The peoples of Sakhalin: culture, features of life and way of life. Presentation on the topic: "Small peoples of the Sakhalin region
Number
In 1989, there were 4,631 Nivkhs in Russia, including 2,386 in the Khabarovsk Territory and 2,008 in the Sakhalin Region. According to the 2002 census, 5,287 people.
Language
The Nivkhs constitute a special Amur-Sakhalin anthropological type of the North Asian race. The language is isolated and has Amur, North Sakhalin and East Sakhalin dialects. Writing since 1932 is based on Latin, since 1953 - Russian graphics. According to modern data, the Nivkh language contains elements that connect it with the South Asian, Altai, Manchu and Tungus languages. Archaeological research has established multiple migrations of the Nivkhs, starting from the Neolithic, to the Lower Amur from the southeast and west. Thus, the formation of the Nivkh culture took place in conditions far from the strict isolation that researchers initially attributed to them.
NIVKH LANGUAGE (old expression - Gilyak), the language of the Nivkhs. Genetically isolated, it is usually classified as a so-called Paleoasiatic language. Writing based on the Russian alphabet.
Settlement
They live on the Lower Amur (Ulchsky and Nikolaevsky districts of the Khabarovsk Territory), as well as on Sakhalin Island (Rybnovsky and Aleksandrovsky districts on the western bank and Tymovsky district).
Traditional activities
The main traditional occupation of the Nivkhs is fishing, which provided food for people and dogs, material for making clothes, shoes, sails for boats, etc. They were engaged in it all year round.
The main fishery is migratory salmon (pink salmon in June, chum salmon in July and September). At this time, they stocked up on yukola - dried fish. Dried fish bones were prepared as food for sled dogs. Fishing gear included spears (chak), hooks of various sizes and shapes on leashes and sticks (kele-kite, chosps, matl, chevl, etc.), various fishing rods, rectangular, bag-shaped, fixed nets (including ice nets) and smooth (chaar ke, khurki ke, nokke, lyrku ke, anz ke, etc.), seines (kyr ke), nets, summer and winter fences (fences in rivers with a net trap).
Played a major role in the economy of Sakhalin and the Amur Estuary marine hunting. In spring and summer, animals (seals, bearded seals, sea lions) were caught with nets, seines, hooks, traps (pyr, rsheyvych, honk, etc.), harpoons (osmur, ozmar), a spear with a floating shaft (tla) and a kind of rudder (lahu) . In winter, with the help of dogs, they found holes in the ice and placed hook traps in them (kityn, ngyrni, etc.). In the spring, seals and dolphins were hunted in the lower reaches of the Amur. The sea beast provided meat and fat; clothes, shoes, gluing skis, dressing various household items.
Taiga hunting was most developed on the Amur. Many Nivkhs hunted near their homes and always returned home in the evening. On Sakhalin, hunters went into the taiga for a maximum of a week. Small animals were caught using various pressure traps, nooses, crossbows (yuru, ngarhod, etc.), bears, moose - using a spear (kah), bow (punch). From the 2nd half. XIX century Firearms were widely used. The Nivkhs exchanged furs for fabrics, flour, etc.
Women collected and stored medicinal and edible plants, roots, herbs, and berries for future use. Various roots, birch bark, twigs, etc. were used to make household utensils; nettle fiber was used to weave nets, etc. The men stockpiled building materials.
They fished and caught sea animals from boats - plank punts (mu) with a sharp nose and 2-4 pairs of oars. All R. XIX century Such cedar boats were often received from the Nanai. On Sakhalin they also used poplar dugouts with a kind of visor on the nose.
In winter they traveled on sledges, with up to 10–12 dogs harnessed to them in pairs or in a herringbone pattern. The sled (tu) of the Amur type is straight-winged, tall and narrow, with double-curved runners. They sat astride it, with their feet on their skis. In con. XIX - early XX century The Nivkhs began to use wide and low sledges of the East Siberian type.
The Nivkhs, like other peoples of the Amur, had 2 types of skis - long skis for spring hunting and sealed fur or elk skins for winter hunting.
Traditional Beliefs
The religious ideas of the Nivkhs are based on the belief in spirits that lived everywhere - in the sky (“heavenly people”), on the earth, in the water, the taiga, every tree, etc. They prayed to the host spirits, asking for a successful hunt, and made bloodless sacrifices to them. “Mountain man”, the owner of the taiga Pal Yz, who was represented in the form of a huge bear, and the owner of the sea Tol Yz, or Tayraadz, a sea killer whale. Every bear was considered the son of the owner of the taiga. The hunt for it was accompanied by rituals of the trade cult; there were rituals characteristic of the bear holiday; A bear cub caught in the taiga or purchased from the Negidals or Nanais was raised for 3–4 years in a special log house, after which a holiday was held in honor of the deceased relatives. Feeding the animal and organizing a holiday was an honorable task; neighbors and relatives helped the owner in this. During the entire time the animal was kept, many rules and prohibitions were observed. For example, women were forbidden to approach him.
The bear festival, which sometimes lasted 2 weeks, was held in the winter, during free time from fishing. All relatives (even those living far away) usually gathered for it. The details of the bear festival among the Nivkhs had local differences. The features of the ritual also depended on whether the owner was organizing a holiday after the death of a relative or simply on the occasion of the capture of a bear cub.
The Nivkhs, unlike other peoples of the Amur, were cremated and buried in the ground. The burning ritual differed among different groups of Nivkhs, but the common content prevailed. The corpse and equipment were burned on a huge bonfire in the taiga (at the same time, fire pits were made and surrounded by a log house. A wooden doll was made (a bone from the deceased’s skull was attached to it), dressed, put on shoes and placed in a special house - raf, about 1 m high, decorated with carved ornaments. Near him they performed regular memorial rites (especially often once a month for a year, after that - every year), treated themselves, and threw food into the fire - for the deceased. A typical ritual is the symbolic burial of a person whose body was not found (drowned, disappeared, died at the front, etc.): instead of the body, a large, human-sized doll made of branches, grass was buried, it was dressed in the clothes of the deceased and buried in the ground or burned, observing all the required rituals.
Members of one clan, living in a common village, held prayers in winter to the spirits of water, lowering sacrifices (food on ritual utensils) into the ice hole; in the spring, after the river was opened, victims were thrown into the water from decorated boats from special wooden troughs in the shape of fish, ducks, etc. 1-2 times a year they prayed in their houses to the master spirit of heaven. In the taiga, near the sacred tree, they called upon the spirit-owner of the earth, turning to him with requests for health, good luck in trades, and in upcoming affairs. The guardian spirits of the house in the form of wooden dolls were placed on special bunks; sacrifices were also made to them and they were “fed.”
Self-name
NIVKHI (self-name - nivkh- Human). In past Nivkhs, Ulchi, Negidal people were called Gilyaks. The name was extended by Russian settlers to other Lower Amur peoples - Negidals, Ulchis, etc. The ethnonym “NIVKHI” was officially approved in the 1930s.
Story
Crafts
Traditional settlements
The Nivkhs are traditionally sedentary; many of their settlements on the mainland (Kol, Takhta, etc.) are hundreds of years old. Winter dwelling - tyf, dyf, taf - a large log house that had a pillar frame and walls made of horizontal logs inserted with pointed ends into the grooves of vertical pillars. The gable roof was covered with grass. The houses are single-chamber, without ceilings, with earthen floors. Chimneys from 2 fireplaces heated wide bunks along the walls. In the center of the house, a high flooring was erected on poles; in severe frosts, sled dogs were kept and fed on it. Usually 2-3 families lived in the house, on their own plot of bunks.
With the onset of warmth, each family moved from their winter home to a summer village near a lake or stream, near the fishery. Frame summerhouses made of bark were most often placed on stilts and had different shapes: 2-slope, conical, 4-angled. Of the 2 rooms, one served as a barn, the other as a dwelling with an open hearth. For household needs, log barns were built on high poles, and hangers were installed for drying nets, seines and yukola. On Sakhalin, until the beginning of the 20th century, ancient dugouts with open hearths and a smoke hole were preserved; in the 20th century, log houses like the Russian hut became widespread.
Traditional costume
Clothing was made from fish skin, dog fur, leather and fur of taiga and sea animals. For a long time they also used purchased fabrics, which they received for furs from Manchu and then from Russian traders. Men's and women's dressing gowns larshk– kimono cut, left-handed (the left hem is twice as wide as the right and covers it). Women's robes were longer than men's, decorated with appliqué or embroidery, and along the hem with metal plaques sewn in one row. Winter fabric robes were sewn using cotton wool.
