Galina Lushnikova

Siberian Ethnic Groups – Culture and Language

Series A: General & Theoretical Papers ISSN 1435-6473 Essen: LAUD 2004 Paper No. 594

Universität Duisburg-Essen

Galina Lushnikova

Kemerovo State University ()

Siberian Ethnic Groups – Culture and Language

Copyright by the author Reproduced by LAUD 2004 Linguistic Agency Series A University of Duisburg-Essen General and Theoretical Fachbereich 3 Paper No. 594 Universitätsstr. 12 D- 45117 Essen

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Siberian Ethnic Groups – Culture and Language

On the territory of Siberian Region - Kuzbass (Russia, Western Siberia) there are registered about 116 national minorities, e.g. shors, , shandins, kalmaks. When language and culture are concerned, the aboriginal population faces two main issues: the first one follows from inefficient language policy and the second one is connected with the dying out of minority languages and hence the exclusion from access to knowledge and skills. The fact is that there are people living in the remote villages in Gornaya Shoria (more than a hundred kilometers away from the city of Novokuznetsk) where the majority of the population do not speak Russian at all. So children under seven speak only their native language. Then, as a rule, they leave their native places for the nearest settlements or towns to study in a boarding school. And as all the subjects are taught in Russian they immediately begin to learn it. Though some of them are quicker to learn due to the prevailing Russian environment still they suffer from language incompetence because some concepts have been already formed on the basis of their native language. The teenagers feel uncomfortable having to study together with younger children, while their coevals are already in the senior forms. Nowadays the general level of education among the population is constantly decreasing. Most job vacancies do not demand a high level of professional background and consequently do not provide tangible educational development of the population. Many of them have only primary or incomplete secondary education and very few of them – secondary or vocational. Another negative factor is a low qualification of teachers. In some schools teachers do not have even secondary vocational education. This inevitably has its impact on the quality of the knowledge acquired by the pupils. As a result, some of them return home. In this context local and regional administrations take concrete steps: ethnic minorities are encouraged to take additional classes in the and literature and school leavers are admitted to colleges and Universities on preferential terms. The second issue concerns the fact that minority languages are practically expiring. Fewer and fewer people speak their native languages, Russian dominating all spheres of life – education, politics and business. The representatives of national minorities challenge it in different ways: adult populations try to preserve their ethnic language and culture cherishing traditions, customs and rituals, while the younger generation see no practical use in it focusing their efforts on acquiring Russian and modern European languages. Ethnologists and linguists of Kuzbass Universities are concerned about it. No nation can exist without its own language, customs and traditions. And the matter of preserving each national minority in Russia is of paramount importance as each national minority is

1 part and parcel of the whole nation. Scholars and local authorities united their efforts in the following projects: in 2002 the Regional Administration formed the Department of National policy to coordinate the activities of different groups, organizations and individuals; Kuzbass Pedagogical Academy opened the Department of Shors’ History and Culture; several schools offer optional classes on ethnic languages, history and literature; Kemerovo Publishing House started publishing bilingual books of poetry and prose; special scientific programmes are being developed on the History and Philology Departments in Kuzbass Colleges and Universities whose main goal is to interpret and analyze the folklore of ethnic minorities. Still there is much to be done to empower Siberian ethnic minorities through Russian and at the same time to preserve their national peculiarities.

Until the end of the 20th century the Shors did not have a written language, and that was one of the reasons why the people’s oral activities were well developed, passing from one generation to another. Among these were songs, legends, fairy tales, stories about warriors and their heroic deeds, proverbs and sayings. This is all known to the reader thanks to the researches of scientists V.V.Radlov, V.I. Verbitski, N.P. Direncova, A.I. Chudoyakov. According to the modern linguistic classification the Shors language belongs to the Khakass subgroup, the Uigur-Uiguz group of the East-Hun branch of the . But only 9000 Shors consider the Shor language to be their mother tongue and only 900 of them speak it fluently. The Mrass dialect was taken as the basis of the Shor literary language that was also enriched by the Kondom dialect. There are 38 letters in the Shor alphabet based on the Russian alphabet and in addition to the letters of the Russian alphabet there are 5 special letters which render the sounds not existing in Russian, namely F, K, H, Ö, У. Nowadays the Shors use the Russian language and they speak the Shors language exclusively in their community. The Shors is a Turkic – speaking nation, the numerically small one, which lives in southern Siberia mostly in three basins of the rivers the Kondoma, the Mrassu and the . The Shor nation was formed during the long – lasting process of mixing of the Ugor, the Samody, the Helt on the one hand and Turkic tribes on the other. The Shors have been known to the since the end of the XVth century when Siberia became part of Russia. It happened in the reign of Ivan the Terrible (Ivan Grozni). The times of Ivan Vasilievich Grozni were really terrible. Historians state that the terror of the “Oprichni” period caused no less harm to the Russian people than the invasion of the Crimean Khan. As a logical end to the governing of the tsar-tyrant the Russians suffered severe starvation that led to robberies and denunciation. Then there came the vague times - the Bolotnikov revolt, the invasion of Lzedmitries, the interreign period, the Moscow Fire etc.

