Koryak, Toy-reindeer, 1897. Wood, 18 x 12 cm.
Russian Museum of Ethnography, St. Petersburg. Kamchatka.
Koryak, Toy-reindeer, 1897. Wood, 18 x 12 cm.
Russian Museum of Ethnography, St. Petersburg. Kamchatka.
“The fauna and the flora, the regenerative cycle of nature in Siberia – all determine the rhythm of life of the aboriginal people, and embody an annual calendar of things to do and things to go and get for individual groups and, indeed, for individuals.”
1) REINDEER HERDERS
It was the Evenki and the Eveni people who made the first attempt to domesticate the reindeer, which even now they use as a form of transport particularly well adapted to the region of the taiga, especially in hunting other ungulates. The reindeer is the focus around which the world revolves for these two communities, who often call themselves in their own languages ‘the people of the reindeer’.
An activity typical of Siberia, reindeer-herding is practised – more or less intensively – by ten ethnic groups: the Nenets, the Nganassani people, the Chukchis, the Koryaks, the Evenki, the Eveni, the Dolgans, the Yukaghirs, the Khanty and the Karagas people. Methodologies differ in the tundra and the taiga.
In the taiga, herds are comparatively small, averaging between 20 and 25 head, with perhaps 50 head in the largest herds. Here, the reindeer is used primarily as a means of transport, the people for the most part living by hunting and fishing. The Khanty, for example, herd reindeer (which in fact was something they copied from the Nenets) only as a sideline. Reindeer are credited with more importance in the tundra, where herds are larger and of variable size – from a hundred or so to several thousand head. The semi-domesticated reindeer represents an essential source of livelihood for the peoples of the far north.
Lichens and mosses, the main diet of the reindeer, tend only to grow some 3 millimetres (an eighth of an inch) per year. When all have been consumed in an area, the reindeer have to leave and find new pasturage. This seasonal migration of the reindeer is naturally reflected in the life of their herders and those who go hunting with them. The journeys involved in the migrations are proportional to the overall size of the herds, for the more head of reindeer there are in a herd, the more important it is to find a large area of fresh lichens and mosses (from the taiga or the intermediate zone between taiga and tundra in the wintertime – where the reindeer can more easily find their food under the snow and the men can find firewood to keep themselves warm – to the vast bare expanses of the north in summertime). Small herds, in tundra or taiga, tend to cover short distances when travelling from summer to winter pastures – an average of perhaps 25 to 37 miles (40 to 60 kilometres), 60 miles (100 kilometres) at the most. In the taiga, the reindeer-herders who use reindeer for hunting select migratory paths that accord with migratory patterns of the animals they want to hunt or with places known to be the habitat of the fish they want to catch.
In western Siberia, the largest of the reindeer-herders are the Nenets; in the east the Chukchis and the Koryaks. Less well organized than the Nenets, the ‘Chaochus’ and the ‘Chavchuven’ (which is what the Chukchi and Koryak reindeer bosses call themselves) keep the numerically most prolific herds in the whole of Siberia. The Nenets tend to the grazing of the reindeer all the year round: the herds are kept under observation day after day by herdsmen with the help of dogs trained to round up any stray animals. With the Chukchis and the Koryaks, at least until the 1950s, the herd was left to its own devices once it reached pasturage, with the result that the herdsmen – who had no dogs – often had to spend a considerable time rounding up stray reindeer.
The reindeer of the Eveni people are regarded as particularly valuable by the Chukchis and the Koryaks, who were once willing to exchange two of their own animals for one of the Eveni’s. It was the same in respect of all the reindeer of the taiga, highly appreciated for their larger overall size by the herders of the tundra.
The tundra herders do not ride their animals but harness them to sledges (sleighs) for the transportation of goods and passengers. In the taiga, riding reindeer is the primary means of transport for the Evenki and the Eveni. The reindeer makes an excellent mount in wooded and mountainous terrain, as the Tuva people – who breed cattle and horses down in the south of Siberia – can attest, for they too use them to get around in their mountains.
Reindeer-herding is a testing business physically, and not just in winter, because of hunger and cold. After the fawning season (which takes place in May), the herdsmen have to watch day and night over the young fawns to make sure they are not snatched by wolves. Towards the end of summer, when the wild mushrooms appear everywhere, they have to be even more vigilant, for reindeer adore such potentially harmful delicacies. And so, for their own health and security, the herd of animals has gradually to be more restricted, until they are penned every night (the Arctic day is already coming to its end) in an enclosure next to the encampment.
Buryat, Reindeer figurine, 5th-4th century B. C.
Gold, 4.5 cm. State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg. Amur region.
The diet of the herders of the taiga for the most part consists of items they have hunted, caught (in the form of fish) or gathered (in the form of berries and fungi). The proprietors of the largest reindeer herds, on the other hand, live almost entirely on the resources provided by their own animals, beginning with the slaughter of one of the herd at the beginning of the autumn. Every bit of the reindeer has its own use: nothing at all goes to waste. The meat is eaten boiled, raw or frozen. To preserve it, it may be smoked. The blood is drunk still lukewarm from the slaughter, and the raw marrow is regarded as the herdsmen’s treat. The fat is usually eaten with the meat but may alternatively be used to provide lighting – the Nenets make candles out of it. From the tendons and sinews comes a thread useful in making clothes and as string or cord. The skin can be plied into thongs and then turned into a lasso, into straps or reins for the harnesses or into bridles. The furry parts of the skin of the reindeer are ordinarily used to fashion garments or to make up the huge, heavy carpet-coverings that insulate the tent or wigwam-like dwellings of the nomadic hunter-herders.
The dwellings of Siberian aboriginals differ greatly from community to community and reflect the close relationship that the people have with nature. The houses of the reindeer herding tribes of the tundra and taiga come in two varieties. The Nenets, the Nganassani people, the Dolgans, the Evenki and some others in central and western Siberia make use of what they call a choom, whereas the peoples to the north and east of them – the Chukchis, Koryaks, Eveni – make their temporary home in a yarang.
