Eastern Siberia peoples. Indigenous population of Siberia

The Khanty are an indigenous Ugric people living in the north 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Khanty (the outdated name "Ostyaks") are also known as Yugras, however, the more accurate self-name "Khanty" (from the Khanty "Kantakh" - a person, people) was fixed as an official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

The number of Khanty in Russian Federation is 30,943 people according to the 2010 census). 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 already 6-5 thousand years BC, subsequently they were displaced by nomads in lands of Northern Siberia.

The ethnogenesis of the Northern Khanty based on the mixing of aboriginal and newcomer Ugric tribes, archaeologists associate 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 Samoyed 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 are associated with a deer. public life(ownership of deer and their inheritance), worldviews (in the funeral rite).

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:

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.

At present, the overwhelming majority of the population of Siberia are Russians. According to the 1897 census, there were about 4.7 million Russians in Siberia. (more than 80% of its total population). In 1926, this figure increased to 9 million people, and during the time that has elapsed since the 1926 census, the Russian population in Siberia has increased even more.

The modern Russian population of Siberia has developed from several groups, different in their social origin and in the time of their resettlement in Siberia.

Russians began to populate Siberia from the end of the 16th century, and by the end of the 17th century. the number of Russians in Siberia exceeded the number of its heterogeneous local population.

Initially, the Russian population of Siberia consisted of service people (Cossacks, archers, etc.) and a few townspeople and merchants in the cities; the same Cossacks, industrial people - hunters and arable peasants in rural areas - in villages, zaimkas and settlements. Arable peasants and, to a lesser extent, Cossacks formed the basis of the Russian population of Siberia in the 17th, 18th, and first half of the 19th centuries. The main mass of this old-timer population of Siberia is concentrated in the regions of Tobolsk, Verkhoturye, Tyumen, to a lesser extent Tomsk, Yeniseisk (with the Angara region) and Krasnoyarsk, along the Ilim, in the upper reaches of the Lena in the regions of Nerchinsk and Irkutsk. A later stage of Russian penetration into the steppe regions of southern Siberia dates back to the 18th century. At this time, the Russian population spread in the steppe and forest-steppe regions of southern Siberia: in the Northern Altai, in the Minusinsk steppes, as well as in the steppes of the Baikal and Transbaikalia.

After the reform of 1861, millions of Russian peasants moved to Siberia in a relatively short period of time. At this time, some regions of Altai, Northern Kazakhstan, as well as the newly annexed Amur and Primorye were settled by Russians.

The construction of the railway and the growth of cities in Siberia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. led to a rapid increase in the Russian urban population.

At all stages of the settlement of Siberia by Russians, they carried with them a culture higher than that of the indigenous population. Not only the peoples of the Far North, but also the peoples of southern Siberia are indebted to the laboring masses of Russian settlers for the spread of higher technology in various branches of material production. The Russians spread in Siberia developed forms of agriculture and cattle breeding, more advanced types of dwellings, more cultured everyday skills, etc.

In the Soviet era, the industrialization of Siberia, the development of new regions, the emergence of industrial centers in the north, and rapid road construction caused a new, very large influx of the Russian population into Siberia and its spread even to the most remote regions of the taiga and tundra.

In addition to Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Jews (Jewish Autonomous Region) and representatives of other nationalities live in Siberia Soviet Union who moved to Siberia at different times.

Numerically, a small part of the entire population of Siberia is its non-Russian local population, numbering about 800 thousand people. The non-Russian population of Siberia is represented by a large number of different nationalities. Two autonomous Soviet socialist republics have been formed here - Buryat-Mongolian and Yakutsk, three autonomous regions - Gorno-Altai, Khakass, Tuva and a number of national districts and regions. The number of individual Siberian peoples is different. The largest of them, according to 1926 data, are the Yakuts (237,222 people), Buryats (238,058 people), Altaians (50,848 people), Khakasses (45,870 people), Tuvans (62,000 people). ). Most of the peoples of Siberia are the so-called small peoples of the North. Some of them do not exceed 1,000 in number, while others number several thousand. This fragmentation and small number of indigenous peoples of northern Siberia reflects the historical and natural geographical conditions in which they were formed and existed before the Soviet regime. Low level of development of productive forces, severe climatic conditions, vast impenetrable expanses of taiga and tundra, and in the last three centuries, the colonial policy of tsarism prevented the formation of large ethnic groups here, conserved the most archaic forms of economy, social system, culture and life in the Far North until the October Revolution. The larger peoples of Siberia were also relatively backward, although not to the same extent as the small peoples of the North.

The non-Russian indigenous population of Siberia belongs in their language to various linguistic groups.

Most of them speak Turkic languages. These include Siberian Tatars, Altaians, Shors, Khakasses, Tuvans, Tofalars, Yakuts and Dolgans. The language of the Mongolian group is spoken by the Buryats. In total, Turkic languages ​​are spoken by approximately 58%, and Mongolian by 27% of the non-Russian population of Siberia.

