population- 4,673 people (as of 2001).
   Language- isolated.
   resettlement- Khabarovsk Territory, Sakhalin Region.

Self-name - Nivkh - "man". In the past, the Ulchi, the Negidals, and some others called them Gilyaks. This ethnonym was extended by Russian settlers to the neighboring Lower Amur peoples - the same Negidals, Ulchis and others. Lampiga, Lafinggu - this is how the Sakhalin Nivkhs call the Amur. The Ulchi called the Amur Nivkhs Ornyr, and the Sakhalin Nivkhs - Oroks (Ulta), probably from the Tungus oron - "domestic deer". The ethnonym "Nivkhs" was officially approved in the 1930s.

The language has Amur, North Sakhalin and East Sakhalin dialects. Writing has existed since 1932 on the basis of the Latin, and since 1953 - the Russian alphabet.

They live on the Lower Amur, as well as on Sakhalin Island. Contacts between Russians and Nivkhs began in the 17th century, when Cossack explorers visited the area. In 1849-1854. the expedition of G.I. worked on the Lower Amur. Nevelsky, who founded the city of Nikolaevsk. A year later, Russian peasants began to settle here.

Fishing was done all year round. Fishing for migratory salmon (pink salmon in June, chum salmon in July and September) was the main fishery. At this time, stocks of dried fish - yukola were made, and dried fish bones were prepared for sled dogs. They fished with spears (chak), hooks of various sizes and shapes on leashes and sticks (kele-kite, chosp, matl, chavl, etc.), various fishing rods, nets, rectangular, bag-shaped, fixed (including under-ice) and smooth (chaar ke , khurki ke, nokke, lyrku ke, anz ke, etc.), nets (kyr ke), nets, summer and winter rides.

Drying seal skins on frames

In the economic activity of the Nivkhs of Sakhalin and the Amur estuary, a significant place was occupied by marine fur hunting, which provided local residents with meat and fat; skins of seals and seals were used for making clothes, shoes, gluing skis, and making various household items. In spring and summer, seals, bearded seals, sea lions were caught with nets, seines, hooks, traps, harpoons, a spear with a floating shaft and a kind of rudder. In winter, with the help of dogs, they searched for air ducts in the ice and set hook traps in them. In the spring, seals and dolphins hunted in the lower reaches of the Amur. The taiga hunting industry was also developed. On the Amur they hunted close to home, on Sakhalin, on the contrary, the hunters went to the taiga for a week. Small animals were killed with various pressure traps, nooses, crossbows, they went to bears and elks with a spear, bow, and from the second half of the 19th century. - with firearms. Furs were exchanged for fabrics, flour, etc.

Rinsing the seal skin in water

Women collected and prepared edible and medicinal plants, herbs, berries, men - building materials. Various roots, birch bark, twigs were used to make household utensils, nettles were used to make fiber for weaving nets, etc.

They fished and caught a sea animal from plank punts (mu) with a sharp nose and 2-4 pairs of oars. In the middle of the XIX century. such boats from the Nivkh cedar of the Amur estuary and Sakhalin were exchanged with the Nanais. On Sakhalin, they also used dugout poplar boats with a kind of visor on the bow.

In winter, they moved on sleds, harnessing up to 10-12 dogs in them in pairs or in a herringbone pattern. The sled (tu) of the Amur type is straight-legged, high and narrow, with double-curved skids. They sat on top of it, putting their feet on the skis. At the end of the XIX - beginning of the XX century. began to use wide and low sleds of the East Siberian type, they were used to transport state goods under contracts. Later, for these purposes, they began to acquire horses.

Skis, like those of other peoples of the Amur, were of two types: long bare for spring hunting and short ceilings, glued with seal fur or elk skins, for winter.

Seal skin processing

At the end of the XIX - beginning of the XX century. the designs of hooks, nets, traps for fur-bearing animals appeared the same as those of the Russians, and Russian peasants, in turn, borrowed from local residents the types of nets, traps, and boats common here. With the development of the fishing industry, salmon production has become commercial. Agriculture, which in the early twentieth century. tried to introduce the Russian administration, but had no success.

They preferred fresh fish, which was eaten raw or boiled and fried. Yukola, with an abundant catch, was made from any raw material. The heads and intestines were languished for several hours without water on fire until a fatty mass (such as a Negidal septule) was obtained, from which the fat was then boiled, which was stored indefinitely. Yukola, fresh fish and meat were used to make soups with the addition of herbs and roots. From purchased flour and cereals they baked cakes, cooked porridge. All food was necessarily seasoned with fish or seal oil. At the end of the XIX century. the Russians began to exchange potatoes.

The Nivkhs originally led a settled way of life, many of their villages on the mainland (Kol, Takhta, etc.) are hundreds of years old. Winter dwelling (tyf) - a large log house with a gable roof covered with grass, which had a pillar frame and walls made of horizontal logs inserted with pointed ends into the grooves of vertical pillars. The houses were single-chamber, without ceilings, with earthen floors. Chimneys from two hearths heated wide bunks along the walls. In the center of the house, a high flooring was erected on poles, on which sled dogs were kept and fed in severe frosts. 2-3 families usually lived in the house, each on its own plot of bunks. With the onset of heat, families moved to individual dwellings, which were built of bark near the winter house or in a separate summer village near the lake, channels, near the fishery. Most often they were placed on piles. They could be gable, conical, quadrangular with a gable roof, log or frame. Like the Ulchi, the Nivkh summer houses had two rooms: the front one, made of planks, served as a barn, and the back one, made of logs, served as a dwelling with an open hearth.

For household needs, they made log barns on high pillars,
a variety of hangers for drying nets, nets and drying yukola

For household needs, they made log barns on high poles, various hangers for drying nets, seines and yukola. On Sakhalin until the beginning of the twentieth century. old dugouts with an open hearth and a smoke hole were preserved, and in the 20th century. timber-framed houses of the Russian hut type spread.

Clothes and shoes were sewn from fish skin, dog fur, skin and fur of taiga and marine animals. From time immemorial, they also used purchased fabrics, which they received for furs from Manchurian, and then Russian merchants.

Women's robes had a kimono cut, the left half was twice as wide as the right and covered it.

Men's and women's robes (larshk) had a kimono cut and were left-handed (the left half was twice as wide as the right and covered it). Longer women's robes were decorated with applique or embroidery, along the hem - with metal plaques arranged in one row. For cold weather, fabric bathrobes were insulated with cotton wool. Festive clothes made of fish skin were painted with intricate ornaments.

