Sirenik or Sireniki Eskimos are former speakers of a very peculiar Eskimo language in Siberia, before they underwent a language shift rendering it extinct. The peculiarities of this language among Eskimo languages amount to the extent that it is proposed by some to classify it as a standalone third branch of Eskimo languages (alongside Inuit and Yupik). The total language death of this peculiar remnant means that now the cultural identity of Sireniki Eskimos is maintained through other aspects: slight dialectical difference in the adopted Siberian Yupik language;[1] sense of place,[2] including appreciation of the antiquity of their settlement Sireniki.[1]
Contents |
At the beginning of the 20th century, speakers of Sireniki Eskimo language inhabited settlements Sireniki, Imtuk, and some small villages stretching to the west from Sireniki along south-eastern coasts of Chukchi Peninsula.[1] As early as in 1895, Imtuk was already a settlement with mixed population, Sireniki Eskimos and Ungazigmit[3] (the latter belonging to Siberian Yupik).
The Eskimo population of settlement Сиреники (Sireniki), and a part of the population of the mixed villages nearby used to speak a special variant of Eskimo languages. It has several peculiarities not only among Eskimo languages, but even compared to Aleut. For example, dual number is not known in Sireniki Eskimo, while most Eskimo–Aleut languages have dual,[4] including even its neighboring Siberian Yupik relatives.[5] The peculiarities amounted to mutual unintelligibility even with its nearest language relatives.
The difference of the language (even from its neighboring Eskimo relatives) amounted to the extent that Sireniki Eskimos were forced at a time to use Chukchi language (an unrelated language) as a lingua franca when speaking with neighboring, (linguistically related) Siberian Yupik.[6] Thus, contacts between Sireniki Eskimos and Siberian Yupik meant using a different language for Sireniki Eskimos: they either resorted to use of lingua franca, or used Siberian Yupik languages (being definitely a different language for them, not just a dialect of their own language: they were mutually unintelligible).[7]
The mere classification of Sireniki Eskimo language is not settled yet:[8] Sireniki language is sometimes regarded as a third branch of Eskimo (at least, its possibility is mentioned),[8][9][10] but sometimes it is regarded rather as a group belonging to the Yupik branch.[11][12]
In January 1997 the last native speaker of the language, a woman named Vyie (Valentina Wye) (Russian: Выйе) died.[1][9][13] Thus, the language is extinct: nowadays all Sireniki Eskimos speak a Siberian Yupik language, or Russian.
Little is known about their history, besides some conjectures based on linguistical consideration. Sireniki Eskimo culture has been influenced by that of Chukchi (witnessed also by folktale motifs[14]).
Sireniki is an old settlement, it has existed at least for 2500 years. It is the only Eskimo village in Siberia that has not been relocated, not even during the assimilation policy. This fact is a part of establishing recent cultural identity of Sireniki Eskimos (while their former, rather peculiar own language cannot be any more a living factor for that).[1]
Little is known about the history of Sireniki Eskimo language. According to a supposition, the peculiarities of Sireniki Eskimo language may be the result of a supposed long isolation from other Eskimo groups,[15][16] being in contact only with speakers of unrelated languages for many centuries. Influence by Chukchi language is clear.[6]
There are evidences that this small language had at least two territorial dialects in the past, although the number of its speakers was very few even at the end of the nineteenth century.[1]
The total language death of Sireniki Eskimo language means that now the cultural identity of Sireniki Eskimos is maintained through other aspects:[1]
The cultural identity of other ethnic groups living in Sireniki settlement has been researched as well.[18]
In their folklore, we can find the motif of the benevolent spider:
Also some other animals can be presented in folklore as helpers of people: loon, fox, wolf, mouse, deer. As for malevolent powers, devils (/tunʁaki/) belong to such dangers, they can feature in the shape of human, animal or fantastic beings. As mentioned, beetle can be presented as malevolent for people.[14] Folklore can feature man fighting with a big worm.[23]
Mythology of this culture can reveal some beliefs about time and space.[24]
There is a motif in some Paleoasiatic cultures: wandering people, after a long absence, observe that they have remained young compared to their children who remained at home. Sireniki Eskimos have such a tale as well: the protagonist, returning home after a long travel, must face with the fact that his son has become an old man (while he himself remained young).[24]
More familiar examples of folklore from the world presenting such kind of temporal dilation motifs: Urashima Taro and (without remaining young) Rip Van Winkle.