2 At this time sixteen-year-old Michael Fedorovich became the tsar and the honored Grand Duke of Russia. But this period was no better – the country was overrun with forged money, the roads were roamed by beggars, hungry crowds, descendants. Some joined the robbers, others decided to become free Don Kazaks. The bravest went east beyond the Stone (the Ural Mountains). That was how Ostafei Kharlamov, the son of a nobleman, happened to be in Siberia and later became the first commander- in-chief of the Kuznetsk fortress on the Tom. Kuznetsk, named after the native population Kuznetski totars that later were called the Shors, for more than 200 years had remained the most southward fortress of Siberia. The fortress, having lost within time its military significance, was excluded from the permanent register of fortresses in 1819. Though the founding of the city at the Upper Tom started the development of this region, it was not considered to be a great historical event. It was not marked by any “bloodstained battle” or any other bloodshed, as history likes to give credit to and store in memory. Generally speaking the Siberian chronicle dating back to the first days of Russia state according to Academician Miller (1775-1783) confirms that, when people are treated with caring and love they usually do what is expected from them. On the contrary, they struggle furiously and became rebellious, when they are abused without reason or when the local military commanders demand from them more than they could give. They preferred to pay “”, a fir tribute, to anybody who could protect them from the steppe robbers. The local Shor – and Teleut tribes always had trouble with all sorts of intruders. By the time the Russians came the Shor nationality had not yet been formed. The place was inhabited by strange forest tribes who did not only fish and hunt but also could smelt ore and make various tools and utensils of iron: kettles, axes, traps, arrow heads. It was this trade of the forest people that surprised the first Russian explorers because Russia had no iron at that time. Anything made from metal was considered by the Russians as something of special value. So the Shor iron-smelters preferred to pay iron “yasak” to the state. The Shor people had patriarchal families. The clan family descendants had the name of their predecessor. The name was given after the nearby river - the Tom, the Kondoma, the Mrassu. The riverside forest belonged to them. The members of a clan were counted in bows belonging to male members of the clan e.g. the Karga clan had forty bows, the Kobi fifty bows etc. Actually they began to be called the “Shors” only in the 19th century after the largest clan shors that lived in the Upper Kondoma. In the earlier chronicles they were referred to as the Kondoma and the Mrassu . In the beginning of the 20-th century this territory was named by the name of the nationality, which now occupies the south of the Kemerovo region – Mountainous Shoria (Gornaya Shoria).

3 Besides hunting, fishing, and iron smelting, the Shor tribes of those times sowed wild hemp from which they produced coarse linen. From Russian chronicles dated 1622 it is known, that the inhabitants of the north region of Shoria (the Abints, named after the river Aba), cultivated the hills of the forest and sowed wheat and barley. The technology of crop growing was rather simple: the earth was dug with a hoe (abil). The hoe crop farming was considered to be women’s work. The “abil” was always presented to a bride and was passed down along the woman’s line. The Abints collected the crop by pulling out the roots or by cutting the stalks. It was thrashed in the same primitive way. The sheaves were scorched over a fire and then shaken over a coverlet. Gradually the aborigines of Southern Siberia grew closer to the more experienced Russian farmers. They learned to plough, harvest grass, make log houses, sow buckwheat, make Russian sledges, used fire-arms for hunting. Social, religious, cultural and economic development of the Shors was conditioned by the historical events. The people of north Asia (Siberia and the Far East) still have an archaic social structure and, consequently, religion. The conditions of historical development among the North Asian peoples were unfavourable. Even today vast regions of the Far East are sparsely populated. The great distance from centres of advanced civilizations is one of the main reasons of it. Historical conditions were more favourable only for the peoples of Southern Siberia - the Altayans (the Shorz - the Kuznetsky Tatars included), Khakass, and : natural conditions were less severe, and they were closer to such highly developed countries as or China. These peoples developed more progressive forms of economic endeavour - pastoralism and agriculture. In some areas early forms of class relations emerged. Christianity was brought to Siberia between the XVIth and XVIIIth centuries, before this the Shors had had their own religious beliefs. The descendants of the Shors were pagans and shamans. was the dominant form of religion among nearly all the peoples of Siberia. The word “shaman” comes from the Tungusic language (saman, shaman- an exited person in frenzy). The word was spread throughout Siberia, and in the XVIII-th century it was borrowed by West European languages, becoming an international scientific term. Despite the diversity of some rituals shamanism has much in common for almost all Siberian peoples. The most common characteristic of shamanism as a form of religion is a belief that special people, shamans, putting themselves in a state of frenzy, possess the supernatural power to communicate with spirits. Though the shaman of Shoria lived an ascetic life, he had great influence upon his tribesmen and helped them overcome all sorts of predicaments and hardship.