In winter, they wore fur coats (ok) made of dog skins and men's jackets (pshah) made of seals. Wealthy families sewed women's fur coats from fox fur, less often - lynx. For riding sleds, and sometimes during ice fishing, men wore skirts (hosk) made of seal skins over their fur coats.

The underwear was pants made of fish skin or fabric, leggings (female - made of wadded fabric, men - made of dog or seal fur) and bibs (short men's with fur; long women's made of fabric, decorated with beads and metal plaques). In summer they wore birch bark hats of a conical shape, in winter they wore fabric hats with fur with decorations (women's) and made of dog fur (men's).

Piston shoes were sewn from sea lion or seal skins and fish skin. It had at least ten different options and differed from the shoes of other peoples of Siberia in a high “head” - a piston, and the tops were cut separately. Inside they put a warming insole made of grass. Another type of footwear was boots, similar to Evenki ones, made of deer and elk skins and seal skins.

Clothes, shoes, and utensils were decorated with the finest curvilinear ornaments of the characteristic Amur style, known from archaeological finds.

Men's belt

According to the data of 1897, the average family consisted of six people, but there were also 15-16 people. In general, small families of parents with children, as well as often younger brothers and sisters of the head of the family, his older relatives, predominated. Sometimes married sons lived together with their parents.

The bride preferred to choose from the mother's family. There was a custom of cross-cousin marriage: the mother sought to marry her son to her brother's daughter. Parents agreed on marriage when their children were 3-4 years old, then the children were brought up together in the house of the future husband. When they reached the age of 15-17, marriage life began without any special rites. In those cases when the bride and groom were not relatives, the Nivkhs observed a carefully developed rite (matchmaking, an agreement on kalym, handing kalym, moving the bride, etc.). When the bride moved, the ritual of “trampling the cauldrons” was performed: the parents of the bride and groom exchanged huge cauldrons for cooking dog food, and the young had to step into them in turn at the doors of the houses of the bride and groom. From the second half of the XIX century. wealthy families began to organize crowded and multi-day wedding feasts, similar to Russian ones.

Fish beater

The Nivkhs had over 60 patrilineal clans (khal). They differed in number (consisted of 1-3 families) and settled separately. Over time, many of them decreased and merged or joined more numerous ones, forming genera with branches of various origins. Representatives of neighboring peoples - Negidals, Ulchis, Nanais, Ainu, Evenks, entering into marriages with Nivkh women, formed new clans. All births of the late XIX century. numbered no more than 8-10 generations.

Members of the clan gathered for bear holidays, funerals, sometimes for a wedding. They descended from a common ancestor, helped each other, had a “common fire” (the fire in the houses was lit from flint, which was kept by the eldest man of the family), a common barn for ritual supplies.

There were also unions of clans that united small clans to ensure the custom of levirate: if a widow could not find a new husband within his clan, then the community selected a husband for her from someone else's clan. Both mating clans constituted an exogamous union. Sometimes a third clan also adjoined the union, often a different one in origin (Ulch, Nanai, etc.).

At the end of the XIX - beginning of the XX century. the village was a territorial-neighboring community in which families (especially on the Amur) belonged, as a rule, to different clans. At the same time, marriages that took place within the boundaries of the village between families belonging to different clans strengthened the community. Conflicts in the community were sorted out by a meeting of the oldest members, the decision of which was binding on violators of the order. Serious cases concerning murders and property disputes were dealt with by an inter-clan court, headed by a recognized expert in customs, who was not personally interested in the dispute. He listened to everyone who wanted to speak on the case and then made a decision. The hearing could go on for several days. The tradition of paying for the murder of a person was preserved; and the payment was made by the whole clan. There are also known cases of blood feud (the custom of revenge for the murder of a relative).

Since the 1850s property stratification of the Nivkhs began. Merchants appeared, intermediaries in trade with Russian industrialists. From the end of the 19th century the Russian administration appointed elders from local residents who regularly convened meetings and guarded traditional salmon fishing grounds from visiting merchants.

Attribute of the shamanic ritual

Religious beliefs were based on animism and a fishing cult, belief in spirits that lived everywhere - in the sky ("heavenly people"), on earth, in water, taiga, every tree. They prayed to the host spirits, asking for a successful hunt, they made bloodless sacrifices. Members of the clan, who lived in the same village, in winter, with the formation of ice, arranged prayers for the spirits of water, throwing a sacrifice into the hole - food in ritual dishes. In the spring, when the rivers broke up, food from decorated boats was lowered into the water in wooden troughs depicting fish, ducks, etc. Once or twice a year in the houses they prayed to the spirit - the master of heaven. In the taiga, at the sacred tree, they turned to the spirit - the owner of the earth: they asked him for health, good luck in fishing and in future affairs. Spirits - guardians of the house in the form of wooden idols were placed on special plank beds. They also made sacrifices.

The main hosts are the “mountain man”, the owner of the taiga Palyz in the form of a huge bear, and the owner of the sea Tol yz, or Tayraadz, the killer whale. Each bear was considered the son of the owner of the taiga, so hunting for him was accompanied by the rites of a hunting cult. There were rituals characteristic of a bear holiday: a bear cub caught in the taiga or bought from the Nanais was raised by the Negidals for 3-4 years in a special log house, after which they held a holiday in honor of deceased relatives. It was an honorable thing for a person to feed the beast and arrange a holiday; neighbors and relatives helped him in this. During the entire time of keeping the animal, many rules and prohibitions were observed. For example, women were forbidden to approach him.

The bear festival, for which all relatives gathered, was held in winter. It lasted up to two weeks, myths and legends sounded in the performance of storytellers, they certainly arranged dog races. Smart women on the street played on the "musical log", danced. The bear was taken home, treated from special carved wooden utensils stored in the family ritual barn, the daredevils played with it. Then the beast was killed with a bow on a special platform. The arrow, as a rule, was appointed by the owner of the bear from among his relatives. Food was placed near the head of the dead bear, "treating" it. Then it was skinned, observing many rules, the skull was covered with soot over a fire and stored in the family barn.

A trough with an oar is a sacrifice to the spirit of the sea

Unlike other peoples of the Amur, the Nivkhs cremated the dead, only some groups adopted burial in the ground from their neighbors. The rite of burning had differences, but the general content prevailed in its content. The corpse and inventory of the deceased were burned on a huge fire in the taiga under ritual lamentations. The ashes were raked to the center of the fire and fenced with a log house. A bone from the skull of the deceased was attached to a wooden doll, dressed and shod, and placed in a small, about a meter high, house (raf), decorated with carved ornaments. Later, memorial rites were performed at this place, throwing food intended for the deceased into the fire, especially often in the first month after the funeral, then during the year - about once a month, later - every year. For a person whose body was not found (he drowned, disappeared while hunting, etc.), the Nivkhs had a special rite. Instead of a body, they buried a large, human-sized doll made of branches and grass. She was dressed in the clothes of the deceased and buried or burned, observing all the prescribed rites.

