Siberian Yupik

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Siberian Yupik (Yuit, self-naming: Yupikhyt, Yuhyt) are an indigenous people who reside along the coast of the Chukchi Peninsula in the far northeast of the Russian Federation and the St. Lawrence Island of Alaska. They speak Central Siberian Yupik, a Yupik language related to the other Yupik in Russia and Alaska.

They were also known as Asian or Siberian Eskimo. The name Yuit (Юит, plural: Юиты) was officially assigned to them in 1931, at the brief time of the campaign of support of indigenous cultures in the Soviet Union.

Contents

1 Traditional crafts
2 Concepts on the animal word around them
3 External links
4 Bibliography

4.1 Nocite
4.2 Citings

5 Meta

Traditional crafts

The Siberian Yupik on St. Lawrence Island live in the villages of Savoonga and Gambell, and are widely known for their skillful carvings of walrus ivory and whale bone, as well as the baleen of bowhead whales and minke whales. These even include some “moving sculptures” with complicated pulleys animating scenes such as walrus hunting or traditional dances.

Concepts on the animal word around them

At Ungazik (Chaplino Yupik) people, wolf and a specific sea bird are thought to be identical: this bird can become a wolf or vice versa. In winter, they appear in the form of wolf, in summer, in the form of bird (see tale The orphan boy with his sisterRubcova, E.S. : Materials on the Language and Folklore of the Eskimoes, Vol. I, Chaplino Dialect. Original data: Е.С. Рубцова: Материалы по яэыку и фольклору эскимосов (чаплинский диалект). Академия Наук СССР. Москва * Ленинград, 1954., p. 156, note 21). The name of this bird -- misungisak --- is translated

as касатка in ,
and as kingfisher in Menoščikov, G.A.: Popular Conceptions, Religious Beliefs and Rites of the Asiatic Eskimoes. Published in Diószegi, Vilmos et Hoppál, Mihály: Folk Beliefs and Shamanistic Traditions in Siberia. Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, 1968, 1996..

[Word касатка---it means Anas falcata Georgi], which is falcated duck, so we cannot be sure exactly which bird species is concerned here.

Both materials cited above mentions also the spider, whale, raven as revered animals, referring to folklore (e.g. tale) examples.

External links

[The Asiatic (Siberian) Eskimos]
[Chukotka regional office] of the [Inuit Circumpolar Conference]

Bibliography

Nocite

Campbell, Lyle. (1997). American Indian languages: The historical linguistics of Native America. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-509427-1.
Menoščikov, G.A.: Popular Conceptions, Religious Beliefs and Rites of the Asiatic Eskimoes. Published in Diószegi, Vilmos et Hoppál, Mihály: Folk Beliefs and Shamanistic Traditions in Siberia. Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, 1968, 1996.
de Reuse, Willem J. (1994). Siberian Yupik Eskimo: The language and its contacts with Chukchi. Studies in indigenous languages of the Americas. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press. ISBN 0-87480-397-7.
Rubcova, E.S. : Materials on the Language and Folklore of the Eskimoes, Vol. I, Chaplino Dialect. Original data: Е.С. Рубцова: Материалы по яэыку и фольклору эскимосов (чаплинский диалект). Академия Наук СССР. Москва * Ленинград, 1954.