Yurak-Samoyeds: Problems of Ethnic Identification

The history of the ethnographic study of the Samoyed peoples dates back about three centuries. However, among historians, ethnographers and linguists, there is still no consensus on the origin of the ethnonyms Samoyeds and Yuraks, referring to the Nenets. Questions related to the name of the Samoyeds require a separate work to be written, therefore, in our article, only the name of the Yuraks has been investigated 1.

The Russians, as well as the Enets and Nganasans, named the Yuraks a group of the selfspeaking population that roamed the northern outskirts of Western Siberia in the 17th — first half of the 20th centuries. The article attempts to identify the ethnic composition of the Yuraks, the boundaries of their settlement, to determine the chronological framework of the emergence and existence of this name and to clarify its origin. In order to achieve the objectives of the research, published and unpublished archival materials of the 17th — early 20th centuries, information from the works of Russian and foreign scientists of the 18th – 20th centuries, as well as dictionaries of the peoples of the North were identified and analyzed.

The most of the materials that we relied on when writing this article are not unique. At the end of the 20th century, the Japanese geographer and ethnographer A. Yoshida attempted to search for the ancestors of the Yuraks using almost the same data [1, p. 140–170]. Using linguistic data, rather coherent hypothesis on origin of Yuraks and their name was put forward by the Soviet and Russian linguist E.A. Khelimskiy [2, p. 27–31] and his Finnish colleague J. Janhunen [3, p. 8, 50]. From the standpoint of comparative linguistics, the genesis of the ethnonym Yuraks was considered by the Russian philologist V.Yu. Gusev [4, p. 60–64].

Unlike our respected colleagues, we relied more on historical and ethnographic sources and literature, on the basis of which we tried to substantiate our assumptions about who the Yuraks were, why they were called that and what happened to them. Our article is clearly structured, each section has its own meaning. First, an overview of the sources and literature is presented. The movement of Russians into the Trans-Urals region and their relationship with the aborigines is shown to understand the ethnic processes that influenced the formation of the Yuraks as a relatively isolated ethnic community. The description of the historical events that took place in the Berezovskiy and Mangazey districts made it possible to localize the territory of the nomadic Yuraks. The description of marriage relations showed the ethnic components of the Yuraks. In conclusion, it was possible to clarify to whom exactly the definition of “Yuraks” referred and to put forward a reasonable assumption about the origin of this ethnonym.

From source to source

The main sources on the history and ethnography of Western Siberia in the 17th century are various documents that reflect the uneasy relationship of Russians with the aborigines during the active development of tundra and taiga lands east of the Ob. Information about the Yuraks can be found in the formal replies of the Tobolsk, Beryozov, Mangazei governors and petitions of service people. Some of them were identified and published in the 19th century, others — at the beginning of the 21st century [5, DAI, p. 161–165; 6, Vershinin E.V., Vizgalov G.P., p. 19, 34, 113, 152].

The first mentions of Yuraks in scientific works can be found in the work of the Russian historiographer G.F. Miller’s “Description of the Peoples of Siberia”, written in the middle of the 18th century on the basis of materials from the Second Kamchatka Expedition. The name Yurak is like beads scattered throughout the work, when the author presents clothes, food, reindeer husbandry, and fishing of the Nenets in comparison with other peoples [7]. The Yenisei Samoyeds are called Yuraks by student V.F. Zuev, who carried out expedition to the Berezovskiy Uezd of the Siberian Gubernia in 1771–1772 on the instructions of academician P.S. Pallas [8, p. 53, 94]. In the capital work of Academician I.G. Georgi about the peoples “inhabiting the Russian state”, in the description of the “Semoyadi” it is briefly written: “starting from Mangazeya, the most populous Yuryaks” [9, p. 4].

Purposeful study of the peoples of the Yenisei North began in the second quarter of the 19th century. The first ethnographic description of “Samoyeds with the inclusion of Yuraks” based on the materials of the expedition of 1842–1845 in Northern and Eastern Siberia made by Russian traveller, geographer and naturalist A.F. Middendorf. Published in 1878, supplemented by scientific and statistical materials of the 1850s–60s, it contains information about the tribal composition of the Samoyeds and Yuraks, about the peculiarities of their life, about traditional beliefs, etc. [10, Middendorf A. F., p. 660–688]. A large-scale study of the Yenisei foreigners was carried out in 1845–1849 by the founder of comparative Ural studies, M.A. Kastren. On the way of his expedition to the Taz–Yenisei interfluve, he identified the boundaries of the settlement of the Yuraks, described their traditional crafts, types of dwellings and clothing, food, determined the features of the Yurak–Samoyed dialect [11, Kastren M.A., p. 336, 337, 350–355, 359–361, 472–474, 479–482].