Another tale presents the sky as an upper world where people can get to and return from, and experience adventures there:[25] communicate with people living there,[26] kill a big worm,[23] observe the earth from up there through a hole,[27] descend back to the earth.[28]
Several Eskimo peoples had beliefs in usage of amulets, formulae (spells, charms).[29] Furthermore, several peoples living in more or less isolated groups (including many Eskimo ones) understand natural phenomena on a personal level: there are imagined beings resembling to human but differing as well.[30] As for Sireniki Eskimos, in one of their tales, we find the motif of the effective calling of natural phenomena for help in danger: an eagle is pursuing people on the ice, and a woman begins to talk about calling wind and frost, then at once the river freezes in, and the eagle freezes onto the ice.[31]
Only their short summaries follow. Quotation marks refer not to literate citation, they just separate remarks from tale summaries.
An animal tale, taking place on a cliff near the so-called fast-ice edge,[32] narrating a conflict between a cormorant and a raven family. The raven wants to steal and eat a child of the a cormorant pair by deceit, but one of the cormorants notices the trick and turns it against the raven so that the robber eats its own child unknowing.[33]
This tale shows Chukchi people influence, moreover, it may be a direct borrowing. It is an example of the "[domesticated] reindeer" genre, presenting conflicts among different groups for seizing reindeer herds. The tale features also magical animal helpers (the wolf and the diver).[34]
| “ | A man lived together with his daughter, Yari. Yari had also a little brother. They had many reindeer, and Yari herded them. One day, strangers took all the reindeer, together with Yari. The father remained alone with the little boy, and they fell upon the parish. The boy became a hunter. One day, a wolf waited for him, the beast recommended him to find out whether they had to own ever any reindeer. the origin of their poverty from the father. The boy followed the council, but his father denied the past, claiming that they have never had any domestic animal and they have always lived from wild deer. Soon, the boy, while hunting, met a diver waiting especially for him, and the bird gave him the same council as the wolf, but the father denied the truth again. Both animals revealed the boy the truth and promised him that they help him to retrieve the reindeer herd. They had a long way. First the boy rode the running wolf, then he rode the flying diver. They found the strangers who kept their former reindeer herd, and also the sister of the boy, Yari. The diver made rain with its , and the wolf called the reindeer together, the boy managed to speak to Yari, and all they began to return home, together with the herd. The strangers noticed that by have been beaten in a battle. The boy and the girl returned home with the two helper animals and the herd. The family of the boy and that of the wolf established reciprocal intermarriage link. The father of the boy felt joy upon their return, but he died later. The wolf helped to herd the reindeer regularly, and the family helped the diver to hatch her eggs in safety.[35] | ” |
| “ | Two brothers live together. The older has a son, the younger has a daughter. The two cousins lie together in secret. The parents notice that and regard it such a shame that they lie in ambush and kill the boy. The girl preserves his skull. Later the parents notice that the girl and the skull can keep conversation. They abandon the girl by deceit and move to another place. The girl remains alone, but the skull asks her to throw him into fire in a special way. After this, the skull reincarnates into his former form. Moreover, they get a large reindeer herd in a magical way. The parents visit them, but the young refuse even to notice them, the girl refuses to forgive. The parents return to the place they have moved to, and commit suicide.[36] | ” |
A Chukchi tale contains almost the same series of motifs (except for the incest and the infanticide at the beginning). The Chukchi tale begins with the girl's finding a skull incidentally. Besides that, in the Chukchi tale, the girl, just after having been abandoned by her parents, begins to accuse the skull and push it with her feet rudely. And on the visit of her returning parents, she seemingly forgives them, but kills them by deceit.[37]
A related tale has been collected also among Ungazighmiit (belonging to Siberian Yupik). Like the Sireniki variant, also the Ungazighmii one begins with the incest of cousins and the following infanticide, but it is the father of the girl who wants to kill her own daughter, and the father of the boy persuades him to kill the boy instead. At the end of the tale, the girl shows no sign of revenge, and it is the boy who initiates something that petrifies the parents (literally).[38]