The choom, which is conical in shape, is a sort of movable wigwam set up around a framework of between 20 and 50 poles stuck in the ground in a circle and tied together at the top. In the winter this framework is covered with two layers of reindeer-hide, furry sides out, so that the interior of the choom is lined with fur and the outside also presents fur to the elements, and there is a minimal insulation space between the two. In summertime, instead of the skins, the choom is tightly encased in strips of birch-bark or densely-packed moss. The open area in the middle of the choom is occupied by two horizontal poles some 5 feet (1.5 metres) or so off the ground, from which all kinds of things can be suspended over the fire – urns, cauldrons, billycans, clothing, footwear and just about anything else. For the Nenets, the living space in the choom is to the left and right of the entrance, each side of the hearth. On the ground, the floor is strewn with willow stems and dry grass and carpeted with reindeer skin. The side of the choom opposite the entrance is the area that has to be kept ‘pure’ and clean at all times, for this is where the family’s sacred objects are located, together with the cooking and eating vessels and the food stocks. For the Evenki, the side either to the right or to the left of the entrance is reserved for women, the central area is reserved for other members of the family, and the back – opposite the entrance – is for male guests.
The yarang is rather different, though still wigwam-like. It is cylindrical from the ground up but tapers to a cone at the top – a shape that is particularly effective in withstanding squalls and Arctic storms. During winter the framework of poles is hung around with reindeer hides that are held down with heavy stones or with sledges pegged into the snow. The entrance to the yarang is traditionally to the east or north-east. Putting it up and taking it down, collecting and packing up all its bits and pieces (the coverings, hangings, carpets, poles and the rest) ready for moving is a job for the women. Among the Koryaks and the Chukchis, an encampment comprises between five and ten yarangs, each accommodating one or two families who are blood-relations or are related by marriage. It takes around twenty sledges to move one yarang and its complement of occupants. The largest of the reindeer-herders in former times, some of whom owned up to 5,000 reindeer, might need 150 sledges.
Evenki, Cradle, 1907. Wood, fabric, glass beads, metal, deer skin,
68 x 27 x 20 cm and 16 cm. Russian Museum of Ethnography,
St. Petersburg. Yenisey Province, Khatanga River (camp).
Yakut, Toys: 1) reindeer 2) bull-calf, 1908, 1903.
Wood, 1) 22 x 4 cm; 2) 18 cm x 13 cm. Russian Museum of Ethnography,
St. Petersburg. 1) Yakut Oblast, Vilyuy Okrug; 2) Turukhan Krai, Litovie settlement.
Chukchi, Woman’s knife for cutting of animal carcasses, cutting out of hides,
umbilical cord cutting of a new-born child (in the past), early 20th century.
Metal, walrus tusk ivory, Knife: 20 cm; Haft: 11 cm. Russian Museum of Ethnography,
St. Petersburg. Chukchi National Okrug (region), Magadan Oblast.
Koryak, Dipper for water, 1909-1911. Argali horn,
14.5 x 12 cm; diameter of reservoir: 10.4 cm.
Russian Museum of Ethnography, St. Petersburg. Kamchatka.
The population of the Kamchatka peninsula, home to both the Koryaks and much of the Chukchi population, is made up of three distinct classes—the Russians, the Kamchatkas or settled natives, and the nomadic tribes. The Kamchatkas are settled in log villages throughout the peninsula, near the mouths of small rivers which rise in the central range of mountains and fall into the Okhotsk Sea or the Pacific. Their principal occupations are fishing, fur-trapping, and the cultivation of rye, turnips, cabbages, and potatoes, which grow thriftily as far north as fifty-eight degrees north latitude. Their largest settlements are in the fertile valley of the Kamchatka River, between Petropavlovsk and Kluchei. The Russians, who are comparatively few in number, are scattered here and there among the Kamchatka villages, and are generally engaged in trading for furs with the Kamchatkas and the nomadic tribes to the northward.
The nomadic Koryaks, who were once the wildest, most powerful, and most independent natives in the peninsula, seldom come south of the 58th parallel of latitude, except for the purpose of trade. Their chosen haunts are the great desolate steppes lying east of Penzhinsk Gulf, where they wander constantly from place to place in solitary bands, living in large fur tents and depending for subsistence upon their vast herds of tamed and domesticated reindeer. The government under which all the inhabitants of Kamchatka nominally lived was administered by a Russian officer called an ispravnik or local governor who is supposed to settle all questions of law which may arise between individuals or tribes, and to collect the annual yassak, which was levied upon every male inhabitant in his province. He resided in Petropavlovsk, and owing to the extent of country over which he had jurisdiction, and the imperfect facilities which it afforded for getting about, he was seldom seen outside of the village where he had his headquarters. The only means of transportation between the widely separated settlements of the Kamchatkas were packhorses, canoes, and dog-sledges.
A Kamchatka village is often situated on a little elevation near the bank of some river or stream, surrounded by scattered clumps of poplar and yellow birch, and protected by high hills from the cold northern winds. Its houses, which are clustered irregularly together near the beach, are very low, and made of logs squared and notched at the ends, and chinked with masses of dry moss. The roofs are covered with a rough thatch of long coarse grass or with overlapping strips of tamarack bark, and project at the ends and sides into wide, overhanging eaves. The window-frames, although occasionally glazed, are more frequently covered with an irregular patchwork of translucent fish bladders, sewn together with thread made of the dried and pounded sinews of the reindeer. The doors are almost square, and the chimneys are nothing but long straight poles, arranged in a circle and plastered over thickly with clay. Here and there between the houses stand half a dozen curious architectural quadrupeds called “balagans” (bah-lah-gans’), or fish storehouses. They are simply conical log tents, elevated from the ground on four posts to secure their contents from the dogs, and resemble as much as anything small haystacks trying to walk away on four legs. High square frames of horizontal poles stand beside every house, filled with thousands of drying salmon; and “an ancient and fish-like smell,” which pervades the whole atmosphere, betrays the nature of the Kamchatkas’ occupation and of the food upon which they live.
The settled natives of northern Kamchatka have generally two different residences, in which they live at different seasons of the year. These are respectively called the “zimovie” or winter settlement, and the letovie or summer fishing-station, and are from one to five miles apart. In the former, which is generally situated under the shelter of timbered hills, several miles from the seacoast, they reside from September until June. The letovie is always built near the mouth of an adjacent river or stream, and consists of a few yurts or earth-covered huts, eight or ten conical balagans mounted on stilts, and a great number of wooden frames on which fish are hung to dry. To this fishing-station the inhabitants all remove early in June, leaving their winter settlement entirely deserted. Even the dogs and the crows abandon it for the more attractive surroundings and richer pickings of the summer balagans.
