Tracking and Unlocking the Past: Documentation of Arctic Indigenous Languages

Abstract

This chapter considers the types of materials available in libraries, archives, special collections, and shoeboxes for studying and understanding Arctic Indigenous languages. Indigenous peoples account for approximately 12.5% of the overall Arctic population and, for centuries, have been in contact with non-Indigenous peoples (e.g., explorers, colonists, traders, and other visitors). Until recently, these ‘outsiders’ were the ones who created most of the records about Arctic languages, documenting language forms and linguistic practices from their own distanced perspectives. There is no single archive or repository for Arctic Indigenous languages, nor is there a centralized catalogue which lists what resources exist and where they are located. The resources are scattered, not only across the Arctic but also many important recordings are in the archives or personal holdings of the people who made them. We map out existing records and provide information about how to work with them, and then provide a close analysis of the holdings in one archive located in Yakutsk, Russia to exemplify the possibilities of finding language materials in regular archives.

9.1 Introduction

Among the many threats facing Indigenous peoples in the Arctic, language and concurrent cultural shift is one that speaks to the heart of identity and self-worth. One response from Indigenous communities is to actively increase the vitality of their languages and instate measures to ensure long-term sustainability of those languages. For many revitalization programs, this response involves not only actively speaking and teaching the languages, but also looking to records of the past to resurrect language and culture as a way of building new Indigenous futures. These initiatives involve cultural reclamation and both a present and future assertion of self-control. Increasingly, academic scholars and Indigenous community members alike are interested in locating materials about Indigenous languages.

This chapter considers the kinds of materials available in libraries, archives, special collections, and shoeboxes for studying and understanding Arctic Indigenous languages. Indigenous peoples account for approximately 12.5% of the overall Arctic population and, for centuries, have been in contact with non-Indigenous peoples (e.g., explorers, colonists, traders, and other visitors). Until recently, these ‘outsiders’ were the ones who created most of the records about Arctic languages, documenting language forms and linguistic practices from their own distanced perspective. Alongside Indigenous languages of the Arctic are the majority languages of Arctic colonizers and national governments of which the Arctic is a part, namely Danish, English, Finnish, Norwegian, Russian, and Swedish. Other common languages are French, German, Icelandic, and Japanese. Because many outside explorers of the past collected word lists and made observations about language practices, early records are written in these majority, common, non-Indigenous languages.

There exists no single archive or repository for Arctic Indigenous languages (henceforth Arctic languages), nor is there a centralized catalogue of what resources exist and where they are located. Instead, the resources are scattered across the Arctic and non-Arctic, and many important records are held in the archives and personal collections of those who created them. Adding further complication is that, for many Arctic communities, the multiple outsiders who produced early and more recent records reside in different geographies, speak and created records in different languages, and possessed differing interest and expertise. All these factors influence the nature of the documentary records and where they are housed. Thus, finding and interpreting these records requires focused and dedicated detective work.

To illustrate these claims, this chapter maps out a general overview of the current situation regarding Arctic languages materials. The chapter then illustrates the rich existing documentation, along with the difficulties accessing it, via discussions of, first, Kalaallisut [Greenlandic] (ISO 639-3 kal), the Inuit language spoken in Greenland, and, second, the archives of the Manuscript Department of the Institute for Humanitarian Research and the Problems of Indigenous Minorities of the North, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Manuscript Division [Institut gumanitarnyx issledovanij i problem malochislennyx narodov Severa SO RAN—obosoblennoe podrazdelenie] (https://www.sbras.ru/ru/organization/2314).

9.2 Finding Language Materials

No designated, single archive exists for all Arctic languages, although there are some regional ones such as the Alaska Native Languages Archives (ANLA) (https://www.uaf.edu/anla/). Typically, Arctic language materials are consolidated with other, larger language archives; grouped in more general, non-language archives; or not archived at all. Thus, locating these materials is challenging. A first step in locating materials is to consult known language archives; identify and recruit the assistance of linguists who have worked on the language(s) of interest; and track down various related sources provided by linguists, historians, anthropologists, archivists, and others that are often housed on university campuses. Community archives may reside in some local area libraries and museums.

