NENETSIA

Turning Points in the History of the Nenets

The Nenets are a Samoyedic people (related to Enets, Selkups and Nganasans), and it is believed that they separated from the Finno-Ugrian groups around 3000 B.C. and migrated east, where they mixed with Turkish-Altaic peoples around 200 B.C. The traditional economy of the Nenets and other Samoyedic peoples was mainly based on reindeer herding and breeding, fishing, and sea mammal hunting. Their society was organized into well-defined clans, each with their own grazing, hunting and fishing lands, as well as nomadic routes.

13th c - coming under the influence of Novgorod; The Samoyedic people who remained in Europe, came under Russian control around 1200 A.D., but those who had settled further east did not have much contact with the Russians until the 14th c.

1628 - By the early 17th c., all of the Samoyedic peoples were under Russian control. During the 16th and 17th c., the central government under the tsars ruled these peoples indirectly from Moscow. They established forts, from which they collected the despised fur tax, but left the actual administration to local rulers. Anyone who converted to Christianity was offered citizenship. The indigenous peoples suffered from their commercial and political contacts with the Russians. The Russians brought tools, firearms and various trade goods, including alcohol, which has plagued these people ever since. They also brought with them diseases that these peoples had never been exposed to before.

1824 - large-scale conversion to Orthodoxy;

1870s - partial resettlement to north-western border areas of Russia;

After the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, the Soviet government issued the "Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia", including a wide range of rights of self-determination, that largely remained on paper, as policies of "modernisation" were put through. In 1924, a Committee of Assistance of Peoples of the North was established. They first proposed creating large reservations where the indigenous populations could continue their traditional life-styles. But instead, the Soviet government decided to integrate these peoples into the larger social, political and economic body of the country. Around 1930, several "national districts" were established, administrative units named after one or two of these small peoples. Three such huge regions that exist today, are the Nenets Autonomous Okrug (administratively to some extent part of Arkhangelsk oblast), Dolgan-Nenets (Krasnoyarsk kray) and the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomus Okrug (Tyumen oblast).

1929 - formation of the Nenets Autonomous District, beginning of collectivisation;

1930 - formation of the Yamal Nenets Autonomous District; collectivization met with strong resistance among Nenets leaders, but to no avail. The government also establihed "cultural bases", with schools, hospitals, day-care centres and so on - mainly in an effort to minimize the nomadic lifestyle of the Nenets and other groups. More than fifty schools were built for Nenets children, and from 1938, Russian was the language of instruction. Nenets religion was also attacked.

During the World War II, the Soviets relocated much of their industry east of the Ural mountains to keep it away from the Germans. Because of this and as a result of huge state development plans, large numbers of ethnic Russian workers suddenly poured into Siberia.

1950s - the Nenets are broken morally and as a nation, as the traditionally pastoralist people are forced to adopt a resident life-style in the collective farms; in the early 1950s, there were several Nenets rebellions in the Arkhangelsk area against this cultural imperialism. The uprisings were suppressed, and rebel leaders were either executed or sent to remote prison camps, where most of them perished.

1960s - the beginning of the industrial boom and massive immigration: the biggest changes in Nenets life were caused by Soviet industrialization and the increasing immigration of ethnic Russians into Siberia. The Nenets and other indigenous groups found their land decreasing rapidly, and more and more of them gave up reindeer-herding for jobs at construction sites, oil and natural gas wells, and mass-production factories. The main industrial project that changed the lives of the Nenets, was the exploitation of the huge natural gas field in the Yamalo-Nenets national region, which since the early 1960s has caused severe damage to the tundra and taiga environment.

There have been strong calls for a preservation of the original indigenous culture, and there have been protests against industrialisation. Nenets leaders have joined the recently formed Association of Peoples of the North.

However, the problems of the Russian economy and the heavy reliance on natural resources will probably lead to an acceleration of the industrialisation in Siberia, which in turn will make it harder for the Nenets and other indigenous peoples to maintain their culture.

Turning Points in the History of the Selkups

The Selkups are a Samoyedic people (related to Nenets, Enets and Nganasans), and it is believed that they split away from the Finno-Ugrian groups around 3000 B.C. and migrated east, where they mixed with Turkish-Altaic peoples around 200 B.C.

The Russians began to occupy the middle reaches of the Ob River at the end of the 16th century. By that time there existed a Selkup community known as the Dappled Horde, headed by the Knyazets (little prince) Vonya, which for a long time refused to acknowledge the authority of the Russian Tzar.

1628 - The founding of the fortified settlement (ostrog) of Krasnoyarsk marks the subjection of the Selkups to the Russian domination and taxation;

18th c - Forcible mass conversion to Orthodoxy;

During the second half of the 19th century, the Russian colonization, russification and assimilation of the Selkup intensified.

