Hunting for sea animals. Inuit traditions

Photographer Andrey Shapran has been implementing the project “Final Lands” for several years - about people living on the outskirts of our country. Sib.fm publishes part of this project dedicated to walrus hunters in Chukotka. Andrey Shapran himself is now in Chukotka, filming the life of whale hunters.

Walruses in these places, like whales, are migratory mammals. And their extraction is permitted by law and justified from the standpoint of the survival of the northern peoples. Hunting in the regions of the Far North begins in the summer, with the arrival of the first warmth, and continues throughout the year: on the ice, together with their dogs, the Chukchi continue to engage in their primordial national trade - hunting sea animals. Here, in the open waters of Mechigmensky Bay, which are calmer compared to the northern coast of Chukotka, walrus hunting begins in July-August and continues until late autumn. Young, immature walruses are replaced by old and adult animals: the migration path of animals here, in the northeast of Chukotka, is the same. Chukchi hunters call them “passing walruses”.

Today there is not a single walrus rookery left near the village. The old hunter says that it used to be located further south - and waves his hand in that direction. Here, near the village, these animals do not pass by so often. The main fishing is carried out to the north - thirty kilometers from the village, in a place called Akkani. Once there was a small hunting village there, the Chukchi and Eskimos lived on what they could get from the sea, and women picked berries in the tundra. Later, people began to be resettled from small villages to one place. This is how a new village called Lorino was born. But hunters, decades after the general relocation, continue to return to the old place, since the migration of walruses occurs closest to their old hunting grounds.

However, the Chukchi say, they now have no nostalgia for the old place. It has simply always been more convenient to catch walruses here.

I asked when the walruses would be passing through? They answered: they are already passing.

Tomorrow the hunters will travel towards Akkani. One team of hunters is constantly on duty there. The day before lunch, hunters brought four walruses from Akkani: they were killed yesterday afternoon. The walruses are heading north now.

In the cuisine of the northern peoples, the dish kopalchen is prepared from walrus meat: the animal is killed, cooled in water, placed in a skin, the air is released from there, then buried under the pressure of sand or gravel on the surf line for several months.

The day before, a hunter named Ottoy asked me when I was leaving. Answered: on the second. That is, tomorrow I will fly south - to Anadyr.

“Stay,” the hunter suggested, “I’ll take you hunting.” Walruses have appeared in the bay again.

- Okay, I'll think about it until the morning.

In the morning, Ottoy was no longer in the state farm office. He was on the shore and said on the phone: “In ten minutes the brigade is leaving for the sea to hunt: if you have time, you will come with us. The walruses are too close, we won’t wait for you.”

I was the first to go down to the shore from the village. Ottoy was returning home for some reason and came ashore after me. Then the rest of the hunters began to appear, wet from sweat and fast running. They loaded boats, pyr-pyr (plastic multi-colored balls to which hunters tie a harpoon with a strong rope), weapons - they did everything on the run. As they ran, they pushed out and carried out hunting boats with motors. Three small boats and six hunters.

Walruses were visible from the high steep bank with the naked eye. Nearby is an arctic fox fur farm. Through binoculars it was clear that the walruses did not leave, but stood in one place. In such cases, hunters say: the walruses are feeding. The Chukchi hunting boats were now rushing towards the group of three walruses.

The first harpoon thrown at the walrus did not penetrate its skin.

“Stupid tuket,” said Ottoy after the throw, pulling out from behind the stern of the boat a long wooden stick tied with a rope, on the tip of which a tuket is put on - a homemade hunting metal harpoon.

The second and third blows ended in the same way: the tip did not want to pierce the thick-skinned beast. Of the four throws, only the last one was successful, and a red plastic ball - pyr-pyr - tied with a rope, followed the walrus into the sea element.

Pyr-pyr is at the same time a mark for the other hunters: the animal is harpooned, and a target: the walrus marked with the ball is shot to kill.

There is no other way to catch sea animals in open water.

After an hour of hunting, five walruses were harpooned. Three more scattered across the bay.

These four, trying to get rid of the annoying balls and the pursuing hunters, mixed up all the rope halyards, like grapes, hanging on a rope vine. Four pyra-pyra kept their carcasses afloat - under water. But now it was only possible to get them out at once.

Six people, combining their boats and efforts, tried to lift several tons of meat floating under water - a few meters from the surface. In the cold autumn wind, my hands became numb and cold, the wet, salty ropes cut into the stiff skin of my palms. The walruses and ropes barely gave way.

About twenty minutes later the first walrus was unhooked. The rest, like grapes on a vine branch, hung in a cluster on twisted halyards.

