Селькупы: история и культура северных сибирских самодийцев.

Samoyedic ethnic group of northern Siberia

The Selkup (селькупы) are a Samoyedic speaking Uralic ethnic group native to Siberia. They live in the northern parts of Tomsk Oblast, Krasnoyarsk Krai and Tyumen Oblast (with Yamalo Nenets Autonomous Okrug). Selkups from 1850s until the 1930s exclusively in the scientific literature were called Ostyak Samoyeds (остяко самоеды, ostyako samoyedy). This ethnonym has never been widely used.

Selkups speak the Selkup language, which belongs to the Samoyedic languages of the Uralic language family. The Selkups originated in the middle basin of the Ob River, from interactions between the aboriginal Yeniseian population and Samoyedic peoples that came to the region from the Sayan Mountains during the early part of the first millennium CE. In the 13th century, the Selkups came under the sway of the Mongols. Around 1628, the Russians conquered the area and the Selkups were subjugated. The Selkups joined an uprising against Russian rule but were gunned down and defeated. In the 17th century, some of the Selkups relocated up north to live along the Taz River and Turukhan River. They were engaged mainly in hunting, fishing, and reindeer breeding. The arrival of Russian settlers to the area in the 18th century led to the Russians hunting down the reindeers of the Selkups which made breeding reindeer much more difficult. In 1911 1912 and 1914, the expeditions of the Finnish linguist and ethnographer Kai Reinhold Donner (1888 1935) were engaged in studying the language, folklore, everyday culture and the traditional way of life of the Selkups. Another famous Selkupologist was Eugene Helimski.