Second, consideration of early explorers to Arctic and Northern regions must be made as some kept records of languages they encountered while on expedition. For example, the Vega Expedition (1878–1880), named after the ship the SS Vega and under the direction of the of Swedish-Finnish explorer Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld (1832–1901), navigated through the Northeast Passage and around Eurasia. The ship was icebound not far from the Chukotka Peninsula for a long winter, from late September 1878 until August of the following year. During this time, the travellers on board frequently encountered the local Chukchi peoples. Records from this expedition provide valuable information about a simplified Chukchi variety of language that was used with outsiders (de Reuse, 1996; Nordenskiöld, 2012). Another example is the Jesup North Pacific Expedition (1897–1902) led by anthropologist Franz Boas (1858–1942). The purpose of this expedition was to study the peoples and cultures of North America’s Pacific Northwest coast and the eastern coast of Siberia, during which extensive recordings and notes were created about languages and cultural practices. While many of these materials have since been published, valuable and unpublished archives from the expedition remain. The expedition was funded by the American Museum of Natural History in New York and many papers of Waldemar Bogoras (1865–1936) and Waldemar Jochelson (1855–1937) are now located in the New York Public Library (NYPL), a great example of a core Arctic collection that is housed in an unexpected repository. Other key explorers include Knud Rasmussen (1879–1933), a Greenlandic-Danish anthropologist born in Greenland, who spent many years collecting folklore from local Inuit throughout Greenland and Canada, as well as Vilhjalmur Stefansson (1879–1962), a Canadian of Icelandic descent, who surveyed the central Arctic regions of North America with the support of the American Museum of Natural History. Although neither explorer was a linguist, both made important contributions to early documentation of Arctic languages.

Of all Arctic languages, considerably more written and oral recordings of Kalaallisut exist than any others, albeit their locations are widely dispersed. Greenland was colonized without massive settlement, and written Kalaallisut was developed in the early 1700s for local religious and administrative purposes; spoken Kalaallisut existed in Greenland much earlier. Publication of the first Inuit newspaper, Atuagagdliutit, dates to 1861 (Hoh, 2016) and the first issues from 1861 to 1864 are located at the United States Library of Congress. Bible translations into Kalaallisut are even older, as Poul Egede’s (1708–1789) Kalaallisut version of the Gospels was published in part in Copenhagen in 1744 (published fully as Egede 1766). The Oqaasileriffik [Greenland Language Secretariat] (https://oqaasileriffik.gl/) has many digital resources, including recently created materials and digital versions of earlier print materials such as the dictionaries of Kleinschmidt (1871), Rasmussen (1873), and Schultz-Lorentzen (1926, 1927).

The Nunatta Katersugaasivia Allagaateqarfialu [Greenland National Archives] (https://nka.gl/) contains a trove of both public documents and private, personal materials. Many of these materials are in Kalaallisut, although plenty are also in Danish. Few materials are available online, although various church records and the guest book from the ship Umanak from 1949–1952 are digitally available. In addition, the Kalaallit Nunaata Radio [Greenland Radio Station], or KNR, was founded in 1958 and maintains a collection of its radio broadcasts, serving as important documentation of spoken Kalaallisut, although many of the older broadcasts have not yet been digitized. Finally, Knut Bergslund’s (1914–1998) materials on Kalaallisut are in the ANLA.

In the case of Greenland, resources are abundant because the language is robustly used. The challenge, however, is accessing and understanding the resources as they are often monolingual in Kalaallisut, a language which is extraordinarily difficult to learn as an adult. In contrast, although Imperial Russian expansion had reached the far eastern Pacific coast by 1639, albeit in small numbers as explorers and trappers, there is no current evidence that they made any attempts to learn or record the languages they encountered. Rather, the earliest recordings of the languages of Siberia and the Russian Far North were made only in the late nineteenth century by explorers and political exiles.

Tracking down resources on the languages of the Russian Arctic is even more challenging as they appear in unlikely places often not readily discoverable due to insufficient cataloguing and lack of digitization. Early phonogram recordings are housed in the Pushkinski dom [Pushkin House] (http://ro.pushkinskijdom.ru/) in St. Petersburg, Russia and a large project led by Tjeerd de Graaf (2009) digitized some of these to improve accessibility. Archives from early Russian explorers are also found in the Kunstkamera (https://www.kunstkamera.ru/), as well as the NYPL and ANLA. More recent linguistic documentation is available in other recognizable language archives and websites, including the Endangered Language Archive (ELAR) (https://www.elararchive.org/) and Kulturstiftung Sibirien [Foundation for Siberian Cultures] (https://dh-north.org/). Plus, just about anything published about Evenki people can be found online at Evenkiteka (www.evenkiteka.ru), although that site is limited to published materials.