But three walruses are easier than four.

An hour later, five huge gray carcasses lay motionless on the shore, their white pointed tusks pointing towards the sky.

When eating copalchen, a person who has not eaten this dish since childhood gets poisoned, which can lead to death.

People from the village stood right there, waiting for the animals to be butchered.

As usual, part of the meat obtained will be taken by Lorin hunters - for their own food and for dog food.

Some will be taken to a warehouse and sold later to residents of the village. Away from everyone, next to a wooden shed, stands a Chukchi woman, with heavy old scales nearby. On them she weighs buckets of meat and makes notes in her notebook.

3 subspecies of walrus live in Russian waters: Atlantic, Pacific and Laptev. The Pacific is considered commercial

Two hours later, the boat with Ottoy brings another bulky walrus to the shore. Ottoy says the walrus is about four years old. A huge animal, long white fangs stared into the autumn sky. But today the Chukchi do not kill walruses because of their tusks: they need to feed the people in the village, feed the dogs and feed themselves.

Hunters say that in the spring, with the melting of the snow, when they have to hunt further and further from the coast, sometimes there are huge ice floes cluttered with the bodies of killed headless walruses. I ask: “Who kills sea animals?” Hunters say that no one can say. But they shoot from passing sea ships. Every year there are fewer and fewer animals in these places.

The second trip to sea was again not successful for Ottoy: the hunters killed three animals. And only Ottoy's boat - not a single one.

Walruses have not come as close as today to the village for a long time. A calm sea is not a reason for animals to decide to approach. The Chukchi say that only in late autumn, with the arrival of serious storms in these places, do walruses begin to approach the shore. There hasn't been a storm here for a very long time. Hunters wait and hope for bad weather. Last season was not the best for hunting. There are few walruses, and you have to work hard to prepare meat for your own food and for dog food for the upcoming winter season.

The lifespan of walruses is up to 40 years

We spent the whole day guarding the sea of ​​walruses. One brigade of hunters sat in ambush on the Goryachenskaya River, the other was located closer to Akkani. There were no walruses. And the boats returned to the village completely empty. The hunters were visible from the road running along the coastline. Hunters and a trio of walruses that were feeding not far away on the way the boats returned. But at speed and in the twilight, it was not at all easy to distinguish anything from the water. The hunters were just unlucky today.

Sunday. The Chukchi say that they don’t go out to sea to hunt in fog: it’s easy to lose an animal. It's foggy this morning. Children - sons of hunters - catch crabs on the coast. The Chukchi say that such a prolonged low tide has not happened for a very long time. There are a lot of children, but there are also a lot of crabs.

They are impaled on makeshift peaks, thrown ashore and placed in large buckets. The younger ones carry the crabs upstairs. In the evening they will cook in a large cauldron.

Hunters call this place Akkani. The Chukchi say that the name translates as “the end of the cape, the land.” It is here that the migration route of sea animals lies, and it is here that Lorin hunters return time after time in search of success.

November 24th is Walrus Day, established in 2008 at the initiative of the World Wildlife Fund and the Marine Mammal Council.

Directly from the village to Akkani - just over an hour on a good 150 horsepower engine. In the morning, when we had to repeat all the geographical curves of the coastline, we walked twice as long. But there was no need for haste: for the second day in the vicinity of Akkani there was thick, low fog and for the second day the hunters were forced to while away the time on the shore. It’s cold, the last autumn days are barely warm, you can’t sit on the ground for long. And the hunters take turns replacing each other: they have to watch the sea and wait for the walruses. Motionless observation quickly becomes tiring, but there is no other way to detect animals. There is no electricity in Akkani, but there is a low-power diesel station designed for several light bulbs suspended from the ceilings in hunting lodges. The diesel is turned on in the evening for just a couple of hours.

In Akkani people go to bed early and rise early. Hunters say that the lucky one is usually the one who goes out to sea first.

The real North, the Arctic, is very close from here. Here, in the Mechegmensky Bay, the Chukchi say that in the summer the sea takes away all the heat, and in the winter it takes away the bitter cold. Hunters say that there are no big colds on the local coast. Only a snowstorm. And wind. Sometimes it seems that the wind in Chukotka can...

The Arctic, as we know, is a harsh place. There are no trees or bushes, and very few herbs. Cereals do not grow here, and therefore it is impossible to subsist by farming or gathering; all resources here are very difficult to access. Everything around suggests that man does not belong here. The only way to survive for the indigenous peoples of the Arctic, including the Inuit of Greenland and Canada, is fishing and hunting sea animals.