The folklore of the Nivkhs includes totemic mythological stories, works of realistic content (about the rules of behavior in everyday life and in the trade, about educating the qualities necessary for a person in a tribal society, about punishing people who violated taboos), fairy tales, heroic poems, and riddles.

Folk music - in line with the musical traditions of the neighboring Tungus-Manchurian peoples (Orochs, Ulchs, Oroks, etc.). On Sakhalin, quatrains are known that were performed at the bear festival, lamentation songs (chyryud) at funeral pyres, non-ritual songs - lyrical, lullabies, which each mother composed.

Shaman chant was performed during the ritual of healing, at shaman sessions and when visiting houses with the expression of good wishes to all the inhabitants of the village. When treating, the shaman called the helper spirits, who took away the soul of the patient stolen by evil spirits and saved him from death. Singing was necessarily combined with playing the tambourine and metal rattles.

The day cradle is hollowed out of a tree trunk. The child's legs remain outside

In instrumental music, the central place is occupied by tunes on the "musical log" that accompany the bear festival, running and sacrificing dogs, women's ritual dances and mythologized recitatives. Playing music on a single-string bowed tubular lute is peculiar.

The process of ousting the Nivkhs from their places of traditional residence continues.

In the Technological Lyceum of Poronaysk and other cities of the Khabarovsk Territory, Aboriginal children are taught their native language, they are taught traditional crafts. A textbook of the Nivkh language has been published for schoolchildren, and a new Nivkh-Russian dictionary and primer are being developed.

National ensembles "Mengume-Ilga" ("Silver Patterns"), "Pelaken" ("Big Sun"), "Arila Myth" ("Fresh Wind") and others have been created in the Sakhalin Region. National Museum.

Since 1996, the Nivkh Dif newspaper has been published. Of the national cultural figures, the writers V. Sangi, G. Otaina, the artist F. Mygun and others are known.

The Association of Indigenous Peoples of Sakhalin and the public movement "Union of Nivkhs of Sakhalin" were created.

article from the encyclopedia "The Arctic is my home"

   BOOKS ABOUT NIVKhVAH
Kreinovich E.A. Bear holiday at the Nivkhs. Bronze and Iron Age of Siberia. Novosibirsk, 1974.
Kreinovich E.A. Nivhgu. L., 1973.
Propp V.Ya. Chukchi Myth and Gilyak Epos: Folklore and Reality. M., 1976.
Sangi V.M. Song about the Nivkhs. M., 1989.
Taksami Ch.M. Nivkhs: Modern economy, culture and life. L., 1967.
Taksami Ch.M. The main problems of the ethnography of the Nivkhs. L., 1973.
Sternberg L.Ya. Gilyaks, Golds, Orochs, Negidals, Ainu. Khabarovsk, 1933.

Nivkh clothing. Earrings made of silver or copper wire were a common adornment for Nivkh women. From above they had the form of a ring, and from below - a curled spiral. Sometimes the earring was a large ring of silver wire studded with colored glass beads or flat circles of stone. Women sometimes wore several earrings. Today, women's clothing includes dressing gowns, armlets, greaves and shoes. The cloth robe has a kimono cut. The robe is bordered around the collar, along the left field and along the hem with a wide strip of matter of a different color, mostly darker than the robe. On the hem along the border, one row of copper plates is sewn as decorations. The long dressing gown wraps on the right side and fastens on the side with 3 small ball-shaped buttons. For winter time, the dressing gown is sewn insulated, a thin layer of cotton wool is laid between 2 layers of material. In winter, women most often wear 2 more insulated ones over a thin dressing gown. An elegant dressing gown is sewn from bright expensive fabric (velvet, plush, plush, etc.) of blue, green, red, brown and other colors. In addition, festive robes are richly decorated with stripes of bright fabrics and various ornaments. The stripes are located around the collar, along the edge of the left floor, on the sleeves and along the hem. The back of the robe is especially richly decorated: an ornament is embroidered on it with multi-colored threads, and metal openwork decorations are sewn along the hem. These decorations are a rarity, they are usually changed from old robes to new ones, inherited from mother to daughter and kept by women as a great value. Many women wear cloth greaves in winter and summer. In addition to the greaves, the women retained armlets.

Dimensions: 519 x 1080 pixels, format: jpg. To download a picture for the lesson of the world around us for free, right-click on the image and click "Save Image As ...". To show pictures in the lesson, you can also download the presentation "Small peoples of the Sakhalin region.pptx" for free with all the pictures in a zip archive. Archive size - 1972 KB.

"Clothes of the 19th century" - Summer and ceremonial clothing. The usual idea of ​​a Russian women's costume is usually associated with a sundress and a kokoshnik. Costume of the Novgorod region of the 19th century. A complex of clothes with a sundress spread in Russia at the turn of the seventeenth - eighteenth centuries. In the middle of the nineteenth century, shugai began to go out of fashion and gradually turned into wedding clothes.

"Clothes in English" - Shirt. Formulation of the problem. Purpose of work: Jacket is a short light coat - a hyponym. Smoke (1938) - loose garment worn by artists. Motivational signs of the meaning of the word, hyponyms and hypernyms are determined. The etymology of the word influenced the changes in the process of motivation of the name. Similarities and differences in structural and semantic features are revealed.

"Style and silhouette in clothes" - 6. Conclusions. A dress is a type of women's clothing. 4. Clothing styles. Clothing styles. Dress - all clothing except shoes and underwear. Fashion is a temporary predominance of any tastes in clothes. The content of the presentation. 1. Repetition of previously studied material. Straight (the width of the product is the same along the lines of the chest, waist, hips).

"Educational and methodical project" - Annotation. Materials of educational-methodical package. Moscow City Pedagogical University Faculty of primary classes. Contact Information. Questions. Educational-methodical package "Clothes: yesterday, today, tomorrow.". Methodical tasks:

"Clothes of the Finns" - At the turn of the 19th - 20th centuries, Finnish folk clothes fell into disuse almost everywhere. Folk clothes of the Finns of the Vyborg province. Local features existed in each county, and conceived in a separate church parish (kirchspiel). Folk clothes - the result of the creativity of many generations - are an integral part of the cultural heritage of the Finns.

