A story about the Chukchi people. Legal documents and laws

Even in ancient times, Russians, Yakuts and Evens called reindeer herders Chukchi. The name itself speaks for itself "chauchu" - rich in deer. Deer people call themselves that. And dog breeders are referred to as ankalyns.

This nationality was formed as a result of a mixture of Asian and American types. This is even confirmed by the fact that the Chukchi dog breeders and the Chukchi reindeer breeders have a different attitude to life and culture, various legends and myths speak about this.

Until now, the exact linguistic identity of the Chukchi language has not been determined, there are hypotheses that it is rooted in the language of the Koryaks and Itelmens, and the ancient Asian languages.

Culture and life of the Chukchi people

The Chukchi are accustomed to living in camps, which are removed and updated as soon as the reindeer food is over. In summer they descend closer to the sea. The constant need for resettlement does not prevent them from erecting sufficiently large dwellings. The Chukchi erect a large polygonal tent, which is covered with deer skins. In order for this structure to withstand strong gusts of wind, people support the entire hut with stones. At the back wall of this tent, a small structure is installed in which people eat, rest and sleep. In order not to get tired in their room, they undress almost naked before going to bed.

National Chukchi clothes are comfortable and warm attire. Men wear a double fur shirt, double fur trousers, also fur stockings and boots of identical material. The men's hat is somewhat reminiscent of a women's bonnet. Women's clothing also consists of two layers, only the pants and the upper part are sewn together. And in the summer, the Chukchi dress in lighter clothes - overalls made of deer suede and other bright fabrics. Beautiful ritual embroidery is often found on these dresses. Little children, newborns are dressed in a bag made of deer skins, in which there are slits for arms and legs.

The main and daily food of the Chukchi is meat, both cooked and raw. In its raw form, brains, kidneys, liver, eyes and tendons can be consumed. Quite often you can meet families where roots, stems and leaves are happy to eat. It is worth noting the special love of the Chukchi people for alcohol and tobacco.

Traditions and customs of the Chukchi people

The Chukchi are a people who keep the traditions of their ancestors. And it doesn't matter what group - reindeer breeders or dog breeders - they belong to.

One of the national Chukchi holidays is the Baydara holiday. Since ancient times, the kayak has been a means of obtaining meat. And in order for the waters to accept the Chukchi canoe for the next year, the Chukchi arranged a certain ceremony. The boats were removed from the jaws of the whale, on which she had lain all winter. Then they went to the sea and brought him a sacrifice in the form of boiled meat. After that, the canoe was placed near the dwelling and the whole family walked around it. The next day, the procedure was repeated and only after that the boat was lowered into the water.

Another Chukchi holiday is the Whale Festival. This holiday was held in order to apologize to the killed marine animals and to make amends with Karetkun, the owner of marine life. People changed into smart clothes, waterproof clothes made from walrus intestines and apologized to walruses, whales and seals. They sang songs that it was not the hunters who killed them, but the stones that fell from the rocks. After that, the Chukchi made a sacrifice to the master of the seas, lowering the skeleton of a whale into the depths of the sea. People believed that in this way they would resurrect all the animals they had killed.

Of course, one cannot fail to mention the deer festival, which was called Kilvey. He settled in the spring. It all started with the fact that deer were driven to human dwellings, yarangas, and at that time women kindled a fire. Moreover, the fire had to be produced, as well as many centuries ago - by friction. The Chukchi met the deer with enthusiastic cries, songs and shots in order to drive away evil spirits from them. And during the celebration, men slaughtered several adult deer to replenish food supplies intended for children, women and the elderly.

Number -15184 people. The language is the Chukchi-Kamchatka family of languages. Settlement - the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), Chukotka and Koryak Autonomous Okrugs.

The name of the people, adopted in administrative documents XIX - XX centuries, comes from the self-name of the tundra Chukchi I will teach, chavcha-vyt - “rich in deer”. The coastal Chukchi called themselves ank "al'yt -" sea people "or ram" aglyt - "coastal inhabitants".

Distinguishing themselves from other tribes, they use the self-name Lyo "Ravetlyans -" real people. "(In the late 1920s, the name Luoravetlans was used as an official one.) western (Pevek), Enmylen, Nunlingran and Khatyr dialects.Writing has existed in Latin since 1931, and on a Russian graphic basis since 1936. The Chukchi are the oldest inhabitants of the continental regions of the extreme north-east of Siberia, carriers of the inland culture of hunters of wild Neolithic finds on the rivers Ekytikiveem and Enmyveem and Lake Elgytg date back to the second millennium BC By the first millennium AD, having tamed deer and partially switching to a settled way of life on the sea coast, the Chukchi establish contacts with the Eskimos.

The transition to settled life took place most intensively in XIV - XVI centuries after the Yukagirs penetrated the Kolyma and Anadyr valleys, seizing the seasonal hunting grounds for wild deer. The Eskimo population of the coasts of the Pacific and Arctic Oceans was partially forced out by continental Chukchi hunters to other coastal regions, partially assimilated. AT XIV-XV centuries as a result of the penetration of the Yukagirs into the Anadyr valley, the territorial separation of the Chukchi from the Koryaks occurred, associated with the latter by a common origin. By occupation, the Chukchi were divided into "deer" (nomadic, but continuing to hunt), "sedentary" (sedentary, having a small number of tamed deer, hunters of wild deer and marine animals) and "foot" (sedentary hunters of sea animals and wild deer without deer). To XIX in. formed the main territorial groups. Among the deer (tundra) - Indigirsko-Alazeiskaya, Zapadnokolymskaya, etc.; among marine (coastal) - groups of the Pacific, Bering Sea coasts and the coast of the Arctic Ocean. Since ancient times, there have been two types of farming. The basis of one was reindeer husbandry, the other - marine hunting. Fishing, hunting and gathering were of an auxiliary nature. Large-herd pastoral reindeer husbandry developed only towards the end 18th century In XIX in. the herd consisted, as a rule, from 3 - 5 to 10 - 12 thousand heads. Reindeer breeding of the tundra group was mainly meat and transport. Reindeer were grazed without a shepherd dog, in the summer - on the coast of the ocean or in the mountains, and with the onset of autumn they moved deep into the mainland to the borders of the forest to winter pastures, where, as needed, they migrated for 5 - 10 km.

camp

In the second half XIX in. The economy of the vast majority of the Chukchi retained a largely subsistence nature. By the end XIX in. the demand for reindeer products increased, especially among the settled Chukchi and Asian Eskimos. Expansion of trade with Russians and foreigners from the second half XIX in. gradually destroyed the subsistence reindeer husbandry. From the end XIX - early XX in. In the Chukchi reindeer herding, property stratification is noted: impoverished reindeer herders become farm laborers, livestock grows among rich owners, deer are acquired and the prosperous part of the settled Chukchi and Eskimos. Coastal (sedentary) traditionally engaged in marine hunting, which reached the middle XVIII in. high level of development. Hunting for seals, seals, bearded seals, walruses and whales provided the main food, durable material for the manufacture of canoes, hunting tools, some types of clothing and footwear, household items, fat for lighting and heating the home.

Those who wish to download the album of works of Chukchi and Eskimo art for free:

This album presents a collection of works of Chukchi and Eskimo art of the 1930s - 1970s of the Zagorsk State Historical and Art Museum-Reserve. Its core is made up of materials collected in Chukotka in the 1930s. The museum's collection widely reflects the Chukchi and Eskimo art of bone carving and engraving, the work of embroiderers, and the drawings of bone carvers.(PDF format)

Walruses and whales were hunted mainly in summer-autumn, seals - in winter-spring. Hunting tools consisted of harpoons of various sizes and purposes, spears, knives, etc. Whales and walruses were caught collectively, from canoes, and seals - individually. From the end XIX in. in the foreign market, the demand for the skins of marine animals is rapidly growing, which at the beginning XX in. leads to predatory extermination of whales and walruses and significantly undermines the economy of the settled population of Chukotka. Both deer and coastal Chukchi fished with nets woven from whale and deer tendons or leather belts, as well as nets and bits, in summer - from the shore or from a canoe, in winter - in the hole. Mountain sheep, elk, polar and brown bears, wolverines, wolves, foxes and arctic foxes right up to the beginning XIX in. they mined with a bow with arrows, a spear and traps; waterfowl - with the help of a throwing tool (bola) and darts with a throwing board; the eider was beaten with sticks; traps were placed on hares and partridges.