Festive ones made of fish skin were decorated with ornaments applied with paints. Winter clothes - fur coats ok made from dog skins, men's jackets pshah made from seal skins; for the wealthier ones, women's fur coats were made from fox fur, and less often, from lynx fur. Men wore skirts over their fur coats when traveling on sleds (sometimes during ice fishing) hosk from seal skins.
Underwear - trousers made of fish skin or fabric, leggings, women's - made of fabric with cotton wool, men's - made of dog or seal fur, short men's bibs with fur, women's - long, fabric, decorated with beads and metal plaques. Summer hats are birch bark, conical in shape; winter - women's fabric with fur with decorations, men's - made of dog fur.
Piston-shaped shoes were made from sea lion or seal skins, fish skin and other materials, and had at least 10 different options. It differed from the shoes of other peoples of Siberia with a high “head”-piston, and the tops were cut separately. A warming insole made from a special local grass was placed inside. Another type of footwear is boots (similar to Evenki ones) made of reindeer and elk camus and seal skins.
The Nivkhs decorated their clothes, shoes, and utensils with the finest curvilinear ornaments of the characteristic Amur style, the foundations of which are known from archaeological finds.
Food
The diet of the Nivkhs was dominated by fish and meat. They preferred fresh fish - they ate it raw, boiled or fried. When there was an abundant catch, yukola was made from any fish. Fat was boiled from the heads and intestines: they were simmered for several hours without water over a fire until a fatty mass was obtained, which could be stored indefinitely. Soups were made from yukola, fresh fish and meat, adding herbs and roots. Purchased flour and cereals were used to prepare flatbreads and porridges, which were eaten, like other dishes, with large amounts of fish or seal oil. At the end of the 19th century, they began to purchase potatoes from Russians in exchange for fish.
Family
The average Nivkh family in 1897 consisted of 6, sometimes 15–16 people. Small families predominated from parents with children, and also often from younger brothers and sisters of the head of the family, his older relatives, etc.
Rarely did married sons live with their parents. They preferred to choose the bride from the mother's family. There was a custom of cross-cousin marriage: the mother sought to marry her son to her brother’s daughter. Parents agreed on the marriage of children at the age of 3–4 years, then they were raised together in the house of their future husband. When they reached 15–17 years of age, married life began without any special rituals. In cases where marriages took place between unrelated clans, the Nivkhs followed a carefully developed ritual (matchmaking, contracts on bride price, presentation of bride price, relocation of the bride, etc.). When the bride moved, the ritual of “stomping the cauldrons” was performed: the parents of the bride and groom exchanged huge cauldrons for cooking dog food, and the young people had to alternately step on them at the doors of the bride’s and groom’s houses. From the 2nd half. XIX century With the emergence of property inequality and under the influence of Russians, weddings in wealthy families began to organize crowded and multi-day wedding feasts.
Folklore
Nivkh folklore includes various genres.
- Term t'ylgur combines works of various themes. Among them, the central place is occupied mythological stories. Many of them are associated with totemistic ideas and the cult of trade.
- The second group of t'ylgurs consists of works of more realistic content. They tell about the rules of conduct in everyday life and at work, about clan society, and about the punishment of people who violate taboos.
- The third group consists of the T'ylgurs, who border on fairy tales - fairy tales and about animals. This
stories about a rescued tiger who thanks the family of his savior; about greedy brothers punished by a representative of an impoverished family; and also on etiological topics, such as why mosquitoes or lice suck blood.
Nyzit- the genre that most closely matches the term “fairy tale”. Unlike t’ylgur, whose content is believed, nyzit is purely entertaining. The main character is Umu Nivkh - Brave Warrior.
Another common theme in fairy tales is evil spirits, incl. in the person of found babies. Tales about the evil woman Ralkr Umgu were popular.
In some fairy tales dialogues and monologues were sung. The listeners had to support the storyteller with an exclamation of “khyy,” indicating their attention (the t’ylgurs listened in silence). In fairy tales, figurative words, special verbal suffixes and other means of expression are widely used.
Puzzles utgavrk could exist as part of prose genres, but more often - independently. The most common riddle themes are body parts, material culture, and natural phenomena. “What is this, what is this? Two brothers live in the same house, but never see each other? (Eyes). Some mysteries can be solved only by knowing the traditional life of the Nivkhs. For example, “What is this, what is this? The upper ones laugh ha-ha, the lower ones moan oh-oh” (Logs in the wall).
Ritual songs due to their specificity, they do not currently exist. Songs are known on Sakhalin Daddy Dougs, previously performed at the bear festival. They were pronounced in recitative to the sounds of a musical log and contained an allegorical appeal to the bear. Most often, tyatya-dugs are quatrains, and occasionally other stanzas containing a refrain. In amateur artistic performances, daddy-dougs acquired a new, playful meaning.
Cry songs at funeral pyres - improvisations expressing grief for the deceased.
People in the Russian Federation. The indigenous population of the lower reaches of the Amur River (Khabarovsk Territory) and about. Sakhalin. The Nivkh language belongs to the Paleo-Asian languages. Number of people: 4631 people.
Nivkhs are a people in the Russian Federation. Settled in the northern part of Sakhalin Island and in the Tym River basins (more than 2 thousand people), as well as on the Lower Amur (2386 people).
The total number is 4631 people. They belong to the Central Asian type of the North Asian race of the large Mongoloid race. Together with the Chukchi, Koryaks and other peoples of the Northeast, they belong to the group of Paleo-Asians. Self-name - nivkhgu (person). The old name is Gilyak. This ethnonym was widely used until the 30s of the 20th century. Some of the old Nivkhs still call themselves Gilyaks. In addition to the Nivkhs, the Russians also called the Ulchi, the Negidals, and some of the Evenks Gilyaks.
They speak the Nivkh language, which has two dialects: Amur and East Sakhalin. The Nivkh language, together with Ket, belongs to the isolated languages. The Russian language is widely spoken. In 1989, only 23.3% of Nivkhs called the Nivkh language their native language. The writing was created in 1932 on the basis of the Latin alphabet, and in 1953 it was translated into Russian graphics.
Nivkhs are direct descendants of the ancient population of Sakhalin and the lower reaches of the Amur. In the past they settled over a much wider area. The settlement area of the Nivkhs extended to the Uda basin, as evidenced by toponymy data, archaeological materials and historical documents. There is a point of view that the ancestors of modern Nivkhs, northeastern Paleo-Asians, Eskimos and American Indians are links of one ethnic chain that in the distant past covered the northwestern shores of the Pacific Ocean. The modern ethnic appearance of the Nivkhs was greatly influenced by their ethnocultural contacts with the Tungus-Manchu peoples, the Ainu and the Japanese.
The first Russian explorers (I. Moskvitin and others) first met the Nivkhs in the first half of the 17th century. During his Amur voyage, V. Poyarkov imposed tribute on the Amur Nivkhs. The number of Nivkhs in the 17th century. the Russians estimated 5,700 people. In the second half of the 17th century. Direct contacts between the Russians and the Nivkhs were interrupted and were resumed only in the mid-19th century, when the Amur expedition of G. Nevelsky annexed Sakhalin to Russia. In the mid-19th century, the Nivkhs retained remnants of the primitive communal system and clan division. They had an Iroquoian type of kinship system. Members of each genus had a common generic name. The clan performed the functions of self-government and consisted of large-family communities and individual families. The clan was exogamous. The classic form of marriage is marrying the mother's brother's daughter. Each clan had its own territory. And now all Nivkh families well remember their clan names and territories that belonged to their clans. Russian colonization of Sakhalin and the lower reaches of the Amur had a serious impact on the socio-economic and cultural life of the Nivkhs. An intensive disintegration of the clan organization begins. Some Nivkhs are drawn into commodity-money relations, new types of economic activities appear - livestock breeding, agriculture, commercial fishing, and latrine trades. Many elements of Russian material culture became widespread. Missionaries of the Russian Orthodox Church were active. By the end of the 19th century. All Amur Nivkhs were baptized, but the ideas of Christianity did not have a significant impact on their consciousness.
The main branches of the Nivkh economy are fishing and marine fishing. Land hunting and gathering were of secondary importance. A particularly important role in the life of the Nivkhs was the fishing for anadromous salmon - pink salmon and chum salmon, which were caught in large quantities and from which yukola was prepared for the winter. They caught fish with seines, nets, hooks and various traps.
Sea animals (nerpa, seals, beluga whales) were caught with nets made of leather straps, traps and a special tool - a long, smooth harpoon. They hunted fish and sea animals all year round. In winter, fish were caught under the ice with fixed nets and fishing rods in holes. Near villages, sea animals were hunted individually; collective hunting was associated with going to sea, traveling to distant islands and rookeries. It is known that for this purpose the Nivkhs made long expeditions to the Shantar Islands. Hunting for fur and meat taiga animals was individual. In some cases, especially when hunting a bear in a den, several hunters went out. Forest animals were caught using various traps and snares. Crossbows were used on otters, foxes, ungulates and bears. The bear was also caught with a spear.
