In the northeastern part of Yakutia there is a small village of Nelemnoye, Verkhnekolymsky district. What is interesting about this village? Nelemnoye is a place of compact residence of the Yukaghirs; they are considered aborigines, that is, the indigenous inhabitants of Yakutia. The ancestors of the present-day Yukaghirs settled in this harsh region long before the ancestors of the Evens, Evenks and Yakuts appeared here. They lived along the banks of numerous rivers, lakes, in the taiga, in the mountains, in the tundra and along the coast of the Arctic Ocean.

What do they write about Nelemny? This is how the Yukaghir writer, founder of Yukaghir literature N.I. describes Nelemnoye. Spiridonov - Teki Odulok in his biographical sketch “In the Far North”:

“But here is the Yukaghir village of Nelemnoye. It is located 40 kilometers from the Yakut village of Ottur-Kel, on a cape between the Yasachnaya River and Rassokha, which flows into it. On the high bank there are several log huts, with flat roofs, overgrown, just like in Nizhnekolymsk, with grass and moss. The population is about one hundred souls. Each hut sheltered two or three families.”

We first find the first written mention of Nelemny in G.A. Sarychev, who in his notes notes the fact of a visit in November 1786 by Captain Joseph Billings and Dr. Karl Merk to the small Yukaghir village of Nungadan-angil at the mouth of the Rassokha River. The purpose of the visit, in addition to harvesting wood for the construction of their ships "Pall As" and "Yasashna", was to collect data on the life of the aborigines, assigned to this expedition by the Academy of Sciences on behalf of Catherine II. Nungadan-angil is translated from Yukaghir as “the mouth of Nelemnaya”, naming the river that flows into this area after the village.

The village got its name because of the salmon that came up the river to spawn. After the rise of the fish, the mouth of Rassokha was blocked by a stop, thus up to several tons of fish were caught.

The modern village of Nelemnoye also stands on the banks of the Yasachnaya River. Our school is national and bears the name of the first Yukaghir writer, scientist, our fellow countryman N.I. Spiridonova - Teki Odulok. Our school teaches the Yukaghir language, the national Yukaghir culture, the subject of hunting and hunting is taught for boys, and the Yukaghir craftswoman is taught for girls, and our school also teaches the subject of literature of the indigenous peoples of the North. Thus, we are reviving and preserving the Yukaghir language and culture.

In ancient times, the Yukaghirs settled much more widely. Most scientists believe that 2 - 2.5 thousand years ago the Yukaghirs lived from the Yenisei to Chukotka and were carriers of the Ymyyakhtakh archaeological culture. Moreover, some suggest that at the same time they inhabited the territory of Alaska (the Norton and Ipiutak cultures), but later mysteriously disappeared from there.

By the time the Russians arrived, the Yukaghirs lived on a vast territory from the Lena to the Sea of ​​Okhotsk and Anadyr. By the beginning of Russian colonization, the Yukaghir tribal groups occupied the territory from the Lena River to the mouth of the Anadyr. They fell into 12 clan groups. Thus, in the valleys of the Lena and Yana lived the Yandagirs, Omoloyevites, and Khromovians; in the Indigirka basin - Olyubentsy, Yagintsy, Omoktsy, Kogimtsy, Lavrentsy; in the Anadyr basin - Chuvans, Anauls, Khodyntsy.

We find the first reliable information about the Upper Kolyma Yukaghirs in the letters of Cossack explorers in 1643, and in a message in 1652 the name of the noble Yukaghir Chainda is mentioned. Perhaps the Yukaghir clan was called Yasachnaya by his name in the yasak letters of 1703, where the Chain clan is mentioned.

Later, the non-Lemna Yukaghirs in reports would be called the Ushkan clan, which is associated with the name of Semyon Tabushkan, the head of the Yukaghirs at the end of the 17th century. Interestingly, the name Semyon indicates that he was baptized. After his death, the rest of his relatives were also baptized, tempted by the “shiny shining” cross and the “thick straw” candle. However, the more common belief is that the generic name is associated with the hare. This is confirmed by the Yukaghir name of the genus - Cholgorad-omok.

It is possible that the hare was a totem animal. The hare is often found in the folklore of the Upper Kolyma Yukaghirs. He is often presented as an intelligent and agile animal who tricks everyone with his cunning.

The large number of Yukaghirs in those days is evidenced by Yakut legends, which called the northern lights “dyukabil watta” - transformed “Yukaghir lights”, considering it the reflection of the fires of many Yukaghir camps. Some birds, according to the Yakuts, became black because they flew over the Yukaghir hearths and became smoked. Modern researchers agree that there were 5-6 thousand Yukaghirs in the mid-17th century.

The word "Yukaghir" is believed to be Tungusic. The root of the word “yuka” means “far” in Yukaghir. The Yukaghirs themselves call themselves “odul”, which means “strong”, “strong”, since their ancestors were considered the best warriors throughout North-Eastern Siberia.

