Znayshla have
way from the "red plague" to a teacher-nomad
interview with ethnographer Constantine Kuksin
(http://www.city-n.ru/view/75763.html)
now live in Russia forty-five minorities, about twenty-five of them migrate to the north of Siberia and the Far East. True, the last half-century to maintain a lifestyle that their ancestors were thousands of years, the Russian nomads becoming increasingly difficult. Neither the Russian colonization North Yermak or forced Christianization in the course of several centuries could not do something that could make a few decades of Soviet education system - to put robust northerners to the brink of extinction. When indigenous peoples of the North was forced to pay tribute (a tribute to two sable), they become more agile hunt. When destroyed their idols, they departed from the taiga to tundra, learning to live where nobody lives. But when the helicopters and motorboats have become to take away children in boarding schools, the parents were helpless. And now they must defend the interests of the new Russian state - the director of the Museum of nomadic Culture, Methodist Laboratory of Ethnology and Intercultural Communication, Moscow Institute of Open Education Konstantin Kuksin. Interviewed Olga Orlova.
What happened to northern peoples you roam?
As an ethnographer I am working on the Yamal Peninsula for the most part with the Nenets (they are now just over 40 thousand), Hunt (29000). But, of course, in the north, there are other nations, such as 40,000 nomadic Evenki in Yakutia, and have almost disappeared Orochi and Evens.
wander whether Chukchi now?
Total Chukchi there are not many - about 16,000 of them part - tundra - still roam. The Chukchi are always divided into coastal and tundra. Coastal Chukchi went on fisheries in the sea and tundra reindeer herding. Each of the coastal Chukchi was the name of his brother-breeders, with whom they met and exchanged products. Back in the early twentieth century between these brothers was possible to exchange wives.
What is life?
50-60 years. Often, men die sooner: freeze up, drowning. Many of the Chukchi, Evenki, Khanty can not swim - to learn something no place, no swimming pools and natural water is cold all year round. Now at least occasionally try to help each other, and earlier, and told the elderly, sometimes hands are not fed: "My brother fell into the water - the spirit of the water took him." Reindeer herders and hunters life too heavy and dangerous, all the time at risk. Some still live more like the Stone Age. For them, a mammoth - a living being dwells only in the lower world. The fish can only live in water, and Mammoth - underground. Sticking mammoth tusks - is evidence of the frozen animals that tried to get on the ground, but could not. Tusks for them the real landmarks. Ask how to get: Reach the mammoth tusk, and then left. "
Is it possible to preserve such a tender, archaic consciousness in the information age?
possible. When I first got on the Yamal Peninsula, I was amazed at how well preserved there nomadic culture. Prior to this I lived and wandered in Mongolia, and thought that it was better than there, nomadic culture is nowhere preserved. But we in the North not only is it a really alive, but even experienced a lift.
What is expressed?
Be a reindeer herder is becoming more and more prestigious. Boys drop out of school and go to the fathers. Reborn Shamanism. People feel that it is their own lives and they are ready for it. That decline, which described the fellow scientists had fifteen years ago, was far more heavy. But with the beginning of the restructuring of the indigenous peoples of North forgotten and no longer put pressure on them. People were forced to return to the nomadic way of life. Who's back to the reindeer, he survived. Incidentally, a similar pattern was observed in the steppe nomads - in Tuva, in Kazakhstan, people getting out his grandfather's tent and went to the steppe to relatives and began to wander. That period is generally vague for our state, the nomads went good. For them, the State - the worst.
And why do you, the ethnographer, are focusing on education?
Roaming with these people and studying their problems, I came to the conclusion that in this situation Education plays a key role. Ironically sounds, but the last thirty years the education system - is the main factor that disrupts the traditional culture of the local population.