The sable was caught with a net. Bird hunting was widespread - ducks, geese, upland game. During the molting period, birds were caught with a net in small bays and bays. On the sea coast, seagulls were caught using a special hook. Gathering was done by women, children and teenagers. In addition to berries, nuts, and edible plants, they collected seaweed, especially seaweed, and shellfish. For the winter, wild garlic, acorns, saran roots, nuts, and some types of berries were usually prepared. Mollusks and crustaceans were not only collected on the tidal strip, but also from the bottom. To do this, they used a long pole with a bunch of pointed sticks at the end.
Dog breeding was widely developed among the Nivkhs, keeping animals in cages was practiced, and valuable plants were grown on family plots - saran, etc. Currently, only a part of the Nivkhs are employed in traditional sectors of the economy. The majority, especially young people, work in industry, various organizations and institutions. All Nivkh families in rural areas are engaged in livestock farming and gardening.
The Nivkhs led a sedentary lifestyle. Their villages were located on the high wooded banks of the Amur, at the mouths of spawning rivers, on the sea coast, close to fishing grounds. In April they moved to summer villages, where they lived until late autumn. The villages were small - from 2 to 10 houses. By the beginning of the twentieth century. separate summer settlements disappeared; they began to be placed together with winter dwellings. The traditional dwelling is a half-dugout toryv in the shape of a simple or truncated pyramid. The hearth-fire was in the center, along the walls there were bunks. Another type of dwelling buried in the ground (earthen house) was a log house or a frame-and-pillar pitched structure. An above-ground building of the same design (lochurladyv) was heated with an iron stove. From the middle of the 19th century. They began to build veiled winter houses. This is a rectangular above-ground house of frame-and-post construction, built using mortise-and-mortise technology, with a gently sloping gable roof. The summer dwelling is a building on stilts with a gable roof covered with birch bark. In the field, gable and spherical frame buildings were built as temporary housing.
Traditional outer clothing for men and women was made from fish skin, the skins of sea animals, deer and elk and consisted of pants and a robe. In cold weather, they wore insulated robes, which were tied with sashes. Winter clothing was a fur coat made of dog fur and seal skin without a collar or hood. A seal skin skirt was worn over the fur coat. Headdress - fur hat, headphones, in summer - birch bark or fabric hat. Shoes were made from sealskin and camus. An indispensable attribute of clothing is arm sleeves and knee pads. Currently, most Nivkhs wear European clothes, which some craftswomen decorate with national ornaments.
Nivkhs are classic ichthyophages. Their main food is raw, boiled and dried fish.
The meat of marine animals, which has become a delicacy in recent decades, played an equally important role in nutrition. Stroganina and mos (fish skin jelly with berries and seal fat) were considered tasty dishes. They remain a favorite food today. Tea was brewed from chaga, lingonberry leaves, wild rosemary shoots and berries.
The means of transportation in winter were skis - golts and covered with kamus or sealskin, as well as dog sleds. They traveled on the water in boats. There were two types of boats - planks and dugouts. The large plank boat in the past could accommodate up to 40 people. Sled dog breeding of the Nivkhs of the Gilyak-Amur type. The characteristic features of the Nivkh sled are straight spears, runners curved on both sides and two horizontal arcs - front and back. The Nivkhs also used dog teams to tow boats through the water.
In their worldview, the Nivkhs were animists. In every object they saw a living principle and human traits. The cult of nature - water, taiga, earth - was widespread. In order to maintain good relations with their “masters”-spirits, the Nivkhs organized sacrifices - “feeding”. All rituals associated with fire were strictly observed; there were complex rituals associated with eating beluga whale meat, hunting bears and other animals. The dog played an important role in the spiritual life of the Nivkhs and in their worldview. The beloved dog was killed after the death of the owner. There was a special type of taboo dog that was sacrificed. Two major folk holidays are associated with the religious views of the Nivkhs - “feeding the water” and the bear holiday, associated with the slaughter of a bear raised in a cage. It was accompanied by sports competitions, games, and playing musical instruments. The main idea of the holiday is to honor nature and its inhabitants. Currently, attempts are being made to revive the bear holiday as the basis of national artistic creativity. In Nivkh folklore, there are 12 independent genres: fairy tales, legends, lyrical songs, etc. The folklore hero of the Nivkhs is nameless, he fights evil spirits, defends the offended as a champion of goodness and justice. Decorative art is represented by ornaments, sculptures, and carved objects. A special place is occupied by a sculpture depicting twins, an image of a bear on ladles and other objects. Spoons with carved ornaments, dishes and ladles for bear festivals have a complex plot.
Wooden images of birds, figurines of the “masters” of water, fire and other guardians occupy a worthy place in sculptural art. Nivkhs decorated clothes, hats, shoes, wooden and birch bark utensils with ornaments. The most ancient way of decorating birch bark products is embossing.
Among the motifs in the ornament there are often tree leaves, stylized images of birds, paired spirals and leaf-shaped patterns with symmetrically arranged curls. Currently, great efforts are being made to revive the entire complex of traditional spiritual culture. Folk festivals are held regularly, folklore ensembles have been created,
in which young people participate.
Nivkhs, Nivkhs (self-name - “man”), Gilyaks (obsolete), people in Russia. They live in the Khabarovsk Territory on the lower Amur and on Sakhalin Island (mainly in the northern part). Number of people: 4630 people. They speak an isolated Nivkh language. The Russian language is also widespread.
It is believed that the Nivkhs are direct descendants of the ancient population of Sakhalin and the lower reaches of the Amur, who were settled in the past much more widely than at present. They were in extensive ethnocultural contacts with the Tungus-Manchu peoples, the Ainu and the Japanese. Many Nivkhs spoke the languages of the peoples of neighboring territories.
The main traditional activities are fishing (chum salmon, pink salmon, etc.) and marine fishing (seal, beluga whale, etc.). They fished with seines, nets, hooks, set traps, etc. They beat sea animals with a spear, clubs, etc. They made yukola from the fish, they rendered fat from the entrails, and they sewed shoes and clothes from the leather. Hunting (bear, deer, fur-bearing animals, etc.) was of less importance. The beast was hunted using nooses, crossbows, spears, and, from the end of the 19th century, guns.
A secondary occupation is gathering (berries, saran roots, wild garlic, nettles; on the sea coast - mollusks, seaweed, shells). Dog breeding is developed. Dog meat was used for food, skins were used for clothing, dogs were used as a means of transport, for exchange, for hunting, and as sacrifices. Home crafts are common - making skis, boats, sleds, wooden utensils, dishes (troughs, tues), birch bark bedding, bone and leather processing, weaving mats, baskets, blacksmithing. They moved on boats (planks or poplar dugouts), skis (shafts or lined with fur), and sleds with a dog sled.
In the former USSR, changes occurred in the life of the Nivkhs. A significant part of them work in fishing cooperatives, industrial enterprises, and in the service sector. According to the 1989 census, 50.7% of the Nivkhs are urban residents.
In the 19th century, remnants of the primitive communal system and clan division were preserved.
They led a sedentary lifestyle. Villages were usually located along river banks and the sea coast. In winter they lived in a semi-dugout with a quadrangular plan, 1-1.5 m deep into the ground, with a spherical roof. Above-ground dwellings of a pole structure with canals were common. A summer dwelling is a building on stilts or upturned stumps with a gable roof.
Traditional clothing (men's and women's) consisted of pants and a robe made from fish skin or paper material. In winter they wore a fur coat made of dog fur; men wore a skirt made of seal skin over the fur coat. Headdress - headphones, fur hat, in summer a conical birch bark or fabric hat. Shoes made of seal and fish skin.
Traditional food is raw and boiled fish, meat of sea animals and forest animals, berries, shellfish, algae and edible herbs.
Officially they were considered Orthodox, but retained traditional beliefs (the cult of nature, the bear, shamanism, etc.). Up until the 1950s. The Nivkhs of Sakhalin maintained a classic bear festival with the slaughter of a cage-bred bear. According to animistic ideas, the Nivkhs are surrounded by living nature with intelligent inhabitants. There is a norm to treat the surrounding nature with care and to use its wealth wisely. Traditional environmental regulations were rational. Particularly valuable are the labor skills accumulated over centuries, folk applied arts, folklore, music and song creativity, knowledge about medicinal herbs and gathering.
Currently, the process of returning the Nivkhs to their former places of settlement and reviving old villages has begun. Our own intelligentsia has grown. These are mainly employees of cultural institutions and public education. Nivkh writing was created in 1932. Primers are published in the Amur and East Sakhalin dialects, reading books, dictionaries, and the newspaper "Nivkh Dif" ("Nivkh Word").
