Between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, some Evenki began to migrate north to occupy regions such as what is today the Evenk Autonomous District. Few other groups sought to live in the relatively harsh climate, where snow is on the ground from early September to late May and winter temperatures average -40 to -50 degrees Celsius for four months of the year. Evenki were drawn, however, to a habitat that offered ample opportunity for hunting and fishing and was ideal for reindeer, which could feed off the plentiful lichen found in the tundra and taiga. Today Evenk populations can be found throughout the areas that they historically occupied—from the shores of the Enisei River to Lake Baikal and beyond to the Amur River, in addition to northern Mongolia. As was the case prior to the first Russian incursions into central and eastern Siberia in the seventeenth century, the Evenki continue to share this vast area of nearly two million square miles with many other groups, including the Eveny, Kety, Sakha, and Buriat Mongols.11
Figure 3. Father and children herding in the Russian Far East, circa 1901. Image #1589, AMNH, Department of Library Services.
Russian and Soviet government ethnic designations have had a significant impact on the configuration of Evenk identities in the twentieth century. In the pre-Soviet period ethnographers often classified the Evenki along with the Eveny as belonging to the “Tungus” people (Shirokogoroff 1933; Habeck 1997).12 In the seventeenth century, the Tungus were counted as possibly numbering as many as 36,000 people (Dolgikh 1960: 617). The 1897 Russian census counted 64,500 Tungus; more than one half of them (33,500) were living in the southern Siberian area near Lake Baikal and were engaged in agriculture (Vasilevich and Smoliak 1964: 621). By 1928 those peoples who had been referred to collectively as Tungus began to be referred to by Soviet authors specifically as “Evenki” and “Eveny,” that is, according to the ethnonyms supposedly recognized by each group. Based on his extensive research in a herding community in the Taimyr, north of the Evenk District, David Anderson argues (2000: 98–109) that these categories are, in fact, quite fluid. The way in which these groups, as well as other native groups, were officially renamed by the Soviet state indicates how naming is part of administrative prerogatives. These are more closely linked to state methods of categorizing and controlling than necessarily to local realities at a given point in time.13
Kinship, Leadership, Ownership
A brief overview of the historical social organization of the Evenki provides a foundation for considering the influence Russian and Soviet systems of knowledge had on Evenk cultural practices. The Evenki historically practiced clan exogamy, and generally one herding group, or band, consisting of one or two extended family groups belonging to the same clan, herded 50–100 reindeer (Shirokogoroff 1933: 246). Each family group tended to consist of a man, a woman, several children, older relatives—usually the man’s parents—and occasionally young couples. Thus a typical family group comprised those sharing a reindeer skin tent, or chum, and generally consisted of three generations (Monakhova 1999).14 Members of a given family group slept in one tent; meals were shared between family groups, and herding activities were undertaken as a band. Men generally hunted, trapped, and oversaw reindeer herding and breeding. Children were expected to take part in all these activities, but full responsibilities only came with adulthood (Strakach 1962). Women generally cared for young children, prepared meals, sewed, tended young reindeer, and milked does. Some women, however, also took part in hunting and herding. Among Evenki living in the area north of Lake Baikal, women dominated herding activities, while men were largely occupied with hunting (Fondahl 1998: 28). In the area of the present-day Evenk District, women typically were responsible for cooking, sewing, and other household activities, in addition to hunting, fishing, trapping, and managing the reindeer herding and responsibilities of relocating camp when men were off hunting (Monakhova 1999: 35–36).
Reindeer herding was central to the Evenk way of life. Reindeer were held as common property of the band, but individuals sometimes also owned select reindeer (Vasilevich and Smoliak 1964: 646–47). In contrast to many other reindeer herding peoples, the Evenki had completely domesticated reindeer. The reindeer milk that women collected was an important dietary supplement, and in the winter they stored frozen blocks of milk in the ground for extended periods. Men generally hunted wild reindeer and used the domesticated ones for transportation by riding the reindeer itself with a saddle. In the early twentieth century, Evenki began using reindeer sledges, but earlier they only used sledges pulled by people.
Although the Evenki had no permanent political leaders, there was a clan assembly (sagdagul), generally consisting of grown men, and sometimes women, who were heads of households (Vasilevich and Smoliak 1964: 644). This assembly dealt with socioeconomic issues such as the adoption of children, territorial disputes, and punishments for infringements of proper conduct. Evenk oral tradition also relates that as influential members of the community, shamans sometimes acted as leaders in times of intergroup conflict.
“Shaman” is a term widely used in north Asian languages to indicate healers with varying degrees of spiritual abilities and leadership power (Humphrey 1994c: 206). The term itself may have evolved from the Sanskrit word sramana, a common designation for a Buddhist monk in ancient sacred texts (Mironov and Shirokogoroff 1924).15 The Russian language incorporated the term “shaman” from the Tungusic speaking peoples in the seventeenth century. In the Evenk version of shamanism, shamans interact with the spiritual world, which the Evenki believe to be composed of three elements: the middle earth, where people live; the upper world of the supreme god and other gods; and the underworld, where the spirits of the dead reside (Forsyth 1992: 54). It is possible that at one time the Evenki had, as Caroline Humphrey describes for the “inner Asian hinterland”—southern Siberia and northern Mongolia—two types of shamanism that differed according to how they represented social reproduction (1994c: 198–99). Humphrey terms one type “patriarchal” because she views it as focused on the continuation of patrilineal clans through shamanic influence over the symbolic reproduction of the patrilineal lineage. Humphrey calls the other type “transformational” because it was involved in all the forces in the world—natural phenomenon, humans, animals, and manufactured things. This second type of shaman manifested his or her power through the trance, while the first type would conduct sacred rites and was a diviner but could not master spirits or enter a trance.
Among the Evenki, the powers of the shaman could be inherited by men and women, but they were more commonly found among men. Shamans were recognized as arbiters between the spirit, animal, and human worlds; they were given the task of performing sacrifices of the unusual white-colored reindeer at ritual events such as weddings and funerals and the advent of the hunting season. Because the ability to smith iron was associated with the spirit world, shamans often adorned their skin clothing with animal representations of the spirit world made from iron. Then, as today, however, people were connected to the spirit and animal worlds through daily practices, not just through the medium of a shaman. In maintaining reciprocal relationships with spirit and animal worlds, a balance was maintained. These relationships continue to include feeding the hearth fire morsels of fat or a splash of vodka, killing animals at prescribed times, and respecting certain animals—like bears—thought to be closely related to humans. Many Evenki believe that these prescribed interactions with spirit and animal worlds ensure today, as in the past, that one’s household will be safe and healthy and that disregarding these relationships can, and historically could, mean dire consequences for individuals or whole clans (Anisimov 1950).
According to ethnographic accounts dating from the nineteenth century and more recently