Despite the great value and utility of these mentioned resources, other challenges remain, including having working knowledge of the requisite contact language(s) because many materials contain descriptions and other essential information, and are catalogued, in at least one colonizing language that may not be English. Moreover, even though English is an Arctic nation-state language due to the United States’ state of Alaska, much scholarly research about the Arctic generally, including about Arctic languages specifically, is not published in English. In fact, sizeable and impressive Arctic collections worldwide are in Danish, Finnish, Japanese, Norwegian, Russian, and Swedish.

9.3 Archives and Repositories

The following is a non-exhaustive list of existing repositories and archives holding Arctic materials. Inclusion of this list in the present chapter is an attempt at beginning an inventory of archives that are paramount for Arctic studies generally and Arctic languages specifically. In addition to physical and digital Arctic archives, there exist many companion and supplementary websites also containing digital files of Arctic relevance. These sites are not included here, however, because they are not archives in the technical sense and can be quite short-lived; that is, there is no guarantee of their long-term viability.

9.3.1 Archives and Repositories Dedicated to Arctic Materials

9.3.1.1 Alaska Native Language Archive (ANLA) (https://www.uaf.edu/anla/)

The ANLA is part of the University of Alaska Fairbanks. The archive houses materials on over 20 Indigenous languages spoken in Alaska, including those not considered to be ‘Arctic,’ as well as materials on neighbouring languages, both Arctic and non-Arctic. Materials in the archive encompass published and unpublished materials in print, audio, and video formats; linguistic fieldnotes of Alaskan Native languages; wordlists collected by early Arctic explorers; dictionaries; pedagogical items; copies of primary materials. and grey literature of locally- and self-published materials. The Knut Bergslund Special Collection and Bergslund’s materials relating to the Kalaallisut (Greenlandic) and Unangan (Aleut) languages are notable features of the archive, as are some original manuscripts from the Russian-American period of the early 1700s to mid-1800s. Much of the ANLA’s collection is digitally available and accessible online.

9.3.1.2 Nunatta Katersugaasivia Allagaateqarfialu [Greenland National Archives] (NKA) (https://nka.gl/)

The NKA in Nuuk, Greenland contains language and other materials related to Greenland. Materials are mostly in Kalaallisut or Danish. As mentioned earlier, historical church ledgers are available online, as is the Umanak ship guest book, covering the time period from 1949 to 1958, with cargo and guestlists. The NKA also contains governmental records from colonial times and more modern records from Greenland Home Rule instituted in 1979. The holdings include records from trade managers, and private archival records. Most of the collections are accessible after 25 years, although some are held for 80 years until publicly accessible.

9.3.1.3 Kulturstiftung Sibirien [Foundation for Siberian Cultures] (https://dh-north.org/)

Kulturstiftung Sibirien operates Digital Humanities of the North, a digital repository of wide-ranging materials on Siberian languages and peoples, including Sámi in Scandinavia, with ethnographies, photographs, and videos. Kulturstiftung Sibirien has its own publishing house, and regularly publishes new material in French, German, Japanese, Russian, and English. The organization’s output features a strong focus on the languages of the Russian Far East and, as such, many materials are in Russian and target languages. Kulturstiftung Sibirien’s collections are mostly secondary materials, including research and pedagogical products.

9.3.1.4 Kunstkamera (https://www.kunstkamera.ru/)

Located in St. Petersburg, Russia, the Kunstkamera maintains a vast and varied collection of materials that primarily come from scholars, collectors, and other St. Petersburg institutions. The Kunstkamera is also known as the Muzej antropologii i etnografii imeni Petra Velikogo Rossijskoj akademii nauk [Russian Academy of Science’s Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography] and is most widely known for keeping Tsar Peter I’s (1672–1725) collection of oddities. In addition, the museum contains the archives, field notes, and other materials of various Arctic and Northern ethnographers, as well as those of scholars from the Institute of the Peoples of the North in Leningrad during 1929–1941. Most of the Kunstkamera’s collection is digitally unavailable, though there is an online catalogue of archived language-related materials (https://www.kunstkamera.ru/museums_structure/nauchnyj_arhiv_mae).

9.3.1.5 New York Public Library, Archives, and Manuscripts (http://archives.nypl.org/)

The NYPL keeps many materials of the New York Historical Society, including those of Waldemar Bogoras and Waldemar Jochelson, both mentioned earlier. In fact, part of the collection are Jochelson’s extensive notes and card files on the Itelmen language of the Kamchatka Peninsula in the Russian Far East. The collection contains five linear feet of Jochelson’s papers, including his work on Aleut (i.e., folktales, Aleut-Russian dictionary, and an Aleut grammar) and his extensive holdings of Itelmen (Kamchadal) with folktales and dictionary materials. The Bogoras archive is much smaller and focuses on the Aiwan Yupik dialects, annotated by Roman Jakobson. There are with also some folktales in Fox Island Aleut with an interlinear translation by Jay Ransom.

