CHUKOTKA’S INDIGENOUS PEOPLE

CHUKOTKA’S INDIGENOUS PEOPLE

The indigenous population of the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug totaled 16,857 in 2010 and consisted of the Chukchi (26.7 percent), Evens (2.9 percent), Chuvans (1.9 percent), Yukaghirs (0.4 percent), Yupik, (Eskimos, 3.2 percent) and Koryaks. Russians make up 52.5 percent of the population; Ukrainians, 6 percent; and Other, 6.2 percent). The indigenous peoples of Chukotka, with the exception of Evens, Yukaghirs and Chuvans are included in the so-called Paleo-Asiatic group. The Evens belong to the Tungus-Manchurian group of peoples from Northern Manchuria.

The largest of the indigenous peoples of Chukotka is the Chukchi (12,772 people, or 75.8 percent of the total indigenous population). They speak Chukchi and Russian. The Chukchi live almost everywhere in the Chukotka Autonomous Area. Eskimos (1,529 people) live in settlements located mainly on the coast of the Bering Strait. Evens (1,392 people) live in Anadyr (Vayegi, Markovo, Lamutskoe, Krasneno settlements and the town of Anadyr) and Bilibino districts (Omolon and Anyuysk settlements). It is mostly only elderly people who speak their native language. Chuvans (897 people) and Yukaghirs (198 people) are the smallest of the main groups of indigenous peoples of Chukotka. They only settled in Anadyr district (Vayegi, Chuvanskoe, Markovo, Ust-Belaya settlements and the town of Anadyr).

The occupations of Chukotka’s indigenous population have traditionally been marine mammal hunting, reindeer herding and hunting and fishing. These occupations were typically practiced by several ethnic groups and most groups did not have clear specializations. For example, Eskimos, coastal Chukchi, coastal Koryaks and Kereks were all involved in marine mammal hunting and the Chukchi have traditionally been divided into two main groups: the coastal hunters and the reindeer herders. Reindeer herding has traditionally been the main occupation of the reindeer-herding Chukchi and Evens, as well as some groups of Yukaghirs. Hunting wild deer, primarily in the areas of seasonal river crossings of herds, was the main occupation of the Yukaghirs and Chuvans, as well as the Chukchi before they mastered reindeer herding.

The material culture of the indigenous population of Chukotka is characterised by a high degree of adaptation to the surrounding natural and climate conditions. This unique inner perfection of the material culture of the “polar pioneers” is confirmed by the fact that the traditional occupations — deer hunting, fishing and making hunting and fishing tools and clothing — were adopted by native Russians from the indigenous population and these traditions have been well preserved for centuries.

History of the Chukotka’s Indigenous People

People related to ethnic groups that live in Chukotka now are believed to have arrived in Chukotka from Central Asia 2,500-3,000 years ago. They lived in underground houses insulated from the cold and moved in seasonal hunting camps. It is believed that these early people may have been the source of both Eskimos and the Chukchi.

Archaeological data seems to indicate that that the Kereks are the most ancient people in Chukotka, with a three-thousand-year history. Their settlements were located on the coast from Anadyr Bay to Cape Olyutorskiy. Kereks hunted for seabirds and marine mammals and fished. There were 600 Kereks in 1897, but they were assimilated by the Chukchi in the 20th century.

The far northeast of Asia is the ancestral home of the Eskimos. They later settled in the far north of the American continent, as well as on the islands of the American Arctic and Greenland. Archaeological cultures fully correlated with the ancestors of modern Eskimos can be traced in the areas of Eastern Chukotka from the beginning of the 2nd millennium B.C. The Eskimos’ skills marine animal hunters can be seen even back to that time.

The Yukaghirs are considered to be autochthonous to continental Chukotka. Ancient Yukaghir is the name given by archaeologists to the culture of the inhabitants of settlements built about ten thousand years ago. By the 9th century, Yukaghirs had settled in the Anadyr river basin and near its tributaries. In the 17th century, by the beginning of Russian colonisation, tribal groups of Yukaghirs occupied territories from the Lena river to the mouth of the Anadyr river. The Yakuts called the northern lights “Yukaghir fire”, considering it to be the reflection of fires and hearths of numerous Yukaghir camps. Until the end of the 19th century the Yukaghirs were mainly associated with reindeer hunting.

The ancestors of the Chukchi represent the next wave of migration from the continental regions of Eastern Siberia to the northeast. According to linguistic and ethnographic data, the separation of Chukchi from the Chukchi-Koryak group into a specific ethnic group occurred 800–1,000 years ago. However, all attempts to reveal genetic connections between Chukchi and Koryaks with other peoples has not given convincing results. It is worth noting that there are almost no traces of contact between the Chukchi and the Yukaghir language, which indicates that the Chukchi only came into contact with the autochthonous population of the region relatively recently.