This is how Teki Odulok describes the Yukaghirs in the essay “In the Far North”

“The Yukaghirs are light, slightly dark-skinned, slender, agile, always smiling, cheerful, carefree people, wearing light fur shirts that fit tightly on their shoulders, tightly belted with elk belts. Women and girls are dressed in fur caftans. In front they go down below the knees with copper rings and silver plaques. The women walk with a light gait, characteristic only of forest dwellers, and all their jewelry tinkles, as if a spring brook is babbling.”

“The doctor Mitskevich, who worked in Kolyma in the last century, described the Yukagirs as follows: “The Yukagirs are slender, light people of short stature, with oblong faces, light brown eyes, with black, straight, shoulder-length hair, with almost no facial hair.”

The economic way of life of the Yukaghirs was hunting wild deer. In winter they chased them on sledges, and in the fall they hunted with the help of decoys. We hunted deer with specially trained dogs. Finding a herd of wild deer, the hunters drove them into the lake with the help of dogs. When the herd tried to cross it, several more dogs were released from the opposite shore of the lake, which prevented the deer from getting out onto land. And the hunters on the boats began stabbing the animals with spears. In addition, hunting for migrating wild deer at river crossings was of main importance.

The ancient means of transportation along the river among the Yukaghirs was a triangular raft. They also used shuttles and dugouts made from poplar trunks. In winter we went hunting on rocket skis. The Upper Kolyma skis are of the Tungus type. The size of these skis allowed them to be used as a drag.

To catch fish, they used traps, wicker traps - snouts, seines, nets made of woven wool, and also fishing rods. Ice fishing was unknown. We caught mainly nelma, omul, and muksun. Yukola was made from fish from the summer catch. In winter they ate frozen fish in the form of stroganina. The meat was preserved by drying on hangers and freezing. Berries and various roots served as additional seasonal nutrition.

Bird hunting played a significant role. The tundra people practiced autumn hunting along the shores of lakes for geese and ducks during molting. The participants in the hunt were divided into two groups. One group surrounded the lake with fishing nets, while the other, sitting in boats, drove flightless birds into the nets.

“The lifestyle of the Upper Kolyma Yukaghirs, who combined nomadism and sedentary life, can be considered semi-sedentary. They moved around the taiga in search of food; in summer - on boats and rafts, in winter - on skis. On the sled, which was pulled by a man with a dog harnessed to help him, occasionally only a sick person or a mother with a baby in her arms rode.”

For a long time, the only domestic animals were dogs that were ridden. Approximately, starting from the 16th century, reindeer herding spread among the tundra part of the Yukaghirs.

The weapons of the Yukaghirs were bows and arrows, spears, and stone axes. There were few iron things. Metal processing among the Yukaghirs was of a more primitive nature. They borrowed iron forging from the Yakuts in the 17th century, and casting metal jewelry from the Evens. A silver or bronze disk attached to clothing on the chest, the so-called, was considered a valuable and revered item, passed down from generation to generation. "chest sun" The clothing of the ancient Yukaghir warrior consisted of a combat helmet and a shell made of horn plates, fastened with sinew elk threads.

Around the 17th century, the Yukaghirs began to wear Tungus-style clothing more widely: a swinging caftan made of rovduga, a fur bib, leather pants, long leather stockings, and a hat. A unique detail of the Yukaghir costume was the fawn collar – boa. Summer shoes were made from rovduga, winter ones from kamus. Clothing was decorated with deer hair embroidery, later with beads, kamus applique, and fur trim. Painted with smoke, alder and clay. The headdress of the Yukaghirs was a round leather cap, beautifully embroidered with silk or deer hair, as well as with beads of different colors and sizes. In winter, men and women wore a warm hat made of fox or dog paws over such a hat, covering their cheeks and ears. Black, red and white tones predominated in clothing. At seasonal gatherings, which usually lasted about a month, there were festivals, games, dances and various sports competitions.

The most ancient dwellings were seasonal in nature - dugouts, semi-dugouts, conical huts, tents, covered with skins - bark or turf. From the second half of the 18th century, a wooden frame, the so-called, also began to be used. "Yakut house" The traditional dwellings of the Yukaghirs are urasa, holomo and chandaly. The urasa has a conical shape, is built from poles connected at the top, covered with larch bark in summer and reindeer skins in winter. The usual size of an urasa is up to 4 meters at the base and 2.5 meters in height, but it is known that in the 17th and 18th centuries there were large urasas that could accommodate up to a hundred people. Holomo was a winter dwelling and had a pyramidal shape. Chandals have not survived to this day.

Similar articles

Newfoundland or diver

French bulldogs are very loyal, in...

Keeping the red Vaska at home

Below we will consider the main ways to...