You might have noticed that i havent been posting art that much recently, which has been caused by a variety of reasons, but one of which is that I've been hunkered down and working on this series about my Siberian OCs!!! Really proud of how these turned out, esp the embroidery and patterns, even if i did fry my hand a bit in the process LOL
Click the read more for icons and personality descriptions written by @irithnova, who I share many of these OCs with :3c
Yukagir: Resident old lady surrounded by (who she sometimes considers annoying) youngins, sweet demeanour and pleasant to talk to, though she isn't immune to giving a good scolding when a younger Siberian is annoying her. Lots of knowledge from her many years when it comes to practical stuff so is good with her hands, though she finds other things difficult to remember…
Sakha: Approachable and outgoing, hardheaded and unafraid to speak his mind. Big organiser of events and knows who everyone is - is always trying to extend his reach, even outside of Siberia. Smokes like there's no tomorrow. Was kind of a menace in his youth - his neighbours don't let him forget. Is artistic at heart, has sketchbooks full of illustrations and is pretty crafty. Saul Goodman who?
Evenia: Easy going but usually keeps to himself, often mistaken for Evenkia much to his chagrin. Somewhat playful, loves some good banter. Excellent storyteller and has a million random tips and tricks stored in his head. Sporty, loves to challenge people to a race.
Dolgan: Similar to Sakha, she is also hard headed and unafraid to speak her mind, seeing as he raised her. Very studious and serious about her research, calculative about a lot of her actions. Seems timid on the surface because of her appearance, but she's managed to wield a lot of influence. Usually decked out in pretty clothing and jewellery from Sakha.
Evenkia: Likes to take on a mentor role to those younger than him, like he did with Sakha. Very knowledgeable and enjoys problem solving. Has a bit of a reputation for dumping children of his onto others, though you would never guess this through his appearance alone. Enjoys collecting things, nerdy.
Ket: Serious faced mostly and protective of himself, quite reserved, so it means a lot when he lets his guard down. Very particular about his routines, though this has made him quite good at planning and organising. Caught up in his own thoughts a lot - makes sense seeing as he's the last survivor of the Yenisein family.
Chukotka: Social butterfly and very outgoing. Likes to be sort of a big sister figure to people, including North American groups. May seem scatterbrained and silly on the surface but she is far more clever than she lets on. Very girly and bubbly, wears jewellery that jingles as she walks past.
Koryak: "Sibling" of Chukotka but personality wise he's quite different - he takes himself a bit more seriously. Dry sense of humour, and like Ket, he can be pretty sarcastic. Has a reputation of being a troublemaker (blame Russia for that), he's really not though. Being somewhat strung up is unfortunately his default these days.
Itelmen: Woman respecter™ (no seriously look up the Itelmens' original polytheistic religion). Invites the other Siberians to his celebrations and is a pretty good host, but is prone to being possessive over them (as in, he wants to remind them that this is HIS tradition so don't try and claim it 🙄). Also prone to unprompted malding. His hair is well styled and maintained, though he pretends like he does nothing to it so as to not give up his secrets.
In this post I’m going to be talking about Sakha and Evenkia's mentor-student relationship. In my master post about Sakha I talked about how we can see how the Sakha people assimilated certain peoples into their own through observing certain traditions of theirs, the most prominent being their shamanic traditions which were greatly influenced by the Evenks and Evens.
The Evenks have had a profound influence on Sakha culture in particular though, which is why I headcanon Sakha and Evenkia to have a mentor-student relationship, or more like, they used to have a mentor student relationship. The Sakha’s people genesis began when they migrated from the area of Lake Baikal/Southern Siberia up Northwards, most likely because of pressure from the expanding Mongol Empire.
When Sakha first migrated, he came into contact with a number of different people, such as the Yukaghir, Even, and Evenks, who he considers all his mentors to an extent, however Evenkia was the most prominent one and had the most impact on his culture.
Sakha was young, bright eyed, eager and somewhat annoying, especially to his older neighbours who were pressured to move upwards because of him. Evenkia was also kind of irked by him, but was much more willing to guide him than the others were. Close contact and intermarriage between the Sakha and Evenk people
Let’s first compare both Sakha and Evenkia folk epics about the universe and see how similar they are, and then talk about Evenks influence on the Sakha language.
Sakha Folk Epic Olonkho:
- Sakha epic poetry envisions the universe with three levels: Earth (middle), Heaven (upper), and Hell (lower).
- The universe is symbolised as a giant tree, Aal Luuk Mas, housing these levels.
- Lower level: Devil (abaahy), Middle level: ajyy people, Upper level: deities and some evil spirits.
- Earth and Heaven are interconnected, with Heaven representing spirituality and Earth as a material entity.
- Animism features gods (ajyy), demons (abaahy), spirits (itchi), ancestors, and animals (üör) across the three levels.
- Different regions in the upper world are designated for creators, good spirits, ancestors, and evil spirits ruled by Uluu Toyon.
- Heavenly bodies influence life on Earth; the Sun is associated with Yurung Aar Toyon, the god who rules destinies.
- Olonkho describes Heaven with 7 (sometimes 8 or 9) layers and 4 parts (East, West, North, South).
