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Draft:Ob-Ugrians

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Ob-Ugrians (also Ugrians[a] or Ob-Ugric peoples) is a collective name used in scientific literature for the Khanty and Mansi peoples,[2] who live along the northern part of the Ob River and its tributaries in Western Siberia. The Khanty and Mansi share a common history and are culturally closely related.[3][4][5][6] The Khanty and Mansi languages are both Uralic languages, but they are distinctly different from one another, as are the dialects within each language.[7]

History

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Prehistory

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The Khanty and Mansi languages are traditionally classified under the Ob-Ugric branch and, along with Hungarian, are considered part of the Ugric language family. The Ugric languages share phonological and morphological features, and there are about 150 common words. However, the existence of both the Ugric and Ob-Ugric proto-languages has been questioned and many experts now view the Ugric group as a Sprachbund, with the shared features of Khanty, Mansi, and Hungarian explained by language contact rather than a common ancestral language.[7]

The speech area of the Proto-Ugric language or Sprachbund is believed to have been located in southwestern Siberia. The shared Ugric lexicon includes words related to horses and riding, and Ob-Ugric mythology contains traces of a nomadic horse culture, suggesting that these languages were once spoken at the northern edge of the Eurasian Steppe. The languages are thought to have diverged after 1000 BC, with the linguistic ancestors of the Ob-Ugrians moving north towards the Ob River and assimilated the Paleo-Siberian (?) population there, while the linguistic ancestors of the Hungarians moved to the steppe and began migrating westward (See Hungarian prehistory).[7][8]

Middle ages

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The Ob-Ugrians are first mentioned in the Russian sources in the 11th century under the collective name Yugra, which also referred to the land they inhabited. The Russians knew of these tribes through their western neighbours, Pechora and Vychegda Komis. From 12th century onwards the Novgorodians began to trade fur with the western Siberian tribes, including the Yugra. [Mansi Mythology, p.15-16]

Today, most the Ob-Ugrians live within the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug. Traditionally the Khanty live on the eastern bank of the Middle and Southern Ob and in the Irtysh River basin, while the Mansi live between the western bank of the Ob and the Ural Mountains. Historically, there were Mansi settlement west of the Ural Mountains, but many migrated to Siberia in the 14th-16th centuries due to the pressure from the Komi people, who in turn were being pushed eastward by the Russian expansion.[9]

Ethnographic groups

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The Ob-Ugrians are commonly divided into ethnographic groups based on the dialect groups; Northern and Southern Mansi dialects, and Northern, Southern and Eastern Khanty dialects. Southern and Western Mansi peoples and Southern Khanty no longer live a traditional way of life, and have largely been assimilated by Russians and Tatars. In contrast, Northern and Eastern Khanty, and Northern Mansi have preserved significant parts of their traditional way of life. There are significant regional differences, and dialect-based classification does not always agree well with the cultural distinctions. Ethnically, Khanty and Mansi often identify collectively as the people of a particular river.[10]

Culture and mythology

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The religions of the Khanty and the Mansi are largely identical, but there are regional differences. The religion of the Northern group is documented the best.[11]

A characteristic feature of the Ob-Ugrian culture is the bear cult, with rites associated with hunting, killing and skinning the bear, and a festival held to honor the bear. The festival typically lasts for multiple days and involves various performances—songs, dances, and plays.[11][12] The Ob-Ugrians also have a rich tradition of oral poetry.[13]

Some associations aiming to preserve the Khanty and Mansi culture are Saving the Yugra (Spasenie Yugry) in Khanty-Mansiysk,[14] Research Institute for the Revival of the Ob-Ugrian Peoples, also in Khanty-Mansiysk, and the Folklore Archive of the Northern Ob-Ugrian Peoples, which was founded in Berëzovo by Éva Schmidt [hu].[15]

Footnotes

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  1. ^ Ugrians is also used as an umbrella term for peoples that speak Ugric languages—The Khanty, the Mansi and the Hungarians.[1]

