The diversity of nationalities is simply amazing. The representatives of various original tribes become less and less. Nowadays, the ethnos of most ancient peoples can only be found in historical books or rare photos. The nationality of the Tungus is also almost forgotten, although these people still inhabit a fairly vast expanse of Siberia and the Far East.
Who is it?
For many, it will be a discovery that the Tungus is the former name of the Evenki people, which at the moment are one of the most numerous in the Far North. They were called the Tungus from the first century BC until 1931, when the Soviet government decided to rename the nationality. The word "tungus" comes from the Yakut "tong uss", which means "frozen, frozen genus." Evenki is a Chinese name derived from Evenki Su.
At the moment, the nationality of the Tungus is about 39 thousand people in Russia, the same in China and about 30 thousand more in Mongolia, which makes it clear that this people is quite numerous, despite the peculiarities of its existence.
What does this people look like (photo)
The Tungus in the general mass are rather ugly: their figure is disproportionate, as if pressed to the ground, average growth. The skin is usually dark, brownish, but soft. The face has pointed features: hollow cheeks, but high cheekbones, small, densely standing teeth and a wide mouth with large lips. Dark hair: dark brown to black, tough but thin. Both women and men braid them in two braids, less often - in one, although not all men grow long hair. After thirty years, the male part of the people grows a rare beard and a thin strip of mustache.
The whole appearance of the Tungus quite clearly conveys their character: harsh, alert and stubborn to the extreme. At the same time, everyone who met with them claims that the Evenks are quite hospitable and generous, it is not in their rules to worry too much about the future, they live one day. Talkativeness is considered a great shame among the Tungus: they openly despise such people and bypass them. Also, among the Tungus peoples it is not customary to say hello and say goodbye, only before foreigners he takes off his headdress, making a slight bow, and immediately puts it on his head, returning to his usual restrained behavior. Despite all the difficulties of existence, Evenks live on average 70-80 years, sometimes even a hundred, and almost until the end of their days maintain an active lifestyle (if the disease does not knock them out).
Where do the Tungus live?
Despite the fact that the number of Evenks is small compared to other nationalities, their places of residence are quite extensive and occupy the entire space of the Far East from the Far North to the middle of China. To more accurately imagine where the Tungus people live, we can designate the following territories:
- In Russia: the Yakutsk region, as well as the Krasnoyarsk Territory, the entire Baikal basin, Buryatia. Small settlements are available in the Urals, Volga region and even the North Caucasus district. That is, most of Siberia (Western, Central and Eastern) has settlements on its territories where the Tungus lived.
- Evenk autonomous khoshun, which is partially located on the territory of Mongolia and a little in China (Heilongjiang and Liaoning provinces).
- The Selenga aimak on the territory of Mongolia has Hamnigans - a group of Tungus origin, but mixed its language and traditions with the Mongolian culture. Traditionally, the Tungus never build large settlements, preferring small ones - no more than two hundred people.
Features of life
Where the Tungus live, it seems understandable, but what was their life? As a rule, all activities were divided into male and female, and it is extremely rare for someone to do “not his” work. Men, in addition to cattle breeding, hunting and fishing, made wood, iron and bone products, decorated them with carvings, as well as boats and sledges (sledges for winter riding in the snow). Women prepared food, raised children, and also made skins, sewed magnificent items of clothing and household goods from them. They also skillfully sewed birch bark, making from it not only household items, but also details for the plague, which was the main house for nomadic families.
The settled Evenks more and more adopted habits from the Russians: they cultivated gardens, planted cows, and the nomadic Tungus tribes continued to adhere to old traditions: they mainly fed on deer meat (sometimes horses), wild animals and birds killed during hunting, as well as all kinds of mushrooms and berries, which grow in abundance in their habitats.
Main occupation
The Tungus nation is conditionally divided into several groups based on lifestyle:
- Nomadic reindeer herders who are considered true representatives of their nationality. They do not have their own stable settlements, preferring to roam, as many generations of their ancestors did: some families covered a thousand kilometers on deer in one year, following the grazing of their herd, which were the main way of food along with hunting and fishing. Their position in life is quite simple: “My ancestors roamed the taiga, and I must do so. Happiness can only be found along the way. ” And nothing can change this worldview: neither hunger, nor disease, nor deprivation. The Tungus usually went hunting for two to three people, using hornets, spears (for large animals such as bears or moose), as well as bows with arrows and all kinds of traps and traps for small animals (usually fur) as weapons.
- Settled reindeer herders: in the largest numbers they live in the area of the Lena and Yenisei rivers. Basically, this version of life was due to numerous mixed marriages, when the Tungus took in the wives of Russian women. Their way of life is nomadic in the summer: they graze deer, sometimes adding cows or horses to the herd, and winter in houses run by women during the nomadic walk of men. Also in winter, Evenks hunt fur animals, cut amazing products from wood, and also make various household items and clothes from leather.
- Coastal Evenks are considered a fading group, they are no longer actively engaged in reindeer husbandry and at the same time they are not trying to use the technological innovations of civilization. Their life mainly revolves around fishing, picking berries and mushrooms, sometimes farming and hunting small animals, most often fur-bearing animals, whose skins they exchange for essential things: matches, sugar, salt and bread. It is in this group that the highest percentage of deaths from alcoholism is due to the fact that these Tungus could not find themselves in modern society because of their great attachment to the traditions of their ancestors.