The author mentions the time dilation motif (mentioned above), present among several Paleoasian peoples.[24] The text of the tale itself does not contain a direct mentioning of time dilation caused by travel or absence: the protagonist's remaining young seems to be rather the result of a bless, spoken by the old man the protagonist has saved.[39]
| “ | A man lived with two wives. He left his home and went into the sea. He came to the land of ringed seals, he remained there for a night and slept there with two women. The other they, he left and came to the land of other marine animals, where the same story repeated. Finally, he came to a land, where he was accepted as a guest at an old man's family. The guest liberated the old man's family from their enemies. The old man spoke aloud: "From now on, the boy be young and strong and remain strong!". the man returned home finally, and indeed, he found that his own son had become an old man during his absence, moreover, the old son died at the very moment of the return of his father.[40] | ” |
The same or similar motifs can be found also among Ungazigmit, moreover, an Ungazigmi tale extends the story with the further life of the girl after having been pulled up to the sky by the benevolent spider.[41]
| “ | A father insults his daughter because she refuses to marry anybody. The affronted girl leaves him. After a hard wandering of her, two men (a brother pair) catches her and keeps her as a sister. While the men hunt, a malevolent being [the beetle, as mentioned above] deceits her and eats her brain. The brothers, returning from hunt, try to save her by implanting the brain of a domesticated deer and the brain of a wild deer in place of her robbed brain. The girl heals, but soon changes into a deer. The elder brother finds an old woman living inside a hill, and gets her help to find the deer-girl: the deer has wandered far away, and joined a herd there, far, "beyond sunrise". The man, using the advice of the old woman, finds the herd, and, by cutting up the female deer, the girl steps out of the body in her former human form. They return home. Soon, the elder brother visits the hill again to present the old woman a killed deer in gratitude, meanwhile the younger brother begins to touch and grasp the girl in the absence of the elder brother. The girl, while defending herself, kills the man. [The Siberian Yupik variants of this motif emphasize that it is an unintended accident.] Of fright, the girl hides the corp, but the elder brother discovers it incidentally and prepares a plan to kill the girl. A benevolent being [the spider, as mentioned above] reveals the plan to the girl: the man wants to call the girl to keep a ritual for the abundance of game, and during the pretended "ritual", he wants to push the girl into a pit full of carnivorous worms. Really, everything happens so, but in the critical moment, the spider saves the pushed-in girl by pulling her up with its cobweb. The older brother, having seen this revulsion, despairs and jumps into the pit himself.[42] | ” |
Like several other Eskimo groups, the inhabitants of Sireniki had beliefs prohibiting certain activities, that were thought to be disadvantageous in a magical way. Carrying an uncovered drum on the street was thought to trigger stormy weather. Bad weather was the supposed effect of burning seaweed on campfire, too. A great deal of the taboos (like several other beliefs) were thought to serve chances of survival and sustenance, securing abundance of game. Several of them restricted the exploitation of resources (game).[43]
Like Eskimo cultures themselves, examples of shamanhood among Eskimo peoples can be diverse and far from alike.
In a period, shamanism was prohibited by authorities, still, some knowledge about shamanistic practices survived.[44] The last shaman in Sireniki died a decade before 2000, since then there is no shaman in the village.[45] Earlier in the 20th century, shamanistic practices could be observed by scholars in Sireniki,[46] and also a folklore (tale) text mentions a feast that cold possibly include shamanistic features.[47]
Sireniki faces unemployment, alcoholism, poverty. Supply of the settlement has problems. There is scarcity of medications.[45]
Some traditional economic skills have been preserved to the best amount in Sireniki (compared to other Asiatic Eskimo settlements), for example the skills to manufacture the large type of skin boats,[48][49] similar to those called angyapik among Siberian Yupik, and umiak among many other Eskimo peoples.