C. M. Taxami
Peoples and religions of the world. Encyclopedia. M., 2000, p. 380-382.
Gilyaks in history
Gilyaks (self-named nib(a)kh, or nivkhs, i.e. people, people; the name “Gilyaks”, according to Shrenk, comes from the Chinese “keel”, “kileng”, as the Chinese used to call all the natives in the lower reaches Amur) - few in number. nationality in Primorye. Explorers of the 19th century (Zeland, Schrenk, and others) then brought the number of G. (using different methods) to 5-7 thousand people. They also gave a detailed description of the G. themselves and their way of life: the average height for men is 160, and for women - 150 cm. They are most often “stocky, with a short neck and well-developed chest, with somewhat short and crooked legs, with small hands and feet, with a rather large, wide head, dark skin color, dark eyes and black straight hair, which in men is braided at the back in a braid, and in women - in two braids. The features of the Mongolian type are noticeable in the face... Schrenk classifies G. as a Palaisite, a mysterious “regional” people of Asia (like the Ainu, Kamchadals, Yukaghirs, Chukchi, Aleuts, etc.) and believes that G.’s original homeland was on Sakhalin, where they came from crossed to the mainland under pressure from the south of the Ainu, who in turn were pushed aside by the Japanese... They also differ from their neighbors in that they do not practice tattoos at all and their women do not wear rings or earrings in the nasal septum. The people are healthy and hardy... The main food of G. is fish; they eat it raw, frozen or dried (dried)... they stock it for the winter for people and dogs. They catch fish with nets (from nettles or wild hemp), forests or streams. In addition, G. kill seals (seals), sea lions, dolphins or beluga whales, collect lingonberries, raspberries, rose hips, pine nuts, wild garlic... They eat mostly cold... They eat all sorts of meat, with the exception of rats; Until recently, they didn’t use salt at all... both sexes smoke tobacco, even children; They have no utensils other than wood, birch bark and iron cauldrons.” G.'s villages were located along the banks, in low-lying areas, but not accessible to high water. Mainland G.'s winter huts had stoves with pipes and wide bunks so that 4-8 families (up to 30 people) could be accommodated. Fish oil and torch were used for lighting. For the summer, G. moved to barns, most often built high above the ground on poles. The weapons consisted of a spear, a harpoon, a crossbow, a bow and arrows. For transportation in the summer, flat-bottomed boats were used in the form of a trough made of cedar or spruce boards, up to 6 m long, sewn together with wooden nails and caulked with moss; instead of a rudder there is a short oar. In winter, G. went skiing or rode sledges, harnessed to 13-15 dogs. The weaving and pottery crafts of Georgia were completely unknown before the arrival of the Russians, but they were very skilled in making complex patterns (on birch bark, leather, etc.). G.'s wealth was expressed in the ability to support several wives, in silver. coin, more clothes, good dogs, etc. There were almost no beggars, since they were fed by wealthier fellow tribesmen; there was no privileged class; the most revered people are old people, rich people, famous brave men, famous shamans. At rare gatherings, important disputes were resolved, for example, the kidnapping of someone's wife. The culprit could be sentenced either to material satisfaction of the offended person, or to expulsion from the village, sometimes, albeit secretly, to the death penalty. “The Gilyaks generally live peacefully, they take care of the sick in every possible way, but they take the dying out of superstitious fear, and they also remove the mother in labor to a special birch bark hut, even in winter, which is why there are cases of freezing of newborns. G.'s hospitality is very developed, theft is unknown, deception is rare, in general they are distinguished by their honesty... G. usually get married early; sometimes parents marry children 4-5 years old; For the bride, the bride price is paid in various things... and, in addition, the groom must throw a feast that lasts for a week. Marriages with nieces and cousins are permitted. The treatment of his wife is generally gentle. A marriage can easily be dissolved, and a divorced woman can easily find another husband. It is also common to kidnap wives, with the consent of the kidnapped woman; the husband then demands the return of the bride price or pursues and takes revenge (there are even cases of murder)... The widow often goes to the brother of the deceased or to another close relative, but she can remain a widow, and relatives are still obliged to help her if she is poor. The father's property goes to the children, and the sons receive more... G. seem sedentary, incurious, and indifferent. They sing very rarely, do not know dancing, and have the most primitive music, produced by hitting sticks on a dry pole hanging on ropes parallel to the ground...” G. had very few holidays; the most important one was the bearish one, which lasted approx. 2 weeks in January. They took him from a den, and sometimes bought him a bear cub on Sakhalin, fattened him up, and took him around the villages. In the end, they were tied to a post, shot with arrows, after which they were lightly fried over a fire and eaten, washed down with an intoxicating drink and tea. G. worshiped wooden idols depicting man or beast. Typically, idols were kept in barns and were taken out only in exceptional cases. G. had sacred places where they asked their spirits for good luck or forgiveness. They believed in an afterlife. The dead were taken to the forest and burned at the stake, and the ashes were collected and placed in a small house near the village, in the forest, where the clothes, weapons and pipe of the deceased were also buried, sometimes they were placed in the house itself; the dogs that brought the corpse were also killed, and if the deceased was a poor man, then the sledges were only burned. Near this house, relatives held a wake, brought a pipe of tobacco, a cup of drink, cried and lamented. Communication with spirits was carried out through shamans. The Russians first heard about G. in the spring of 1640: from one captive, Even, the pioneer of Tomsk. Cossack I. Moskvitin learned about the existence in the south of the Sea of Okhotsk of the “Mamur River”, i.e. Amur, at the mouth of the river and on the islands there lived “sedentary revelers”. Moskvitin with a detachment of Cossacks headed by sea to the south. direction and at the mouth of the river. Uda received additional. information about the Amur and its tributaries - pp. Zeya and Amgun, as well as about G. and the “bearded Daur people.” The Yakut who took part in this campaign. Cossack N. Kolobov reports in his “skask” that shortly before the Russians arrived at the mouth of the Uda, bearded Daurs came in plows and killed approx. 500 Gilyaks: “...And they were beaten by deception; They had women in single-tree plows as oarsmen, and they themselves, a hundred and eighty men each, lay between those women, and when they rowed to those Gilyaks and came out of the ships, they beat those Gilyaks...” The Cossacks moved further “near the shore” to the islands of the “sedentary Gilyaks”, i.e. it is quite possible that Moskvitin saw small islands off the north. entrance to the Amur Estuary (Chkalova and Baidukova), as well as part of the north-west. shores of the island Sakhalin: “And the Gilyak land appeared, and there was smoke, and they [the Russians] didn’t dare go into it without leaders...”, apparently considering that a small detachment could not cope with the large numbers. population of this region, and turned back. In 1644/45, a detachment of the letter head V.D. Poyarkov spent the winter in the vicinity of the Gilyak village, looking for silver reserves in those places. ores and explored along the way “new lands” to collect yasak. The Cossacks began to buy fish and firewood from G. and over the winter they collected some information about Fr. Sakhalin. In the spring, leaving the hospitable city, the Cossacks attacked them, captured the amanats and collected yasak in sables. In 1652/53, E. Khabarov’s detachment wintered in the Gilyak land, and in June 1655, the united detachment of Beketov, Stepanov and Pushchin cut down the fort and stayed for the winter. Due to the lack of writing and a rich oral tradition in Georgia, by the 19th century. no memories or legends have been preserved about clashes with the first Russians who appeared in their area in the middle. XVII century
Vladimir Boguslavsky
Material from the book: "Slavic Encyclopedia. XVII century". M., OLMA-PRESS. 2004.
Nivkhi
Autoethnonym (self-name)
nivkh: Self-designated n i v x, “man”, n i v x g y, “people”.
Main area of settlement
They settle in the Khabarovsk Territory (the lower reaches of the Amur, the coast of the Amur Estuary, the Sea of Okhotsk and the Tatar Strait), forming a mainland group. The second, island group, is represented in the north of Sakhalin.
Number
Number according to censuses: 1897 - 4694, 1926 - 4076, 1959 - 3717, 1970 - 4420, 1979 - 4397, 1989 - 4673.
Ethnic and ethnographic groups
Based on territorial characteristics, they are divided into two groups - mainland (the lower reaches of the Amur River, the coast of the Amur Estuary, the Sea of Okhotsk and the Strait of Tatar) and the island or Sakhalin (northern part of Sakhalin Island). According to the generic composition and some characteristics of the culture, they were divided into smaller territorial divisions - mainland into 3, island into 4.
Anthropological characteristics
The Nivkhs are unique in anthropological terms. They form a local racial complex called the Amur-Sakhalin anthropological type. He is of mixed origin as a result of the mixing of Baikal and Kuril (Ainu) racial components.
