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Presentation on the topic: "Small peoples of the Sakhalin region. Three main ethnic groups lived on Sakhalin: Nivkhs, mainly in the north of the island, Oroks (Ulta) in the central." Download for free and without registration. Indigenous people of Sakhalin: morals and

- (self-name Nivkhgu, Gilyaks) people with a total number of 4.673 thousand people, living mainly on the territory of the Russian Federation (4.631 thousand people). Nivkh language. Religious affiliation of believers: traditional beliefs, Orthodox... Modern encyclopedia

- (self-name Nivkh outdated expression Gilyaks), people in the Russian Federation, indigenous population of the lower reaches of the river. Amur (Khabarovsk region) and about. Sakhalin. 4.6 thousand people (1992). Nivkh language. Orthodox believers, there are traditional beliefs... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

NIVKHI, incl. and nivukhi, nivkhov, units. nivuh, nivukha, husband. Paleo-Asian people living in the lower reaches of the Amur and on the island. Sakhalin (formerly known as the Gilyaks). Ushakov's explanatory dictionary. D.N. Ushakov. 1935 1940 … Ushakov's Explanatory Dictionary

NIVKHI, ov, units. nivkh, a, husband. The people living along the lower reaches of the Amur River and on the island of Sakhalin [formerly known as the Gilyaks]. | adj. Nivkh, aya, oh. Ozhegov's explanatory dictionary. S.I. Ozhegov, N.Yu. Shvedova. 1949 1992 … Ozhegov's Explanatory Dictionary

- (self-name Nivkh, obsolete Gilyak), people in the Russian Federation (4.6 thousand people). Indigenous population of the lower reaches of the river. Amur (Khabarovsk Territory) and about. Sakhalin. The Nivkh language belongs to the Paleo-Asian languages. Orthodox believers, there are... ... Russian history

Nivkhi- (self-name Nivkhgu, Gilyaks) people with a total number of 4.673 thousand people, living mainly on the territory of the Russian Federation (4.631 thousand people). Nivkh language. Religious affiliation of believers: traditional beliefs, Orthodox. ... Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary

Ov; pl. The people, the indigenous population of the Amur River basin and Sakhalin Island; persons, representatives of this people. ◁ Nivkh, a; m. Nivkhka, and; pl. genus. hok, dat. hkam; and. Nivkhsky, oh, oh. N. language (language of the Paleo-Asian group). In Nivkh language, adv. * * * Nivkhs… … encyclopedic Dictionary

Nivkhs- NIVKHI, ov, pl (ed nivkh, a, m). The people living in the lower reaches of the river. Amur (in the Khabarovsk Territory of Russia) and in the north of the island. Sakhalin (formerly known as the Gilyaks); people belonging to this nation; language Nivkh, Paleo-Asian group, one of the genetically... ... Explanatory dictionary of Russian nouns

- (in pre-revolutionary literature Gilyaks) people living in the basin of the lower reaches of the river. Amur (Khabarovsk Territory of the RSFSR) and on the island. Sakhalin. Number of people: 4.4 thousand. (1970, census). They speak the Nivkh language (See Nivkh language). Probably N.... ... Great Soviet Encyclopedia

- (formerly called Gilyaks) a people living in the Basin. lower river flow Amur (Khabarovsk Territory of the RSFSR) and on the island. Sakhalin. Number 3.7 thousand people (1959). The Nivkh language occupies an isolated position in the group of Paleo-Asian languages. About the origin of N.... ... Soviet historical encyclopedia

Books

  • Amur Tales, Dmitry Nagishkin. The Nivkhs, Nanais, Ulchis, Udeges and other peoples of the Far East have long lived along the banks of the wide and mighty Amur. And for centuries their elders have been telling fairy tales to children growing up in the camps. ABOUT…
  • Amur tales. Postcards. Issue 1, . Set of 15 postcards. The Nivkhs, Nanais, Ulchis, Udeges and other peoples of the Far East have long lived along the banks of the wide and mighty Amur. And for centuries old people have been telling them to those growing up in...

). They are an autochthonous, indigenous population of the Amur region, Sakhalin Island and neighboring small islands, who inhabited this territory during the late Pleistocene.

Number and settlement

They live near the mouth of the Amur River (Khabarovsk Territory) and on the northern part of Sakhalin Island. Languages: Nivkh and Russian. Number of people - 4652 people ().

Number of Nivkhs in Russia:

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Bar:1926 color:gray1 width:1 from:0 till:4076 width:15 text:4076 textcolor:red fontsize:8px bar:1939 color:gray1 width:1 from:0 till:3857 width:15 text:3857 textcolor: red fontsize:8px bar:1959 color:gray1 width:1 from:0 till:3690 width:15 text:3690 textcolor:red fontsize:8px bar:1970 color:gray1 width:1 from:0 till:4356 width:15 text :4356 textcolor:red fontsize:8px bar:1979 color:gray1 width:1 from:0 till:4366 width:15 text:4366 textcolor:red fontsize:8px bar:1989 color:gray1 width:1 from:0 till:4631 width:15 text:4631 textcolor:red fontsize:8px bar:2002 color:gray1 width:1 from:0 till:5162 width:15 text:5162 textcolor:red fontsize:8px bar:2010 color:gray1 width:1 from: 0 till:4466 width:15 text:4466 textcolor:red fontsize:8px

The main settlements where the Nivkhs lived in 2002:

Khabarovsk region

Orekhovo-Zuevo 2 140000 0.2%

Sakhalin region

Story

It is believed that the earliest mention of the Nivkhs in history is the Chinese chronicles of the early 600s AD. e. They talk about the people gilami(Chinese: 吉列迷 Jílièmí), who was in contact with the rulers of the Mongol Yuan dynasty in China. Contacts between Russians and Nivkhs began in the 17th century, when Cossack explorers visited here. The first Russian to write about the Nivkhs in 1643 was Vasily Poyarkov, who called them Gilyaks. This name stuck with the Nivkhs for a long time. In 1849-1854, the expedition of G.I. Nevelsky, who founded the city of Nikolaevsk, worked on the Lower Amur. A year later, Russian peasants began to settle here. The Russian Empire gained full control over the Nivkh lands after the Treaty of Aigun in 1858 and the Treaty of Beijing in 1860

Origin and linguistic affiliation

The Nivkhs are identified with the archaeological Okhotsk culture, which in ancient times occupied a wider area than the modern territory of the Nivkhs. The carriers of this culture, misihase, were expelled from Japan in the 7th century AD. e.

The Nivkhs belong to the Paleo-Asian type of the Mongoloid race.

In terms of language and culture, the Nivkhs are close to peoples speaking Paleo-Asian languages ​​(Chukchi, Koryaks, etc.), and most often unite with them in a common group.