Besides their all-important reindeer, the Kamchatka peninsula natives depend mainly for subsistence upon the salmon, which every summer run into these northern rivers in immense numbers to spawn, and are speared, caught in seines, and trapped in weirs by thousands. These fish, dried without salt in the open air, are the food of the Kamchatkas and of their dogs throughout the long, cold northern winter. During the summer, however, their bill of fare is more varied. The climate and soil of the river bottoms in southern Kamchatka admit of the cultivation of rye, potatoes, and turnips, and the whole peninsula abounds in animal life. Reindeer and black and brown bears roam everywhere over the mossy plains and through the grassy valleys; wild sheep and a species of ibex are not unfrequently found in the mountains; and millions upon millions of ducks, geese, and swans, in almost endless variety, swarm about every river and little marshy lake throughout the country. These aquatic fowls are captured in great multitudes while moulting by organised “drives” of fifty or seventy-five men in canoes, who chase the birds in one great flock up some narrow stream, at the end of which a huge net is arranged for their reception. They are then killed with clubs, cleaned, and salted for winter use.
Bread is now made of rye, which the Kamchatkas raise and grind for themselves; but previous to the settlement of the country by the Russians, the only native substitute for bread was a sort of baked paste, consisting chiefly of the grated tubers of the purple Kamchatkan lily. The only fruits in the country are berries and a species of wild cherry. Of the berries, however, there are fifteen or twenty different kinds, of which the most important are blueberries, maroshkas, or yellow cloud-berries, and dwarf cranberries. These the people pick late in the fall, and freeze for winter consumption. Cows are kept in nearly all the Kamchatka settlements, and milk is always plenty. A curious native dish of sour milk, baked curds, and sweet cream, covered with powdered sugar and cinnamon, is a particular treat.
Eskimo, Small plastic artwork: ‘Killer-whale holding a seal
with its teeth’, early 20th century. Walrus tusk ivory, 7.5 x 2.7 cm.
Russian Museum of Ethnography, St. Petersburg. Kamchatka Okrug, Chukchi District.
2) FISHERMAN-HUNTERS
On the shores of the Arctic and the Pacific Oceans, some nomadic or semi-nomadic groups tend to hunt marine mammals (occasionally even in the summer) for their skins, their fat or just for a change of meat in the daily diet. Such groups include the Nenets – should they happen to travel as far north as the Arctic coast during their seasonal summer migration – and the Nganassani people, and on the Pacific coast the Evenki, the Olchi, the Oroki and the Orochon people. For the Nivkhi people of Sakhalin island and especially in the extreme north-east for the Aleuts, the Uit (Eskimos) and for the coastal groups of Chukchis (the Ankaliniy), of Koryaks (the Nymylany) and of Eveni (the Nemeh), the hunting of marine mammals is the basis of their way of life, the foundation of their traditional culture in a temporal and spiritual sense.
The Bering Strait, the shores of the bay at Lavrentiya and the environs of Novoye Chaplino are locations where the hunting of marine mammals is a speciality. In this area (on the Chukotskiy Peninsula), the villages of the hunters follow the coastline, winding in with the bays and out with the promontories. From their own houses the hunters have a full view of the sea, and may even be able to mark down individual animals that would make suitable targets: walruses, seals, belugas and whales.
The traditional weapons for the hunt are the harpoon and the spear, long replaced now, of course, by the rifle. The techniques and traditional methods of hunting, which are numerous, differ according to the season, to the animal that is the quarry – and to the ancestral beliefs about that animal.
The beginning of winter, while the ice is still fairly thin, is the time to catch seals, using baited lines lowered through the top of the ice-floe where an animal has made a hole through which to breathe. The same technique is employed in catching fur-seals. What usually happens is that the hunter remains completely motionless next to the hole, facing the wind, waiting for the creature to emerge. As soon as it does, he gaffs it with his harpoon, and kills it with a rifle shot. Among the Chukchis, dogs are specially trained to sniff out the breathing-holes.
At the beginning of spring, when the seals take to basking in the sunshine on top of the ice-floes, the hunters get as close as they can to them by humping along on their stomachs, mimicking the awkward movements and even the sounds of the animals themselves, sometimes also assisted by being camouflaged with sealskin.
For the Aleuts and the Eskimos the hunting season begins when the ice melts and they take to sea in their kayaks. The Chukchis and the Koryaks do the same in their bidarkas. Both types of boat are of variable length but particularly light and strong, made as they are of flexible sealskin or walrus-skin stretched over a wooden frame. A traveller at the end of the nineteenth century describes a Siberian water-craft:
“We saw a raft, ready for our reception. It was composed of three large dugout canoes, placed parallel to one another at distances of about three feet, and lashed with sealskin thongs to stout transverse poles. Over these was laid a floor or platform about ten feet by twelve, leaving room at the bow and stern of each canoe for men with paddles who were to guide and propel the unwieldy craft in some unknown, but, doubtless, satisfactory manner. On the platform, which was covered to a depth of six inches with freshly cut grass, we pitched our little cotton tent, and transformed it with bearskins and blankets into a warm living space.”
—George Kennan (1845-1924)
Catching seals may be something that can be done by one person, but catching walruses or whales has to be a group activity and with several bidarkas. Each bidarka is occupied by a crew of between six and ten men – one or two with harpoons at the prow, five or six oarsmen in the body of the boat, and on the rudder at the stern the owner of the bidarka. Once a walrus is spotted, the oarsmen hastily propel the boat towards the creature, and the men at the prow hurl their harpoons, which are attached to their belts by a long cord. If the point of one or both harpoons is firmly fixed in the body of the walrus, the cord attached drags on the creature, preventing its movement and tiring it, allowing the hunters to close in. It is finally despatched, either with a spear or, more often now, by rifle shot. Back on dry land, the corpse is cut up and its flesh shared out in an equitable manner between all the members of the community.
Chukchi, Small plastic artwork: ‘Hunting for walrus’, 1906.
Walrus tusk ivory, 17.8 x 2.8 cm. Russian Museum of Ethnography,
St. Petersburg. Primorskaya Oblast, Anadyr Krai.