The next largest language group is represented by the Tungus-Manchu languages. They are usually divided into the Tungus, or northern, and Manchu, or southern, languages. The Tungus group proper in Siberia includes the languages ​​of the Evenks, Evens, and Negidals; to Manchu - the languages ​​​​of the Nanai, Ulchi, Oroks, Orochs, Udeges. In total, only about 6% of the non-Russian population of Siberia speaks Tungus-Manchu languages, but territorially these languages ​​are quite widespread, since the population speaking them lives scattered from the Yenisei to the coast of the Sea of ​​Okhotsk and the Bering Strait.

Turkic, Mongolian and Tungus-Manchu languages ​​are usually combined into the so-called Altaic family of languages. These languages ​​have not only similarities in their morphological structure (they are all of an agglutinative type), but also great lexical correspondences and common phonetic patterns. Turkic languages ​​are close to Mongolian, and Mongolian, in turn, is close to Tungus-Manchu.

The peoples of northwestern Siberia speak Samoyedic and Ugric languages. The Ugric languages ​​are the languages ​​of the Khanty and Mansi (about 3.1% of the total non-Russian population of Siberia), and the Samoyedic languages ​​are the languages ​​of the Nenets, Nganasans, Enets and Selkups (about 2.6% of the non-Russian population of Siberia in total). The Ugric languages, which, in addition to the languages ​​of the Khanty and Mansi, also include the language of the Hungarians in Central Europe, are included in the Finno-Ugric group of languages. The Finno-Ugric and Samoyedic languages, which show a certain closeness to each other, are united by linguists into the Uralic group of languages. In the old classifications, the Altaic and Uralic languages ​​were usually combined into one Ural-Altaic community. Although the Uralic and Altaic languages ​​are morphologically similar to each other (agglutinative system), such an association is controversial and is not shared by most modern linguists.

The languages ​​of a number of peoples of northeastern Siberia and the Far East cannot be included in the large linguistic communities indicated above, since they have a sharply different structure, peculiar features in phonetics, and many other features. Such are the languages ​​of the Chukchi, Koryaks, Itelmens, Yukagirs, Nivkhs. If the first three reveal significant closeness to each other, then the Yukagir and, especially, Nivkh languages ​​have nothing in common with them and have nothing to do with each other.

All these languages ​​are incorporating, but incorporation (the fusion of a number of root words into a sentence) in these languages ​​is expressed to varying degrees. It is most typical for the Chukchi, Koryak and Itelmen languages, to a lesser extent - for the Nivkh and Yukaghir. In the latter, incorporation is preserved only to a weak degree, and the language is mainly characterized by an agglutinative structure. The phonetics of the listed languages ​​is characterized by sounds that are absent in the Russian language. These languages ​​(Chukotian, Koryak, Itelmen, Nivkh and Yukagir) are known as "Paleoasian". In this term, which was introduced into the literature for the first time by Academician JI. Schrenk, correctly emphasizes the antiquity of these languages, their surviving character on the territory of Siberia. We can assume a wider distribution of these ancient languages ​​in the past in this territory. Currently, about 3% of the non-Russian population of Siberia speaks Paleo-Asiatic languages.

An independent place among the languages ​​of Siberia is occupied by the Eskimo and Aleut languages. They are close to each other, are characterized by the predominance of agglutination, and differ from the language of the northeastern Paleoasians territorially close to them.

And, finally, the language of the Kets, a small people living along the middle reaches of the Yenisei in the Turukhansk and Yartsevo regions Krasnoyarsk Territory, stands completely isolated among the languages ​​of northern Asia, and the question of its place in the linguistic classification remains unresolved to this day. It is distinguished by the presence, along with agglutination, of inflections, the distinction between categories of animate and inanimate objects, the distinction between feminine and masculine gender for animate objects, which is not found in all other languages ​​of Siberia.

These isolated languages ​​(Ket and Eskimo with Aleut) are spoken by 0.3% of the non-Russian population of Siberia.

The purpose of this work is not to consider the complex and insufficiently clarified details of the specific history of individual language groups, to clarify the time of formation and ways of their distribution. But one should point out, for example, the wider distribution in the past in southern Siberia of languages ​​close to modern Ket (the languages ​​of the Arins, Kotts, Asans), as well as the widespread distribution in the 17th century. languages ​​close to Yukaghir in the Lena, Yana, Indigirka, Kolyma and Anadyr basins. In the Sayan Highlands in the XVII-XIX centuries. a number of ethnic groups spoke Samoyedic languages. There is reason to believe that from this mountainous region the Samoyed languages ​​spread to the north, where these languages ​​were preceded by the Paleo-Asiatic languages ​​of the ancient natives of northwestern Siberia. One can trace the gradual settlement of Eastern Siberia by Tungus-speaking tribes and their absorption of small Paleo-Asiatic groups. It should also be noted the gradual spread of the Turkic languages ​​among the Samoyedic and Ket-speaking groups in southern Siberia and the Yakut language in northern Siberia.

Since the inclusion of Siberia into the Russian state, the Russian language has become more and more widespread. New concepts associated with the penetration of Russian culture to the peoples of Siberia were acquired by them in Russian, and Russian words firmly entered the vocabulary of all the peoples of Siberia. At present, the influence of the Russian language, which is the lingua franca of all the peoples of the Soviet Union, is becoming more and more powerful.

