The Yukaghir People


Yukaghirs are considered to be indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Siberia. Their original
territorial spread is from river Lena to the west to river Anadyr to the east, and from the
northern coast down to Verkhnoyansk mountains.

However, they were defeated by Tungus people, immigrating here in the 12th and 13th century. Their
numbers were even gratly reduced in the times of tsarist colonisation and tribal warfare in 17th to
19th century. Today, their numbers are slightly increasing.

Yukaghir have no self-designation name. Two surviving tribes are named Vadul and Odul. Both names
mean „Mighty“ in respective languages of Tundra and Taiga Yukaghirs. There are some indications,
that another tribe, called Dotka or Duguč may have survived in numbers around 40.

Because of intense russification, only around 40%  of Yukaghir people actually speak their native
languages; most of them speak either Russian or Tungus as their primary language.

Though Yukaghir languages have common ancestry, they were deeply changed in the time of conflicts
with Tungus tribes (namely Evens and Evenks).

Yukaghirs were not a stagning society, they were able to create pre-alphabetical means of
communication called Tos. Today, they use improved cyrilics introduced by Gavril Kurilov.

Yukaghirs were technologically on the level of epipalaeolithic or mesolithic hunter-gatherers until
1920s, when the use of gunpowder became economically advantageous over producing silex arrowheads.

In the Soviet era, they were very successful in edjusting to the new society rule of „earning for
living“. They work usually as cattle breeders, farmers or skin/flesh hunters. Hunting Yukaghirs
were and presumably still are masters of efficient hunting.

The most known part of their culture is perhaps their shamans, called almu, who was a healer and
a spiritual leader. Almu are used as an ethnoarchaeologicaal paralell to the body of a shaman from
the Brno II grave.

Yukaghir spiritual beliefs are animistic, meaning they believe that everything around them has
a soul, and thus they worship, or perhaps communicate with elements, trees, sun etc. They keep
deceased shaman body, because they believe that the dead shaman will become their spiritual
guardian. They also believe in multiple worlds: The  Upper world, The Middle World (the Earth) and
the Bottom World, which was the world of the dead.

In their folklore culture, they tend to be very firmly bound to ther natural surrounndings and try
not to harm it. Their society is matrilinear and matrilocal, but perhaps there is evidence for
exceptions. The music is important, but not as mucha s singing and oral tradition, which is very
rich. Their basic dance is a kind of a ringdance, called Longdol.

Yukaghirs do not need much o dress up: they usually have two dresses, a winter and a summer dress.
The summer dress is deprived of animal hair. ALso their boots and caps are made of fur. They
usually decorate clothes only on rims.

Yukaghir favourite food is meat. They either dry, smoke or ferment it to conserve it. Two
specialties are called Kulibaha and Anil kerile.


By Martin Malata