The peculiarities of the Yuraks’ clothing (similar to that of the Entsy) were shown by a doctor, ethnographer and folklorist M.F. Krivoshapkin in his essay about the Yenisei district [12, p. 151–152]. The first Russian professor of geography, anthropologist, archaeologist and ethnographer D.N. Anuchin tried to correlate the Yuraks with the Molgonzeya tribe, the name of which appears in various sources of the 15th–17th centuries [13, p. 35–37]. The historian-archivist P.N. Butsinskiy wrote about the Samoyeds of Mangazeisk Uezd without distinguishing between Nenets, Enets and Nganasans [14, p. 33–98]. Traditional beliefs of the Taz tundra and Purva forest Nenets people were investigated in the expeditions of 1911 and 1914 by a Finnish ethnographer and folklorist T. Lehtisalo. According to the tradition established by that time, he calls them Yurak– Samoyeds [15].

The number and settlements of the Yuraks in the 1920s were presented in works by ethnographer, historian L.N. Dobrova-Yadrintseva [16, p. 8–9, 65–66; 17, p. 22, 33–34, 36]. Historical information about the Samoyeds and Yuraks of the 17th century can be found in the works of the historian S.V. Bakhrushin [18, p. 85–94]. The literature on the Yenisei Nenets, which was available to scholars by the 1940s, was described by the Leningrad ethnographer A.A. Popov as scarce and unsatisfactory in content, having published his essay on the social structure and religion of the Yuraks [19].

In addition to scientific writings about the Yenisei province in the 19th–early 20th centuries, a large number of local history works were published, the authors of which described the life and household of the Yuraks or briefly mentioned them. Among the authors were representatives of different professions and estates: provincial officials, members of the Siberian branch of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society, writers and journalists, exiled revolutionaries, gold miners, fishing specialists, hydrographers, geographers and geobotanists, ornithologists, archaeologists, art historians. These works are not of particular interest to our study.

A qualitatively new stage in the study of the Samoyed peoples (including the Yuraks) began in the second half of the 1940s with the research of the ethnographer B.O. Dolgikh, who later became one of the largest Siberian scholars of the 20th century. In particular, a comparison of field ethnographic materials with archival data allowed B.O. Dolgikh to trace the ethnic history of peoples who roamed between the Taz and Yenisei rivers for several centuries, to clarify the origin of ethnic groups, large and small clans [20, p. 109–124; 21]. The work in this direction was continued by his students, outstanding ethnographers Yu.B. Simchenko [22] and V.I. Vasilyev [23].

Several works of the author of this article are devoted to the history of the tribal structure formation of the Nenets on the Gydan Peninsula and interethnic interactions between the peoples of the interfluve of the Taz and Yenisei [24, Kvashnin Yu.N.; 25, Kvashnin Yu.N.].

Separately, the scientists who studied the Nenets and other Samoyedic languages should be mentioned. The first grammar of the Samoyedic languages, where Yurak is singled out as a separate branch, was written by M.A. Castren [26]. The first large Yurak–Samoyed dictionary was compiled by T. Lehtisalo [27]. In their writings, these researchers called all the Nenets living from the White Sea in the west to the Yenisei in the east as Yuraks.

In the first half of the 20th century, the famous Soviet linguist and ethnographer G.N. Prokofyev in his essay “The Nenets (Yurak–Samoyed) language” wrote that the Yuraks were the Nenets people “from the river Taz and further eastwards within the entire Taimyr National Okrug and the Turukhansk District of the Krasnoyarsk Krai”. At the same time, he did not distinguish them from the general Nenets population either by language or by culture [28, p. 6, 7].

Examining archival documents, the linguist E.A. Khelimskiy paid attention to a small list of Yurak words recorded in the middle of the 18th century by G.F. Miller and published in abridged form in the works of Academician P.S. Pallas and the German orientalist J. Klaproth. Comparison with modern words from the Samoyed languages, according to the scientist, showed that the Yurak dialect differed from both the tundra and forest Nenets dialects, but had features that brought it closer to the Enets language [2, Khelimskiy E.A., p. 28].

Concluding the review of sources and literature, it should be said that they can only provide a general and not always clear picture of the Yuraks. In addition, most of the above authors did not even try to find out the origin of the name of this population group.

AB ORIGINE

According to E.A. Khelimskiy, the Yuraks were a separate group of the Samoyed population, which emerged in the course of a gradual, not abrupt, disintegration of the pre-North Samoyed linguistic community. The Yurak dialect of the Nenets language, called by the scientist “Old Eastern”, became a transitional one between the Nenets and Enets languages, and its speakers maintained “a fairly high level of mutual understanding with both western and eastern neighbours” for a long time. The dialect disappeared no later than the middle of the 19th century “due to the absorption of its carriers by waves of new migrations of the Yamal Nenets to the east” [2, Khelimskiy E.A., p. 31].

