Ket people

The Ket people share their origin with other Yeniseian people and are closely related to other Indigenous people of Siberia and Indigenous peoples of the Americas. They belong mostly to Y-DNA haplogroup Q-M242.{{cite journal |doi=10.1353/hub.2003.0006 |title=High Levels of Y-Chromosome Differentiation among Native Siberian Populations and the Genetic Signature of a Boreal Hunter-Gatherer Way of Life | pmid=12617488 | volume=74 |year=2002 |journal=Hum Biol |pages=761–89 | last1 = Karafet | first1 = TM | last2 = Osipova | first2 = LP | last3 = Gubina | first3 = MA | last4 = Posukh | first4 = OL | last5 = Zegura | first5 = SL | last6 = Hammer | first6 = MF|issue=6 |s2cid=9443804 }}

According to a 2016 study, the Ket and other Yeniseian people originated likely somewhere near the Altai Mountains or near Lake Baikal. It is suggested that parts of the Altaians are predominantly of Yeniseian origin and closely related to the Ket people. The Ket people are also closely related to several Native American groups. According to this study, the Yeniseians are linked to the Paleo-Eskimo groups.{{cite journal | arxiv=1508.03097 | last1=Flegontov | first1=Pavel | last2=Changmai | first2=Piya | last3=Zidkova | first3=Anastassiya | last4=Logacheva | first4=Maria D. | last5=Flegontova | first5=Olga | last6=Gelfand | first6=Mikhail S. | last7=Gerasimov | first7=Evgeny S. | last8=Khrameeva | first8=Ekaterina E. | last9=Konovalova | first9=Olga P. | last10=Neretina | first10=Tatiana | last11=Nikolsky | first11=Yuri V. | last12=Starostin | first12=George | last13=Stepanova | first13=Vita V. | last14=Travinsky | first14=Igor V. | last15=Tříska | first15=Martin | last16=Tříska | first16=Petr | last17=Tatarinova | first17=Tatiana V. | last18=Tatarinova | first18=Tatiana V. | title=Genomic study of the Ket: A Paleo-Eskimo-related ethnic group with significant ancient North Eurasian ancestry | journal=Scientific Reports | year=2015 | volume=6 | page=20768 | doi=10.1038/srep20768 | pmid=26865217 | pmc=4750364 | bibcode=2016NatSR...620768F }}

File:Расселение кетов в СФО по городским и сельским поселениям, в %.png]]

Ket people live primarily in Turukhansky district of Krasnoyarsk Krai.

Kets by selected settlements{{Cite web |url=http://std.gmcrosstata.ru/webapi/opendatabase?id=VPN2002_2010L |access-date=2024-12-17 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140609151116/http://std.gmcrosstata.ru/webapi/opendatabase?id=VPN2002_2010L |archive-date=9 June 2014 |title=SuperWEB2(tm) - Таблица - Настроить таблицу }}{{Cite web |title=Siberian Lang {{!}} Малые языки Сибири: наше культурное наследие |url=https://siberian-lang.srcc.msu.ru/ |access-date=2024-12-17 |website=siberian-lang.srcc.msu.ru}} as of 2010:

The Kets are thought to be the only survivors of an ancient nomadic people believed to have originally inhabited central and southern Siberia. In the 1960s, the Yugh people were distinguished as a separate, though similar, group.

Today, Kets are the descendants of fishermen and hunter tribes of the Yenisei taiga, who adopted some of the cultural ways of those original Ket-speaking tribes of South Siberia. The earlier tribes engaged in hunting, fishing, and reindeer breeding in the northern areas.

The Ket was incorporated into the Russian state in the 17th century. Their efforts to resist were unsuccessful as the Russians deported them to different places in an attempt to break up their resistance. This broke up their strictly organized patriarchal social system and their way of life disintegrated. The Ket people ran up debts with the Russians. Some died of famine, others of diseases introduced from Europe. By the 19th century, the Ket could no longer sustain itself without food assistance from the Russian state.{{cite web|url=http://www.eki.ee/books/redbook/kets.shtml|title=THE KETS|publisher=The Peoples of the Red Book|access-date=5 August 2006 }}

In the 20th century, the Soviets conducted collectivization among the Ket. They were officially recognized as Kets in the 1930s when the Soviet Union began to implement the self-definition policy for indigenous peoples. However, many Ket traditions continued to be counteracted by the state. Collectivization was completed by the 1950s, and the Ket people were led to adopt the same lifestyle as ethnic Russians; education in Russian contributed to language loss as well.