Hunting is not just a part of Inuit life, it forms the basis of their culture and identity. Every man here is a hunter. The Inuit hunt literally everything that comes into their field of vision - seals, whales, polar bears, caribou, musk oxen, birds. The hunting methods of the Inuit are very interesting and unique in many ways, and therefore deserve a separate article.

Whale is one of the summer fishing objects of the Inuit.

When an Inuit kills an animal, he takes from it everything that can be taken: meat for food, fat for heating and lighting, skin for making clothes, shelter and kayak, stomach and intestines as a waterproof material, sinew as material for ropes, and so on. . Many people consider hunting unethical and condemn hunters, especially when it comes to hunting rare and beautiful animals. But what about hunting for the sake of survival when there is no other way? In my opinion, hunting is justified if it is the only way for people to survive.

This happened before, and this is true today, but only in the most remote northern Inuit settlements.

However, the lifestyle of most residents of Greenland and northern Canada has changed greatly under the influence of Western culture. Denmark and Canada pay them an allowance, and hunting is no longer vital. As a result of the availability of technology (motor boats and firearms), the shores of Greenland, once so rich in animals, are practically deserted.

Look at this poster I bought in Greenland. Pictured here are whales that can be found in Greenland. These are almost all species of whales that live north of the equator. Is it true that so many species live here? Is it true. You can still meet whales here, but firstly, there are not many of them, and secondly, not a single whale will allow a boat to approach itself, because for it the sound of a motor is the sound of approaching death. Whales will do anything to keep their distance from the boat. And these are large whales, and what can we say about narwhals, famous for their secrecy. We did not meet a single seal or caribou, although it would seem that there should be plenty of them here. But what there really is enough here are shops selling bear claws, narwhal horns, bone figurines and many other cute souvenirs.

Here, for example, is a killer whale tooth.

What has hunting become for most Inuit these days? The opportunity to kill an animal in order to sell tourists a figurine made from a narwhal horn or a toy seal covered with real seal fur? Does hunting continue to be the basis of the culture of this people, or has it become just an additional source of income? Is it correct to consider narwhal hunting with rifles as traditional? I don't have the answers because I don't think I know enough about these people. What do you think?
This shot shows the lobby of our hotel in Tasiilaq. The stick on the wall to the right of the skin is a narwhal horn.

High technical means, techniques and skills were achieved in hunting sea animals. The uniqueness of this hunt was that a person was forced to fight with strong animals near the water, on the water, often on the waves of a stormy sea.

Images of seals are known among Paleolithic bone engravings. A design depicting a seal is carved on a drilled tusk of a bear from the Duruti Grotto. Z. Piette mentions the image of a seal in the Gourdan grotto (Garonne). Drawings of seals on bone were found under rock overhangs in Mongodieu (Dordogne), in Mege (Teja) and in Vrassampoui. The inhabitants of the caves apparently met seals on the seashore or even hunted them when the animals came out onto the ice. They could also encounter them in river beds where seals made their way. In northern Europe, rock carvings of a later time were found (on the Byt River, near the city of Belomorsk). Bony remains of seals were found under a rocky overhang in Castane (Veser Valley), in the caves of Altamira, Grimaldi and Raimonden.

Gray seals choose high rocky shores for breeding and lactation burrows, where they spend several days. In the Faroe Islands, off the coast of Norway, Scotland and other places, in recent times they were killed by blows to the head with clubs.

The seal fishery in northern Europe gained importance in the Mesolithic era, starting with the Littorina phase in the Baltic. The remains of this animal were discovered in Denmark at the sites of the Ertebølle culture. In southwestern Norway, bones of seals (gray and coot) were found at the Vista site. Similar finds were made in Est. SSR (Kunda), Latv. SSR, Lit. USSR and GDR. In England, seal bones were discovered on the Oronsay and Riggs Islands. At this time, a harpoon was used here, as evidenced by a specimen found in Sweden, near the city of Norrköping, in 1907, along with seal bones. The harpoon had two spikes and was of the removable type with two holes for tying a line. In 1935, a harpoon was discovered near Nyar-pesa in Finland along with the ribs of a harp seal. This specimen had four spikes, and two notches on the handle served to tie the line.

In the Neolithic in northern Europe we know a large number of sites containing seal bones. In Denmark these are the islands of Hessel and Fym, in Norway - the settlements of Shipehellern and Rushenesset, in Sweden - about. Gotland. Let us also note the Alland Islands, the coast of Finland, and the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea. The remains of 20 seals were found in a settlement on Lake Ladoga. This small species of seal (ringed seal - weighing 80 kg) even now often enters the river. Neva. In March, females go to dens to feed their young. They are located in hummocks, snowdrifts and puffs on the ice of the lake, not far from the vent. At such moments, you can beat them and take the cubs, you can disguise yourself and wait for the female to appear at the outlet.