Generally agreeing with the conclusions of E.A. Khelimsky, J. Janhunen ventured to derive the name Yuraks from the Nenets tundra word Yura (s), translating it ver-lorengehen — to disap- pear (to get lost, to vanish) [3, Janhunen J., p. 8, 50]. So, the Yuraks are a kind of tribe that disappeared or got lost in the vastness of tundra. However, it is far from true.

As is known from the chronicles, the northern territories of the Urals and Trans-Urals were the first to be explored by the Novgorodians. Reliable information about the Russian campaigns to the east of the Urals is available in the Novgorod fourth chronicle of 1364 [29, PSRL, p. 64–65]. Later, in 1483 and 1499, military men under the leadership of the Moscow governors made campaigns to Siberia. By the end of the 15th century, Russians already had a certain idea of the peoples who lived far to the east of the Ural Mountains [30, Magidovich I.P., Magidovich V.I., p. 220– 223].

In 1525, the “Samoyed Yugorskaya”, who lived along the river Ob, was admitted to Russian citizenship, which was secured by the diploma of tsar Vasiliy III and later confirmed by the letter of tsar Fyodor Ivanovich of 1597 [6, Vershinin E.V., Vizgalov G.P., p. 10–11]. The movement of Russians from the Ob to the Yenisei began at the end of the 16th century, along the routes explored by the industrialists of the Stroganov family. Several “successive and well-prepared campaigns to the Yenisei banks” were made between 1584 and 1605 [30, Markov S., p. 273–275].

The foundation of Mangazeya on the Taz in 1601 and Turukhansk on the Yenisei in 1607 allowed the Russians to settle down in the vast territory of Western Siberia and establish contacts with the peoples who lived there. According to the data of the Mangazeya tribute books of 1607, “not only Samoyeds who lived along the Taz river, but also many Samoyeds and Ostyaks along the Yenisei river, as well as some Tunguses on the Lower Tunguska river, paid tribute (yasak) to Man-gazeya at that time”. In 1610, merchants, the Dvinyans, went from Turukhansk to the mouths of the Yenisei and Pyasina and found out that “. ..the Yenisei is deep and boats can sail along it, the river is convenient, there are pine forests and arable lands, and fish in that river is the same as in Volga, and your sovereign's officials and industrialists live along that river ”. Since 1614, the Russians began to collect yasak from the “Pyasid Samoyeds” (living along the Pyasina river) [32, Miller GF, p. 27, 30–31; 6, Vershinin E.V., Vizgalov G.P., p. 75–76].

Thus, the space from the Ob to the Yenisei was already well known to the Russians in the early years of the 17th century, and any peoples (clans, tribes) simply could not get lost there or disappear without a trace.

In the 17th century, the territory of the Nenets and Enets settlement was part of the Bere-zovskiy and Mangazeyskiy uezds. There are conflicting views on the border between the uezds. For example, B.O. Dolgikh wrote that the Samoyeds (Nenets) of the Berezovskiy district lived “in the lower reaches of the Ob, along the Pur, on the Yamal peninsula, in the region of the Ob and Taz gubbs”, and “the territory of the Mangazey district ... in general, more or less corresponded to the territory of the present-day Turukhansk krai” [33, Dolgikh B.O., p. 64, 120]. Yekaterinburg historian E.V. Vershinin believes that “there were no clear boundaries between these uezds, in fact the tundra and forest-tundra between Obdorsk and Pur was a ‘nobody's’ territory” [6, Vershinin E.V., Vizgalov G.P., p. 5].

In our opinion, the points of view of both researchers are not entirely correct. Compared to the neighboring uezds, the Mangazeya uezd was sparsely populated, but this does not mean that it did not have certain boundaries. On the maps of the early 17th–early 18th centuries, from Isaac Massa to S.U. Remezov, the administrative boundaries of uezds and volosts were not marked. Only in the academic “Atlas of Russia” (1745) on a sheet with the inscription: “Parts of the Pechora, Ob and Yenisei rivers with their mouths flowing into the Northern Ocean”, a clear border between the Berezovskiy and Mangazey uezds, passing along the right bank of the river Nadym (No. 14), can be seen. Perhaps, a similar distinction existed in the 17th century. It may be indirectly confirmed by the record in one of the letters of 1679 to the Berezovskiy province governor: “ ...and that thief Maulka and Igonka with his fellows, having heard a message of the servicemen from Berezovo, ran to their former dwelling, where they came from, from the Mangazeya side from Nadym… ” [5, DAI, p. 166].