4 Shor shamans, unlike shamans of other peoples, during kamlanie (ritual accompanied with singing and tambourine claps that brought a shaman in a state of a deep ecstatic trance, enabling him to communicate with spirits) could do without special attire. No shaman could perform his work without a tambourine. They called a tambourine tungur or tuur. The profession of a shaman was passed on from one generation to another. Majority of shamans were mentally ill, with propensity for epileptic fits. Shors believed that the people who were chosen to be shamans were marked by Ulgen (the supreme pagan deity). To make a tambourine shamans were to “consult” their guardian spirit who instructed them about the shape and peculiarities of a tambourine. Making a tambourine was a significant event, in which all members of a kin took part everyone being responsible for a particular part of it. All the drawings on it were made in white and red. The tambourine’s surface was divided into two unequal parts – the upper, the biggest, and the lower, the smallest. The upper was considered to be a sky, the lower- an underground world. In the upper part there were a sun kun and a moon ai in the form of a circle. The moon was in the right part and the sun was in the left. There were also a dawn tang chalman and a sunset angar cholmon in the form of small circles and the stars in the form of dots or crosses. The drawings of heavenly bodies helped shamans find their guardians in “cosmos” during kamlania. Thus a tambourine’s surface was considered to be a picture of three worlds: the upper - the sky, the middle - the earth and the lower- the underground world. The earth spirits as anthropomorphic and zoomorphic figures were drawn between the earth and the sky. The underground world was presented by the drawings of seven horsemen, the servants of Erlick (the underground deity), frogs and a monstrous ”fish” kar balyk (the most furious beast of the underground world and the most powerful shaman’s guardian). All the drawings reflected shaman’s power. During the kamlania the symbolic figures on the tambourine became “alive” and the shaman could use them in his own purpose. After this ritual the tambourine became a sacred object of the shaman and nobody could even touch it. Shamanism was not their only belief. There were other forms of beliefs: a well- developed hunting cult, the worshiping of animals, the family guardian cult, the ancestor cult and witch doctoring, that made them real children of nature. They were helpless against the forces of nature although clever and experienced in their own way. It’s enough to mention their moon calendar, which forecast weather amazingly accurately. Everyday wisdom and experience of the forest people could be traced in different spheres of activity. The Shor hunter would never shoot a sleeping animal, it had to be woken. In spring the young roe was attracted with a birch bark whistle. At that time of the year the nostrils of the deer was thought to be polluted with gat-fly eggs and it lost its keen sense of smell. To make clay crockery the Shors added wool to make it solid.

5 Fishing nets were made of horsehair. Dried meat was stored in the urinary bladder of killed animals saying:”every animal enters its own bladder”. Hunting was supposed to be the work done by men only. For one night a Shor could cover a distance of about sixty kilometers on skis. Women were strictly forbidden to hunt. This was a tabu: the one that gives birth should not kill! Brides were taken from a friendly tribe. For them they usually built a hut of birch branches. If a Shor died in winter, he would be wrapped into birch bark and hung to a tree deep in the taiga forest. The reason of it was deep snows, not barbarism. The body was buried only in spring. When summer came the Shors would turn their fir clothes inside out. The Shor worshiped the hill from where the water ran and on which his yurta stood. In winter it was made of logs, in summer of birch bark. Moreover the hill was considered to be a living being and had its character, sometimes naughty, sometimes obedient. For example, the Pustag hill, from where the tributaries of the Kondoma start, was angry, revengeful and its behaviour unpredictable. Why shouldn’t such a God be worshiped in spring and autumn? The life of the people depended on fishing and hunting. The hunting cult was one of the main family rituals, without which successful hunting was impossible. The worshipping of guardian spirits of hunting was performed by the kam – shaman, who used several tambourines. With this noisy and extremely emotional ritual they called the Gods, ensured their help, cherished the belief of the people in a happy future. The shaman claimed that the soul was connected with a string to the God who created the soul. Sometimes the deities - guardians of hunting were given different names because every kin used some particular name for them: saras, taigam. The master spirits of animals, rivers, woods and mountains, which figures are met under different names in some Russian museums, are neither studied nor mentioned by researchers. They are determined as cult objects of unclear type. Shors had deities of domestic cult Orekenner, Tor-Kigi, Umai who personified their female ancestors or patronesses of the domestic hearth, family prosperity, children. Besides they believed in an evil spirit Kara-Umai. The most ancient God was a female deity Umai, who protected infants and took the deceased. Umai-Iche (Mother-Umai) was personified with a child’s soul. It was presented as a “safeguard” in the form of a bow with an arrow that was nailed to the wall of a yurta or over a child’s cradle. It symbolized the presence of a female deity Umai in the house. The safeguard was hung when a child was put into a cradle for the first time and it was taken off when the child grew up and did not sleep in a cradle any longer. The figure of Kara-Umai was made in families where the children died or were ill. A pregnant woman who gave birth to a dead baby invited a shaman, who stole a child's soul