Traditional farming

Among the economic areas, fishing has always been in first place in importance among the Nivkhs. Raw and dried (less commonly boiled and fried) fish forms the basis of traditional cuisine. Hunting, gathering and dog breeding played an important role in the Nivkh economy.

Spiritual culture

Religion

The religious beliefs of the Nivkhs were based on animism and the cult of trade, faith in spirits that lived everywhere - in the sky, on the earth, in the water, in the taiga. 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. The bear festival was celebrated in January or February, depending on the clan. The bear was caught, raised and fed for several years in a pen. During the celebration, the bear was dressed in a special costume, taken from house to house, and treated to food from carved wooden dishes. After which the animal was sacrificed by shooting from a bow. They placed food at the head of the killed bear, “treating” it. The bear was then skinned, following many rules. Unlike other peoples of the Amur, the Nivkhs cremated their dead, burning them on a huge bonfire in the taiga amid ritual lamentations, and in ancient times they practiced the ritual of air burial.

In world culture

The life of the Nivkhs, their way of life, and their language are the key themes of Gennady Gor’s story “A Young Man from a Distant River” (Lenizdat, 1955).

The life of the Nivkhs is also described in the story of Chingiz Aitmatov and the film of the same name “The Piebald Dog Running by the Edge of the Sea.”

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Notes

Literature

  • History and culture of the Nivkhs: historical and ethnographic essays / Ed. V. A. Turaev, V. L. Larin, S. V. Bereznitsky. - St. Petersburg: Nauka, 2008. - ISBN 978-5-02-025238-7.
  • Kreinovich E. A. Nivkhgu. - Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk: Sakhalin Book Publishing House, 2001. - ISBN 5-88453-025-0.
  • Nivkhs of Sakhalin: modern socio-economic development / Responsible. ed. V. I. Boyko. - Novosibirsk: Science, 1988. - ISBN 5-02-028980-9.
  • Taxami Ch. M. The main problems of ethnography and history of the Nivkhs. - L.: Science, 1975.
  • Nivkhi // Siberia. Atlas of Asian Russia. - M.: Top book, Feoria, Design. Information. Cartography, 2007. - 664 p. - ISBN 5-287-00413-3.
  • Nivkhs // Peoples of Russia. Atlas of cultures and religions. - M.: Design. Information. Cartography, 2010. - 320 p. - ISBN 978-5-287-00718-8.
  • // Peoples of Russia: pictorial album. Issue VII and VIII. - St. Petersburg: printing house of the “Public Benefit” partnership, 1880. - P. 544-555.
  • Sternberg L.Ya. Gilyaks, Orochs, Golds, Negidals, Ainu. Khabarovsk, 1933.

Links

Excerpt characterizing Nivkhi

“Mais non, il est a l"agonie... [No, he’s dying...] - Pierre began.
– Voulez vous bien?! [Go to...] - the captain shouted, frowning angrily.
Drum yes yes dam, dam, dam, the drums crackled. And Pierre realized that the mysterious force had already completely taken possession of these people and that now it was useless to say anything else.
The captured officers were separated from the soldiers and ordered to go ahead. There were about thirty officers, including Pierre, and about three hundred soldiers.
The captured officers, released from other booths, were all strangers, were much better dressed than Pierre, and looked at him, in his shoes, with distrust and aloofness. Not far from Pierre walked, apparently enjoying the general respect of his fellow prisoners, a fat major in a Kazan robe, belted with a towel, with a plump, yellow, angry face. He held one hand with a pouch behind his bosom, the other leaned on his chibouk. The major, puffing and puffing, grumbled and was angry at everyone because it seemed to him that he was being pushed and that everyone was in a hurry when there was nowhere to hurry, everyone was surprised at something when there was nothing surprising in anything. Another, a small, thin officer, spoke to everyone, making assumptions about where they were being led now and how far they would have time to travel that day. An official, in felt boots and a commissariat uniform, ran from different sides and looked out for the burned-out Moscow, loudly reporting his observations about what had burned and what this or that visible part of Moscow was like. The third officer, of Polish origin by accent, argued with the commissariat official, proving to him that he was mistaken in defining the districts of Moscow.
-What are you arguing about? - the major said angrily. - Whether it’s Nikola, or Vlas, it’s all the same; you see, everything burned down, well, that’s the end... Why are you pushing, isn’t there enough road,” he turned angrily to the one walking behind who was not pushing him at all.
- Oh, oh, oh, what have you done! - However, the voices of prisoners were heard, now from one side or the other, looking around the fire. - And Zamoskvorechye, and Zubovo, and in the Kremlin, look, half of them are gone... Yes, I told you that all of Zamoskvorechye, that’s how it is.
- Well, you know what burned, well, what’s there to talk about! - said the major.
Passing through Khamovniki (one of the few unburned quarters of Moscow) past the church, the entire crowd of prisoners suddenly huddled to one side, and exclamations of horror and disgust were heard.
- Look, you scoundrels! That's unchrist! Yes, he’s dead, he’s dead... They smeared him with something.
Pierre also moved towards the church, where there was something that caused exclamations, and vaguely saw something leaning against the fence of the church. From the words of his comrades, who saw better than him, he learned that it was something like the corpse of a man, stood upright by the fence and smeared with soot on his face...
– Marchez, sacre nom... Filez... trente mille diables... [Go! go! Damn it! Devils!] - curses from the guards were heard, and the French soldiers, with new anger, dispersed the crowd of prisoners who were looking at the dead man with cutlasses.