The yasak population of the Mangazey Uezd in the 17th century included Enets, Forest Nenets and Nganasans, as well as Khanty, Selkups, Kets, Evenks. The Enets were divided into tundra and forest. The tundra Enents wandered from the Khantayskiy yasak wintering on the right bank of the Yenisei to the Ledenkin Shar wintering on the river Messo-Yakha (along the 68th parallel), at times moving along the Taz up to Mangazeya and along the Yenisei down along its tributaries Bol-shaya and Malaya Kheta and Solyonaya. The forest Enets wandered in the forest and forest-tundra zone, mainly between Mangazeya on the Taz and Turukhanskiy on the Yenisei, moving to the Khu-doseya river in the south and reaching the Upper and Lower Baiha rivers in the east. Forest Nenets roamed in the interfluve of Pur and Taz, in the upper and middle reaches of these rivers, to Man-gazeya [33, Dolgikh B.O., p. 72, 136, 142; 23, Vasilyev V.I., p. 100–101, 107].

The tundra Nenets, part of the forest Nenets and Khanty were taxed with yasak in Bery-ozovskiy Uyezd. At the beginning of the 17th century, the tundra Nenets reached the middle of the Yamal peninsula in the north, near the rivers Mutnaya and Zelenaya. They roamed on the right side of the Urals in the meridian direction from the Baydaratskaya Bay of the Barents Sea to the Voikar, Lyapin and Kunovat rivers, moved along the southern part of the Ob Bay to the banks of the Tazovskaya Bay. Forest Nenets roamed on the left bank of the river Nadym, in its upper and middle reaches, near the lake Num-To, and in the upper reaches of the river Kazym [33, Dolgikh B.O., p. 74–75; 23, Vasilyev V.I., p. 85–86].

Already at the beginning of the 17th century, there was difficult situation with the yasak collection on the territory of both uezds. While the semi-rural Khanty population was taxed almost completely, the nomadic Samoyeds actively resisted it. It should be added that the unauthorised trade with Samoyeds, organised by the Russian “walking people”, tremendously impeded yasak collection. Resisting pressure of the Russian administration, the Samoyeds throughout the century periodically attacked Pustozersk and Obdorsk, robbed grain stocks, took away goods from ships wrecked by a storm, killed Russian people, fled to neighboring uezds [32, Miller G.F., p. 234–236; 6, Vershinin E.V., Vizgalov G.P., p. 23–25, 29–30, 33–35, 43, 46–48].

The Nizhneobsk and Yamal Samoyeds, trying to find new hunting grounds, so that there was something to trade with the Russians, and, if possible, to avoid the yasak tax, began to migrate between the Taz and Yenisei rivers.

"Yuratskaya Samoyed Nemirnaya"

In the 17th century, the names “yuraki” and “yuratskaya samoyad” began to appear in the yasak documents of the Berezovskiy and Mangazeya uezds. Cartographic materials of the early 18th century made it possible to determine the places where the yuraks roamed. For example, on the Semyon Remezov’s “Drawing of the land of the Turukhansk city” (1701), representing the lands of the Mangazeya uezd and the nearest districts, it is written “ Nemirnaya samoyed yuratskaya ” in the interfluve of the Ob and Pur rivers. The area between the tributary of the Yenisei, Lower Kheta river, and the sea bays is marked as “ Yuratskaya land nemirnaya ”, and on the left bank of the Lower Kheta river a postscript can be seen: “ And along it the Yuratskaya samoyed nemirnaya comes through Taz and from Pur ” [34, Remezov S., p. 143].

Archival data analysis, conducted by B.O. Dolgikh, showed that a certain number of Nenets-Yuraks were paying yasak in the Mangazeya uezd almost every year, starting from the 1630s to the beginning of the 18th century. The first mentions of Yuraks can be found in the yasak books of the Verkhotaz yasak wintering in 1634 and 1636, where five people of the “yuratsk kamennaya 2 samoyad” were recorded. In addition to the Verkhotaz wintering, located below the Khudoseya river, Yuraks reached the city of Mangazeya in the 1630s–50s, and in 1657 they roamed at the mouth of the Taz river. On the Yenisei, individual Nenets-Yuraks were noted by yasak collectors in 1636, and from 1658 they began to pay yasak regularly in the Khantai wintering together with the Samoyed Enets [33, Dolgikh B.O., p. 69, 136].

