Chukchee

ETHNONYMS: Self-designation: Luoravetlan ("genuine people"); Chukchi

Orientation

Identification. The Chukchee are native to the Chukchee Autonomous District (okrug) formed in 1930 in the Magadan Province (oblast) of Russia. They also live in the Lower Kolyma District of the Yakut Republic and in the north of the Koryak Autonomous District (okrug ). According to the 1989 census, the Chukchee numbered 15,184.

Linguistic Affiliation. The Chukchee language is classified with the Chukchee-Kamchatka Family, found primarily in the extreme northeast of the former USSR. The Chukchee-Kamchatka Family also includes Koryak, keimen, and other languages. At first the Chukchee system of writing used the Latin alphabet, but in 1930 the first Chukchee alphabet was developed, and the following year it was institutionalized. The first primer was published in 1932 bv B. D. Bogoraz and I. S. Vdovin with the help of two Chukchee, Attuvgi and Anakymylgyn, students at the Institute of Northern Peoples in Leningrad. At present the Chukchee use the Cyrillic alphabet. The Chukchee language was taught by Chukchee who had been trained at the Anadyr Pedagogical College and at the pedagogical institutes of Magadan, Khabarovsk, and Leningrad and at Leningrad State University. The Magadan publishing house publishes political and literary works in Chukchee.

History and Cultural Relations

From the earliest times, the Chukchee were nomads and hunters of wild reindeer, whereas domesticated reindeer were used as a means of transportation through the tundra. These animals formed an indispensable part of their lives. They gave people food, warmth, and light. From reindeer hide they made clothes and footwear and covered their dwellings. Reindeer fat was used in lamps.

The first reference to the Chukchee as a rather numerous people in Northeast Asia dates to 1641-1642. By that time the Chukchee were divided into two economic-cultural groups: "deer" Chukchee, who called themselves "Chauchu" or "Chavchu" and were nomadic reindeer herders of the tundra; and the maritime "settlers," the Ankalin Chukchee, who were sedentary hunters of sea mammals. Sometimes another group of Chukchee is delineated, the "walkers" (i.e., they did not ride reindeer), who also hunted sea mammals. These groups maintained close trade relations with one another.

In the seventeenth and at the beginning of the eighteenth centuries the Chukchee gradually began to penetrate the coastal territories inhabited by the Eskimos. They changed to a sedentary way of life and began to engage in sea-animal trade and to assimilate some of the Eskimos. During this time, elements of Eskimo culture actively enriched Chuckchee culture.

The Chukchee appeared in Yakutia comparatively recently. In the middle of the nineteenth century, with the permission of the authorities, they crossed the Kolyma River and began to migrate through the broad western tundra territory between the Kolyma and Indigirka rivers. This area attracted Chukchee reindeer breeders because it was rich in reindeer moss. By the nineteenth century the Kolyma-Indigirka Chukchee were separated from their eastern relatives, although they maintained ties with them. They became close to the Yukagir and Even. Western Chukchee were typical tundra reindeer herders who spent most of their time on the open tundra.

Settlements

The Chukchee reindeer herders did not have permanent settlements. Rather, they made small nomadic camps of two to three families, usually not exceeding ten to fifteen people. In the nomadic camps there were from one to four yarangas, or tents, although some camps had up to ten. The large camps had from twenty to thirty people. Each camp was a self-sufficient unit. They maintained only loose, friendly relations with their neighbors, with whom they united for festivities or games. The herders who migrated to the coast traded with maritime Chukchee and Eskimos, whereas the Western Chukchee traded with Russians. The yaranga of the Chukchee herders was collapsible, cylindrical, and cone-shaped and was covered with reindeer hide. Inside the tent they set up a bed made of fur, a big sack sewn from thin hides of young reindeer. The tent stretched over thin poles in the form of a large, four-cornered box without an opening for light. In such a "room" one could accommodate several people. The sleeping area was lit and heated by a fat-burning lamp.

Until the mid-nineteenth century the maritime Chukchee traditionally had a wooden, semisubterranean type of house, the poluzemlyanka. The replacement of such houses by the yaranga was a large step forward, significantly facilitating their lives.

Economy

Chukchee men mainly brought the herds to pasture, which meant that they constantly had to search for new pasture. They herded and protected the reindeer without the help of herder dogs, under extremely difficult conditions. They would spend days with their herds in the harshest weather, without rest, shelter, or fire, and with almost no food. The life of the women was no easier. Their duties included the daily maintenance of the tent and sleeping area, preparing food, tanning hides, and sewing clothes and footwear.