Chukchi weapons

In the XVIII in. stone axes, spear and arrowheads, bone knives were almost completely replaced by metal ones. From the second half XIX in. bought or bartered guns, traps and graze. In marine hunting to the top XX in. began to widely use firearms whaling weapons and harpoons with bombs. Women and children collected and prepared edible plants, berries and roots, as well as seeds from mouse holes. To dig out the roots, they used a special tool with a deer horn tip, which was later changed to iron. The nomadic and settled Chukchi developed handicrafts. Women dressed fur, sewed clothes and shoes, weaved bags from fibers of fireweed and wild rye, made mosaics from fur and sealskin, embroidered with reindeer hair and beads. Men processed and artistically cut bone and walrus tusk

In XIX in. bone carving associations arose that sold their products. The main means of transportation along the sleigh path were reindeer harnessed to several types of sleds: for the transport of cargo, dishes, children (kibitka), poles of the yaranga frame. On snow and ice they went on skis - “racquets”; by sea - on single and multi-seat canoes and whaleboats. They rowed with short single-bladed oars. The reindeer, if necessary, built rafts or went out to sea on canoes of hunters, and they used their riding deer. The Chukchi borrowed the method of movement on dog sleds pulled by a "fan" from the Eskimos, and the train from the Russians. "Fan" was usually harnessed 5 - 6 dogs, in a train - 8 - 12. Dogs were also harnessed to reindeer sleds. The camps of the nomadic Chukchi numbered up to 10 yarangas and were stretched from west to east. The first from the west was the yaranga of the head of the camp. Yaranga - a tent in the form of a truncated cone with a height in the center from 3.5 to 4.7 m and a diameter of 5.7 to 7 - 8 m, similar to Koryak. The wooden frame was covered with deer skins, usually sewn into two panels. The edges of the skins were laid one on top of the other and fastened with straps sewn to them. The free ends of the belts in the lower part were tied to sleds or heavy stones, which ensured the immobility of the covering. They entered the yaranga between the two halves of the cover, throwing them to the sides. For winter they sewed coverings from new skins, for summer they used last year's ones. The hearth was located in the center of the yaranga, under the smoke hole. Opposite the entrance, at the rear wall of the yaranga, a sleeping room (canopy) was made of skins in the form of a parallelepiped. The shape of the canopy was maintained thanks to poles passed through many loops sewn to the skins. The ends of the poles rested on racks with forks, and the rear pole was attached to the frame of the yaranga. The average size of the canopy is 1.5 m high, 2.5 m wide and about 4 m long. The floor was covered with mats, on top of them - with thick skins. The bed headboard - two oblong bags stuffed 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 fur inside. They covered themselves with a blanket sewn from several deer skins. For the manufacture of the canopy, 12 - 15 were required, for the beds - about 10 large deer skins.

Yaranga

Each canopy belonged to one family. Sometimes there were two canopies in the yaranga. Every morning the women took it off, laid it out in the snow and beat it out with mallets from a deer antler. From the inside, the canopy was illuminated and heated with a grease gun. Behind the canopy, at the back wall of the tent, things were kept; at the side, on both sides of the hearth, - products. Between the entrance to the yaranga and the hearth there was a free cold place for various needs. To illuminate their dwellings, the coastal Chukchi used whale and seal fat, while the tundra Chukchi used fat melted from crushed deer bones that burned odorless and soot in stone oil lamps. Among the coastal Chukchi in XVIII - XIX centuries there were two types of dwellings: yaranga and semi-dugout. The yarangas retained the structural basis of the deer dwelling, but the frame was built both from wood and whale bones. This made the dwelling resistant to the onslaught of storm winds. They covered the yaranga with walrus skins; It didn't have a smoke hole. The canopy was made from a large walrus skin up to 9-10 m long, 3 m wide and 1.8 m high, for ventilation there were holes in its wall, which were covered with fur plugs. On both sides of the canopy, winter clothes and stocks of skins were stored in large bags of seal skins, and inside, belts were stretched along the walls, on which clothes and shoes were dried. At the end XIX in. In the summer, the coastal Chukchi covered the yarangas with canvas and other durable materials. They lived in semi-dugouts mainly in winter. Their type and design were borrowed from the Eskimos. The frame of the dwelling was built from whale jaws and ribs; covered with turf on top. The quadrangular inlet was located on the side. The household utensils of the nomadic and settled 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, biscuits, etc. They ate in the canopy, sitting around the table on low legs or directly around the dish. With a washcloth made of thin wood shavings, they wiped their hands after eating, swept away the remnants of food from the dish. The dishes were stored in a drawer. Deer bones, walrus meat, fish, whale oil were crushed with a stone hammer on a stone slab. The skin was dressed with 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 (fire board) rotated. Fire obtained in this way was considered sacred and could only be passed on to relatives through the male line.

Flint

At present, bow drills are kept as a cult belonging to the family. 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 sewn from two layers of reindeer skins with fur inside and out. Coastal also used strong, elastic, almost waterproof seal skin for sewing pants and spring-summer shoes; cloaks and kamlikas were made from the intestines of the walrus. From the old smoky coatings of the yaranga, which do not deform under the influence of moisture, the reindeer sewed pants and shoes. The constant mutual exchange of products of the economy allowed the tundra to receive shoes, leather soles, belts, lassoes made from the skins of marine mammals, and the coastal - deer skins for winter clothing. In the summer, worn out winter clothes were worn. Chukchi blind clothing is divided into everyday and festive ritual: children's, youth, men's, women's, old people's, ritual and funeral. The traditional set of the Chukchi men's costume consists of a kukhlyanka girded with a belt with a knife and a pouch, a chintz kamlika worn over a kukhlyanka, a raincoat made of walrus guts, trousers and various headgear: an ordinary Chukchi winter hat, malakhai, a hood, a light summer hat. The basis of the women's costume is a fur overall with wide sleeves and short, knee-length pants. Typical shoes are short, knee-length, torbasas of several types, sewn from seal skins with wool on the outside with a piston sole made of bearded seal skin, made of kamus with fur stockings and grass insoles (winter torbasas); from sealskin or from old, smoky coverings of yarangas (summer torbasas).

Deer hair embroidery

The traditional food of the tundra people is venison, the coastal people eat the meat and fat of marine animals. Reindeer meat was eaten frozen (finely chopped) or slightly boiled. During the mass slaughter of deer, the contents of deer stomachs were prepared by boiling it with blood and fat. They also used fresh and frozen deer blood. Soups were prepared with vegetables and cereals. The Primorsky Chukchi considered walrus meat to be especially satisfying. Harvested in the traditional way, it is well preserved. From the dorsal and lateral parts of the carcass, squares of meat are cut out along with lard and skin. The liver and other cleaned entrails are placed in the tenderloin. The edges are sewn with the skin outward - it turns out a roll (k "opalgyn-kymgyt). Closer to the cold weather, its edges are tightened even more to prevent excessive acidification of the contents. K" opal-gyn is eaten fresh, sour and frozen. Fresh walrus meat is boiled. Beluga and gray whale meat, as well as their skin with a layer of fat, are eaten raw and boiled. In the northern and southern regions of Chukotka, chum salmon, grayling, navaga, sockeye salmon, and flounder occupy a large place in the diet. Yukola is harvested from large salmon. Many Chukchi reindeer herders dry, salt, smoke fish, salt caviar. The meat of sea animals is very fatty, so it requires herbal supplements. The reindeer and coastal Chukchi traditionally ate a lot of wild herbs, roots, berries, and seaweed. Dwarf willow leaves, sorrel, edible roots were frozen, fermented, mixed with fat, blood. From the roots, crushed with meat and walrus fat, they made koloboks. From ancient times, porridge was cooked from imported flour, and cakes were fried on seal fat.

rock drawing

K XVII - XVIII centuries The main socio-economic unit was the patriarchal family community, consisting of several families who had a single household and a common home. The community included up to 10 or more adult men connected by kinship. Among the coastal Chukchi, industrial and social ties developed around the canoes, the size of which depended on the number of members of the community. At the head of the patriarchal community was a foreman - "boat chief". Among the tundra, the patriarchal community united around a common herd, it was also headed by a foreman - a "strong man". By the end XVIII in. due to the increase in the number of deer in the herds, it became necessary to split the latter in order to more convenient grazing, which led to a weakening of intra-communal ties. The settled Chukchi lived in settlements. Several related communities settled on common plots, each of which was located in a separate semi-dugout. The nomadic Chukchi lived in the nomad camp, which also consisted of several patriarchal communities. Each community included two to four families and occupied a separate yaranga. 15-20 camps formed a circle of mutual assistance. The deer also had patrilineal kinship groups connected by blood feuds, the transfer of ritual fire, sacrificial rites, and the initial form of patriarchal slavery, which disappeared along with the cessation of wars against neighboring peoples. AT XIX in. traditions of communal life, group marriage and levirate continued to coexist, despite the emergence of private property and property inequality.

