Description and analysis of women's clothing Tangalay in the 17th-19th centuries (based on archaeological and ethnographic materials)

The study reviews one of the types of Yakut women’s clothing that is tangalay. To describe and analyze tangalay, oral, written and material sources are used. In general, these data are not contradictory, and tangalay can be defined as a festive and ceremonial costume of a married woman. It was widespread in the 16th-18th centuries. By the end of the 18th century, this costume was replaced by a new look of Yakut traditional clothing. Nevertheless, in the 19th century, the certain samples of tangalay were preserved in Vilyuysky District (Ulus), but they were regarded as a rarity rather than the ordinary clothes. Variability of tangalay is reflected in the surviving sketches of the 18th-19th-century researchers and the archaeological materials. However, a unified design of tangalay demonstrates a single cultural horizon throughout the territory of the Yakut people despite the long distance between their locations.