Koryak, Small plastic artwork ‘Before cutting of the walrus carcass’.
Walrus tusk ivory, 5.8 x 3.8 cm. Russian Museum of Ethnography,
St. Petersburg. Primorskaya Oblast, Anadyr Krai.
Chukchi, Eskimos, Canoe, weapons and appliances for collective
hunting of sea hunters. Scene of the exhibition ‘My friends – sea hunters’,
dedicated to the memory of the Director of the Museum D.A. Sergeev, 1970-1974.
Russian Museum of Ethnography, St. Petersburg. Chukchi National Okrug, Magadan Oblast.
Chukchi, Tusk with coloured engraving (1st side), 1930s.
Walrus tusk ivory, 51 x 7 cm. Russian Museum of Ethnography,
St. Petersburg. Chukchi Peninsular.
Eskimo, Model ‘Hunter in the canoe’, early 20th century.
Wood, sealskin, walrus tusk ivory, 46 x 8.5 cm.
Russian Museum of Ethnography, St. Petersburg.
Chukchi, Tusk with coloured engraving (2nd side), 1930s.
Walrus tusk ivory, 51 x 7 cm. Russian Museum of Ethnography,
St. Petersburg. Chukchi Peninsular.
Much the same techniques are used when hunting the whale, but of course many more bidarkas are required (for the animal is that much bigger). The capture of a whale is cause for great celebration, for just one of these mammals provides enough food and other resources for an entire village for a year. The bounty of the sea thus bestows indispensable gifts on the coastal populations: things to eat, things to burn and things for the household (including materials for handicrafts and clothing).
In the diet of these coastal dwellers, the meat and fat of marine mammals not unnaturally occupies a dominant position. The meat is eaten raw, smoked, boiled, frozen or even in a state of fermentation. To preserve walrus or whale meat for the winter, the Chukchis get it to ferment by hermetically enclosing it inside a sealskin pouch and burying it in the summertime in a place that remains covered in snow all year. In this way they assure themselves of a supply of fermented meat in winter that has also been kept naturally frozen in the permafrost. The blackened and stringy skin of the whale, with its fine layers of pinkish fat, is a real treat for hunters of sea creatures.
The food of the coastal peoples also includes reindeer meat, fish (from which they make yukola), berries and the occasional vegetable. Fat is a particularly precious, if not indispensable, substance – the Eskimos used to keep it in containers made out of the bladders of whales or walruses, the Chukchis in sealskin pouches – for it could also be used as a bartering medium to obtain furs or reindeer meat from passing nomads.
Finally, the bones. The tusks of the walrus and the ribs and jawbones of the whale now principally serve to supply the medium for a form of art that has reached a surprisingly high standard. All the coastal peoples have long practised it, and are expert at it. It is the carving of statuettes – of people or of animals, of hunting scenes or of scenes of family and social life – in ‘marine’ ivory. These solid down-to-earth representations in tusk and bone are at the same time representations of the internal world of the dwellers of the far north.
The hunters of marine creatures lay up their bidarkas over the winter, and their sledges over the summer, on solid supports some 6.5 feet (2 metres) high. In the past, these supports were whale ribs driven into the ground. Whale ribs and jawbones also used once to form the rounded framework of the traditional dwellings of the coastal communities in the north-east of Siberia – the ancient half-buried lodges covered over with earth and moss. Among the Uit such lodges could shelter an entire community of some 40 people. Among the Chukchis and the Koryaks, the entrance to a half-buried lodge like this in summer was through an opening in the roof leading to a ladder carved from the trunk of a tree. In winter, in order to maintain the warmth inside the lodge, entry was via a long passage that started at ground-level. Seal skins were used as floor-carpeting and/or to cover the walls of the dwelling. For light and heat, moss was burned with whale fat or walrus fat on a hearth made of stone or fireclay. This setup also facilitated the cooking of food.
Today, only the dilapidated ruins of such lodges remain, abandoned now for almost 150 years in favour of the yarang or of wooden houses. Inside the yarangs, candles have replaced the whale-oil lamps.
If hunting and fishing are only sidelines for most Siberians, they nonetheless constitute the very foundation of certain cultures, reflecting their original lifestyles. Cultures of this kind include those of the Kets, the Selkup, the Mansis and the Yukaghirs in the taiga, the Shorians, many groups of Evenki and of the Khanty, and the peoples of the Amur River: the Nanai people, the Olchi, the Negidal people, the Oroki, the Orochon people and the Udekhe.
A natural frontier between Russia and China, the Amur River contains more than a hundred species of fish. Fishing has always therefore been of extreme importance to the local populations. Catching salmon in summer and autumn, and different types of sturgeon and carp in winter, effectively enables the aboriginal communities of the area to live in relative security. It is hunting that in winter is rather the sideline.
Aleut, Small plank for throwing of harpoons and darts,
late 19th-early 20th century. Wood, bone, 49.8 cm.
Russian Museum of Ethnography, St. Petersburg. Commander Islands.
Eskimo, Adz, comb for grass, scraper for processing of marine mammal intestines,
3rd-4th century AD (adz, scraper); 17th century AD (comb). Walrus tusk ivory, nephrite,
wood, Adz: 10.3 cm; comb: 11.9 cm; scraper: 9 x 4.3 cm.
Russian Museum of Ethnography, St. Petersburg. Chukchi Peninsular.
Aleut, Hunter’s visor, 1912. Wood, leather,
walrus tusk ivory. Lower diameter: 21.8 cm; Height: 8.7 cm.
Russian Museum of Ethnography, St. Petersburg. Aleutian Islands.
Chukchi, Eskimos, Accessories for protection of archer’s arm during shooting,
1) 3rd-4th century AD; 2) 1904-1907. Walrus tusk ivory, leather,
1) 11.3 cm 2) 10 cm. Russian Museum of Ethnography,
St. Petersburg. Primorskaya Oblast, Anadyr Krai, Chukchi Peninsular.
Koryak, Small plastic artwork ‘Bear holding fish in his mouth’, 1903.
Walrus tusk ivory, 8 x 5 cm. Russian Museum of Ethnography,
St. Petersburg. Primorskaya Oblast, Gizhiginski Okrug.
