Yakuts

“ The forest theology that befits a race of hunters is dominant still among Turanian tribes of Siberia, as of old it was across to Lapland. Full well these tribes know the gods of the forest. The Yakuts hang on any remarkably fine tree iron, brass, and other trinkets; they choose a green spot shaded by a tree for their spring sacrifice of horses and oxen, whose heads are set up in the boughs; they chant their extemporised songs to the Spirit of the Forest, and hang for him on the branches of the trees along the roadside offerings of horsehair, emblems of their most valued possession. ”

“ The valley of the Lena is peopled by Yakuts, whose development far exceeds that of the Samoyedes, though both are of common origin. The latter are devoted entirely to the chase and the rearing of reindeer, and show no fondness for steady labor. The Yakuts employ the horse as a beast of burden, and are industrious, ingenious, and patient. As much as the character of the country permits they till the soil, and are not inclined to nomadic life. They are hardy and reliable laborers, and live on the most amicable terms with the Russians. ”

“ With the evidence of language, the evidence of physical confirmation is said to disagree. The Yakuts are essentially Mongolian in physiognomy. The value of the fact must be determined by what has been already said upon the subject.
The locality of the Yakuts is remarkable. It is that of [Pg 95] a weak section of the human race, pressed into an inhospitable climate by a stronger one. Yet the Turks have ever been the people to displace others, rather than to be displaced themselves. On the other hand, the traditions of the country speak expressly to a southern origin. ”

“ Lying is the vice of the weak; and no nations have so little been slaves, and so much been masters, as the Turk.
The Yakuts.—The isolated Turks, or Yakuts, still stand over for notice. Their centre is the river Lena, whereon they extend at least as far southward as the Aldan. Eastward they are found on the [27] Kolyma, and westward as far as the Yenisey. Here the Yakut tribe is that of the Dolganen, an outlying portion of the section first noticed by Von Middendorf. [28]
That the Yakut are Turk, is placed beyond reasonable doubt; although the only test has been that of language. ”

“ The Yakuts are one of the most curious races of the earth, and one of the least known, in spite of the hundreds of books and pamphlets already published about them. Their young men frequently appear as students at the University of Tomsk, though they are separated from this source of civilisation by more than three thousand miles of almost impassable country. ”

“ Their territories are being rapidly occupied by Russians, and their settlements are cut in two by the Russian stream—the Baraba Tatars and the Yakuts being to the north of it, and the others having been driven back to the hilly tracts of the Altai and Sayan Mountains. In all they number nearly a quarter of a million. The Turkish stock of the Yakuts in the basin of the Lena numbers 227,400. Most of these Turkish tribes live by pastoral pursuits and some by agriculture, and are a most laborious and honest population. ”

“ The true Turki spirit ("das Türkentum") survives especially in the provinces of Lykaonia and Kappadokia, where the few surviving natives were not only Islamised but ethnically fused, whereas in Europe most of them (Bosnians, Albanians) were only Islamised, and here the Turki element has always been slight.
The Yakuts.
At present the original Turki type and temperament are perhaps best preserved amongst the remote Yakuts of the Lena, and the Kirghiz groups (Kirghiz Kazaks and Kara Kirghiz) of the West Siberian steppe and the Pamir uplands. ”

“ They are of short stature, averaging scarcely 5 ft. 4 in., and this observer thought their dark but not brilliant black eyes, deeply sunk in narrow orbits, gave them more of a Red Indian than of a Mongol cast. They are almost the only progressive aboriginal people in Siberia, although numbering not more than 200,000 souls, concentrated chiefly along the river banks on the plateau between the Lena and the Aldan.
In the Yakuts we have an extreme instance of the capacity of man to adapt himself to the milieu. ”

“ The Yakuts, however, are themselves excellent grooms, and, in general, kind and attentive to their animals. They seldom beat them, and many instances are exhibited of strong attachment between them. It is so much so, that a herd of horses will not proceed without their master, should he stop and leave them. They are turned out to feed at night, and are always collected in the morning by hallooing to them. ”