References

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  1. ^ Hajdú 1975, pp. 107, 119.
  2. ^ Levin & Potapov 1956, p. 570.
  3. ^ Forsyth 1994, p. 12: "In way of life, clothing, dwellings, religious and social customs the Mansis and Khantys are very similar to each other and indeed are often bracketed together as one ethnic group."
  4. ^ Kálman (1978), p. 85: "Ihre Sprachen sind eng miteinander verwandt, ihre materielle und ihre geistige Kultur, sowie ihre Folklore sind fast identisch."
  5. ^ Dudeck (2022), p. 74: "The closely linguistically and culturally related peoples of the Khanty and Mansi share a common history and sense of kinship. In the scientific literature as well as in the ethnopolitical discourse they are referred to as Ob-Ugrians in reference to their belonging to the Ob River and the Ugric branches of the Finno-Ugric languages."
  6. ^ Hajdú (1975), p. 124: "The name 'Ob-Ugrian' is not merely a geographical appellation; there is also a close historical connection between the Voguls and Ostyaks."
  7. ^ a b c Skribnik & Laakso 2022, p. 523.
  8. ^ Forsyth 1994, p. 11–12.
  9. ^ Skribnik & Laakso 2022, p. 523–524.
  10. ^ Wiget & Balalaeva 2011, pp. 60–61.
  11. ^ a b Schmidt 1987, p. 280.
  12. ^ Wiget & Balalaeva 2022, pp. 25–52.
  13. ^ Hatto 2017, p. 29.
  14. ^ Balzer 1999.
  15. ^ Csepregi 2009, p. 14.

Sources

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  • Skribnik, Elena; Laakso, Johanna (2022). "Ugric : General introduction". In Bakró-Nagy, Marianne; Laakso, Johanna; Skribnik, Elena K. (eds.). The Oxford guide to the Uralic languages. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-876766-4.
  • Wiget, Andrew; Balalaeva, Olga (2011). Khanty, People of the Taiga. Fairbanks, Alaska: University of Alaska Press. ISBN 978-1-60223-125-2.
  • Balzer, Marjorie Mandelstam (1999). The Tenacity of Ethnicity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-00673-4.
  • Dudeck, Stephan (2022-12-01). "Hybridity in a Western Siberian Bear Ceremony". Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics. 16 (2): 43–85. doi:10.2478/jef-2022-0013. ISSN 2228-0987.
  • Kálman, Béla (1978). "Die ob-ugrische Schauspielkunst". Neohelicon (in German). 6 (1): 85–97. doi:10.1007/BF02021901. ISSN 0324-4652.
  • Levin, M. G.; Potapov, L. P. (1956). "Khanty i Mansi". In Tolstov, S. P. (ed.). Narody Sibiri [The Peoples of Siberia]. Narody Mira [Peoples of the World]. Leningrad: Academy of Science of the USSR. pp. 570–607.
  • Forsyth, James (1994). A History of the Peoples of Siberia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-47771-0.
  • Hajdú, Péter (1975). Finno-Ugrian languages and peoples. Translated by Cushing, C.F. London: Deutsch. ISBN 978-0-233-96552-9.
  • Schmidt, Eva (1987). "Khanty and Mansi religion". The Encyclopedia of Religion. Translated by Abondolo, Daniel. New York: Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-02-909480-8.
  • Wiget, Andrew; Balalaeva, Olga (2022-03-01). "Valuing Difference: Bear Ceremonialism, the Eastern Khanty, and Cultural Variation among Ob-Ugrians" (PDF). Sibirica. 21 (1): 25–52. doi:10.3167/sib.2022.210103. ISSN 1361-7362. Retrieved 2024-12-14.
  • Hatto, Arthur (2017). The World of the Khanty Epic Hero-Princes: An Exploration of a Siberian Oral Tradition. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781316216040. ISBN 978-1-316-21604-0.
  • Csepregi, Márta (2009). "The very highly connected nodes in the Ob-Ugrian networks" (PDF). In Ylikoski, Jussi (ed.). The Quasquicentennial of the Finno-Ugrian Society. Helsinki: Société Finno-Ougrienne. ISBN 978-952-5667-12-7. OCLC 465045638.
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