In historical and cultural terms, the vast territory of Siberia could in the recent past be divided into two large areas: the southern one - the area of ​​ancient cattle breeding and agriculture, and the northern one - the area of ​​commercial hunting and fishing and reindeer breeding. The boundaries of these areas did not coincide with the geographical boundaries of the landscape zones.

The data of archeology draw us the different historical destinies of these two regions already from ancient times. The territory of southern Siberia was inhabited by humans already in the era of the Upper Paleolithic. In the future, this territory was an area of ​​ancient, relatively high culture, was part of various state-political temporary associations of the Turks and Mongols.

The development of the peoples of the northern regions proceeded differently. Severe climatic conditions, difficult-to-pass taiga and tundra, unsuitable for the development of cattle breeding and agriculture here, remoteness from the cultural regions of the southern regions - all this delayed the development of productive forces, contributed to the disunity of individual peoples of the North and the conservation of their archaic forms of culture and life. While the southern region of Siberia includes relatively large peoples (Buryats, Khakasses, Altaians, West Siberian Tatars), whose language and culture are closely related to the Mongolian and Turkic peoples of other regions, the northern region is inhabited by a number of small peoples whose language and culture occupy a largely isolated position.

However, it would be wrong to consider the population of the North in complete isolation from the southern cultural centers. Archaeological materials, starting from the most ancient, testify to the constant economic and cultural ties between the population of the northern territories and the population of the southern regions of Siberia, and through them - with the ancient civilizations of the East and West. The precious furs of the North are beginning to enter the markets not only in China, but also in India and Central Asia very early. The latter, in turn, influence the development of Siberia. The peoples of the North do not stand aside from the influence of world religions. Particular attention should be paid to the cultural ties that, apparently starting from the Neolithic, are established between the populations of western Siberia and eastern Europe.

Ethnic groups of the indigenous population of Siberia in the XVII

I-parody of the Turkic language group; II - the peoples of the Ugric language group; TII - the peoples of the Mongolian language group; IV - northeastern Paleoasians; V - Yukagirs; VI - the peoples of the Samoyed language group; VII - the peoples of the Tungus-Manchu language group; VIII - peoples of the Ket language group; IX - Gilyaks; X - Eskimos; XI - Ainu

Historical events in the southern regions of Siberia - the movement of the Huns, the formation of the Turkic Khaganate, the campaigns of Genghis Khan, etc. could not but be reflected in the ethnographic map of the Far North, and many, as yet insufficiently studied, ethnic movements of the peoples of the North in different eras are often reflected waves of those historical storms that played out far to the south.

All these complicated relationship must be constantly kept in mind when considering the ethnic problems of North Asia.

By the time the Russians arrived here, the indigenous population of southern Siberia was dominated by a nomadic pastoral economy. Many ethnic groups also had agriculture of very ancient origin there, but it was carried out at that time on a very small scale and had the value of only an auxiliary branch of the economy. Only in the future, mainly during the 19th century, did the nomadic pastoral economy among the peoples of southern Siberia, under the influence of a higher Russian culture, begin to be replaced by a settled agricultural and pastoral economy. However, in a number of areas (among the Buryats of the Aginsky department, the Telengits Gorny Altai etc.) the nomadic pastoral economy was preserved until the period of socialist reconstruction.

By the time the Russians arrived in Siberia, the Yakuts in northern Siberia were cattle breeders. The economy of the Yakuts, despite their relative northern settlement, was transferred to the north, to the relict forest-steppe of the Amginsko-Lena region, an economic type of the steppe south of Siberia.

The population of northern Siberia, the Amur and Sakhalin, as well as some backward regions of southern Siberia (Tofalars, Tuvans-Todzhans, Shors, some groups of Altaians) were at a lower level of development until the October Socialist Revolution. The culture of the population of northern Siberia developed on the basis of hunting, fishing and reindeer breeding.

Hunting, fishing and reindeer breeding - this "northern triad" - until recently determined the entire economic appearance of the so-called small peoples of the North in the vast expanses of taiga and tundra, supplemented on the sea coasts by hunting.

The northern trade economy, being basically complex, combining, as a rule, hunting, fishing and reindeer herding, nevertheless makes it possible to distinguish several types in it, according to the predominance of one or another industry.

Various ways of earning a livelihood, differences in the degree of development of the productive forces of individual Siberian peoples were due to their entire previous history. The various natural-geographical conditions in which certain tribes were formed or in which they found themselves as a result of migrations also had an effect. Here it is necessary, in particular, to take into account that some ethnic elements that became part of the modern Siberian peoples fell into the harsh natural and geographical conditions of northern Siberia very early, while still at a low level of development of productive forces, and had little opportunity for their further progress. Other peoples and tribes came to northern Siberia later, being already at a higher level of development of the productive forces, and therefore, even in the conditions of the northern forests and tundra, were able to create and develop more advanced methods of obtaining a livelihood and at the same time develop higher forms social organization, material and spiritual culture.