According to another ancient method, the seal was beaten on melted ice. Baikal hunters in spring rookeries used a sail, the outline of which from a distance had the shape of a hummock or a snowdrift. Under cover, his hunter approached and struck the beast. Summer methods (“at ambushes”, “warehouse” and “approach by boat”) are characterized by the use of ambushes, designed for dexterity and knowledge of the habits of the animal. Since recent hunting methods were based on the biology and habits of the seal, they could differ from the ancient ones only in the nature of the weapons used.

On the shores of the southern seas of Asia in the Neolithic, dugong hunting became important. Their bones were discovered in the dune settlement of Bau-Cho on the territory of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. The ancient inhabitants of the eastern coast of Indochina combined sea animal hunting with fishing, hunting wild boar, deer, pelicans and turtles.

The native struck the beast with a spear and at the same time jumped from the boat into the water and dived. This was done to avoid capsizing the boat with a sharp jerk of the animal. Obviously, the jump increased the force of the blow and the depth of penetration of the harpoon into the dugong’s body. Another hunter hurried to the dived man in a boat and picked him up. Diving into the water was also practiced during hunting from a platform built in that part of the coastline where dugongs came to eat algae. Hunting dugong using a platform limited fishing opportunities, but saved the hunters' energy, since the rear end of the gear was tied. There was no need to follow a wounded animal everywhere on a boat and put yourself at risk.

The Polynesians of the Marquesas archipelago used harpoons to kill stingrays and sharks. To hunt large stingrays, several boats were united into one squad. The lead vessel had on board the leader of the hunt and two more people. Other boats followed the first one at a certain distance. The stingray, struck by the harpoon, went deep into the water. However, the boat to which the tackle was tied did not allow the wounded animal to escape from the eyes of the hunters. The boat capsized, turning into a float. People were picked up from it by other boats. The pursuit of the stingray continued until it completely lost its strength. Long experience has taught hunters not to allow the boat to capsize due to the jerk of the stingray. They began to hit the harpoon not at the “center” of his body (at the head or below), but at the edge of the side fin. With such a wound, the force of the stingray's jerk and the danger of its attack on the boat were less, but it took more time to exhaust the animal's strength.

Harpoons were made from hard wood or human femur. They had a long and slightly flattened tip with two teeth on each side. A round hole was drilled in the middle for the line. Harpoons made from human tubular bone had a natural groove at the rear end (leg), which made it easier to tie to the front end of the shaft. To prevent the bandage from slipping, a protrusion was cut out on the outside of the rear end of the harpoon.

The technique of hunting cetaceans reached a high level of specialization in the Arctic, where life was completely dependent on the supply of meat, fat, skins, bones and tusks of these animals. In winter, Greenlandic Eskimos hunted seals using ice vents. The hunter sat by the vent on a bench with warm padding at his feet. He waited for the seal to swim up and stick its nose into the vent. The blow was delivered with a harpoon to the mouth, neck or chest. The hunter pulled out the prey, having previously widened the hole with a walrus tusk pick. Sometimes we had to finish off the animal on the ice.

On sunny spring days, seals climbed onto the ice. At this time, the hunters themselves made wide holes in the ice to facilitate their exit. They lay on their stomachs on a low sled and tried to imitate the movements of the seals, turning their heads accordingly and grunting in tune with the animals. The deceived seals allowed people to come within spear range. When they got out onto the ice in whole herds, the hunt took on the character of a real roundup with the participation of many hunters.

The Chukchi had a special tool made of bone (vabik) in the shape of a fork for scraping ice, imitating the scratching of a seal. The animal approached, mistaking the scratching for the sounds of another seal. In the fall, hunting was carried out on boats with rattles, when seals gathered in herds at the mouths of rivers. The Eskimos, making noise with instruments and shouting, drove them upstream. The seals were hiding under water. When they surfaced to get fresh air, the hunters hit them with spears. If seals washed ashore, they were surrounded by women and children with stones in their hands, and men in boats rushed to the rescue, cutting off the animals’ retreat to the water. Such a hunt on a good day yielded up to 9-10 seals per hunter.