Along the lanes of Khamovniki, the prisoners walked alone with their convoy and carts and wagons that belonged to the guards and were driving behind them; but, going out to the supply stores, they found themselves in the middle of a huge, closely moving artillery convoy, mixed with private carts.
At the bridge itself, everyone stopped, waiting for those traveling in front to advance. From the bridge, the prisoners saw endless rows of other moving convoys behind and ahead. To the right, where the Kaluga road curved past Neskuchny, disappearing into the distance, stretched endless rows of troops and convoys. These were the troops of the Beauharnais corps who came out first; back, along the embankment and across the Stone Bridge, Ney's troops and convoys stretched.
Davout's troops, to which the prisoners belonged, marched through the Crimean Ford and had already partly entered Kaluzhskaya Street. But the convoys were so stretched out that the last convoys of Beauharnais had not yet left Moscow for Kaluzhskaya Street, and the head of Ney’s troops was already leaving Bolshaya Ordynka.
Having passed the Crimean Ford, the prisoners moved a few steps at a time and stopped, and moved again, and on all sides the crews and people became more and more embarrassed. After walking for more than an hour the few hundred steps that separate the bridge from Kaluzhskaya Street, and reaching the square where Zamoskvoretsky Streets meet Kaluzhskaya, the prisoners, squeezed into a heap, stopped and stood at this intersection for several hours. From all sides one could hear the incessant rumble of wheels, the trampling of feet, and incessant angry screams and curses, like the sound of the sea. Pierre stood pressed against the wall of the burnt house, listening to this sound, which in his imagination merged with the sounds of a drum.
Several captured officers, in order to get a better view, climbed onto the wall of the burnt house near which Pierre stood.
- To the people! Eka people!.. And they piled on the guns! Look: furs... - they said. “Look, you bastards, they robbed me... It’s behind him, on a cart... After all, this is from an icon, by God!.. These must be Germans.” And our man, by God!.. Oh, scoundrels!.. Look, he’s loaded down, he’s walking with force! Here they come, the droshky - and they captured it!.. See, he sat down on the chests. Fathers!.. We got into a fight!..
- So hit him in the face, in the face! You won't be able to wait until evening. Look, look... and this is probably Napoleon himself. You see, what horses! in monograms with a crown. This is a folding house. He dropped the bag and can't see it. They fought again... A woman with a child, and not bad at all. Yes, of course, they will let you through... Look, there is no end. Russian girls, by God, girls! They are so comfortable in the strollers!
Again, a wave of general curiosity, as near the church in Khamovniki, pushed all the prisoners towards the road, and Pierre, thanks to his height, saw over the heads of others what had so attracted the curiosity of the prisoners. In three strollers, mixed between the charging boxes, women rode, sitting closely on top of each other, dressed up, in bright colors, rouged, shouting something in squeaky voices.
From the moment Pierre became aware of the appearance of a mysterious force, nothing seemed strange or scary to him: not the corpse smeared with soot for fun, not these women hurrying somewhere, not the conflagrations of Moscow. Everything that Pierre now saw made almost no impression on him - as if his soul, preparing for a difficult struggle, refused to accept impressions that could weaken it.
The train of women has passed. Behind him were again carts, soldiers, wagons, soldiers, decks, carriages, soldiers, boxes, soldiers, and occasionally women.
Pierre did not see people separately, but saw them moving.
All these people and horses seemed to be being chased by some invisible force. All of them, during the hour during which Pierre observed them, emerged from different streets with the same desire to pass quickly; All of them equally, when confronted with others, began to get angry and fight; white teeth were bared, eyebrows frowned, the same curses were thrown around, and on all faces there was the same youthfully determined and cruelly cold expression, which struck Pierre in the morning at the sound of a drum on the corporal’s face.
Just before evening, the guard commander gathered his team and, shouting and arguing, squeezed into the convoys, and the prisoners, surrounded on all sides, went out onto the Kaluga road.
They walked very quickly, without resting, and stopped only when the sun began to set. The convoys moved one on top of the other, and people began to prepare for the night. Everyone seemed angry and unhappy. For a long time, curses, angry screams and fights were heard from different sides. The carriage driving behind the guards approached the guards' carriage and pierced it with its drawbar. Several soldiers from different directions ran to the cart; some hit the heads of the horses harnessed to the carriage, turning them over, others fought among themselves, and Pierre saw that one German was seriously wounded in the head with a cleaver.
It seemed that all these people were now experiencing, when they stopped in the middle of a field in the cold twilight of an autumn evening, the same feeling of an unpleasant awakening from the haste that gripped everyone as they left and the rapid movement somewhere. Having stopped, everyone seemed to understand that it was still unknown where they were going, and that this movement would be a lot of hard and difficult things.
The prisoners at this halt were treated even worse by the guards than during the march. At this halt, for the first time, the meat food of the prisoners was given out as horse meat.
From the officers to the last soldier, it was noticeable in everyone what seemed like a personal bitterness against each of the prisoners, which had so unexpectedly replaced previously friendly relations.
This anger intensified even more when, when counting the prisoners, it turned out that during the bustle, leaving Moscow, one Russian soldier, pretending to be sick from the stomach, fled. Pierre saw how a Frenchman beat a Russian soldier for moving far from the road, and heard how the captain, his friend, reprimanded the non-commissioned officer for the escape of the Russian soldier and threatened him with justice. In response to the non-commissioned officer's excuse that the soldier was sick and could not walk, the officer said that he had been ordered to shoot those who lag behind. Pierre felt that the fatal force that had crushed him during his execution and which had been invisible during his captivity had now again taken possession of his existence. He was scared; but he felt how, as the fatal force made efforts to crush him, a life force independent of it grew and strengthened in his soul.
Pierre dined on a soup made from rye flour with horse meat and talked with his comrades.
Neither Pierre nor any of his comrades talked about what they saw in Moscow, nor about the rudeness of the French, nor about the order to shoot that was announced to them: everyone was, as if in rebuff to the worsening situation, especially animated and cheerful . They talked about personal memories, about funny scenes seen during the campaign, and hushed up conversations about the present situation.
The sun has long since set. Bright stars lit up here and there in the sky; The red, fire-like glow of the rising full moon spread across the edge of the sky, and a huge red ball swayed amazingly in the grayish haze. It was getting light. The evening was already over, but the night had not yet begun. Pierre got up from his new comrades and walked between the fires to the other side of the road, where, he was told, the captured soldiers were standing. He wanted to talk to them. On the road, a French guard stopped him and ordered him to turn back.
Pierre returned, but not to the fire, to his comrades, but to the unharnessed cart, which had no one. He crossed his legs and lowered his head, sat down on the cold ground near the wheel of the cart and sat motionless for a long time, thinking. More than an hour passed. Nobody bothered Pierre. Suddenly he laughed his fat, good-natured laugh so loudly that people from different directions looked back in surprise at this strange, obviously lonely laugh.
- Ha, ha, ha! – Pierre laughed. And he said out loud to himself: “The soldier didn’t let me in.” They caught me, they locked me up. They are holding me captive. Who me? Me! Me - my immortal soul! Ha, ha, ha!.. Ha, ha, ha!.. - he laughed with tears welling up in his eyes.
Some man stood up and came up to see what this strange big man was laughing about. Pierre stopped laughing, stood up, moved away from the curious man and looked around him.
Previously loudly noisy with the crackling of fires and the chatter of people, the huge, endless bivouac fell silent; the red lights of the fires went out and turned pale. A full moon stood high in the bright sky. Forests and fields, previously invisible outside the camp, now opened up in the distance. And even further away from these forests and fields one could see a bright, wavering, endless distance calling into itself. Pierre looked into the sky, into the depths of the receding, playing stars. “And all this is mine, and all this is in me, and all this is me! - thought Pierre. “And they caught all this and put it in a booth fenced off with boards!” He smiled and went to bed with his comrades.

