The Kurykans

In the first millennium A.D. Pribaikalie was inhabited by a tribal union consisted of three families – the Turks, the Evenks and the Protoburyats that had a common name “Kurykans”. In spite of their little quantity these ancient tribes formed a quite developed and distinctive culture within 6 -11 centuries. It was spread along the Lower Selenga, in the valleys Barguzin and Tunkinsky, and at the shoreline of the Upper Lena and the Angara.

The Kurykans had a semi-settled and nomadic way of life. Their principal farm activity was cattle-breeding that provided them with more meat products than hunting and fishing. The Kurykans were breeding camels, goats and perfect horses that were imported to the court of the Chinese Emperor, and they knew methods of the savage animal domestication.

Besides, tillage was of no small importance in the life of these tribes. There were found the rests of their irrigational constructions on the Olkhon Island in the Kudinsky steppe.

The Kurykans’ peculiarity consisted in their good knowledge of extraction and processing of metals. The tribe union was well known for their skillful farriers that were manufacturing “crude iron” for numerous household hardware, horse gears, arrow-heads and daggers. Besides, the Kurykans could manufacture instruments of rock and bones, clay dish and clothing.

A majority of the rock paintings left by the Kurykans had been found near to the Upper Lena and the Kuda. They were drafted with raddle and depicted horsemen with banners, camels and people in long cloths as well.  The Kurykans attained quite a high level of development as, according to their rock scripts, they possessed a writing system.

Each funeral monument of the Kurykans is distinguished from other by its inner and external arrangement. There are the most famous monuments with on-grave constructions in form of miniature tents on the Olkhon Island in Lake Baikal. Some of such burial places were regarded as the cult objects for holding of diverse rites.

Under the constant pressure on the part of the neighbor tribes – the Tungus of Manchuria, the Uygurs and the Kirgis of the Enisey, the Kurykans had to build special fortifications. Such sites of the ancient settlements, dug out in the valleys of the Angara, the Lena, the Osa and the Kuda as well, used to be situated on the uphill and were surrounded with a deep moats and fosses.

In the beginning of the 10th century the Mongolian tribes that came from the south invaded the territory of Pribaikalia. A long warfare resulted in the Kurykans’ defeat.  The biggest part of them marched to the North where gave a start to the formation of the Yakutia’s people. The other part assimilated to the Mongols and became forefathers of the Western Buryats.

The Buryats

One of the most numerous nationalities that inhabits a territory of Siberia, is of the Buryats. This people whose hospitality and love of fellow-men would do a credit to every highly civilized people, is one of the original tribes of Siberia that had appeared there in the 10th century.

The Buryats possessed their own social clan organization with its certain structure. The head of each ulus (the Buryats’ settlement)) was a leader – foreman, the tribal administration was run by shuleng, and the tribe was headed by taisha. The tribal administration used to unite into a department for some families headed by steppe councils. Knyaz’tsy were big landlords and headed the feudal top of the Buryats’ society. They were regarded as the ulus’s owners.

The basis of the Buryats’ farm was cattle-breeding – semi-nomadic (western tribes) and nomadic (eastern tribes) as well. It provided them with meal, cloths and materials for the inner lay-out of the living place – felt yurts. The cattle-breeding farm of the Buryats based on the cattle grass pasture all over the year. In order to open up new pastures they had to roam constantly from place to place. The Buryats were breeding cattle, horses, camels, flocks and herds as well.

In conformity with a popular belief, all the horses are pure creatures. Owing to that, all the tethering posts were sacred and related with family’s well-being. At the door of each yurta a horse-shoe was hanged to attract happiness into home, a horse-hair possessed a magic power to frighten away all the evil spirits. In the farm a horse was not only used as a draught animal. The products provided by the horse-breeding were widely used in the every day life: horse-meat was considered to be the most dainty dish, horse-hair was used in the cord and net manufacturing, footwear were made of horse-hide, tendons were served as hard-wearing threads as well. In the eastern districts a nutritious drink named kumys was being made of fermented milk. A quantity of the horse-harness and saddle, its expensive silver adorning represented a peculiar feature of the Buryats’ well-doing.

Additional types of farm activity were hunting and fishing. A hunting season on squirrel, sable and ermine used to start from the middle of October and ended at the beginning of February. Within a whole winter the Buryats were hunting on fox, wolf, lynx, otter and glutton, in the summer – on Manchurian deer. The hunting instruments were quite primitive: diverse traps, arrows and bows.

Farming was of no great importance for the Buryats until the Russian people came, and it was, mostly, of that type that had been taken after the Kurykans i.e. they used, mostly, hoes and mattocks. The Buryats were sowing rye, oats, wheat and hemp as well. Besides, they were using ancient irrigational systems that were left from the Kurykans’ time. Later, they adopted the Russian’s iron plough, wooden harrows and wooden plough, and intensified their farming activity.

