What are the Chukchi really like? How do modern Chukchi live?

Schoolchildren can easily answer the question “Where do the Chukchi live?” In the Far East there is Chukotka or Chukotka autonomous region. But if we complicate the question a little: “Where do the Chukchi and Eskimos live?”, difficulties arise. There is no region of the same name; we need to find a more serious approach and understand the national intricacies.

Are there any differences between the Chukchi, Eskimos and Koryaks?

Of course there is. These are all different nationalities, once tribes, having common roots and inhabiting similar territories.

The regions in Russia where the Chukchi or Luoravetlans live are concentrated in the north. These are the Republic of Sakha, Koryak Autonomous Okrug and Since ancient times, their tribes have inhabited the extreme regions of Eastern Siberia. At first they were nomadic, but after taming the reindeer they began to adapt a little. They speak the Chukchi language, which has several dialects. The Luoravetlans or Chukchi (self-name) divided themselves into sea hunters living on the coast of the Arctic Ocean, and reindeer hunters of the tundra.

Some anthropologists classify the Eskimos as a Mongoloid race of Arctic origin. This nation lives in the state of Alaska (USA), in the northern regions of Canada, on the island of Greenland (Denmark) and quite a few (1,500 people) in Chukotka. In each country, Eskimos speak their own language: Greenlandic, Alaskan Inuit, and Canadian Eskimo. All of them are divided into different dialects.

Who are the Chukchi and Koryak? The Luoravetlans first pushed back the Eskimo tribes, and then separated territorially from the Koryaks. Today the Koryaks (a common people with the Chukchi) make up indigenous people Autonomous Okrug of the Kamchatka Region in Russia. In total there are about 7,000 people. The Koryak language belongs to the Chukchi-Kamchatka group. The first mentions of the Koryaks are found in documents of the 16th century. People are described, some of whom were engaged in reindeer herding, and others in marine fishing.

Appearance

Where do the Chukchi live and what do they look like? The answer to the first part of the question is formulated above. More recently, scientists have proven the genetic relationship of the Chukchi and Indians. Indeed, in their appearance much in common. The Chukchi belong to a mixed Mongoloid race. They are similar to the inhabitants of Mongolia, China, and Korea, but are somewhat different.

The eye shape of Luoravetlan men is more horizontal than slanting. The cheekbones are not as wide as those of the Yakuts, and the skin color has a bronze tint. Women of this nationality are more similar in appearance to Mongoloids: wide cheekbones, wide noses with large nostrils. Hair color for representatives of both Men cut their hair short, women braid two braids and decorate them with beads. Married women wear bangs.

Luoravetlan winter clothes are two-layer, most often sewn from fawn fur. Summer clothing consists of capes or jackets made of deer suede.

Character traits

When drawing a psychological portrait of this nationality, they note the main feature - excessive nervous excitability. Luoravetlan are easily disturbed from a state of spiritual balance; they are very hot-tempered. Against this background, they have a tendency towards murder or suicide. For example, a relative can easily respond to the request of a seriously ill family member and kill him so that he does not suffer in agony. extremely independent, original. In any dispute or struggle they show unprecedented persistence.

At the same time, these people are very hospitable and good-natured, naive. They selflessly come to the aid of their neighbors and everyone in need. They take the concept of marital fidelity very lightly. Wives are rarely jealous of their husbands.

Living conditions

Where the Chukchi live (pictured below), there is a short polar summer, and the rest of the time is winter. To refer to the weather, residents use only two expressions: “there is weather” or “there is no weather.” This designation is an indicator of the hunt, that is, whether it will be successful or not. From time immemorial, the Chukchi have continued their fishing traditions. They love seal meat very much. A happy hunter catches three in one go, then his family with children (usually 5-6 of them) will be fed for several days.

Places for yarang families are most often chosen surrounded by hills so that there is more calmness. It is very cold inside, although the dwelling is lined length and breadth with skins. Usually there is a small fire in the middle, surrounded by round boulders. There is a hanging cauldron of food on it. The wife takes care of the housework, butchering carcasses, cooking, and salting meat. There are children near her. Together they collect plants in season. The husband is the breadwinner. This way of life has been preserved for many centuries.

Sometimes such indigenous families do not go to the villages for months. Some children don't even have a birth certificate. Parents then have to prove that this is their child.

Why is the Chukchi the hero of jokes?

There is an opinion that Russians composed humorous stories about them out of fear and respect, a sense of superiority over themselves. Since the 18th century, when Cossack troops moved across endless Siberia and met the Luoravetlan tribes, rumors began to circulate about a warlike nation that was very difficult to surpass in battle.

The Chukchi taught their sons fearlessness and dexterity from childhood, raising them in Spartan conditions. In the harsh terrain where the Chukchi live, the future hunter must be sensitive, be able to endure any discomfort, sleep standing up, and not be afraid of pain. The favorite national wrestling takes place on a slippery sealskin spread, with sharp claws sticking out along the perimeter.

Militant reindeer herders

The Koryak population, which before the Chukchi became part of the Russian Empire, fled from the battlefield if they saw at least several dozen luoravetlans. Even in other countries there were tales about militant reindeer herders who are not afraid of arrows, dodge them, catch them and launch them at the enemy with their hands. Women and children who were captured killed themselves to avoid being enslaved.

In battle, the Chukchi were merciless, accurately killing the enemy with arrows, the tips of which were smeared with poison.

The government began to warn the Cossacks not to engage in battles with the Chukchi. At the next stage, they decided to bribe, persuade, and then solder the population (more so in Soviet times). And at the end of the 18th century. A fortress was built near the Angarka River. Fairs were periodically held near it to trade with reindeer herders in exchange. Luoravetlans were not allowed into their territory. Russian Cossacks have always been interested in where the Chukchi live and what they do.

Trade affairs

Reindeer herders paid tribute to the Russian Empire in the amount they could afford. Often she was not paid at all. With the beginning of peace negotiations and cooperation, the Russians brought syphilis to the Chukchi. They were now afraid of all representatives of the Caucasian race. For example, they did not have trade relations with the French and British simply because they were “white.”

We were establishing relations with Japan, a neighboring country. The Chukchi live where it is impossible to extract metal ores in the depths of the earth. Therefore, they actively bought protective armor, armor, other military uniforms and equipment, and metal products from the Japanese.

The Luoravetlans exchanged furs and other extracted goods for tobacco with the Americans. The skins of blue fox, marten, and whalebone were highly valued.

Chukchi today

Most of the Luoravetlans mixed with other nationalities. There are almost no purebred Chukchi left now. The “ineradicable people,” as they are often called, assimilated. At the same time, they preserve their occupation, culture, and way of life.

Many scientists are confident that the small indigenous ethnic group is threatened not by extinction, but by the social abyss in which they find themselves. Many children cannot read and write and do not go to school. The standard of living of the Luoravetlans is far from civilization, and they do not strive for it. The Chukchi live in harsh natural conditions and do not like having their own rules imposed on them. But when they find frozen Russians in the snow, they bring them to the yaranga. They say that they then put the guest under the skin along with his naked wife so that she can warm him up.

Chukchi, Chukots or Luoravetlans. A small indigenous people of the extreme northeast of Asia, scattered over a vast territory from the Bering Sea to the Indigirka River and from the Arctic Ocean to the Anadyr and Anyui rivers. The number according to the All-Russian Population Census of 2002 is 15,767 people, according to the All-Russian Population Census of 2010 - 15,908 people.

Origin

Their name, which the Russians, Yakuts and Evens call them, was adapted in the 17th century. Russian explorers used the Chukchi word chauchu [ʧawʧəw] (rich in deer), by which name the Chukchi reindeer herders call themselves in contrast to the coastal Chukchi dog breeders - ankalyn (seaside, Pomors - from anki (sea)). Self-name - oravetӓеt (people, singular oravetғеt) or ԓыгъоруватӓет [ɬəɣʔoráwətɬʔǝt] (real people, singular ԓыгъорува policies [ɬəɣʔoráwətɬʔǝn] - in Russian translation luora vetlan). The neighbors of the Chukchi are the Yukaghirs, Evens, Yakuts and Eskimos (on the shores of the Bering Strait).