Aleut, Weapons of hunting on land (bow, arrows and spear),
late 19th-early 20th century. Wood, bone, sinew, bird feather,
flint Lengths: 1) arrow: 82.5 cm 2) arrow: 71 cm 3) spear: 149 cm
4) bow: 135.5 cm. Russian Museum of Ethnography, St. Petersburg.
When the salmon begin to swim back from the open sea up the Amur River, climbing ever upstream in their urgency to spawn, the local people organize huge fishing parties in the course of which techniques tried and tested over the years bring in truly vast catches. By raising the level of the riverbed with large stones and constructing a large barrier of stones on the upstream side, the men prevent the incoming shoal of salmon from continuing on their course. All at once the stones on the riverbed are removed and the riverbed returns to its normal height, leaving the fish trapped in a much lower pool behind a much taller barrier. The natives originally caught the fish by means of small floating nets, usually made of horse-hair. Sitting in his vetka or dug-out canoe, the fisherman floats along with his net, watching it carefully. When he observes that a fish is fast in it, he quickly pulls up the net, gaffs the fish with an iron gaff, kills it with a small wooden mallet, throws out the net again, and floats on as before.
When the ice between the islands and the delta become sufficiently strong to walk on, coastal tribes set their small nets beneath the frozen surface of the water. Early every morning they are overhauled, and usually a fisherman has the good luck to catch three or four fish, weighing from one to three pounds or more, and in this way a man is daily provided with one form, at least, of excellent diet.
An element central to traditional cultures of the Amur, fish fulfil a multitude of uses in local daily life. Primarily, of course, they constitute the basic staple diet of the area. They are eaten raw, frozen, smoked, boiled, fried and, particularly, dried. Stocks of salmon and carp, from which yukola is prepared, visibly demonstrate the wellbeing of the residents of the Amur’s banks, for in summertime, when yukola is prepared for the winter, the villages are transformed – from just about anywhere that projects over an empty space hang fish topped and tailed and sliced lengthways into two flat pieces. The Olchi people have no fewer than eight different words and expressions in their language for yukola. What is left over from preparing the fish is given to the sledge dogs to eat.
In addition to fish, the people of the Amur like to eat the meat of the elk (moose), bear, reindeer, and even dog. One of the Nanai people’s favourite dishes is magdan, which is based on dried caviar crushed and mixed with water or birch sap. In the north, the Yukaghirs of the taiga delight in a rather similar speciality, the kul’ibakha – a combination of whortleberries (a type of bilberry), fresh caviar and fish-oil.
Eskimo, Small plastic artwork – picture of water birds and fastener
in the form of bear, 3rd-4th century AD. Walrus tusk ivory,
Birds: 1) 3.2 x 3.2 cm; 2) 3.5 x 2.8 cm; Fastener: 5.7 cm.
Russian Museum of Ethnography, St. Petersburg. Chukchi Peninsular.
The women have a unique process for making something special of the skins of pike, salmon and carp. For several days the skins are left to dry in a particularly shady place. Then they are put on wooden trays and beaten out flat with a mallet. Next, they are rolled around a stick of absinthe, moistened a little, and left for several hours. They are then carefully unrolled, and stretched to their maximum length. Finally, the skins are hung above the hearth and smoked there for two weeks, being taken down before they begin to turn yellow.
Fish-skin also goes into making sails for the birch-bark fishing boats, and can be used in windproof drapes for the windows of wooden houses. In summertime the fishermen go off to live in such cabins in the wetlands. If instead they go hunting or fishing at a distance inland, they take their conical wigwams with them and put them up as and when needed.
Water pollution and other serious problems caused by Soviet domination have badly disrupted the ethnic cultures that depend on fishing. All too many of their traditional and ancestral ways of going about things have now been lost forever.
For thousands of years the elk and the (wild) reindeer have been the primary game animals in Siberia. The people who live by hunting ungulates lead a nomadic life based upon the seasonal migrations of these animals in spring and in autumn. In winter, the inhabitants of the taiga tend instead to hunt fur-bearing prey, such as squirrel or the marten-like sable. Most Evenki legends revolve around hunting, either alone or as a group, for reindeer, for elk, and for birds – and they make no mention whatever of tracking down fur-bearing animals, an activity that spread into the area only after the arrival of the Russians and the imposition of the yassak (the requirement of tribute paid in furs).
The summer heat and the mosquitoes in the taiga of the south drive thousands upon thousands of wild reindeer to the shores of the Arctic Ocean, and especially to the delta with its innumerable islands. In the fall these beautiful animals, now fattened, return southwards, swimming in large herds over the channels at certain fixed places, known to the natives from time immemorial.
At these places the natives lie in wait for the animals, and when the herd is swimming over, the hunters in their vetkas make a sudden attack upon them, killing the deer sometimes by scores at a time with their iron-pointed wooden spears. At the end of the nineteenth century, at least 1000 reindeer were killed in this way in the Lena delta every year. Then there is the white polar fox, which the natives catch in traps. Late in the fall, in September, when the reindeer-hunts are ended, the Evenki go in their vetkas to the islands and the shores of the Arctic Ocean, putting up their fox-traps for the winter. Later still, when the channels and the sea have frozen, they move to their large winter-villages, such as Bykoff- Myss, in the eastern part of the delta, Turak at its western border, and Balkalak near the mouth of the Olenek. All these villages are situated at places where there is winter fishing, with which the natives occupy themselves during this season, using ice-nets. Sometimes the winter fishing fails, and then their dogs are decimated by famine, which means great losses, and the native Siberians themselves also suffer famine from the same cause. A famine may be caused by the absence of strong northerly winds, which seem to drive the fish up to the mouths of the large rivers.
Elk and reindeer hunting provides the Evenki and the Eveni with all the essentials for eating, housing, clothing, and making objects for everyday use. The most intensive hunting takes place at the beginning of spring. Wearing skis, the hunters chase the quarry down, on and on until it is exhausted. Of course there are other techniques. Some use the lure – perhaps a male reindeer cunningly arranged with its antlers entwined within a leather thong. In a confrontation with another male, a male generally locks horns – and doing so now will entrap those antlers in the leather thong too. The hunters, who have been following their live lure by keeping it on a very long leash, take immediate advantage of the entanglement by killing the wild reindeer. In the region around the Amur and Lake Baikal, the Evenki have another method: they use a decoy made of birch-bark (orevun) to imitate the rutting-call of the male reindeer. Other (real) reindeer race to remonstrate with this upstart trespasser on their territory . . . and pay the price. Formerly armed with long spears and metal bows, the aboriginal hunters have, since the advent of the Russians, adopted the rifle.