9.3.1.6 Rauner Special Collections (RSC), Vilhjalmur Stefansson Papers (https://archives-manuscripts.dartmouth.edu/repositories/2/resources/1204)

The Rauner Special Collections (RSC) are part of the library system of Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. Notably, the RSC contains most of the explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson’s (1879–1962) materials, including his wordlists and language notes. Stefansson’s collections of materials also include photographs, reports, and personal correspondence. Among the materials are also works by other researchers on the Arctic peoples whom Stefansson encountered in his explorations. Another part of the collection is the unpublished, 15-volume reference work, the Encylopedia Arctica (https://collections.dartmouth.edu/arctica-beta/index.html). Volume 8 is dedicated to the anthropology and archaeology of the Arctic and Volume 10 to the Soviet North. There is scattered information about languages and peoples in both volumes. A brief overview of the project is published in Stefansson (1948), providing a remarkable snapshot view of thinking about the Arctic at the time.

9.3.2 Archives and Repositories Devoted to Individual Languages or Language Families

9.3.2.1 Evenkiteka (https://www.evenkiteka.ru/)

Evenkiteka is a vast repository of digital copies of publications about Evenki people and culture. With an emphasis on the Evenki language, a Tungusic language found over a large area of Siberia, the site contains digitized materials of and on ethnography, folklore, poetry, and much more. The site opened in 2011 and now contains over 300 books and other works in Evenki and other languages (Evenkiteka, n.d.).

9.3.2.2 Sámi Archives

The Sámi people are from, and live in, northern Finland, Norway, Russia, and Sweden and Sámi archives are in various places across these countries. The national archivists of Finland, Norway, and Sweden collaborate to make Sámi archives digitally accessible to the disparate Sámi communities across the European and Russian North. Mentioned here are some of the major existing Sámi archives.

First is the Arctic Indigenous Design Archives (AIDA) (https://kansallisarkisto.fi/aida/), a tripartite enterprise between the Sámi Arkiiva [Sámi Archives] of the Kansallisarkisto [National Archives of Finland] (https://kansallisarkisto.fi/); the Ájtte, Svenskt fjäll- och samemuseum [Swedish Mountain and Sámi Museum] (https://www.ajtte.com/) in northern Sweden; and the Sámi allaskuvla [Sámi University of Applied Sciences] (https://samas.no/nb) in northern Norway. Many of the holdings contain material culture, as well as language-related materials.

Maintained by the Kansalliskirjasto [National Library of Finland] (https://www.kansalliskirjasto.fi/), Finna.fi (n.d.) (https://www.finna.fi/) provides access to an extensive network of the country’s libraries, archives, and museums, including immense records of scientific and cultural materials relevant throughout Finland. More specifically, physical archives for Sámi in Finland are found in Inari (https://arkisto.fi/samiarchives) in the far north of the country. The Arkivverket [National Archives of Norway] (https://www.arkivverket.no/) maintains the Samisk arkiv [Sámi Archives] in Norway (https://www.arkivverket.no/om-oss/samisk-arkiv) in Kautekeino. In Sweden, and in addition to the Ájtte museum mentioned previously, the Riksarkivet [National Archives of Sweden] (https://riksarkivet.se/) offers plenty of digitized Sámi content.

9.3.3 General Language Archives

9.3.3.1 Endangered Languages Archive (ELAR) (https://www.elararchive.org/)

The Endangered Languages Archive (ELAR) was created in 2002 in conjunction with the Endangered Languages Documentation Programme (ELDP) (https://www.eldp.net/) and contains content and links to an abundance of language materials (e.g., audio, video, transcriptions, translations, dictionaries, and primers). The scope of ELAR extends to languages spoken all over the world, including Arctic languages.

9.3.3.2 Documentation of Endangered Languages (DoBeS) (https://dobes.mpi.nl/)

The DoBeS Archive takes its name from the original German name of the project, Dokumentation Bedrohte Sprachen, and is funded by Volkswagung Stiftung. The archive contains materials collected by researchers, some receiving DoBeS funding, and accepts new deposits. Arctic languages covered in the DoBeS Archive include Délı̨nę in northern Canada and Kola Sámi, Enets, Forest Nenets, and Even in northern Russia.

9.3.3.3 California Language Archive (CLA) (https://cla.berkeley.edu/)

The California Language Archive (CLA) at the University of California Berkeley is both a physical and digital archive dedicated to the Indigenous languages of the Americas. The CLA (n.d.) was formally established in the early 1950s as the Survey of California Indian Languages. Regarding Arctic languages, the archive contains images and recordings pertaining to Alaska and northern Canada.

