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|
ӈәнә"са (нә"), ня" | |
|---|---|
 Nganasans, 1927 | |
| Total population | |
c. 720 (2020) | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
 Russia:∟ Taymyria | 687 (2021)[1] |
 Ukraine | 44 (2001)[2] |
| Languages | |
| Nganasan language,Russian language,Taimyr Pidgin Russian | |
| Religion | |
| Animism,Shamanism,Orthodox Christianity | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Selkups,Enets,Nenets, otherUralic peoples | |
TheNganasans (/əŋˈɡænəsæn/əng-GAN-ə-san; Nganasan:ӈәнә"са(нә")ŋənəhsa(nəh),ня(")ńæh) are aUralic people of theSamoyedic branch native to theTaymyr Peninsula in northSiberia. In theRussian Federation, they are recognized as one of theindigenous peoples of the Russian North. They reside primarily in the settlements ofUst-Avam,Volochanka, andNovaya in theTaymyrsky Dolgano-Nenetsky District ofKrasnoyarsk Krai, with smaller populations residing in the towns ofDudinka andNorilsk as well.[3]
The Nganasans are thought to be the direct descendants of proto-Uralic peoples.[4] However there is some evidence that they absorbed a localPaleo-Siberian population. The Nganasans were traditionally a semi-nomadic people whose main form of subsistence was wild reindeerhunting, in contrast to theNenets, whoherded reindeer. Beginning in the early 17th century, the Nganasans were subjected to theyasak system ofCzaristRussia. They lived relatively independently, until the 1970s, when they were settled in the villages they live in today, which are at the southern edges of the Nganasans' historical nomadic routes.
There is no certainty as to the exact number of Nganasans living in Russia today. The2002 Russian census counted 862 Nganasans living in Russia, 766 of whom lived in the formerTaymyr Autonomous Okrug.[5] However, those who study the Nganasan estimate their population to comprise approximately 1,000 people.[a] Historically, theNganasan language and aTaymyr Pidgin Russian[9] were the only languages spoken among the Nganasan, but with increasededucation and village settlement,Russian has become the first language of many Nganasans. Some Nganasans live in villages with aDolgan majority, such asUst-Avam. The Nganasan language is consideredseriously endangered and it is estimated that at most 500 of the Nganasan can still speak it, with very limited proficiency among those 18 and younger.[10]
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The Nganasans first referred to themselves inRussian asSamoyeds, but they would also often use this term when referring to the Enets people and instead refer to themselves as the Avam people. For the Nganasans, the term signifiedngano-nganasana, which means 'real people' in theNganasan language, and referred to both themselves and the neighboring MaduEnets. However, in their own language, the Avam Nganasans refer to themselves asnya-tansa, which translates as 'comrade tribe', whereas the Vadeyev Nganasans to the east prefer to refer to themselves asa'sa which means 'brother', but also includes theEvenks andDolgan. The Nganasans were also formerly called Tavgi Samoyeds or Tavgis initially by the Russians, which derives from the wordtavgy in theNenets language. Following theRussian Revolution, the Nganasans adopted their current appellation.[11][12]
The Nganasans are the northernmost ethnic group of theEurasian continent and theRussian Federation, historically inhabiting thetundra of theTaymyr Peninsula. The areas they inhabited stretched over an area of more than 100,000 square kilometers, from theGolchikha River in the west to theKhatanga Bay in the east, and fromLake Taymyr in the north to theDudypta River in the south.[13] The hunting areas of the Nganasan often coincided with those of theDolgans and Enets to their east and west respectively. In the winter, they resided in the south of thepeninsula at the edge of theArctic tree line, and during the summer they followed wildreindeer up to 400 miles to the north, sometimes even reaching as far as theByrranga Mountains.[14]
The homeland of the Proto-Uralic peoples, including the Samoyeds, is suggested to be somewhere near theOb andYenisey river drainage areas ofCentral Siberia or nearLake Baikal.[15]
The Nganasan are considered by most ethnographers who study them to have arisen as an ethnic group whenSamoyedic peoples migrated to the Taymyr Peninsula from the south, encounteringPaleo-Siberian peoples living there who they then assimilated into their culture. One group of Samoyedic people intermarried with Paleo-Siberian peoples living between theTaz andYenisei rivers, forming a group that theSovietethnographer B. O. Dolgikh refers to as the Samoyed-Ravens. Another group intermarried with the Paleo-Siberian inhabitants of thePyasina River and formed another group which he called the Samoyed-Eagles. Subsequently, a group ofTungusic people migrated to the region nearLake Pyasino and theAvam River, where they were absorbed into Samoyed culture, forming a new group called the Tidiris. There was another group of Tungusic peoples called the Tavgs who lived along the basins of theKhatanga andAnabar rivers and came into contact with the aforementioned Samoyedic peoples, absorbing their language and creating their own TavgSamoyedic dialect.[16] It is known that the ancestors of the Nganasan previously inhabited territory further south from a book in the cityMangazeya that listsyasak (fur tribute) payments by the Nganasan which were made insable, an animal that does not inhabit the tundra where the Nganasan now live.[11]