6 from another family and “knocked” it into an expectant mother. In this case a woman was to make a figure of Kara-Umai out of old clothes and put it into a wooden cradle. Orekenners were Shor domestic guardian deities, female ancestors. They were supposed to take care of family prosperity and make the kin grow in number; they protected children’s health, domestic hearth and the cattle, besides, they patronized hunters because the family depended on successful hunting. Orekenn is translated as an “old woman”, “old”, and “venerable”. Orekenns are simplified anthropomorphic figures. The girls who got married and left their parents’ home took them into their husbands’ house. Until the beginning of the XIXth century shaman played a very important role in Shor’s life. He was always present at birthday parties, funerals, weddings and the beginning of the hunting season. With the Altay mission’s activity growing shamanism was gradually becoming less important. The number of truly powerful Kams was constantly decreasing. At the beginning of the XX-th century the Shors organized kamlanias only in case of illnesses. A solemn sacrificing of a horse to please Ulgen took place rather rarely. The local people were converted to Christianity at the time when the city of Kuznetsk was founded. It was being done slowly, without haste and any resistance as the military commander- in- chief wrote. Russian colonizers followed the old tradition ”by care not brutality”, suggested by Michael Fedorovich. Later missionaries became a common thing in Shoria. In 1858 at the settlement on the river Kondoma (now called Kuzedeevo) the so-called Altai mission (church) turned the local tribes to Christianity. They opened several churches and schools for the Shor children in the uluses villages Kuzedeevo, Ust–Anzas, Mostursk, Kondoma. Turning to Christianity had several important issues. Polygamic families were no longer common. The Kalym (ransom) was not demanded for the daughter to get married, and under- aged girls were not sold to husbands of the advanced age any more. But there still existed a Shor traditional wedding ceremony when an abduction of the bride was always considered a compulsory part of a wedding. But it should be noted that a bride could be brought away only if she had given her consent. If she refused the bridegroom she could not be abducted. Sometimes, girls from poor families had to marry wealthy men for the sake of convenience. The celebration usually lasted for two days. On the first day the bridegroom stole his future wife without her parents being aware of the fact. The bridegroom’s family invited relatives and friends to a dinner party during which the guests threw money on the table. That day the bridegroom’s friends and the bride’s parents came to the agreement concerning the marriage; the bride’s parents began to prepare the trousseau, to lay the table, etc. On the second day the bridegroom and the bride came to her parents and gave them the money that had been gathered the day before (the so called “kalym”). In exchange the parents gave them the trousseau. Its size depended upon the “kalym”. The more the kalym was, the richer was the trousseau. After this all the guests were invited to the table and the

7 party went on. Nowadays the traditional wedding ceremony can be still observed if the families would like it. From the point of view of Christian missionaries one of the ways to learn the secrets of the pagan aboriginals and their religious outlook is the study of the folk customs and traditions. They were the first to have studied the language alongside with their folklore. Unfortunately the “kondoma people’s stories” were never recorded. The blending of Christianity with these traditional beliefs created a strange picture of religious syncretism. In spite of the struggle of the church and Soviet government against shamanism, its symbols peacefully coexisted with Christian icons till the 1930s. They kept on appealing to their spirit guardians. Nowadays a sort of religious syncretism based on Christianity with some relics of shamanism cult still exists. The objects of spiritual culture are most likely to be preserved as the museum relic.

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