Bolsheviks came to Cever slowly. Only in 1930 the last uprising subsided. The Soviet government has dealt the most tangible blow to the culture of the North, through education, creation of the Soviets. Destroying the people inside, destroying the "best people" - as in the North called khans, shamans, princes. Began to fight illiteracy, there are "red plague". And in the postwar years began to create boarding schools. Policemen flew in helicopters, sailed on motorboats and catch children 6-7 years. Then the village children to live about 10 years. Parents have only seen once a year during the summer. On holidays, many of the children to leave could not: parents migrate away, and take them for a week children can not.
children are taught physics and mathematics, but forget the customs of their ancestors and can not return the tundra. They either remain in the villages, or migrate to cities. Sometimes the boys are still trying after 6-7-second classes to escape his father in the tundra. But if the boys in it are not grow, they lose a lot of skills and their process of maturation is delayed until 20-25 years. They are too much can not. While their counterparts who wandered with their fathers already in the 15-17 years usually can marry and graze their flocks.
What are the boarding schools in which children grow nomads?
They work great teachers and excellent facilities. For example, Beloyarsky boarding almost looks like a five star hotel. Sometimes you see the poor villages and nearby - Locks on stilts. This boarding. But these castles, palaces and there are major destroyers of tradition. The sheer Director boarding understand that they destroy the good intentions national culture. And then decided to try to help children: set up special training courses in the life of the tundra. In summer they take out in a special camp where hunters are taught to schoolchildren wisdom, which they already have mastered the best way home.
Helps?
Almost none. Profession reindeer herder one of the most complex in the world.
Many things are absorbed with their mother's milk. If a person is removed from there, he loses touch with the tundra. He has a flair off, the mechanism of orientation in the tundra. After all the nomads are guided without a compass. How to learn quickly to distinguish 20 kinds of snow? How to choose from three hundred animals that revolve around you desired deer?
Why do I need to distinguish between snow?
But how to decide where the best snow for water type? What will the weather be like? To go hunting for moose or fox? Where will more moss? It is easy to be deer graze on the new pasture? Like steppe hunters a couple of dozen names of horses and harness, just to the north of dozens of names snow. Once I was doing women's work: I was taught to choose the snow for a hearth. Need a spatula to dig down almost to the ground and find a place where snow becomes caked in the firn, dense ice crystals. They need to collect, not to touch the moss and earth. Rack full of bags, and from about 90% water. And if you dial the snow on top, then it is possible to heat water on the bottom of a pot.
your immediate specialty - ethnic psychology. And apart from the North you are also a lot of nomadic life in Mongolia, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. What difference between the prairie and the northern nomads?
in the steppes to work a lot easier, because Russia for centuries was part of the Mongol ulus. In this sense, We came not only from Gogol's overcoat, but also from Delhi (robe) of Genghis Khan. In the steppes immediately feel at home. Russian steppe nomads as a brother. With me somehow wandering friend, who did not drink mare's milk and fashionably dressed, well above it in the steppe, laughing: "Where does he knows Russian, he's American!?" And the North has to overcome barrier of mistrust. Among us as among the twenty-first-m, and Stone ages - the gulf, which is very difficult to overcome. You are greeted with stony faces. Emotions are often very rare. Here's an example. Left her husband, came in a blizzard. Wife all worn out. Three days later, her husband came all frostbitten. She told him calmly: "I came?" He: "Yes, come." And as if nothing had happened to her husband prepares the tea, not referring to falls, that is going through. Such a culture is laconic, but very deep. Very reserved people, with enormous self-esteem.
How did they find out the relationship?
I do not remember ever seen. Observations make it very mildly. Basically, all trying to solve the action. That left her husband in a binge. What does your wife? Puts him in silence on the sled and taken to the farthest tent to stay with relatives until they could recover.
She has such authority?
course.
And for children?
Young children are never punished. They believe: to hit a child - to break his spirit.
How can solve the problem of security? Outlets in the tent, but there are always a boiling pot.
tie the child to a perch, so that could run and play, but could not reach the fire and boiling water. A then with 4-5 years of children fully replicate their parents. In girls, there is a proper bag for sewing, she makes herself a doll idol. With every event she puts on on her new clothes. The boys are already in the 7-8 years it is easy to commute to harness and control the deer snowmobile "Buran". It is through work, they all learn and grow very worthy people.
What is the difference of male from female?