Language
Nivkh: The Nivkh language occupies an isolated position in relation to the languages of other peoples of the Amur. It belongs to the Paleo-Asian languages and reveals similarities to the languages of a number of peoples of the Pacific basin, Southeast Asia and the Altai linguistic community.
Writing
Since 1932, writing has been in the Latin script, since 1953, based on the Russian alphabet.
Religion
Orthodoxy: Orthodox. Purposeful missionary activity began only in the middle of the 19th century. In 1857, a special mission for the Gilyaks was created. This fact does not exclude the earlier spread of Christianity among the indigenous population of Primorye and the Amur region from among Russian settlers. The mission was involved in the baptism of not only the Nivkhs, but also the peoples neighboring them - the Ulchi, Nanai, Negidal, Evenks. The process of Christianization was rather external, formal in nature, which is confirmed by the almost complete ignorance of the fundamentals of faith, the limited distribution of cult attributes among the Nivkh people, and the rejection of names given at baptism. Missionary activity was based on a network that was built near Nivkh settlements. In particular, there were 17 of them on Sakhalin Island. In order to introduce the children of the indigenous people of the Amur region to literacy and faith, small, one-class parochial schools were created. The introduction of the Nivkhs to Orthodoxy was greatly facilitated by their living among the Russian population, from which the Nivkhs borrowed elements of peasant life.
Ethnogenesis and ethnic history
The differences between the Nivkhs and neighboring peoples are usually associated with the independent process of their ethnogenesis. Due to the peculiarities of their language and culture - the Nivkhs are Paleo-Asians, they belong to the oldest population of the Lower Amur and Sakhalin, who preceded the Tungus-Manchus here. It is the Nivkh culture that is the substrate on which the largely similar culture of the Amur peoples is formed.
Another point of view believes that the ancient population of Aur and Sakhalin (archeology of Meso/Neolithic times) is not actually Nivkh, but represents an ethnically undifferentiated layer of culture, which is substratum in relation to the entire modern population of the Amur. Traces of this substrate are recorded in the anthropology, language, and culture of both the Nivkhs and the Tungus-Manchu peoples of the Amur region. Within the framework of this theory, the Nivkhs are considered to have migrated to the Amur, one of the groups of northeastern Paleo-Asians. The relative inconsistency of these ethnogenetic schemes is explained by the high degree of mixing and integration of the modern peoples of Amur and Sakhalin, as well as the late time of their ethnic registration.
Farm
In Nivkh culture, they inherit the ancient Lower Amur economic complex of river fishermen and sea hunters, with the auxiliary nature of the taiga fishery. Dog breeding (Amur/Gilyak type of sled dog breeding) played a significant role in their culture.
Traditional clothing
The clothing of the Nivkhs also has a common Amur basis, this is the so-called. East Asian type (wrap-up clothing with a double left hem, kimono-like cut).
Traditional settlements and dwellings
The main elements of the material culture of the Nivkhs correspond to the general Amur ones: seasonal (summer temporary, winter permanent) settlements, dugout-type dwellings, coexist with a variety of summer temporary buildings. Under the influence of the Russians, log buildings became widespread.
Modern ethnic processes
In general, the traditional and modern culture of the Nivkhs demonstrates its correspondence to the culture of the Tungus-Manchu peoples of the Lower Amur and Sakhalin, which was formed both genetically and in the process of long-term ethnocultural interaction.
Bibliography and sources
General work
- Nivkhgu. M., 1973/Kreinovich E.A.
- Peoples of the Far East of the USSR in the 17th - 20th centuries. M., 1985
Selected aspects
- Traditional economy and material culture of the Peoples of the Lower Amur and Sakhalin. M., 1984/Smolyak A.V.
- The main problems of ethnography and history of the Nivkhs. L., 1975./Taksami Ch.M.
Sakhalin, where small peoples - Nivkhs, Uilta (Oroks), Evenks and Nanais - have lived since ancient times, is the cradle of the culture of the region's aborigines, who created original decorative and applied arts. Like all folk art, it was born from the need to make everyday things and the desire to combine functionality and beauty in them. The peoples of Sakhalin, hunters, fishermen and reindeer herders, creating clothes, utensils, and tools, reflected their worldview in decorative language and informed them about life and economy.
In the 60s and 70s, due to the resettlement of the Sakhalin aborigines to large settlements and their separation from traditional fishing grounds, the custom that made folk art obligatory gradually became a thing of the past. The spread of Russian-style clothing leads to the gradual extinction of traditional folk costume. Active labor and social activities are replacing labor-intensive handicrafts. It seemed to be on the verge of extinction. However, the craving for traditional art continued to persist, acquiring new forms of modern life. Regularly held traditional holidays of the peoples of the North, accompanied by exhibitions of decorative and applied arts, contributed to the restoration of interest in national art. Products of these years largely lose their purpose of serving everyday household needs and are perceived as artistic values, satisfying aesthetic needs.
In the 70s, state-owned specialized enterprises for the production of artistic products and souvenirs were created in the cities and towns of Sakhalin. Folk craftsmen from the city of Poronaysk, the villages of Nogliki, Nekrasovka, Viakhtu and the village of Val were involved in this activity. The range of artistic products and souvenirs produced by these enterprises includes products made from deer skins, kamus, seal skins, rovduga and other natural materials.
The beginning of the collapse of the economy associated with the restructuring of the Soviet Union also affected these enterprises. Transformed into national specialized enterprises in 1989, they suffered losses due to exorbitant taxes and lack of markets and gradually ceased to exist. At present, the modern applied art of the peoples of the North of Sakhalin is largely amateur in nature, although it tends to develop into national professional decorative and applied art. Now only a few masters are trying to preserve traditional art. Among them, Uiltka Ogawa Hatsuko (1926 - 1998), Nanayk Nina Dokimbuvna Beldy (1925 - 2002), Nivkhki Olga Anatolyevna Nyavan (born 1915), Lidia Demyanovna Kimova (born 1939), Uiltka Veronica Vladimirovna Osipova (born 1966) stand out. , Nivkhs Valery Yakovlevich Yalin (born 1943), Fedor Sergeevich Mygun (born 1962) and others.
The Nanai craftswoman N.D. Beldy was gifted with all the talents, she was fluent in playing traditional instruments: a harp, a tambourine, a shaman's belt, she kept in her memory many original Nanai songs, mastered the art of improvisation, and herself composed works in the national spirit. Her singing style was so original that recordings of songs performed by her were used by other Nanai groups. For example, the Nanai ensemble “Givana” from the Khabarovsk Territory used songs performed by her in the fairy tale play “Ayoga”. The first laureate of the Governor's Prize (1999), she immediately declared herself as a great artist with an innate sense of color, compositional flair, as a master who masters not only national technical and artistic techniques, but also an expert in national artistic and aesthetic traditions. Nivkh master L. D. Kimova began to engage in national art already in adulthood. Studying the originals and copying them, Lidia Demyanovna gradually mastered almost all the materials and traditional types of Nivkh women’s artistic creativity.
V. Ya. Yalin stands out among Sakhalin woodcarvers with his special talent, high artistic taste, steady hand and natural intuitive sense. The spoons carved by V. Yalin for the exhibition in 2000 are distinguished by their rich ornamentation and complexity of handle profiles. Variations in the shapes of handles and ornaments - the individual creativity of the master was manifested here with great completeness.
The collection of the Sakhalin Regional Art Museum, numbering more than 100 items, was created over the last decade. Collected thanks to targeted funding by the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation for the project “To the Origins. Aborigines of Sakhalin" and supported by the company "Sakhalin Energy Investment Company, Ltd", it characterizes the state of modern decorative and applied art of the peoples of the North of Sakhalin. The museum's collection well represents the festive clothing of the peoples of Sakhalin, the decor of which seems to close the clothing, creating a special microcosm, which is usually what any national costume is.
The national costume occupies a significant place in the work of the Nivkh master L. D. Kimova. In it she reached special heights, becoming a recognized master of folk costume. It was in this capacity that she was invited to work on the film “The Piebald Dog Running by the Edge of the Sea.” Festive women's robes, men's shirts and other items made by her are in museums across the country and abroad. What is most striking in her works is the color harmony, exquisite selection of fabrics, thoughtfulness of color and shape of additional details. Among the festive robes of Lydia Demyanovny Kimova, of particular interest is a robe made on Nivkh motifs from fish skin with an ornamented back, dressed in which a Nivkh woman dances to the sounds of a musical log at a bear festival. The craftswoman sewed a robe from white wool and embroidered an ornament on the back, the image of which is based on an attempt to artistically comprehend the nature of her native land. Lidia Demyanovna realized her long-standing dream of creating a series of traditional Nivkh clothes by making a collection of dolls in Nivkh clothes.