- Yurung Aar Toyon (upper God, the white master, white creator) is the Master of 9 heavens, Tsar of 8 heavens, and prince of 7 heavens.
- Heaven writers record each person’s destiny, and shamans, transforming into clouds, encounter different cloud types.
- Cloud characteristics (all clouds have their own characteristics): ‘aahar bylyt’ (passing), ‘kuotar bylyt’ (escaping), ‘jetineh bylyttar’ (thunderstorm clouds).
Now let’s compare to Evenki tradition about the universe:
- Evenk epic envisions the universe, which they call Buga, with three levels: upper (Ugu Buga), middle (Dulin Buga), and lower (Hergu Buga).
- Ugu Buga (heaven) has parts like Juri Jultjen Turinyn (place of the rising sun), Jenin Nadar Bomchar (mother of the seven canyons), and Nadan Buldjar (land of seven seas)
- Earth, referred to as Sivir, is described as the “mane of our Earth,” the middle green world.
- Ugu Buga, the upper world, is portrayed as a place of eternal summer and well-being. God Seveki resides there, creating the middle world.
- Warriors from the middle world journey to the upper world to seek brides – daughters of the sun Dylacha Khunadin, moon, and stars Bega Khunadin.
- Buga represents the upper entity governing nature, taiga life, and human-animal spirits, with Buga Musin (mistress of the universe) depicted as a moose cow, reindeer, or an old woman in charge of spirits.
- Humans are associated with heavenly entities like Dylacha (sun), Gevan (dawn), Nyangnya (heaven), and sky. Humans are living things that are a subject to these entities.
- Tribes like ai, aji, agbea, aji ajmak, ai tegel have names reflecting qualities of help, rescue, goodness, and beauty.
- Their purpose is to create good in the middle and upper worlds, opposing the Avakhi tribe from the lower world, engaged in constant conflict without intermarriage.
As we can see, they both share the same HEAVEN – MAN – EARTH triad. However there are some differences along with the similarities. In the epic worldview of both the Sakha and Evenk, the structure of the heavens is remarkably alike. However, the Sakha cultural narrative doesn’t distinctly portray heaven and earth as realms of good and evil. The Sakha envision heaven as not only inhabited by gods but also by evil spirits and ancestors, while for the Evenk, heaven resembles a paradise. According to Evenk epics, devils and enemies are only confined to the lower world, whereas Sakha epics depict evil spirits across all three worlds.
The sky god, recognised as the Creator of the Middle World, is referred to as “Yurung Aar Toyon” in Sakha and “Seveki” in Evenk. The Sakha term the middle world as “ajyy land” and its inhabitants as “ajyy ajmaga,” whereas the Evenk collectively call the residents of all three levels as “aji.”
The Sakha and Evenk people also share the concept of the Serge as being the model of the universe:
- A Serge is like a pillar used to tie horses in Sakha culture.
- In Sakha, it's important for shaman traditions and used in rituals during celebrations, weddings, and the summer holiday Yhyakh.
- In Evenk culture, Serge is a special object representing the world's structure. It has three parts: the upper dome for the upper world, the disc-shaped part for the middle world, and the rounded part for the lower world.
- A sacred reindeer tied to the pillar serves as a connection between humans and God, specifically the Master of the upper world, named Seveki.
So Sakha and Evenkia do have a number of similarities when it comes to their religious practices from their time living together. The Sakha people adapted aspects of Evenk belief into their own.
When Sakha first arrived, as I said before, Evenkia was initially irked by him, as the migrations pressured his own people to move further Northwards. However this did not last long. Evenkia certainly took a liking to Sakha. In Evenk culture, many of the children’s activities mimicked adult duties, and so it was almost natural that Evenkia would want to teach a (younger) Sakha and take him under his wing, especially considering how keen Sakha was to learn because of the fact that he only just recently moved there and needed to help around. Evenkia was a huge relief for him.
A lot of the words Sakha borrowed from Evenkia was a result of him trying to adapt to new living conditions:
- In phonetics, some changes occurred in Sakha due to Evenk influence, like certain sounds not occurring at the beginning of words (g, h and p) and changes in intonation.
- Morphologically, Sakha borrowed affixes like -chaan and -ndja, -ndaa from Evenki.
- Vocabulary-wise, Sakha borrowed words related to landscape, flora, fauna, clothing, reindeer breeding, and dwelling from Evenk.
- Polish scholar S. Kaluzhinsky found around 400 Tungusic words in Sakha and listed more words related to various aspects of life.
- Evenk words were likely borrowed during the Sakha adaptation to new living conditions, with a focus on clothes, bird names, geographical features, animals, plants, and reindeer breeding terminology.
So in this sense Evenkia truly was Sakha’s teacher/mentor, and was one of the reasons why Sakha was able to adapt to and make sense of the new living conditions he found himself in. They got comfortable with each other pretty quickly, and Evenkia tried to instill in him certain values that he thought were important – such as not gossiping or rumour spreading. In Evenk culture, gossiping/rumour spreading is greatly frowned upon, and most likely had something to do with not screwing up the accuracy of the location of an animal during a hunt. I’ll refer back to this later, but all in all, Sakha learned a lot from Evenkia, and Evenkia was more than pleased to teach him.