Women's and men's worlds in the North are so different that ethnographers to work better in pairs - male and a woman. Chum only puts a woman is her territory. I, for example, in Plague rarely, and certainly no women's mysteries to me no one will I kept Paz deer, and fellow anthropologist can find out something from a woman's world. But a woman ethnographer, in turn, never summoned the men - not in the sanctuary, nor fold.
Chum is divided into male and female half: border passes through the center of which stands in the center. But on the whole tent belongs to a woman. A man entering a house, takes off his jumper and wears women's clothing to women's spirits were favorable to him. Sleep together in the canopy. In the Chukchi canopy fur, reindeer herders in the Yamal Peninsula - a canvas. Passes through the canopies boundaries of male and female in the world. Therefore, making love - it is a sacred act, when the combined male and female world. But still man like a visit from his wife. He is asleep and hiding her coat.
How many have wives should be fur?
Five. Old - for the second - the everyday, the third - For her husband, the fourth - a holiday, and a fifth - a spare for guests. They should be each year to sew again. Women sew their own, threads are still pulling from deer lived. There sits the hostess at the table, eating at the same time pulls the ribs from the meat and makes it immediately from their skin. It happens in the tent between two and four canopy. Sacred line begins from the source passes through the sacred handkerchief in front, which is often embroidered crosses - are long-paganism mingled with Orthodoxy. Next line is still extends 10 meters over chumom where the ends of the Sacred Narts - there are male idols. They usually do not show an outsider. So the line between tent in male and female half of a woman should not go. It is usually flooded with all sorts of household goods even. Nomads believe if a woman has crossed the line with a man in the tundra can do something to happen: either the bear attack, or other misfortune. Women's step in their minds - the mystical. He can take away the life of a person, and may return. Therefore, women's shoes are carried on separate sleds. They also carried a separate sheet from the hearth, because underneath it is directly entrance to the underworld, which is connected with a woman.
Hence, a woman in the northerners - a full and equal partner?
We are accustomed to from a Christian perspective hierarchically to evaluate the relationship. And the northern nomads lower world, such as equal as the top, but it is the opposite. We had a man below cry - they died. We have died in the lower world rejoice - they were born. And because the woman who soon enter the lower world, are equal. It is awesome responsibility, because of lower world come of disease, cold, mosquitoes and other misfortunes. Every woman in the northern nomads - a little shaman. The evening before bedtime housewife gets idols, feeds them fat, something pokrapit around, something fumigate that were all healthy. A man never touches a woman's things, they even carry on separate sleds. Each has its own argish - caravan of sledges (sleds, which are harnessed in deer). A woman carries tent, bed and everything connected the house. Women's sled with a cradle, then the sled with the women's personal belongings, shoes and sheets from the hearth, then tent and everything else. She argish more loaded.
man carries the Sacred sled, then some things that fit in the house.
In this sense, joint education of boys and girls in a boarding school - also impact on indigenous traditions?
Yes, of course. Women who are 40 years old, told how they were brought to the orphanage without knowing the language and settled with other people's children the same age. Children have experienced such a shock that they could not recover from the disease. Started nervous fever, and many had to send back to the tundra a year or two, that they recovered from the nervous shock. So I often ask the opponents: would you want your children have not seen you 10 months a year and growing with people of another civilization?
And that answer?
begin to mumble: "What about education? ..»
's now trying to find another approach: to create boarding schools family type. The room living brothers and sisters from one family. And it's certainly better than the old system, but still after the family boarding can not be solved another important problem - a demographic imbalance. Girls do not want to go back to the tundra.
That is, the nomads shortage of brides?
Yes. Girls among the nomads, as elsewhere, however, more obedient and do better than boys. Therefore, most girls end up full of grades 9-11. All this while they live in a posh boarding schools, where great evrokuhni with microwave and oven: just push buttons! How do they then return to the tent? Life women in the tent pretty hard. Boys often like their lives - to sink into the snow, freezing in the tundra, leaving the ice, go to the animals - so much adventure Drive! A woman's adventures, but there are a lot of everyday, tedious work: skin crease, constantly prepare food, collect, analyze tent. That girl and try to stay in towns and cities. Therefore, in the tundra of the competition among suitors is colossal. Bride price - 30-40 deer (about 500 thousand rubles). But it is clear that an educated bride is smaller, because it has worse skills.