In studying the history of the culture of the past of their country, people, first of all, learn to understand and respect each other. The peoples of Sakhalin are especially interesting in this regard. Understanding a different mentality unites peoples and nations. And this is not surprising, because a nation without a cultural heritage is like an orphan without a family and a tribe that has nothing to rely on.

general information

Before the period when researchers and travelers from Europe appeared on Sakhalin, the indigenous population consisted of four tribes: Ainu (in the south of the island), Nivkhs (dwelled mainly in the northern part), Oroks (Uilts) and Evenks (nomads with deer herds).

A deep study of the features of life and life of the peoples of Sakhalin was carried out on the exhibits of the local museum of local lore. Here is a whole collection of ethnographic exhibits, which are the pride of the museum collection. There are authentic objects dating back to the 18th-20th centuries, which indicates the existence of original cultural traditions among the natives of the Kuril Islands and Sakhalin.

Ainu people

Representatives of this nation are among the oldest descendants of the population of the Japanese, Kuril Islands and South Sakhalin. Historically, the lands of this tribe were divided into the possessions of Japan and the possessions of Russia in the Far East. This is due to the fact that Russian researchers studied and developed the Kuriles and Sakhalin at the same time as Japanese explorers who carried out similar work on the Pacific coast (Hokkaido Island). Closer to the middle of the 19th century, the Ainu people from the Kuril Islands and Sakhalin fell under the jurisdiction of Russia, and their fellow tribesmen became subjects of the Land of the Rising Sun.

Culture features

The Ainu are the people of Sakhalin, one of the most mysterious and ancient nations on the planet. Representatives of the nationality radically differed from their Mongoloid neighbors in their physical appearance, unique spoken language, and many areas of spiritual and material culture. Fair-skinned men wore beards, while women had tattoos around their mouths and on their arms. Drawing the drawing was very painful and unpleasant. First, an incision was made above the lip with a special knife, then the wound was treated with a decoction of wormwood. After that, soot was rubbed, and the procedure could last more than one day. The result was something like a male mustache.

In translation, ain is a “noble person” belonging to the people. The Chinese called representatives of this nationality mozhen (hairy people). This is due to the dense vegetation on the body of the natives.

The warlike tribe used swords with plant belts, weighted war clubs with sharp spikes, as well as bows and arrows as the main weapons. The Sakhalin Museum has a unique exhibit - military armor, which is made by weaving from strips of bearded seal skin. This rarity reliably protected the body of a warrior. The surviving armor was found in the family of the headman on Lake Nevsky (Taraika) in the thirties of the last century. Additionally, the adaptation of the islanders to living conditions is evidenced by a variety of fishing tackle and tools for sea and land fishing.

Life of the Ainu

Representatives of this people of Sakhalin in hunting animals used arrowheads smeared with aconite poison. The utensils were mostly made of wood. In everyday life, men used the original item ikunis. He served to raise his mustache while drinking alcoholic beverages. This device belongs to the ritual artifacts. The Ainu believed that Ikunis is an intermediary between spirits and people. The sticks were decorated with all kinds of patterns and ornaments, symbolizing the daily life of the tribe, including hunting or holidays.

Shoes and clothes were sewn by women from the skins of land and sea animals. Capes made of fish skin were decorated with colored fabric appliqués at the collar and cuffs of the sleeves. This was done not only for beauty, but also for protection from evil spirits. Women's winter clothing was a dressing gown made of seal fur, decorated with mosaics and fabric patterns. Men wore robes of elm bast as everyday wear, and woven nettle suits for holidays.

Migration

About the small people - the Ainu - now only museum exhibits remind. Here visitors can see a unique loom, clothes sewn by representatives of the nation many decades ago, and other cultural and everyday items of this tribe. Historically, after 1945, a group of 1,200 Ainu moved to Hokkaido as Japanese citizens.

Nivkhs: people of Sakhalin

The culture of this tribe is focused on the extraction of fish of the salmon family, marine mammals, as well as the gathering of plants and roots growing in the taiga. In everyday life, fishing tools were used (needles for weaving nets, sinkers, special hooks for hunting. The beast was hunted with wooden mallets and spears.

Representatives of the nationality moved on the water in boats of various modifications. The most popular model was dugout. To prepare a ritual dish called mos, scoops, troughs and spoons made of wood, decorated with figured carvings, were used. The basis of the dish included which was stored in the dried stomachs of sea lions.

Nivkhs are the indigenous peoples of Sakhalin, who made beautiful and unique things from birch bark. This material was used for the production of buckets, boxes, baskets. Products were decorated with a unique embossed spiral ornament.

Clothing and footwear

The wardrobe of the Nivkhs was different from the clothes of the Ainu. Bathrobes, as a rule, had a half-length (usually on the left). In the exposition of the museum on Sakhalin, you can see original capes made of fabric at the beginning of the 20th century. A skirt made of seal fur was considered the standard hunting clothing for men. Women's dressing gowns were decorated with patterned embroidery in the Amur style. Metal ornaments were sewn along the lower hem.

A winter headdress made of lynx fur was trimmed with Manchurian silk, which testified to the solvency and wealth of the owner of the hat. Shoes were sewn from the skins of sea lions and seals. It was distinguished by a high rate of strength and did not get wet. In addition, women skillfully processed fish skin, after which they made various items of clothing and accessories from it.

Many items characteristic of the indigenous peoples of Sakhalin, which are in the local museum, were collected by B. O. Pilsudsky (an ethnographer from Poland). For his political views, he was exiled to Sakhalin penal servitude in 1887. The collection contains models of traditional Nivkh dwellings. It should be noted that ground winter dwellings were erected in the taiga, and summer houses were built on piles at the mouths of spawning rivers.

At least ten dogs were kept in each Nivkh family. They served as a means of transportation, and were also used to exchange and pay a fine for breaking the religious order. One of the measures of the wealth of the owner was precisely the sled dogs.

The main spirits of the tribes of Sakhalin: Master of the mountains, Lord of the sea, Lord of fire.

Oroks

The Uilta people (Oroks) represent the Tungus-Manchurian linguistic group. The main economic direction of the tribe is reindeer breeding. were the main vehicle used for pack, saddle and sledges. In winter, nomadic routes ran through the taiga of the northern part of Sakhalin, and in summer - along the coast of the Sea of ​​\u200b\u200bOkhotsk and in the lowlands of the Gulf of Patience.