Chukchi hunter

By the end of the XIX century. the large patriarchal family broke up, it was replaced by a small family. Religious beliefs and cult are based on animism, a trade cult. The structure of the world among the Chukchi included three spheres: the earthly firmament with everything that exists on it; heaven, where ancestors live, who died a worthy death during the battle or chose voluntary death at the hands of a relative (among the Chukchi, old people, unable to hunt, asked their closest relatives to take their lives); the underworld - the abode of the bearers of evil - kele, where people who died of illness fell. According to legend, mystical host creatures were in charge of fishing grounds, individual habitats of people, and sacrifices were made to them. A special category of beneficent beings are household patrons; ritual figurines and objects were kept in each yaranga. The system of religious ideas gave rise to the corresponding cults among the tundra associated with reindeer herding; near the coast - with the sea. There were also common cults: Nargynen (Nature, the Universe), Dawn, the North Star, Zenith, the Pegittin constellation, the cult of ancestors, etc. The sacrifices were communal, family and individual. The fight against diseases, protracted failures in fishing and reindeer husbandry was the lot of shamans. In Chukotka, they were not singled out as a professional caste; they participated equally in the fishing activities of the family and community. What distinguished the shaman from other members of the community was the 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

Chukchi tambourine

Shamanic functions could be performed by the head of the family (family shamanism). The main holidays were associated with business cycles. For deer - with the autumn and winter slaughter of deer, calving, herd migration to summer pastures and return. The holidays of the Primorsky Chukchi are close to those of the Eskimos: in the spring - the canoe festival on the occasion of the first going to sea; in summer - a feast of heads on the occasion of the end of seal hunting; in autumn - the holiday of the owner of marine animals. All holidays were accompanied by competitions in running, wrestling, shooting, bouncing on the skin of a walrus (a prototype of a trampoline), racing deer and dogs, dancing, playing the tambourines, and pantomime. In addition to production, there were family holidays associated with the birth of a child, expressions of gratitude on the occasion of a successful hunt by a novice hunter, etc. Sacrifices are obligatory during holidays: deer, meat, figurines made of reindeer fat, snow, wood (for reindeer Chukchi), dogs (for sea dogs). Christianization almost did not affect the Chukchi. The main genres of folklore are myths, fairy tales, historical legends, legends and everyday stories. The main character of myths and fairy tales is Raven Kurkyl, a demiurge and a cultural hero (a mythical character who gives people various cultural objects, makes fire like Prometheus from the ancient Greeks, teaches hunting, crafts, introduces various prescriptions and rules of behavior, rituals, is the ancestor of people and creator of the world).

There are also myths about the marriage of man and animal: a whale, a polar bear, a walrus, a seal. Chukchi fairy tales (lymn "yl) are divided into mythological, everyday and animal tales. Historical legends tell about the wars of the Chukchi with the Eskimos, Koryaks, Russians. Mythological and everyday legends are also known. Music is genetically connected with the music of the Koryaks, Eskimos and Yukaghirs. Every 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 parents). farewell to a friend or lover, etc.). Performing lullaby songs, they made a special "cooing" sound, reminiscent of the voice of a crane or an important woman. Shamans had their own "personal melodies". They were performed on behalf of patron spirits - "songs of spirits" and reflected the emotional state of the singer.Tambourine (yarar) - round, with a handle on the side (for coastal) or a cruciform handle on the back (for tundra). kuyu and children's varieties of tambourine. Shamans play the tambourine with a thick soft stick, and singers on holidays - with a thin whalebone stick. Yarar was a family shrine, its sound symbolized the "voice of the hearth." Another traditional musical instrument is the lamellar jew's harp of the yarar bath - a "mouth tambourine" made of birch, bamboo (floating water), bone or metal plate. Later, an arc bilingual jew's 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) - from vein threads or guts (later from metal). The lutes were mainly used for song melodies.

Modern Chukchi

Max Singer describes his journey from the Chaun Bay to Yakutsk in his book 112 Days on Dogs and Deer. Moscow Publishing House, 1950

Those who wish to download the book for free

Chukchi letter

Chukchi writing was invented by the Chukchi reindeer breeder (state farm shepherd) Teneville (Tenville), who lived near the settlement of Ust-Belaya (c. 1890-1943?) around 1930. To this day it is not clear whether Teneville's writing was ideographic or verbal-syllabic. Chukchi writing was discovered in 1930 by a Soviet expedition and described by the famous traveler, writer and polar explorer V.G. Bogoraz-Tan (1865-1936). The Chukchi letter was not widely used. In addition to Teneville himself, this letter was owned by his son, with whom the former exchanged messages while herding deer. Teneville put his signs on boards, bones, walrus tusks and candy wrappers. He used an ink pencil or a metal cutter. The direction of the letter is unsettled. There are no phonetic graphemes, which indicates the extreme primitivism of the system. But at the same time, it is extremely strange that Teneville, through pictograms, conveyed such complex abstract concepts as "bad", "good", "be afraid", "become" ...

This suggests that the Chukchi already had a certain written tradition, similar, perhaps, to the Yukaghir. Chukchi writing is a unique phenomenon and is of particular interest when considering the problems of the origin of written traditions among peoples at the pre-state stages of their development. The Chukchi script is the northernmost of all developed anywhere by the indigenous people with minimal outside influence. The question of the sources and prototypes of Teneville's letter has not been resolved. Taking into account the isolation of Chukotka from the main regional civilizations, this letter can be seen as a local phenomenon, exacerbated by the creative initiative of a lone genius. It is possible that the drawings on shaman tambourines influenced Chukchi writing. The very word "letter" kelikel (kaletkoran - school, lit. "writing house", kelitku-kelikel - notebook, lit. "written paper") in the Chukchi language (Luoravetlan language ӆygʻoravetӆen yiӆyiiӆ) has Tungus-Manchurian parallels. In 1945, the art historian I. Lavrov visited the upper reaches of the Anadyr, where Teneville once lived. It was there that the "Teneville archive" was discovered - a box covered with snow, in which monuments of the Chukchi script were kept. 14 boards with Chukchi pictographic texts are stored in St. Petersburg. Relatively recently, a whole notebook with Teneville's notes was found. Teneville also developed special signs for numbers based on the vigesimal number system characteristic of the Chukchi language. Scientists count about 1000 basic elements of Chukchi writing. The first attempts to translate liturgical texts into the Chukchi language date back to the 20s of the 19th century: according to the investigations of recent years, the first book in the Chukchi language was printed in 1823 in an edition of 10 copies. The first dictionary of the Chukchi language, compiled by the priest M. Petelin, was published in 1898. In the first third of the 20th century. among the Chukchi, experiments were noted on the creation of mnemonic systems similar to logographic writing, the model for which was Russian and English writing, as well as trademarks on Russian and American goods. The most famous among such inventions was the so-called writing of Teneville, who lived in the Anadyr river basin, a similar system was also used by the Chukchi merchant Antymavle in Eastern Chukotka (the Chukchi writer V. Leontiev wrote the book "Antymavle - a trading man"). Officially, Chukchi writing was created in the early 30s on a Latin graphic basis using the Unified Northern Alphabet. In 1937, the Latin-based Chukchi alphabet was replaced by a Cyrillic-based alphabet without additional characters, but the Latin-based alphabet was used in Chukotka for some time. In the 1950s, the characters k’ were introduced into the Chukchi alphabet to denote a uvular consonant, and n’ to denote a back-lingual sonant (in the first versions of the Cyrillic Chukchi alphabet, the uvular sonant did not have a separate designation, and the back-language sonant was denoted by the digraph ng). In the early 60s, the styles of these letters were replaced by қ (ӄ) and ң (ӈ), however, the official alphabet was used only for the centralized publication of educational literature: in local publications in Magadan and Chukotka, the alphabet was used using an apostrophe instead of individual letters. In the late 80s, the letter l (ӆ "l with a tail") was introduced into the alphabet to denote the Chukchi voiceless lateral l, but it is used only in educational literature.

The origin of Chukchi literature falls on the 30s. During this period, original poems appeared in the Chukchi language (M. Vukvol) and self-recordings of folklore in the author's processing (F. Tynetegin). In the 1950s, the literary activity of Yu.S. Rytkheu. At the end of the 50s-60s of the 20th century. the heyday of original poetry in the Chukchi language falls (V. Keulkut, V. Etytegin, M. Valgirgin, A. Kymytval, etc.), which continues in the 70s - 80s. (V. Tyneskin, K. Geutval, S. Tirkygin, V. Iuneut, R. Tnanaut, E. Rultyneut and many others). The Chukchi folklore was collected by V. Yatgyrgyn, also known as a prose writer. At present, the original prose in the Chukchi language is represented by the works of I. Omruvie, V. Veket (Itevtegina), as well as some other authors. A distinctive feature of the development and functioning of the written Chukchi language must be recognized as the formation of an active group of translators of fiction into the Chukchi language, which included writers - Yu.S. Rytkheu, V.V. Leontiev, scientists and teachers - P.I. Inanlikey, I.W. Berezkin, A.G. Kerek, professional translators and editors - M.P. Legkov, L.G. Tynel, T.L. Yermoshina and others, whose activities greatly contributed to the development and improvement of the written Chukchi language. Since 1953, the newspaper “Murgin Nutenut / Our Land” has been published in the Chukchi language. The well-known Chukchi writer Yuri Rytkheu dedicated the novel “A Dream at the Beginning of the Fog”, 1969, to Teneville. Below is the Chukchi Latin alphabet, which existed in 1931-1936.