In the summer, hunting was done in a kayak with a bladder and a harpoon. The hunter, having noticed a seal in the sea, tried to approach it, from the leeward side, with the sun behind him. When the sea was rolling, the kayak with the hunter was hidden from time to time behind the wave, which made it possible to quickly approach the prey. At the moment when the wave lifted the kayak near the animal, the hunter took the oar in his left hand, and with his right grabbed a spear with a harpoon and threw it at the seal using a spear thrower. The harpoon pierced the seal's body, the shaft fell into the water, the line unwound and followed the wounded animal as it dived. The hunter threw a bubble into the water, to which the second end of the line was tied. The seal surfaced and dived even deeper, dragging even the bubble under the water. But he could not free himself from the turning harpoon. The hunter in the kayak followed the bubble and finished off the beast with a blow from one or two ordinary spears. The hunter took the prey in tow, tying one of the spare bladders to it. If the hunt was successful, each of those participating in it towed up to 4 seals. The bubbles were made from sealskin. Large ones were capable of displacing up to 50 kg of water.

There were many ways to hunt seals. In Kamchatka they were caught at river mouths with nets. The Chukchi used bait made from seal skin filled with air.

Hunting a walrus is much more dangerous and difficult than hunting a seal. The walrus reaches 3 m in length and more than a ton in weight. Strong skin and a solid layer of fat create good protection. The walrus is armed with a pair of tusks and, after being wounded, attacks the hunter. Therefore, the sizes of the rotary harpoons are different, the tactics are different, designed for the greater strength of the animal and habits. Otherwise, the same swimming equipment, the same harpoon technique with a spear thrower, bubble and line.

The group hunting of the sea otter by the Aleuts had its own peculiarities. From 10 to 25 people in kayaks moved along the waves in a frontal formation. At a signal from the oar of one of them, the hunters hurried to the diving animal and tried to plunge a harpoon into its body. When several otters were spotted, the hunters split into small groups. The hunt for fur seals was similar. Only in some cases was it possible to kill them at the rookery with blows of clubs to the head, having previously driven them away from the shore by a quick landing of a party of hunters from the sea.

Whale hunting was considered an event in the economic life of the Eskimos, complex both in technical and organizational terms. The hunters dressed in their best clothes and took women on a hike, seating them in large boats (umiaks). Women mended men's clothes, helped row, tidied up boats, etc.

The Indians from Cape Fluttery in Washington State were no less prudent about this. They hit the whales with a two-winged harpoon tied to a strong cable twisted from whale tendons. In the past, the whale harpoon was made entirely of horn and bone. Later, its head was made of a flat piece of copper or iron, to which two teeth made of deer antler were attached. The harpoon and leash were coated with resin melted from Canadian spruce. The shaft was made from two pieces of yew wood. The junction was wrapped with thin strips of bark. The length of the shaft was about 2.5 m and was greatest in thickness in the middle part, at the junction. One end of the shaft was inserted into the cavity of the harpoon lying between the teeth, the other remained free. The cable was tied at one end to a harpoon, and at the other to a float - a whole seal skin, turned upside down with the fur inside and filled with air. The harpoon pierced deep into the whale's body; and the shaft jumped into the water and was picked up by the hunter into the boat. The harpoon thrown at the whale's head was connected to one float. The harpoons thrown into the body had several floats. Many whalers took part in the hunt, and it happened that 30-40 floats were attached to a whale. In this position, he could not dive into the water.

The dead whale was towed during high tide to a shallow part of the coastal strip. With low tide, the hasty work of removing blubber, baleen and other valuable parts from the whale began.

The Chukotka people, who existed for so long in isolation from the continent, willy-nilly managed to preserve their own ethnocultural originality, despite all the delights and temptations of civilization, until the 21st century. These meat-eaters still prefer the flesh of sea creatures, be it fish or walrus, to all Western delicacies.

Due to the fact that the walrus population declined greatly in the 18th-19th centuries, the USSR introduced a ban on commercial fishing of these animals back in 1956, which is still in effect today. However, the residents of Chukotka have the exclusive right to hunt walruses in order to satisfy their traditional, vital needs, as well as to maintain their traditional way of life. The indigenous population of Denmark (Greenland), Canada and the USA (Alaska) has the same right.

Capital of the walrus fishery

Maintaining the traditional way of life for the Chukchi is, of course, a sacred cause, and without hunting walrus in some areas of the district, the people simply cannot survive. For example, in the village of Lorino, where the territorial neighboring community of the same name operates for walrus hunting, a modern Chukotka settlement located on the territory of the former Eskimo settlement of Nukak.

The village is located on the shore of Mechigmenskaya Bay in the Chukchi Sea. The nearest populated area is the regional center, the village of Lavrentia, connected to Lorino by a 40-kilometer-long road. In the village of Lavrentiya there is a small airfield and the only plane that flies once a week to Anadyr, otherwise there is no way to get to the capital of Chukotka from Lorino. The distance to Anadyr is about 500 kilometers.