Among the peoples of Siberia, according to their predominant occupation in the past, the following groups can be distinguished: 1) foot (that is, who did not have any transport deer or draft dogs) hunters-fishers of the taiga and forest-tundra; 2) sedentary fishermen in the basins of large rivers and lakes; 3) sedentary hunters for sea animals on the coasts 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.

The first of these types of economy, characteristic of walking hunters-fishermen, can be traced in various parts of the vast forest and forest-tundra zone, even in the oldest ethnographic materials, only in the form of relics and always with a noticeable influence of more developed types. The features of the type of economy under consideration were most fully represented among the so-called foot Evenks of various regions of Siberia, among the Orochs, Udeges, certain groups of Yukaghirs and Kets and Selkups, partly among the Khanty and Mansi, and also among the Shors. In the economy of these taiga hunters and fishermen, hunting for meat animals (moose, deer) was very important, combined with fishing in taiga rivers and lakes, which came to the fore in the summer and autumn months, and existed in the winter in the form of ice fishing. This type appears before us as less specialized in a particular branch of the economy in comparison with other economic types of the North. A characteristic element of the culture of these deerless hunters-fishermen was a hand sled - light sledges were dragged by the people themselves, skiing, and sometimes harnessing a hunting dog to help them.

Sedentary fishermen lived in the pools pp. Cupid and Ob. Fishing was the main source of subsistence throughout the year, hunting was only of secondary importance here. We rode dogs that were fed fish. Has long been associated with the development of fisheries sedentary life. This economic type was characteristic of the Nivkhs, Nanais, Ulchis, Itelmens, Khanty, part of the Selkups, and the Ob Mansi.

Among the Arctic hunters (settled Chukchi, Eskimos, partly settled Koryaks), the economy was based on the extraction of sea animals (walrus, seal, etc.). They also had draft dog breeding. Hunting for sea animals led to a sedentary lifestyle, but, unlike fishermen, Arctic hunters settled not on the banks of rivers, but on the coasts of the northern seas.

The most widespread type of economy in the taiga zone of Siberia is represented by taiga reindeer herders, hunters and fishermen. Unlike sedentary fishermen and Arctic hunters, they led a nomadic lifestyle, which left an imprint on their entire way of life. Reindeer were used mainly for transport (under the saddle and under the pack). The deer herds were small. This economic type was common among the Evenks, Evens, Dolgans, Tofalars, mainly in the forests and forest tundras of Eastern Siberia, from the Yenisei to the Sea of ​​Okhotsk, but also partly to the west of the Yenisei (Forest Nenets, Northern Selkups, Reindeer Kets).

Nomadic reindeer herders in the tundra and forest-tundra developed a special type of economy in which reindeer herding served as the main source of subsistence. Hunting and fishing, as well as marine fur hunting, were only of secondary importance to them, and sometimes they were completely absent. Deer served as a transport animal, and their meat was the main food. The reindeer herders of the tundra led a nomadic life, moving on reindeer harnessed to sleds. Typical tundra reindeer herders were the Nenets, reindeer Chukchi and Koryaks.

The basis of the economy of the pastoralists of the steppes and forest-steppes was the breeding of cattle and horses (among the Yakuts), or cattle, horses and sheep (among the Altaians, Khakasses, Tuvans, Buryats, Siberian Tatars). Agriculture has long existed among all these peoples, with the exception of the Yakuts, as an auxiliary industry. Among the Yakuts, agriculture appeared only under Russian influence. All these peoples were partly engaged in hunting and fishing. Their way of life in the more distant past was nomadic and semi-nomadic, but already before the revolution, under the influence of the Russians, some of them (Siberian Tatars, Western Buryats, etc.) switched to settled life.

Along with the indicated basic types of economy, a number of the peoples of Siberia had transitional ones. Thus, the Shors and Northern Altaians represented hunters with the beginnings of settled cattle breeding; The Yukaghirs, Nganasans, and Enets in the past combined (wandering in the tundra) reindeer herding with hunting as their main occupation. The economy of a significant part of the Mansi and Khanty was of a mixed nature.

The economic types noted above, with all the differences between them, reflected on the whole the low level of development of the productive forces that prevailed before the socialist reconstruction of the economy among the peoples of Siberia. This was consistent with the archaic forms of social organization that existed here until recently. Being part of the Russian state for almost three centuries, the tribes and nationalities of Siberia did not, of course, remain outside the influence of feudal and capitalist relations. But on the whole, these relations were poorly developed here, and it was here that, in comparison with other peoples of tsarist Russia, the remnants of pre-capitalist ways were preserved to the fullest extent; in particular, among a number of peoples of the North, the remnants of the primitive communal tribal system were very distinct. Among the majority of the peoples of the North, as well as among some tribes of the northern Altai (Kumandins, Chelkans) and among the Shors, forms of the patriarchal-clan system of various degrees of maturity dominated and peculiar forms of the territorial community were observed. At the stage of early class patriarchal-feudal relations were pastoral peoples: Yakuts, Buryats, Tuvans, Yenisei Kirghiz, Southern Altaians, including Teleuts, as well as Transbaikal Evenk horse breeders. Feudal relations of a more developed type were among the Siberian Tatars.