Wedding customs
Evenki in the last century had an interesting premarital custom everywhere: if a man likes a woman and wants to express his disposition, he comes to her with the words: “I’ve froze”. This means that she must provide him with her bed for warming, but only twice. If he comes for the third time with these words - this is a direct hint at the wedding, and they openly begin to pry him out, determine the size of the kalym for the bride and discuss other wedding details. If the man does not express a desire to marry, then he is very persistently carried to the door, forbidding him to appear more in this woman. If he resists, then they may well shoot an arrow at him: the nationality of the Tungus is famous for its ability to convince the insolent.
Kalym usually consists of a herd of deer (about 15 animals), numerous skins of sables, arctic foxes and other valuable animals; they may also request money. For this reason, the most beautiful Tunguska girls have always been with the rich, and the poor were content with those who did not ask for too much ransom for their ugly daughter. By the way, the prenuptial agreement was always drawn up on behalf of the girl’s father, she herself did not have the right to choose. It so happened that at the age of eight, a girl in the family was already engaged to some adult man who had already paid a dowry and was waiting for her puberty. Polygamy is also widely spread among Evenks, only a husband is obliged to provide for all his women, which means he must be rich.
Religion
The Tungus people initially adhered to shamanism, Tibetan Buddhism was sometimes practiced in China and Mongolia, and only Evenki Christians began to appear in the last few decades. Shamanism is still massively distributed throughout the territory: people worship various spirits and treat diseases with the help of conspiracies and shamanistic dances. In particular honor among the Tunguses, the Spirit of the taiga, which they portray as a gray-haired old man with a long beard, who is the keeper and master of the forest. There are many stories among locals that someone saw this Spirit while hunting on a big tiger and always accompanied by a huge dog. In order for the hunt to be successful, the Evenks depict the face of this deity using a peculiar pattern in the form of notches on the bark of a special tree and sacrifice a part of only the killed beast or cereal porridge (depending on what is available). If the hunt is unsuccessful, the taiga spirit is angry and takes all the game away, so it is revered and always respectful in the forest.
In fact, among the Tunguses, faith in spirits was very strong: they earnestly believe that various spirits can be inhabited by people, animals, dwellings, and even objects; therefore, various rituals associated with the expulsion of these essences were ubiquitous and practiced among some residents before of our days.
Beliefs related to death
The Tungus people believe that after death, the soul of a person falls into the afterlife, and those souls who did not get there due to improper burial rituals become ghosts and evil spirits that send damage to relatives, illnesses and various troubles. Therefore, the funeral rite has several important points:
- When the husband dies, the wife should immediately cut off her braid and put it in the coffin of her husband. If the husband really loved his woman, then he can also cut off his hair and put it under her left hand: according to legend, this will help them meet in the afterlife.
- The whole body of the deceased is smeared with blood of a freshly cut deer, allowed to dry, and then put on in the best clothes. All his personal items are located next to his body: a hunting knife and all other weapons, a mug or a bowler, which he took with him for hunting, or reindeer hauls. If a woman died, then it was all her personal belongings, right down to a shred of fabric - there was nothing left not to incur the anger of the spirit.
- They build a special platform on four pillars, called Geramcki, usually it is about two meters high above the ground. It is on this platform that the dead man and his things are placed. A small fire is lit under the platform, on which fat and fat of the deer are smoked, and its meat is cooked, which is shared among everyone and is eaten with loud lamentations and tears for the deceased. Then the platform is densely packed with animal skins, firmly hammered with boards, that in no case wild animals got to the corpse and ate it. According to legend, if this happens, then the angry soul of a person will never find peace, and all who carried the deceased to the platform will die on the hunt, torn by beasts.
End of the ritual
Exactly one year later, the last rite of commemoration is held: a rotten tree is selected, from the trunk of which the image of the deceased is cut, they put it in good clothes and put it on the bed. Then they invite all neighbors, relatives and those who were familiar with the deceased. Each invited person from the Tungus people should bring a treat, which is offered to the image of a tree. Then the deer meat is boiled again and offered to everyone, especially the image of the deceased. A shaman is invited to begin his mysterious rites, at the end of which he takes a scarecrow into the street and throws as far as possible (sometimes he is hung on a tree). After that, the deceased was never mentioned, believing that he had successfully reached the afterlife.
It is interesting!
Even such a Tungus people, unfamiliar to most, has in its history many important points that it is proud of:
- The very kind and peace-loving Tungus during the formation of Soviet power in 1924-1925 took up arms en masse in order to defend their territories: all adult men up to seventy years stood shoulder to shoulder against the bloody terror of the Red Army. This is an unprecedented event in the history of a people famous for their good nature.
- For all the centuries-old existence of the Tungus nationality, not one species of flora and fauna has disappeared on the territory of their residence, which suggests that the Evenks live in harmony with nature.
- As a paradox: it is the Tungus that are now under the threat of extinction, because their numbers are rapidly going down. In many districts of their residence, the birth rate is twice lower than mortality, because this people, like no one else, reveres their ancient traditions, not a step back from them under any circumstances.