About 1.5 thousand people live in Lorino, 80% of whom are indigenous to the peninsula.

There are as many as three stores in the village, one state-owned and two private, but the assortment on the shelves is depressingly scanty - one or two types of sausage and cheese, and even canned goods. The bread is baked in a local bakery. Due to the complexity of delivery, product prices are very high. In such conditions, whether you like it or not, you will take up a harpoon or a gun.

How to get it and where to store it

Walruses come to the Mechigmenskaya Bay area in mid-June; they migrate in large herds from the east of the Bering Strait to the west. Around the same time, the hunting season begins, which lasts until mid-autumn. The production of these sea giants is strictly limited; in 2011, this quota is 500 animals in total, while each village is allocated its own quota. The limit on catching or shooting is also set for whales, but seals and birds in Chukotka can be caught without restrictions.

Miners usually go fishing at sea in one or two boats. First, they watch, waiting for one of the animals to appear on the surface so they can take air into their lungs. Then the Chukchi swim to that place as close as possible so that one of the hunters can throw a harpoon at the walrus. This is a very important, one might say “iconic” part of the hunt, since a rope and a float are attached to the harpoon - a plastic colored ball filled with air. Remaining on the surface, the float allows you to track the movements of the animal underwater, waiting for it to reappear in the field of view of the shooters.

Next comes the actual shooting. The Chukchi, like true hunters, try to kill the walrus with the first bullet. Representatives of this people have a rather philosophical attitude towards the nature around them and the animals they have to kill. They do not ask for forgiveness from the gods for innocently lost souls, but they also do not show unreasonable cruelty in fishing.

The killed walrus is secured with a rope and towed to the butchering site. Directly from there, during skinning, local residents can take home the required amount of meat, which is stored in a glacier - a natural refrigerator, a corridor with niches dug in the ground. The carcass of an adult animal, which can weigh about a ton, is cut into separate pieces of 80-90 kilograms and sewn into skins, where a peculiar enzymatic process begins. Such bales are called kopalgyns; in order to feed a standard family and a team of dogs during the polar winter, you need to stock up seven or eight kopalgyns; these northern nomads, as a rule, do not make extra supplies. The Chukchi practically do not use spices, but prefer to eat meat or fish “with a flavor.”

Waste-free production

Marine hunting in Chukotka is the main economic activity of residents of coastal villages, ensuring the traditional way of life and preserving the national culture of the indigenous peoples of the North. The meat and lard of sea animals is rich in essential amino acids and is an integral part of the nutritional diet of the aborigines, the basis for maintaining immunity and producing vitamin D. But the Chukchi traditionally use all parts of hunted walruses. Sea giant tusks are an excellent raw material for carved products; fat is used for heating and lighting. The durable skin is suitable as a raw material for making ropes and for insulating homes, as well as for covering boats - traditional Chukchi kayaks, and waterproof capes are made from the intestines and stomach.

Trophy products are distributed among local residents completely free of charge and used only for personal consumption - these provisions are stipulated in the rules of the International Whaling Commission and in the legislation of the Russian Federation.

Irina Nekhoroshkina

Chukchi– internal districts of the Chukotka Peninsula, northern Yakutia and Kamchatka. Koryaks- southern neighbors of the Chukchi. Itelmens– western side of the Chukotka Peninsula.

Anthropological characteristics: arctic small race of northernMongoloids. The uniqueness of the racial characteristics of the peoples included in this group (Chukchi, Eskimos, Koryaks, Itelmens), in comparison with other Siberian Mongoloids, lies in a slight weakening of the Mongoloid complex: a higher nose bridge, a less flat face, darker pigmentation, protruding lips. Based on these characteristics, anthropologists establish a connection between the Arctic race and the Pacific Mongoloids rather than the inland Mongoloids. Language affiliation: languages ​​of the Chukchi-Kamchatka group.

