Itelmens

On the Kamchatka Peninsula, at the far eastern edge of Russia, the Itelmens built a fishing and foraging society along the rivers long before Cossacks arrived at the end of the 17th century. Russian conquest, rebellion and epidemics cut their numbers drastically, and most Itelmens today speak Russian, but some 3,193 people identified as Itelmen at the 2010 Russian census, and efforts are under way to bring their language back into use.

The Itelmens call themselves Itənmən. Their language is usually placed in the Chukotko-Kamchatkan family alongside Chukchi and Koryak, though the link is distant and some linguists argue the shared features come from contact rather than common descent; one proposal treats Itelmen as a mixed language. Russians long called the peoples of the peninsula Kamchadals, and after centuries of intermarriage that word came to mean the mixed Russian-speaking population, while "Itelmen" was kept for those who held on to the old language.

Before the conquest the Itelmens lived mainly in the valley of the Kamchatka River, settling along streams where salmon ran. When Cossacks first appeared in the early 1650s, villages held 200 to 300 people, each built around one patriarchal household; a man usually moved to his wife's village on marrying, and a village that grew too large split and founded a new one further along the same river. In winter families shared large half-underground houses entered through the smoke hole; in summer each family moved into its own raised house on posts, which kept stores dry in the damp climate.

Men and women divided work closely. On fishing trips both paddled, but men fished while women cleaned and dried the catch, gathered berries, seeds and fireweed, and wove grass into mats, bags and baskets. The naturalist Georg Wilhelm Steller, who came with the second Kamchatka expedition of Vitus Bering, left one of the few detailed accounts of this world in 1744. He recorded a creator figure, Kutka, who was mocked and scolded rather than worshipped, alongside spirits of the sea, forests, mountains and storm clouds.

Vladimir Atlasov led the Russian push into Kamchatka from 1696, exacting fur tribute; by Atlasov's own reckoning in 1697, the Itelmens numbered some 20,000. Cossack outposts followed, including Bolsheretsk in 1703. After 1706 order broke down: collectors demanded far more tribute than the law allowed and enslaved Itelmens, while the Itelmens rose repeatedly, at times together with the Koryaks. Russian forces crushed major uprisings in 1706, 1731 and 1741. Smallpox struck in 1715 and again, more severely, in the late 1760s; one count gives about 2,500 Itelmens in 1773 and 1,900 in 1820, against a pre-conquest population estimated at 12,000 to 25,000.

Survivors were baptised into the Orthodox Church, adopted Russian names and customs and intermarried with settlers, though older beliefs persisted. The census counted 4,029 Itelmens in 1889 and 1,109 in 1959. In the Soviet period communities were moved and children were schooled in Russian; by the late 1930s Russian was the language of every classroom. An Itelmen Latin alphabet of 1932 was soon dropped, and a Cyrillic one was created in the 1980s. By 1993 fewer than a hundred elderly speakers remained, yet the number of people claiming Itelmen identity grew from about 2,400 in 1989 to 3,180 in 2002, and the language is now taught in some local schools.

Our maps for 1530, 1600, 1650 and 1700 draw an approximate Itelmen territory on Kamchatka, with the Koryaks to the north and the Ainu to the south. The Tsardom of Russia, whose Cossacks conquered the peninsula, appears further west. See also Russia.