Among them, the hunter-archer in a seal skirt stands out with the exotic beauty of his outfit. Everything here is ethnographically accurate, from skis lined with seal fur, short seal high boots tied at the ankle, to a seal skirt with a belt and a sheath and a flint bag suspended from it.
The ornaments of the Nanai robe of N.D. Belda are bright, the arrangement of patterns is dense. The scaly pattern on the back of the robe, the cut-out appliqué, braid and piping along the edges of the robe emphasize its festive purpose.
Each Far Eastern craftswoman had a supply of various preparations for decorating clothes. It took a lot of time to decorate a thing with an ornament, embroidered or applique, so they prepared for sewing festive and wedding robes in advance. In the museum’s collection there are such blanks for a robe by the oldest Nivkh craftswoman O. A. Nyavan with exquisite graphic patterns. In addition to robes, the museum collections also include another type of clothing - a dress for Uilta women, complete with an elegant bib, headdress and handbag for needlework. This costume was recreated by a group of Uilta women from the North of Sakhalin in 1994 and made by a young craftswoman Veronica Osipova from the village of Nogliki.
The only item of the Sakhalin Evenki in the museum’s collection is the “Avsa” handbag, sewn from deer kamus and suede. The main decoration of the bag is a semi-oval suede plate at the top of the bag, embroidered with deer hair and decorated with white round plates with red beads in the center. Tassels of white and dark fur are inlaid into the semicircular edge of the plate, giving it a festive, elegant look.
No less beautiful is the ulta pouch made of light seal fur by Ogawa Hatsuko. Its shape is traditional - a pouch, slightly tapering towards the top. Nivkh pouch - author Kimova L.D. - is sewn from alternating light and dark strips of fish skin. On the golden and dark gray surface of the pouch, red inserts and preserved traces of scales look very decorative.
In the manufacture of footwear among the peoples of Sakhalin, in addition to other materials, rovduga was widely used, obtained by soaking reindeer skin in water, then removing the wool from it and smoking it. On the children's chests made by Ogawa Hatsuko from this material, the embroidered pattern of their two paired spirals and images reminiscent of a jumping frog attracts attention.
The carpets of the peoples of the North of Sakhalin are distinguished by a wide variety of materials and techniques used. Uilta craftsmen sew them from deer skins and inlay them with white (protective) deer fur. Ogawa Hatsuko's rug (ulta) is sewn from pieces of golden seal skin.
The Nivkhs have long been famous for the art of wood carving. The custom of artistic carving of wooden products, which has lost its popularity, is preserved on Sakhalin by individual craftsmen, who from time to time turn to it to make a traditional gift, still valued among the Nivkhs, to participate in exhibitions or to perform a ritual ceremony. The main part of the museum collection consists of carved wooden utensils: ritual ladles and spoons. The shapes of the buckets are predominantly trough-shaped. Most of them traditionally have opposing handles of different configurations. The carved designs decorating them are different on each handle. The predominant element of the rich ornamentation on the ladles is a curved ribbon, intricately intertwined, in places turning into spirals and curls, or illusorily going deeper. F. Mygun complements the ribbon ornament with simple cuts or fills the background space between the intertwining ribbons with small carved figures. It is interesting that Fyodor Mygun came to Nivkh carving through Russian culture. Graduated from the Abramtsevo Art and Industrial School, wood carving department. In Nivkh carving he uses a special Bogorodsk knife, which has long been used by Russian folk craftsmen.
Other ladles are decorated with spirals, and there is also a carved chain ornament, sometimes turning into a twisted rope. Most ladles, dishes and spoons are traditionally soaked in seal oil, which gives them a beautiful yellow color.
Currently, only a few Nivkh craftsmen carve sculptures from wood. Marina Kavozg is a hereditary woodcarver. This author is represented in the museum’s collection by five sculptures made of wood of a cult nature, in which, according to the ideas of the peoples of the Far East, “spirits” lived. In the plastic characteristics of the images of the “mistress of the mountain and water”, as well as in the amulets, their semantics seems to be confirmed: on the chest of the “mistress of the water” there is a relief image of a fish, the “mistress of the mountain” has a protrusion on her head resembling a hill (hill), and on her head figurine depicting a spirit causing headaches - a raised growth-protrusion. In amulets against heart disease there is even more: an image of the diseased organ - the heart - is given.
The museum's collection also includes wooden toys. A. Voksin’s very expressive “Ducks” are shaped like the traditional “Dog” toy. After removing the bark, he painted them with spiral patterns, which were traditionally carved into the bark. These conventional figures, where only the most characteristic features are sparingly revealed, resemble iconic sculptures.
In the past, birch bark was also widely used in the economy of the peoples of the Amur region and Sakhalin. The basket of Sakhalin craftswoman Ogawa Hatsuko demonstrates the traditional form of birch bark products, made from one piece of birch bark. The Nivkh birch bark ladle (Sakhalin, 1980s) amazes with its sophistication and unusual design of clearly ethnic origin. We admire the thoughtfulness and variety of decorative details in the design of the birch bark body of the musical instrument - tynryn - Nivkh violin (property of the regional museum of local lore). Here, not only different shades of birch bark are used as decorative means, not only figured stripes along the edge of the cylinder, but even the height of the stitch that sews them and echoes the wavy edge of these strips. Everything is complemented by an embossed ornament on the body and an original selection of the color of fish skin, which covers the upper part of the body (from the belly of a sea goby). Only L.D. Kimova makes functioning tynryns on Sakhalin. The exquisite seam along the edge of a small tueska of her own work resembles a sprouting twig, vibrantly and naturally entering and exiting the holes on the strip holding the top of the tueska together.
In the work of folk craftsmen in the last decade, embroidery has begun to stand out as an independent art form (L. D. Kimova. Triptych panel “Swan Girl” - the property of SOKM; Ogawa Hatsuko. Panel “Deer”), which previously played an auxiliary role: sew on an applique ornament or traditionally decorate the edges of festive national clothing with ornaments. When creating an embroidered picture, the craftsmen used national decorative stitches. Acquaintance with Russian culture, with the achievements in the art of other nationalities of Sakhalin (in particular, with the art of the Evenki master Semyon Nadein), and the passion of a creative person led Ogawa Hatsuko to create a story-based work. Using traditional techniques and patterns, she embroidered the “Deer” panel rug. With naive spontaneity, the rug depicts a gray deer with a block around its neck, a green outline of Sakhalin at its feet, reminiscent of a thick-lipped fish (Semyon Nadein has the image of a deer-island), and two brown-green trees on the sides. There are many deviations from the rules of professional art, in particular, the image of the deer as the most important thing in the plot is given in much larger sizes than the trees, and this does not bother the artist at all. The naivety of the visual language and the spontaneity of the content attract the viewer.
In modern decorative and applied art of the peoples of Sakhalin, there is the emergence of separate trends in the artistic processing of fish skin, based on a folk basis and therefore having a local originality. Young Nivkh artist Natalia Pulus constantly turns to fish skin, making small narrative or ornamental panels using the appliqué technique. Veronika Osipova has a unique technique of painting with ink on fish skin, who creates decorative paintings-panels with it. A bearer of the Sakhalin Uilta culture, she introduces ethnographic details into the drawing, giving the product a national identity. Nivkh master L. D. Kimova, combining various natural shades of fish skin color, enriching them with new content, creates unique things: beads, handbags, collages. When making the collage “Keraf - the summer home of the Nivkhs,” Lidia Demyanovna not only uses different shades of skin color of different breeds of fish, but also smokes it, cuts it into pieces, crumbles it, and then makes images from them.
Considering the products of modern folk craftsmen, it can be noted that the ancient cultural tradition is not static. It is constantly evolving in the interrelationship of old and new. Increasingly, craftsmen are decorating modern things with traditional patterns: cosmetic bags, newspaper cases, covers for banquettes and pillowcases, etc.
And yet, a review of the products of Sakhalin craftsmen of the last decade shows a not entirely favorable situation with the art of indigenous and small peoples on the island. The museum's collection practically does not represent the DPI of the Sakhalin Evenks. The average age of folk craftsmen is 55 - 60 years. Old masters who know and remember the cultural traditions of their people are leaving. Along with the preservation of traditional types of decorative and applied art and the emergence of new ones, losses are also noted in Sakhalin folk art. Wicker weaving has disappeared, and the production of birch bark products has begun to disappear, although some older representatives of these nationalities still possess the skills of birch bark art.