Much of the time and effort of all inhabitants of the tundra is spent extracting roots from stunted willows. This is the only source of firewood on the open tundra. Only during the darkest and coldest winter months, December and January, would the Chukchee go to "the edge of the forest," as this area provided an abundance of firewood and cover from the wind. With the appearance of the sun they migrated more frequently and grazed the herds in the open tundra. But far from all reindeer Chukchee allowed themselves the luxury of moving into the "warm" forest tundra. Part of the herd spent the winter in the tundra.

Coastal Chukchee mainly hunted sea mammals. During the winter and spring they hunted seals and nerpas (freshwater seals). In the summer and spring they hunted walrus and whales. During a seal hunt maritime Chukchee crept up to the seals with surprising skill, imitating their movements. Walrus and whale hunting was done collectively, usually in several canoes. The diet of the maritime Chukchee was based on sea-mammal meat, whereas the reindeer Chukchee ate venison. Fishing and the fur trade played a secondary role. The gathering of sea cabbage and wild edible roots and leaves was also widely practiced. Reindeer and draft dogs served the maritime Chukchee as a means of transportation.

In the 1940s the transition from simple production units to agricultural cooperatives gained momentum, productivity increased in herding, fishing, and the trade in furbearing and marine animals.

Clothing. Chukchee women traditionally wore a kerker, a fur outfit made from the hides of young reindeer. Currently, the Chukchee generally prefer to wear manufactured clothing.

Marriage and Family

In the past the Chukchee lived in large, extended families. The head of the family was the one who ensured its subsistence. Many social problems arose for the reindeer-herding Chukchee in connection with the gender-age structure. (There were fewer girls than boys.) Although it has entirely vanished today, polygamy was practiced for a long time. The traditional Chukchee wedding ceremony was rather simple. The bride, accompanied by her close relatives, traveled by reindeer to the bridegroom. At the yaranga they slaughtered a sacrificial reindeer. With the blood of this reindeer they made the family mark of the bridegroom on the bride, the bridegroom, and the relatives present. Interethnic marriages among the Chukchee, in the past as today, have not been a rarity. Those between Russian men and Chukchee women predominate. Ethnic affiliation ("nationality") is defined matrilineally by the majority of Chukchee.

A child is usually named two to three weeks after birth. According to Chukchee genealogies, Chukchee first names are extremely old. In each Chukchee settlement or nomadic camp there were a certain number of the most prevalent names. Today the Chukchee system of names follows the norms generally accepted in the Russian Federation (i.e., the family name is taken from the father, the parents give the child a first name, and the patronymic is formed from the father's first name).

Sociopolitical Organization

In the beginning of the nineteenth century the fundamental units of socioeconomic organization for the coastal Chukchee were the canoe-making cooperatives. Relatives formed the core of a cooperative. Groups of relatives lived together and formed settlements. Sometimes all members of the settlement were related, whereas at other times it consisted of several groups of relatives. For quite some time a natural exchange existed between the herding and the maritime Chukchee.

In the early 1950s reindeer and maritime Chukchee households were united in large reindeer-herding industrial kolkhozy, from which a number of sovkhozy were created in the 1960s and 1970s. The life-style and culture of the Chukchee changed. Settlements were erected with well-built houses and multistory buildings made of concrete. Chukotka became a region with a rapidly developing mining industry. A national intelligentsia was born, which included writers, doctors, teachers, scientists, livestock specialists, and others. Newspapers, a journal, and literature are published today.

Religion and Expressive Culture

Religious Beliefs and Practices. In the past the religions of the Chukchee were shamanism (early forms) and hunting and family cults. Ancestor worship among sedentary and nomadic Chukchee had a distinctively patriarchal character. The Chukchee attributed all kinds of illnesses and other misfortunes to evil spirits, kelet, which tirelessly hunted human spirits and human bodies to eat.

Religious Practitioners. The basic and most important function of the shaman was healing. With the help of a tambourine and singing, the shaman made contact with protective spirits and with the spirits of the ancestors, and at the same time he exerted an influence over the psyche of those present. The shaman participated in almost all festivals and ceremonies, in the course of which shamanistic séances were organized. Shamans skillfully imitated different animal and bird sounds, which helped them establish contact with the spirits. Playing the tambourine, chanting, reciting texts or recitatives, and dancing, the shaman brought himself to an ecstatic state. Chukchee shamans did not have special costumes. Shamans of "inverted" gender (i.e., a man who had become like a woman and vice versa) were thought to be especially powerful.