The mixed type (Asian-American) is confirmed by some legends, myths and differences in the peculiarities of life of the reindeer and coastal Chukchi: the latter, for example, have an American-style dog harness. The final solution to the question of ethnographic origin depends on a comparative study of the Chukchi language and the languages ​​of nearby American peoples. One of the language experts, V. Bogoraz, found it closely related not only to the language of the Koryaks and Itelmens, but also to the language of the Eskimos. Until very recently, based on their language, the Chukchi were classified as Paleo-Asians, that is, a group of marginal peoples of Asia, whose languages ​​stand completely apart from all other linguistic groups of the Asian continent, pushed out in very distant times from the middle of the continent to the northeastern outskirts.

Anthropology

The Chukchi type is mixed, generally Mongoloid, but with some differences. The racial type of the Chukchi, according to Bogoraz, is characterized by some differences. Eyes with an oblique cut are less common than eyes with a horizontal cut; there are individuals with thick facial hair and wavy, almost curly hair on their heads; face with a bronze tint; body color is devoid of a yellowish tint; large, regular facial features, high and straight forehead; the nose is large, straight, sharply defined; the eyes are large and widely spaced. Some researchers noted the height, strength and broad shoulders of the Chukchi. Genetically, the Chukchi reveal their relationship with the Yakuts and Nenets: Haplogroup N (Y-DNA)1c1 is found in 50% of the population, and Haplogroup C (Y-DNA) (close to the Ainu and Itelmen) is also widespread.

Story

The modern ethnogenetic scheme allows us to evaluate the Chukchi as the aborigines of continental Chukotka. Their ancestors formed here at the turn of the 4th-3rd millennium BC. e. The basis of the culture of this population was hunting for wild deer, which existed here in fairly stable natural and climatic conditions until the end of the 17th century. early XVIII centuries. The Chukchi first encountered Russians back in the 17th century on the Alazeya River. In 1644, the Cossack Mikhail Stadukhin, who was the first to bring news of them to Yakutsk, founded the Nizhnekolymsk fort. The Chukchi, who at that time were wandering both east and west of the Kolyma, after a bloody struggle finally left the left bank of the Kolyma, pushing back the Eskimo tribe of the Mamalls from the coast of the Arctic Ocean to the Bering Sea during their retreat. Since then, for more than a hundred years, bloody clashes between Russians and Chukchi have not stopped, whose territory bordered on Russia along the Kolyma River in the west and Anadyr in the south, from the Amur region (for more details, see Annexation of Chukotka to Russia).

In 1770, after a series of military campaigns, including the unsuccessful campaign of Shestakov (1730), the Anadyr fort, which served as the center of the Russian struggle against the Chukchi, was destroyed and its team was transferred to Nizhnekolymsk, after which the Chukchi became less hostile to the Russians and gradually began to join into trade relations with them. In 1775, on the Angarka River, a tributary of the Bolshoi Anyui, the Angarsk fortress was built, where, under the protection of the Cossacks, an annual fair for barter trade with the Chukchi took place.

Since 1848, the fair was moved to the Anyui fortress (about 250 km from Nizhnekolymsk, on the banks of the Maly Anyui). Until the first half of the 19th century century, when European goods were delivered to the territory of the Chukchi by the only land route through Yakutsk, the Anyui Fair had a turnover of hundreds of thousands of rubles. The Chukchi brought for sale not only ordinary products of their own production (clothing made from reindeer fur, reindeer skins, live deer, seal skins, whalebone, polar bear skins), but also the most expensive furs - sea otters, martens, black foxes, blue foxes, which the so-called nose Chukchi exchanged for tobacco with the inhabitants of the shores of the Bering Sea and the northwestern coast of America.

With the advent of American whalers in the waters of the Bering Strait and the Arctic Ocean, as well as with the delivery of goods to Gizhiga by ships of the voluntary fleet (in the 1880s), the largest turnover of the Anyui Fair ceased, and by the end of the 19th century it began to serve only the needs of the local Kolyma trading, having a turnover of no more than 25 thousand rubles.

Farm

Initially, the Chukchi were simply reindeer hunters, but over time (shortly before the arrival of the Russians) they mastered reindeer husbandry, which became the basis of their economy.

The main occupation of the coastal Chukchi is hunting sea animals: in winter and spring - seals and seals, in summer and autumn - walruses and whales. They hunted seals alone, crawling up to them, camouflaging themselves and imitating the movements of the animal. The walrus was hunted in groups of several canoes. Traditional hunting weapons are a harpoon with a float, a spear, a belt net; since the second half of the 19th century, firearms have spread, and hunting methods have become simpler.

Life of the Chukchi

In the 19th century, Chukchi reindeer herders lived in camps of 2-3 houses. Migrations were carried out as the reindeer food became depleted. In the summer, some go down to the sea. The Chukchi clan is agnatic, united by a commonality of fire, consanguinity in the male line, common totem sign, ancestral revenge and religious rites. Marriage is predominantly endogamous, individual, often polygamous (2-3 wives); among a certain circle of relatives and brothers-in-arms, mutual use of wives is allowed, by agreement; levirate is also common. Kalym does not exist. Chastity does not matter for a girl.

The dwelling - yaranga - is a large tent of irregular polygonal shape, covered with panels of deer skins, with the fur facing out. Resistance against wind pressure is provided by stones tied to the pillars and cover of the hut. The fireplace is in the middle of the hut and surrounded by sleighs with household supplies. The actual living space, where the Chukchi eat, drink and sleep, consists of a small rectangular fur tent-canopy, fixed at the back wall of the tent and sealed tightly from the floor. The temperature in this cramped room, heated by the animal warmth of its inhabitants and partly by a fat lamp, is so high that the Chukchi strip naked in it.

Until the end of the 20th century, the Chukchi distinguished between heterosexual men, heterosexual men who wore women's clothing, homosexual men who wore women's clothing, heterosexual women and women who wore men's clothing. At the same time, wearing clothes could also mean performing corresponding social functions.

Chukchi clothing is of the usual polar type. It is sewn from the fur of fawns (grown up autumn calf) and for men consists of a double fur shirt (the lower one with the fur towards the body and the upper one with the fur outward), the same double pants, short fur stockings with the same boots and a hat in the form of a woman's bonnet. Women's clothing is completely unique, also double, consisting of seamlessly sewn trousers together with a low-cut bodice, cinched at the waist, with a slit on the chest and extremely wide sleeves, thanks to which Chukchi women can easily free their hands while working. Summer outerwear includes robes made of reindeer suede or colorful purchased fabrics, as well as kamleikas made of fine-haired deer skin with various ritual stripes. The infant's costume consists of a reindeer bag with blind branches for the arms and legs. Instead of diapers, a layer of moss with reindeer hair is placed, which absorbs feces, which are removed daily through a special valve attached to the opening of the bag.

Women's hairstyles consist of braids braided on both sides of the head, decorated with beads and buttons. Men cut their hair very smoothly, leaving a wide fringe in front and two tufts of hair in the form of animal ears on the crown.

Wooden, stone and iron tools

In the 18th century stone axes, spear and arrowheads, and bone knives were almost completely replaced with metal ones. The utensils, tools and weapons currently used are mainly European (metal cauldrons, teapots, iron knives, guns, etc.), but even today in the life of the Chukchi there are many remnants of recent primitive culture: bone shovels, hoes, drills, bone and stone arrows, spearheads, etc., a complex bow of the American type, slings made of knuckles, armor made of leather and iron plates, stone hammers, scrapers, knives, a primitive projectile for making fire by friction, primitive lamps in the form of a round flat a vessel made of soft stone, filled with seal fat, etc. Their light sleds, with arched supports instead of hoofs, adapted only for sitting astride them, have been preserved as primitive ones. The sled is harnessed either to a pair of reindeer (among the reindeer Chukchi), or to dogs, according to the American model (among the coastal Chukchi).

With the advent of Soviet power, populated areas schools, hospitals, and cultural institutions appeared. A written language was created. The Chukchi literacy level (ability to write and read) does not differ from the national average.

Chukotka cuisine

The basis of the Chukchi diet was boiled meat (reindeer, seal, whale); they also ate leaves and bark of the polar willow (emrat), seaweed, sorrel, shellfish and berries. In addition to traditional meat, the blood and entrails of animals were also used as food. Raw-frozen meat was widespread. Unlike the Tungus and Yukagirs, the Chukchi practically did not eat fish. Among the drinks, the Chukchi preferred herbal decoctions such as tea.

A unique dish is the so-called monyalo - half-digested moss extracted from a large deer stomach; Various canned food and fresh dishes are made from monyal. Semi-liquid stew made from monyal, blood, fat and finely chopped meat until very recently was the most common type of hot food.

