Chukchi

The Chukchi are an Indigenous people of Russia's far north-eastern corner, the Chukotka Peninsula, facing Alaska across the Bering Strait. Traditionally reindeer herders inland and sea-mammal hunters on the coast, they are known in history for resisting Russian conquest for more than a century. Today they number a little over 16,000, most of them in the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug.

Ethnographers regard the Chukchi as native to continental Chukotka, with ancestors living there by around the turn of the fourth and third millennia BCE. Genetic studies from 2014 to 2018 identified them as the Asian population most closely related to Native Americans, consistent with descent from people of Beringia who stayed on the Asian side when sea levels rose. Their own language, Chukchi, is still spoken alongside Russian.

Chukchi society had two main branches. The Reindeer Chukchi lived as nomads on the inland tundra, moving with their herds through the seasons; the Russian name Chukchi comes from their word for "rich in reindeer". The Maritime Chukchi, called the "sea people", lived in settled coastal villages and hunted walrus, seals and whales. Together they call themselves Luoravetlan, "genuine people". There was little formal political structure, and the anthropologist Marshall Sahlins described them as "tribes without rulers".

Chukchi belief saw a spirit in every object, animate or not, some helpful and some harmful. Shamans entered trance to speak with spirits, foretell events and heal, and some shamans took on a changed gender role as part of their calling. Carving on bone and walrus ivory is a long-standing art, and traditional clothing was made of skins and furs, decorated with beads and embroidery for festivals.

Russians reached the Kolyma in 1643 and the Anadyr in 1649, but they paid the Chukchi little attention for decades. Fighting began around 1700 as Russia moved into Kamchatka. Expeditions in 1701, 1708, 1709 and 1711 caused much bloodshed without subduing the Chukchi, who defeated a force from Okhotsk in 1729. Under Major Dmitry Pavlutsky, Russian troops burned camps, drove off reindeer and took captives. In 1742 the government ordered that the Chukchi and Koryak be wiped out; the war of 1744–47 came to an end with Pavlutsky's death in battle in March 1747. Further campaigns followed in the 1750s.

Under Catherine the Great policy changed. The fort at Anadyrsk had cost far more than it raised in taxes, and it was abandoned in 1764. Peaceful trade followed, with annual fairs on the Kolyma from 1788. The Chukchi never paid yasak, the fur tribute owed by Russian subjects, and their status as subjects of the Russian Empire remained largely nominal; full annexation came only under the Soviet Union.

Schools were almost absent until the late 1920s; in 1926 only 72 Chukchi could read. The Soviets introduced a Latin alphabet for Chukchi in 1932 and replaced it with Cyrillic in 1937. Herding and hunting were organised into collective enterprises, 28 in all, yet in 1934 most Chukchi were still nomadic, and private herds persisted into the 1950s. Population estimates rose from about 6,000 in 1700 to 13,100 in 1926.

After 1990 many Russians left the region, and the privatisation of state farms damaged village economies, leaving some communities dependent on aid. Some Chukchi still herd reindeer and live in yaranga tents, while others have become writers, teachers, doctors and politicians.

Our maps draw Chukchi lands in 1530, 1600, 1650 and 1700, an approximate outline of north-eastern Siberia beside the Koryaks and, across the strait, the Iñupiat and Yupik peoples. By 1700 the expanding Tsardom of Russia lies to the west. See also Russia.