Table of contents:
Video: The people who are about to disappear from the face of the Earth: Where did the cheldons come to Siberia and how they live today
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
Among the rare nationalities of our country, the cheldons (chaldons) are perhaps the most mysterious. Mentions about these indigenous inhabitants of Siberia can be found in the works of the classics of Russian literature - Yesenin, Mayakovsky, Korolenko, Mamin-Sibiryak, and colorful Siberian words, such as "Not knowing" or "Don't understand", are known to everyone. The cheldons themselves are still surrounded by an aura of mystery. There is still no consensus on the origin of this people. And this is complicated by the fact that at the moment cheldons on the territory of Russia are almost extinct.
Even before Ermak …
How did this people appear in Siberia? According to one version, the Cheldons are the descendants of the Cossack settlers who came to these lands in the 13th century, if not earlier (long before Yermak), and then mixed with the local indigenous peoples. Even the word "chaldon" (or "cheldon") itself is considered by some researchers to be a combination of the names of two rivers - Don and Chalka.
The presence of immigrants from Ancient Russia many centuries ago in these places is evidenced by chain mail, fragments of clay pots, a special kind of beads and other objects that were not characteristic of the local culture, discovered by archaeologists.
Similar finds were found in abundance precisely in the southern part of Russia - in particular, in the Volga region and on the Don - and belonged to the ancient Slavic culture.
And in the part of Siberia where the Buryats lived, people who, in the opinion of local residents, came from Russian-Buryat marriages, were called “cheldons”.
In 1895, the Yenisei newspaper published an article stating that the Cheldon tribe living in Eastern Siberia is related to the Abyssinians (Ethiopians). The author argued that this people voluntarily moved to Siberia during the time of Pericles and that it was he who brought Christianity there.
In general, this people is one continuous mystery, but one thing is certain: it is very ancient. Many scientific and literary sources (articles, dictionaries, etc.) of the last century say that cheldons are old-timers of Siberia and they can be safely called the indigenous population.
Chaldon (cheldon) is a common noun?
If the modern generation of Russians is not very familiar with this word, then a hundred years ago, apparently, it was almost synonymous with the concept of "native Siberian". In Yesenin we meet the lines: "Stupid Siberian chaldon, stingy as a hundred devils, he is." In Mayakovsky's "Sovetskaya Azbuka", "chaldon" was chosen as the word for the letter "Ch": "Chaldon was attacking us by the military force …".
And there are many such references in the literature. However, most often the representatives of this people were portrayed by the authors in a not very attractive form - they were spoken of disparagingly, making them narrow-minded, unfriendly and dense people. Perhaps this is due to the fact that, according to the recollections of Russian Siberian old-timers, Cheldons have always kept themselves somewhat apart. Their settlements had their own ancient way, the dialect was also special, and their religion was a mixture of Christianity and paganism. For example, in the cheldon's hut, in the red corner, which they called the "goddess," apart from icons, there could have been ancient figurines of the gods. If the icon fell accidentally, the owner was always very anxious, saying: "Oh, God will be offended."
It is interesting that Cheldons in Siberia were also called "yellow-bellied" or "yellow-bellied". People used to say that their skin naturally has a yellowish color from the fact that they drink too much tea.
By the way, in the dictionary of Russian dialects of Siberia, the authors Bukhareva and Fedotov indicate that in Mongolian "chaldon" means "vagabond", the same can be read in Dahl. Later, the negative connotation of the word "chaldon" was replaced by a neutral one, meaning simply a Siberian old-timer.
Endangered culture
Very little is known about modern cheldons. People who have had a chance to communicate with them pay attention to the fact that they live in distant, remote Siberian villages. The cheldon house is traditionally divided into female and male halves. The hostess does not allow her husband to enter her “territory”, which, of course, includes the kitchen. A man is not allowed to cook and engage in any female work, just as a woman traditionally cannot do male work - repair, chop, plan. In some houses, it is still customary to cover the walls with feathers of a wild capercaillie (as a symbol of wealth), and children traditionally used the joints of an elk caught by their parents while hunting as toys.
The mentality of the cheldons is also interesting: by nature, they are self-sufficient and free people. This nation is proud to have always been free. Above all, from time immemorial, they put the interests of the community and, as they themselves said, "did not take off their caps in front of anyone." This mentality, characteristic of pre-Mongol Russia, has been preserved with them over the centuries, right up to the present day.
At the end of the last century, young ethnographers of Omsk State University conducted a survey among residents of remote Siberian villages. Along with other questions, they were asked to indicate what nationality they belong to. More than 30% identified themselves as cheldons, and there were even more of them than those who called themselves Russians.
Meanwhile, this once numerous people in our time, alas, is considered almost extinct. It is not known exactly how many true cheldons remain in Russia, because some Siberians may refer themselves to them, but in fact they are not.
In Siberian villages, there are very few real cheldons, and these are mostly elderly people. The unique people are predicted to die out already in this century, and it is not known whether it will be possible to revive it.
Picturesque portraits of indigenous peoples make us think that we need to preserve rare ethnic groups and their culture.
Recommended:
How did the "wind squeezers" - the largest sailing ships in history appear and why did they disappear?
At the end of the era of sailing ships, when steam engines began to supplant the driving force of the wind, the windjammers, the most lifting of them, became the last loud chord of the era of sailing ships. Real "wind squeezers". These titans under sail set speed records for the delivery of gunpowder components to Europe, which was involved in World War I. Only in order to subsequently be destroyed by this war
The richest people in pre-revolutionary Russia - who they were, what they did and what became of them
It is noteworthy, but by the beginning of the 20th century, fixed capital in Russia was concentrated not among families of aristocratic origin, but among entrepreneurs. The richest people of tsarist Russia owned banks, factories, factories, were engaged in oil production, trade. The Bolsheviks, who declared all their family empires a national treasure, sought to get rid of the production workers themselves, because their fate is mostly tragic
Why in the Middle Ages people did not really believe that the earth was flat, and why many do today
Today, despite the development of science and education, there are still people who believe that our planet Earth is a flat disk. It is enough to go to the Internet and type the phrase "flat Earth". There is even a society of the same name that advocates this idea. We tell how things really were in Antiquity and in the European Middle Ages
How the middle class lived in tsarist Russia: How much did they get, what they spent on, how did ordinary people and officials eat
Today people know very well what a food basket is, an average wage, a standard of living, and so on. Surely, our ancestors also thought about this. How did they live? What could they buy with the money they earned, what was the price of the most common food products, how much did it cost to live in large cities? Read in the material what was the "life under the tsar" in Russia, and what was the difference between the situation of ordinary people, the military and officials
"To take revenge on the unreasonable Khazars": Where did the most mysterious people of Ancient Russia come from and where did they disappear
Pushkin's lines "How the prophetic Oleg is now going to take revenge on the unreasonable Khazars …" was taught at school, perhaps, by everyone. Why and how long the Russian princes fought with the Khazars, few know. Although the very image of the sworn enemy of Russia was firmly entrenched in the Khazars - as well as many legends about their Jewish origin, the "Khazar yoke" over the Russian lands and the modern heirs of the disappeared people