The ethnocultural contact of the Chukchee with neighboring peoples is reflected in their folklore. Many Chukchee myths are analogous to those of the Koryaks, Itelmen, Eskimos, and North American Indians (e.g., myths containing the image of a crow with chicken wings).

Medicine. Shamanistic ways of curing now belong to the remote past. From the 1930s on there was intensive building of schools and medical and cultural-educational centers. In the organization of public health care, traveling medical units, which served the nomadic and sedentary populations, played an important role. The first stationary medical institutions (hospitals and ambulatory units) were created in the cultural centers. In the past the most widespread illnesses among Chukchee were tuberculosis and consumption. The establishment of medical institutions—antituberculosis dispensaries, sanitary-epidemiological stations, hospitals, medical (including airborne) assistance units—allowed for earlier detection of illnesses, the use of the most effective methods of healing, and the development of preventive treatment. Births outside of a medical institution have now become a rare exception. Some Chukchee became doctors and nurses, receiving specialized education in medical institutes and colleges. The health of mothers and children among sedentary and maritime Chukchee populations is safeguarded by regular medical checkups. In every national village the government opened day-care centers and nursery schools, which children of herders and single mothers attended.

Arts. The work of cultural enlightenment took many forms among the Chukchee. At the beginning, films were shown and discussions were held in mobile red yarangas and chyms (tipis). Later came cultural agitation brigades, which not only functioned as mobile clubs but also served as a catalyst for the development of national culture.

The eradication of illiteracy, the introduction of universal education, the creation of a network of cultural institutions, the establishment of a local printing press, and the general growth of culture all led to a rise in the modern professional forms of art and literature among the Chukchee. The name of the Chukchee writer Yuri Rytkheu, the author of a series of novels and stories and a prominent social activist, is widely known. His work has been translated into a number of foreign languages. The poets and writers V. Keul'kut, A. Kymytval', Arachaivyn, V. Tyneskin, and V. Yatyrgin all have won recognition.

Chukchee decorative folk arts for a long time included carving and engraving on bone, artistic appliqué on fur and sealskin hides, and embroidery with reindeer hair. The center of bone-carving art became the studio, which was created in 1931, in the village of Uelen. The best works of Chukchee bone-carving masters are exhibited at international expositions.

The centuries-old life of wild-reindeer hunters was reflected in the dance with which the ancient Chukchee used to try to influence the vegetable and animal worlds and solicit the benevolence of the spirits that were embodied in animal and vegetable forms. For the maritime as well as for the sedentary Chukchee, animist representations were characteristic. The age-old powerlessness of man in the fight with the harsh elements of nature was reflected in a cult of nature and the elements.

It was entirely natural that this cult was represented in particular ritual dances. They consisted mainly of movements that imitated certain household activities. The reason for this was that these dances of the nomadic people were performed on specific holidays, celebrating the beginning or end of some important process: the mass slaughtering of reindeer in spring and fall, the winter solstice, the driving of the herd to summer pasture, the return of the herd at the end of summer, the calving of the reindeer, etc. In these festivities and corresponding ritual dances the Chukchee attempted to win over the spirits on which the well-being of the family and the prosperity of the reindeer herds presumably depended. Improvised ritual dances included "The Expulsion of Evil Spirits," "Vivrel'et" (the Trembling Knees), "Dance with Grimaces," and others.

The dances of the maritime Chukchee, like those of the reindeer herders, were linked to the major holidays of the year, which were devoted to the whale and Keretkun, the protective spirit of sea mammals. In early spring they celebrated the holiday of the canoes. Dances were also performed on the holiday of the walrus in the middle of summer. The hunting holidays of the maritime Chukchee were in many ways similar to those of the Eskimos. Pantomimic dances represented all processes involved in whale hunting and the cutting up of whale meat. The dances were performed in a sitting position. Sometimes during the whale holiday the maritime Chukchee performed comic dances wearing masks. Sometimes the men imitated the sitting dances of the women.

As the maritime Chukchee adopted a sedentary life and took up sea-animal hunting, over time they lost their original holidays and dances, which were linked with reindeer herding, and adopted some ritual ceremonies and dances from the Asian Eskimos.

Especially noteworthy are the playful dances, which are performed at various times on any occasion "for the sake of having a good time." The Chukchee dance pich'einen —or, as it is sometimes called, pilgeinen or pich'geinen, which in Chukchee means "wheezing throat"—is one such dance without a specific theme. The dance is performed with guttural singing and outcries from the dancers. Men and women sometimes take part in it separately.