9.4 Documentation in Northeast Asia: Archives in Yakutsk, Russia

As an illustrative example and descriptive case study of Arctic records, the chapter now turns to the archives in Yakutsk in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia). During the Soviet period, this region was officially known as the Yakut Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, or Yakut ASSR, founded on 27 April 1922 until 1991 when it was transformed into the modern Republic of Sakha (Yakutia). As the name suggests, there are two ethnonyms at play for referring to the majority population and language of the region: the Sakha people and language, and the Yakut people and language. Sakha is a Turkic language (ISO 639-3 sah), named from the English version of the word saxa from the proto-Turkic word *jaka, meaning edge or collar. The alternate name, Yakut, or jakut, is a translation from Russian adjective jakutskij, or the noun jakut, which is itself derived from the Tungusic name for the people yeket (Forsyth, 1992, p. 52). For present purposes, the name as it occurs in the Sakha language is used, however, Russian-language sources instead mostly use the word Yakut to this day.

Although many resources are housed locally, documentation of the languages of the Sakha Republic are also found in international archives because much research has been conducted by foreign specialists or funded by external granting agencies. The Manuscript Department of the Institute of Humanitarian Research and the Problems of Indigenous Minorities of the North, formally known as the Manuscript Fond of the Archives of the Yakut Scientific Centre, contains valuable original sources on the languages and cultures of ethnic communities of North Asia, including the Yakuts (Sakha), Evenki (or Tungus), Even (or Lamuts), Dolgans, Yukaghirs, and the Old Believer Russian population. Because the names of these groups have varied over time, all possible names must be known to locate materials related to them. Moreover, linguistic classification has changed throughout history; for example, Dolgan historically is treated as a dialect of Sakha and the two distinct Yukaghir languages (i.e., Forest and Tundra) are considered a single language in official Russian documents and, thus, are treated collectively in the Russian archives.

At present, the archive collection of the Manuscript Department consists of about 6895 items in two fonds: (1) Fonds No. 4: Dejateli nauki, literatury i istorii [Workers of science, literature, and history], and (2) Fonds No. 5: Institut jazyka, literatury i istorii Sibirskogo otdelenija Akademii nauk SSR [Institute of Language, Literature, and History of the Siberian Branch of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR]. Fonds No. 4 contains materials from 1730 to 2006 and includes a large corpus of the written heritage of the first Sakha writers Alexei Eliseevich Kulakovsky (1877–1926), Anempodist Ivanovich Sofronov (1886–1935), Nikolai Denisovich Neustroev (1895–1929), as well as materials of the first scientists to study North-East Asia: Semen Andreyevich Novgorodov (1892–1924), Petr Vonifatʼevich Sleptsov (1880–1932), and Gavril Vasilyevich Ksenofontov (1889–1938). In addition, Fonds No. 4 contains materials of the research society Sakha keskile [The Future of the Sakha], which operated during 1925–1929, as well as documents of the Sakha Committee for Written Language at the Sakha Central Executive Committee during 1928–1930. Fonds No. 5 consists of materials from 1905 to 2011, including an array of scientific documentation of the Institute of Humanitarian Research and the Problems of Indigenous Minorities of the North since its foundation in 1935. The materials in Fonds 5 comprise field expeditions, scientific reports, excerpts from archival documents, and handwritten records of oral intangible heritage of the peoples of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) with local peculiarities.

Within Fonds No. 4 is Ksenofontov’s personal collection, comprising 18 recordings, albeit incomplete, of the Sakha epic Olonkho with 50 tales, over 200 legends, and more than 100 texts on shamanism; these were recorded by Ksenofontov in 1925–1926. Ksenofontov’s expedition covered a route from the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) all the way west to Western Buryatia, beginning in Yakutsk and following the route: Toyon Ary Island, Western Kangalass District, Srednevilyuysk District, Vilyuysk, Verkhnevilyuysk, Markha, Nyurba, Sheya, Suntar, Khochin District, Brangatskij village, Chona River, Erbogachen, Nizhnyaya Tunguska River, Krasnoyarsk, and Khakassia, ending in Western Buryatia.