Holidays

The reindeer Chukchi held several holidays: the slaughter of young reindeer in August, the installation of a winter home (feeding the constellation Pegyttin - the star Altair and Zore from the constellation Eagle), the division of herds in the spring (separation of the female deer from the young bulls), the festival of horns (Kilvey) in the spring after the calving of the female deer, sacrifices to fire, etc. Once or twice a year, each family celebrated the Thanksgiving holiday.

Chukchi religion

The religious beliefs of the Chukchi are expressed in amulets (pendants, headbands, necklaces in the form of straps with beads). Painting the face with the blood of the murdered victim, with the image of a hereditary-tribal sign - a totem, also has ritual significance. The original pattern on the quivers and clothes of the coastal Chukchi is of Eskimo origin; from the Chukchi it passed to many polar peoples of Asia.

According to their beliefs, the Chukchi are animists; they personify and idolize certain areas and natural phenomena (masters of the forest, water, fire, sun, deer, etc.), many animals (bear, crow), stars, sun and moon, believe in hosts of evil spirits that cause all earthly disasters, including illness and death, have a number of regular holidays (the autumn festival of deer slaughter, the spring festival of antlers, the winter sacrifice to the star Altair, the ancestor of the Chukchi, etc.) and many irregular ones (feeding the fire, sacrifices after each hunt, funerals of the dead, votive ministries, etc.). Each family, in addition, has its own family shrines: hereditary projectiles for producing sacred fire through friction for famous festivals, one for each family member (the bottom plate of the projectile represents a figure with the head of the owner of fire), then bundles of wooden knots of “misfortune removers”, wooden images of ancestors and, finally, a family tambourine, since the Chukchi ritual with a tambourine is not the property of only specialist shamans. The latter, having sensed their calling, experience a preliminary period of a kind of involuntary temptation, fall into deep thought, wander without food or sleep for whole days until they receive real inspiration. Some die from this crisis; some receive a suggestion to change their gender, that is, a man should turn into a woman, and vice versa. Those transformed take on the clothing and lifestyle of their new gender, even marrying, getting married, etc.

The dead are either burned or wrapped in layers of raw deer meat and left in the field, having first cut into the throat and chest of the deceased and pulled out part of the heart and liver. First, the deceased is dressed, fed and told fortunes, forcing him to answer questions. Old people often kill themselves in advance or, at their request, are killed by close relatives.

A baydara is a boat built without a single nail, effective for hunting sea animals.
Most Chukchi by the beginning of the 20th century were baptized in Russian Orthodox Church However, among the nomadic people there are remnants of traditional beliefs (shamanism).

Voluntary death

Difficult living conditions and malnutrition led to such a phenomenon as voluntary death.

Anticipating many speculations, the ethnographer writes:

The reason for the voluntary death of old people is not the lack of good attitude towards them on the part of relatives, but rather the difficult conditions of their life. These conditions make life completely unbearable for anyone who is unable to take care of themselves. Not only the elderly resort to voluntary death, but also those suffering from some incurable disease. The number of such patients dying a voluntary death is no less than the number of old people.

Folklore

The Chukchi have a rich oral folk art, which is also expressed in the art of stone bone. The main genres of folklore: myths, fairy tales, historical legends, legends and everyday stories. One of the main characters was the raven - Kurkyl, a cultural hero. Many legends and fairy tales have been preserved, such as “Keeper of the Fire”, “Love”, “When do the whales leave?”, “God and the Boy”. Let's give an example of the latter:

One family lived in the tundra: a father, a mother, and two children, a boy and a girl. The boy herded the reindeer, and the girl helped her mother with housework. One morning, the father woke up his daughter and ordered her to light a fire and make tea.

The girl came out of the canopy, and God caught her and ate her, and then ate her father and mother. The boy returned from the herd. Before entering the yaranga, I looked through the hole to see what was going on there. And he sees God sitting on an extinguished fireplace and playing in the ashes. The boy shouted to him: “Hey, what are you doing?” - Nothing, come here. A boy entered the yaranga and they began to play. The boy plays, and he looks around, looking for his relatives. He understood everything and said to God: “Play alone, I’ll go to the wind!” He ran out of the yaranga. He untied the two most evil dogs and ran with them into the forest. He climbed a tree and tied the dogs under the tree. God played and played, he wanted to eat and went to look for the boy. He goes and sniffs the trail. I reached the tree. He wanted to climb a tree, but the dogs caught him, tore him into pieces and ate him.

And the boy came home with his herd and became the owner.

Historical legends have preserved stories about wars with neighboring Eskimo tribes.

Folk dances

Despite the difficult living conditions, the people also found time for holidays, where the tambourine was not only a ritual, but also simply a musical instrument, the tunes of which were passed on from generation to generation. Archaeological evidence suggests that dances existed among the ancestors of the Chukchi back in the 1st millennium BC. This is evidenced by petroglyphs discovered beyond the Arctic Circle in Chukotka and studied by archaeologist N. N. Dikov.

All dances can be divided into ritual-ritual, imitative-imitative dances, staged dances (pantomimes), playful and improvisational (individual), as well as dances of the reindeer and coastal Chukchi.

A striking example of ritual dances was the celebration of the “First Slaughter of the Deer”:

After the meal, all the tambourines belonging to the family, hanging on the poles of the threshold behind a curtain of raw skins, are removed, and the ritual begins. The tambourines are played by all family members in turn for the rest of the day. When all the adults finish, children take their place and, in turn, continue to beat the tambourines. While playing tambourines, many adults call upon “spirits” and try to induce them to enter their body….

Imitative dances were also common, reflecting the habits of animals and birds: “Crane”, “Crane looks for food”, “Crane Flight”, “Crane looks around”, “Swan”, “Seagull Dance”, “Raven”, “Bull (deer) fight )", "Dance of the Ducks", "Bullfight during the Rut", "Looking Out", "Running of the Deer".

Trade dances played a special role as a type of group marriage, as V. G. Bogoraz writes, they served on the one hand as a new connection between families, on the other hand, old family ties were strengthened.

Language, writing and literature

Main article: Chukchi writing
By origin, the Chukchi language belongs to the Chukchi-Kamchatka group of Paleo-Asian languages. Closest relatives: Koryak, Kerek (disappeared at the end of the twentieth century), Alyutor, Itelmen, etc. Typologically, it belongs to the incorporating languages ​​(a word-morpheme acquires a specific meaning only depending on its place in the sentence, and can be significantly deformed depending on the conjugation with other members of the sentence).

In the 1930s. The Chukchi shepherd Teneville created an original ideographic writing (samples are kept in the Kunstkamera - Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography of the USSR Academy of Sciences), which, however, never came into widespread use. Since the 1930s The Chukchi use an alphabet based on the Cyrillic alphabet with the addition of a few letters. Chukotka literature is created mainly in Russian (Yu. S. Rytkheu and others).

The Chukchi, Luoravetlans, or Chukots, are an indigenous people of the extreme northeast of Asia. The Chukchi genus belongs to the agnate, which is united by the commonality of fire, the common sign of the totem, consanguinity in the male line, religious rites and family revenge. The Chukchi are divided into reindeer (chauchu) - tundra nomadic reindeer herders and coastal, coastal (ankalyn) - sedentary hunters of sea animals, who often live together with the Eskimos. There are also Chukchi dog breeders who bred dogs.

Name

Yakuts, Evens and Russians from the 17th century began to call Chukchi with the Chukchi word chauchu, or I'm drinking, which translated means “rich in deer.”

Where live

The Chukchi people occupy a vast territory from the Arctic Ocean to the Anyui and Anadyr Rivers and from the Bering Sea to the Indigirka River. The bulk of the population lives in Chukotka and the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug.

Language

The Chukchi language in its origin belongs to the Chukchi-Kamchatka language family and is part of the Paleo-Asian languages. Close relatives of the Chukchi language are Koryak, Kerek, which disappeared by the end of the 20th century, and Alyutor. Typologically, Chukchi belongs to the incorporating languages.

A Chukchi shepherd named Tenevil created an original ideographic writing in the 1930s (although to date it has not been precisely proven whether the writing was ideographic or verbal-syllabic. This writing, unfortunately, has not been widely used. Chukchi since the 1930s They use an alphabet based on the Cyrillic alphabet with the addition of a few letters. Chukotka literature is mainly created in Russian.