Apart from the blacksmith’s work and jeweler’s art, the Buryats didn’t master handicraft manufacturing. Their farm and everyday necessities were almost entirely satisfied with the home handicraft. Timber and cattle production (hide, hair, skin, horse hair) were serving as raw materials there. Blacksmiths manufactured tools for hunting, war equipment, domestic implements and labor instruments. There were distinguished black (work with ferrous metals) and white (with non-ferrous metals) farriers. The Buryats conserved the remnants of the “iron” cult: things made of iron were regarded as some kind of periapt. A blacksmith’s profession used to inherit from father to son. In many cases, the blacksmiths were shamans at the same time.

The Buryats had an ancient tradition of the “white colour” worship. In their opinion, the white colour personifies something pure, sacred and high-hearted. To make a person sit down on the white felt means to wish him a well-doing.

The ancient form of the Buryat traditional dwelling house was a typical roaming yurta. It consisted of the easy-transported trellised walls that were tied up with hors-haired cords. The frame-work was covered with felt pieces corded with each other. The doors in yurta were always in the southern side. Yurta was divided relatively in two parts. One of them belonged to men, and there were diverse instruments and tools, harness, arms. Another was intended for women, and kitchen with larder were there. The guests were usually welcoming in the northern part of yurta. A hearth was always placed in the center.

By the 17th century the Buryats were living in tribal or territorial groups. Tribal ties were a basic form of the social relations. Any attempt upon someone’s life or his well-being within the tribe was concerned that person’s relatives, and used to lead to the serious conflicts. A vendetta used to follow after the murder. The conflicts were usually caused by cattle’s driving away, or by the fight for possessing the right over the best pastures and hunting lands.

Nowadays, a number of the Buryats runs to 550 thousand people that dwell, mainly, in the Buryat Republic, the Ust’-Ordynsky Buryat region and some other districts of Transbaikalia.

The Evenks

The principal traits of the Evenks, the aboriginal inhabitants of Transbaikalia, consist in the loose clothing, portable chum in the form of cone, light frame-worked boat (of skin or bark), riding deer’s saddle, pack pouch, adherence to shamanism and animistic world outlook as well. It can be said, there is no more such a less numbered tribe that inhabits a territory over 7 millions square kilometers – from the Enisey River up to Far East as well as from the Arctic Ocean to China and Mongolia. In our region the Evenks were settling along the shoreline of the Baikal, the Lena, and the Angara as well. The ethnographers of the 19th century called them “the taiga’s Gipsy” for their nomadic way of life. The Evenks that were named before as the Tungus, actively were roaming about the taiga looking for the new lands for hunting, bringing on the deer their chums and home utensils. The settled way of living came into their life only after the Soviet government having got power. In spite of such changes, this people keep on leading the same lifestyle that was before, hundred of centuries ago.

From ancient time, the Evenks were busy with hunting, fishing and cattle-breeding as well. Gradually, the three main farm-cultural types of the Evenks were formed: “Lamuchony” –that were, principally, hunters, “Orochony” – deer-breeders, and “Khamnigany” – horse-breeders. The Lamuchony’s principal work was hunting on sable, lynx, fox, squirrel, ermine, and other fur-bearing animals.  The Khamnigany were breeding horses and sheep, and living in the felt yurtas on the territory of Mongolia as well as Transbaikalia. The deer-breeding was spread, in various extents, in all the districts. A deer for the Evenks was not a simple animal, but a symbol of family prosperity and well-being (number of deer possessed reflected an Evenk’s wealth) as well as a type of transport and source of meal. One old Evenks’ proverb not in vane says: “The Evenks are alive while the deer are living”.

Within the centuries, the Evenks were living by clans, and each clan was headed by a leader or chief.  There were spread types of collective division of labour and mutual help. For instance, before the 20th century, there existed a tradition (nimat) that obliged a hunter to give a part of his bag to the relatives. Each Evenk knew his family’s history, genealogy, and always gave a sign of his worship towards his relative. The most power belonged to the forefathers of the tribe, and, mostly, to shamans.

Shaman, being an intermediary between people’s world and world of spirits, in many cases, became a chief of the tribe. Without a shaman’s approval, a tribe didn’t undertake anything. People asked him for a help to cure illnesses of person or deer, to hold a rite that would bring luck in hunting, or to accompany a soul of a dead in a better world.

The cults of spirits and tribal cults were of a great importance, and such worship ran in their family. For instance, an existing cult of bear, the taiga’s master, bound each hunter to kill only a certain number of bears. In cases of exceeding that number, a hunter could pay for it with his life.