According to B.O. Dolgikh, by the middle of the 17th century, a meridional border was established between the nomads of the Nenets and Enets in the tundra zone, passing along the Krovavaya river. In our opinion, at that time, the Russians gave that name to the modern Messo river ³, which originates in the far north and flows into the Taz Bay [33, p. 134, 136; 21, p. 159; 25, Kvashnin Yu.N., p. 165]. The delimitation of the territory was very conditional, therefore, both the Nenets and the Enets often roamed far beyond the boundaries of their estates, guided by economic benefits. For example, a provincial dispatch of 1644 mentions the Obdorsk Samoyadin of the Ivasida family ⁴, who roamed in the area of the Nadym river and fished periodically “ on the Taz below the Mangazeya city ”. The charter of 1657 reported about the Mangazeya Samoyeds, met by the Russians on the Nadym river [6, Vershinin E.V., Vizgalov G.P., p. 32, 46].

The Russian administration, which tried to establish a timely full collection of yasak from the taxable population and resorted to taking hostages-amanats for this, forced the Samoyeds to move to remote tundra. In the report extract of 1652, it is said that after the capture of the best Samoyed people to amanats, “the Karachai Samoyads of the Yevasida clan from Berezovskiy Uyezd left for the Mangazeya Uyezd, fifty people or more”. Together with them, Hena Khuleyev left the clan of Karachey (Kharyuchi) with lots of people “and started to pay yasak to the tsar in Man-gazeia” [6, Vershinin E.V., Vizgalov G.P., p. 43, 166].

In 1695, members of the Aseda family of forest Enets helped the Nenets from the Ayvaseda clan to take revenge on the Mangazeya servicemen for the campaign of voivode Andrey Zabo-lotskiy against the Yuraks on the river Pur, during which many people were killed. After that, Aseda migrated to the left bank of the Taz Bay, and from 1696 to 1700 they paid yasak in Obdorsk [18, Bakhrushin S.V., p. 90; 21, Dolgikh B.O., p. 185, 190].

The invasion of the Nenets and Enets into each other's territory often led to armed bloody feuds. For example, in 1638 the tundra Enets Idepedey from the Soyta clan was killed by “ Yuratsk samoyad on the Verkhotaz mountains ”. In the same year, the forest Enets of the clans Aseda and Yuchi were “ beaten on Pur by the Purovskaya yasak samoyad ” [23, Vasilyev V.I., p. 128].

The inhabitants of the Mangazeya Uezd suffered greatly in 1679. In February, the son of Hena Khuleyev, “ the Yuratsk prince of Koryuch Khinin ... with many people ”, came to the Khantai yasak wintering and wanted to attack and plunder it. Having received a rebuff from the servicemen, he moved away from the wintering and began to kill and plunder the Russian people who lived nearby, and then — the “ yasash people, the Khantai and Tavgitskiy samoyad ”, that is, the Enets and Nganasans. In June of the same year, the Samoyed “ Prince Nyla of the Asitskiy family with twenty people ” came to the old Mangazeya city and wanted to kill the yasak collectors. Nyla himself was killed in the battle, and his people, having recovered, took the city in besiege and did not recede from it for three days and three nights. The Samoyed (Enets) princes of the Yaryg of the Selir clan and the Marobanko of the Yugut clan came to the aid of the besieged “ with their families and fought off those thieves from the city ” [5, DAI, p. 161–166; 6, Vershinin E.V., Vizgalov G.P., p. 166].

According to some sources, wars between Nenets and Enets ended with reconciliation and payment of ransom. For example, at the end of the 17th century, Yuratsk Samoyadin Voloma asked the Verkhotaz Samoyadin Sanarayka Soloneev to give Yurak “ golovshchina, consisted of two girls, for previous killings ” ⁵ [18, Bakhrushin S.V., p. 91].

Based on the above, we can state the following. Despite occasional conflicts, the free or forced migrations of the Nenets and Enets from the Berezovskiy district to Mangazeya and back created conditions for the formation of a mixed Nenets-Enets population in the Taz-Yenisei interfluve in the 17th century. It developed gradually as a result of marriages between the Nenets and Ents and partly of the golovshchina payments.

Matchmakers

As mentioned above, members of the Aivaseda (Evasida) clan, as well as the Kharyuchi (Karacheya) clan, were among the first to wander in the Mangazeya Uezd territory [6, Vershinin E.V., Vizgalov G.P., p. 43]. They were the main eastern non-ethnic marriage partners of the Enets. Information about the Nenets-Enets marriages in the 17th century is very scarce. However, it is possible to note the mention in some documents of the Nenets of the Aivaseda clan, who were related to the Aseda Enets. For example, in the dispatch from the Berezovskiy governor of 1645, it is written, “... killed that Sava Ondreev Syrapteyko of Asidtskov's family, the Mangazey Yasak Samoyadin, with his son-in-law, Evasidin and our family ” [6, Vershinin E.V., Vizgalov G.P., p. 34]. Another document tells about Michutka Eteev from the Aseda clan, the son-in-law of the head of the Aivaseda clan, who beat the Mangazeya archers in 1695 [21, Dolgikh B.O., p. 190].