Names

Previously, the Chukchi name consisted of a nickname that was given to the child on the 5th day of life. The name was given to the child by the mother, who could pass on this right to a person respected by all. It was common to carry out fortune telling on a hanging object, with the help of which the name for the newborn was determined. They took some object from the mother and called names one by one. If the object moves when the name is pronounced, the child was named it.

Chukchi names are divided into female and male, sometimes differing in endings. For example, the female name Tyne-nny and the male name Tyne-nkei. Sometimes the Chukchi, in order to mislead evil spirits, called male name a girl, and a boy - a female name. Sometimes, for the same purpose, the child was given several names.

The names mean the beast, the time of year or day in which the child was born, the place where he was born. Names associated with household items or wishes for a child are common. For example, the name Gitinnevyt is translated as “beauty.”

Number

In 2002, the next All-Russian population census was carried out, according to the results of which the number of Chukchi was 15,767 people. After the All-Russian Population Census in 2010, the number was 15,908 people.

Lifespan

The average life expectancy of the Chukchi is short. Those who live in natural conditions live up to 42-45 years. Main reasons high mortality is alcohol abuse, smoking and poor nutrition. Today, drugs have joined these problems. There are very few centenarians in Chukotka, about 200 people aged 75 years. The birth rate is falling, and all this together, unfortunately, can lead to the extinction of the Chukchi people.

Appearance

The Chukchi belong to the mixed type, which is generally Mongoloid, but with differences. The eye shape is often horizontal rather than oblique, the face is bronze in color, and the cheekbones are not very wide. Among the Chukchi there are men with thick facial hair and almost curly hair. Among women, the Mongolian type of appearance is more common, with a wide nose and cheekbones.

Women wear their hair in two braids on either side of their heads and decorate them with buttons or beads. Married women sometimes let their front strands of hair fall onto their foreheads. Men often cut their hair very smoothly, leaving a wide fringe at the front, and two tufts of hair in the shape of animal ears on the crown of the head.

Chukchi clothing is made from the fur of a grown autumn calf (baby deer). In everyday life, the clothing of an adult Chukchi consists of the following elements:

1. double fur shirt
2. double fur pants
3. short fur stockings
4. fur low boots
5. double hat in the form of a women's bonnet

The winter clothing of a Chukotka man consists of a caftan, which is very practical. A fur shirt is also called iryn, or cuckoo. It is very wide, with spacious sleeves at the shoulder area, tapering at the wrist area. This cut allows the Chukchee to pull their arms out of their sleeves and fold them over their chest, taking a comfortable body position. Shepherds sleeping near the herd in winter hide their heads in a shirt and cover the opening of the collar with a hat. But such a shirt is not long, but reaches to the knees. Only old people wear longer cuckoos. The collar of the shirt is cut low and trimmed with leather, with a cord placed inside. The bottom of the cuckoo is covered with a thin line of dog fur, which young Chukchi replace with wolverine or otter fur. Penakalgyns are sewn onto the back and sleeves of the shirt as decorations - long tassels painted crimson, made from pieces of young seal skins. This decoration is more typical for women's shirts.

Women's clothing is also distinctive, but irrational and consists of one-piece sewn double trousers with a low-cut bodice that is cinched at the waist. The bodice has a slit in the chest area, and the sleeves are very wide. While working, women free their hands from their bodice and work in the cold with bare arms or shoulders. Old women wear a shawl or a strip of deerskin around their necks.

In the summer, as outerwear, women wear robes made from deer suede or purchased variegated fabrics, and a kamleika of deer wool with thin fur, embroidered with various ritual stripes.

The Chukchi hat is made from fawn and calf fur, wolverine, dog and otter paws. In winter, if you have to go on the road, a very large hood, sewn mainly from wolf fur, is put on top of the hat. Moreover, the skin for him is taken together with the head and protruding ears, which are decorated with red ribbons. Such hoods are worn mainly by women and old people. Young shepherds even wear a headdress instead of a regular hat, covering only the forehead and ears. Men and women wear mittens made from kamus.

All inner clothing is put on the body with the fur inward, outer clothing - with the fur outward. In this way, both types of clothing fit tightly to each other and form an impenetrable protection against frost. Clothes made from deer skin are soft and do not cause much discomfort; you can wear them without underwear. The elegant clothing of the Reindeer Chukchi is white; among the Primorye Chukchi it is dark brown with sparse white spots. Traditionally, clothing is decorated with stripes. The original patterns on Chukchi clothing are of Eskimo origin.

As jewelry, the Chukchi wear garters, necklaces in the form of straps with beads, and headbands. Most of them have religious significance. There are also real metal jewelry, various earrings and bracelets.

Infants were dressed in bags made of deerskin, with blind branches for legs and arms. Instead of diapers, they used to use moss with reindeer hair, which served as a diaper. A valve was attached to the opening of the bag, from which such a diaper was taken out every day and replaced with a clean one.

Character

The Chukchi are emotional and psychologically very excitable people, which often leads to frenzy, suicidal tendencies and murders, even at the slightest provocation. These people love independence very much and are persistent in the struggle. But at the same time, the Chukchi are very hospitable and good-natured, always ready to help their neighbors. During times of hunger strike, they even helped the Russians and brought them food.

Religion

The Chukchi are animists in their beliefs. They deify and personify natural phenomena and its regions, water, fire, forest, animals: deer, bear and crow, celestial bodies: moon, sun and stars. The Chukchi also believe in evil spirits; they believe that they send disasters, death and disease to the Earth. The Chukchi wear amulets and believe in their power. They considered the creator of the world to be a Raven named Kurkyl, who created everything on Earth and taught people everything. Everything that exists in space was created by northern animals.

Each family has its own family shrines:

• a hereditary projectile for producing sacred fire by friction and used on holidays. Each member of the family had his own projectile, and on the bottom tablet of each was carved a figure with the head of the owner of fire;
• family tambourine;
• bundles of wooden knots “removing misfortunes”;
• pieces of wood with images of ancestors.

By the beginning of the 20th century, many Chukchi were baptized into the Russian Orthodox Church, but among the nomads there are still people with traditional beliefs.

Traditions

The Chukchi have regular holidays, which are held depending on the time of year:

• in the fall - the day of deer slaughter;
• in spring - the day of horns;
• in winter - a sacrifice to the star Altair.

There are also many irregular holidays, for example, feeding the fire, commemorating the dead, votive services and sacrifices after the hunt, the whale festival, and the kayak festival.

The Chukchi believed that they had 5 lives and were not afraid of death. After death, many wanted to go to the World of their ancestors. To do this, one had to die in battle at the hand of an enemy or at the hand of a friend. Therefore, when one Chukchi asked another to kill him, he immediately agreed. After all, it was a kind of help.

The dead were dressed, fed and told fortunes, forcing them to answer questions. Then they burned it or carried it to the field, cut the throat and chest, pulled out part of the liver and heart, wrapped the body in thin layers of deer meat and left it. Old people often killed themselves in advance or asked close relatives to do so. The Chukchi came to voluntary death not only because of old age. Often the cause was difficult living conditions, lack of food and severe, incurable illness.

As for marriage, it is predominantly endogamous; a man could have 2 or 3 wives in a family. In a certain circle of brothers-in-arms and relatives, mutual use of wives is allowed by agreement. It is customary among the Chukchi to observe levirate - a marriage custom according to which the wife, after the death of her husband, had the right or was obliged to marry one of his close relatives. They did this because it was very difficult for a woman without a husband, especially if she had children. A man who married a widow was obliged to adopt all her children.

Often the Chukchi stole a wife for their son from another family. The relatives of this girl could demand that the woman be given to them in return, and not in order to marry her off, but because labor was always needed in everyday life.

Almost all families in Chukotka have many children. Pregnant women were not allowed to rest. Along with others, they worked and took care of everyday life, harvesting moss. This raw material is very necessary during childbirth; it was laid in the yaranga, in the place where the woman was preparing to give birth. Chukotka women could not be helped during childbirth. The Chukchi believed that everything was decided by a deity who knew the souls of the living and the dead and decided which one to send to the woman in labor.

A woman should not scream during childbirth so as not to attract evil spirits. When the child was born, the mother herself tied the umbilical cord with a thread woven from her hair and animal tendon and cut it. If a woman could not give birth for a long time, she could be given help, since it was obvious that she could not cope on her own. This was entrusted to one of the relatives, but after that everyone treated the woman in labor and her husband with contempt.