In Russian villages, teacher - a respected man, he will explain the laws, and an example will show. What does the teacher there?
If the local peoples, respect him, and if the Russian, the attitude in general negative. After all the centuries they have no good from the Russian did not see.
What is expressed?
in disbelief. Since you are hospitable, and will offer tea, but the sides will be closed. How many Russian teachers excellent teachers live in the villages, and are surprised, in a conversation with me: "Oh, you were in the tent?" They teach children that life is carried out in tents, but they there never were. Plague are two kilometers, but they do not want there. This parallel worlds. Therefore, many teachers are joking: "We have to you in the museum come to Moscow see how they live. " How can there be after this confidence and respect for the teacher, which is based education and? That can tell a child nomads teacher, if he does not know about their world? Any such teachers to send in the tundra, and he will die in it in three hours. The same thing happens with these children. Recently to visit me girl came hantyyka. Even though she graduated from the Institute in Tomsk, my parents could not make it enter the subway and foot on an escalator - to her that was the entrance to the lower world. Here is the bridge between different worlds, and must establish a teacher. But for this he must know not only the European culture, but and local. I did so and learned. I came to him and said: "I am a baby and do not know anything about your world, and teach me everything!»
But on the other hand, how to integrate nomadic children in later life? You can not close them an opportunity to grow up and leave if they wish?
But forcing them to leave their home is also impossible. The local education system should be flexible so that, on the one hand, to grant the right to universal secondary education guaranteed by the Constitution of the Russian Federation, on the other side - to give the opportunity to learn the skills necessary for living in their native environments. Children are discrete knowledge formation of an image of the world and his place in it they have not built up. A man comes out of school, and feeling in the universe, a world in the country, ethnic group had not. After all, education needed to help find yourself to be realized.
What, in your opinion, is to teach local children?
Not everything that is taught schoolboy, to these children. First, the training courses should be adapted - especially in elementary school when the first three years, children are taught in their native languages Russian language. But other rates - around the world, art, biology, native literature - must also be tailored to local cultural tradition. Courses native language and literature necessary to revive a purpose. Language to be developed. Since all the Nordic peoples were unwritten, then the local literature was based on an oral art of storytellers. Destroyed them, as all the "best people" and because this culture is actually lost. Work on the reconstruction of oral texts are being conducted, but require more activity.
already been established as far as I know, the special geography textbooks to local realities.
Of course, older children need a basic knowledge of economics, trade rules. Necessarily need a basis of jurisprudence, as the ignorance of the law among the indigenous population often leads to the fact that they are easily deceived. And in the tundra of lawyers do not have to go nowhere else.
What you represent in general the optimal education for nomadic peoples of the North?
layered. First, we must build nomadic schools. The teacher can go to the tundra and roaming with the herd. Then you use the achievements of Western civilization: the reindeer herders are a good satellite connection, many tents are plates. Possible interactive learning via the Internet. Believe me, provide all the reindeer fast Internet and establish a system of education is much cheaper than to build and maintain in the Far North are palaces-boarding, which I have met. They want those children who have grown up and have firmly decided to continue their education in villages and cities. And these children are not very many.
third - you can develop a system of tutors, a teacher at the high-speed sled moved from camp to camp. But this teacher should be multispetsialistom, who leads several items to class 8.
What you are suggesting, contrary to the process of consolidation rural schools, which develops within the modern school reform.
Yes, but if in the villages of central Russia, children are just beginning was taken to boarding schools, then in the north, this experience has already passed. And the result is awful. Therefore, I support the other way. In Yakutia, with the support of UNESCO has been working nine schools for nomadic Evenki and yukogirov. They are all different. There are entire schools that migrate with their herds, there are teachers, tutors, who roam with your family, there is a school family type, where predtaviteli family during nomadic teach children of his tribe.
fact, this is a new educational system.
likely to re-establish. Before in fact there were wandering sages who roamed and taught the kids: one taught to consider the stars, the other - to compose poems, and the third taught to read traces of animals. Now We can use this experience to a new level. School education is served in a variety of forms, suitable for one kind or another, or even family, but in this case it is, of course, should meet basic educational standards of the Russian Federation. I started looking for guys with higher education who are ready go for a year to the North to start the process. While ideally the first teacher to be his, of the nomads.