Fonds No. 4 also contains Sleptsov’s personal collection of early manuscripts and materials from expeditions to the Bulun District in 1924 and Khatango-Anabar District from 1928 to 1929, both part of the Yakut ASSR. The philological portion of the collection contains Russko-jakutsko-tungusskij slovarʼ [The Russian-Sakha-Tungus (Evenki) Dictionary] (material 298, sheet 38); Nazvanija predmetov domashnego obixoda [The Names of Household Items] in the Dolgan language (material 287, sheet 36); and Etnograficheskie zametki iz zhizni Bulunskogo uezda [Ethnographic Notes from the Life of Bulun District] (material 292, sheet 78). Figure 9.1 is taken from Sleptsov’s materials; it is a representative page from the handwritten manuscript of his trilingual dictionary from 1908.

Fig. 9.1

Russko-jakutsko-tungusskij slovarʼ [The Russian-Sakha-Tungus Dictionary] written by P. V. Sleptsov in 1908. Figure credit: Manuscript Department of the Institute for Humanities Research and Indigenous Studies of the North, Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences. Funds No. 5, inventory 3, matter 298, sheet 29

A significant place in the Fonds No. 4 collection belongs to the materials of the folklore and dialectological expeditions of the researchers Sesen Bolo Dyachkovsky Dmitry Ivanovich (1905–1948) and Andrej Andreevich Savvin (1896–1951) of the Institute of Language and Culture of the Yakut ASSR during 1938–1939 in Vilyui District and 1939–1941 in the northern districts of Abyisk, Allaihisky, and Bulunsk. Figure 9.2 provides a fragment from Savvin’s records of the Sakha text Aiyyhyt algyha [The Good Wishes of Aiyyhyt]. In Sakha mythology, Aiyyhyt is the patron goddess of fertility who brings children to people and gives offspring to domestic animals.

Fig. 9.2

Aiyyhyt algyha [Good Wishes of Aiyyhyt] recorded by A. A. Savvin in 1938. Figure credit: Manuscript Department of the Institute for Humanities Research and Indigenous Studies of the North, Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences. Funds No. 5, inventory 3, matter 101, sheet 6

Among Bolo’s and Savvin’s expedition materials are texts of the Olonkho, the Sakha national epic, a series of poetic tales ranging in length from 10 to 10,000 verses. Many of the texts are believed to predate the migration of the Sakha to northeast Russia in the fourteenth century, making them among the oldest known Turkic epics. In 2008, the Olonkho was inscribed in UNESCO’s (2022) Intangible Cultural Heritage list. The Manuscript Division has written records of legendary Olonkho narrators such as Semen Nikolaevich Karataev’s Tong Saar-buhatyir [Impressive Cold Hero], Semen Semenovich Afanasiev’s Odun Churaa [Upper Chura], and Mitrofan Zaxarovich Martynov’s Oǧo Duolan [Huge Child]. The archives also contain audio recordings but access to them is closed. The collection also includes Bolo’s recordings of shamanic incantations and incantations into the upper and lower worlds as chanted by the 84-year-old shaman Spiridon Gerasimovich Ignatyev, as well as Savvin’s recordings of the incantations Kut araaryyta [Division of the Soul] and Doidu ichchitiger kiyiriya [An Appeal to the Earth Spirit] from shaman Vasilij Nikolaevich Dmitriev. Both Bolo and Savvin created a rich collection of different genres of oral literature, including byrgy sehenen [legends], ostuoruya [fairy tales], ühuyayen [myths], and nomokh [legends]; shorter text types such as taabyryn [riddles], chabyrǧakh [sayings], ös hohono [proverbs], tyl nomoǧo [proverbs], variations of yrya [songs] about the universe, seasons, natural phenomena, birds, and animals.

Several resources focused on the languages of the Sakha region are contained within Fonds No. 4. These resources pertain to descriptions of Dolgan, a Turkic variety that is closely related to Sakha and historically classified as a dialect of Sakha, not a distinct language. Much study of Dolgan has been focused in the Taimyr Region to the east of the Sakha Republic and these resources include: Jazyk dolgan Turuxanskogo kraja [The Dolgan Language of the Turukhan Territory], Materialy po govoram (terminy) dulgano-jakutov Turuxanskogo kraja na slovax kuljatskix jakutov [Materials on the Dolgan-Yakut Dialects (Terminology) of the Turukhan Territory in the Words of the Kulat Yakuts], and Dulgan-saxalaryy tyyllara [Dolgan-Sakha Language]. Additional resources relate to Chukchi, including Imennye zvanija luoreovetlanov Nižnekolymskogo rajona Jakutskoj SSR [Names of Luorovetlans (Chukchi) in the Nizhnekolymsk District of the Yakut ASSR], a record of 57 personal names of the Chukchi living in the Khalarchin Tundra translated into Sakha with comments by Bolo (file 449, sheet 14). The collection further includes Materialy po govoram evenkov/evenov Nizhnekolymskogo rajona [Materials on the Evenki/Even Dialects of the Nizhnekolymsk District] with interesting records of the xangaayy [dancing shouts] (13 words in total), seen in Fig. 9.3.

