On the Run in Siberia PDF
Preview On the Run in Siberia
on the run in siberia on the run in siberia on the run in siberia Rane Willerslev Translated by Coilín ÓhAiseadha University of Minnesota Press . Minneapolis London The translation of this book has been sponsored by the Danish Arts Council Committee for Literature. Originally published in Danish as På flugt i Sibirien: Zobeljagt, russisk mafia og 65 minusgrader (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 2009). Copyright 2009 Rane Willerslev and Gyldendalske Boghandel, Nordisk Forlag. English translation copyright 2012 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Published by the University of Minnesota Press 111 Third Avenue South, Suite 290 Minneapolis, MN 55401-2520 http://www.upress.umn.edu Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Willerslev, Rane [På flugt i Sibirien. English] On the run in Siberia / Rane Willerslev ; translated by Coilín ÓhAiseadha. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-0-8166-7626-2 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-8166-7627-9 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Yukaghir—Hunting—Russia (Federation)—Siberia. 2. Yukaghir— Russia (Federation)—Siberia—Social life and customs. 3. Willerslev, Rane, 1971—Travel—Russia (Federation)—Siberia. 4. Refugees—Russia (Federation)— Siberia—Biography. 5. Anthropologists—Denmark—Biography. 6. Sable trapping—Russia (Federation)—Siberia. 7. Fur trade—Russia (Federation)— Siberia. 8. Mafia—Russia (Federation)—Siberia. 9. Siberia (Russia)—Description and travel. 10. Siberia (Russia)—Social life and customs. I. Title. DK759.Y8W54 2012 305.89'46—dc23 [B] 2012001201 Design and composition by Yvonne Tsang at Wilsted & Taylor Publishing Services Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper The University of Minnesota is an equal-opportunity educator and employer. 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 To the memory of Babushka Akulina This page intentionally left blank contents Preface and Acknowledgments ix Glossary xv Gallery of Characters xvii One Last, Feeble Attempt 1 the fur project 1. Shalugin, Leader of the Yukaghirs 7 2. A Post-Soviet Nightmare 19 3. Sable Furs for Sale 35 on the run in the wilderness 4. Out of Range 61 5. Soft Gold 73 6. Starvation and Desperation 87 7. In the Yukaghirs’ Camp 103 8. A Long-Awaited Friend 123 back to the village 9. The Curse 141 10. Land of Shadows 155 11. Screwed 169 12. The Way Back 179 A Leap in Time 187 appendixes: surviving in siberia a. Using the Leghold Trap 193 b. Yukaghir Idols 195 c. Netting Fish in Siberia 196 d. Finding Your Way in the Taiga 197 e. How to Track and Shoot a Moose 199 Notes 201 preface and acknowledgments The story you are about to read had its beginnings in 1993, when my identical twin brother, Eske, and I went on an expedition to north- eastern Siberia with a small group of researchers and a film crew to study the Yukaghirs, an indigenous group of hunters who live in the northern part of the Russian Republic of Sakha (Yakutia). We were only twenty-two years old. I had started studying anthropology, and Eske, biology, at university a year earlier. We were already seasoned adventurers of the region, having spent the previous two years ex- ploring various river systems of northeastern Siberia by canoe and learning how to survive by hunting. Because of this previous experi- ence in Siberia, Eske and I helped organize and lead the expedition in 1993. After being dropped in the wilderness by helicopter, the expe- dition paddled for three and a half months along the Korkodon and Bolshoy Kuropatka Rivers. The aim was to find the Yukaghirs and to conduct ethnographic, linguistic, and biological research among them. We also were to collect Yukaghir cultural artifacts for an exhi- bition at the Moesgaard Prehistoric Museum in Denmark. All of this was filmed by the crew from Nordisk Film.1 I had first learned of the Yukaghirs when reading Waldemar Jochelson’s classic monograph, The Yukaghir and the Yukaghirized Tungus,2 which I found in a remote corner of the library of the Dan- ish National Museum. The Yukaghirs described by Jochelson at the turn of the twentieth century fascinated me: they were the earliest indigenous people known to live in northeastern Siberia, and their language had no evident link to any known language group. Unlike ix
The list of books you might like
