Siberian History (Part 4): Native Peoples
By the time Russia began their conquest of Siberia, there were already around 140 different native peoples living there. Pastoral nomads, with cattle and sheep herds, roamed the south-western steppes; forest nomads hunted and fished in the taiga; reindeer nomads drove their great herds along fixed routes in the tundra.
Agriculture was practised in the Amur River Valley, but only on a basic level. In the extreme north-east, tribes hunted wild reindeer or whales, walruses and seals along the shores of the Bering Sea and Sea of Okhotsk.
Some of the tribes living in the steppes and forest regions were in the Iron Age, and had developed links with China and Central Asia. Those living in the tundra regions were in the Stone Age.
The Paleosiberian peoples were the descendants of Siberia's prehistoric inhabitants. They include:
In the north-east – the Chukchi, Yukaghir, Siberian Yupik (used to be called the Asiatic Eskimos) and Kamchadals. The Kamchadals covers all the peoples living on the Kamchatka Peninsula, including the Ainu, Alyutors (in the north, and also on the Chukchi Peninsula), Chuvans, Itelmens and Koryaks. Also living in the north-east were the Kereks, who during the 1900s were almost completely assimilated into the Chukchi.
On the lower Yenisei River – the Ket (used to be called the Yenisei Ostyaks).
On the northern part of the Kamchatka Peninsula – the Alutor.
In the lower Amur River Basin & the northern half of Sakhalin Island – the Nivkh.
On the southern half of Sakhalin Island & the Kuril Islands – the Ainu.
[The Yukaghir are one of the oldest peoples in North-East Asia, but they do not speak a Paleo-Siberian language.]
From the 200s AD onwards, Neosiberian tribes began to join the original inhabitants:
Finno-Ugric peoples – the Khanty (old name Ostyaks), Mansi (old name Voguls), and Samoyedic peoples (the name comes from “Samoyed”, an obsolete term for some indigenous Siberian peoples). The Samoyedic peoples were the Nenets, Enets, Nganasans and Yurats (Northern Samoyeds); and the Kamasins, Koibal, Mators and Selkups (Southern Samoyeds). The Yurats, Kamasins, Koibal and Mators now no longer exist.
Turkic peoples – including the Siberian Tatars, Yakuts, Chuvash, Dolgans and Tuvans.
Tungusic peoples (sometimes called the Manchu-Tungus) – including the Evenks (old name Tungus) and Evens (old name Lamuts). They are sometimes grouped together as “Evenic”. There were also the Nanai people (old name Goldi).
The Mongols – subgroups in Russia are the Buryats and Kalmyks. There were also the Daur people, who nowadays mostly live in north-eastern China.
The Khanty & Mansi were semi-nomadic, living in the forests and marshes of the Ob-Irtysh Basin. The Samoyedic peoples were reindeer herders, roaming the Yamal and Taymyr Peninsulas, as well as the tundra west of the Yenisei River.
The Yakuts lived in the Lena Valley. They had settlements along the headwaters of the Yana, Indigirka and Kolyma Rivers.
The Evenks lived in a region that stretched east from the Yenisei Valley to the Pacific Ocean. The Evens, cousins to the Evenk, lived on the shores of the Sea of Okhotsk. The Nanai people lived on the middle Amur Basin.
During the 1200s and 1300s, the Buryats established themselves in areas of steppeland around the southern end of Lake Baikal.
In the 1600s, some (or all) of the Daur people were living along the Shilka River, upper Amur River, Zeya River, and Bureya River. In 1640, the Qing Dynasty crushed the Evenk-Daur Federation, and the Amur Daurs came under their influence.
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Apart from the Siberian Tatars, who were Muslims, all the native Siberian peoples followed pagan religions.
The Buryats and Yakuts were descendants of Central Asian pastoral nomads, and were the most advanced of all the Siberian peoples. They kept cattle & horses, and had clan chiefs.
The reindeer-herding peoples had no (or little?) institutionalized hierarchy, congregating regularly as small family bands for councils and seasonal rituals, or to share meat from hunts. Those in the far nothern tundra had a hard life, following their great reindeer herds from place to place, pausing only long enough for the reindeer to paw up the snow for moss around their encampment.
The Koryaks of northern Kamchatka were probably the most isolated. They roamed over great moss-covered steppes, among extinct volcano peaks 1.2km above sea level, sometimes enveloped in drifting clouds, swept by frequent rainstorms and snowstorms.