In the first days of October, another envoy came to Kutuzov with a letter from Napoleon and a peace proposal, deceptively indicated from Moscow, while Napoleon was already not far ahead of Kutuzov, on the old Kaluga road. Kutuzov responded to this letter in the same way as to the first one sent with Lauriston: he said that there could be no talk of peace.
Soon after this, from the partisan detachment of Dorokhov, who went to the left of Tarutin, a report was received that troops had appeared in Fominskoye, that these troops consisted of the Broussier division and that this division, separated from other troops, could easily be exterminated. The soldiers and officers again demanded action. The staff generals, excited by the memory of the ease of victory at Tarutin, insisted to Kutuzov that Dorokhov’s proposal be implemented. Kutuzov did not consider any offensive necessary. What happened was the mean, what had to happen; A small detachment was sent to Fominskoye, which was supposed to attack Brusier.
By a strange coincidence, this appointment - the most difficult and most important, as it turned out later - was received by Dokhturov; that same modest, little Dokhturov, whom no one described to us as drawing up battle plans, flying in front of regiments, throwing crosses at batteries, etc., who was considered and called indecisive and uninsightful, but the same Dokhturov, whom during all Russian wars with the French, from Austerlitz until the thirteenth year, we find ourselves in charge wherever the situation is difficult. In Austerlitz, he remains the last at the Augest dam, gathering regiments, saving what he can, when everything is running and dying and not a single general is in the rearguard. He, sick with a fever, goes to Smolensk with twenty thousand to defend the city against the entire Napoleonic army. In Smolensk, as soon as he dozed off at the Molokhov Gate, in a paroxysm of fever, he was awakened by cannonade across Smolensk, and Smolensk held out all day. On Borodino Day, when Bagration was killed and the troops of our left flank were killed in a ratio of 9 to 1 and the entire force of the French artillery was sent there, no one else was sent, namely the indecisive and indiscernible Dokhturov, and Kutuzov hurries to correct his mistake when he sent there another. And small, quiet Dokhturov goes there, and Borodino is the best glory of the Russian army. And many heroes are described to us in poetry and prose, but almost not a word about Dokhturov.

Nivkhi( nivah, nivuh, nivkhgu, nyigvngun, outdated. Gilyaks)

A look from the past

“Description of all the living peoples in the Russian state” 1772-1776:

The Gilyaks, or Gilem, or Kil ey, as they call themselves, are a people who are probably most devoted to fishing among all the peoples of the world. Until quite recently, this people retained all their primitive features intact. However, in recent years, contacts with Russian colonists at the mouth of the Amur have led to the fact that the Gilyaks began to quickly forget their language and customs.

They do not usually use the names given to them by their families, but nicknames, as is common among the American Indians. Being adherents of shamanism, even those who have recently been baptized pray to idols.

R. Maak "Journey to the Amur", 1859:


The Gilyaks occupy a space of 200 versts to the very mouth of the Amur and also, in places, inhabit the seashores to the right and left of the mouth.
First of all, when meeting them, I was struck by their language, which is completely different from Tungusic and has nothing in common with it, with the exception of a few words that, both by them and by the Tungusic tribes, were borrowed from the Manchus. In addition to their language, they differed from the Tungus in their physique and the formation of their face, which was very wide, with small eyes, protruding, thick eyebrows and a short, somewhat upturned nose; the lips were large, plump, and the upper one was upturned; their beard grew noticeably thicker than that of the Tungus, and they did not pull it out, as the Tungus do. The uncut heads of the Gilyaks were covered with long black hair, which curled in some and was braided into one braid in almost all of them. Their clothing, of the same cut as that of the Tungus tribes, was made of fish skin, and some accessories, for example, boots, indicated the proximity of this tribe to the sea, because they were made of seal skin. On their heads, the Gilyaks had conical birch bark hats decorated with colored stripes.

"Peoples of Russia. Ethnographic essays" (publication of the magazine "Nature and People"), 1879-1880:

Kindness is a distinctive feature of the Gilyaks; at the same time, they are hardworking, energetic and have a much greater love of independence than the Tungus. It cannot be said that the Gilyaks did not have an admixture of foreign elements; this becomes especially noticeable in the areas neighboring the Manguns and near the mouth of the Angun, where the Tungus live.

It is very rare to find firearms among the Gilyaks. Their main and favorite food is fish, and there is no nation in the world more skillful and passionate in fishing than the Gilyaks.



As for crafts, the Gilyaks are quite skilled in wood carving. They do not call each other by their last names, but follow the American custom of calling each other by different nicknames. Bloody revenge is common in those areas where the Christian religion has not yet penetrated. Many of the Gilyaks have already converted to Christianity, but some adhere to shamanism and very carefully hide their idols. The dead are not buried in coffins, like the Tungus, but burned.

L. Schrenk, “About foreigners of the Amur region”, vol. 1, 1883; vol.2, 1899:


The Gilyatsky letnik is designed in the same way both on the mainland and on Sakhalin. Its distinctive feature is that it rests on stilts at a height of 4-5 feet from the ground. By erecting summer houses on stilts, the Gilyaks pursue a dual goal. Firstly, they try to protect themselves from floods, since the Amur River often overflows its banks during prolonged rains and floods neighboring lowlands.

Secondly, by raising their homes above the ground, they protect them from direct contact with damp soil and, as it were, arrange constant ventilation under them. This is all the more necessary because part of the fish stocks are usually stored in the summerhouses.

Modern sources


Nivkhs are a small people living on the territory of the Russian Federation and Japan.

Autochthonous, indigenous population of the Amur region, Sakhalin Island and neighboring small islands, who inhabited this territory during the late Pleistocene.

Self-name

Nivah, nivuh, nivkhgu, nyigvngun “people, people” from nivkh “man”.

The outdated name is gilyak (Tung. gileke from gile “boat”).

Number and settlement


In total up to 4652 people.

In the Russian Federation, according to the 2010 census, 4466 people. (according to the 2002 census 5.2 thousand people), including the Sakhalin region 2253 people. and Khabarovsk Territory 2034 people.


The Nivkhs are historically divided into two groups according to their region of residence: Amur and Sakhalin.

They differ in language dialects and cultural characteristics.


A significant part of the Nivkh population is settled 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 Island.