Chukchi, Flintlock with stand and powder kit, gun kit, 1900-1901.
Wood, metal, skin; metal, leather, bone, ivory, wood, 99 cm; 33 cm.
American Museum of Natural History, New York. Markovo.
Most of the peoples of the taiga hunt fur-bearing animals for the money in it. From autumn on, they take to areas where there are plenty of squirrels and sables, and spread themselves out all over the taiga. Those hunters who possess reindeer travel as nomads with the whole of their families. Those hunters who don’t instead group up in twos and threes for the duration of the winter, leaving their wives back at the encampment. They go on skis as long as a man’s height and as broad as two thumbs – skis in Siberia are usually made of thin conifer wood, although when the snow is particularly deep a layer of reindeer-skin may be added underneath (as with boots, the reindeer skin is from the lower part of the legs of the animals). With the aid of a stick the hunters supervise matters from a sledge mounted on ski-runners.
Apart from ungulates (elk and reindeer) and fur-bearing animals, which are hunted all over Siberia, there are some creatures that are not hunted because – at least among certain ethnic groups – they have totemic associations with the people. Such creatures include the eagle, the swan, the owl, the stork, the bear, the wolf and the tiger.
Rarely undertaken, the hunting of the bear is in any case strictly regulated, for this animal – so sympathetic in appearance, and so human in intelligence – inspires both fear and respect among the ethnic communities of Siberia. So much so that for many it is taboo to use the ordinary word for ‘bear’ and kennings (pseudonymous phrases) are used instead: ‘the old man of the forest’, ‘the grandfather’, ‘the master of the taiga’ and so forth. Indeed, the bear is the focus of a highly developed cult among certain peoples, notably the Nivkhi, the Negidal people and the Khanty.
The wolf, because it hunts down the same quarry as men, is considered by them to be their equal, and in consequence is seldom hunted itself. The Evenki of the east call the animal ‘son’, ‘greyhair’ or ‘naughty boy’, and believe that it is a heinous crime to cause the death of wolfcubs. In winter, however, the Chukchis hunt the wolf with the aid of a redoubtable weapon. A piece of bony cartilage from a whale’s head is carved into an extremely spiky shape, rolled up small and tied in that position with string. It is then steeped in water until it ices up. The string that kept it together is drawn off, and the resultant iced ball is smeared with animal fat. It is then placed in the path of the wolf which, when it finds it, swallows it. The ice melts quickly in the internal warmth of the stomach, the sharp spikes emerge and unbend to pierce the stomach wall of the wolf, and so cause its death.
By tradition it is the men, in Siberia, who devote themselves to hunting and fishing, while the women are charged with domestic duties – keeping the fire going, putting up and taking down the choom, tanning the hides, stitching together the clothes, looking after the children . . . Yet among many of the peoples it is by no means unusual for women to go hunting, alone or together with the men – and to be as successful at it. That is certainly the case among, for example, the Yukaghirs. Some of their old women are renowned for their hunting prowess, and include even bears among their hunting trophies.
Chukchi, Small plastic artwork ‘Hunting for bear’, 1906.
Walrus tusk ivory, 14 x 5.7 cm. Russian Museum of Ethnography,
St. Petersburg. Primorskaya Oblast, Anadyr Krai.
Koryak, Small plastic artworks ‘Tea-drinking’ and ‘Meal’, 1911.
Walrus tusk ivory, 1) 6 x 4.5 cm; 2) 6.7 x 7 cm.
Russian Museum of Ethnography, St. Petersburg. Kamchatka Oblast.
Chukchi, Armour and helmet of a warrior, 1904-1907.
Antler, metal, sealskin, Armour: 74.5 x 129 cm;
Helmet: 22 cm x 11.2 cm. Russian Museum of Ethnography,
St. Petersburg. Primorskaya Oblast, Anadyr Krai.
Chukchi, Quiver and arrows, 1904-1907. Dressed reindeer skin, sealskin, metal, reindeer underneck hair, wood, metal, bone, bird feather, Quiver: 88 x 21.5 cm; Arrows: 76.5 cm; 78 cm; 77.3 cm; 76.5 cm; 79 cm. Russian Museum of Ethnography, St. Petersburg. Primorskaya Oblast, Anadyr Krai.
Chukchi, Oversleeves of a warrior, 1904-1907. Antler, sealskin,
1) 36.5 cm; 2) 37 cm. Russian Museum of Ethnography,
St. Petersburg. Primorskaya Oblast, Anadyr Krai.
3) ANIMAL BREEDERS
In the steppes of southern Siberia, the Khakass people, the Altai people, the Tuva people, the Buryats and, further north and just into the tundra, the Yakuts have for centuries based their culture on raising horses and breeding horned animals. These Turkic and Mongolian peoples also farm sheep on the southern plains, while in the mountainous regions they additionally herd reindeer – strictly for transportation purposes. Further north still, in Arctic zones, the Yakuts have copied reindeer-herding methods from the Evenki.
Nomadic in former times, these communities have during the course of the 20th century become partly – well, totally – residential in habit. To be sure, a few groups lead a sort of semi-nomadic way of life with their animals, divided between winter pasturages and summer pasturages.
Summertime among these groups is dedicated to agricultural activities, and there is much to do, especially the hay-making which ensures reserve supplies of food for much of the livestock. In the winter the cattle and horses, left to their own devices in grasslands, have to find food for themselves under the snow.