After the birth of the child, they wiped it with a piece of skin, which was soaked in the mother’s urine. Amulet bracelets were put on the baby's left arm and leg. The baby was dressed up in a fur jumpsuit.

After giving birth, a woman was not allowed to eat fish or meat, only meat broth. Previously, Chukchi women breastfed their children until they were 4 years old. If the mother did not have milk, the child was given seal fat. The baby's pacifier was made from a piece of sea hare intestine. It was stuffed with finely chopped meat. In some villages, babies were fed their milk by dogs.

When the boy turned 6 years old, men began to raise him as a warrior. The child was accustomed to harsh conditions, taught to shoot a bow, run fast, wake up quickly and react to extraneous sounds, and trained visual acuity. Modern Chukchi children love to play football. The ball is made from deer hair. Extreme wrestling on ice or slippery walrus skin is popular among them.

Chukchi men are excellent warriors. For each success in battle, they applied a mark-tattoo on the back side right palm. The more marks there were, the more experienced the warrior was considered. Women always had bladed weapons with them in case enemies attacked.

Culture

The mythology and folklore of the Chukchi are very diverse; they have much in common with the folklore and mythology of the Paleo-Asians and American peoples. The Chukchi have long been famous for their carved and sculptural images made on mammoth bones, which amaze with their beauty and clarity of application. The traditional musical instruments of the people are the tambourine (yarar) and the harp (khomus).

Folk oral creativity The Chukchi are rich. The main genres of folklore are fairy tales, myths, legends, historical legends and everyday stories. One of the main characters is the raven Kurkyl; there are legends about wars with neighboring Eskimo tribes.

Although the living conditions of the Chukchi were very difficult, they also found time for holidays in which the tambourine was a musical instrument. The tunes were passed down from generation to generation.

Chukchi dances are divided into several varieties:

• imitative
• gaming
• improvised
• ritual-ritual
• re-enactment dances or pantomimes
• dances of the reindeer and coastal Chukchi

Imitative dances that reflect the behavior of birds and animals were very common:

• crane
• crane flight
• running deer
• crow
• seagull dance
• swan
• duck dance
• bullfight during the rut
• looking out

A special place was occupied by trade dances, which were a type of group marriage. They were an indicator of the strengthening of previous family ties or were held as a sign of a new connection between families.

Food

Traditional Chukchi dishes are prepared from deer meat and fish. The basis of the diet of this people is boiled meat of whale, seal or deer. The meat is also eaten raw and frozen; the Chukchi eat animal entrails and blood.

The Chukchi eat shellfish and plant foods:

• willow bark and leaves
• sorrel
• seaweed
• berries

Among drinks, representatives of the people prefer alcohol and herbal decoctions similar to tea. The Chukchi are partial to tobacco.

In the traditional cuisine of the people there is a peculiar dish called monyalo. This is semi-digested moss that is removed from the stomach of a deer after killing the animal. Monyalo is used in the preparation of fresh dishes and canned food. The most common hot dish among the Chukchi until the 20th century was a liquid monyal soup with blood, fat and chopped meat.

Life

The Chukchi initially hunted reindeer, but gradually they domesticated these animals and began to engage in reindeer husbandry. Reindeer provide the Chukchi with meat for food, skin for housing and clothing, and serve as transport for them. The Chukchi, who live along the banks of rivers and seas, hunt sea creatures. In spring and winter they catch seals and seals, in autumn and summer - whales and walruses. Previously, the Chukchi used harpoons with floats, belt nets and a spear for hunting, but already in the 20th century they learned to use firearms. Today, only bird hunting with the help of a “bol” has been preserved. Not all Chukchi have developed fishing. Women and children collect edible plants, moss and berries.

The Chukchi in the 19th century lived in camps, which included 2 or 3 houses. When the food for the deer ran out, they migrated to another place. IN summer period some lived closer to the sea.

Tools were made of wood and stone, which were gradually replaced by iron. Axes, spears, and knives are widely used in everyday life of the Chukchi. Utensils, metal cauldrons and teapots, weapons used today are mainly European. But to this day, in the life of this people there are many elements of primitive culture: these are bone shovels, drills, hoes, stone and bone arrows, spear tips, armor made of iron plates and leather, a complex bow, slings made from knuckles, stone hammers, skins, stems, shells for making fire by friction, lamps in the form of a flat round vessel made of soft stone, which were filled with seal fat.

The light sleds of the Chukchi have also been preserved in their original form; they are equipped with arched supports. They harness deer or dogs. The Chukchi, who lived by the sea, have long used kayaks for hunting and moving on water.

Coming Soviet power affected the life of the settlements. Over time, schools, cultural institutions and hospitals appeared in them. Today, the literacy level of the Chukchi in the country is at an average level.

Housing

The Chukchi live in dwellings called yarangas. This is a large tent with an irregular polygonal shape. The yaranga is covered with panels of deer skins so that the fur is on the outside. The vault of the dwelling rests on 3 poles, which are located in the center. Stones are tied to the cover and pillars of the hut, which ensures resistance to the wind pressure. The yaranga is sealed tightly from the floor. Inside the hut in the middle there is a fireplace, which is surrounded by sleighs loaded with various household supplies. In the yaranga the Chukchi live, eat, drink, and sleep. Such a dwelling is well heated, so the inhabitants walk in it undressed. The Chukchi heat their homes with a fat lamp made of clay, wood or stone, where they cook food. Among the coastal Chukchi, the yaranga differs from the housing of reindeer herders in that it does not have a smoke hole.

Famous people

Despite the fact that the Chukchi are a people far from civilization, among them there are those who have become known throughout the world thanks to their achievements and talents. The first Chukchi researcher Nikolai Daurkin is a Chukchi. He received his name at baptism. Daurkin was one of the first Russian subjects who landed in Alaska, made several important geographical discoveries in the 18th century, and was the first to compile detailed map Chukotka and received noble title for his contribution to science. In the name of this outstanding person The peninsula in Chukotka was named.

Candidate of Philological Sciences Petr Inenlikey was also born in Chukotka. He studied the peoples of the north and their culture, and is the author of books on research in the field of linguistics. northern peoples Russia, Alaska and Canada.

There are many fables about the Chukchi. But the truth can be even more surprising than fiction.

The coming of spring - It's a good time to remember the colorful northerners. From the beginning of March to mid-April they celebrate one of the main holidays - Reindeer Herder's Day. In addition, the text printed on the page of the popular blogger Bulochnikov received a great response on the Internet - sketches from the life of the Chukchi, which shocked many.

We asked the professor to comment on some of the most surprising fragments of the text Sergei Arutyunov, who has already told our readers about some interesting traditions of the Chukchi. Over the course of his venerable 85 years, a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences has organized many ethnographic expeditions around the world, including to the Far North and Siberia.

Portal to another world

Sergey Alexandrovich, is it true that the Chukchi eat rotten meat? Supposedly they bury it in clay so that it turns into a homogeneous soft mass. As Bulochnikov writes: “It stinks terribly, but this meat contains fifty percent microflora with all the vitamins, it can be eaten without teeth, it does not need to be heated.”

In Chukchi this dish is called “kopalgen”, in Eskimo it is called “tukhtak”. Just don't bury the meat in clay. A walrus is taken and cut into six parts. Large bones are cut out. Then each part (it weighs 60 - 70 kilograms) is carefully stitched with the skin outward. A dozen of these “packages” are placed in a special hole lined with stones in the fall and covered. And before the start of the new hunting season, they periodically eat this meat. It is not rotten, rather pickled. The taste of it did not bring me much joy. But when there is no hunting, the bird does not fly to the sea big surf- nowhere to go. The meat is greenish in color and the smell is really very unpleasant. However, who cares. If you force an ordinary Japanese to smell some Limburg cheese or Dor Blue, he will probably vomit. And personally I like it!

- And here’s another thing -sounds like a tall tale. The Chukchi allegedly do not save drowning people, because they believe that the surface of the reservoir isThis is a kind of portal that transports fellow tribesmen to another world. And you cannot interfere in this process.

This pure truth. At least, this was the case half a century ago. I know of several cases when a canoe capsized literally a hundred or two meters from the shore near a village, but people were not pulled out. I personally knew the relatives of a Chukchi who was not saved because of this belief. But I also observed another example. Kitikha capsized a whaleboat carrying fishermen from Uelen. Since they were dressed in skins with ties at the ankles and elbows, they could survive for some time by clinging to the boat. A canoe of Eskimos from Naukan passed by. They have a similar idea of ​​​​reservoirs, but they still came to the rescue. Despite the fact that the Eskimos and the Chukchi have always not lived very friendly, they are different peoples. The drowning people were lucky that they were young people, Komsomol members. They probably figured that if they left people to drown, they would have trouble along the Komsomol line.