An example of the Chukchi Latin alphabet: Rðnut gejüttlin oktjabryanak revoljucik varatetь (What did the October Revolution give to the peoples of the North?) Kelikel kalevetgaunwь, janutьlн tejwьn (A book for reading in the Chukchi language, part 1).

The specificity of the Chukchi language is incorporation (the ability to convey whole sentences in one word). For example: myt-ӈyran-vetat-arma-ӄora-venrety-rkyn “we guard four vigorous strong deer”. Also noteworthy is the peculiar transmission of the singular through partial or complete reduplication: league-league egg, nym-nym village, tirky-tir sun, tumgy-tum comrade (but tumgy-comrades). Incorporation in the Chukchi language is associated with the inclusion of additional stems in the word form. This combination is characterized by a common stress and common formative affixes. Inclusive words are usually nouns, verbs, and participles; sometimes adverbs. The stems of nouns, numerals, verbs and adverbs can be included. For example: ga-poig-y-ma (with a spear), ga-taӈ-poig-y-ma (with a good spear); where poig-y-n is a spear and ny-teӈ-ӄin is good (the base is teӈ/taӈ). You-yara-pker-y-rkyn - come home; pykir-y-k - to come (base - pykir) and yara-ӈy - house, (base - yara). Sometimes two, three or even more of these bases are included. The morphological structure of a word in the Chukchi language is often concentric; cases of a combination of up to three circumfixes in one word form are quite common:
ta-ra-ӈy-k build-house (1st circumfix - verbalizer);
ry-ta-ra-ӈ-avy-k to force-build-a house (2nd circumfix - causative);
t-ra-n-ta-ra-ӈ-avy-ӈy-rky-n I-want-to-make-him-build-a-house (3rd circumfix - desiderative).
An ordinal model has not yet been built, but, apparently, in the verbal word form, the root is preceded by 6-7 affixal morphemes, followed by 15-16 formants.

The ethnonym Chukchi is a distorted local word for Chauchu "rich in deer", by which name the Chukchi reindeer herders call themselves, as opposed to the coastal Chukchi dog breeders. The Chukchi themselves call themselves Lygoravetlian "real people." The racial type of the Chukchi, according to Bogoraz, is characterized by some differences. Eyes with an oblique incision are less common than those with a horizontal incision; there are individuals with dense facial hair and with wavy, almost curly hair on the head; face with a bronze tint; body color is devoid of a yellowish tint. There were attempts to correlate this type with the Amerindian: the Chukchi are broad-shouldered, with a stately, somewhat heavy figure; large, regular facial features, forehead high and straight; the nose is large, straight, sharply defined; eyes large, widely spaced; expression is gloomy.

The main mental traits of the Chukchi are extremely easy excitability, reaching a frenzy, a tendency to kill and commit suicide at the slightest pretext, love for independence, perseverance in the fight. The Primorye Chukchi became famous for their sculptures and carvings made of mammoth bone, striking in their fidelity to nature and bold poses and strokes and reminiscent of the wonderful bone images of the Paleolithic period.

The Chukchi encountered the Russians for the first time back in the 17th century. In 1644, the Cossack Stadukhin, who was the first to bring news of them to Yakutsk, founded the Nizhnekolymsky prison. The Chukchi, who at that time roamed both east and west of the Kolyma River, after a stubborn, bloody struggle, finally left the left bank of the Kolyma, pushing the Eskimo tribe of 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 the Russians and the Chukchi did not stop, the territory of which bordered on the Russian-populated along the Kolyma River in the west and Anadyr in the south. In this struggle, the Chukchi showed extraordinary energy. In captivity, they voluntarily killed themselves, and if the Russians had not retreated for a while, they would have completely emigrated to America. In 1770, after the unsuccessful campaign of Shestakov, the Anadyr prison, which served as the center of the struggle between the Russians and the Chukchi, was destroyed and his team was transferred to Nizhne-Kolymsk, after which the Chukchi became less hostile to the Russians and gradually began to enter into trade relations with them. In 1775, the Angarsk fortress was built on the Angarka River, a tributary of the Great Anyui.

Despite the conversion to Orthodoxy, the Chukchi retain the shamanic faith. The painting of the face with the blood of the murdered victim, with the image of the hereditary-tribal sign - the totem, also has ritual significance. Each family, in addition, had its own family shrines: hereditary projectiles for obtaining sacred fire through friction for certain festivities, one for each family member (the lower plank of the projectile represents a figure with the head of the owner of the fire), then bundles of wooden knots of "disasters of misfortunes", wooden images of ancestors and, finally, a family tambourine. The traditional hairstyle of the Chukchi is unusual - 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 of the head. The dead used to be either burned or wrapped in layers of raw reindeer meat and left in the field, after cutting through the throat and chest and pulling out part of the heart and liver.

In Chukotka, there are original and original rock paintings in the tundra zone, on the coastal rocks of the river. Pegtymel. They were researched and published by N. Dikov. Among the rock carvings of the Asian continent, the petroglyphs of Pegtymel represent the northernmost, pronounced independent group. Pegtymel petroglyphs were discovered at three points. In the first two, 104 groups of rock paintings were recorded, in the third - two compositions and a single figure. Not far from the rocks with petroglyphs on the edge of the cliff, the sites of ancient hunters and a cave containing cultural remains were discovered. The walls of the cave were covered with images.
Pegtymel rock carvings are made in various techniques: they are embossed, rubbed or scratched on the surface of the rock. Among the images of the rock art of Pegtymel, the figures of reindeer with narrow muzzles and characteristic outlines of the lines of horns predominate. There are images of dogs, bears, wolves, arctic foxes, elks, bighorn sheep, sea pinnipeds and cetaceans, birds. Anthropomorphic male and female figures are known, often in mushroom-shaped hats, images of hooves or their prints, footprints, two-bladed oars. Plots are peculiar, including humanoid fly agarics, which are mentioned in the mythology of the northern peoples.

The famous bone carving in Chukotka has a centuries-old history. In many ways, this craft preserves the traditions of the Old Bering Sea culture, characteristic animalistic sculpture and household items made of bone and decorated with relief carvings and curvilinear ornaments. In the 1930s fishing is gradually concentrated in Uelen, Naukan and Dezhnev.

Numerals

Literature:

Diringer D., Alfavit, M., 2004; Friedrich I., History of writing, M., 2001; Kondratov A. M., The book about the letter, M., 1975; Bogoraz V. G., Chukchi, part 1-2, 1. , 1934-39.

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Yuri Sergeevich Rytkheu: The end of permafrost [journal. option]

Chukotka plan

Map on a piece of walrus skin made by an unknown resident of Chukotka At the bottom of the map are three ships heading to the mouth of the river; to the left of them - hunting for a bear, and a little higher - an attack by three Chukchi on a stranger. A row of black spots depicts hills stretching along the shore of the bay.

Chukotka plan

Plagues are visible here and there among the islands. Above, a man walks along the ice of the bay and leads five reindeer harnessed to sleds. On the right, on a blunt ledge, a large Chukchi camp is depicted. Between the camp and the black chain of mountains lies a lake. Below, in the bay, the Chukchi hunt for whales is shown.

Kolyma Chukchi

In the harsh North, between the Kolyma and Chukochya rivers, there is a wide plain, the Khalarcha tundra - the birthplace of the western Chukchi. The Chukchi as a large nationality was first mentioned in 1641-1642. From time immemorial, the Chukchi have been a warlike people, people hardened like steel, accustomed to fighting the sea, frost and wind.

They were hunters who attacked a huge polar bear with a spear in their hands, sailors who dared to maneuver in fragile leather boats in the inhospitable expanse of the polar ocean. The original traditional occupation, the main means of subsistence for the Chukchi, was reindeer herding.

At present, representatives of the small peoples of the North live in the village of Kolymskoye, the center of the Khalarchinsky nasleg of the Nizhnekolymsky district. This is the only region in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) where the Chukchi live compactly.

