with the natural environment (more precisely, the means of
access to natural resources). This approach can also be ham-
pered by the nature of the sources and facts themselves. The
representations described in this article are those of the
pre-Soviet period, that is, of the beginning of the twentieth
century.
THE FOREST PEOPLES. The Uralic and Altaic families each
may be divided into smaller units. The two Siberian branches
of the former are the Ob-Ugrian and the Samoyed. The Ob-
Ugrian people, essentially a forest-dwelling group, consists
of the Khanty and the Mansi, known in the eleventh century
as the Yugra to the Russians of Novgorod, who traded with
them for skins and furs. After their entrance into the Russian
empire in the seventeenth century they became known as the
Ostiaks and Voguls, respectively. At the time of the 1979
census there were 21,000 Khanty and 7,600 Mansi (a minor
increase from the 1926 figures of 17,800 and 5,700, respec-
tively).
Because of their proximity to European Russia, the
Khanty and Mansi were severely exposed to the impact of
colonialism. Far worse than the burden of taxation, the ap-
pearance of new illnesses, and the exactions from civil ser-
vants were the appropriation of the best land, that bordering
the rivers, by Russian peasants and the forced conversion to
Orthodox Christianity; both actions provoked strong oppo-
sition. Nevertheless, rather than staging a revolt, which
would be quickly crushed, some preferred submission and as-
similation while others elected to escape into the depths of
the forest. The traditional society of the Khanty and Mansi
is organized in exogamic moieties—the “hare moiety” and
the “bear moiety,” each having descended through the male
line from one clan, which eventually divided into many.
The Samoyed branch, settled primarily in the tundra,
also has groups living in the forest: the Selkup, in particular,
and a small group of the Nentsy. The Selkup (6,000 in 1926;
3,600 in 1979; called the Yenisei Ostiaks in the past when
the Ket were included) were forced back from the Yenisei
Valley to valleys situated farther west (Taz, Turukhan, and
Yeloguy) with the onset of Russian farming. Here too,
each exogamic moiety—“eagle” and “nutcracker crow”—
includes several patrilineal clans divided into various territo-
rial units.
The other major group of forest people, the Altaic fami-
ly, is divided into the Turkic, Mongol, and Manchu-Tunguz
branches; these comprise the principal population of eastern
Siberia. The Turkic branch (722,500 in Siberia in 1979), the
most important of the three, is barely represented in the for-
est. However, certain ethnic groups, while primarily settled
in the tundra (Yakuts) or steppe (eastern Tuva, Tofa, south-
ern Shor), are found in the adjacent mountainous forest area
as well.
On the other hand, the Toj-Tuva of the upper Yenisei
River, the Tofa of the Sayan Mountains, and the Shor of the
Altaic forest still practiced the traditional kinds of hunting
in the nineteenth century. The Tuva and Tofa combine this
with the raising, riding, and milking of deer. Each clan of
the Shor has its own hunting ground; any infraction of the
system entails vengeance. Each Shor hunter is entitled to
hunt in the grounds of his wife’s clan and must share his
booty with her father.
The Mongol branch is represented in the forest by the
Ekhirit-Bulagat Buriats who are native to the Cisbai-kalian
forests. These people were not influenced by the Mongolian
empire. Although they did borrow animal breeding from
their Mongolian cousins of the steppe in the sixteenth centu-
ry, they have nonetheless retained an authentic hunting cul-
ture as well as the remaining visible traces of a social organi-
zation divided into exogamic moieties (Ekhirit and Bulagat),
with each moiety further subdivided into several patrilineal
clans.
Stemming from the Tunguz branch are the Eveny
(12,000 in 1979), the various Tunguz groups along the
Amur River, and the Evenki, the Tunguz of the taiga
(28,000 in 1979 as compared to 38,804 in 1926). Contrary
to the other Siberian peoples whose populations are concen-
trated in a particular region (albeit in scattered groups), they
are scattered throughout all of eastern Siberia. Still identifi-
able in spite of a variety of lifestyles, the traditional Tunguz
is a hunter, an unparalleled observer and indefatigable travel-
er who is also incessantly driven by the search for game. It
was the Tunguz who were chosen as guides by all explorers
of Siberia.
HUNTING, ALLIANCE, AND THE HORIZONTAL CONCEPTION
OF THE WORLD. Considered in terms of the life they lead
and the type of society in which they live, the Siberian hunt-
ers’ conceptions are based on a series of principles that create
a structural analogy between the social, economic, and reli-
gious domains and that inform the mechanism of the inter-
action of these domains. Hunting is conceived of as an alli-
ance in which the game is equivalent to the woman: The
exchanging partners in each case are on the same plane, thus
the world is thought of as horizontal.
Natural beings that supply sustenance are thought to be
organized, like humans, into clans and linked to each other
as well as to human clans through relations of alliance and
vengeance. To be outside the clan is anomalous, and brings
illness, death, and other trouble; everything possible is
done to avoid such an anomaly. This conception applies pri-
marily to game that is consumed but is in general not applied
either to fish or to game hunted for fur, an occupation that
is engaged in to meet external demand, thus making the
game simple merchandise. Although fishing is a traditional
practice and often supplies an important part of their subsis-
tence, fish is still thought of simply as food, and rarely in-
volves the same ritual treatment as game. (On the other
hand, marine mammals on the coast of the Sea of Okhotsk
are considered to be hunted and not fished; they are classified
under the category of consumed game.) Nor is this concept
applied to gathered products, which are not conceived of asSOUTHERN SIBERIAN RELIGIONS 8669