By the middle of the 17th century, Tungusic peoples began to push the Samoyedic peoples northward towards the tundra Taymyr Peninsula, where they merged into one tribe called Avam Nganasans. As the Tavgs were the largest Samoyedic group at the time of this merger, their dialect formed the basis of the present-day Nganasan language. In the late 19th century, a Tungusic group called the Vanyadyrs also moved to the Eastern Taymyr peninsula, where they were absorbed by the Avam Nganasans, resulting in the tribe that is now called Vadeyev Nganasans. In the 19th century, a member of theDolgans, aTurkic people who lived east of the Nganasans, was also absorbed by the Nganasans, and his descendants formed aneponymous clan, which today, though linguistically fully Samoyedic, is still acknowledged as being Dolgan in origin.[17]
The Nganasans first came into contact withRussians sometime in the early 17th century,[11] and after some resistance, began to pay tribute to theCzar in the form of sable fur under the yasak system in 1618.[18] Tribute collectors established themselves at the "Avam Winter Quarters", at the confluence of theAvam andDudypta rivers, which is the site of the modern-day settlement Ust-Avam. The Nganasans often tried to avoid paying yasak by changing the names that they provided to the Russians.[19] Relations between the Russians and Nganasans were not always peaceful. In 1666, the Nganasans ambushed and killed yasak collectors, soldiers, tradesmen, and their interpreters on three occasions, stealing the sable furs and property belonging to them. Over the course of the year, 35 men were killed in total.[20]
The Nganasan had little direct contact with merchants and, unlike mostindigenous Siberians, they were neverbaptized[11] or otherwise contacted by missionaries.[21] Some Nganasans traded directly with the Russians, while others did so via the Dolgans.[14] They usually exchanged sable furs foralcohol,tobacco,tea, and various tools, products which quickly integrated themselves into Nganasan culture.[22] In the 1830s,[23] and again from 1907 to 1908, Russian contact caused majorsmallpox outbreaks among the Ngansans.[24]
The Nganasans first came into contact with theSoviets around in the 1930s, when the government instituted a program ofcollectivization. The Soviets had established that 11% of families owned 60 percent of the deer, while the lower 66% owned only 17 percent,[25] and redistributed this property by collectivizing reindeer intokolkhoz around which the Nganasan then settled.[26] This represented a great change in lifestyle, as the Nganasan, who had primarily beenreindeer hunters, were forced to expand their small stock ofdomesticated reindeer that had previously only been primarily for transport or eaten during periods of famine.[27] Additionally, the Soviets took a greater interest in the Nganasans as a people, and starting in the 1930s,ethnographers began to study their customs.
Despite collectivization and the institution of thekolkhoz, the Nganasans were able to maintain a semi-nomadic lifestyle following domesticated reindeer herds up until the early 1970s, when the state settled the Nganasans along with the Dolgans and Enets in three different villages it constructed: Ust-Avam,Volochanka, andNovaya.[28] Nganasankolkhoz were combined to create the villages, and after settling in them, the Nganasans shifted fromkolkhoz employment to working forgospromkhoz Taymirsky, the government hunting enterprise, which supplied meat to the burgeoning industrial centerNorilsk to the southwest. By 1978, all domestic reindeer herding had ceased, and with new Soviet equipment, the yield of hunted wild reindeer reached 50,000 in the 1980s. Most Nganasan men were employed as hunters, and the women worked as teachers or asseamstresses decorating reindeer boots.[28] Nganasan children began schooling in Russian, and even pursuing secondary education. TheSoviet planned economy provided the Nganasan settlements with wages,machinery,consumer goods, andeducation, allowing the Nganasans to achieve a relatively highstandard of living by the end of the 1980s.[29]
The traditional religion of the Nganasans isanimistic andshamanistic. Their religion is a particularly well-preserved example ofSiberian shamanism, which remained relatively free of foreign influence due to the Nganasans' geographic isolation until recent history. Because of their isolation, shamanism was a living phenomenon in the lives of the Nganasans, even into the beginning of the 20th century.[30] The last notable Nganasan shaman'sseances were recorded on film by anthropologists in the 1970s.[30]
TheNganasan language (formerly calledтавгийский,tavgiysky, orтавгийско-самоедский,tavgiysko-samoyedsky in Russian; from the ethnonymтавги,tavgi) is a moribund Samoyedic language spoken by the Nganasan people. It is now considered highly endangered, as most Nganasan people now speak Russian rather than their native language. In 2010, it was estimated that only 125 Nganasan people can speak it in the southwestern and central parts of the Taymyr Peninsula.[citation needed]
The characteristicgenetic marker of the Nganasans and most other Uralic-speakers is Y-DNAHaplogroup N-M231. According to theY-chromosomeDNA (transmitted in a direct male line), thenomadic Nganasans (of whom there are only about 100 people left) belong by 92% to theY-chromosomal haplogroup N1a2b-P43 (formerly N1b), by 5% to theY-chromosomal haplogroup C,[32] by 3% — toY-chromosomal haplogroup O.[33] This is the highest rate among allpeoples for haplogroup N1a2b (among the tundraNenets — 74%[34]). Moreover, this is one of the most homogeneous peoples of those whose DNA has been studied by the Y-chromosome.[35]
According to a 2019 study, they have highANE affinities but much less than those found inNative Americans andBeringians. The study's authors hypothesized that Nganasans mixed with populations related to Neolithic Northeast Asians to form present Northeast Asians. The affinities East Asians have with ANE also correlate with their affinities with Nganasans.[31]
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)The northernmost people of our continent are dying in the Taimyr tundra. The Nganasans have been untaght how to live],Novaya Gazeta, March 18, 2021
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