Elements of social differentiation already existed everywhere, but to varying degrees. Patriarchal slavery, for example, was quite widespread. Social differentiation was especially clearly expressed among reindeer herders, where reindeer herds created the basis for the accumulation of wealth in individual farms and thereby caused ever-increasing inequality. To a lesser extent, such differentiation took place among hunters and fishermen. In a developed fishing economy and in the economy of marine hunters, property inequality arose on the basis of ownership of fishing gear - boats, gear - and was also accompanied by various forms of patriarchal slavery.

The disintegration of the tribal community as an economic unit undermined the communal principles in production and consumption. Neighboring communities, territorial associations of farms connected with joint hunting for land and sea animals, joint fishing, joint reindeer grazing, and joint nomadism appeared to replace tribal collectives. These territorial communities retained many features of collectivism in distribution as well. A vivid example of these survivals was the custom of nimash among the Evenks, according to which the meat of a killed animal was distributed among all the farms of the camp. Despite the far-reaching process of the decomposition of the primitive communal system, the hunters, fishermen and cattle breeders of Siberia retained remnants of very early maternal-tribal relations.

The question of whether in the past the peoples of the North had a clan based on maternal law is of great methodological significance. As you know, the so-called cultural-historical school in ethnography, contrary to evidence, came up with a theory according to which matriarchy and patriarchy are not successive stages in the history of society, but local variants associated with certain “cultural circles” and characteristic only of certain areas. This concept is completely refuted by concrete facts from the history of the peoples of Siberia.

We find here, to varying degrees, traces of the maternal clan, reflecting a certain stage in the social development of these peoples. These survivals are found in the traces of matrilocal marriage (the husband's migration to the wife's family), in the avunculate (the special role of the uncle on the maternal side), in many different customs and rites, indicating the presence of matriarchy in the past.

The problem of the maternal clan is connected with the question of the dual organization as one of the most ancient forms of the tribal system. This question in relation to the northern peoples was first raised and basically resolved by Soviet ethnography. Soviet ethnographers have collected considerable material testifying to the survivals of a dual organization among various peoples of northern Siberia. Such, for example, are data on phratries among the Khanty and Mansi, among the Kets and Selkups, among the Nenets, Evenki, Ulchi, and others.

By the beginning of the XX century. the most developed peoples of southern Siberia (Southern Altaians, Khakasses, Buryats, Siberian Tatars) and the Yakuts also developed capitalist relations, while others, especially the small peoples of the North, retained patriarchal relations and their characteristic primitive forms of exploitation. The Altaians, Buryats, Yakuts already had feudal relations, intricately intertwined with patriarchal tribal relations, on the one hand, and the embryos of capitalism, on the other.

The study of these differences is not only of theoretical interest to the historian and ethnographer, but is of great practical importance in connection with the tasks of the socialist reconstruction of the economy, culture and way of life of the peoples of Siberia. The fulfillment of these tasks required specific consideration of all the peculiarities of the national way of life and the social structure of individual peoples.

Creation in 1931-1932. nomadic and rural councils, regional and national districts, built on a territorial basis, completely undermined the significance in the social life of the peoples of the North of their former tribal organization and those social elements that led it.

At present, the village council has become the main local unit of Soviet authorities among the peoples of the North, and the collective farm has become the main economic unit everywhere. Sometimes nomadic and rural councils include several collective farms, sometimes the entire population of a village or nomadic council is united into one collective farm.

Collective farms are organized in most cases on the basis of the charter of the agricultural artel, but in some areas also on the basis of the charter of the fishing artels.

As a rule, in the national sense, collective farms usually include people of the same nationality, however, in areas with a mixed population, collective farms of mixed national composition are found and even predominate: Komi-Nenets, Enets-Nenets, Yukaghir-Even, Yakut-Evenki, etc. The same position in village councils. Along with the councils, the entire population of which belongs to one nationality, there are councils that include two and three nationalities. This leads to a complete break with the former tribal traditions.

It should also be noted that everywhere in Siberia, even in the northern national districts, there is a large Russian population; Russians are included in the same districts, village councils and collective farms, in which the indigenous population is also united. This rapprochement and joint life with the Russians are important factors in the cultural and economic upsurge of the peoples of Siberia.

Socialist construction among the peoples of Siberia was initially hampered by general cultural backwardness. It took a huge mass political and educational work in order to overcome, for example, a backward religious ideology.

Almost all the peoples of Siberia, with the exception of the Eastern Buryats, among whom Lamaism was widespread, the Chukchi, parts of the Koryaks, Nganasans and Eastern Nenets, who remained outside the sphere of influence of the Orthodox Church, were formally considered Orthodox. But all of them, until recently, retained their ancient religious ideas and cults.

The pre-Christian religions of the peoples of Siberia are usually generally defined by the concept of shamanism. In Siberia, shamanism was very widespread, appeared in particularly striking forms and was associated with certain external attributes (shaman tambourines and costumes). Shamanism in Siberia was far from being a homogeneous complex of beliefs and cults. It is possible to single out several types of it, reflecting different stages of development: from more ancient family and tribal forms to developed professional shamanism.