Another peculiar trait of the Evenks was always careful treatment to nature. They not only regarded it as alive creature inhabited by the spirits, they idolized stones, springs, rocks and some types of trees, but at the same time, they knew reasonable limits: they didn’t cut trees more than it was necessary; didn’t kill game without necessity; and even strived to clean a place where their hunt-camp was situated.

The traditional dwelling house for the Evenks was chum. It was a shelter of branches in form of cone covered with the deer’s skin in winter, and with bark in summer. While migrations, a frame-work was abandoned in its place, and the material for covering was brought with themselves. The winter settling camps included 1-2 chums, and the summer ones – from10 and more, owing to the frequent festivals in this very season.

The basis of the traditional meal – savage animals’ meat (horse-meat for the horse-breeders) and fish as well that was eaten, practically, in a crude form. They drank goat’s milk, ate berries as well as savage onion and garlic in summer. They adopted Russian baked bread. The principal drink was tea, sometimes, mixed with deer’s milk and salt.

The Evenks were keen on the art cutting upon bones and wood, metal processing, needlework with beads, the eastern Evenks –silk, fur and fabric applications, and stamping upon bark as well.

A serious impact on the traditional lifestyle of the Evenks in Transbaikalia was done in the 20-30s of the last century. The overall collectivization and forced changes of the farm way of life carried out by the Soviet government, resulted in almost complete disappearance of this distinctive people that had to migrate to the northern regions. The natural and climate conditions of the northern territories fitted more to their life customs, and allowed carrying on their traditional type of farming.

Nowadays, the Evenks are dwelling, mainly, in the Irkutsk and Amur regions as well as in Yakutia and the Krasnoyarsk region. There are 36 thousand of the Evenks. Apart from Russia, this people live in Mongolia and China as well.

The Tofalars

By the time of the first Cossacks’ coming into the Uda valley, there was roaming one tribe named “Karagasy” (“Black goose”), now called as “Tofalars” (“Man”). These mountain inhabitants were living on their primordial lands in Tafalariya, land of picturesque mountains, fast rivers, dense taiga and Alpine meadows. This territory covered the Nizhneudinsk region and the north-eastern slopes of the Eastern Sayan. This taiga’s forests are entirely situated within the high-mountain belt of 2200 m up to 2600 m above the sea level.

The kindred peoples to the eastern Tuvins – the Tofalars had a nomadic and semi-nomadic way of life. Their traditional activities were and still continue being hunting and nomadic deer-breeding. The main objects of usual hunting were roes, elks as well as squirrels, sables, otters, castors, foxes and wolverines. The Tofalars are perfect hunters, skillful deer-breeders and wonderful pathfinders. The knowledge of the taiga’s gist is being passed from one generation to another. Deer serve them for transporting diverse weight, and for riding as well. They were drinking deer’s milk.

In autumn, there was a collective gathering of sarana’s flowers (from the turks’ language means “yellow”) that were being dried for the winter, along with some edible roots, cedar nuts, rhubarb, ramsons berries and savage onion. The art of curing any illness with the help of glasses marked out the Tofalars from other peoples of Pribaikalia as well as their custom to drink a salted tea or boiled water (never crude) all over the year.

In different stages of the history, the Tofalars always kept a neutral position in the inter-tribal conflicts, in spite of the fact that the neighbour tribes were economically stronger. The constant invasions of the neighbours bound the Tofalars to move farther to the south-west, into the mountain territory of taiga.

Before the Tafalars had got a settled way of life on 20th century, they were living by tribal system. However, starting from 1930, under the influence of the Soviet power it was quite difficult for them to keep their distinctive culture and nomadic form of the farm activity. There were constructed some settlements especially for the Tafalars – Alygzher, Nerkha and Verkhn’aya Gutara. But they didn’t manage to get accustomed to these places. The Soviet period left irreparable imprint in the Tafalars’s destiny having deprived them of the primordial farming and way of life.

In fact, the Tofalars were compelled to adopt the Orthodoxy, but among them the traditional believes – belief in the spirits of nature (taiga’s masters, mountains and so on), ancestors and other objects have been kept.

Nowadays, the Tofalars’ tribe is considered to be the least numerous one in Russia that is on the edge of disappearance. When and why the conversion of a whole tribe into some type of “peoples-splinter” happened is not defined exactly. If it occurred under the supremacy of the Russians or much time before conquers’ coming is unknown yet.

It is obvious only that by out date there are about 300 pure-blooded Tafalary left, and there almost no deer in Tafalariya are left nowadays. And, as we remember, their proverb says: “The Evenks are alive while the deer are living”…