Most of the time the deer spent on free grazing. This did not require special fodder preparation, the place of settlement simply changed as pasture plants and crops were eaten. From one female deer, up to 0.5 liters of milk was obtained, which they drank in its pure form or made butter and sour cream.

The pack deer was additionally equipped with various bags, a saddle, boxes and other elements. All of them were decorated with colored patterns and embroidery. In the Sakhalin Museum, you can see a real sled used to transport goods during nomadism. In addition, the collection contains hunting attributes (spearheads, crossbows, butchering knives, homemade skis). For the Uilts, winter hunting was one of the main sources of income.

economic part

Orok women skillfully dressed deer skin, getting blanks for future clothes. The pattern was carried out using special knives on the boards. Things were decorated with ornamental embroidery in the Amur and floral style. A characteristic feature for patterns is a chain stitch. Winter wardrobe items were made from deer fur. Fur coats, mittens, hats were decorated with mosaics and fur ornaments.

In the summer, the Uilts, like other small peoples of Sakhalin, were engaged in fishing, harvesting fish from the salmon family as a reserve. Representatives of the tribe lived in portable dwellings (chums), which were covered with deer skins. In summer, frame buildings covered with larch bark acted as houses.

Evenks and Nanais

Evenki (Tungus) belong to the Siberian small peoples. They are the closest relatives of the Manchus, they call themselves "Evenkil". This tribe, closely related to the Uilts, was actively engaged in reindeer herding. At present, the people live mainly in Aleksandrovsk and the Okinsky district of Sakhalin.

Nanais (from the word "nanai" - "local person") are a small group that speak their own language. The tribe, like the Evenks, belongs to an offshoot of mainland relatives. They are also engaged in fishing and deer breeding. After the Second World War, the resettlement of the Nanai people on Sakhalin from the mainland to the island was massive. Now most of the representatives of this nationality live in the Poronai urban district.

Religion

The culture of the peoples of Sakhalin is closely connected with various religious rites. The ideas of higher powers among the peoples of Sakhalin Island were based on magical, totemic and animistic views of the world around them, including animals and plants. For most of the peoples of Sakhalin, the cult of the bear was at the highest esteem. In honor of this beast, they even arranged a special holiday.

The cub was raised in a special cage for up to three years, fed only with the help of special ritual ladles. Products were decorated with carvings with elements of pictographic signs. The bear was killed on a special sacred site.

In the representations of the peoples of Sakhalin Island, the beast symbolized the mountain spirit, so most of the amulets contained the image of this particular animal. Amulets possessed great magical power, were kept for centuries in families, passed down from one generation to another. Amulets were divided into therapeutic and commercial options. They were made by shamans or people suffering from serious illnesses.

The attributes of the sorcerer included a tambourine, a belt with massive metal pendants, a special headdress, a sacred wand and a mask made of bear skin. According to legend, these items allowed the shaman to communicate with spirits, heal people and help fellow tribesmen overcome life's difficulties. The objects and remains of settlements found by the researchers indicate that the peoples of the Sakhalin coast buried the dead in different ways. For example, the Ainu buried the dead in the ground. The Nivkhs practiced the burning of corpses, setting up a commemorative wooden building at the cremation site. A figurine was placed in it, identifying the soul of a deceased person. At the same time, a regular ritual of feeding the idol was carried out.

Economy

For the peoples living on Sakhalin, trade between Japan and China played a huge role. The natives of Sakhalin and Amur were actively involved in it. In the seventeenth century, a trade route was formed from northern China along the Lower Amur through the territories of the Ulchi, Nanais, Nivkhs and other indigenous peoples, including the Ainu in Hokkaido. Metal products, jewelry, silks and other fabrics, as well as other items of trade became the subjects of exchange. Among the museum expositions of those times, one can notice Japanese lacquerware, silk decorations of clothes and headdresses, and many other items of this trend.

present tense

If we take into account the terminology of the United Nations, then indigenous peoples are nations living in a certain territory until the establishment of modern state boundaries there. In Russia, this issue is regulated by the federal law “On Guarantees of the Rights of Indigenous and Minorities of the Russian Federation Living in the Territory of Their Ancestors”. This takes into account the traditional way of life, types of economic and fishing activities. This category includes groups of people numbering less than 50 thousand people who are aware of themselves as an independent organized community.

The main ethnic groups of Sakhalin now include a little more than four thousand representatives of the tribes of the Nivkhs, Evenks, Uilts, Nanais. There are 56 tribal settlements and communities on the island, located in places of traditional residence, engaged in typical economic and commercial activities.

It is worth noting that there are no purebred Ainu left on the territory of Russian Sakhalin. A census conducted in 2010 showed that three people of this nationality live in the region, but they also grew up in the marriage of the Ainu with representatives of other nations.

In conclusion

Honoring one's own people is an indicator of a high level of self-consciousness and a tribute to the ancestors. Indigenous peoples have every right to do so. Among the 47 indigenous nations in Russia, representatives of Sakhalin stand out prominently. They have similar traditions, conduct parallel economic activities, worship the same spirits and higher powers. However, there are certain differences among the Nanais, Ainu, Uilts and Nivkhs. Thanks to the support of small nationalities at the legislative level, they did not go into oblivion, but continue to develop the traditions of their ancestors, instilling values ​​and customs in the younger generations.

Nivkhs (nivkh. nivakh, nivukh, nivkhgu, nygvngun; obsolete - gilyaks (paraphrase from Russian gilemi - “people on oars”, (gile - oar)) - a small nationality on the territory of the Russian Federation.

Self-names: nivkh - "man", nivkhgu - "people". They live near the mouth of the Amur River (Khabarovsk Territory) and in the northern part of Sakhalin Island.

They speak the Nivkh language, which has two dialects: Amur and East Sakhalin. Writing was created in 1932 (based on the Latin alphabet), since 1955 - on the basis of the Russian alphabet and graphics. Number - 4652 people (2010).

The number of Nivkhs in settlements in 2002:

Khabarovsk region:

• city ​​of Nikolaevsk-on-Amur 408
• Innokentievka village 130
• Takhta village 124
• city ​​of Khabarovsk 122
• town Lazarev 113

Sakhalin Region:

• Nogliki 646
• Nekrasovka village 572
• city ​​of Okha 298
• Chir-Unvd village 204
• Poronaysk city 110

The Nivkhs are direct descendants of the ancient population of Sakhalin and the Lower Amur, settled in the past much more widely than at present. There is a point of view that the ancestors of the modern Nivkhs, northeastern Paleo-Asians, Eskimos and Indians of America are links of one ethnic chain that covered the northwestern shores of the Pacific Ocean in the distant past. For a long time, the Nivkhs had close ethno-cultural contacts with the Tungus-Manchurian peoples, with the Ainu and the Japanese, and possibly with some representatives of the Turkic-Mongolian peoples.