Fig. 9.3

Tanceval’nye vozglasy kolymskix evenov [Dancing Shouts of the Kolyma Even] recorded by G. N. Tretyakov in 1940. Figure credit: Manuscript Department of the Institute for Humanities Research and Indigenous Studies of the North, Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences. Funds No. 5, inventory 3, matter 442, sheet 4

Finally, Fonds No. 4 contains a word list from Kolmya Evenki dialects (124 words) and Indigenous names of natives (i.e., the Evenki of the Far East, coastal Chukchi, Koryaks, Yukaghirs, Chuvans, Sakha, and Russians) recorded in Even and translated into Sakha, with some parts in Russian. Archival data indicate that despite the construction of the ‘ethnic’ identity of the peoples of the North during both the Imperial and Soviet periods, such identifiers as Tungus, Lamuts, Chukchi and Yukaghirs existed rather formally until the 1970s. In everyday life, they continued to use ‘old’ identities—both their own and those of neighbouring peoples—to navigate in social space. In particular, according to the materials of the scientific expedition of Bolo, the Lower Kolyma Evens called themselves yvyn, while the Chukchi identified them as xórom-tele; the Chukchi, they called luoravetlanami or chauchu; the reindeer group were called heej-ex; those who roamed the Dezhnev Cape on dogs were called kauralit; Koryaks were chauchi-ba or lichʼe-tanin; Chuvans were called buyat’i [reindeer]; Yukaghirs, alad’i or hul-hacha; Sakha people were called n’oxo; and Russians, n’uch.

For many representatives of northern communities seeking a foothold for their identity, language, and culture in the modern world, archival sources can help to at least partially fill in some of the lost cultural memory and social experience accumulated throughout their pre-Russian history, applying not only to ethnonyms but also to personal so-called pagan names and cultural practices that were lost during the Christianization of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) and conversion to the Russian anthroponymic system, as well as during Sovietization.

Fonds No. 5 is of particular interest for researchers of Turkic oral epic traditions and the Sakha Olonkho. The archives hold more than 600 items about the heritage of the peoples of Yakutia. These materials, recorded during 1940–1946 as part of a Soviet project collecting the best ethnic traditions of the peoples of the region, include records of 150 full texts of the Olonkho and 80 shorter versions performed by 83 different Olonkho performers from 13 regions of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia). The goal of the Soviet project was to compile a single authoritative version of the Olonkho together with records of rare details of verbal culture. When completed, the project had more than 160 full versions, excerpts, and short summaries of the Olonkho.

In addition to records of early forms of the Olonkho, Fonds No. 5 also contains kyryry [shamanic incantations], algys [good wishes], kyryys [curses], and occasional rites, all recorded in their living, natural forms. These performances most likely will not be repeated again in human history. Noteworthy is that this oral tradition preserved Olonkho epics by famous performers of the seventeenth century such as Yrya Chongkunaan [Singer with a Piercing Voice], Yrya Chekat Tur [The Singer Chekat Tur], Sehenneh Selykidien [The Good Storyteller Selykidien], and Oloodo (personal name)—that have been maintained in today’s living folklore. Within the chabyrǧakh [tongue twisters] genre, the text Bilbit-korbut (Knew-saw, about a knowledgeable man who is always astute and alert) preserves layers from the legendary singers of these tongue twisters, or chabyrgasyt, who lived in the second half of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in the Meghina District of Dyulay-Boken.

Fonds No. 5’s assortment of spiritual folklore, with approximately 500 samples of mainly shamanic texts, is recorded from the mouths of the bearers of shamanic tradition themselves, presenting thorough accounts of shaman birth and initiation, ritual activities, and healing practices. The collection includes records of rare shamanic incantations to deities and spirits of Earth, water, and fire as descriptions of live ceremonies in real time aimed at the maintenance of harmonic interactions between nature and humankind. In 1944, the journalist Petr Terent’evich Stepanov from the Megino-Kangalassk District managed to record six live shamanic ceremonies performed in archaic shamanic language as recited by the Nakhar shaman Petr Alekseevich Abramov-Alaadya. Samples of archaic Olonkho texts were also recorded from the Sakha shamans Nikita Petrovich Yakovlev-Kuruppa and Ivan Andreevich Suzdalov-Sappalai.