Breeding cattle and horses for adaptation to the conditions of Siberia has been the work of the Yakuts. Indeed, the physical particulars of a Yakut horse bear witness to its adaptation to the rigours of the climate in the Siberian north – compact and small in stature, with a long shaggy coat, the animal can withstand extremely low temperatures (below –50°C/–58°F) and is quite capable of turning up its food independently by stamping on the frozen ground with its hoofs. It is the horse that is the focus of the Yakut cultural heritage. According to one legend it was the first creature on the earth, the ancestor of humankind. And certainly in former times the horse provided the Yakuts with all the resources needed for their lifestyle – meat, leather, hide, transportation, everything. Cattle, introduced by these same Yakuts into the northern regions of Siberia rather later, have since taken over as the central pillar of their way of life. Nonetheless, the breed of cattle developed by them over the centuries is today on the edge of extinction. They possess the very same qualities as the Yakut horse – small, hardy, with a shaggy hide and a reproduction rate that is relatively slow – although their milk is particularly rich, in terms of nutritive value, in comparison with that of ordinary cows. But it was because of the sluggishness in the overall rate of reproduction that the Soviet authorities decided that other types of cattle must be brought in, and following the resultant multiple cross-breeding that then ensued, the Yakut cattle have today all but vanished completely.
Aleut, Hunter’s hat, early 20th century.
Wood, bone, eared seal whiskers, 38.5 x 22 cm.
Russian Museum of Ethnography, St. Petersburg. Aleutian Islands.
Aleut, Hunter’s hat, early 20th century.
Wood, 54 x 17 cm. Russian Museum of Ethnography,
St. Petersburg. Commander Islands.
Yakut, Tebenki (horse-cover), 1904. Woolen cloth,
dressed reindeer skin, beads, seed beads, metal, 62 x 51 cm.
Russian Museum of Ethnography, St. Petersburg. Yakut Oblast, Yakutsk.
The semi-nomadic way of life of the Turkic and Mongolian peoples of Siberia is closely linked with the herds of horses they move with twice every year – in spring and in autumn – to new areas of pasturage.
In Yakutia, horses live in a semi-wild state. On festive occasions the Yakuts pay special attention to the tack – by tradition, the standard equestrian accoutrements comprise a saddle ornamented with plaques of embossed silver, a pair of stirrups, a bridle and a smallish saddle-blanket also decorated with bright bits and pieces. In the summertime, both horses and cattle wander freely over the great plains that characterize the traditional countryside of the Yakuts – the alas, a vast heathland bestrewn with scattered lakes surrounded by forests. In the evenings, the cattle return to the byre for milking, either following a leader or driven there by boys on horseback.
Left to roam the pastures in summer, the cattle in winter are fed on hay in khoton – sheds specifically adapted for extreme temperatures. In past centuries the khoton were pretty well no more than extensions of the yurt, and indeed still retain similarities. Like the Yakut style of yurt (balaghan), the khoton is made of wood, has sloping sides and a flat roof covered with earth. Its walls are shored up from the outside with clay and cow-dung. It is a system that ensures the cows are warm in winter – and in summer the blocks of dried cow-dung are removed and burned to keep the multitudinous mosquitoes at bay.
The Yakuts used to live in groups, scattered here and there in the forests or on the tundras, each family living in a yurt, or, if on the tundra, in tents. In central Yakutia, despite the Sovietization, the Yakut villages preserve their local colour thanks both to the khoton and to the ambar (cereal granaries), rectangular buildings of wood with flat roofs covered in earth and, in summertime, with vegetation. Winter yurts and the summertime tents (urasa) have, on the other hand, now completely disappeared in favour of Russian-style wooden houses. Yurts nonetheless remain in use in some southern regions of Siberia. The yurts are wooden huts with sloping walls covered with a thick layer of turf. In the place of window-glass ox-bladders are used in summer-time and ice in winter. The window-openings are usually not more than a foot square in size. The fireplace is in the middle of the yurta, and is made of poles, placed close together and covered with mud or clay. Along the walls inside the dwelling run low nares or benches, between the wooden pillars, serving as sitting-places during the daytime and as bedsteads at night. The yurt is divided into two parts: to the right from the entrance is the women’s and children’s apartment, where, among the poorest classes, the cattle are also housed ; and to the left that of the men. To the women’s apartment men not belonging to the family are not allowed to go. The Yakuts generally have special yurtas for winter and summer, the latter usually situated near their meadows and haystacks. In the far north they often live in tents or huts resembling those of the Lapps.
They prefer to settle in groups, where there is plenty of pasture, or in the neighbourhood of lakes and rivers abounding with fish, or in forests where game is to be had. Such groups or communities are called aga-usa (“paternal families,” or made up of people who are related). The members of these communities of relatives do not marry within the community, but they keep together to help and protect each other. They elect an “elder” and form a council, which decides their common affairs, settles disputes, and performs other offices. These communities in their turn associate themselves into larger groups, forming the so-called naslegi (association of family communities), which again are organised into ulus, corresponding to the Russian village-districts (volost). At the head of the ulus stands the golova or chief, with an uprava or kind of police- court. The naslegi are administered by a district-council and a district-elder having the title of kujas (prince), which was conferred on these tribal chiefs by Catherine II. The taxes are collected by the local authorities of the ulus, which are by law connected with the officials and the police authorities. The taxes (yassak) were formerly paid in the shape of furs, but after the sable were to a great extent exterminated, they were paid in money, the amount of which, plus communal taxes, varied, depending on the decision of the local authorities and the economical condition of the tax-payer.
The Yakuts are generally poor. Their principal possessions consist of cattle and horses. The Yakut horses are small and shaggy, but very hardy, strong, and good- tempered animals. Throughout the long and terrible winter they subsist on the grass underneath the snow, which, like the reindeer, they remove with their feet, the strongest horses going in front, and the weaker ones following them, eating the uncovered grass. The Yakuts, like other Tatar peoples, are very fond of horse-meat, and from the horses ‘ milk they prepare the well-known koumiss. The number of horses they own, however, is diminishing, and only well-to-do Yakuts as a rule now keep them, the great majority having cattle instead. The Yakut cattle are very small and of inferior quality. The cows give very little milk; a family of ordinary size needs for its subsistence from 10 to 15 head of cattle, of which 7 to 9 are milk cows. The great majority of Yakut families, however, have not so many, and want and famine are very common among them. Their principal work consists in gathering hay on the meadows and marshes.