The Nivkhs settled in Sakhalin during the late Pleistocene, when the island was connected to the Asian mainland. But with the end of the ice age, the ocean rose, and the Nivkhs were divided by the Tatar Strait into 2 groups.

It is believed that the earliest mention of the Nivkhs in history is the Chinese chronicles of the 12th century. They speak of the Gilami people who were in contact with the rulers of the Mongol Yuan Dynasty in China. Contacts between Russians and Nivkhs began in the 17th century, when Cossack explorers visited the area. The first Russian to write about the Nivkhs in 1643 was Vasily Poyarkov, who called them Gilyaks. This name stuck with the Nivkhs for a long time. In 1849-1854. the expedition of G. I. Nevelsky, who founded the city of Nikolaevsk, worked on the Lower Amur. A year later, Russian peasants began to settle here. The Russian Empire gained full control over the lands of the Nivkhs after the Aigun Treaty of 1856 and the Beijing Treaty of 1860.

Crafts and trades

The main traditional occupations of the people are fishing (chum salmon, pink salmon, etc.) and sea fishing (seal, white whale, etc.). They fished with seines, nets, hooks, and set rides. They beat the sea animal with spears and clubs. Yukola was made from fish, fat was rendered from the insides, shoes and clothes were sewn from leather. Of lesser importance was the hunt for bear, deer, fur-bearing animal. The beast was mined with the help of loops, crossbows, spears, and from the end of the 19th century. - guns. Ancillary occupation - gathering (berries, sarana roots, wild garlic, nettles, mollusks, seaweed, shells).

The main means of transportation were draft dogs and skis, on the water - different types of boats: a plank boat "mu", a dugout boat - "mla-mu" with extensive use of rowing oars and a quadrangular sail made of fish skin.

traditional dwelling

The traditional dwelling of the Nivkhs was divided into summer (hut in the form of a dissected cylinder; gable hut covered with grass; rectangular hut with a gable roof covered with bark; summer dwelling on stilts (and winter); Amur winter road with a gable roof; winter underground dwelling).

traditional clothing

The winter outerwear for men and women of the Nivkhs was the “okkh” fur coat made of dog fur, double, wide, knee-length. The left half was wrapped over the right and fastened on the side with the help of three small metal spherical buttons. For the top of the fur coat, black or dark brown fur was preferred; for the lining, thinner and softer fur of young dogs or puppies was used. Everyone wore fur coats made of dog skins, only women, in addition to these coats, could sometimes find fur coats made of fox fur. The skins of fur-bearing animals - foxes, river otters, sables, squirrels - were used only as an edge on clothes. The summer outerwear for men was the “larkh” robe, sewn from cloth and from fabrics of white, blue and gray colors. The robes were sewn to knee length. The gate was made round. The left floor at the top had a semicircular neckline and fastened at the neck, at the right shoulder and on the right side with three buttons. Summer women's clothing was dressing gowns made of fish skins or fabrics of the same cut as men's kimonos. On the hem, along the border, one or two rows of copper plates or Chinese copper coins with a hole in the center were usually sewn on straps.

For men's winter clothing, the Nivkhs were also characterized by an apron skirt "koske", holding the fur coat floors. They sewed it from seal skins, tied it at the waist. When riding dogs, when one had to sit astride a low sled, such a skirt perfectly protected from rain, snow, and wind.

To protect against rain and sun, conical birch bark hats were used. They were decorated with an appliqué from an openwork ornament carved from painted birch bark. The hat was held on the head with the help of strings and a rim made of lubok sewn inside the hat. Winter headdress - double bonnet. The top was made of sealskin, sometimes combined with cloth or other skins. The lining was always made of fox fur, in front it acted as an edge, framing the face. In summer, women did not wear a headdress. Women's winter headdress is a deep helmet-shaped hat, on the top of which a knob is sewn from a twisted red lace. Such a hat was sewn from black or blue fabric, lined with fox fur, with an edge of river otter fur along the edges of the hat. Such a hat was surprisingly similar to the Mongolian ones, which also had a red bump on the crown. Probably, it was brought to the Amur by tribes of Mongolian origin.

Shoes were sewn from seal and fish skin, as well as from deer and elk skins.

Folklore

In the folklore of the Nivkhs, 12 independent genres are distinguished: fairy tales, legends, lyrical songs, ritual songs, lamentation songs, shamanic songs. A special place is occupied by fairy tales about animals: in them, the Nivkhs reflected their observations of animals in their artistic images, considering them as a society of people with all their vices.

Folk decorative art is represented by women's art (art items made of leather, fur, cloth, fabrics and birch bark), in men's art sculptural images, carved objects (ladles for the "bear holiday", spoons, scabbards, knife handles, objects from ornamented bones).

The Nivkhs were animists - in every object they saw a living principle, human features. According to traditional ideas, the surrounding nature was full of intelligent inhabitants, and therefore sacrifices were arranged for them. Some elderly Nivkhs remember places of worship well and continue to observe this ritual. Currently, only a few Nivkhs are engaged in shamanism for themselves and their families; they also preserve folk recipes for medicinal herbs and plants.

During the Soviet period, the life of the Nivkhs changed radically: they began to work on fishing collective farms, at industrial enterprises, and in the service sector. About 50% of all Nivkhs became city dwellers. The Nivkhs have their own written language in two dialects. But many negative phenomena and processes affected the health and well-being of this nation. The departure from traditional methods of fishing and hunting, a sharp change in the diet, the separation of children in boarding schools from their families, the deteriorating environmental situation in the places of residence of the Nivkhs often lead to disappointment in life, to drunkenness, to mass diseases of the younger generation. Nevertheless, beneficial processes are gaining momentum: the period of the return of the Nivkhs to their former places of settlement and the revival of old abandoned villages, the increase in national self-consciousness, has begun.

population

In 1989, there were 4631 Nivkhs in Russia, including 2386 in the Khabarovsk Territory, 2008 in the Sakhalin Region. According to the 2002 census, there were 5287 people.