Is it true that experienced prisoners know very well: if you escape from a camp in Chukotka, the locals will catch you, cut off your head and exchange it with the boss for a bottle of vodka?

I heard similar reliable stories about the Komi. Only they are less bloodthirsty, they didn’t cut off their heads. If they could not be taken alive, the authorities were presented with a corpse. True, a bottle of vodka is a bit much! For a prisoner - living or dead - they were usually given a bag of potatoes. There were simply much fewer camps in Chukotka. But I admit that cases of cutting off heads also happened among the Chukchi - apparently, this is more convenient for transporting remains over long distances.

Palm strike to the heart

Let’s move on through the text: “The Chukchi and Koryaks are pathologically vindictive and vindictive. If you offend them, they won't say anything, they'll just bend over and go. But after a while the offender is found dead on the street. The killer is almost never found."

Except for the fact that the killer, as a rule, is still caught in hot pursuit, because he has not yet had time to sober up, everything is true. Such crimes are committed mainly while intoxicated. As you know, the Chukchi body cannot process alcohol. Although I note that some modern inhabitants of the tundra have adapted. Unfortunately, there are many bitter drunkards, but about 30 percent have learned to drink in moderation without going on a binge.

It is especially difficult for me to believe that the Chukchi allegedly kill their old people as “worthless.” A case is described when Russian sailors, seeing bodies swarming on an ice floe, opened fire. And then it turned out that they were tied up elderly Chukchi. After that, residents of the local village swam up to them with gifts for allegedly helping their parents pass on to another world.

This is quite possible, even in our time. But the old man is not tied up. He asks himself to kill himself when life becomes unbearable - for example, due to a serious illness. This, of course, does not happen in the villages - there are police there after all. But this happens during nomadism. The old man turns to his eldest son or, perhaps, to his younger brother - they say, I’m not dying, but it’s disgusting to live.

At the appointed moment, he is left alone in the plague. He sits down on a predetermined pole (the dwelling is attached to them), with his back to the wall, which is made of tarpaulin or skins. After this, the son, who remained outside, picks up a palm tree - that’s the name of a long knife attached to a stick - and delivers a precise blow through the skins directly to the heart. And the old man goes into another world without suffering. If the supposed deliverer is not good with a spear, they make a strip of suede, put it around the parent’s neck and tighten it. But now, perhaps, this is not practiced - the palm tree is a priority. They leave no traces - within a day the bears or wolves dispose of the corpse.

- Is it true that a Chukchi who cannot cope with his masculine responsibilities“translated” into a woman and he wears a woman’s dress?

This has happened before, and quite often. Not anymore. The fact is that we're talking about nevertheless, not about incompetent people, but about those who have problems with gender self-identification - physiological or mental. In modern urban conditions, they take hormonal pills and even change gender. I have not met such people in the North, but in India, children with similar pronounced deviations are transferred to be raised in a caste called “hitzhra”, which is considered “untouchable”.

The spouse is given to a friend

- Since we have touched on such a delicate topic, do the Chukchi have homosexuals?

They have few conditions for the emergence of homosexuality. A girl and a married woman easily gets herself a lover or an additional husband. Which, by the way, may be good friend main spouse. It happens that two men agree: you will spend this summer with my wife, and I will spend this summer with yours. For fishing or hunting. And by winter we will change again. This custom is called “ngevtumgyn”: the literal translation is “wife partnership.” And a person who is in such a relationship is called “ngevtumgyt.” Previously, there was a certain ritual for such cases, but now this is no longer the case. According to their morality, jealousy is a vile feeling, unworthy possessiveness. Not giving in to your wife is even worse than not repaying a debt.

Knowing this, it’s hard to believe that the Chukchi practice incest. That very text describes a situation when a Chukchi adult takes his daughter from a boarding school: “Why does she need to study? My wife died..."

I only heard about one case of incest, but they told me about it with indignation - what a bastard. At the same time, in our modern society, it is permissible to sign a second cousin and even a first cousin, although the church does not approve. The Chukchi do not - you can marry a second cousin only along a certain line, there are serious nuances. One Chukotka guy I knew even began to drink too much when he was not allowed such a marriage - he loved the girl very much. Here, I know, in Venezuela, near the city of Ayacucho, an Indian from the Yanomamo tribe lived with his mother, who was 15 years older than him. And even then this was not welcomed there. As for the northern peoples, I think this is not true. Let's say the Nganasans live in Taimyr. There are only one and a half thousand of them, and finding a couple is a problem. But interkinship ties are a strict taboo.

According to the above-mentioned text, before the Russians, the Chukchi washed themselves at most once a year in hot springs. When, under the influence of the Russians, they began to wash regularly, their skin allegedly began to become covered with bloody cracks. Further quote: “The sweat of the Chukchi - This is not water, but droplets of fat. They save you from the wind.” The author also mentions the strong smell from the Chukchi.

Firstly, both the Chukchi and the peoples of this region - Evens, Yakuts, Nanais, Udeges and so on - they are all washing now. There are also bathhouses in the villages. Although not very often: once every two weeks - once a month. And secondly, unlike us, they don’t stink. Their sweat does not have a strong unpleasant odor. Northern peoples have no need for deodorants. Interestingly, this is also somehow connected with earwax - it is different for them. Ours is sticky, but theirs is dry - fine powder pours out of their ears. And about droplets of fat - this, of course, is nonsense.

They eat fly agarics

Among the Chukchi, fly agaric is common as a hallucinogen, says Arutyunov. - And in order not to get poisoned, young people drink the urine of old people who use fly agarics, accustoming themselves to this “delicacy.” I just urge you not to practice this under any circumstances, the consequences can be fatal! Even about 20 years ago, young people were actively involved in fly agaric eating. That is, now these are people of about 40 years old. And there are even more fly agaric grandfathers!

Place of residence- Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), Chukotka and Koryak Autonomous Okrugs.

Language, dialects. The language is the Chukchi-Kamchatka family of languages. The Chukchi language is divided into Eastern, or Uelensky (which formed the basis literary language), Western (Pevek), Enmylen, Nunlingran and Khatyr dialects.

Origin, settlement. The Chukchi are the oldest inhabitants of the continental regions of the extreme northeast of Siberia, bearers of the inland culture of wild deer hunters and fishermen. Neolithic finds on the Ekytikyveem and Enmyveem rivers and Lake Elgytg date back to the second millennium BC. e.

By the first millennium AD. e., having tamed deer and partially switching to a sedentary lifestyle on the sea coast, the Chukchi established contacts with the Eskimos. The transition to sedentary life occurred most intensively in the 14th–16th centuries after the Yukaghirs penetrated into the valleys of the Kolyma and Anadyr, seizing the seasonal hunting grounds for . The Eskimo population of the coasts of the Pacific and Arctic oceans was partially pushed out by continental Chukchi hunters to other coastal areas and partially assimilated. In the 14th–15th centuries, as a result of the penetration of the Yukaghirs into the Anadyr valley, the territorial separation of the Chukchi from the Chukchi, associated with the latter by a common origin, occurred.

According to their occupation, the Chukchi were divided into reindeer (nomadic, but still hunting), sedentary (sedentary, having a small number of tamed deer, hunters of wild deer and sea animals) and foot (sedentary hunters of sea animals and wild deer, not having deer).

By the 19th century, the main territorial groups had formed. Among the deer (tundra) are the Indigirka-Alazeya, West Kolyma and others; among the sea (coastal) - groups of the Pacific, Bering Sea coasts and the coast of the Arctic Ocean.

Self-name. The name of the people, adopted in administrative documents of the 19th–20th centuries, comes from the self-name of the tundra Chukchi chauchu, chavchavyt- “rich in deer.” The coastal Chukchi called themselves ank'alit- "sea people" or ram'aglyt- "coastal residents". To distinguish themselves from other tribes, they use a self-name Lyo'Ravetlyan- "real people". (In the late 1920s, the name “Luoravetlana” was used as the official name.)

Writing since 1931 it has existed on a Latin, and since 1936 on a Russian graphic basis.