Khabarovsk region

Locality

Nivkhi

Total population

%% Nivkhs

Nikolaevsk-on-Amur

407

28492

1,4 %

Khabarovsk

131

583072

0,02 %

village Innokentyevka

129

664

19,4 %

Takhta village

118

937

12,6 %

village Lazarev

117

1954

6,0 %

Tyr village

729

12,2 %

Kalma village

139

61,2 %

Nizhneye Pronge village

461

17,8 %

Puir village

269

28,6 %

Bogorodskoye village

4119

1,9 %

village Multivertex

2798

2,6 %

Susanino village

882

7,0 %

Krasnoe village

1251

4,8 %

village Mago

2244

2,5 %

Oremif village

325

16,6 %

Aleevka village

75,4 %

Ukhta village

175

25,7 %

village of Nizhnyaya Gavan

377

10,6 %

Voskresenskoye village

114

31,6 %

village of Konstantinovka

908

3,9 %

Tneivakh village

60,0 %

Bulava village

2226

1,3 %

Beloglinka village

33,7 %

village Makarovka

84,6 %

Chnyrrakh village

455

4,6 %

Chlya village

933

2,1 %

Solontsy village

570

3,2 %

village Vlasevo

28,2 %

Oktyabrsky village

170

6,5 %

Sakharovka village

11,8 %

Sakhalin region

Locality

Nivkhi

Total population

%% Nivkhs

village Nogliki

647

10604

6,1 %

Nekrasovka village

572

1126

50,8 %

Okha

299

27795

1,1 %

village Chir-Unvd

200

291

68,7 %

Poronaysk

116

17844

0,7 %

Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk

170356

0,1 %

Rybnoye village

66,7 %

Trambaus village

105

42,9 %

Moskalvo village

807

5,5 %

Alexandrovsk-Sakhalinsky

12693

0,2 %

Viakhtu village

286

9,1 %

Lupolovo village

75,0 %

Val village

1211

1,6 %

village Katangli

896

1,9 %

village Rybobaza-2

32,4 %

Until 1945, about 100 Nivkhs, speakers of the South Sakhalin dialect, lived in the southern Japanese part of Sakhalin.

After the war, most of them moved to the island of Hokkaido.

There is no data on the number of ethnic Nivkhs in Japan.

Ethnogenesis

Nivkhs are quite homogeneous in anthropological terms.

They belong to the Paleo-Asian type of the Mongoloid race.

Being direct descendants of the ancient population of Sakhalin and the lower reaches of the Amur, which precedes the Tungus-Manchus here.

It is the Nivkh culture that is perhaps the substrate on which the largely similar culture of the Amur peoples is formed.

There is a point of view that the ancestors of modern Nivkhs, northeastern Paleo-Asians, Eskimos and Indians are links in one ethnic chain that in the distant past covered the northwestern shores of the Pacific Ocean.

The Nivkhs are identified with the archaeological Okhotsk culture, which in ancient times occupied a wider area than the modern territory of the Nivkhs.

The bearers of this culture, mishihase, were expelled from Japan in the 7th century AD. e.

In terms of language and culture, the Nivkhs are close to peoples speaking Paleo-Asian languages ​​(Chukchi, Koryaks, etc.), and most often unite with them in a common group.

It is assumed that the Nivkhs are related to the peoples of Polynesia and the Ainu.

Another point of view believes that the ancient population of the Amur 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

Language

Nivkh is an isolated Paleo-Asian language.

The language is agglutinative, synthetic.

It has a complex system of regular consonant alternations.

The stress is not fixed, movable and varied, and can perform a semantic distinguishing function.

It has eight parts of speech, adjectives are not highlighted, their semantic equivalents are qualitative verbs.

In the Amur dialect, nouns, pronouns, and numerals have 8 cases and 7 in the East Sakhalin dialect.

Verbs have the categories of voice, mood, aspect, tense (future and non-future), number, person and negation.

Language of nominative syntactic structure.

A simple sentence prevails over a complex one.

The typical word order is SOV.

The question of the existence of incorporation is controversial.

There is a hypothesis by J. Greenberg, according to which the Nivkh language is part of the Eurasian (Nostratic) family of languages.

Since the 1970s, Soviet science has expressed the opinion that the Nivkh language belongs to the Altai family (T. A. Bertagaev, V. Z. Panfilov, V. I. Tsintsius); according to A. A. Burykin, the Nivkh language represents a separate branch of the Tungus-Manchu languages, which separated earlier than other languages ​​and was subject to strong Ainu influence.

O. A. Mudrak attributes Nivkh to the ancient “Paleo-Asian” family he reconstructs (along with the Chukotka-Kamchatka, Eskimo-Aleut, Ainu and Yukaghir languages).

Japanese linguists Katsunobu Izutsu and Kazuhiko Yamaguchi consider the Nivkh language to be one of the ancestors of modern Japanese.

S. L. Nikolaev came up with a hypothesis about the relationship of Nivkh with the Algonquian and Wakash languages ​​of North America.

Dialects

There are 4 dialects in the Nivkh language:

Amursky. The lexical and phonological differences between the Amur and Sakhalin dialects are so great that some linguists distinguish two separate languages ​​belonging to the small Nivkh family.

East Sakhalin

North Sakhalin - in all respects, occupies an intermediate position between the Amur and East Sakhalin dialects.

Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk is a dialect of the Nivkhs, who until recently lived in Japan.

Story


The Nivkhs settled Sakhalin during the late Pleistocene, when the island was supposedly connected to the Asian mainland.

But during the Ice Age, the ocean rose, and the Nivkhs found themselves divided into 2 groups by the Strait of Tartary.

It is believed that the earliest mention of the Nivkhs in history is Chinese chronicles of the 12th century.

They talk about the peoplegilami(whale.吉列迷 Jílièmí), who was in contact with the rulers of the Mongol Yuan dynasty in China.

Contacts between Russians and Nivkhs began in the 17th century, when Cossack explorers visited here.

The first Russian to write about the Nivkhs in 1643 was Vasily Poyarkov, who called them Gilyaks.

This name stuck with the Nivkhs for a long time.

In 1849-1854. The expedition of G.I. Nevelsky, who founded the city of Nikolaevsk, worked on the Lower Amur.

A year later, Russian peasants began to settle here.

The Russian Empire gained full control over the Nivkh lands after the Treaty of Aigun in 1856 and the Treaty of Beijing in 1860.

Traditional home

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.

Among the Gilyaks, summer dwellings are either yurts (in Gilyak “Tuf”), low log cabins always standing directly on the ground, usually covered on two slopes with tree bark (bast).

With a smoke hole in the roof, no windows, with one small door - a loophole, which for the most part would be difficult for an adult to crawl through.

The roof also serves as a ceiling; the floor is laid only for the more prosperous.

The logs of the log house are always thin and rarely fitted closely and caulked.

For the most part, the log house is divided into two halves across, then the front half is not residential - it usually serves dog owners in bad weather and is chock-full of dogs of all ages.

In the residential half, the middle is occupied by a hearth (“mascara” in Gilyak), i.e., an oblong-quadrangular ½ arshin approximately high above the ground (or floor) boardwalk.

Almost level with the edges covered with earth (or sand), in which a fire is lit directly with a fire.

Some of the smoke comes out into the square hole in the roof directly above it in calm weather and when the front door is closed, otherwise the smoke covers the entire room and every living thing survives.

Despite all sorts of tricks to cover this roof hole from the outside on the leeward side with boards, every new yurt quickly becomes covered inside with a layer of soot, and there’s nothing to say about the old ones.