Chukchi

The Chukchi are a people who have traditionally herded reindeer on the tundra and lived in coastal settlements on the Bering Sea and other coastal polar areas. Originally they were nomads who hunted wild reindeer but over time evolved into two groups: 1) Chavchu (nomadic reindeer herders), some of whom who rode reindeers and others who didn’t; and 2) maritime settlers who settled along the coast and hunted sea animals. [Source: Yuri Rytkheu, National Geographic, February 1983 ☒]

The Chukchi (also spelled Chukchee) speak a Chukchi-Kamchatka language as do the Koryak and Itelmen. Otherwise the Chukchi language is unrelated to any other language. The Chukchi and Eskimos have a long history together. The Chukchi have traditionally been land oriented and settled while Eskimos have been more sea oriented and nomadic. Chukchi technically refers to people who herded reindeer while Eskimos refers to those who hunt.

There are around 15,000 Chukchi. They live mostly on the Chukotka peninsula. Some also live in the Lower Kolyma District of the Yakut Republic and in the north of Koryak Autonomous District. They call themselves Luoravetlan (“genuine people”). They are largest of the indigenous peoples of Chukotka (12,772 people, or 75.8 percent of the total indigenous population). They speak Chukchi and Russian. The Chukchi live almost everywhere in the Chukotka Autonomous Area.

Chuvans

Chuvan is the name of a small group of creolized natives that live near the Pacific in the Far East. They are a mix of Yukagir and other groups such as Even, Russian, Koryak and Cossack They live mainly along the Anadyr River and its tributaries. They are active in fishing and reindeer breeding. They came into existence in the mid 17th century. Only around 1,500 remain today.

Chuvans (897 people) are the second smallest of the main groups of indigenous peoples of Chukotka after the Yukaghirs. They only settled in Anadyr district (Vayegi, Chuvanskoe, Markovo, Ust-Belaya settlements and the town of Anadyr). Evens, Yukaghirs and Chuvans are included in the so-called Paleo-Asiatic group. Chuvans can be also be found in Magadan Oblast.

Chuvans are a special ethnic group who have a Yukaghir ethnic basis and speak Russian. The mixing of the indigenous population of the Anadyr river basin with Russian explorers in the 17th-early 18th centuries occurred with relative ethnic isolation during the late 18th-early 19th centuries. The Chuvan language was based on northern Russian dialects with the inclusion of words from the Chukchi and Yukaghir languages.

Yukaghirs

The Yukagirs are one of the smallest minorities in Russia and the former Soviet Union. There are only around 600 of them. They have traditionally been reindeer herders, fishermen and hunters who lived in the tundras of the Yakutia and Magaden region. They are largely Christianized but in the old days they practiced animism and dismembered deceased family members and kept the body parts as amulets and regarded animals they captured in hunting guests. Yukaghirs (198 people) are the smallest of the main groups of indigenous peoples of Chukotka. They only settled in Anadyr district (Vayegi, Chuvanskoe, Markovo, Ust-Belaya settlements and the town of Anadyr).

There used to be a lot more Yukaghirs. The have a legend that there were once so many Yukaghir bonfires the smoke in the sky darkened the wings of birds flying south, and that the northern lights were nothing but reflections of their campfires. Their population was decimated by disease after the first contact with Cossacks and Russians in 1633.

The Yukaghirs are considered to be autochthonous to continental Chukotka. Ancient Yukaghir is the name given by archaeologists to the culture of the inhabitants of settlements built about ten thousand years ago. By the 9th century, Yukaghirs had settled in the Anadyr river basin and near its tributaries. In the 17th century, by the beginning of Russian colonisation, tribal groups of Yukaghirs occupied territories from the Lena river to the mouth of the Anadyr river. The Yakuts called the northern lights “Yukaghir fire”, considering it to be the reflection of fires and hearths of numerous Yukaghir camps. Until the end of the 19th century the Yukaghirs were mainly associated with reindeer hunting.

The Yukagirs have traditionally endured a tough life. They spent the winter in camps living off food the collected in the summer. They hunted when they migrated, often going after deer or elk that they tracked in the snow. In the summer they hunted wild reindeer by driving them into lakes where hunters with spears, waited and stabbed them. They also collected berries, wild mushrooms and the inner bark and juice of red poplars. They used to consume hallucinogenic fly agric mushrooms. The spring was a tight time for them, after their food supplies ran out. It wasn’t uncommon for them to starve to death or freeze to death after their hearth went cold.

The Yukagirs have a pictorial system for writing on birch bark. In the 1980s an effort was made to create an alphabet for their language so they could publish books in their native tongue. Yukaghir author Semen Kurilov one jokingly said he is the only writer in existence who knows all of his readers by sight. Responding to the fact the first printing of one of his Russian books was 100,000 he said, "that means each of my countrymen can have 125 copies!" [Source: Yuri Rytkheu, National Geographic, February 1983]

Evens

Evens are the only people in Chukotka who belong to the Tungus-Manchzhurian ethnic group. The Even ethnonym is linked to the ancient Uwan herders mentioned in 7th century Chinese sources as residents of the mountain taiga of the Baikal region, from where they began to resettle in the northern areas in the 11th–12th centuries, and by the 15th century they reached the coast of the Okhotsk Sea. The Evens became the latest settlers belonging to the indigenous population of Chukotka. The main factor in the formation of the features of the Even culture was their integration into the reindeer herding tradition of the peoples of Northeastern Siberia, and it included Tunguska, Paleo-Asiatic and Yakut components. Until recently, the Evens were officially and unofficially called Lamuts in Chukotka.