Chukchi. Hunting for sea animals: in winter and spring - for seals and seals, in summer and autumn - for walrus and whale. They hunted seals alone, crawling up to them, camouflaging themselves and imitating the movements of the animal. The Morzhas hunted in groups of several kayak(wooden frame covered with walrus skin). Traditional hunting weapons are a harpoon with a float, a spear, a belt net; since the second half of the 19th century, firearms have spread, and hunting methods have become simpler. Guns - bone shovels, hoes, drills, bone and stone arrows, spearheads, a complex bow of the American type, slings made of knuckles, armor made of leather and iron plates, stone hammers, scrapers, knives, a primitive projectile for making fire by friction, primitive lamps in in the form of a round flat vessel made of soft stone, filled with seal fat, etc. Light sleds, adapted for sitting astride. The sledges are harnessed either by a pair of deer (among the reindeer Chukchi), or by dogs, according to the American model (among the coastal Chukchi). Now there are metal tools, firearms, metal utensils. Food: boiled meat (reindeer, seal, whale); they also ate the leaves and bark of the polar willow (emrat), seaweed, sorrel, shellfish and berries. In addition to traditional meat, it was also eaten animal blood and entrails. Raw-frozen meat was widespread. Unlike the Tungus and Yukagirs, the Chukchi practically did not eat fish. The drink is a decoction of herbs such as tea. A unique dish is the so-called monyalo(ahahahah it stank) - half-digested moss extracted from a large deer stomach; Various canned food and fresh dishes are prepared from monyal. Semi-liquid stew made from monyal, blood, fat and finely chopped meat until very recently was the most common type of hot food. Housing: yaranga- big tentirregularly polygonal in shape, covered with panels of deer skins, with the fur facing out. Resistance against wind pressure is provided by stones tied to the pillars and cover of the hut. The fireplace is in the middle of the hut and surrounded by sleighs with household supplies. The actual living space, where the Chukchi eat, drink and sleep, consists of a small rectangular fur tent-canopy, fixed at the back wall of the tent and sealed tightly from the floor. The temperature in this cramped room, heated by the animal warmth of its inhabitants and partly by a fat lamp, is so high that the Chukchi strip naked in it. Cloth: normal polar type. It is sewn from the fur of fawns (grown up autumn calf) and for men consists of a double fur shirt (the lower one with the fur towards the body and the upper one with the fur outward), the same double pants, short fur stockings with the same boots and a hat in the form of a woman's bonnet. Women's clothing is completely unique, also double, consisting of seamlessly sewn trousers together with a low-cut bodice, cinched at the waist, with a slit on the chest and extremely wide sleeves, thanks to which Chukchi women can easily free their hands while working. Summer outerwear is deer suede hoodies or from colorful purchased fabrics, as well as kamleikas made from fine-haired deer skin with various ritual stripes. The infant's costume consists of a reindeer bag with blind branches for arms and legs. Instead of diapers, a layer of moss with reindeer hair is placed, which absorbs feces, which are removed daily through a special valve attached to the opening of the bag.

Women's hairstyles consist of braids braided on both sides of the head, decorated with beads and buttons. 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. Social organization : The Chukchi clan is united by the commonality of fire, consanguinity in the male line, a common totemic sign, ancestral revenge and religious rites. Marriage is predominantly endogamous, individual, often polygamous (2-3 wives); among a certain circle of relatives and brothers-in-arms, mutual use of wives is allowed, by agreement; also common levirate(the widow was obliged or had the right to remarry only with the closest relatives of her deceased husband, primarily with his brothers.). Kalym does not exist. Chastity does not matter for a girl.Religion: amulets (pendants, headbands, necklaces in the form of straps with beads). Painting the face with the blood of a murdered victim, with the image of a hereditary-tribal sign - a totem, also has ritual significance. Animism, deification of natural phenomena (owners of the forest, water, fire, sun, deer, etc.), animals (bear, crow), stars , sun and moon, believe in evil spirits who cause all earthly disasters, including illness and death, have a number of regular holidays (autumn festival of deer slaughter, spring - horns, winter sacrifice to the star Altair, the ancestor of the Chukchi, etc.) and many irregular (feeding the fire, sacrifices after each hunt, commemoration of the dead, votive services, etc. .). Each family has its own family shrines: hereditary shells for producing sacred fire, bundles of wooden knots “removing misfortunes”, wooden images of ancestors and, finally, a family tambourine, since ritual ritual with a tambourine among the Chukchi is not the property of only specialist shamans. Christianized. Culture: The Chukchi have a rich oral folk art, which is also expressed in the art of stone bone. The main genres of folklore: myths, fairy tales, historical legends, tales and everyday stories. One of the main characters was the raven Kurkyl, a cultural hero. Many legends and fairy tales have been preserved, such as “Keeper of the Fire”, “Love”, “When do the whales leave?”, “God and the Boy”. Dancing with a tambourine.