At a distance of a step (on average) from the hearth and at the same height as its edges, plank bunks are laid on three sides, usually the width of an average person’s height.

The wall (or partition) in which the entrance door is a loophole is usually free of bunks.

Between the upper edges of the log house along and across the room, poles are stretched over the hearth; boilers are hung from them on hooks and clothes and all sorts of junk are hung to dry.

In the highest yurts it is difficult to walk without hitting your head on these soot-covered poles - you have to bend down.

The entire log house is usually oblong and quadrangular, the area it occupies varies, but the spaciousness of the room is a rare exception; cramped space prevails.

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 twentieth century, ancient dugouts with open hearths and a smoke hole were preserved.

Family

Until the middle of the 19th century, the Nivkhs remained outside the influence of any state power, diligently preserving traditions and internal, tribal structure.

The clan was the main self-governing cell.

The highest body of self-government of the Nivkhs was the Council of Elders.

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.

Traditional farming

The main traditional occupation of the Nivkhs was fishing, which provided food for people and dogs, material for making clothes, shoes, sails for boats, etc.

We did 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).

Marine hunting played a major role in the economy of Sakhalin and the Amur Estuary.

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, ngarkhod, 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-sided 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.

Religion and ritual

The religious beliefs of the Nivkhs were based on Pantheism and Animism, a trade cult, and belief in spirits that lived everywhere - in heaven, on earth, in water, in the taiga.

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.

Each 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.

During the celebration, the bear was dressed in a special costume, taken from house to house, and treated to food from carved wooden dishes.


After which the animal was sacrificed by shooting from a bow.


They placed food at the head of the killed bear, “treating” it.

The bear was then skinned, following many rules.

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, cremated their dead.

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 fenced with a log house.

A wooden doll was made (a bone from the skull of the deceased was attached to it), dressed, put on shoes and placed in a special house - a 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.”

The Nivkhs attached great importance to the ritual of naming a newborn.

This act was usually performed by fellow villagers and very rarely by relatives.

In most cases, the name was given immediately after the umbilical cord fell off.

The proper names of the Nivkhs are formed from words with a wide variety of meanings.

The Nivkhs gave newborns names that reflected the habits of their parents, their activities, and character traits.

There are Nivkh names that contain a hint of certain circumstances and events, one way or another connected with the birth of a child.

Many proper names were given based on some feature of the child’s appearance. There is an assumption that some names were wish names, i.e. denoted the quality that parents would like to see in a child.

Among the Nivkhs, like many other peoples, in the practice of naming newborns, sometimes an important role was played by the idea that there is an inextricable connection between a word and the phenomenon or object it designates.

So, in particular, they were afraid to tell a stranger their own name of a clan member, fearing that he, knowing the name, could cause harm to its bearer.

Perhaps this was to some extent reflected in the nature of communication between the Nivkhs. Before, they rarely called anyone by name.

Young people addressed old people simply with the word khemara “old man”, and old women with ychika “grandmother”, or they said a fake name.

The Nivkhs explain this by the embarrassment that will be felt if you pronounce the old man’s real name in his presence.

The parents of their peers were addressed using a descriptive term: “father of such and such”, “mother of such and such”, for example: Payan ytyka “father of Payan”, Rshysk ymyka “mother of Rshyska”, etc.

Children addressed their parents and grandparents using kinship terminology.

Adults, in turn, rarely called their children and grandchildren by name. During a conversation, when they wanted to name one of the children, they were usually identified using the age ratio: “senior”, “middle”, “junior”, etc.

Even the guests were never called by name, but were said: “who came from such and such a place” or “a resident of such and such a place.”

For example, the Nivkhs of the Amur called a guest from the Amur Estuary Lanrp'in "resident of the area...", and a guest from the Okhotsk coast - kerkpin "guest of the sea", a Sakhalin guest - Lerp'in "resident of the area Ler", and the Sakhalin and Liman Nivkhs called the guest with Amur Lap'in “resident of the Amur”, etc.

Perhaps that is why many Nivkhs had two names: a real one (urla ka “good name”) and a fake one (lerun ka “a playful, wandering name”).

Among some young Nivkhs of Sakhalin, the false name was formed by shortening the real name.

Sometimes the Nivkhs gave the newborn the name of some ancestor who died several generations (usually at least three) ago.

Usually, if the newborn was very similar to one of the deceased ancestors, then the old people said: Inar ichir p’ryd letters. “having become his blood, he came.”

On about. In Sakhalin, the Nivkhs now have names that were borne by their ancestors who lived in the mid-19th and early 20th centuries.

Traditional clothing

Clothing was made from fish skin, dog fur, leather and fur of taiga and sea animals.

Men's and women's larshk robes are kimono-cut, left-handed (the left half 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 clothing - ok fur coats made from dog skins, men's pshakh jackets made from seal skins, for the wealthier - women's fur coats made from fox fur, less often - from lynx fur.


Men on the road to ride sleds (sometimes during ice fishing) wore hosk skirts made of seal skins over their fur coats.

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.

National cuisine

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.

Until relatively recently, the Nivkhs widely consumed seal, sea lion, beluga and dolphin meat; most often the meat was boiled.

But the heart, kidneys and flippers were eaten raw, considered a great delicacy.

They ate the meat of deer, elk and, less often, bear.

Moreover, when they ate bear meat, they followed an ancient custom - the best pieces of meat (heart, tongue, etc.) were given to the eldest sons-in-law.

The Nivkhs widely eat the meat of ducks, geese, sea waders, seagulls, herons, partridges, wood grouse and other game, mainly boiled.

Wild berries occupy a place of honor in the Nivkh diet: blueberries, crowberries, cloudberries, black and red currants, raspberries, lingonberries, as well as rosehips and hawthorns.

Berries mixed with ground dried fish and seal fat are still traditionally considered a delicacy, although there are other delicacies in stores, for example, chocolate, candies, compotes, etc.

Nivkhs eat seaweed (put), it is dried in the sun, and then, as needed, boiled in brine and eaten.

Saran tubers are collected, as well as other plant roots. They are dried and added as a seasoning to ground yukola.

Wild garlic is prepared for future use (dried or salted) and is widely used as a seasoning for fish and meat.

They drink white tea with birch mushroom - chaga (in Nivkh, chagu-kanbuk - white mushroom).

Of the flour dishes, the most common are unleavened flatbreads baked directly on the stove, frying pan or over a fire, as well as boiled flatbreads with seal fat.

Arkaizozle

Cut the dried smelt into small pieces, mix with boiled peas, shiksha berries and seal fat.

Potato tola (potato talc)

Cut the peeled and washed potatoes into strips, boil in water without salt (cook for a short time so that the potatoes do not become overcooked).

Then cut the head cartilages of salted chum salmon into small pieces (or pink salmon).