The movements of arms, shoulders, and head play a special role in the dance. Despite the fact that they dance in heavy costume (double fur overalls and fur shoes), the Chukchee women are noted for graceful coordination and agility of neck and head. All performers stand facing the hearth. The dance begins with slow squatting movements and simultaneous, arbitrary arm movements. The dynamic of the dance gradually increases as the squatting movements become quicker and more abrupt. The dancers move their arms from one side to the other, simultaneously lifting and lowering their shoulders, gently turning their heads in various directions, and moving their necks back and forth. The dances last as long as the performers sing. After one performance, they often begin anew. Some of their dances imitate the gait of the reindeer.

The Chukchee were noted for skillfully imitating in their dances everything that surrounded them in nature and daily life. They created a pantomimic dance called "Fight of the [reindeer] Bulls," an imitative improvised dance called "Crane," the "Dance of the Seagull," "Duck Dance," and "Crows."

The transformations in the economic and cultural life of the Chukchee in the 1930s and 1940s also had an impact on their dance. The imitative dances of the Chukchee, while preserving their plasticity, continued to develop. The first scenic dances appeared. They entailed an exact fixation of the plasticity of movements and a musical accompaniment. Mass art forms exerted a significant influence on the development of popular dance culture. In Chukchee settlements amateur performing ensembles were created. These ensembles blended traditional dances such as "Walrus Hunt," "Crow," "Crane," and others with many new ones, such as "The First Rays of the Sun," "Builders of Houses," "Workdays of the Housewife," "Sewing," and others.

In 1968 the first professional ensemble, Ergyron (Dawn), was founded. It spurred the establishment and flowering of professional singing and dancing in Chukotka. Their songs and dances reflect the work and life of maritime-animal hunters and of reindeer herders. Particularly popular are the pantomimic dances of the Chukchee: "Faithfulness of the Cranes," "Dance with Snowplows," "Chattering Women," "Men's Games," "Family Talks," "A Holiday in the Tundra," "Reindeer Breeders," and others.

During the long winter nights the Chukchee listened to storytellers. A good storyteller could tell stories for many hours without interruption by stringing various episodes together.

The tambourine was for the Chukchee not only a ritual cult object but also simply a musical instrument. Since ancient times the Chukchee played simple musical instruments made out of wood, willow, bone, whalebone, and metallic plates. Instruments that imitated various elements of nature and the sounds of certain birds and animals were especially widespread. One such instrument is the vargan, as it is called in Russian, or in Chukchee, vannyiarar, a dental tambourine. Other examples are the telitel (a vertical wind instrument), the v'yutkunen (a variation on the telitel), various whistles made of willow, and flutes.

Songs and melodies accompanied the Chukchee throughout their whole life. Every Chukchee family had its own rather simple tunes, which were passed down from generation to generation. Among families that exchanged fire, there existed identical or very similar tunes. But together with shared melodies each family had its own songs, which were composed for their own use and frequently were improvised. The Chukchee also had unique kinds of singing competitions (in wheezing, for example). The winner was the one believed to be the most tireless.

Bibliography

Bogoras, Waldemar (1904-1909). The Chukchee. Leiden: E. J. Brill.

Gurvich, I. S. (1966). Etnicheskaia Istoriia severo-vostoka Sibri (Ethnic history of northeast Siberia). Moscow: Nauka.

Mitlyanskaya, T B. (1976). Khudozhniki Chukotki (The artists of Chukhotka). Moscow: Izobrazit. Iskusstvo.

Vdovin, I. S. (1965). Ocherki istorii i étnografii Chukchei (Sketches of the history and ethnography of the Chukchee). Moscow and Leningrad: Nauka Leningradskoe Oto-nie.

Zharnitskaia, M. Ia. (1983). Narodnoe khoreograficheskoe iskusstvo korennogo naseleniia severo-vostoka Sibiri (Popular choreographical art of the indigenous population of northeastern Siberia). Moscow: Nauka.

Zharnitskaia, M. Ia. (1987). Etnicheskoe razvitie narodov Severa v Sovetskii period (The ethnic development of the peoples of the North in the Soviet period). Moscow.

Zharnitskaia, M. Ia. (1987). Istoriia i kultura Chukchei (History and culture of the Chukchee). Leningrad.

MARIA ZHARNITSKAYA (Translated by Catherine Wanner)