“ The price for the future wife which is paid in cattle and horses; it is collected early in the boy's life.]
[Footnote 2: The black-eyed Yakuts speak thus of the blue-eyed races.]
'But he had no sooner gone to live there than the taiga became impassable at a distance of ten versts round the cottage. The Bilak ran about with his gun in his hand, and when he caught sight of anyone he covered him with his gun, and unless the man ran away he would pop at him—but not for fun, he didn't mind whom he shot, even if it were a Cossack. What he lived on? The gods of the taiga know! Nobody else did. ”

“ To the south of Yakutsk, it is covered [225] with lofty rocky mountains; to the west and to the north, it is a plain on which grow thick and bushy trees. It contains numberless streams of considerable depth and width. The inhabitants, however, content themselves with boats made of planks or wooden and bark canoes, only capable of holding two or three persons. The reindeer is the principal means of conveyance used by the Yakuts.
102.—YAKUTS.
The severity of the cold is very great in this country—greater, perhaps, than in any other part of Siberia. ”

“ Before the opening of the Amoor the carrying trade from Yakutsk to Ohotsk was in their hands. As many as forty thousand horses used to pass annually between the two points, nearly all of them owned and driven by Yakuts.
Most of these natives have been converted to Christianity, but they still adhere to some of their ancient practices. On the road, for example, they pluck hairs from their horse’s tails and hang them upon trees to appease evil spirits. ”

“ Between the races we have mentioned and the Yakuts of the Lena, that far outlying branch of the Turkish family, finally, live the Yukagiris, another isolated and widely spread people, not proved by their language to be akin with any of their neighbours. ”

“ Separate tribes are the Uran'hat on the Chulym, and the Barabas in the steppes between the Irtish and the Ob.
The dialects of these Siberian Turks are considerably intermingled with foreign words, taken from Mongolic, Samoyedic, or Russian sources. Still they resemble one another closely in all that belongs to the original stock of the language.
In the north-east of Asia, on both sides of the river Lena, the Yakuts form the most remote link in the Turkic chain of languages. Their male population has lately risen to 100,000, while in 1795 it amounted only to 50,066. ”

“ The Yakuts possess herds of cattle, plenty of horses and cows by which they subsist, and are contented with the product of their herds, depending but little on fish except where their cattle are too few. ”

“ In the neighbourhood of the Lena River dwell Yakuts of the Turkish-Tatar race. They number only 230,000 men, are nominally Christians, and pursue agriculture and trade. East of the Yenisei are the Tunguses, a small people divided into "settled," "horse," "reindeer," and "dog" Tunguses, according to the domestic animal of most importance to their mode of life. In western Siberia, the governments of Tobolsk and Tomsk, live Ostiaks, a small Finnish tribe of 26,000 persons, who are poor fisher folk, hunters and nomads with reindeer. This tribe is rapidly dying out. ”

“ But the Turki cradle is shifted farther east by Richthofen, who thinks that their true home lay between the Amur, the Lena, and the Selenga, where at one time they had their camping-grounds in close proximity to their Mongol and Tungus kinsmen. There is nothing to show that the Yakuts, who are admittedly of Turki stock, ever migrated to their present northern homes in the Lena basin, which has more probably always been their native land [675] . ”

“ In [91] this place we find some curious and interesting details respecting the Buddhist religion and priesthood, after which Mr Erman returns to Irkutsk, and resumes his journey eastward, through the valley of the Lena, to the land of the Tunguzes and Yakuts. The chief town of the latter people, Yakutsk, is two degrees to the south of Beresov, which Mr Erman had visited on his way to Obdorsk ”

“ Although the Yakutes form the bulk of the population in Yakutsk (the entire province contains about a quarter of a million) they do not mix a great [Pg 83] deal with the Russians, and we saw little of the better class. As a race the Yakutes are not interesting, while in appearance both sexes are distinctly plain, and often repulsive. The type is Mongolian; sallow complexion, beady eyes, flattened nostrils and wiry black hair. The men are of medium height, thick set and muscular, the women ungainly little creatures, bedizened with jewellery, and smothered with paint. ”