Crafts, crafts and labor tools, means of transportation. There have long been two types of economy. The basis of one was reindeer husbandry, the other - sea hunting. Fishing, hunting and gathering were of an auxiliary nature.

Large herd reindeer herding developed only towards the end of the 18th century. In the 19th century, the herd numbered, as a rule, from 3–5 to 10–12 thousand heads. Reindeer husbandry of the tundra group was mainly focused on meat and transport. Reindeer were grazed without a shepherd dog, in the summer - on the ocean coast or in the mountains, and with the onset of autumn they moved inland to the borders of the forest to winter pastures, where, as necessary, they migrated 5-10 kilometers.

In the second half of the 19th century, the economy of the absolute majority of the Chukchi remained largely subsistence in nature. By the end of the 19th century, the demand for reindeer products increased, especially among the sedentary Chukchi and Asian Eskimos. The expansion of trade with Russians and foreigners from the second half of the 19th century gradually destroyed the subsistence reindeer herding economy. From the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century, property stratification was observed in Chukotka reindeer herding: impoverished reindeer herders became farm laborers, while rich owners had more livestock; The wealthy part of the sedentary Chukchi and Eskimos also acquired reindeer.

Coastal (sedentary) people were traditionally engaged in marine hunting, which reached by the middle of the 18th century high level development. Hunting for seals, seals, bearded seals, walruses and whales provided basic food products, durable material for making canoes, hunting tools, some types of clothing and footwear, household items, and fat for lighting and heating the home. Walruses and whales were hunted mainly in the summer-autumn period, and seals - in the winter-spring period. Whales and walruses were caught collectively, from kayaks, and seals - individually.

Hunting tools consisted of harpoons, spears, knives, etc., of different sizes and purposes.

Since the end of the 19th century, demand for the skins of marine animals grew rapidly on the foreign market, which at the beginning of the 20th century led to the predatory extermination of whales and walruses and significantly undermined the economy of the settled population of Chukotka.

Both the reindeer and coastal Chukchi caught fish with nets woven from whale and deer tendons or from leather belts, as well as nets and bits, in the summer - from the shore or from canoes, in the winter - in an ice hole.

Mountain sheep, moose, polar and brown bears, wolverines, wolves, foxes and arctic foxes were hunted with bows and arrows, spears and traps until the beginning of the 19th century; waterfowl - using a throwing weapon ( bola) and darts with a throwing board; eiders were beaten with sticks; Noose traps were set for hares and partridges.

In the 18th century, stone axes, spear and arrowheads, and bone knives were almost completely replaced by metal ones. From the second half of the 19th century, guns, traps and mouths were bought or exchanged. In marine hunting, by the beginning of the 20th century, whaling firearms and harpoons with bombs began to be widely used.

Women and children collected and prepared edible plants, berries and roots, as well as seeds from mouse holes. To dig up roots, they used a special tool with a tip made of deer antler, which was later replaced with an iron one.

The nomadic and sedentary Chukchi developed handicrafts. Women tanned fur, sewed clothes and shoes, wove bags from fibers of fireweed and wild rye, made mosaics from fur and sealskin, embroidered with deer hair and beads. The men processed and artistically cut bone and walrus tusk. In the 19th century, bone-carving associations emerged that sold their products.

Deer bones, walrus meat, fish, and whale oil were crushed with a stone hammer on a stone slab. The leather was processed using stone scrapers; Edible roots were dug up with bone shovels and hoes.

An indispensable accessory of each family was a projectile for making fire in the form of a board of a rough anthropomorphic shape with recesses in which a bow drill (flint board) rotated. Fire produced in this way was considered sacred and could only be passed on to relatives through the male line. Currently, bow drills are kept as a cult item of the family.

The household utensils of the nomadic and sedentary Chukchi are modest and contain only the most necessary items: various types of home-made cups for broth, large wooden dishes with low sides for boiled meat, sugar, cookies, etc. They ate in the canopy, sitting around a table on low legs or directly around the dish. They used a washcloth made from thin wood shavings to wipe their hands after eating and sweep away any remaining food from the dish. The dishes were stored in a drawer.

The main means of transportation along the sled route were reindeer harnessed to sledges of several types: for transporting cargo, dishes, children (wagon), and poles of the yaranga frame. We walked on snow and ice on racket skis; by sea - on single and multi-seat kayaks and whaleboats. Rowing with short single-blade oars. Reindeer, if necessary, built rafts or went out to sea on the kayaks of hunters, and they used their riding reindeer.

The Chukchi borrowed the method of traveling on dog sleds drawn by a “fan” from the Eskimos, and in a train from the Russians. A “fan” usually harnessed 5–6 dogs, a train – 8–12. Dogs were also harnessed to reindeer sledges.

Dwellings. The nomadic Chukchi camps numbered up to 10 yarangas and were extended from west to east. The first from the west was the yaranga of the head of the camp.

Yaranga is a tent in the form of a truncated cone with a height in the center from 3.5 to 4.7 meters and a diameter from 5.7 to 7–8 meters, similar to. The wooden frame was covered with deer skins, usually sewn into two panels. The edges of the skins were placed one on top of the other and secured with straps sewn to them. The free ends of the belts in the lower part were tied to sledges or heavy stones, which ensured the immobility of the covering. The yaranga was entered between the two halves of the covering, folding them to the sides. For winter they sewed coverings from new skins, for summer they used last year's skins.

The hearth was in the center of the yaranga, under the smoke hole.

Opposite the entrance, at the back wall of the yaranga, a sleeping area (canopy) made of skins in the form of a parallelepiped was installed.

The shape of the canopy was maintained by poles passed through many loops sewn to the skins. The ends of the poles rested on racks with forks, and the back pole was attached to the yaranga frame. The average canopy size is 1.5 meters high, 2.5 meters wide and about 4 meters long. The floor was covered with mats, with thick skins on top of them. The bed head - two oblong bags filled with scraps of skins - was located at the exit.

In winter, during periods of frequent migrations, the canopy was made from the thickest skins with the fur inside. They covered themselves with a blanket made from several deer skins. To make a canopy, 12–15 were required, for beds - about 10 large deer skins.

Each canopy belonged to one family. Sometimes the yaranga had two canopies. Every morning, the women removed the canopy, laid it out on the snow and beat it out of the deer's antler with mallets.

From the inside, the canopy was illuminated and heated by a grease pit. To illuminate their homes, the coastal Chukchi used whale and seal oil, while the tundra Chukchi used fat rendered from crushed deer bones, which burned odorless and soot-free in stone oil lamps.

Behind the curtain, at the back wall of the tent, things were stored; at the sides, on both sides of the hearth, there are products. Between the entrance to the yaranga and the hearth there was a free cold place for various needs.

The coastal Chukchi in the 18th–19th centuries had two types of dwellings: yaranga and half-dugout. Yarangas retained the structural basis of the reindeer dwellings, but the frame was constructed from both wood and whale bones. This made the home resistant to the onslaught of storm winds. They covered the yaranga with walrus skins; it had no smoke hole. The canopy was made of large walrus skin up to 9–10 meters long, 3 meters wide and 1.8 meters high; for ventilation there were holes in its wall that were covered with fur plugs. On both sides of the canopy, winter clothes and supplies of skins were stored in large bags made of seal skins, and inside, along the walls, belts were stretched on which clothes and shoes were dried. At the end of the 19th century, the coastal Chukchi covered yarangas with canvas and other durable materials in the summer.

They lived in half-dugouts mainly in winter. Their type and design were borrowed from the Eskimos. The frame of the dwelling was constructed from whale jaws and ribs; The top was covered with turf. The quadrangular inlet was located on the side.

Cloth. The clothing and footwear of the tundra and coastal Chukchi did not differ significantly and were almost identical to those of the Eskimos.

Winter clothes were made from two layers of reindeer skins with fur on the inside and outside. Coasters also used durable, elastic, practically waterproof seal skin for sewing pants and spring-summer shoes; Cloaks and kamleikas were made from walrus intestines. The reindeer sewed trousers and shoes from old yaranga coverings that did not deform under the influence of moisture.

The constant mutual exchange of farm products allowed the tundra people to receive shoes, leather soles, belts, lassos made from the skins of marine mammals, and the coastal people to receive reindeer skins for winter clothing. In summer they wore worn out winter clothes.

Chukotka closed clothing is divided into everyday household and festive-ceremonial: children's, youth, men's, women's, old people's, ritual and funeral.