The external attributes of shamanism were also not the same. According to the shape of the tambourine, the cut of the costume and the headdress of the shaman, several types are distinguished, to a certain extent characteristic of certain regions. This side of shamanism is of great scientific interest not only for understanding the social role and origin of shamanism itself, but also for studying the historical and cultural relationships between individual peoples. The study of these relationships, as shown by the work of Soviet scientists, sheds light on some questions of the origin and ethnic ties of the peoples of North Asia.

Shamanism has played an extremely negative role in the history of the peoples of Siberia.

Almost all the peoples of Siberia had shamans by the beginning of the 20th century. into real professionals who performed their rituals, as a rule, by order and for a fee. According to their position, nature of activity and interests, shamans were completely connected with the exploitative elite of the indigenous population. They brought economic harm to the population, requiring constant bloody sacrifices, the killing of dogs, deer and other livestock necessary for the hunter.

Various animistic ideas were widespread among the peoples of Siberia, there was a cult associated with spirits - the "masters" of individual natural phenomena, there were various forms tribal cult. Not all peoples these cults were within the scope of the shaman.

Contrary to the opinion expressed in the literature about the absence of traces of totemism in Siberia, its remnants are found in almost all Siberian peoples. The reader will find examples of this in the chapters on individual peoples. The cult of the bear, which had an almost universal distribution in Siberia, also goes back to totemism.

The cult of the bear took two forms: firstly, in the form of rituals associated with a bear killed on a hunt, and secondly, in the form of a special cult of bear cubs brought up in captivity and then ritually killed at a certain time. The second form was limited to a certain area - Sakhalin and Amur (Ainu, Nivkh, Ulchi, Orochi). The custom of keeping a revered animal in captivity and then ritually killing it takes us far south, where some other elements in Ainu culture also lead.

The all-Siberian form of veneration of the bear goes back, apparently, to the totemism of the ancient taiga hunters and fishermen of Siberia, to that economic and cultural complex, which appeared even in the Neolithic of the taiga zone.

The spiritual culture of the peoples of Siberia was not limited, of course, only to the images and concepts of religious consciousness, although the low level of development of the productive forces led to the backwardness of spiritual culture. Various types of folk practical knowledge and folk art speak convincingly about this.

Almost every ethnic group has original folklore works, the diversity of which finds its explanation in the difference in historical destinies, in the different origins of these peoples.

Highly big influence the folklore of the peoples of the North was influenced by the oral creativity of the Russian people. Russian fairy tales, sometimes somewhat modified due to local conditions, and sometimes almost without any changes, make up a significant part of the folklore wealth of most peoples of the North, and often the most popular.

During the years of Soviet construction, the peoples of Siberia have new works of folk poetry on the topics of collective farm life, the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945, Lenin and the Communist Party.

The fine arts of the peoples of Siberia are rich and varied. Here it is necessary to note decorations by sewing and appliqué on clothes, in particular, embroidery with reindeer hair from the neck (one of the archaic methods of ornamentation), appliqués from pieces of leather, hides and fabrics, silk embroidery and beading.

The peoples of Siberia have achieved great success in creating ornamental motifs, selecting colors, inlaying and carving metal.

A special area of ​​applied fine arts is carving on mammoth ivory and walrus tusk and metal, metal inlay on household items - bone parts of reindeer harness, pipes, flint and so on. in forest areas (mainly in the Ob basin). It should also be noted woodcarving - decoration with carvings of wooden utensils and utensils, which has received the greatest development in the Amur region.

The study of all types of art of the peoples of Siberia is not only of historical interest and significance. Studying it under Soviet conditions should help raise this art to an even higher level, help make it an integral part of the socialist culture of the peoples of Siberia.

The Great October Socialist Revolution found in Siberia a rather variegated picture of the socio-economic development of the non-Russian population, starting from various stages of the decomposition of the primitive communal system and ending with the embryos of capitalist relations. The local population was multilingual, small in number, scattered over vast expanses, more often in small tribal and tribal groups (especially in the northern part of Siberia). These small tribes and peoples (Khanty, Mansi, Enets, Nganasans, Selkups, Evenks, Orochs, Oroks and many others) were mainly engaged in hunting and fishing, partly reindeer herding. As a rule, they lived a closed primitive life, spoke their own local languages ​​and dialects and did not have their own written language and literature. Under the conditions of the national policy of tsarism, the process of their historical development proceeded extremely slowly, for the tsarist policy slowed it down, conserved tribal fragmentation and disunity.

Along with small tribal groups in Siberia, there were well-established nationalities with a well-defined class composition of the population, with a more developed economy and culture, for example, the Yakuts, Buryats, Tuvans, Khakasses, Southern Altaians, etc.

It should be noted that the tribal groups and peoples of Siberia under the conditions of tsarism did not remain unchanged. Many of them, as it were, were in a transitional state, that is, they were partially assimilated, partially developed. Such nationalities as the Yakuts, Buryats, Khakasses developed not only due to their own natural population growth, but also due to the assimilation in their midst of various small, for example, Tungus-speaking, Samoyed-speaking tribal groups. There was a process of merging of some small groups with Russians, for example, Kotts, Kamasinians in the former Cape, Kumandins and Teleuts in the Biysk districts, etc. Thus, on the one hand, there was a process of consolidation of tribal groups in the nationality, on the other hand, their fragmentation and assimilation. This process proceeded before the revolution at a very slow pace.