Mix all this, add chopped onions or wild garlic and pour in fish oil.

Boiled crucian carp (e-nchisko)

Peel the crucian carp - remove scales, cut the belly and remove the entrails, remove the gills from the head, rinse with cold water and place in a pot with cold water.

Bring the water to a boil, skim off the foam, cook until almost done, then add salt, add bay leaf and cook for 5-7 minutes until the fish is ready.

Remove the fish from the broth, place on a dish, add finely chopped wild garlic and berries (lingonberries, blueberries, etc.).

Eaten hot.

Potato jelly (potato mos)

Prepare mashed potatoes with the addition of butter from peeled and boiled potatoes in salted water.

From peas boiled in salted water, pea puree is prepared with the addition of fat.

Then add the crushed mass of peeled boiled pine nuts and fresh bird cherry to the mixture of two purees.

Tala

To prepare tala, you can use fresh (live) or frozen fish.

Fresh (live) fish must be slaughtered - with the sharp end of a small knife, make a deep cut in the throat between the fins and allow the blood to drain.

You can use frozen fish that is still alive, that is, just caught, which most often happens when preparing tala for winter fishing.

To prepare tala, it is best to use sturgeon or salmon (chum salmon, pink salmon, coho salmon, char, etc.).

If thala is prepared from frozen fish, then the skin must be removed.

Using a sharp knife, cut the fillet, cut it very finely (into strips), salt and pepper, add 6% vinegar and leave in the cold for at least 30 minutes.

Serve the thala frozen.

To prepare tala from fresh fish, it must be cleaned, washed and frozen, and then proceed in the same way as when preparing tala from frozen fish.

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, sledges, 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 roasted 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 plows in single-tree rowers, 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.

Faces of Russia. “Living together while remaining different”