Kolyma along the Stadukhinskaya channel is located 180 km from the village of Chersky, and 160 km along the Kolyma River. The village itself was founded in 1941 on the site of the Yukagir nomadic summer, located on the left bank of the Kolyma River opposite the mouth of the Omolon River. Today, just under 1,000 people live in Kolyma. The population is engaged in hunting, fishing and reindeer herding.

In the 20th century, the entire indigenous population of Kolyma went through sovietization, collectivization, the eradication of illiteracy and resettlement from inhabited areas to large settlements that perform administrative functions - regional centers, central estates of collective farms and state farms.

In 1932, Nikolai Ivanovich Melgeyvach, who headed the Native Committee, became the first chairman of the nomadic council. In 1935, a partnership was organized under the chairmanship of I.K. Vaalyirgin with a livestock of 1850 deer. After 10 years, during the most difficult war years, the number of herds was increased tenfold thanks to the selfless heroic work of reindeer herders. For the collected funds for the Turvaurginets tank for the tank column and warm clothes for front-line soldiers, a telegram of gratitude came to Kolyma from the Supreme Commander-in-Chief I.V. Stalin.

At that time, such reindeer herders as V.P. Sleptsov, V.P. Yaglovskiy, S.R. Atlasov, I.N. Sleptsov, M.P. Sleptsov and many others. The names of representatives of the large reindeer-breeding families of the Kaurgins, Gorulins, and Volkovs are known.

Reindeer herders-collective farmers at that time lived in yarangas, food was cooked on a fire. Men followed the deer, each woman sheathed from head to toe 5 - 6 reindeer herders and 3 - 4 children. Plague workers sewed new beautiful fur clothes for each corral and holiday for all children and shepherds.

In 1940, the collective farm was transferred to a settled way of life, on its basis the village of Kolymskoye grew up, where an elementary school was opened. Since 1949, the children of reindeer herders began to study at a boarding school in the village, while their parents continued to work in the tundra.

Until the 1950s, there were two collective farms Krasnaya Zvezda and Turvaurgin on the territory of the Khalarchinsky nasleg. In the early 1950s, income from deer slaughter raised the standard of living of the population.

The collective farm "Turvaurgin" thundered throughout the republic as a collective farm-millionaire. Life was getting better, equipment began to arrive at the collective farm: tractors, boats, power plants. A large building of a secondary school, a hospital building was built. This period of relative prosperity is associated with the name of Nikolai Ivanovich Tavrat. Today, his name has been given to the national school in the village of Kolymskoye and a street in the regional center of the village of Chersky. In the name of N.I. The tugboat of the Zelenomyssk seaport is also named Tavrata, a student scholarship.

Who was Nikolai Tavrat?

Nikolai Tavrat began his career in 1940 in the Khalarcha tundra, he was a shepherd, then an accountant on a collective farm. In 1947, he was elected chairman of the Turvaurgin collective farm. In 1951, the collective farms merged together, and in 1961 they were transformed into the Nizhnekolymsky state farm. The village of Kolymskoye became the center of the Kolyma branch of the state farm with 10 herds (17 thousand deer). In 1956, in Kolyma, the construction of modern residential buildings began with the efforts of the collective farmers themselves. According to the memoirs of old-timers, three 4-apartment Houses, a kindergarten, and later a canteen of the Kolymtorg trading office and an eight-year school were built very quickly, since the collective farmers worked in three shifts. In the same way, the first two-story 16-apartment house was built.

Nikolai Tavrat knew his native tundra well. Many times he rescued Nizhnekolyma aviators, helping them find reindeer herders' camps in the vast expanses and difficult weather conditions. At one of the Soviet film studios in 1959, a documentary film was shot about the Turvaurgin collective farm and its chairman N.I. Tavrate. In one of the conversations, the chairman said: “My father's house is unusual. It travels thousands of kilometers. And there is, perhaps, no other place on earth where a person would be so closely connected with nature, as in the tundra ... "

From 1965 to 1983 N.I. Tavrat worked as chairman of the Nizhnekolymsk regional executive committee, was a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR of the 5th convocation (1959), a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the I ASSR (1947 - 1975). For his labor activity he was awarded the Orders of the October Revolution and the Order of the Badge of Honor.

Local historian and local historian A.G. Chikachev wrote a book about him, which he called "Son of the Tundra".

In the Kolyma National Secondary School. N.I. Tavrat students study the Chukchi language, culture, customs, traditions of this people. The subject "Reindeer herding" is taught. Students go to reindeer herds for practical training.

Today, Nizhnekolymsk residents deeply honor the memory of their countryman, a prominent representative of the Chukchi people, Nikolai Ivanovich Tavrat.

Since 1992, on the basis of state farms, the nomadic community "Turvaurgin" has been formed, a production cooperative whose main activities are reindeer herding, fishing, and hunting.

Anna Sadovnikova

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

Language, dialects. The language is the Chukchi-Kamchatka family of languages. In the Chukchi language, there are eastern, or Uelen (which formed the basis of the literary language), western (Pevek), Enmylen, Nunlingran and Khatyr dialects.

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

By the first millennium A.D. e., having tamed deer and partially moving to a settled way of life on the sea coast, the Chukchi established contacts with the Eskimos. The transition to settled life most intensively took place in the XIV-XVI centuries after the Yukaghirs penetrated the Kolyma and Anadyr valleys, seizing the seasonal hunting grounds. The Eskimo population of the coasts of the Pacific and Arctic Oceans was partially forced out by continental Chukchi hunters to other coastal regions, partially assimilated. In the XIV-XV centuries, as a result of the penetration of the Yukagirs into the Anadyr valley, the territorial separation of the Chukchi from those associated with the latter by a common origin occurred.

By occupation, the Chukchi were divided into deer (nomadic, but continuing to hunt), sedentary (sedentary, having a small number of tamed deer, hunters of wild deer and marine animals) and foot (sedentary hunters of sea animals and wild deer who do not have deer).

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

Self-name. The name of the people, adopted in the administrative documents of the XIX-XX centuries, comes from the self-name of the tundra Chukchi chauch, chavchavyt- rich in deer. The coastal Chukchi called themselves ank'alyt- "sea people" or ram'aglyt- Coastal dwellers. Distinguishing themselves from other tribes, they use a self-name lyo'ravetlians- "real people". (In the late 1920s, the name "luoravetlana" was used as an official name.)

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

Crafts, craft tools and tools, means of transportation. Since ancient times, there have been two types of farming. The basis of one was reindeer husbandry, the other - marine hunting. Fishing, hunting and gathering were of an auxiliary nature.

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

In the second half of the 19th century, the economy of the vast majority of the Chukchi remained largely subsistence. By the end of the 19th century, the demand for reindeer products increased, especially among the settled 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 husbandry. From the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century, property stratification was noted in the Chukchi reindeer herding: impoverished reindeer herders became farm laborers, the livestock of wealthy owners grew; the wealthy part of the settled Chukchi and Eskimos also acquired deer.

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

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

Since the end of the 19th century, the demand for the skins of marine animals has been rapidly growing 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 deer and coastal Chukchi fished with nets woven from whale and deer tendons or leather belts, as well as nets and bits, in summer - from the shore or from a canoe, in winter - in the hole.

Mountain sheep, elks, polar and brown bears, wolverines, wolves, foxes and arctic foxes until the beginning of the 19th century were hunted with a bow with arrows, a spear and traps; waterfowl - with the help of a throwing weapon ( bola) and darts with a throwing board; the eider was beaten with sticks; traps were placed on hares and partridges.

In the XVIII century, stone axes, spear and arrowheads, bone knives were almost completely replaced by metal ones. Since the second half of the 19th century, guns, traps and pastures have been bought or bartered. By the beginning of the 20th century, firearms, whaling weapons and harpoons with bombs began to be widely used in marine fur hunting.

Women and children collected and prepared edible plants, berries and roots, as well as seeds from mouse holes. To dig out the roots, they used a special tool with a deer antler tip, which was later changed to iron.

The nomadic and settled Chukchi developed handicrafts. Women dressed fur, sewed clothes and shoes, weaved bags from fibers of fireweed and wild rye, made mosaics from fur and sealskin, embroidered with reindeer hair and beads. Men processed and artistically cut bone and walrus tusk. In the 19th century, bone carving associations arose that sold their products.

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

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

The household utensils of the nomadic and settled 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, biscuits, etc. They ate in the canopy, sitting around the table on low legs or directly around the dish. With a washcloth made of thin wood shavings, they wiped their hands after eating, swept away the remnants of food from the dish. The dishes were stored in a drawer.

The main means of transportation along the sleigh path were reindeer harnessed to several types of sleds: for the transport of cargo, dishes, children (kibitka), poles of the yaranga frame. On snow and ice they went on "racket" skis; by sea - on single and multi-seat canoes and whaleboats. They rowed with short single-bladed oars. The reindeer, if necessary, built rafts or went out to sea on canoes of hunters, and they used their riding deer.