Other matchmakers of Ased were the representatives of the Lambai family of the Entsy family (Lobbeo, Lombuev, Lampai). From the archival data, collected by B.O. Dolgikh and V.I. Vasiliev, an attempt can be made to reconstruct the history of this family. For the first time, 26 Samoyed people of the Lombuev clan were noted in the yasak books of the Khantai wintering in 1614. By the early 1630’s, the number of yasak payers in this clan was reduced to one person. Further information about him is lost, until the end of the century. Scientists suggest that at this time members of the Lombuev clan paid yasak along with the Obdor Samoyeds, as well as intermarried with them. In the yasak book of 1695, Naka and Lave Ikiny were recorded among the Nenets of the Kharyuchi clan. In 1700, the Nenets of “Ikin clan”, headed by Lovitsa (Lave) Ikin, roamed to the Khantayskiy wintering of the Mangazey district, together with the aforementioned Michutka Eteev from the Aseda clan. This was the beginning of the formation of the administrative-territorial group of coastal Yuraks in the lower reaches of the Yenisei, the main clans of which were the clans Lampai and Aseda. Members of the Lampai clan figured the surname Ikin in archival documents throughout the 19th century. [21, Dolgikh B.O., p. 150–152; 23, Vasilyev V.I., p. 50, 177]. According to A.F. Middendorf, Karasin Enets and Avam Nganasans called coastal Yuraks Lobbö, and Khantai Enets — Lowwöo [10, Middendorf A.F., p. 663–666].

The Lampai and Aseda clans were apparently intermarried as early as the beginning of the 18th century. In the second half of the 18th–early 19th centuries, the circle of marriage ties of the Yenisei Yuraks expanded due to new settlers from the Ob and Nadym. The documents of that period record, among the marriage partners of Aseda and Lampai, the Nenets of the clans Karachey (Kharyuchi), Tazu-Karachey (Tazu-Kharyuchi), Sigunei (Syugney), Yar, Ader. In the first half of the 20th century, Evay, Togoy, Taseda, Yadne, Ter, Nenyang, Saba, Yamkiny were added to them. In addition, the coastal Yuraks Lampai and Aseda themselves continued to actively intermarry with each other 6.

In the lower reaches of the Taz, at the turn of the 17th–18th centuries, there were also changes in the ethnic and tribal composition. Forest Enets of the clans Yuchi, Bai and part of the Muggadi went down the Yenisei and formed new Samoyed Yasak volosts — Karasinskaya and Podgorodnaya. Part of the Aseda clan, together with their division Selirta and clans of Nenets– Entsy origin, Parava, Maryik and Ter (part of Muggadi) formed the Taz volost. From the middle of the 18th century, the Taz and Beregovaya volosts began to be officially called Yurats, and the nonliving Enets living there were called Yuraks, in contrast to the Khantai and Karassian Samoyed Ents [33, Dolgikh B.O., p. 143; 21, Dolgikh B.O., p. 76, 121].

It would seem that we can conclude that in the 17th–19th centuries, Yuraks was the name of the mixed group of the population, formed in the interfluve of the Taz and Yenisei as a result of contacts of the tundra Nenets with the tundra and forest Enets. However, this is not true.

The Aivaseda clan, in addition to the “Taz matchmakers” from the Aseda clan, also had “Purov matchmakers” from the forest Nenets clan Pyak, who are repeatedly referred to in yasak documents as Yuraks. For example, in the Mangazeya yasak book of 1636 it is spoken of “ the Purovskaya Yuratsk Samoyad of the Peki clan ”. In 1641, in Mangezeya, the “ Yuratsk self-unification of the Pekiev family of Yuvaga ” was caught. In the governor’s report of 1645, it is said about the wife of the murdered archer, who, after the collapse of the karbas, walked along the coast on foot “ and found her Yurak relatives named Peks ” [33, Dolgikh B.O., p. 71; 6, Vershinin E.V., Vizgalov G.P., p. 34]. G. D. Verbov wrote about the prohibitions on marriage between the Pyak and Aseda clans in the 1930s. [35, p. 59].

The above examples convincingly prove that not only the Nenets and Enets, who were marriage partners, but also the Purovskiy Forest Nenets, who did not marry the Enets, were called Yuraks.

Who are the Yuraks?

