Northern Natives Tenacious in Preserving Cultures (fwd)

[phil cash cash]

Friday, July 27, 2007. Issue 3708. Page 4.

Northern Natives Tenacious in Preserving Cultures

By Olesya Dmitracova
Reuters
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2007/07/27/015.html

[photo inset - Olesya Dmitracova / Reuters
Koryaks performing a traditional song in June in Pimchakh, Kamchatka.]

PIMCHAKH, Kamchatka Region -- Listening to enigmatic Koryak-language songs
and eating traditional salmon soup and cutlets in this village, it is easy
to imagine indigenous cultures still thrive on the Kamchatka Peninsula.

In fact, it is only the sheer tenacity of local Koryaks, Itelmens, Evens and
other aborigines that keeps centuries-old customs and languages from dying
out in the wild Far East after much was eroded by Soviet rule.

"Native people must live on. Without them this land will be poor and it will
be impossible to bring any meaning to this land," said Vera Koveinik who
heads the ethnic community of Pimchakh, 40 kilometers from the regional
capital, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky.

When Russians began settling in Kamchatka in the second half of the 17th
century, up to 11,000 Koryaks lived here fishing, herding deer and hunting
whale and walrus.

Three centuries of pervasive Russian and Soviet influence and intermarriage
have left an indelible mark on Kamchatka's Koryaks, who now number around
7,300 -- by far the largest indigenous group on the peninsula.

"Everyone of my generation speaks the Koryak language, knows the customs,
dances, dishes like in the ancient times. But some of our children don't
know anything at all," said folk performer Lidia Chechulina, slightly
breathless after dancing to the beat of a deer-skin drum and the music of
her own voice.

Her songs, sung in a guttural language reminiscent of Chinese, describe the
beauty of the tundra, volcanoes and the sea, she explained. She said that
songs, one for each person, accompany Koryaks all their lives and act as a
charm.

"Our parents preserved everything as it was before the [1917] Revolution,"
said Chechulina, a small, bubbly woman in her 50s.

Probably the most effective Soviet assimilation policy was that of forcibly
putting Koryak children in state-run boarding schools to teach them the
Russian language and customs.

"The Soviet culture was imposed on them," said Andrei Samar, a researcher at
the Institute of History, Archaeology and Ethnography of the People of the
Far East.

Since the children came back home only once or twice a year, he said, they
knew very little about their native culture let alone traditional skills
such as the difficult and dangerous trade of hunting at sea.

Some of those children, now adults, and their parents are actively working
to revive indigenous cultures.

A large number of schools offer classes in the Koryak and other aboriginal
languages as an extracurricular activity, and families observe ancient
holidays. There are also efforts to expand deer herding in regions where it
is dwindling rapidly.

The Pimchakh community organizes summer camps in the village where children
learn about ancient traditions and do crafts.

The regional government says it runs cultural programs and also provides
financial aid for ethnic communities.

But Koveinik said there were no signs in Kamchatka in any of the indigenous
languages and no monuments to celebrate the aboriginal culture and history.

"The government probably helps somehow. I don't know, I wouldn't say so,"
said Chechulina, wearing a traditional suede-and-fur overcoat, a headdress
made of beads and soft leather boots meant to protect from moss and
mosquitoes in the tundra.

Hardly any aborigines wear such costumes every day and many are
university-educated, but the way they talk retains traces of their ancient
spirituality rooted in the shamanism that is still practiced.

Pimchakh leader Koveinik, an Itelmen, told the audience after the community
ensemble's performance that they were privileged.

"You are today the richest people, you've received so much power and
energy," she said.