Where did they cook?
Is Teaching University. Herzen in St. Petersburg, the Northern Institute. There are local pedagogical institutes, universities in South Siberia, for example, in Tyumen, where teachers are prepared for the Far North. Their children end up reindeer herders, hunters and fishermen who are forced to work in orphanages, because there is no alternative. Now it has to be created.
Why, in You think it is important not only to preserve but also to enable these nations to develop naturally? Why not put them on the benefits, as the Indians in North America ...
... and make a "velvet" genocide. " I have met in the U.S. with the leader of an Indian tribe. He complained that their young mainly adds criminal groups. They do not assimilate as fully-fledged citizens. Everything is easier, but also inhumane and shortsighted: Russia in principle do not need the small nations. A from an environmental point of view quite clear: the system is complicated, so it is stable. Russification of small ethnic groups leads eventually to instability and viability of the entire Russian super-ethnos. Among peoples, as in nature, must necessarily be a variety. Yes, and how normal people can calmly face extinction neighbors? Can not stand by idly as whole nations disappear.
What steps should be taken to preserve the ecological balance of northern nomads?
These people do not need to protect, but do not destroy. The main condition - they must work. The work they have - on the Yamal Peninsula, For example, grazing of large herds in the world (600,000 head) - you just do not stop, again not to take children and give the opportunity to earn money. For this need to develop trade infrastructure. Deer - an invaluable source of wealth. This top-quality suede and fur, and medicine, and deli meats. A stock in Beloyarsk, for example, are the skins cars, nobody takes.
The same is true with fishing. Many of the northerners - great fishermen, but the fish for sale they do not catch. No one to take. Need to build a collection point for fishermen, rybzavody build on new technologies.
Toy Buran »
Or Another example: snowmobile "Buran" has become a symbol of culture in the north. Previously, children with northerners were cut from the tree nartochki, and now they cut teddies snegodhodiki and tarahtyat. Very early they start chasing decorated with fringe snowmobiles in the taiga. But for the "Buran" needed spare parts, petrol. And money for this. Nowhere to earn money, because, as we have said, supply chains are not developed. Private buyers are constantly fishermen cheat, say, require that the fishermen handed over a white and red fish to 14 rubles per kilogram, and then on the market are selling for 140 rubles. Sami fishermen come in Salekhard trade, but they are oppressed by the police, select "Buran" and fined. Travellers pay benefits 1,000 rubles - is at the northern, then prices! And just recently called me my friends-Hunt: there was frozen and the banks of the Ob littered with rotting fish. And they live in a subsistence economy. There is nothing to them now. They also paid compensation 1 thousand rubles per person. A woman is considered chumrabotnitsey (housewife), it generally does not receive a salary. How do they live now in this year? Savings they have No, because they earn, as I have described, there is nowhere. This is only a special episode in a chain of constant turmoil, which should be solved at the federal level. Themselves they stand up for themselves can not.
Why?
Such problems are solved at the level of local government. When it comes to the republics - Kalmykia, Yakutia, the Republics North Caucasus - a power there are representatives of the same people. And if the authorities want, they are able to make decisions that will help keep cultural traditions, to introduce new training courses, to defend the interests of local people in the economy, etc. And when it comes to minority nationalities North, everything is decided, the oil gas companies. And the indigenous population there is no one to defend. No vote, which would be represented by their institutional in all power structures.
That is, the preservation of the small peoples of the North is more dependent on distant Moscow?
Yes, there is an association of indigenous peoples of the north, there is the Committee for Northern Affairs in the State Duma, but they are in Moscow, and often from me or from fellow travelers know that there actually actually happening today. And, unfortunately, their problems can be solved only at the federal level. We must pass laws that the land belongs to indigenous peoples, and then create a native councils. We still consider that the nation has long fought among themselves and between them remains a kind of competition, so they actively help each other will not. And the problem is the federal government to regulate their relations among themselves and with the big world.
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