The multimedia project “Faces of Russia” has existed since 2006, telling about Russian civilization, the most important feature of which is the ability to live together while remaining different - this motto is especially relevant for countries throughout the post-Soviet space. From 2006 to 2012, as part of the project, we created 60 documentaries about representatives of different Russian ethnic groups. Also, 2 cycles of radio programs “Music and Songs of the Peoples of Russia” were created - more than 40 programs. Illustrated almanacs were published to support the first series of films. Now we are halfway to creating a unique multimedia encyclopedia of the peoples of our country, a snapshot that will allow the residents of Russia to recognize themselves and leave a legacy for posterity with a picture of what they were like.

~~~~~~~~~~~

"Faces of Russia". Nivkhi. “On the Water”, 2010


General information

N'IVHI, Nivkh (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. According to the 2002 Census, the number of Nivkhs living in Russia is 5 thousand people, according to the 2010 census. - 4 thousand 652 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 caught using nooses, crossbows, spears, and, since 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, sledges, 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 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.). 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").

Ch.M. Dachshunds

Essays

Nivkhi- the indigenous people of the Far East, living in the lower reaches of the Amur, on the shores of the Tatar Strait (Ulchsky and Nikolaevsky districts of the Khabarovsk Territory) and in the northern part of Sakhalin Island. The Nivkhs represent a special Amur-Sakhalin anthropological type of the North Asian race. Number in the Russian Federation according to the 2002 census. - 5287 people. The Nivkh language has no parallels with the languages ​​of other peoples of Eastern Siberia and belongs to the group of isolated languages, although modern researchers find in it elements of the South Altai, Manchu and Tungus language groups. There are Amur, North Sakhalin and East Sakhalin dialects. Writing - since 1932 based on Latin, and since 1953. - Russian graphics. Religion - animism, shamanism.


Just people

The mysterious Nivkhs (nivkhgu - people) were called “Gilyaks” until the 1930s. Their occupations, culture and way of life are similar to the rest of the peoples of the south of the Far East, and the language, unlike the dialect of their neighbors, is part of a small Paleo-Asian group that has survived from the times before the widespread spread of the Tungus-Manchu languages ​​in Eastern Siberia. The Nivkhs always strived to settle down, and their traditional trades (hunting and fishing) were year-round.

Tyf, duf, taf or house

The winter home of the Nivkhs - tyf, dyf, taf - is a large log house with a pillar frame and walls made of horizontal logs inserted with pointed ends into the grooves of vertical pillars. Its gable roof was covered with grass, there was no ceiling, inside there was an earthen floor and wide bunks along the walls, heated by chimneys from the hearth. In such a house there were usually two or three families located on their own plots of bunks, and in the center, on a wooden flooring arranged on high pillars, sled dogs lived and were fed in severe frosts. With the onset of warmth, each family moved to its own summer home, which was built near the winter house or near the water, next to the fishery. Frame summerhouses made of bark, which had different shapes - gable, conical, rectangular - were most often placed on stilts. They usually consisted of two parts: a living room with an open fireplace and a barn where nets, seines and fish were dried.


There was enough land for everyone

The location of winter and summer “villages” depended on fishing and geographical conditions. The winter village was traditionally located far from the seashore, in a place protected from the winds, in the forest, closer to hunting grounds or on the shore of a reservoir, not far from ice fishing holes. In the summer, the Nivkhs sought to settle at the mouth of the river, where fish came to spawn, or on a sea spit, where they caught salmon and caught sea animals - seals, bearded seals, and sea lions. Settling in small communities, separated by considerable distances from each other and leading an integrated economy of fishermen, hunters of sea and forest animals, gatherers of berries, mushrooms, and plants, gave them the opportunity to develop territories that were optimal in size, maintaining a relatively high level of consumption. The fact that their lands did not have clearly defined borders, and the Nivkhs themselves did not enter into conflicts with other peoples, was largely explained by the peculiarities of their location.

Sons-in-law and fathers-in-law

Nivkh society was a solid structure, consisting of separate clans that were bound by mutual obligations. Each clan (“khal” or “sheath” in Russian) took women from one specific clan and, in turn, gave their women to another, also precisely defined clan. In relation to one khal he was “ymkhi”, that is, the family of sons-in-law, in relation to another he was “akhmalk”, the family of fathers-in-law. Agreements between members of various clans were not limited to the sphere of family and marriage norms, they extended to the entire area of ​​diverse social relations, and this was their significance as a system of connections that cemented society. Therefore, the Nivkhs did not quarrel or fight with their neighboring relatives, but helped them in difficult times.


Nikolaevsk-on-Amur - the capital of the Nivkh land

The first mention of these peace-loving people is found in the report of Vasily Poyarkov, who commanded the Cossacks who came to the lower reaches of the Amur in 1643. In it, he informs his boss, the Yakut governor Pyotr Golovin, about the Gilyaks, the local “people” who live in houses on stilts, ride dogs, fish in small birch bark boats (“mu”) and sail on them even into the open sea. In 1849-1855. The expedition of Gennady Ivanovich Nevelsky worked in the same places, and from the descriptions left by its members of the life and culture of the aborigines, we can conclude that there have been no major changes in the way of life of the Nivkhs over the past two centuries. True, “raven” buttons appeared in the outfits of local fashionistas, which drew the attention of Nevelsky’s subordinate, Lieutenant Nikolai Boshnyak. The study of the material from which they were made, as well as the stories of fishermen, allowed him to subsequently discover a large deposit of coal on Sakhalin. Also, the participants of the expedition founded the city of Nikolaevsk-on-Amur on the lands of the Nivkhs, around which Russian peasants began to settle, and after the conclusion of the Aigun and Beijing treaties with China (1858-1860), these territories - mainland and island - officially became part of the Russian Empire.


Fire

According to their beliefs, the Nivkhs were animists: they animated living and inanimate nature, populating the world with good and evil spirits. They also included the heavenly bodies, mountains, water, fire, which was also a symbol of the clan, into the category of living beings. Thus, the Nivkhs, unlike other peoples of the Amur, often cremated the dead, believing that in this way their souls would freely ascend to the upper world. The implementation of this ritual differed somewhat in form among different communities, but the main thing in its content was preserved: the corpse was burned on a huge funeral pyre in the taiga amid ritual lamentation, the ashes were raked to the center of the fire and surrounded by a log house. Then a wooden doll was made, a bone from the deceased’s skull was attached to it, it was dressed, put on shoes and placed in a special house - a raf, about a meter high, decorated with carved ornaments. Subsequently, regular memorial rites were performed near him (especially often in the first month after the funeral, then about once a month for a year, after that - every year), they were treated to food, and food was thrown into the fire for their departed relative. If a person disappeared or drowned, and his body was not found, then a symbolic burial was arranged, when a large doll made of branches and grass, the size of the deceased, was buried instead. She was dressed in the clothes of the deceased and buried in the ground or burned, observing the prescribed ritual.


Water…

From the same animistic ideas arose the cult of the “masters of nature,” closely associated with commercial rituals. The Nivkhs prayed to the master spirit of the sky in their homes; in the forest near the sacred tree they called upon the spirit master of the earth, turning to him with requests for health, good luck in trades and in upcoming affairs. The taiga, mountains, and especially the sea, rivers, lakes, that is, water as the source of life largely determined their ritual practice. One of the central places in it was occupied by the holiday of freeing reservoirs from ice and dedicating special food and utensils to the spirits of water - wooden troughs in the form of ducks and fish. Only after “feeding the water” did the Nivkhs begin to catch fish and sea animals, otherwise its “owner” (Tol Yz, or Tayraadz - sea killer whale) might not send the catch.

And bears

Another powerful spirit, the owner of the taiga, Pal Yz, or “mountain man,” was represented in the form of a huge bear, and every “ordinary” bear was considered his son. The hunt for it had to be accompanied by a special ritual, that is, a “bear game” - chhyf lerand. For example, after the successful completion of a campaign, the oldest hunter would sit on the back of a dead bear and shout: “Oooh!” three times if it was a male, and four times if it was a female bear. To appease, they put tobacco in the beast’s left ear, after skinning it, it was delivered to the village, and they carried it head first, warning their relatives with a cry. The women greeted the procession by playing a musical log, the carcass was carried into the barn, the skin with the head was placed on the platform, where the bones, skulls, and genitals of previously hunted bears were already stored. Hunting equipment was immediately laid out and food was served, including fried meat from a killed animal, which was distributed to everyone present; the meal itself was accompanied by musical accompaniment.


Bear holiday

The Nivkhs also developed a detailed ritual of a bear festival with a bear raised in a cage. It took place in January-February, during the full moon, for two weeks. On the one hand, it was associated with the cult of trade, that is, it was accompanied by the ritual of feeding the owners of the land, forest and mountains, on the other hand, with a wake for a deceased relative. A bear cub caught or found in the taiga was raised for three years in a special log house, and during the entire time the animal was kept, many rules and taboos were observed. For example, women were forbidden to approach him, although sometimes the hostess even breastfed him, calling him “son.” Usually the holiday in memory of a deceased relative, whose soul, according to legend, passed into a bear, was divided into several stages: making sacred shavings (inau), killing the bear, placing its head on a platform, treating it to meat, sacrificing dogs and leaving the guests. It happened like this: on the appointed day, the owner of the bear poured wine to the house spirit and asked him to forgive him for the fact that he could no longer keep the bear, although he treated him well all the time. He went to the cage and treated the bear, pouring wine in front of him, women danced here, and the hostess who fed the bear cub expressed her sadness with crying and a special dance. The bear was taken around the village, he was joyfully greeted in every house, treated to yukola, special jelly made from fish skin, wine and bowed to him - this was supposed to bring prosperity to the family. Everyone danced to the sounds of a musical log, depicting in pantomime the future journey of the beast to its ancestors. Then, at the last house, the bear’s farewell began: as if it were a dead person, two belts woven from grass were put on it, to which “travel food” and “travel items” were tied - roots, plant tubers, berries, bags of tobacco.


And the funeral of Pal Yz's son

The bear was killed by the son-in-law or sons-in-law of the owner of the beast. This took place on a specially prepared area, fenced with chopped off Christmas trees and decorated with ritual shavings. The bear was tied to carved pillars, and the owner addressed him: “Now we are organizing a great feast in your honor, do not be alarmed, we will not harm you, we will only kill you and send you to the Master of the forest who loves you. We're going to give you the best food you've ever had from us, we're all going to cry for you. The man who will kill you is the best shooter among us, he cries and asks for your forgiveness. You will hardly feel anything, it will be done quickly. We can’t feed you forever, you understand. We did everything we could for you, and now it’s your turn to take care of us - ask the Master to send more otters and sables for the winter, and plenty of seals and fish for the summer, don’t forget our service. We love you very much, and our children will never forget you...” The area and food were prepared by the family that raised the bear. The carcass was skinned, the skin was lowered headlong into the house through a smoke hole on a long pole and placed on a platform on which dogs were sacrificed. Between meals there continued dancing, sled dog racing, stick fencing, archery, and women playing on the musical balance beam. Bear meat was cooked over a fire lit by the family flint, served in special wooden ladles made for the holiday, and also taken out with a special spoon-scoop with a carved image of a bear. The head of the beast and the meat were decorated with inau shavings, and all the bones were collected and given to the owners, with some gift attached to them: a spear, a knife, a belt, even dogs. They were allegedly sent to the “forest people” - bears. On the eve of the end of the holiday, the old people sat all night near the skull of the beast, ate ritual dishes and had a conversation with him. Then, to the sounds of music, a new one was placed in a barn or on a tree where other skulls were already stored, food was placed in front of it, words of farewell were said, and a fir tree was planted next to it, since the total number of trees should correspond to the number of killed bears...



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