Narym Selkups, also known as “taiga people,” have lived in the Tomsk region since time immemorial. At present, there are slightly less than 1,500 Selkups in the region, their numbers having declined by 400 people over the last ten years. The indigenous people of the northern part of the region are beginning to forget their native tongue; they prefer comfortable houses to mud huts, and may soon disappear completely into the big world, losing their unique culture.
At the beginning of the 17th century, the Selkups (the name translates from their language as a “land (earthen)” or “taiga-person”) allied themselves with Khan Kuchum and were defeated by Russian Cossacks. After that, some Selkups moved northwards to the Taz River (the Yamal-Nenets autonomous area), and those who stayed lived in peace with settlers from Central Russia.
Since that time, the Selkups have been divided into two territorial groups: southern and northern. The differences in their languages are so significant that speakers of the northern and southern dialects have a difficult time understanding each other.
About 350 Selkups live in the Parabel district, in the Tomsk region, today. The majority of them have long since moved into big villages, while yurts, where their ancestors used to live, now function as a kind of a vacation home (dacha). However, it is almost impossible to reach these settlements, which are carefully hidden in the taiga, especially in the autumn and winter. There are no roads, and only true “taiga people” can brave the many-kilometer hike through the forest, confident that, as popular belief has it, the bear won’t harm them and the spirits will protect them.
Irina Korobeinikova from Parabel is one of the few remaining people who know the language of Narym Selkups well. She talks to researchers often, helping them compile phrase books and dictionaries of the Narym dialect, which is radically different from the language of Taz Selkups -- the people who left for the north 400 years ago.
“A linguist from Japan came to see me recently. She stayed for a month,” Korobeinikova says. “We translated a thousand words.”
Researchers are continuously interested in the Selkups’ traditional beliefs. Although they adopted Orthodox Christianity back in the 18th century, they preserve their pagan (pre-Christian) religious beliefs and rituals, the main feature of which is the animation of surrounding objects, animals and
elements of nature. Even today, many Narym Selkups go to the forest to worship the clan’s patron, bringing a talisman with them.
“Old women used to go to the forest to pick berries. And they would always put a talisman in the basket to bring good luck,” Korobeinikova says. The Selkup talisman is called kavaloz; it is a small faceless wooden figurine that brings luck and protects against evil spirits.
If there was no luck, the wooden idol would be punished – beaten or even thrown into the fire. “It doesn’t have a face, which means it doesn’t have a soul,” Korobeinikova explains.
The small faceless kavaloz is not the only thing that protects Selkups in the forest. “Taiga people” have a special relationship with the “taiga master,” the bear, whom they, along with many other northern peoples, consider to be a sacred animal.
“In the spring, bears come to the village of Tyukhterevo, where my mother was born. They don’t cause any harm, they simply look at us and leave,” says Alyona Lugovskaya, adding with a smile that the word “korg” (“bear” in the Selkup language) should not be pronounced out loud.
According to popular belief, thiss dangerous and cunning predator is the ancestor of all Selkups. This may be the reason why they are forbidden to kill bears. In the past, however, if their “relative” was killed under desperate circumstances (when attacking a human), local people would accuse the bullet of the murder, rather than the person.
Today, the indigenous people from the north of the Tomsk region are indistinguishable from those who came here after Siberia was conquered. Still, the Narym Selkups have not completely lost their national identity, maintaining the desire to take up their traditional crafts and unwilling to forget the culture of their ancestors.
The “taiga people” could benefit from a program to support indigenous populations. However, such a program does not exist in the Tomsk region, since “there are no clearly-worded proposals from leaders of indigenous people’s public organizations,” says Andrei Kuzichkin, head of the region’s cultural department. All events are financed from “the department’s current expenses,” he said, plus a small sum allocated by the federal budget. This year, the federal budget has allocated 4 million roubles to support all indigenous peoples of the Tomsk region (Selkups, Khantys, Chulyms and Evenks, 3,500 people in total).
Moreover, there exists a certain conflict of interests, Kuzichkin said, as “indigenous people are primarily interested in purchasing equipment to support their traditional trades (boats, cross-country vehicles, freezers), but these items are not within the cultural department’s jurisdiction.” As a result, work to preserve national identity boils down to holding regional festivals and competitions.
Yuri Tobolzhin, chairman of the Parabel Selkup community, says the local band has participated in the Moscow festival of indigenous peoples of the North since 2003. “Our folk band has won prizes there for several years in a row,” he says proudly, but he added that Selkups from Parabel did not attend the festival this year: a few years ago, officials cut down on the financing of the regional program to support indigenous people.