The Chukchi borrowed the method of movement on dog sleds drawn by a "fan" from the Eskimos, and the train from the Russians. "Fan" was usually harnessed by 5-6 dogs, train - 8-12. Dogs were also harnessed to reindeer sleds.

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

Yaranga - 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 of 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 laid one on top of the other and fastened with straps sewn to them. The free ends of the belts in the lower part were tied to sleds or heavy stones, which ensured the immobility of the covering. They entered the yaranga between the two halves of the cover, throwing them to the sides. For winter they sewed coverings from new skins, for summer they used last year's ones.

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

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

The shape of the canopy was maintained thanks to poles passed through many loops sewn to the skins. The ends of the poles rested on racks with forks, and the rear pole was attached to the frame of the yaranga. The average size of the canopy is 1.5 meters high, 2.5 meters wide and about 4 meters long. The floor was covered with mats, on top of them - with thick skins. The bed headboard - two oblong bags stuffed 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 fur inside. They covered themselves with a blanket sewn from several deer skins. It took 12–15 to make a canopy, and about 10 large deer skins for beds.

Each canopy belonged to one family. Sometimes there were two canopies in the yaranga. Every morning the women took off the canopy, laid it out on the snow and beat it out with mallets from a deer antler.

From the inside, the canopy was illuminated and heated with a grease gun. To illuminate their dwellings, the coastal Chukchi used whale and seal fat, while the tundra Chukchi used fat melted from crushed deer bones that burned odorless and soot in stone oil lamps.

Behind the canopy, at the back wall of the tent, things were kept; at the side, on both sides of the hearth, - 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 semi-dugout. The yarangas retained the structural basis of the deer dwelling, but the frame was built both from wood and whale bones. This made the dwelling resistant to the onslaught of storm winds. They covered the yaranga with walrus skins; It didn't have a smoke hole. The canopy was made from a 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 stocks of skins were stored in large bags of seal skins, and inside, belts were stretched along the walls, on which clothes and shoes were dried. At the end of the 19th century, the Primorsky Chukchi covered the yarangas with canvas and other durable materials in the summer.

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

Clothing. 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 sewn from two layers of reindeer skins with fur inside and out. Coastal also used strong, elastic, almost waterproof seal skin for sewing pants and spring-summer shoes; cloaks and kamlikas were made from the intestines of the walrus. From the old smoky coatings of the yaranga, which do not deform under the influence of moisture, the reindeer sewed pants and shoes.

The constant mutual exchange of products of the economy allowed the tundra to receive shoes, leather soles, belts, lassoes made from the skins of marine mammals, and the coastal - deer skins for winter clothing. In the summer, worn out winter clothes were worn.

Chukchi blind clothing is divided into everyday household and festive ritual: children's, youth, men's, women's, old people's, ritual and funeral.

The traditional set of the Chukchi men's costume consists of a kukhlyanka girded with a belt with a knife and a pouch, a chintz kamlika worn over a kukhlyanka, a raincoat made of walrus guts, trousers and various headgear: an ordinary Chukchi winter hat, malakhai, a hood, a light summer hat.

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

Typical shoes are short, knee-length, torbasas of several types, sewn from seal skins with wool on the outside with a piston sole made of bearded seal skin, made of kamus with fur stockings and grass insoles (winter torbasas); from sealskin or from old, smoky coverings of yarangas (summer torbasas).

Food, its preparation. The traditional food of the tundra people is venison, the coastal people eat the meat and fat of marine animals. Reindeer meat was eaten frozen (finely chopped) or slightly boiled. During the mass slaughter of deer, the contents of deer stomachs were prepared by boiling it with blood and fat. They also used fresh and frozen deer blood. Soups were prepared with vegetables and cereals.

The Primorsky Chukchi considered walrus meat to be especially satisfying. Harvested in the traditional way, it is well preserved. From the dorsal and lateral parts of the carcass, squares of meat are cut out along with lard and skin. The liver and other cleaned entrails are placed in the tenderloin. The edges are sewn with the skin outward - a roll is obtained ( k'opalgyn-kymgyt). Closer to the cold, 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. Beluga and gray whale meat, as well as their skin with a layer of fat, are eaten raw and boiled.

In the northern and southern regions of Chukotka, grayling, navaga, sockeye salmon, and flounder occupy a large place in the diet. Yukola is harvested from large salmon. Many Chukchi reindeer herders dry, salt, smoke fish, salt caviar.

The meat of sea animals is very fatty, so it requires herbal supplements. The reindeer and coastal Chukchi traditionally ate a lot of wild herbs, roots, berries, and seaweed. Dwarf willow leaves, sorrel, edible roots were frozen, fermented, mixed with fat, blood. From the roots, crushed with meat and walrus fat, they made koloboks. From ancient times, porridge was cooked from imported flour, and cakes were fried on seal fat.

Social life, power, marriage, family. By the 17th-18th centuries, the main socio-economic unit was the patriarchal family community, which consisted of several families with a single household and a common dwelling. The community included up to 10 or more adult men connected by kinship.

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

Among the tundra, the patriarchal community 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 intracommunal ties.

The settled Chukchi lived in settlements. Several related communities settled on common plots, each of which was located in a separate semi-dugout. The nomadic Chukchi lived in the nomad camp, which also consisted of several patriarchal communities. Each community included two to four families and occupied a separate yaranga. 15-20 camps formed a circle of mutual assistance. The deer also had patrilineal kinship groups connected by blood feuds, the transfer of ritual fire, sacrificial rites, and the initial form of patriarchal slavery, which disappeared along with the cessation of wars against neighboring peoples.

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

Religion. Religious beliefs and cult are based on animism, a trade cult.

The structure of the world among the Chukchi included three spheres: the earthly firmament with everything that exists on it; heaven, where ancestors live who died a worthy death during the 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 of illness went.

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

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

The fight against diseases, protracted failures in fishing and reindeer husbandry was the lot of shamans. In Chukotka, they were not singled out as a professional caste; they participated equally in the fishing activities of the family and community. What distinguished the shaman from other members of the community was the 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 business cycles. For deer - with the autumn and winter slaughter of deer, calving, herd migration to summer pastures and return. The holidays of the Primorsky Chukchi are close to those of the Eskimos: in the spring - the canoe festival on the occasion of the first going to sea; in summer - a feast of heads on the occasion of the end of seal hunting; in autumn - the holiday of the owner of marine animals. All holidays were accompanied by competitions in running, wrestling, shooting, bouncing on the skin of a walrus (the prototype of a trampoline), in racing deer and dogs; dancing, playing the tambourine, pantomime.

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

Sacrifices are obligatory during holidays: deer, meat, figurines made of reindeer fat, snow, wood (for deer Chukchi), dogs (for sea dogs).

Christianization almost did not affect the Chukchi.

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

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

Historical legends tell about the wars of the Chukchi with the Eskimos, Russians. There are also mythological and everyday legends.

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 parents). There were also new melodies associated with events in life (recovery, farewell to a friend or lover, etc.). When performing lullabies, they made a special "buzzing" sound, reminiscent of the voice of a crane or an important woman.

The shamans had their own "personal tunes". They were performed on behalf of the patron spirits - "songs of the spirits" and reflected the emotional state of the singer.

Tambourine ( Yarar) - round, with a handle on the shell (for coastal) or with a cruciform handle on the back (for tundra). There are male, female and children's varieties of tambourine. Shamans play the tambourine with a thick soft stick, and singers on holidays - with a thin whalebone stick. The tambourine was a family shrine, its sound symbolized the "voice of the hearth."

Another traditional musical instrument is the lamellar jew's harp ( Vaniyarar) - a "mouth tambourine" made of birch, bamboo (floater), bone or metal plate. Later, an arc bilingual jew's 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) - from vein threads or guts (later from metal). The lutes were mainly used for song melodies.

contemporary 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 nutenut" to the district newspaper "Krainiy Sever" is printed in Chukchi, the State Television and Radio Company prepares programs, holds the festival "Hey no" (throat singing, sayings, etc.), the Ener television association makes films in the Chukchi language.

The Chukotka intelligentsia, the Association of Indigenous Peoples of Chukotka, the ethno-cultural public association "Chychetkin vetgav" ("Native Word"), the Union of Chukotka mushers, the Union of Sea St. John's hunters, etc. are engaged in the revival of traditional culture.

general information

The Chukchi are the indigenous people of the Russian Federation, one of the small peoples of the North, Siberia and the Far East. Self-name - lygoravetl'an ("real people"). Self-names are widespread according to the place of residence or nomadism: uvelelit - “Uelentsy”, chaalyt - “wandering along the Chaun River”, etc. According to the way of life, the Chukchi are divided into two large groups: tundra nomadic reindeer herders (self-name - chauchu, “deer man”) and seaside - sedentary hunters for sea animals (self-name - ankalyn, "coastal"). Among the Western Chukchi, the self-name Chugchit (probably from chauchu) is common. The Russian name "Chukchi" also comes from chauchu.