“ After leaving the shore, and boating the river Ochota, to an encampment where they were to meet their horses, hired at the rate of forty-five rubles a horse, on an agreement to be conveyed to Yakutsh in eighteen days, they struck into the country, which exhibited forests of pine, their progress being about four or five miles an hour. The Yakuti appear to be very industrious; young and old, male and female, being always occupied in some useful employment. When not engaged in travelling or farming, men and boys make saddles, harness, &c. ”

“ All the way to Yakutsk the river was studded with islands, which, recurring at short intervals, added to the romantic effect of the scenery; but the weather was growing cold, and heavy fogs hung over the river until a late hour in the morning. The mountains flanking the river were said to abound with wolves and bears; and there was an abundance of wild fowl, of which our travellers shot as many as they pleased. Salmon-trout was plentiful in the river; and the inhabitants fished with seines, and also with spears, like the natives of Tahiti, by torchlight. ”

“ We felt as if the spectre of death had risen from a lonely yurta somewhere behind the lost town of Zaszyversk and was staring at us with cold glassy eyes....
A dead silence brooded over the frightened assembly.
KOWALSKI THE CARPENTER A SIBERIAN SKETCH BY ADAM SZYMINSKI I made his acquaintance accidentally; the chance which led to it was caused by the peculiar conditions of the Yakut spring. My readers will probably only have a very imperfect knowledge of the Yakut spring.
From the middle of April onwards the sun begins to be pretty powerful in Yakutsk ”

“ Birchwoods, small lakes, brushwood and verdant fields alternate and make the whole country look like a large park, framed by the silver ribbon of the Lena. The surrounding gloom of the taiga emphasizes the natural beauty of the valley. This smiling plain in the midst of the wide expanse reminds one of an oasis in the desert.
The Yakut is by far the most capable of the Siberian tribes; he values the gifts of the life-giving sun and enjoys them to the full. When he escapes from his narrow, stinking winter-yurta he fills his hitherto inhospitable country with life and movement ”

“ Yaqui’s people reverted to their old order of happy primitive life before the white man had come with greed for gold and lust to kill.
The day dawned in which Yaqui took his son out and put him upon a horse. As horsemen the Yaquis excelled all other Indian tribes of the Southwest. Boys were given lessons at an early age and taught to ride bareback. Thus as youths they developed exceeding skill and strength.
Some of the braves had rounded up a band of wild horses and had driven them into a rough rock-walled triangle, a natural trap, the opening of which they had closed with a rude fence. ”

“ As the months passed child after child was born to the women of the tribe. Yaqui’s dusky-eyed wife bore him a healthy girl baby. As the chief balanced the tiny brown form in his great hand he remembered speech of his own father’s: “Son, let the Yaquis go back to the mountains of the setting sun—to a land free from white men and gold and fire water, to the desert valley where deer graze with [124] horses. There let the Yaquis multiply into a great people or perish from the earth.” ”

“ You say now, "if we will be quiet, and make friendship you will not war with us, but give a piece of land to all the tribes." We will not be quiet, but war forever, until not a Yakima breathes in the land he calls his own. The river only will we let retain this name to show to all people that here the Yakimas once lived. ”

“ There is not a lazy bone in the Yaqui body. They are a peaceable, law-abiding people when justly treated. From time immemorial they have been hunters, miners, and tillers of the soil. They have the nomad instinct in less degree than almost any other Indian tribe." Another writer makes this statement: "There are about three hundred wild and rebellious Yaqui Indians hidden in the fastnesses of the Bacatete Mountains, and some thirty thousand peaceful Yaquis working all over Sonora—among the best workers, the most successful farmers, and the quietest citizens in the whole state. ”

“ YAQUI I SUNSET—it was the hour of Yaqui’s watch. Chief of a driven remnant of the once mighty tribe, he trusted no sentinel so well as himself at the end of the day’s march. While his braves unpacked the tired horses, and his women prepared the evening meal, and his bronze-skinned children played in the sand, Yaqui watched the bold desert horizon.
Long years of hatred had existed between the Yaquis of upland Sonora and the Mexicans from the east. Like eagles, the Indian tribe had lived for centuries in the mountain fastnesses of the Sierra Madre, free, happy, self-sufficient. ”