Language

Nivkhs constitute a special Amur-Sakhalin anthropological type of the North Asian race. The language is isolated, has Amur, North Sakhalin and East Sakhalin dialects. Writing since 1932 based on Latin, since 1953 - Russian graphics. According to modern data, the Nivkh language contains elements that connect it with the South Asian, Altaic, Manchu and Tungus languages. Archaeological studies have established multiple migrations of the Nivkhs, starting from the Neolithic, to the Lower Amur from the southeast and west. Thus, the formation of the Nivkh culture took place in conditions far from the strict isolation that researchers initially attributed to them.

NIVKh LANGUAGE (an old expression is Gilyak), the language of the Nivkhs. Genetically isolated, usually referred to as the so-called Paleoasian languages. Writing based on the Russian alphabet.

resettlement

They live on the Lower Amur (Ulchsky and Nikolaevsky regions of the Khabarovsk Territory), as well as on Sakhalin Island (Rybnovsky and Aleksandrovsky regions on the western coast and the Tymovsky region).

Traditional activities

The main traditional occupation of the Nivkhs is fishing, which provided food for people and dogs, material for making clothes, shoes, sails for boats, etc. They were engaged in it all year round.

The main fishery is migratory salmon (pink salmon in June, chum salmon in July and September). At this time, stocks of yukola, dried fish, were made. Dried fish bones were prepared for food for sled dogs. Fishing tools were spears (chak), hooks of various sizes and shapes on leashes and sticks (kele-kite, chosp, matl, chavl, etc.), various fishing rods, nets, rectangular, bag-shaped, set (including under ice) and smooth (chaar ke, khurki ke, nokke, lyrku ke, anz ke, etc.), seine (kyr ke), nets, summer and winter constipation (fences in rivers with a net trap).

Played an important role in the economy of Sakhalin and the Amur estuary. marine hunting. In spring and summer, animals (seals, bearded seals, sea lions) were caught with nets, seines, hooks, traps (wheatgrass, rsheyvych, honk, etc.), harpoons (osmur, ozmar), spear with a floating shaft (tla) and a kind of steering wheel (lahu) . In winter, with the help of dogs, they searched for vents in the ice and set hook traps (kityn, ngyrni, etc.) in them. In the lower reaches of the Amur, seals and dolphins hunted in the spring. The sea animal provided meat and fat; clothing, footwear, ski gluing, dressing of various household items.

Taiga hunting was most developed on the Amur. Many Nivkhs hunted near their homes, always returning home in the evening. On Sakhalin, hunters went into the taiga for a maximum of a week. Small animals were caught with various pressure traps, nooses, crossbows (yuru, ngarhod, etc.), bears, elks - with the help of a spear (kah), bow (punch). From the 2nd floor. 19th century firearms were widely used. The furs of the Nivkhs were exchanged for fabrics, flour, etc.

Women collected and prepared for the future medicinal and edible plants, roots, herbs, berries. Various roots, birch bark, twigs, etc. were used to make household utensils, nettle fiber was made from nettles for weaving nets, etc. The men stockpiled building materials.

They fished and caught sea animals from boats - plank punts (mu) with a sharp nose and 2-4 pairs of oars. All R. 19th century such boats made of cedar were often obtained from the Nanais. On Sakhalin, dugouts made of poplar with a kind of visor on the nose were also used.

In winter, they moved on sleds, harnessed to 10-12 dogs in pairs or in a herringbone pattern. The sled (tu) of the Amur type is straight-legged, high and narrow, with double-curved skids. They sat on top of it, putting their feet on the skis. In con. XIX - early. 20th century Nivkhs began to use wide and low sleds of the East Siberian type.

The Nivkhs, like other peoples of the Amur, had 2 types of skis - long bare for spring hunting and glued with seal fur or elk skins - for winter.

traditional beliefs

The religious ideas of the Nivkhs are based on the belief in spirits that lived everywhere - in the sky ("heavenly people"), on earth, in water, taiga, every tree, etc. They prayed to the host spirits, asking for a successful hunt, they made bloodless sacrifices. “Mountain man”, the owner of the taiga Pal Yz, who presented himself in the form of a huge bear, and the owner of the sea Tol Yz, or Tayraadz, is a killer whale. Every bear was considered the son of the owner of the taiga. The hunt for him was accompanied by the rites of a fishing cult, there were rituals characteristic of the bear festival; a bear cub caught in the taiga or bought from the Negidals or Nanais was raised for 3-4 years in a special log house, after which a holiday was held in honor of the deceased relatives. It was an honorable thing to feed the beast and arrange a holiday, neighbors and relatives helped the owner in this. During the entire time of keeping the animal, many rules and prohibitions were observed. For example, women were forbidden to approach him.

The bear festival, which sometimes lasted 2 weeks, was held in winter, in their free time from fishing. All relatives (even those living far away) usually gathered for it. The details of the bear festival among the Nivkhs had local differences. The peculiarities of the rite also depended on whether the owner arranged a holiday after the death of a relative or simply on the occasion of the capture of a bear cub.

The Nivkhs, unlike other peoples of the Amur, cremated burial in the ground. The rite of burning differed among different groups of Nivkhs, but the general content prevailed in its content. The corpse and inventory were burned on a huge bonfire in the taiga (at the same time, bonfires were made and fenced with a log house. A wooden doll was made (a bone from the skull of the deceased was attached to it), dressed, put on shoes and placed in a special house - raf, about 1 m high, decorated with carved ornaments. Near it, regular funeral rites were performed (especially often once a month for a year, after that - every year), they treated themselves, they threw food into the fire - for the deceased. A typical rite is the symbolic burial of a person whose body was not found (he drowned, disappeared, died at the front, etc.): instead of the body, they buried a large, human-sized doll made of branches, grass, dressed in the clothes of the deceased and buried in the ground or burned, observing all the prescribed rites.

Members of the same clan, who lived in a common village, arranged prayers for the spirits of water in winter, lowering sacrifices (food on ritual utensils) into the hole; in the spring, after the opening of the river, the victims were thrown into the water from decorated boats made of special wooden troughs in the form of fish, ducks, etc. 1-2 times a year they prayed in the houses to the master spirit of the sky. In the taiga, near the sacred tree, they called on the master spirit of the earth, turned to him with requests for health, good luck in crafts, and in upcoming affairs. The guardian spirits of the house in the form of wooden pupae were placed on special bunks, they were also sacrificed, "fed" them.

self-name

NIVHI (self-name - nivkh- Human). In past Nivkhs, Ulchi, Negidals were called Gilyaks. The name was extended by Russian settlers to other Lower Amur peoples - the Negidals, the Ulchi, and others. The ethnonym "NIVKHI" was officially approved in the 1930s.