9.4.1 Palaeographic Features of Manuscripts from the 1908–1940s

All entries in the Yakutsk archives relating to the period 1908–1940s are made in student or ordinary notebooks, with normal standard writing paper (A4) or nonstandard (15 × 11 cm) paper, written either in pencil or black or blue ink. Text is written in Romanized Sakha language and mostly double-sided throughout the notebooks. Most of the records are in satisfactory condition, but some are at risk of disappearing through erasure and wear-and-tear rubbing, folding, and tearing of the paper.

Among the philological sources are materials of the Indigir ethnographic-linguistic expedition of Teodor Abramovich Shub, Nikolaj Alekseevich Gabyshev, and others. These materials include the Zapisi po folkloru Russkogo Ustʼja [Folklore records of the Russian Ust’], various songs, bylinas [oral epics], and tales of Russian Old Believers from the village of Polar in the Allaihov District (matter 769, sheet 49) and Kosuhino village (inventory 3, matter 769, sheet 203), as well as records of word formation and suffixes, descriptive phrases, words denoting nature and natural phenomena, dictionaries with lexical meanings, and dialect dictionaries made in the village of Russkoye Ustye (inventory 3, matter 768b, sheet 775). Figure 9.4a, b show excerpts from a word list of the Old Believers’ Russian dialect in the Russko-Ustinsky region where Russkoe Ustye is located in the far northern part of the Sakha Republic.

Fig. 9.4

(a) Word sample in Russian from the Russko-Ustinsky region. The word veret’e was recorded by G. A. Shub, N. A. Gabyshev, et al. in 1946. Figure credit: Manuscript Department of the Institute for Humanities Research and Indigenous Studies of the North, Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences. Fund No. 5, inventory 3, matter 7668, sheet 400. (b) Word sample in Russian from the Russko-Ustinsky region. The word jakša was recorded by G. A. Shub, N. A. Gabyshev, et al. in 1946. Figure credit: Manuscript Department of the Institute for Humanities Research and Indigenous Studies of the North, Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences. Fund No. 5, inventory 3, matter 7668, sheet 407

9.4.2 Palaeographic Features of Manuscripts from the 1950s and 1970s

Records from the 1950s and 1970s were written in an ordinary A4-sized standard inventory notebook of yellow writing paper and on non-standard cards and sheets of paper in plain pencil, ink, and ballpoint pen; later records were composed using a typewriter. Text is written using the Cyrillic alphabet in Sakha, Russian, Evenki, Even, and Chukchi, and entries are made on either one side or both sides of the paper. Most of the records are in satisfactory physical condition, but some are yellowed and worn, and some of the erasable records have been erased. Folding and tearing is evident in some of the paper, and some pages are missing entirely.

9.5 Conclusion

One of the biggest challenges in working with archival materials of Arctic languages is locating them. There are limited dedicated language archives for Arctic materials, with the Alaska Native Language Archive an exception. Recent recordings of language materials can be found in general language archives. Due to the current standards for language documentation, such recordings are often readily usable for researchers as many have audio and video and are transcribed and glossed. But these conditions refer primarily to recordings made in the last few decades. For earlier records, a trove of materials can be found in other archives, and in particular archives of Arctic explorers and ethnographers. Finding such materials requires some detective work, as it may be necessary to first identify an explorer or expedition that made contact with Arctic speakers. Thus, for example, a search of early records of languages spoken in the Russian Arctic requires some knowledge of the Russians who knew these languages, such as Vladimir Bogoraz, Waldemar Jochelson, and Lev Shternberg. In other areas, it may be more a question of identifying linguists who worked with a specific language and finding where they deposited their materials. Thus, the archive of the Norwegian linguist Knud Bergsland, who did extensive work on Aleut, is located in the Alaska Native Language Archive, while more recent linguists working on Even have archived their materials in the DoBeS and ELAR archives.

To illustrate some of the challenges and possibilities, this chapter provided a close look at the Manuscript Department of the Institute of Humanitarian Research and the Problems of Indigenous Minorities of the North. The linguistic and cultural resources as described here do not comprise an exhaustive listing of their holdings, however. Rather, they provide a general idea of the various resources and key archival Yakutsk collections that constitute the foundation of the cultural memory of a selection of peoples across North Asia. The methodologically modern and technologically advanced documentation of linguistic diversity and cultural heritage at the Institute currently is hampered by the lack of appropriate equipment and digital archiving. In this regard, the Institute cannot make available digital linguistic databases or repositories for wide accessibility. These challenges are not unique to the Institute, however, as Arctic language archives and resources generally are difficult to access.