The traditional set of Chukchi men's costume consists of a kukhlyanka, belted with a belt with a knife and a pouch, a calico kamleika worn over the kukhlyanka, a raincoat made of walrus intestines, trousers and various headdresses: the usual Chukchi winter hat, malakhai, hood, light summer hats

The basis of a woman's costume is a fur jumpsuit with wide sleeves and short, knee-length pants.

Typical shoes are short, knee-length, torbas of several types, sewn from seal skins with the hair outward with a piston sole made of bearded seal skin, made of camus with fur stockings and grass insoles (winter tobos); from seal skin or from old, smoke-soaked coverings of yaranga (summer torbas).

Food, its preparation. The traditional food of tundra people is venison, while that of coastal people is the meat and fat of sea animals. Deer meat was eaten frozen (finely chopped) or lightly boiled. During the mass slaughter of deer, the contents of deer stomachs were prepared by boiling them with blood and fat. They also consumed fresh and frozen deer blood. We prepared soups with vegetables and cereals.

The Primorye Chukchi considered walrus meat especially satisfying. Prepared in the traditional way, it is well preserved. Squares of meat along with lard and skin are cut out of the dorsal and side parts of the carcass. The liver and other cleaned entrails are placed in the tenderloin. The edges are sewn together with the skin facing out - a roll is obtained ( k'opalgyn-kymgyt). Closer to cold weather, its edges are tightened even more to prevent excessive souring of the contents. K'opalgyn eaten fresh, sour and frozen. Fresh walrus meat is boiled. The meat of beluga whales and gray whales, as well as their skin with a layer of fat, is eaten raw and boiled.

In the northern and southern regions of Chukotka great place The diet includes grayling, navaga, sockeye salmon, and flounder. Yukola is prepared from large salmon. Many Chukchi reindeer herders dry, salt, smoke fish, and salt caviar.

The meat of sea animals is very fatty, so it requires herbal supplements. The Reindeer and Primorye Chukchi traditionally ate a lot of wild herbs, roots, berries, and seaweed. Dwarf willow leaves, sorrel, and edible roots were frozen, fermented, and mixed with fat and blood. Koloboks were made from the roots, crushed with meat and walrus fat. For a long time, porridge was cooked from imported flour, and cakes were fried in seal fat.

Social life, power, marriage, family. By the 17th–18th centuries, the main socio-economic unit was the patriarchal family community, consisting of several families that had a single household and a common home. The community included up to 10 or more adult men related by kinship.

Among the coastal Chukchi, industrial and social ties developed around the canoe, the size of which depended on the number of community members. At the head of the patriarchal community was a foreman - the “boat chief”.

Among the tundra, the patriarchal community was united around a common herd; it was also headed by a foreman - a “strong man”. By the end of the 18th century, due to the increase in the number of deer in the herds, it became necessary to split the latter for more convenient grazing, which led to a weakening of intra-community ties.

Sedentary Chukchi lived in villages. Several related communities settled on common areas, each of which was located in a separate half-dugout. The nomadic Chukchi lived in a camp also consisting of several patriarchal communities. Each community included two to four families and occupied a separate yaranga. 15–20 camps formed a circle of mutual aid. The Reindeer also had patrilineal kinship groups connected by blood feud, the transfer of ritual fire, sacrificial rites, and the initial form of patriarchal slavery, which disappeared with the cessation of wars against neighboring peoples.

In the 19th century, the traditions of communal living, group marriage, and levirate continued to coexist, despite the emergence of private property and wealth inequality. By the end of the 19th century, the large patriarchal family disintegrated and was replaced by a small family.

Religion. The basis of religious beliefs and cult is animism, a trade cult.

The structure of the world among the Chukchi included three spheres: the earth's firmament with everything that exists on it; heaven, where ancestors live who died a dignified death during a battle or who chose voluntary death at the hands of a relative (among the Chukchi, old people who were unable to earn a living asked their closest relatives to take their lives); the underworld - the abode of the bearers of evil - Kale, where people who died from the disease ended up.

According to legend, mystical host creatures were in charge of fishing grounds and individual habitats of people, and sacrifices were made to them. A special category of beneficent creatures were household patrons; ritual figurines and objects were kept in each yaranga.

The system of religious ideas gave rise to corresponding cults among the tundra people associated with reindeer husbandry; near the coast - with the sea. There were also common cults: Nargynen(Nature, Universe), Dawn, Polar Star, Zenith, constellation Pegittin, cult of ancestors, etc. Sacrifices were communal, family and individual in nature.

The fight against diseases, protracted failures in fishing and reindeer husbandry was the lot of shamans. In Chukotka they were not classified as a professional caste; they participated as equals in the fishing activities of the family and community. What distinguished the shaman from other members of the community was his ability to communicate with patron spirits, talk with ancestors, imitate their voices, and fall into a state of trance. The main function of the shaman was healing. He did not have a special costume; his main ritual attribute was a tambourine. Shamanic functions could be performed by the head of the family (family shamanism).

Holidays. The main holidays were associated with economic cycles. For reindeer - with the autumn and winter slaughter of reindeer, calving, migration of the herd to summer pastures and return. The holidays of the coastal Chukchi are close to the Eskimos: in the spring - the holiday of baidara on the occasion of the first trip to sea; in summer there is a festival of goals to mark the end of the seal hunt; in autumn it is the holiday of the owner of sea animals. All holidays were accompanied by competitions in running, wrestling, shooting, jumping on a walrus skin (a prototype of a trampoline), and racing deer and dogs; dancing, playing tambourines, pantomime.

In addition to production ones, there were family holidays associated with the birth of a child, expression of gratitude by aspiring hunters on the occasion of a successful hunt, etc.

During holidays, sacrifices are obligatory: deer, meat, figurines made of reindeer fat, snow, wood (among the reindeer Chukchi), dogs (among the sea).

Christianization almost did not affect the Chukchi.

Folklore, musical instruments. The main genres of folklore are myths, fairy tales, historical legends, tales and everyday stories. Main character myths and fairy tales - Raven ( Kurkyl), demiurge and culture hero (mythical character who gives people various items culture, produces fire, like Prometheus among the ancient Greeks, teaches hunting, crafts, introduces various regulations and rules of behavior, rituals, is the first ancestor of people and the creator of the world). There are also widespread myths about the marriage of man and animal: whale, polar bear, walrus, seal.

Chukotka fairy tales ( lymn'yl) are divided into mythological, everyday and animal tales.

Historical legends tell about the wars of the Chukchi with the Eskimos and Russians. Mythological and everyday legends are also known.

Music is genetically related to the music of the Eskimos and Yukaghirs. Each person had at least three “personal” melodies, composed by him in childhood, in adulthood and in old age (more often, however, a children's melody was received as a gift from his parents). New melodies also appeared related to events in life (recovery, farewell to a friend or lover, etc.). When singing lullabies, they made a special “murmuring” sound, reminiscent of the voice of a crane or an important woman.

The shamans had their own “personal chants”. They were performed on behalf of the patron spirits - “spirit songs” and reflected the emotional state of the singer.

Tambourine ( yarar) - round, with a handle on the shell (onshore) or with a cross-shaped handle on back side(in tundra). There are male, female and children's varieties of the tambourine. Shamans play the tambourine with a thick soft stick, and singers at festivals use a thin whalebone stick. The tambourine was a family shrine; its sound symbolized the “voice of the hearth.”

Another traditional musical instrument is the plate harp ( bathrooms) - a “mouth tambourine” made of birch, bamboo (floater), bone or metal plate. Later, an arc double-tongued harp appeared.

String instruments are represented by lutes: bowed tubular, hollowed out from a single piece of wood, and box-shaped. The bow was made from whalebone, bamboo or willow splinters; strings (1–4) - made of vein threads or guts (later made of metal). Lutes were mainly used to play song melodies.

Modern cultural life. In the national villages of Chukotka, the Chukchi language is studied until the eighth grade, but in general there is no national education system.

The supplement “Murgin Nuthenut” to the district newspaper “Far North” is published in the Chukchi language, the State Television and Radio Company prepares programs, holds the “Hey No” festival (throat singing, sayings, etc.), the television association “Ener” makes films in the Chukchi language.

Revival problems traditional culture engaged in the Chukotka intelligentsia, the Association of Indigenous small peoples Chukotka, ethnocultural public association "Chychetkin Vetgav" ("Native Word"), Union of Mushers of Chukotka, Union of Sea Hunters, etc.