Story

crafts

Traditional settlements

The Nivkhs are originally settled, many of their villages on the mainland (Kol, Takhta, etc.) are hundreds of years old. Winter dwelling - tyf, dyf, taf - a large log house, which had a pillar frame and walls made of horizontal logs inserted with pointed ends into the grooves of vertical pillars. The gable roof was covered with grass. The houses are single-chamber, without ceilings, with earthen floors. Chimneys from 2 hearths heated wide bunks along the walls. In the center of the house, a high flooring was erected on poles; in severe frosts, sled dogs were kept and fed on it. 2-3 families usually lived in the house, on their own plot bunk.

With the onset of heat, each family moved from a winter dwelling to a summer settlement near a lake or stream, near a fishery. Framed bark flyers were most often placed on piles, they had a different shape: 2-pitched, conical, 4-coal. Of the 2 rooms, one served as a barn, the other as a dwelling with an open hearth. For household needs, log barns were built on high poles, hangers were placed for drying nets, nets and yukola. On Sakhalin, until the beginning of the 20th century, ancient dugouts with open hearths and a smoke hole were preserved; in the 20th century, log houses of the Russian hut type spread.

traditional costume

Clothes were sewn from fish skin, dog fur, skin and fur of taiga and marine animals. From time immemorial, they also used purchased fabrics, which they received for furs from Manchurian, and then from Russian merchants. Men's and women's bathrobes larshk- cut kimono, left-handed (the left half is twice as wide as the right and closes it). Women's robes are longer than men's, they were decorated with applique or embroidery, and along the hem - with metal plaques sewn in one row. Winter fabric robes were sewn on wadding.

Festive ones made of fish skin were decorated with ornaments applied with paints. Winter clothes - fur coats ok from dog skins, men's jackets pshah from seal skins, the more affluent have women's fur coats made from fox fur, less often from lynx fur. Men on the road to ride sleds (sometimes during ice fishing) wore skirts over their fur coats hosk from seal skins.

Lower clothing - trousers made of fish skin or fabric, leggings, women's - from fabric on wadding, men's - from dog or seal fur, short men's bibs with fur, women's - long, fabric, decorated with beads and metal plaques. Summer hats - birch bark, conical shape; winter - women's fabric on fur with decorations, men's - from dog fur.

Piston shoes were made from sea lion or seal skins, fish skin and other materials, had at least 10 different options. It differed from the shoes of other peoples of Siberia with a high “head” - a piston, the tops were cut separately. A warming insole made from a special local grass was put inside. Another type of footwear is boots (similar to Evenk ones) made of reindeer and elk skins and seal skins.

The Nivkhs decorated their clothes, shoes, and utensils with the finest curvilinear ornament of the characteristic Amur style, the foundations of which are known from archaeological finds.

Food

The diet of the Nivkhs was dominated by fish and meat food. They preferred fresh fish - they ate it raw, boiled or fried. Yukola, with an abundant catch, was made from any fish. Fat was boiled out of the heads and intestines: they languished for several hours without water on fire until a fatty mass was obtained, which could be stored indefinitely. Soups were cooked from yukola, fresh fish and meat, adding herbs and roots to them. Purchased flour and cereals were used to make cakes, cereals, which, like other dishes, were eaten with a large amount of fish or seal oil. At the end of the 19th century, in exchange for fish, they began to buy potatoes from the Russians.

Family

The average Nivkh family in 1897 consisted of 6, sometimes 15-16 people. Small families of parents with children predominated, as well as often from younger brothers and sisters of the head of the family, his older relatives, etc.

Rarely married sons lived together with their parents. The bride preferred to choose from the mother's family. There was a custom of cross-cousin marriage: the mother sought to marry her son to her brother's daughter. Parents agreed on the marriage of children at the age of 3-4 years, then they were brought up together in the house of their future husband. When they reached the age of 15-17, marriage life began without any special rites. In cases where marriages were concluded between unrelated clans, the Nivkhs followed a carefully developed ritual (matchmaking, kalym agreements, delivery of kalym, bride moving, etc.). When the bride moved, the ritual of “trampling the cauldrons” was performed: the parents of the bride and groom exchanged huge cauldrons for cooking food for the dogs, and the young had to alternately step on them at the doors of the bride’s house and the groom’s house. From the 2nd floor. 19th century with the emergence of property inequality and under the influence of Russians, weddings in wealthy families began to arrange crowded and multi-day wedding feasts.

Folklore

Nivkh folklore includes a variety of genres.

• Term t'ylgur brings together works of various themes. Among them, the central place is occupied by mythological stories. Many of them are associated with totemistic representations and a trade cult.
• The second group of t'ylgurs are works of a more realistic content. They tell about the rules of conduct in everyday life and in the trade, about the tribal society, about the punishment of people who violated the taboo.
• The third group is made up of t'ylgurs, bordering on fairy tales - fairy tales and about animals. This

tales of a rescued tiger thanking the family of its savior; about greedy brothers punished by a representative of an impoverished family; as well as on etiological topics, such as why mosquitoes or lice suck blood.

Nyzit- the genre most corresponding to the term "fairy tale". Unlike t'ylgur, whose content is believed, nyzit is purely entertaining. The main character - Umu Nivkh - Brave warrior.

Another common theme in fairy tales is evil spirits, incl. in the face of found babies. Tales about the evil woman Ralkr Umgu were popular.

In some fairy tales dialogues and monologues were sung. The listeners were supposed to support the storyteller with the exclamation “hyi”, indicating their attention (the t'ylgurs listened in silence). Figurative words, special verbal suffixes, and other means of expression are widely used in fairy tales.

Puzzles utgavrk could exist as part of prosaic genres, but more often - independently. The most common topics of riddles are body parts, material culture and natural phenomena. “What is it, what is it? Two brothers live in the same house, but they never see each other? (Eyes). Some riddles can be solved only by knowing the traditional life of the Nivkhs. For example, “What is it, what is it? The upper ones are laughing ha-ha, the lower ones are moaning oh-oh ”(Logs in the wall).

ritual songs due to their specificity, they do not currently exist. Songs are known on Sakhalin tya-dugs, previously performed at the bear festival. They were pronounced in recitative to the sounds of a musical log, contained an allegorical appeal to a bear. Most often, tyatya-dugs are quatrains, and occasionally other stanzas containing a refrain. In amateur art, tyatya-dugs acquired a new, playful meaning.

Crying songs chyryud at the funeral pyres - improvisations with an expression of grief for the deceased.