The answer to this question is, surprisingly, simple. One has only to carefully examine the archival documents and understand their analysis by ethnographers. Attention should be paid to the clear division of “samoyad” in the documents of the 17th century on “yasachnaya” and “yuratskaya”. For example, in the formal reply of the Mangazeya governor of 1636 it is written “... Vaska Kolmogor was beaten by a non-Yasak Samoyad, Yuraks ”. In the formal letter of the Tobolsk governors of 1643, the “thieves’ Yuratsk Samoyad” is mentioned. And, finally, in the governor’s report of 1645 there is a record that “... in Mangazeya, the foreigners Yuratsk and Yasak Samoyad are stealing, your sovereign Russian people are robbed and beaten ” [6, Vershinin E.V., Vizgalov G.P., p. 152].

The notes of the participant of the Second Kamchatka expedition of 1734–1742, Lieutenant H.P. Laptev, contain a valuable remark that was pointed out by N.K. Auerbach and V.I. Vasyliev:

“… as these Yuraks, when they came, robbed and killed a lot, not only the inhabitants, but also the service collectors of the yasak, and these Yuraks, some are in yasak, but only in free one, and they pays what and how much they want with animals ” [36, Zapiski..., p. 53].

In one of the documents of 1755, a certain Ika, 73 years old, and his large family are noted as “ the Lampayevsk family of Yuratsk Samoyads, living downstream along the Yenisei, nontaxed ” ⁷.

B.O. Dolgikh was the first to draw attention to the opposition between the Yasan and Yuratsk Samoyeds. In particular, in one of his works, understanding the possible reasons for the decline in the number of Entsy in the yasak books of the 1630s, he wrote about the departure of “ a part of the tundra Enets to the Obdorsk Nenets (Yurak) who did not pay the tax yasak ” [21, Dolgikh B.O., p. 140]. Unfortunately, B.O. Dolgikh did not develop this thesis further.

Based on the thought of B.O. Dolgikh and on the above facts, it can be stated that in the 17th century, Russians began to name representatives of the nomadic Samodian population who avoided a permanent yasak tax as Yuraks. Some Yuraks paid yasak, but occasionally, in those winterings, near which they were caught by yasak collectors.

Only name remains

The origin of the name Yuraki remained unclear during all its existence. In our opinion, most of the travelers and researchers of the 18th–19th centuries and the beginning of the 20th centuries did not try to guess its meaning because they did not know the Nenets language. However, we do not find decoding in the works of specialists either. For example, A. Shifner, editor of M.A. Castren’s reports, in one of his comments to the “Grammar of Samoyed Languages” wrote: “ The Yuraks, who gave the name to the entire branch, are just one tribe, and Castren believes that their name may be associated with Yugra ” [26, Castren M.A., p. 7].

G.D. Verbov stated categorically about the name Yurak: “ The origin of the word “yurak” is known quite accurately and does not cause the slightest doubt. The fact is that “Jurak” in the language of the Enets, formerly known under the name "Yenisei Samoyeds", and the Nganasans (Tavgians), adjacent to the Nenets in the east, means “Nenets” (in general) ” [37, Verbov G.D., p. 18].

According to the Hungarian linguist P. Khaydu, the name Yurak may come from the Khanty and Mansi jor n (jоr aŋ ), which was adapted in Russian using the suffix of ethnonyms -ak [38, Khay-du P., p. 125]. In the Khanty-Russian and Mansi-Russian dictionaries one can find the corresponding words: Khant. yora ң , yara ң ; Mans. yery ң, yorә ң — important, proud, from the word yer, yor — pride, conceit, arrogance [39, Balandin A.N., Vakhrusheva M.P., p. 31; 40, Skameiko R.R., Syazi

Z.I., p. 26]. In our opinion, these words are not related to the name of Yuraks. They simply reflected the peculiarities of interethnic relations between the Khanty and Mansi and the Nenets.

As is known, reindeer husbandry in Western Siberia began to develop intensively earlier than that of the tundra Nenets. In the 17th century, possession of a sufficient number of deer allowed them to migrate over long distances, catching a fur-bearing animal to pay tribute, or, conversely, to avoid paying. At the same time, the Khanty and Mansi were mainly engaged in hunting and fishing, which often depended on external and internal factors, such as excessive hunting by Russian “nomads” or climatic changes. Here is just one example, taken from the petition of Osty-aks of the Berezovsky Uezd with a request to postpone the payment of tribute, dated 1643: “ …big water made the fishing industry redundant and we have suffered hunger and starvation for all the years, and many Kazym Ostyaks with their wives and children died of hunger, while others, our Sovereign, our brothers, Ostyaks, wives and children, sold them to work because of hunger. And your sovereign yasak has nothing to hunt. And in the previous years, Sovereign, in summer they were catching more fish, and for that dry fish and fat they bought from the tundra Samoyad some stuff and fulfilled that need, and with that stuff they paid your sovereign yasak for all the years ” [6, Vershinin E.V., Vizgalov G.P., p. 25–26]. It can be assumed that the Nenets were so proud of their wealth and independence that this gave the poor Khanty and Mansi a reason to call them “proud”, “important”, “arrogant”.