Koryaks. Traditional home crafts include processing wood, bone, metal, stone, weaving, and tanning hides. In ancient times, the Koryaks knew pottery. The tree was used to make reindeer and dog sleds, boats, spears, utensils, spear shafts and harpoons, and shuttles for weaving nets. From the bones and horns of deer and mountain sheep, the Koryaks made utensils, knives for cutting fish, picks, knot undoers, pegs and harpoon tips, brakes for reindeer sledges, and combs for combing grass. Stone axes and spearheads were used at the beginning of the 20th century, and scrapers for dressing hides are still used today. Currently, traditional industries: reindeer husbandry and fishing determine the economic direction of the Koryak Autonomous Okrug. The main economic unit of all groups of Koryaks in the 19th - early 20th centuries. was large patriarchal family. Polygamy known, although at the end of the 19th century it was not widespread. Marriages took place within one local group. The marriage system of the Koryaks excluded first cousins; in a patrilocal marriage, there was work for the wife. The custom was observed levirate and sororate. There was strict sexual division of labor.

Among the sedentary Koryaks it prevailed semi-dugout with a funnel-shaped structure on the roof and walls made of wooden blocks. In the center of the home there is a fireplace.They entered the dugout in winter through the smoke hole. From the middle of the 18th century, log houses began to appear. Traditional winter clothing consisted of fur tunic shirt, pants, hood and shoes.Winter clothing is double: the lower one - with the fur towards the body, the upper one - with the fur outward. Most of the kuhlyankas had a hood and the trousers reached the ankles in length. Men's winter shoes with long and short tops were made from reindeer camus with the fur facing out. The soles were usually made of bearded seal skin. They put it inside the shoes fur stockings. On the road, over the kuhlyanka they wore a kamleika - a wide shirt made of rovduga or cloth. The set of women's winter clothing also included overalls (kerker), a fur shirt (gagaglia), the hood of which replaced the headdress. Summer clothes of the Koryaks had the same cut as winter clothes, but were made from rovduga, deer skins with trimmed fur, dog skins, and purchased fabrics.

Fish, meat and fat of sea animals constituted the main food of sedentary Koryaks. Most of the fish was consumed in the form of yukola, exclusively salmon. The meat of sea animals was boiled or frozen. Used everywhere foraging products: edible plants, berries, nuts. Fly agaric was used as a stimulant and intoxicant. Since the end of the 19th century, purchased products have become increasingly widespread: flour, cereals, tea, sugar, tobacco.

The folk arts and crafts of the Koryaks are represented by the artistic processing of soft materials (female occupation) and the manufacture of products from stone, bone, wood and metal (male). Fur mosaic stripes in the form of a wide border (opuvan) were sewn onto the hems of the kukhlyankas. The ornament is predominantly geometric, less often floral. Realistic figures of animals and scenes from their lives are often embroidered. Miniature figures of people and animals were cut out of walrus tusks and horns, bone earrings, necklaces, snuff boxes, smoking pipes, decorated with engraved ornaments and drawings were made. The traditional worldview is associated with animism. Koryaks animated the entire surrounding world: mountains, stones, plants, sea, heavenly bodies. Distributed worship of sacred places - appapels (hills, capes, cliffs). Sacrifices of dogs and deer are practiced. There are cult objects - anyapels (special stones for fortune telling, sacred boards in the form of anthropomorphic figures for making fire by friction, amulets symbolizing totemistic ancestors, etc.). Existed professional and family shamanism.Traditional holidays - seasonal: in the spring there is a festival of horns - keelvey, in the fall there is a festival of reindeer slaughter among reindeer herders. Before the start of the spring sea fishery, coastal hunters held a holiday for launching kayaks, and at the end of the autumn season (in November) a holiday for the seal - Hololo (ololo). There were holidays of the “first fish”, “first seal”. Both the coastal and reindeer Koryaks settled special religious ceremonies on the occasion of bear hunting, ram, etc. with ritual dances representing naturalistic imitations of the movements of animals and birds: seals, bears, deer, ravens. During the holidays, games and competitions were organized (wrestling, running competitions, deer or dog races, tossing a bearded seal on the skin). In recent decades, professional culture has been developing, mainly in the field of choreographic (national dance ensemble "Mengo") and fine arts.

Itelmens. Sea and river fishing. IN rivers fished salmon breeds. IN fished the seanavaga(on ice),smelt, capelin.Fishing gear is mainly passive - locks, fixed nets, seines, and floating nets were used.Prepared for future use- dried, fermented, salted. Objects marine hunting - seals. Hunting was practiced in rookeries and in the coastal zone using nets. St. John's wort products were used for food (meat, fat) and as feeding dogs. The skins were used to make clothing and household items. Land hunting was of minor importance. Large animals were taken from the Kamchatka brown bear and mountain sheep, the meat of which was used for food. The objects of the fur trade were sable, fox, arctic fox, etc. Gathering. Religion – animism, totemism, fetishism, shamanism (women). Folklore - tales of the raven Kutkha.