The Soviet state system opened a new era in the history of the tribes and nationalities of Siberia. The Communist Party set the task of drawing the tribes and nationalities of former Tsarist Russia, belated in their development, into the general channel of the higher culture of the Soviet people. The party has widely involved the forces of the Russian working class in the work of eliminating the centuries-old political, economic and cultural backwardness among the Siberian tribes and nationalities. As a result of practical measures, socialist construction began among the backward tribes and nationalities of Siberia.

Under the conditions of the Soviet state system, the national policy of the Communist Party, the vast majority of the non-Russian population of Siberia received special form state structure in the form of administrative (for autonomous regions, national districts and districts) or political (for autonomous republics) autonomy. This contributed to the development and strengthening of its economic life, the growth of culture, as well as national consolidation. In Siberia, to this day, along with such relatively large nationalities as the Yakuts and Buryats, numbering in the hundreds of thousands, there are small nationalities numbering only a few thousand and even several hundred people.

Thanks to the special attention and care of the Soviet government and the Communist Party, they are gradually eliminating their economic and cultural backwardness and joining the socialist culture. However, they still have a lot to do on the path of economic and cultural development. Deep economic and cultural backwardness, small numbers and fragmentation, inherited from the pre-revolutionary period of their history, create many different difficulties for further development and under the socialist system. The economic and cultural construction of such peoples requires a very careful consideration of their historical past, the specifics of culture and way of life, and the specifics of the geographical conditions in which they live. These small nationalities, having centuries-old experience of living in the harsh conditions of the north, are unsurpassed hunters and reindeer herders, connoisseurs of local natural conditions. No one, except for them, will be able to use the natural resources of the vast taiga and tundra spaces so well and rationally through the development of hunting and reindeer herding. It is quite natural, therefore, that the economic and cultural development of these peoples bears peculiar features. A careful study of this peculiarity will help to complete the process of final accession of the peoples of Siberia to the treasures of the socialist culture of the Soviet people and, in turn, to transfer the enormous wealth of the distant Siberian outskirts to the cause of the socialist construction of the entire state.

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, Evenki, 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 Altaic 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 wide settlement of Siberia and the Far East by the “Asian” - Mongoloid appearance - by an 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 Yukagirs, 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 initially formed among the highly 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 Sayano-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 millennia BC) in Siberia is characterized by many streams 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 the pressure of 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, 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 work experience many generations allowed a number of aboriginal groups to settle widely in the hard-to-reach, but rich in animals and fish taiga areas of Northern Siberia, to 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 socio-production (including all aspects and processes of production and reproduction of human life), a socially significant unit social structure the peoples of Siberia had a territorial-neighbor community, within which they reproduced, passed on from generation to generation and accumulated everything necessary for existence and industrial communication material resources and skills, social and ideological attitudes 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 of supreme ownership of all lands, lands and riches of the subsoil. Integral part economic policy autocracy in Siberia was to encourage 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 took place in contradictory and painful 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 fishery of these peoples consisted in obtaining wild moose 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, connected 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.

hallmark 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.

Read in Wikipedia:

Literature

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

Siberia occupies a vast geographical area of ​​Russia. Once it included such neighboring states as Mongolia, Kazakhstan and part of China. Today this territory belongs exclusively to the Russian Federation. Despite the huge area, there are relatively few settlements in Siberia. Most of the region is occupied by tundra and steppe.

Description of Siberia

The whole territory is divided into Eastern and Western regions. In rare cases, theologians also define the Southern region, which is the highlands of Altai. The area of ​​Siberia is about 12.6 million square kilometers. km. This is approximately 73.5% of the total. It is interesting that Siberia is larger in area than Canada.

Of the main natural zones, in addition to the Eastern and Western regions, the Baikal region is distinguished and the largest rivers are the Yenisei, Irtysh, Angara, Ob, Amur and Lena. Taimyr, Baikal and Ubsu-Nur are considered the most significant lake areas.

From an economic point of view, cities such as Novosibirsk, Tyumen, Omsk, Ulan-Ude, Tomsk, etc. can be called the centers of the region.

Mount Belukha is considered the highest point in Siberia - over 4.5 thousand meters.

Population history

Historians call the Samoyed tribes the first inhabitants of the region. This people lived in the northern part. Due to the harsh climate, reindeer herding was the only occupation. They ate mainly fish from adjacent lakes and rivers. The Mansi people lived in the southern part of Siberia. Their favorite pastime was hunting. The Mansi traded in furs, which were highly valued by Western merchants.

The Turks are another significant population of Siberia. They lived in the upper reaches of the Ob River. They were engaged in blacksmithing and cattle breeding. Many Turkic tribes were nomadic. Buryats lived a little to the west of the mouth of the Ob. They became famous for the extraction and processing of iron.

The most numerous ancient population of Siberia was represented by the Tungus tribes. They settled in the territory from the Sea of ​​Okhotsk to the Yenisei. They made a living by reindeer herding, hunting and fishing. The more prosperous were engaged in handicrafts.