They speak the Chukchi language, which has several very close dialects, which are quite well preserved today. The writing was created in 1931 on a Latin graphic basis, later replaced by the Russian alphabet.

According to modern research, the ancestors of the Chukchi lived in the interior of Chukotka at least 6 thousand years ago. At the beginning of the first millennium A.D. e. due to the appearance of an excess population in the Chukchi tundra and changes in climatic and natural conditions, some Chukchi tribes moved to the sea coast, into the area inhabited by the Eskimos, partially assimilating them, partially assuming many features of their culture. As a result of the interaction of land and sea hunting cultures, an economic division of labor took place. The Yukagirs also took part in the ethnogenesis of the Chukchi.

Territory of settlement and population

In the Russian Federation in 2002, there were 15,767 Chukchi, of which 12,622 people (about 70%) live in the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug.

At the beginning of the 17th century, the Chukchi lived mainly in the territory of the Chukotka, Providensky and Iultinsky regions. The intensive development of reindeer breeding in the 18th century, the need for new pasture lands caused the Chukchi to move to the west and south. By the beginning of the 20th century, they occupied the entire modern territory of the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, part of the Chukchi ended up in Kamchatka, another small group - beyond the Kolyma in Yakutia. Here they live at the present time: in Kamchatka - in the Olyutorsky district (village Achai-Vayam, etc.) of the Koryak Autonomous Okrug (1530 people), in Yakutia - in the Nizhne-Kolymsky district (1300).

The distribution of the Chukchi over the districts of the district in recent decades indicates their weak migration. Changes in the number are mainly due to natural growth and changes in the boundaries of the regions (Shmidtovsky, Anadyrsky). Chukchi live in all settlements of the district together with Russians, Eskimos, Evens, Chuvans and other peoples. There are no purely Chukchi settlements, but in most villages the Chukchi prevail.

Lifestyle and provision system

The main traditional occupation of the tundra (reindeer) Chukchi is nomadic reindeer herding. Reindeer herders spent most of the year on the move. Each group of Chukchi had permanent roaming routes, their own grazing territory. In the forest zone, migrations were made every 5-6 days, in the tundra - 3-4 times during the winter. Semi-free reindeer grazing was practiced everywhere. In summer, the herds were on the coast of the ocean, where there were fewer mosquitoes and gadflies. About a quarter of the reindeer Chukchi spent their summers in the continental part of Chukotka on the northern slopes of the mountains, where snow remained. With the onset of autumn, all reindeer herders moved inland to the border of the forest. The Chukchi did not know the shepherd dog, and the shepherds were with the herd around the clock. Reindeer breeding provided everything necessary for life: food, clothing, housing, means of transportation.

The basis of the economic activity of the coastal Chukchi was the marine fur trade, the products of which (meat, fat for food and heating, clothing) also provided all the necessities of life, and also served as an exchange item with reindeer herders. Some of the reindeer Chukchi also engaged in sea fur hunting during the stay of the herds on the coast. Fish were caught in case of extreme need in their free time from grazing. Fishing was somewhat more important in the basins of large rivers - Anadyr, Chaun, Kolyma. The development of trade relations stimulated the development of the fur trade, which had also not been of great importance before. In Soviet times, reindeer husbandry in Chukotka developed successfully. Improvement in the breed of animals, a more rational structure of the herd, success in the fight against necrobacteriosis (hoof) and other diseases, anti-water treatment of animals contributed to a significant increase in the number of livestock and productivity of the industry as a whole. By the beginning of the 90s. Chukotka had one of the largest herds of domestic deer in the world - about 500 thousand. Reindeer breeding was the basis of the economy of state farms, covering the losses of other industries, was the main area of ​​application of labor for a significant part of the Chukchi, and ensured their economic prosperity.

In the conditions of market reforms, intensive destruction of the industry is observed. The number of deer in the district has decreased by more than half. The reform of state farms, the transition to new forms of organization of the industry on the basis of private and collective-shared ownership, not supported by material and technical resources, led to the curtailment of production. Virtually all livestock breeding farms, a number of fur farms where Chukchan women worked, have been liquidated.

Ethno-social setting

The ethno-social situation in many regions of Chukotka is extremely complex. Its main components are mass unemployment of the indigenous population, problems with the provision of villages with fuel, food, electricity, an increase in morbidity and mortality among the natives. According to these and a number of other parameters, Chukotka, due to the peculiarities of its geographical location and climatic conditions, is in the most distressed position among other regions of the North. The incidence of tuberculosis among the Chukchi and other indigenous peoples of the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug is 10 times higher than the corresponding figures for the non-indigenous population. In 1996, there were 737.1 patients with active tuberculosis among the indigenous population per 100,000, including 233 children. communities. In September 1996, a decree of the Government of the Russian Federation "On urgent measures to stabilize the socio-economic situation in the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug" was adopted. In recent years, with the advent of a new governor, the situation has changed for the better, but much remains to be done to overcome the crisis.

Ethno-cultural situation

According to the 2002 census, the Chukchi language was considered native by 27.6% of the Chukchi. The Chukchi language is taught in many settlements. Since 1992, it has been studied as part of the secondary school curriculum. Educational, artistic and socio-political literature is systematically published in the Chukchi language, and the regional radio and television programs are broadcast. Since 1953, the Sovetken Chukotka newspaper has been published (currently, Murgin Nuteneut, supplement to the Krayniy Sever regional newspaper). Teachers of the Chukchi language are trained by the Anadyr Pedagogical College, Russian State Pedagogical University. Herzen in St. Petersburg, Magadan Pedagogical Institute. Part of the Chukchi youth speaks their native language, which is certainly a positive and stabilizing factor. The main elements of traditional material and spiritual culture are preserved: vehicles, housing (in the tundra with reindeer herders), holidays, rituals and customs, and religious beliefs.

The work of the artists of the professional Chukchi-Eskimo choreographic ensemble "Ergyron", the Chukchi poetess A. Kymytval is widely known in the country and abroad. The traditional art of engraving and bone carving has been preserved and is developing. In Anadyr, the Chukotka branch of the North-Eastern Complex Institute of the Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences was established, which includes about 10 research workers from among the Chukchi and other peoples of the North. Various aspects of the traditional culture of the Chukchi, their language, folk methods of treatment, the problems of transforming economic relations and forms of ownership, and other problems relevant to the district are studied. However, the difficult socio-economic situation in the district as a whole does not allow the full development of all traditional forms of culture and art. People, especially in remote villages and in the tundra, are busy surviving in these difficult conditions. Today it is important to at least carefully preserve the surviving centers of culture.

Bodies of management and self-government

The Chukchi are one of the few indigenous peoples of the North of the Russian Federation who formally have their own autonomous formation. The Chukotka Autonomous Okrug is currently a subject of the Russian Federation. The creation of the district played an important role in the development of the economy and culture of the local indigenous population. However, with the development of the mining industry in Chukotka, the growth in the number of newcomers, the district increasingly lost the features of a national-state formation, turning into an ordinary administrative-territorial unit. The only reminder of its former purpose was the position of the Chairman of the district executive committee, which, according to the established tradition, was occupied by a representative of the Chukchi people. In other state authorities, the Chukchi were represented purely symbolically. Suffice it to say that in the late 80's. only 96 Chukchi worked in the sphere of state and economic management, most of them in insignificant positions. Unfortunately, this trend continues today. The functions of a self-governing body are performed by the Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North of the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, established in 1989. Its territorial branches operate in each district of the Okrug.

Legal documents and laws

The legislative base of the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug in relation to small peoples is represented by a number of documents. The Charter of the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug (adopted by the Duma in 1997) contains articles that define the policy of state authorities to protect and ensure the rights of indigenous peoples, the development of education, culture, environmental protection, the organization of local self-government and other important for the indigenous population questions. A Temporary Regulation "On the procedure for transferring land plots for reindeer farming" has been developed. A temporary regulation “On the procedure for coordinating the allotment of land plots for the use of the subsoil of the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug” was approved, which takes into account the interests of indigenous peoples. Laws “On preferential taxation of enterprises participating in the development of the social infrastructure of national villages”, “On the referendum of the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug”, “On the procedure and principles for granting tax benefits” were adopted. A number of provisions vital for the Chukchi and other indigenous peoples of the Okrug were reflected in the Decrees of the executive branch: “On measures to implement the program for the development of national villages (1996), “On measures to streamline the production and sale of biologically active reindeer raw materials” (1996), “ On the Chukotka District Scientific and Consultative Council for Whaling” (1997), etc.