P. Khaydu connects his other hypothesis with the Nenets clan Yar, from which, according to him, the ethnonym jaran ~ jorn and, accordingly, the name Yurak, may be derived [38, Khaydu P., p. 125]. It is also impossible to agree with this explanation, since the Yar clan just began to stand out from the Vanuito maternal clan in the first half of the 17th century. An indirect confirmation of this can be the record in the petition of the merchant Mikhail Kondakov, dated 1641, where he complains about the Nenets of different clans, mentioning, among others, “ Vanyutin of the Yar family with comrades ” [6, Vershinin E.V., Vizgalov G.P., p. 20, 22]. Throughout the 17th century, Yar was a small clan and did not play the same significant role in the life of nomadic and semi-sedentary communities between the Ob and Yenisei rivers, as, for example, the Kharyuchi clan (Karachei, Karachey samoyad). By the end of the century, the main nomadic places of the Yar clan were located on the right bank of the Taz Bay, and its marriage contacts with the Aseda clan began only in the 18th century. [33, Dolgikh B.O., p. 75–76; 24, Kvashnin Yu.N., p. 47–51].

In our opinion, the origin of the name Yuraks should be sought in the Nenets language, starting from the thesis about the Yasak and Yurak Samoyad. The above-mentioned work by A.F. Middendorf has a very interesting note, which researchers have never paid attention to, although it can serve as a starting point for decoding: “The coastal Yuraks call themselves Jöndjör” [10, Mid-dendorf A.F., p. 665]. This name consists of two parts: yond, from the Nenets tundra yondas — to wander, migrate, and yor — depth, deep-rooted [41, Tereshchenko N.M., p. 121, 123]. Accordingly, it can be translated as “wandering in the depths” or “migrating into the depth”, i.e. to remote tundra. Here it is worth paying attention to the entry in the Nenets-Russian dictionary of G.D. Ver-bov: “yondas — to migrate to a new, unknown place” [42, Verbov G.D., p. 21].

Based on the above, we can assume that in the 17th century the Nenets who did not want to pay yasak, migrated to the deep tundra, for what the Russians called them yorak / yurak (from Nenets yor — depth + Russian suff. - ak ; compare: permyak, sibiryak, kerzhak). In the Russian script of that time, there was no separate graphic sign for displaying the sound Yo (along with the sounds Ye and E, it was written with the letter Є), but the letter Yu existed. The Yuraks adopted the nickname of the Nenets from the Russians in their own vocalization: the Enets in the form of durak and the Nganasans in the form of durake / duriake .

It is interesting that uncertainty in the record Yo / Yu in the word Yuratskiy was reflected in some official documents of the 17th century. For example, in one of the petitions, dated 1679, it is written three times “ Yeratskaya (read as Yoratskaya — Yu.K.) Samoyad ”, three times — “ Yaratskaya ”, and three times — “ Yuratskaya ” [5, DAI, p. 161-162].

Let us clarify that the change of the letter and sound Yo to Yu does not contradict the norms of the Nenets language (Nenets. vad yo das / vad yu das — to grow; me yo / me yu — reliable, strong; n yo rakultsi / n yu rakultsi — to chase a beast or man) [43, Burkova S.I. et al., p. 11, 69, 71, 85, 93]. In addition, in colloquial speech, when the Nenets pronounce some words, the sounds Yo and Yu are often difficult to distinguish.

Conclusion

To summarize, a number of well-founded conclusions and assumptions can be made. The name Yuraks originated in the 17th century. The yasak policy of the tsarist administration in the north of Western Siberia provoked active resistance at that time from certain groups of the nomadic Samodian population. This led to uncontrolled movements of some Nenets and Enets clans across the territory of Berezovskiy and Mangazeya uezds. In the 17th–18th centuries, in the interfluve of the Taz and Yenisei rivers, a mixed Nenets-Entsy group of the population was formed as a result of intensive processes of interethnic interaction, where the Nenets language and culture became predominant. The Russians began to call the Nenets and Enets nomads wandering in the deep tundra, not tributed by a constant yasak, Yoraks / Yuraks. In the 18th—early 19th centuries, this name, regardless of the taxation system, extended to the tundra and forest Nenets, and by the middle of the 19th century, it was used mainly for the Nenets of the Yenisei gubernias. In the Soviet administrative records of the Dolgano-Nenets National Okrug, it appeared until the middle of the 20th century.

Acknowledgments and funding

The work was carried out according to the state assignment — project No. АААА-А17-117050400143-4.