At present, when folk art is no longer vital, it is very difficult to work on its revival and preservation. Studying various artistic crafts is one of the most effective forms of familiarization with traditional national culture. In order for the art, which was and is owned by representatives of the older and middle generations of Sakhalin masters, to be studied and assimilated by young people, it was necessary to organize the transfer of ancient skills to future generations.
But despite the fact that from the 60-70s, Nivkh and Uilt children began to be introduced to national arts and crafts in labor lessons in secondary schools, where they were fully supported by the state, only a few mastered traditional wood carving techniques and learned embroidery, processing of seal and fish skin. The departments of decorative and applied arts of the indigenous peoples of Sakhalin organized in the 90s in children's art schools located in areas where artistic crafts are especially developed, and the technological lyceum in the city of Poronaysk, also helped little. Since 2002, at the Institute for Advanced Training of Teachers of the city of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, there has been a department of additional education under the program “DPI and folk crafts of the indigenous peoples of Sakhalin”.
And although we understand that the loss of any element of the traditional heritage of indigenous peoples is a tragedy for the entire world culture, we are probably no longer able to prevent its leveling. But there is no doubt that the best ethnic traditions, if they are truly significant and valuable in a spiritual and aesthetic sense, can and should enrich modern folk arts and crafts and professional art.
Alexandra MARAMZINA
Maramzina Alexandra Mikhailovna, head of the decorative and applied arts sector of the Sakhalin Regional Art Museum, where she has worked since 1985. Interests: decorative and applied arts and folk art.
Number– 4,673 people (as of 2001).
Language– isolated.
Settlement– Khabarovsk Territory, Sakhalin Region.
Self-name - nivkh - “man”. In the past, the Ulchi, Negidals and some others called them Gilyaks. This ethnonym was spread by Russian settlers to the neighboring Lower Amur peoples - the same Negidals, Ulchis, etc. Lampigu, Lafinggu - this is how the Sakhalin Nivkhs call the Amur ones. The Ulchi called the Amur Nivkhs Ornyr, and the Sakhalin ones - Oroks (ulta), probably from the Tungusic Oron - “domestic deer”. The ethnonym “Nivkhi” was officially approved in the 1930s.
The language has Amur, North Sakhalin and East Sakhalin dialects. Writing has existed since 1932 based on the Latin, and since 1953 - the Russian alphabet.
They live on the Lower Amur, as well as on Sakhalin Island. Contacts between Russians and Nivkhs began in the 17th century, when Cossack explorers visited here. In 1849-1854. The expedition of G.I. worked on the Lower Amur. Nevelsky, who founded the city of Nikolaevsk. A year later, Russian peasants began to settle here.
Fishing was practiced all year round. Fishing for migratory salmon (pink salmon in June, chum salmon in July and September) was the main fishery. At this time, stocks of dried fish - yukola - were made, and dried fish bones were prepared for sled dogs. They fished with spears (chak), hooks of various sizes and shapes on leashes and sticks (kele-kite, chosps, matl, chevl, etc.), a variety of fishing rods, rectangular, bag-shaped, fixed (including under-ice) and floating nets (chaar ke , khurki ke, nokke, lyrku ke, anz ke, etc.), seines (kyr ke), nets, summer and winter runs.
Drying seal skins on frames
In the economic activity of the Nivkhs of Sakhalin and the Amur Estuary, marine hunting took a significant place, providing meat and fat to local residents; skins of seals and seals were used for making clothes, shoes, gluing skis, and making various household items. In spring and summer, seals, bearded seals, and sea lions were caught with nets, seines, hooks, traps, harpoons, a spear with a floating shaft and a kind of rudder. In winter, with the help of dogs, they found holes in the ice and set hook traps in them. In the spring, seals and dolphins were hunted in the lower reaches of the Amur. Taiga hunting was also developed. On the Amur they hunted close to home; on Sakhalin, on the contrary, hunters went into the taiga for a week. Small animals were caught using various pressure traps, nooses, crossbows; bears and moose were hunted with a spear, a bow, and from the second half of the 19th century. - with firearms. Furs were exchanged for fabrics, flour, etc.
Rinsing seal skin in water
Women collected and prepared edible and medicinal plants, herbs, berries, men - building materials. Various roots, birch bark, and twigs were used to make household utensils; nettles were used to make fiber for weaving nets, etc.
They fished and caught sea animals from plank punts (mu) with a sharp nose and 2-4 pairs of oars. In the middle of the 19th century. The Nivkhs of the Amur Estuary and Sakhalin traded such cedar boats with the Nanai. On Sakhalin they also used dugout poplar boats with a kind of visor on the bow.
In winter they traveled on sledges, harnessing up to 10-12 dogs in pairs or in a herringbone pattern. The sled (tu) of the Amur type is straight-winged, tall and narrow, with runners curved on both sides. They sat astride it, with their feet on their skis. At the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries. They began to use wide and low sledges of the East Siberian type; they transported government cargo under contracts. Later, horses began to be acquired for these purposes.
Skis, like other peoples of the Amur, were of two types: long skis for spring hunting and short caps, glued with seal fur or elk skins, for winter.
Processing seal skins
At the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries. the same designs of hooks, seines, and traps for fur-bearing animals appeared as the Russians, and the Russian peasants, in turn, borrowed from the local residents the types of nets, traps, and boats common here. With the development of the fishing industry, salmon fishing became commercialized. Agriculture, which at the beginning of the twentieth century. The Russian administration tried to implement it, but it was not successful.
They preferred fresh fish, which they ate raw or boiled and fried. When there was an abundant catch, yukola was made from any raw material. The heads and intestines were simmered for several hours without water over a fire until a fatty mass (like a Negidal septula) was obtained, from which the fat was then boiled and stored indefinitely. Yukola, fresh fish and meat were used to prepare soups with the addition of herbs and roots. They baked flat cakes and cooked porridge from purchased flour and cereals. All food was necessarily seasoned with fish or seal oil. At the end of the 19th century. They began to trade potatoes with the Russians.
The Nivkhs have traditionally led a sedentary lifestyle; many of their settlements on the mainland (Kol, Takhta, etc.) are hundreds of years old. Winter dwelling (tyf) is a large log house with a gable roof covered with grass, which had a pillar frame and walls made of horizontal logs inserted with pointed ends into the grooves of vertical pillars. The houses were single-chamber, without ceilings, with earthen floors. Chimneys from two fireplaces heated the wide bunks along the walls. In the center of the house, a high flooring was erected on poles, on which sled dogs were kept and fed during severe frosts. Usually 2-3 families lived in a house, each on its own bunk plot. With the onset of warm weather, families moved to individual dwellings, which were built from bark near the winter house or in a separate summer village near a lake, channel, near the fishery. Most often they were placed on stilts. They could be gable, conical, quadrangular with a gable roof, log or frame. Like the Ulchi, the Nivkh letniks had two rooms: the front one, made of boards, served as a barn, and the back one, made of logs, served as a dwelling with an open hearth.
For household needs, log barns were made on high pillars,
various hangers for drying nets, seines and drying yukola
For household needs, they made log barns on high poles, and various hangers for drying nets, seines and yukola. On Sakhalin until the beginning of the twentieth century. ancient dugouts with an open hearth and a smoke hole were preserved, and in the twentieth century. log houses like the Russian hut became widespread.
Clothes and shoes were made from fish skin, dog fur, leather and fur of taiga and sea animals. For a long time they also used purchased fabrics, which they received for furs from Manchu and then Russian traders.
Women's robes had a kimono cut, the left floor is twice as wide as the right and covers it
Men's and women's robes (larshk) had a kimono cut and were left-handed (the left floor is twice as wide as the right and covers it). Longer women's robes were decorated with applique or embroidery, along the hem - with metal plaques arranged in one row. For cold weather, fabric robes were insulated with cotton wool. Festive clothes made of fish skin were painted with intricate patterns.
In winter they wore fur coats (ok) made from dog skins and men's jackets (pshakh) made from seals. Prosperous families sewed women's fur coats from fox fur, and less often from lynx fur. To ride sleds, and sometimes during ice fishing, men wore skirts (khosk) made of seal skins over their fur coats.
The underwear was pants made of fish skin or fabric, leggings (women's - made of cotton wool, men's - made of dog or seal fur) and bibs (short men's ones made of fur; long women's ones made of fabric, decorated with beads and metal plaques). In summer they wore conical birch bark hats, in winter they wore fabric hats with fur with decorations (women) and dog fur (men).
Piston-shaped shoes were made from sea lion or seal skins and fish skin. It had at least ten different options and differed from the shoes of other peoples of Siberia with a high “head”-piston, and the tops were cut separately. A warming insole made of grass was placed inside. Another type of footwear was boots, similar to Evenki ones, made of deer and elk camus and seal skins.
Clothes, shoes, and utensils were decorated with the finest curvilinear ornaments of the characteristic Amur style, known from archaeological finds.