The food-products of cattle-raising – meat and milk – constitute the primary diet of the Turkic and Mongolian peoples. Specialities involving meat and milk dominate their eating habits, topped up with fish, which in turn form an appreciable proportion of the diet of those who live on the shores of Lake Baikal and on the banks of the Lena. Additional delicacies are those brought home after hunting and, in summer, after scavenging for berries and fungi. A drink consumed amid some ritual by the Yakuts is the famous koumiss, fermented mare’s milk, quaffed in large quantities at the height of the festival of Isyakh in June from huge bowls carved in wood – the ayakh or choron. Quite different is the daily dish of the Yakuts out in the fields: kuortchekh – whipped cream embellished with whortleberries. The preferred meat dishes of these northerly people are frozen raw foal meat and stroganina (frozen raw fish).
Yakut, Toys in the form of horses, 1908, 1910. Wood, 1) 30 x 15 cm; 2) 23 x 22 cm.
Russian Museum of Ethnography, St. Petersburg. 1) Yakut Oblast,
Vilyuy Okrug; 2) Yakut Oblast, Vilyuy Okrug, Boturuski ulus (settlement).
Yakut, Boxes, 1959, early 20th century. Wood, 1) 31 x 11 x 7.5 cm;
2) 17 x 5 cm. Russian Museum of Ethnography,
St. Petersburg. Yakut ASSR, Vilyuysk town.
Yakut, Woman’s wedding saddle, 1959, 1909, 1925-1926. Wood, metal, elk leather, horsehair, fabric, woolen cloth, horse fur, beads, seed beads. Saddle: 55 x 27 x 34 cm; Stirrups: 19 x 14 cm; Horse-cover: 156 x 89 cm; Saddle cover: 93 x 69 cm. Russian Museum of Ethnography, St. Petersburg. Yakut ASSR, Vilyuy District, Boturuski Ulus, Yakutsk.
Model of Yakut homestead, early 20th century.
Mammoth bone, wood, 54 x 36 cm.
Russian Museum of Ethnography, St. Petersburg. Yakutia.
Aleut, Rug, 1909-1910. Eared seal intestines, fabric, bird fluff,
woolen yarn. 33 x 28 cm. Russian Museum of Ethnography,
St. Petersburg. Aleutian Islands.
The usual food of the great majority of Yakuts is the so-called “tar” which is a mixture of meat, fish, various roots, grass, and pine-bark. This is put into skimmed milk mixed with water, to which is added a little flour, if such is to be had, and the whole is boiled into a kind of porridge. The Yakuts drink a great deal of tea, and are very fond of strong spirits. The wealthy eat meat every day and a kind of thick pancake, made of water and barley-flour.
Only in the past two centuries has the culture of cereals been introduced among the Yakuts by the Russians, especially the “Skoptsi” and other sectarians. Instead of flour, they formerly used the juicy part of the bark of the pine and different kinds of roots. Before the middle of the nineteenth century, no one believed it would be possible to cultivate cereals in Yakutsk, due to the inhospitable climate. In the first experiments the crops were frost-bitten, but eventually the corn became acclimatised, and now in favorable years good crops are secured. In the short space of two months from sowing, thanks to the usually hot summers, the grain ripens and is harvested. In the neighbourhood of the city of Yakutsk are thus grown barley, oats, wheat, potatoes and even water-melons. The implements and methods of agriculture were originally very primitive, wooden ploughs and harrows being exclusively used, but the more efficient products of the Industrial Revolution have since been introduced.
The Buryats, animal-breeders who share some characteristics with the Yakuts, live in ulus. An ulu is, literally, a group of families (ail) constituting a tribe or part of a tribe (aimak). The yurts or cabins of the families are not built in regular rows like the houses of the European Russian villages, but are scattered in picturesque confusion and surrounded by a large common enclosure. At a distance from the village are the so-called ugugi, immense enclosures where the cattle graze in winter and whence in summertime the Buryats gather splendid crops of hay. By the side of the houses are seen high poles resembling maypoles. On these are hung sacrificial gifts to the Buryatic divinities in the shape of goat-skins with head and horns attached, rags, and different kinds of clothing.
Besides the villages, in which they spend the winter, the Buryats also have their summer stations, between which they move with their herds of cattle. Up to the beginning of the twentieth century, they lived only in yurts or earth-cabins; but now well-to-do Buryats have comfortable houses, and only a few families live in yurts. The traditional mode of dwelling for the cattle-breeding communities in Siberia is this Mongolian-style yurt. Mobile when made mainly of cloth, pretty solidly static when built of wooden logs, the yurt varies from region to region not only in construction materials but also in shape – round, square, octagonal, and more besides. The roof of the yurt is held up in the centre by a wide post at an angle, which also acts as a chimney-flue. The entrance to the yurt, among the Buryats, is oriented towards the south; among the Yakuts it is towards the east. In some areas in summer, the yurt is replaced by a wigwam-like conical tent.
Buryats, even when they live in tents, are not really nomads, but keep to one particular district. Although the children of Mongols, once the terror of the world, there is nothing of the warrior about them, except their splendid horsemanship. Their saddles look high banked and uncomfortable, but they manage their horses, which are light brown with black manes and very swift, with wonderful agility. The Buryats live chiefly on milk, millet, and sheep killed on feast days. Their wealth consists in immense herds of cattle; some of them even possess four to five thousand head.
Chukchi, Eskimos, Balls for games: 1) foot 2) hand, 1) 1974; 2) 1904-1907.
Seal skin and wool, reindeer underneck hair, Circumference: 1) 58 cm; 2) 25 cm.
Russian Museum of Ethnography, St. Petersburg. Chukchi Peninsular.
Evenki, Doll-woman, 1907. Fabric, reindeer ankle-bone,
beads, 11 cm. Russian Museum of Ethnography, St. Petersburg.
Yenisey Gubernia (province), Yenisey Uezd (district), the Katonga river basin.
Chukchi, Tlingit, Leather kickball and dolls, 1898, 1901.
Ball: sealskin, hair; Dolls: 1) marble, hair, cloth, buckskin; 2) reindeer skin,
cotton cloth, beads, sinew, Ball: 17 cm; Dolls: 1) 25 cm; 2) 38 cm.
Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography, Moscow. Anadyr district.
Yakut, Box for fur and silver things, 1906. Birch bark, mica, paper,
horsehair, leather, 37 cm x 57 cm; opening diameter: 48 cm.
Russian Museum of Ethnography, St. Petersburg. Yakut Oblast, Yakut Okrug.