Contemporary environmental issues

The state of the natural environment in the district began to cause serious concern already in the late 80s. By that time, as a result of industrial development and mismanagement of land, the area of ​​reindeer pastures had decreased by 5 million hectares compared to 1970. The widespread deterioration of the pasture area, a decrease in the supply of fodder is observed at the present time. Eight specially protected territories have been created here with an area of ​​3 million hectares (4% of the entire territory of the district). Attempts are being made to implement international projects on the territory of the district (Beringia Park, ECORA project).

Prospects for the preservation of the Chukchi as an ethnic group

The Chukchi are one of the few northern peoples of Russia who are not yet threatened with disappearance from the national map of Russia in the promising future. The degree of preservation of the traditional culture of the Chukchi, the level of their ethnic identity, ethnic solidarity allows us to make positive forecasts and look into the future. However, if in the near future the state and regional authorities do not provide significant support to the indigenous ethnic group of Chukotka and do not raise the socio-economic status of the district, then the Chukchi, as the most vulnerable part of the population, will be thrown far back in their development and survival. It should also be emphasized that the organizations of the Chukchi and their leaders themselves should play a huge role in preserving and consolidating the people.

We are all accustomed to consider the representatives of this people as naive and peaceful inhabitants of the Far North. Say, throughout their history, the Chukchi grazed herds of deer in permafrost, hunted walruses, and as an entertainment they beat tambourines in unison. The anecdotal image of a simpleton who says the word “however” all the time is so far from reality that it is really shocking. Meanwhile, there are many unexpected turns in the history of the Chukchi, and their way of life and customs still cause controversy among ethnographers. How are the representatives of this people so different from other inhabitants of the tundra?

Call themselves real people

The Chukchi are the only people whose mythology frankly justifies nationalism. The fact is that their ethnonym came from the word “chauchu”, which in the language of the natives of the north means the owner of a large number of deer (rich man). This word was heard from them by the Russian colonialists. But this is not the self-name of the people.

"Luoravetlans" - this is how the Chukchi call themselves, which translates as "real people." They always treated neighboring peoples with arrogance, and considered themselves special chosen ones of the gods. Evenks, Yakuts, Koryaks, Eskimos in their myths were called by the Luoravetlans those whom the gods created for slave labor.

According to the 2010 All-Russian Population Census, the total number of Chukchi is only 15,908 people. And although this people was never numerous, skillful and formidable warriors under difficult conditions managed to conquer vast territories from the Indigirka River in the west to the Bering Sea in the east. Their land area is comparable to the territory of Kazakhstan.

Paint their faces with blood

The Chukchi are divided into two groups. Some are engaged in reindeer herding (nomadic pastoralists), others hunt sea animals, for the most part they hunt walruses, since they live on the shores of the Arctic Ocean. But these are the main activities. Reindeer herders are also engaged in fishing, they hunt Arctic foxes and other fur-bearing animals of the tundra.

After a successful hunt, the Chukchi paint their faces with the blood of a killed animal, while depicting the sign of their ancestral totem. Then these people make a ritual sacrifice to the spirits.

Fought with the Eskimos

The Chukchi have always been skilled warriors. Imagine how much courage it takes to go out into the ocean on a boat and attack walruses? However, not only animals became victims of representatives of this people. They often made plundering campaigns against the Eskimos, crossing the Bering Strait to neighboring North America in their boats made of timber and walrus skins.

From military campaigns, skilled warriors brought not only loot, but also slaves, giving preference to young women.

It is interesting that in 1947 the Chukchi once again decided to go to war against the Eskimos, then only miraculously managed to avoid an international conflict between the USSR and the USA, because the representatives of both peoples were officially citizens of the two superpowers.

They robbed the Koryaks

The Chukchi in their history managed to pretty much annoy not only the Eskimos. So, they often attacked the Koryaks, taking away their deer. It is known that from 1725 to 1773 the invaders appropriated about 240 thousand (!) Heads of foreign cattle. Actually, the Chukchi took up reindeer herding after they robbed their neighbors, many of whom had to hunt for their livelihood.

Creeping up to the Koryak settlement at night, the invaders pierced their yarangas with spears, trying to immediately kill all the owners of the herd until they woke up.

Tattoos in honor of the killed enemies

The Chukchi covered their bodies with tattoos dedicated to the killed enemies. After the victory, the warrior inflicted as many points on the back of the wrist of his right hand as he sent opponents to the other world. On account of some experienced fighters, there were so many defeated enemies that the points merged into a line running from the wrist to the elbow.

They preferred death to captivity

Chukchi women always carried knives with them. They needed sharp blades not only in everyday life, but also in case of suicide. Since captive people automatically became slaves, the Chukchi preferred death to such a life. Having learned about the victory of the enemy (for example, the Koryaks who came to take revenge), the mothers first killed their children, and then themselves. As a rule, they threw themselves at the chest on knives or spears.

The defeated warriors lying on the battlefield begged their opponents for death. Moreover, they did it in an indifferent tone. The only wish was - not to linger.

Won the war with Russia

The Chukchi are the only people of the Far North who fought with the Russian Empire and won. The first colonizers of those places were the Cossacks, led by Ataman Semyon Dezhnev. In 1652 they built the Anadyr prison. Behind them, other adventurers went to the lands of the Arctic. The militant northerners did not want to peacefully coexist with the Russians, and even more so - to pay taxes to the imperial treasury.

The war began in 1727 and lasted for over 30 years. Heavy fighting in difficult conditions, partisan sabotage, cunning ambushes, as well as mass suicides of Chukchi women and children - all this made the Russian troops falter. In 1763, the army units of the empire were forced to leave the Anadyr prison.

Soon ships of the British and French appeared off the coast of Chukotka. There was a real danger that these lands would be seized by long-standing opponents, having managed to negotiate with the local population without a fight. Empress Catherine II decided to act more diplomatically. She provided the Chukchi with tax breaks, and literally showered their rulers with gold. The Russian inhabitants of the Kolyma Territory were ordered "... so that they do not irritate the Chukchee in any way, under fear, otherwise, of liability in a military court."

Such a peaceful approach turned out to be much more effective than a military operation. In 1778, the Chukchi, appeased by the authorities of the empire, accepted Russian citizenship.

Poisoned arrows

The Chukchi were excellent with their bows. They lubricated arrowheads with poison, even a slight wound doomed the victim to a slow, painful and inevitable death.

Tambourines were covered with human skin

The Chukchi fought to the sound of tambourines, covered not with deer (as is customary), but with human skin. Such music terrified enemies. Russian soldiers and officers who fought with the natives of the north spoke about this. The colonialists explained their defeat in the war by the special cruelty of the representatives of this people.

Warriors could fly

Chukchi during hand-to-hand fights flew over the battlefield, landing behind enemy lines. How did they make jumps of 20-40 meters and then be able to fight? Scientists still do not know the answer to this question. Probably, skilled warriors used special devices like trampolines. This technique often allowed to win, because the opponents did not understand how to resist it.

Owned slaves

The Chukchi owned slaves until the 40s of the twentieth century. Women and men from poor families were often sold for debt. They did dirty and hard work, like the captured Eskimos, Koryaks, Evenks, Yakuts.

Swapped wives

The Chukchi entered into so-called group marriages. They included several ordinary monogamous families. Men could exchange wives. This form of social relations was an additional guarantee of survival in the harsh conditions of permafrost. If one of the participants in such an alliance died on a hunt, then there was someone to take care of his widow and children.

People of comedians

The Chukchi could live, find shelter and food if they had the ability to make people laugh. Folk comedians moved from camp to camp, amusing everyone with their jokes. They were respected and highly valued for their talent.

Invented diapers

The Chukchi were the first to invent the prototype of modern diapers. They used a layer of moss with reindeer hair as an absorbent material. The newborn was dressed in a kind of overalls, changing a makeshift diaper several times a day. Life in the harsh north forced people to be inventive.

Changed gender at the behest of the spirits

Chukchi shamans could change gender at the direction of the spirits. The man began to wear women's clothes and behave accordingly, sometimes he literally got married. But the shaman, on the contrary, adopted the behavior of the stronger sex. Such a reincarnation, according to the beliefs of the Chukchi, spirits sometimes demanded from their servants.

Old people died voluntarily

Chukchi old people, not wanting to be a burden on their children, often agreed to voluntary death. The well-known writer and ethnographer Vladimir Bogoraz (1865-1936), in his book “Chukchi”, noted that the reason for the emergence of such a custom was not at all a bad attitude towards the elderly, but difficult living conditions and lack of food.

Often, seriously ill Chukchi chose voluntary death. As a rule, such people were killed by strangulation by their next of kin.