There were thousands of Eskimos on the coast of the Chukchi Sea. These tribes had the slowest cultural and social development for a long time. Their only tools are a stone ax and a spear. They were mainly engaged in hunting and gathering.

In the 17th century, there was a sharp jump in the development of the Yakuts and Buryats, as well as the northern Tatars.

Native people

The population of Siberia today is made up of dozens of peoples. Each of them, according to the Constitution of Russia, has its own right to national identification. Many peoples of the Northern region even received autonomy within the Russian Federation with all the ensuing branches of self-government. This contributed not only to the lightning-fast development of the culture and economy of the region, but also to the preservation of local traditions and customs.

The indigenous population of Siberia mostly consists of Yakuts. Their number varies within 480 thousand people. Most of the population is concentrated in the city of Yakutsk - the capital of Yakutia.

The next largest people are the Buryats. There are more than 460 thousand of them. is the city of Ulan-Ude. The main property of the republic is Lake Baikal. Interestingly, this region is recognized as one of the main Buddhist centers in Russia.

Tuvans are the population of Siberia, which, according to the latest census, numbers about 264 thousand people. In the Republic of Tuva, shamans are still revered.

The population of such peoples as the Altaians and the Khakasses is almost equally divided: 72 thousand people each. The indigenous inhabitants of the districts are adherents of Buddhism.

The Nenets population is only 45 thousand people. They live on Throughout their history, the Nenets were famous nomads. Today, their priority income is reindeer herding.

Also on the territory of Siberia live such peoples as Evenki, Chukchi, Khanty, Shors, Mansi, Koryaks, Selkups, Nanais, Tatars, Chuvans, Teleuts, Kets, Aleuts and many others. Each of them has its own centuries-old traditions and legends.

Population

The dynamics of the demographic component of the region fluctuates significantly every few years. This is due to the mass relocation of young people to the southern cities of Russia and sharp jumps in birth and death rates. There are relatively few immigrants in Siberia. The reason for this is the harsh climate and specific conditions for life in the villages.

According to the latest data, the population of Siberia is about 40 million people. This is more than 27% of total people living in Russia. The population is evenly distributed across the regions. In the northern part of Siberia, there are no large settlements due to poor living conditions. On average, there is 0.5 sq. km of land.

The most populous cities are Novosibirsk and Omsk - 1.57 and 1.05 million inhabitants respectively. Further along this criterion are Krasnoyarsk, Tyumen and Barnaul.

Peoples of Western Siberia

Cities account for about 71% of the total population of the region. Most of the population is concentrated in the Kemerovo and Khanty-Mansiysk districts. Nevertheless, the Republic of Altai is considered to be the agricultural center of the Western Region. It is noteworthy that the Kemerovo District ranks first in terms of population density - 32 people/sq. km.

The population of Western Siberia is 50% of able-bodied residents. Most of the employment is in industry and agriculture.

The region has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country, with the exception of Tomsk Oblast and Khanty-Mansiysk.

Today the population of Western Siberia is Russians, Khanty, Nenets, Turks. By religion, there are Orthodox, Muslims, and Buddhists.

Population of Eastern Siberia

The share of urban residents varies within 72%. The most economically developed are the Krasnoyarsk Territory and the Irkutsk Region. From the point of view of agriculture, the Buryat district is considered the most important point in the region.

Every year the population of Eastern Siberia becomes less and less. Recently, there has been a sharp negative trend in migration and birth rates. It is also the lowest in the country. In some areas, it is 33 square meters. km per person. The unemployment rate is high.

The ethnic composition includes such peoples as Mongols, Turks, Russians, Buryats, Evenks, Dolgans, Kets, etc. Most of the population is Orthodox and Buddhists.

Features of the peoples of Siberia

In addition to anthropological and language 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. Stable 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 in 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 development by indigenous peoples natural environment, 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.

Random photos of nature

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 along 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 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: Baraba, Terenints, 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 assumed 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.

Random photos of nature

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 made with 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, in summer - from rovduga, in winter - from deer skins. 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.

Random photos of nature

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. 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 included 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.

AT eastern regions In Tuva, reindeer breeding was developed, but the 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. Among ancient ideas and rituals stands out the cult of the bear. 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: khayyrakan (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 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. With regard to the Tomsk Tatars, the point of view is maintained that they are an aboriginal Samoyed population that has 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 Uighurs, Bukharians-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 Tatars used plows and harrows own production. 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 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 big boats with gratings.

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 in the spring on hard snow. 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 Tatar villages were the lack of a specific layout, crooked narrow streets, the presence of dead ends, 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 cattle pens 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 unified 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 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 sled (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 were aware of 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 a 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 the 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 the future. It was boiled (fish soup - kai, with the addition of cereals - armagay), fried over a fire on a stick-spindle (chapsa), salted, dried, dried, cooked 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. The Selkups used wild-growing edible plants as a seasoning and addition to their diet: wild onion, 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. Milky Way in the sky it seemed like a stone river, which passes to the earth and flows the river. 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 poetic creativity 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.