Men's belt
According to data from 1897, the average family consisted of six people, but there were also 15-16 people. In general, small families prevailed, consisting of parents with children, as well as often younger brothers and sisters of the head of the family and his older relatives. Sometimes married sons lived together with their parents.
They preferred to choose the bride from the mother's family. There was a custom of cross-cousin marriage: the mother sought to marry her son to her brother’s daughter. Parents agreed on marriage when their children were 3-4 years old, then the children were raised together in the house of their future husband. When they reached the age of 15-17, marriage began without any special rituals. In cases where the bride and groom were not relatives, the Nivkhs observed a carefully developed ritual (matchmaking, agreement on the bride price, presentation of the bride price, moving of the bride, etc.). When the bride moved, the ritual of “stomping the cauldrons” was performed: the parents of the bride and groom exchanged huge cauldrons for cooking dog food, and the young people had to take turns stepping into them at the doors of the bride and groom’s houses. From the second half of the 19th century. wealthy families began to organize crowded and multi-day wedding feasts, similar to Russian ones.
Fish beater
The Nivkhs had over 60 patrilineal clans (khals). They differed in numbers (consisted of 1-3 families) and settled scatteredly. Over time, many of them decreased and merged or joined more numerous ones, forming genera with branches of different origins. Representatives of neighboring peoples - Negidals, Ulchis, Nanais, Ainu, Evenks, entering into marriages with Nivkh women, formed new clans. All genera of the late 19th century. numbered no more than 8-10 generations.
Members of the clan gathered for bear holidays, funerals, and sometimes for weddings. They descended from a common ancestor, helped each other, had a “common fire” (the fire in the houses was lit from a flint, which was kept by the eldest man of the clan), and a common barn for ritual supplies.
There were also clan unions that united small clans to ensure the custom of levirate: if a widow could not find a new husband within her clan, then the community selected her a husband from someone else’s clan. Both mating clans formed an exogamous union. Sometimes a third clan was also associated with the union, often of a different origin (Ulch, Nanai, etc.).
At the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries. the village constituted a territorial-neighboring community in which families (especially on the Amur) belonged, as a rule, to different clans. At the same time, marriages that took place within the village between families belonging to different clans strengthened the community. Conflicts in the community were resolved by a meeting of the oldest members, the decision of which was mandatory for those who disturbed the order. Serious cases involving murders and property disputes were dealt with by an inter-tribal court, headed by a recognized expert on customs who was not personally interested in the dispute. He listened to everyone who wanted to speak on the case and then made a decision. The hearing could last several days. The tradition of paying for killing a person was maintained; Moreover, the entire clan paid the fee. There are also cases of blood feud (the custom of revenge for the murder of a relative).
Since the 1850s The property stratification of the Nivkhs began. Traders appeared, intermediaries in trade with Russian industrialists. Since the end of the 19th century. The Russian administration appointed elders from local residents, who regularly convened meetings and protected traditional salmon fishing grounds from visiting merchants.
Attribute of shamanic ritual
Religious beliefs were based on animism and the cult of trade, faith in spirits that lived everywhere - in the sky (“sky people”), on earth, in water, taiga, every tree. They prayed to the host spirits, asking for a successful hunt, and made bloodless sacrifices to them. Members of the clan who lived in the same village, in the winter, when the ice began to form, prayed to the spirits of water, throwing a sacrifice - food in a ritual vessel - into the ice hole. In the spring, when the rivers opened up, food from decorated boats was lowered into the water in wooden troughs depicting fish, ducks, etc. Once or twice a year in houses they prayed to the spirit - the owner of the sky. In the taiga, near the sacred tree, they turned to the spirit - the owner of the earth: they asked him for health, good luck in fishing and in upcoming affairs. The guardian spirits of the house in the form of wooden idols were placed on special planks. Sacrifices were also made to them.
The main owners are the “mountain man”, the owner of the taiga Palyz in the form of a huge bear, and the owner of the sea Tol yz, or Tayraadz, the sea killer whale. Each bear was considered the son of the owner of the taiga, so the hunt for it was accompanied by rituals of the trade cult. There were rituals characteristic of a bear holiday: a bear cub caught in the taiga or bought from the Nanai, Negidal people was raised for 3-4 years in a special log house, after which a holiday was held in honor of deceased relatives. Feeding an animal and organizing a holiday was an honorable task for a person; neighbors and relatives helped him in this. Throughout the entire period of keeping the animal, many rules and prohibitions were observed. For example, women were forbidden to approach him.
The bear festival, for which all the relatives gathered, was held in winter. It lasted up to two weeks, myths and legends were performed by storytellers, and dog races were certainly held. Dressed women played on the “musical log” and danced on the street. The bear was taken home, treated to food from special carved wooden dishes kept in the family ritual barn, and daredevils played with it. Then the animal was killed with a bow on a special platform. The shooter, as a rule, was appointed by the owner of the bear from among his relatives. They placed food at the head of the killed bear, “treating” it. Then it was skinned, observing many rules, the skull was covered with soot over a fire and stored in the family barn.
Trough with an oar - a sacrifice to the spirit of the sea
Unlike other peoples of the Amur, the Nivkhs cremated their dead; only a few groups adopted burial in the ground from their neighbors. The burning ritual had differences, but the general content prevailed. The corpse and equipment of the deceased were burned on a huge bonfire in the taiga amid ritual lamentations. The ashes were raked to the center of the fire pit and surrounded by a log house. A bone from the skull of the deceased was attached to a wooden doll, it was dressed and put on shoes and placed in a small house (raf), about a meter high, decorated with carved ornaments. Subsequently, memorial rites were performed at this place, throwing food intended for the deceased into the fire, especially often in the first month after the funeral, then during the year - about once a month, later - every year. For a person whose body was not found (drowned, disappeared while hunting, etc.), the Nivkhs had a special ritual. Instead of a body, they buried a large, human-sized doll made of branches and grass. She was dressed in the clothes of the deceased and buried or burned, observing all the required rituals.
Nivkh folklore includes totemic mythological stories, works of realistic content (about the rules of behavior in everyday life and in the trade, about nurturing the qualities necessary for a person in a tribal society, about punishing people who violated taboos), fairy tales, heroic poems, and riddles.
Folk music is in line with the musical traditions of the neighboring Tungus-Manchu peoples (Orochi, Ulchi, Orok, etc.). On Sakhalin, there are known quatrain songs performed at the bear festival, lament songs (chyryud) at funeral pyres, non-ritual songs - lyrical, lullabies, which were composed by every mother.
Shamanic chants were performed during healing rituals, at shamanic sessions and when visiting houses with expressions of good wishes to all residents of the village. When healing, the shaman called upon helping spirits, who took away the soul of the patient stolen by evil spirits and saved him from death. Singing was necessarily combined with playing the tambourine and metal rattles.
The day cradle is carved out of a tree trunk. Baby's feet remain outside
In instrumental music, the central place is occupied by tunes on a “musical log”, which accompany the bear festival, dog races and sacrifices, women’s ritual dances and mythologized recitatives. Playing music on a one-string bowed tubular lute is unique.
The process of ousting the Nivkhs from their places of traditional residence continues.
In the technological lyceum of Poronaysk and other cities of the Khabarovsk Territory, aboriginal children are taught their native language and taught traditional crafts. A Nivkh language textbook has been published for schoolchildren, and a new Nivkh-Russian dictionary and primer are being developed.
In the Sakhalin region, national ensembles “Mengume-Ilga” (“Silver Patterns”), “Pelaken” (“Big Sun”), “Arila Myth” (“Fresh Wind”), etc. were created. In the city of Poronaysk there is a center of traditional cultures and National Museum.
Since 1996, the newspaper “Nivkh Dif” has been published. Among the national cultural figures are the writers V. Sangi, G. Otaina, the artist F. Mygun and others.
The Association of Indigenous Minorities of Sakhalin and the social movement “Union of Nivkhs of Sakhalin” were created.
article from the encyclopedia "The Arctic is my home"
BOOKS ABOUT NIVHVAH
Kreinovich E.A. Bear holiday among the Nivkhs. Bronze and Iron Age of Siberia. Novosibirsk, 1974.
Kreinovich E.A. Nivkhgu. L., 1973.
Propp V.Ya. Chukotka myth and Gilyak epic: Folklore and reality. M., 1976.
Sangi V.M. Song about the Nivkhs. M., 1989.
Taxami Ch.M. Nivkhi: Modern economy, culture and life. L., 1967.
Taxami Ch.M. The main problems of the ethnography of the Nivkhs. L., 1973.
Sternberg L.Ya. Gilyaks, Golds, Orochs, Negidals, Ainu. Khabarovsk, 1933.