They certainly got comfortable with each other quite quickly, and Sakha definitely found Evenkia’s more bawdy jokes in particular to be quite funny, but was careful not to make them back (in Evenk culture, bawdy jokes are acceptable but elders are allowed to make them in front of younger people and men in front of women, but not the other way around)
Now onto Sakha and Evenkias relationship with Dolgan. I talked about Sakha’s relationship with Dolgan and how he’s like a father to her in a previous post:
“Quick sidenote on the Dolgan: I see Sakha as being quite close with Dolgan. Dolgan culture incorporates aspects from different groups, including reindeer herding from the Evenki, herd dogs from the Nentsy, and women's fur coats from the Sakha.
In fact, the Dolgan people originated from a few Evenk clans that later adopted a dialect of the Turkic-speaking Sakha (Yakut).
So Sakha does try to look out for Dolgan and imagining him like. Dressing her up/giving her clothes and jewellery is so cutee. He's a lot more involved with her than Evenkia is, much to his annoyance.”
I also see Dolgan taking after Sakha personality wise, as I see Sakha as someone who is quite hard headed/outspoken (I jokingly called him the Saul Goodman of Siberia) and I see Dolgan being that way too, as the Dolgan people wield a lot of influence in Siberia despite their small numbers,
“The 2002 Russian census recorded 7,261 Dolgans in the whole Russian Federation. The Dolgan people today are one of the most politically powerful groups in their territory, and many senior officials of the Taimyr Autonomous Okrug are Dolgans.”
“The Dolgans and other indigenous peoples in the Taimyr Autonomous Okrug have created an Association of the Indigenous Peoples of the Taimyr Autonomous Okrug through which they are demanding the rights to control their own destinies. The Association has declared that indigenous peoples in Taimyr have priority rights to the land and its subsurface resources and hopes to be able to use revenues from mineral exploitation and economic development to fund programs addressing the many social and economic problems facing indigenous peoples today.”
So Dolgan really is like Sakha’s protégé/junior (and yes he’s very proud of her).
This is more of a crack headcanon of mine but seeing as the Dolgan originated from Evenk clans that took on a dialect of the Sakha language, I see Dolgan as almost being their child. Though I believe that Sakha had a much greater hand in her upbringing considering they, again, took on a dialect of the Sakha language, took on Sakha attire and personality wise, she’s also very much like Sakha. However she physically looks more similar to Evenkia. Due to the fact that Sakha had a greater role in her upbringing he uhh holds some resentment towards Evenkia for dumping her on him for not having a bigger part in it, he was his mentor after all. Evenkia dismisses his complaints as silly rumours (“didn’t I teach you the importance of not gossiping?), which only annoys Sakha further.
It’s okay though, Sakha is now bigger and stronger than his previous mentor and can make him pay him back in his own way ;)
But in all seriousness, Sakha does credit Evenkia with helping him adapt and survive when he first moved and won’t ever deny that, though he sometimes finds Evenkia irksome to deal with these days. Yukaghir defends Evenkia because she’s also an oldie and so she uses his age to defend him most of the time.
So I was doing more research on the Sakha language and
Sakha really was impressionable wide eyed and eager to learn huh (seeing how influenced Sakha was by Evenkia already when it comes to his language...)
More language similarities:
"Долуур"/Doluur is Sakha language. Compared to different Mongolic languages
This one I found very interesting:
Mentions of the Kurykans/Sakha's mother (?)
I want to make a separate post on the Kurykans seeing as she was Sakha's mother/ancestor to say the least (it won't be extensively long I don't think. More research is to be done though). From what I've read so far I think, like Sakha, she was quite the social butterfly!
Oh and I checked that "dalu/dala" actually meant shoulder bone in Mongolian just for peace of mind lol (first paragraph is Mongolian, second is the English translation)
Not to go insane over Sakha and Evenkia on main again but 🤤
From what I've read there's some differences in when researchers believe the Evenk came in and began making language contributions to the Sakha language, (though I am learning towards the school of thought that the influence began at the earliest formation of the Sakha people. Wow Sakha looks so young and lost Evenkia you need to help him-) but it's really interesting to know that it wasn't just a one way exchange as there is a "presence of archaic forms of the Yakut language in Evenk vocabulary."
I know I've posted about their relationship before but I love mentor/student relationships so bear with me. I think it's quite cute that Evenkia also adopted certain things from Sakha, kind of like a "I can still teach you a few things, old man" type of situation. All of this going on whilst Evenkia was helping him piece together and be able to make sense of the world around him and most importantly, how to articulate it. Not just with how to understand practical things like different types of flowers or whatnot but also to understand the essence of life itself through the spreading of the Olonkho epic of the different levels of the world and the Gods etc etc.
Of course Evenkia wasn't the only person to influence Sakha but from what I've been reading he was a major one. Nowadays I think Sakha is moreso helping Evenkia out with things ("Evenkia if you want this done you need to stop being so blunt-") LMAO and even if he finds it somewhat annoying at times there's still that part of him that is reminded of those days.
