanty make it possible to attribute them to the Ural contact race, which is internally heterogeneous in the territorial correlation of Mongoloid and Caucasoid features. The Khanty, along with the Selkups and Nenets, are part of the West Siberian group of populations, which is characterized by an increase in the proportion of Mongoloidity, compared with other representatives of the Ural race. Moreover, women are more Mongolian than men.

According to their disposition, the Khanty are of average or even below average height (156-160 cm). They usually have straight black or brown hair, which, as a rule, is long and worn either loose or braided, the complexion is swarthy, the eyes are dark.

Thanks to a flattened face with somewhat protruding cheekbones, thick (but not full) lips, and a short nose that is depressed at the root and wide, turned up at the end, the Khanty type outwardly resembles the Mongolian. But, unlike typical Mongoloids, they have correctly cut eyes, more often a narrow and long skull (dolicho- or subdolichocephalic). All this gives the Khanty a special imprint, which is why some researchers tend to see in them the remnants of a special ancient race that once inhabited part of Europe.

ethnic history

In historical chronicles, the first written references to the Khanty people are found in Russian and Arabic sources of the 10th century, but it is known for certain that the ancestors of the Khanty lived in the Urals and Western Siberia as early as 6-5 thousand years BC, subsequently they were displaced by nomads in lands of Northern Siberia.

Archaeologists associate the ethnogenesis of the Northern Khanty based on the mixing of aboriginal and newcomer Ugric tribes with the Ust-Polui culture (end of the 1st millennium BC - beginning of the 1st millennium AD), localized in the Ob River basin from the mouth of the Irtysh to the Gulf of Ob. Many traditions of this northern, taiga fishing culture are inherited by modern northern Khanty. From the middle of the II millennium AD. the Northern Khanty were strongly influenced by the Nenets reindeer herding culture. In the zone of direct territorial contacts, the Khanty were partially assimilated by the Tundra Nenets (the so-called "seven Nenets clans of Khanty origin").

The southern Khanty settled up from the mouth of the Irtysh. This is the territory of the southern taiga, forest-steppe and steppe, and culturally it gravitates more towards the south. In their formation and subsequent ethno-cultural development, a significant role was played by the southern forest-steppe population, layered on the general Khanty basis. The Turks, and later the Russians, had a significant influence on the southern Khanty.
The Eastern Khanty are settled in the Middle Ob region and along the tributaries of the Salym, Pim, Trom'egan, Agan, Vakh, Yugan, Vasyugan. This group, to a greater extent than others, retains the North Siberian features of culture dating back to the Ural traditions - draft dog breeding, dugout boats, the predominance of swing clothes, birch bark utensils, and a fishing economy. Another significant component of the culture of the Eastern Khanty is the Sayan-Altai component, which dates back to the time of the formation of the southwestern Siberian fishing tradition. The influence of the Sayan-Altai Turks on the culture of the Eastern Khanty can also be traced at a later time. Within the limits of the modern habitat, the Eastern Khanty quite actively interacted with the Kets and Selkups, which was facilitated by belonging to the same economic and cultural type.
Thus, in the presence of common cultural features characteristic of the Khanty ethnos, which is associated with the early stages of their ethnogenesis and the formation of the Ural community, which, along with the mornings, included the ancestors of the Kets and Samoyedic peoples. The subsequent cultural "divergence", the formation of ethnographic groups, was largely determined by the processes of ethnocultural interaction with neighboring peoples.

Thus, the culture of the people, their language and the spiritual world are not homogeneous. This is explained by the fact that the Khanty settled quite widely, and different cultures were formed in different climatic conditions.

Life and economy

The main occupations of the northern Khanty were reindeer herding and hunting, less often fishing. The deer cult can be traced in all spheres of life of the Northern Khanty. The deer, without exaggeration, was the basis of life: it was also a transport, the skins were used in the construction of dwellings and tailoring. It is no coincidence that many norms of social life (ownership of deer and their inheritance), worldviews (in the funeral rite) are also associated with the deer.

The southern Khanty were mainly engaged in fishing, but they were also known for agriculture and cattle breeding.

Based on the fact that the economy affects the nature of the settlement, and the type of settlement affects the design of the dwelling, the Khanty have five types of settlement with the corresponding features of the settlements:

nomadic camps with portable dwellings of nomadic reindeer herders (lower reaches of the Ob and its tributaries)

permanent winter settlements of reindeer herders in combination with summer nomadic and portable summer dwellings (Northern Sosva, Lozva, Kazym, Vogulka, Lower Ob)

permanent winter settlements of hunters and fishermen in combination with temporary and seasonal settlements with portable or seasonal dwellings (Upper Sosva, Lozva)

permanent winter fishing villages in combination with seasonal spring, summer and autumn ones (Ob tributaries)

permanent settlements of fishermen and hunters (with the secondary importance of agriculture and animal husbandry) in combination with fishing huts (Ob, Irtysh, Konda)

The Khanty, who were engaged in hunting and fishing, had 3-4 dwellings in different seasonal settlements, which changed depending on the season. Such dwellings were made of logs and placed directly on the ground, sometimes dugouts and semi-dugouts were built with a wooden pole frame, which was covered with poles, branches, turf and earth from above.

Khanty-reindeer herders lived in portable dwellings, in tents, consisting of poles placed in a circle, fastened in the center, covered on top with birch bark (in summer) or skins (in winter).

Religion and beliefs

Since ancient times, the Khanty have revered the elements of nature: the sun, the moon, fire, water, and wind. The Khanty also had totemic patrons, family deities and ancestral patrons. Each clan had its own totemic animal, it was revered, considering it one of the distant relatives. This animal could not be killed and eaten.

The bear was revered everywhere, he was considered a protector, he helped hunters, protected from diseases, and resolved disputes. At the same time, the bear, unlike other totem animals, could be hunted. In order to reconcile the spirit of the bear and the hunter who killed him, the Khanty held a bear festival. The frog was revered as the guardian of family happiness and an assistant to women in childbirth. There were also sacred places, the place where the patron lives. Hunting and fishing were forbidden in such places, since the patron himself protects the animals.

To this day, traditional rituals and holidays have come down in a modified form, they have been adapted to modern views and timed to coincide with certain events. So, for example, a bear festival is held before the issuance of licenses for shooting a bear.

After the Russians came to Siberia, the Khanty were converted to Christianity. However, this process was uneven and affected, first of all, those groups of Khanty who experienced the versatile influence of Russian settlers, these are, first of all, the southern Khanty. Among other groups, the presence of religious syncretism is noted, expressed in the adaptation of a number of Christian dogmas, with the predominance of the cultural function of the traditional worldview system.