Yukaghir people

For the mountains, see Yukaghir Highlands. For the rural settlement in the Sakha Republic, see Yukagir.
Yukaghir
деткиль, одул, вадул, алаи
Yukaghirs from Yakutia, 1905.
Regions with significant populations
Russia 1,802[1]
Ukraine12[2]
United States5
Languages
Yukaghir, Russian, Yakut
Religion
Shamanism, Russian Orthodoxy

The Yukaghirs, or Yukagirs (Northern Yukaghir: вадул, деткиль (wadul, detkil), Russian: юкаги́ры), are a Siberian ethnic group in the Russian Far East, living in the basin of the Kolyma River.

Modern Yukaghirs are thought to be descendants of the late Neolithic Ymyyakhtakh culture.[3]

Geographic distribution

The Tundra Yukaghirs live in the Nizhnekolymsky District in the Sakha Republic; the Taiga Yukaghirs in the Sakha Republic and in Srednekansky District of Magadan Oblast. By the time of Russian colonization in the 17th century, the Yukaghir tribal groups occupied territories from the Lena River to the mouth of the Anadyr River. The number of the Yukaghirs decreased between the 17th and 19th centuries due to epidemics, internecine wars and Tsarist colonial policy which may have included genocide against the sedentary hunter-fisher Anaouls. Some of the Yukaghirs have assimilated with the Yakuts, Evens, and Russians.

Currently, Yukaghirs live in the Sakha Republic and the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug of the Russian Federation. According to the 2002 Census, their total number was 1,509 people, up from 1,112 recorded in the 1989 Census.

According to the latest 2001 all Ukrainian census, 12 Yukaghirs are living in Ukraine. Only 2 of them indicated Yukaghir as their native language. For the remaining others (6) it is Russian and for 1 it is some other tongue.[2]

Yukaghirs (including Chuvans) by selected settlements:[4]

Name  Total population Yukaghir population Percentage of Yukaghir population
Nalemnoye 230 130 56.52%
Andryushkino 741 197 26.59%
Chersky 2,641 50 1.90%
Markovo 922 255 27.66%
Anadyr 13,043 211 1.62%
Chuvanskoye 226 134 59.29%
Snezhnoye 313 111 35.46%

Genetics

Genetically, Yukaghirs exhibit roughly equal frequencies of the Y-DNA haplogroups N1c, Q1, and C2 (formerly C3).[5]

According to another study, out of 11 Yukaghir males 3 turned out to belong to the Y-haplogroup N1c (different subclade from the one found in Yakuts), another 4 - to the Y-haplogroup C2 (former C3; for the most part, the same subclade that's also found in Koryaks), one more - to the Y-haplogroup O, and the rest 3 exhibit apparent Russian genetic influence (two individuals belonging to the Y-haplogroup R1a, and one more - to the Y-haplogroup I2a). The study also found no similarities between Yukaghirs and Chukchis in regards to mitochondrial DNA.[6]

Culture

The main traditional activity is nomadic and semi-nomadic hunting of deer, moose, wild sheep, and sable, as well as fishing. Reindeer are bred mostly for transportation. Horses are known among the Yukaghir as "domestic reindeer of Yakuts" (Yoqod ile in Tundra Yukaghir or Yaqad āçə in Kolyma Yukaghir). A Yukaghir house is called a chum.

Language

The Yukaghir languages are a small language family of two closely related languages, Tundra Yukaghir and Kolyma Yukaghir, although there used to be more. They are unclassified languages: their origin and relation to other languages are unknown; some scholars consider them distantly related to the Uralic languages,[7] but this classification is not accepted by the majority of specialists in Uralic linguistics. The languages are regarded as moribund, since less than 370 people can speak either Yukaghir language. Most Yukaghirs today speak Yakut and Russian.

Religion

Alongside Russian Orthodox beliefs, Yukaghirs practice shamanism. The dominant cults are ancestral spirits, the spirits of Fire, Sun (Pugu), Hunting, Earth, and Water, which can act as protectors or as enemies of people. The most important is the cult of Pugu, the Sun, who is the highest judge in all disputes. The spirits of the dead go to a place called Aibidzi. Every clan had a shaman called an alma. After death every alma was treated as a deity, and the body of the dead alma was dismembered and kept by the clan as relics. The Yukaghir still continue traditions stemming from their origins as nomadic reindeer-hunters: they practice dog sacrifice and have an epic poem based around crows. The animal cult was especially strong in the elk cult. There was a number of rituals and taboos connected with elk and deer hunting.[8]

See also

References

Notes

  • Nikolaeva, Irina; Mayer, Thomas (2004). "Online Documentation of Kolyma Yukaghir". Suomalais-Ugrilainen Seura (Finno-Ugrian Society, Société Finno-Ougrienne). Also free online available audio materials (tales, songs).
  • Vaba, Lembit. "The Yukaghirs". The Red Book of the Peoples of the Russian Empire. NGO Red Book.
  • "Yukaghirs". Inside the New Russia. SC Publishing. 1994.

Footnotes

  1. ^ "Росстат — Всероссийская перепись населения 2020". rosstat.gov.ru. Retrieved 2023-01-03.
  2. ^ a b State statistics committee of Ukraine - National composition of population, 2001 census (Ukrainian)
  3. ^ Эверстов, Степан (2014). "Некоторые параллели в культурах древних ымыяхтахцев и юкагиров XVII-XIX вв" [Some cultural parallels between the ancient Ymyyakhtakh and the 17-19th century Yukaghirs]. Арктика и Север (in Russian) (15). Retrieved 2024-01-27.
  4. ^ "Паспорт муниципального образования". rosstat.gov.ru. Retrieved 2024-12-17.
  5. ^ Duggan, Ana T.; Whitten, Mark; Wiebe, Victor; Crawford, Michael; Butthof, Anne; Spitsyn, Victor; Makarov, Sergey; Novgorodov, Innokentiy; Osakovsky, Vladimir; Pakendorf, Brigitte (2013). "Investigating the Prehistory of Tungusic Peoples of Siberia and the Amur-Ussuri Region with Complete mtDNA Genome Sequences and Y-chromosomal Markers". PLOS ONE. 8 (12) e83570. Bibcode:2013PLoSO...883570D. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0083570. PMC 3861515. PMID 24349531.
  6. ^ Fedorova, Sardana A.; Reidla, Maere; Metspalu, Ene; Metspalu, Mait; Rootsi, Siiri; Tambets, Kristiina; Trofimova, Natalya; Zhadanov, Sergey I.; Hooshiar Kashani, Baharak; Olivieri, Anna; Voevoda, Mikhail I.; Osipova, Ludmila P.; Platonov, Fedor A.; Tomsky, Mikhail I.; Khusnutdinova, Elza K. (2013). "Autosomal and uniparental portraits of the native populations of Sakha (Yakutia): implications for the peopling of Northeast Eurasia". BMC Evolutionary Biology. 13 (1): 127. Bibcode:2013BMCEE..13..127F. doi:10.1186/1471-2148-13-127. PMC 3695835. PMID 23782551.
  7. ^ Nikolaeva & Mayer 2004, ch. "About the Yukaghirs"
  8. ^ Inside the New Russia (1994): Yukagirs

Modern culture:

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