The Bolshevik Revolution led to a series of disastrous changes in Selkup life. The southern Selkups, living on both sides of the Ob river, had already for some time had contact with Russians, and were well on their way to assimilation, while the northern Selkups lived in relative isolation in the Taz river valley. Collectivisation in the 1920s and -30s brought a flood of ethnic Russian and Ukrainian settlers, who had been displaced from their original homes, mostly upon accusations of being "kulaks". Agriculture was hard this far north, and the new settlers also supported themselves by hunting, fishing and lumbering. Vast forest areas were leveled. The southern Selkups fled the Russians, and settled further north, in the Ket and Tym river valleys. The collectivization, imposed sedentary lifestyle and aggressive atheism prove disastrous to the traditional Selkup lifestyle;

1960s - The now resident Selkups have adopted the Russian lifestyle and mass culture. The northern Selkups, who managed to stay in isolation a little longer, also suffered major disruptions in the 1960s, when the Soviets started large-scale development of oil and natural gas fields in the Yamalo-Nenets national region. The Selkups and other indigenous groups found their land decreasing rapidly, and more and more of them gave up reindeer-herding for jobs at construction sites, oil and natural gas wells, and mass-production factories. The main industrial project that changed the lives of the Selkups, was the exploitation of the already mentioned huge natural gas field in the Yamalo-Nenets national region, which since the early 1960s has caused severe damage to the tundra and taiga environment. As a result, there have been calls for the preservation of the original indigenous culture, and there have been protests against industrialization and the destruction of the environment. Selkup leaders have joined the recently formed Association of Peoples of the North.

Economy
The Selkups were engaged in integrated economy, whose main branches were hunting and fishing. Transport reindeer herding was practiced only by the northern Selkups. In the meantime, in the Selkup burial sites before the 17th century there occur farming tools. The Selkup linguistic evidence also provides agricultural terms. In the past, the Selkups were also engaged in ceramics, weaving, and metallurgy. The economic regress of the Selkups by the beginning of the 17th century is explained by the abundance of fur-bearing mammals characteristic of Western Siberia, which became one of the major centers of the concentration of fur traders from various countries of that time. By the middle Cis-Ob Region the sable became extinct at the end of the 17th century, and, the squirrel became the main object of fur-bearing harvest by the Selkups. The distribution of squirrel harvest in the 19th century is testified by the Selkups exchange entity sarum, which was a bunch if 10 squirrel pelts. For the Narym Selkup of great importance was the harvest of forest game birds which were the main source of meat. Ranking second in importance for the Selkup economy was fishery. The basic objects of fishery were the sturgeon, nelma, omul, broad whitefish, muksun. Of the traditional fishery craft, the fixed gill net became common, and dam fishery was also practiced. Reindeer herding was the occupation of the northern Selkups. The Selkup reindeer herding is of the taiga type. The size of herds and routes of seasonal displacements are fairly small. In contrast to the Nenets, the Selkup used no shepherd dog. Grazing was practiced rarely, even in winter.

Material Culture
The Selkups had several types of dwelling. All year round the constant dwelling of reindeer herders was the chum (tent). In the taiga zone it was mainly used in summer, while the winter dwellings were semi-subterranean houses, varying in structure and size. The winter clothing in northern Selkups (for both men and women) was the parka - a coat of reindeer hides, fur outside. Under the parka, the men wore shirts of purchased fabric and trousers of rovduga; and women, home-made dresses. In heavy frosts, the Selkups wore the parka over the sokui, a shirt-like garment without a front slit, with a hood of reindeer hide, fur outside. In the south of the Selkup distribution range, very common was the Russian-type clothing. They ubiquitously wore the Russian shirts and trousers, dresses and sarafans. The traditional staple food of the southern Selkup is fish. The common diet item in winter was fermented fish. It was fermented together with berries (blueberry, cranberry, cloudberry). For northern Selkups, venison was an important item of the diet. The meat and fish dishes were seasoned with the wild onion or sarana tubers collected by women. Instead of tea, they drank a juniper beverage with young fly agarics. In winter, the main means of transportation were the skis tangysh, lined with kamus or otter skin. Used as draft animals were reindeer and dogs by the reindeer herder Selkups, and dogs and horses by the Narym Selkup.In the taiga, the hunter pulled his cargo on his own, occasionally harnessing a dog. The most common means of water transport was the dugout boat.

Spiritual Culture
The Selkups are characterized by the animist concepts of the environment. Nom, personifying the sky, was considered to be the Demiurge, the good principle. The evil spirit guardian Kyzy resided under the earth. In the Selkup shamanism, sexuality played an important role. The Selkups believed that a shaman had sexual intercourse with the daughter of the forest guardian spirit. One of the peculiar rites in the Selkup shamanism was the reviving of the drum and other shaman accessories. Every Selkup clan had its own sacral sites with the images of the clan guardian spirit, a shaman of their own, and a cemetery of their own. In case of death in a strange land, the clan members were obliged to take the deceased back and bury him in the clan cemetery. The Selkup art is represented by designs on birch bark dishes, the bone details of the reindeer harness, knife sheathes and other domestic articles. The ornamentation of clothing characteristic of numerous Siberian peoples, was not common for the Selkups. Central in the traditional folklore is the description of numerous adventures of the protagonist, his struggle with evil spirits who were conquered. The musical instruments comprised the vargan, a plate of the deer antler bone with a vibrating tongue, a semi-string harp called lebed (swan). For the northern Selkup, the only instrument was the shaman drum.

Endangered Uralic Peoples: Nenets | Selkups

The Red Book of the Peoples of the Russian Empire: Nenets | Selkups

Wikipedia: Nenets | Selkups

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The Yamal Peninsula's Contested Terrain
Industrial Oil Development in the Yamal-Nenets Area

RAIPON (Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North)

BBC: Nenets Tribe | Nenets Videos