A Line in the Sayans History and Divergent Preceptions of Property
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This is an authorized facsimile, made from the microfilm master copy of the original dissertation or master thesis published by UML The bibliographic information for this thesis is contained in UMFs Dissertation Abstracts database, the only central source for accessing almost every doctoral dissertation accepted in North America since 1861. Dissertation UMT Services 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106-1346 USA 800.521.0600 734.761.4700 web www.il.proquest.com Printed in 2004 by digital xerographic process on acid-free paper NOTE TO USERS This reproduction is the best copy available. UMI A LINE IN THE SAYANS: HISTORY AND DIVERGENT PERCEPTIONS OF PROPERTY AMONG THE TOZHU AND TOFA OF SOUTH SIBERIA Brian Robert Donahoe Submitted to the faculty of the University Graduate School in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Anthropology, Indiana University December 2003 UMI Number: 3133859 Copyright 2004 by Donahoe, Brian Robert All rights reserved. INFORMATION TO USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleed-through, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. UMI UMI Microform 3133859 Copyright 2004 by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 ©2004 Brian Robert Donahoc ALL RIGHTS RESERVED To my mother, Rho Donahoe Lord knows you 've waited long enough! IV PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I was first introduced to the Republic of Tyva (more commonly known as Tuva) by Prof, Roman Zlotin of Indiana University's Department of Geography, who had done his dissertation research in Tyva in the early 1960s. I was particularly intrigued by its position at the ecological crossroads of the Siberian boreal forests and the Inner Asian steppes; cultural and linguistic crossroads of the Turkic and Mongolia peoples; and historical, political and administrative crossroads between Russia, Mongolia, and China. My interest was furiher kindled through communication with the organization Friends of Tuva, and its founder, Ralph Leighton. I began to read all I could find on Tyva in English. Of course, prior to the glastnost' and perestroika movements in the Soviet Union under Gorbachev, virtually no Western researchers could get into Tyva (or anyplace else in the former USSR), so there was very little English-language literature up to that time. Following that, the great majority of English-language material, both academic and journalistic, focused on one of three things: Tyva's national art, throat-singing (khoomei); the revival of shamanism in Tyva; or the nationalist-secessionist movement in Tyva in the early 1990s. Tyva is also known to stamp collectors for its curiously shaped postage stamps issued during Tyva's short-lived national independence (1921-1944). As I am not musically inclined nor a philatelist, a study of Ty van throat-singing or of postage stamps was out of the question. That left shamanism and the nationalist-secessionist movement. Hence my initial research interest was to investigate the critical juncture where, I imagined, the discourses of nationalism, shamanism, and environmentalism converge to contribute to a unique Tyvan national identity and to justify Tyva's claims to sovereignty over its natural resources. At the time, based on available materials (e.g., Alatalu 1992; Eismont 1996; McMullen 1993). I was speculating that in the wake of Chechnya's efforts to secede, Tyva appeared to be subtly positioning itself to become the next secessionist test-case to challenge Moscow in the volatile politics of the fragmenting Russian Federation. However, when I made my first trip to Tyva in .1997,1 found that neither of these issues was foremost in people's minds, and to ray understanding, both had been blown out of proportion by the handful of Western academics and journalists who had made their way to Tyva in the early 1990s. No one in Tyva talks about seceding anymore, and "shamanism" has, in my opinion, been woefully misrepresented. Western attention has focused on a highly publicized, newly institutionalized form of shamanism, represented by shamanic training institutes, certification boards, and clinics. In my experience most Tyvans emphatically reject this version of shamanism as inauthentic. and view these shamans as charlatans. The belief system that has legitimacy in the eyes of most Tyvans is for the most part tacit, an internalized worldview that incorporates a spirit world manifest in nature. This worldview permeates the consciousnesses of most Tyvans and is reflected in many subtle ways, but is in no way dependent on a shaman, hence is more accurately described as a type of animism (with appropriate caveats - see inter alia Bird- David 1999) or spiritism. Given the lack of salience of these two issues to the everyday lives of the Tyva people. 1 found myself without a topic. But several people said to me, "You know, we used to have a lot of reindeer up in the Tozhu region, but now we don't. Why don't you look into that?" And thus a dissertation topic was born. But the first task was to become proficient in the Tyvan language. Tyva has always been unique among the republics of the former in USSR in that il is one of the few places where the titular nationality has always been in the majority, and where virtually all Tyva people still speak Tyvan as their first language. In fact, many of the older reindeer herding peoples (as well as some yak herders in the west), being the most removed from urban areas and still leading nomadic or semi-nomadic iifestyles, speak Russian only as a distant second language, and are uncomfortable expressing themselves in Russian. At the time of my initial trip to Tyva, I knew no Russian. This proved to be an advantage for me - I probably would not have been able to 3eam Tyvan if I had known Russian, because everyone in the capital would have reverted to speaking Russian with me. But with a strong background in Turkic languages and my total lack of Russian, the easiest thing for me and others to do was to try to speak in Tyvan. Of course, I couldn't become fluent in a single summer, but 1 returned in 1998, and then lived in Tyva for two full years from September 1999 through September 2001.1 conducted all fieldwork in the Tyvan language, including extensive interviews and surveys. I became proficient in reading Russian, as this was necessary for archival work and to read earlier ethnographic accounts, most of which are written in Russian. Toward the end of my first year in Tyva, I was contacted by a colleague who was in the process of applying for a grant from the Volkswagen Stiftung to document endangered Tyva-reiated languages in and around Tyva. He got the grant and set up the Altai-Sayan Language and Ethnography Project (ASLEP). This allowed me to stay in Tyva for another year (Sept.. 2000 - Sept. 2001). While my main task within the ASLEP project was to document the Tozhu dialect of the Tyva language via video and audio vii recording, as well as to assess people's attitudes toward their language and its decline, I was also able to go up to an area informally known as Tofalaria in southwestern Irkutsk Oblast', just on the other side of the border between Tyva and Irkutsk Oblast'. In this remote region live the Tofa (more commonly known as Tofalar), an ethnic group very closely related ethnically, historically, linguistically, and in their traditional lifestyles to the Tozhu reindeer herders I had been working with. The short time I spent with the Tofa (two trips totaling five weeks) was very informative and particularly productive for the comparative framework it allowed me to construct. This comparative framework is the structural backbone of the entire dissertation. Needless to say, any project of this size can only be accomplished with the support and assistance of an army of people. Stateside, I would like to thank my dissertation committee, first and foremost my principal advisor and committee chair, Dr. M. Nazif Shahrani. Dr. Shahrani brought me into anthropology and made my doctoral studies possible by nominating me for a Social Science Research Council (SSRC) Fellowship, despite the fact that I had had no prior anthropological training. He was the perfect advisor for an older student such as myself - he gave me the latitude and freedom to make my own decisions (and mistakes), but stepped in where necessary with unconditional support and sage advice. In the dissertation writing process, I thank him for giving me enough rope to hang myself and then not letting me do it, and for making me make it better. I thank Dr. Emilio Moran for prompt and insightful comments on earlier drafts; Dr. Rick Wilk for forcing me to look beyond the ethnography; and Dr. Eduardo viii Brondizio for agreeing to step in at the last minute and sit on my committee. I would also like to thank Dr. Lair)-' Clark for offering a course on the structure of Tyva Turkic when there was only one student to take it. The administrative staff at Indiana University's Department of Anthropology, especially Connie Adams and Debra Wilkerson, have given me unconditional administrative, logistical, and moral support.