The Evens are hunter-fishermen related to the Evenki that live in the Chukotka, Kamchatka and Magaden regions. Also known as Lamuts and Tungas, they have traditionally lived in chums, wigwam-type dwellings covered with bark or fish skin, and made a variety of things from birch bark. Evens (1,392 people) live in Anadyr (Vayegi, Markovo, Lamutskoe, Krasneno settlements and the town of Anadyr) and Bilibino districts (Omolon and Anyuysk settlements). It is mostly only elderly people who speak their native language.

Like the Evenki, the Evens are unique in the world in that they have a small population but occupy a huge expanse of land. There are only around 17,000 Evens but have traditionally lived in an area covering 3 million square kilometers, an area roughly the size of Western Europe, that embraces mountains, taiga and tundra. Their neighbors include the Yakut, Yukagir, Chukchi and Koyak.

The existence of the Even as a distinct group is partly the work of the Russians who defined them as a distinct group rather than a subgroups based on their language and cultural elements. Over time they became more distinct as they borrowed features from other groups such as the Koyak methods of herding reindeer and the dwellings of the Chukchi and Koryak.

Koryak

Koryaks live mostly on the west coast of the Kamchatka peninsula. A small number lives in Chukotka. Many retain their traditional methods of reindeer herding and fishing and hunting. Their language has largely been lost but their culture remains alive through storytelling, dance, mine and songs.

Anthropologist Waldemar Jochelson, who studied the Koryak in the 1890s described their homeland as "bogs, mountain torrents, rocky passes and thick forests." Of a Koryak village he wrote, "the odor of the blubber and the refuse is almost intolerable; and the inmates intoxicated with fly agaric [a psychedelic mushroom],...are infested with lice."

The Koryak language is similar to that of the Chukchis. Their culture is similar to that of Arctic people such as Eskimos. They have a long history of conflict with neighboring people such as the Even, Yukagir and Chukchi. The conflicts often involved reindeer herd raids and the taking of captives. They were usually defeated by the Even but held their own against the Yukadir. Most of their conflicts were resolved by the time the Russians arrived. They had some conflicts with the Russians and were devastated by smallpox.

Today there are around 9,000 Koryaks. They make up the majority of the native population of the Koryak Autonomous District of the Kamchatka Oblast. Their territorial capital is Palana. A small number live in Chukotka. The Kereks are an ethnic group with less than 500 members that live in the Chukotka Region. Many regard them as relatives of the Koryaks.

Asiatic Eskimos

Asiatic Eskimos found in Russia are virtually the same as Eskimos that live in Alaska. They are also very similar to the Inuit in Canada and Greenland. There is an indigenous population of Asiatic Eskimos on the southeastern shore of the Chukchi Peninsula in the Russian Far East. In Chukotka, Eskimos (1,529 people) live in settlements located mainly on the coast of the Bering Strait. They call themselves the Yupik. Depending on where they are found they are also known as Nevuga Yupiga, Singhinem Yupiga, Sivugam Yupiga.

The language of Asiatic Eskimos in Russia is called Yupik. In the old days Asiatic Eskimos ranged over a much larger area than they do today: across the Bering Sea and the Arctic Ocean. In the 1920s, the lived in 13 exclusively Eskimo settlements. Today most of them lived in five settlements along with Chukchis and Russians. Another 1,500 or so Eskimos lived on the St. Lawrence Islands in Alaska.

The shores of northeastern and southern Chukotka, where Asiatic Eskimos live, features medium-size mountains and lagoonlike lakes. The Eskimos and the Chukchi have traditionally made their settlements along small bays with the highest concentrations of animals and biological resources. In the old days they wintered primarily in semi-subterranean nenglus and walrus-skin tipis like those used by the Chukchis Tipis were also used in the summer. Now they live in modern-style wooden homes with stoves or steam for heat and electric lighting.

Eskimos have traditionally used two kinds of boat: a one-seated, leather-skinned kayak and a large walrus-skin craft with a capacity of four tons. Dog sled were used for transport on land. Eskimos have traditionally been very skilled at making clothes and footwear from animal skins and reindeer hides. Today they wear mostly Western clothes but in the past they wore seal skin pants and a sleeveless top made from the intestines of sea mammals. A hunter wearing these garments could survive a fall into the frigid ocean.

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons

Text Sources: Federal Agency for Tourism of the Russian Federation (official Russia tourism website russiatourism.ru ), Russian government websites, UNESCO, Wikipedia, Lonely Planet guides, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, National Geographic, The New Yorker, Bloomberg, Reuters, Associated Press, AFP, Yomiuri Shimbun and various books and other publications.

Updated in September 2020


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