The population of Kets has been relatively stable since 1923. According to the 2010 census, there were 1,220 Kets in Russia. The Kets live in small villages along riversides and are no longer nomadic. Unemployment and alcoholism are rampant among the Ket, like many other indigenous peoples of Siberia.{{Cite journal |date=December 1998 |title=The Yeniseian Languages |url=https://www.mother-tongue-journal.org/MT/mt4.pdf |journal=Mother Tongue |issue=4}}

The Ket language has been linked to the Na-Dené languages of North America in the Dené–Yeniseian language family.{{cite web|url=http://www.orbis-quintus.net/?p=3136|date=10 March 2008|access-date=22 June 2016|title=Ket language family linked to Na-Dene language family | orbis quintus|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110723234925/http://www.orbis-quintus.net/?p=3136|archive-date=23 July 2011|url-status=dead}}{{cite web|url=http://www.uaf.edu/anlc/vajda.html|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090528001411/http://www.uaf.edu/anlc/vajda.html|date=12 February 2008|archive-date=28 May 2009|access-date=22 June 2016|title=Public Lecture: The Siberian Origin of the Na-Dene Languages|publisher=University of Alaska Fairbanks}}{{cite web|url=http://www.uaf.edu/anlc/dy2008.html|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090526221250/http://www.uaf.edu/anlc/dy2008.html|date=10 February 2008|archive-date=26 May 2009|access-date=22 June 2016|title=Dene-Yeniseic Symposium, February 2008|publisher=University of Alaska Fairbanks}} This link has led to some collaboration between the Ket and northern Athabaskan peoples.{{cite web|url=http://talkingalaska.blogspot.com/2010/04/arctic-athabaskan-council-and-ket.html|date=21 April 2010|access-date=22 June 2016|title=The Arctic Athabaskan Council and the Ket People of Siberian Russia Renew Historic Contacts and Agree to Work Together | Talking Alaska|publisher=talkingalaska.blogspot.com}} Although a potential link to the Na-Dené languages has been identified, this link is not accepted by all linguists.{{cite web|url=https://sites.ualberta.ca/~kla2/LING324.pdf|date=9 December 2013|access-date=26 October 2022|title=Ket, Its Viability and Revival Prospects|publisher=Kevin Andrusky}}

Ket means "man" (plural deng "men, people"). The Kets of the Kas, Sym and Dubches rivers use jugun as a self-designation. In 1788, Peter Simon Pallas was the earliest scholar to publish observations about the Ket language in a travel diary.{{Cite web|title=Ket language|url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Ket-language|access-date=2021-04-07|website=Encyclopedia Britannica|language=en}}

In 1926, there were 1,428 Kets, of whom 1,225 (85.8%) were native speakers of the Ket language. The 1989 census counted 1,113 ethnic Kets with only 537 (48.3%) native speakers left.{{Citation needed|date=May 2021}}

As of 2008, there were only about 100 people who still spoke Ket fluently, half of them over 50. It is entirely different from any other language in Siberia. Alexander Kotusov (1955–2019) was a Ket folk singer, composer, and writer of songs in the Ket language.[http://siberian-lang.srcc.msu.ru/ru/informant/aleksandr-maksimovich-kotusov Siberian Lang – Alexander Maksimovich Kotusov]

File:Yeniseian languages map.svg

The Kets have a rich and varied culture, filled with an abundance of Siberian mythology, including shamanistic practices and oral traditions. Siberia, the area of Russia in which the Kets reside, has long been identified as the originating place of the Shaman or Shamanism. In the 1950s, Mircea Eliade states this in the first sentence of his book Shamanism: "Since the beginning of the 20th century, ethnologists have fallen into the habit of using the terms 'shaman', 'medicine man', 'sorcerer', and 'magician' interchangeably to designate certain individuals possessing magico-religious powers and found in all 'primitive' societies. If the word 'shaman' is taken to mean any magician, sorcerer, medicine man, or ecstatic found throughout the history of religion and religious ethnology, we arrive at a notion at once extremely complex and extremely vague; it seems, furthermore, to serve no purpose, for we already have the terms 'magician' or 'sorcerer' to express notions as unlike and ill-defined as 'primitive magic' or 'primitive mysticism'."Mircea Eliade, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1972) 5

The shamans of the Ket people have been identified as practitioners of healing as well as other local ritualistic spiritual practices. Supposedly, there were several types of Ket shamans,Alekseyenko 1978Hoppál 2005: 171 differing in function (sacral rites, curing), power, and associated animals (deer, bear). Also, among Kets, (as with several other Siberian peoples such as the KaragasDiószegi 1960: 128, 188, 243Diószegi 1960: 130Hoppál 1994: 75) there are examples of the use of skeleton symbolics. Hoppál interprets it as a symbol of shamanic rebirth,Hoppál 1994: 65 although it may also symbolize the bones of the loon (the helper animal of the shaman, joining the air and underwater worlds, just like the story of the shaman who traveled both to the sky and the underworld).Hoppál 2005: 198 The skeleton-like overlay represented shamanic rebirth among some other Siberian cultures as well.Hoppál 2005: 199Hoppál 2005: 172

Today, the practice of shamanism has largely been abandoned. Monotheism has displaced the ideas of the shaman and shamanistic practices. Of great importance to Kets are spirit images, described as "an animal shoulder bone wrapped in a scrap of cloth simulating clothing."A. A. Malygna, Dolls of the Peoples of Siberia 1988, p. 132, cited in Edward J. Vajda, Yeniseian Peoples and Languages: A History of Yeniseian Studies with an annotated bibliography and a source guide, Curzon Press, 2001. One adult Ket, who had been careless with a cigarette, said, "It's a shame I don't have my doll. My house burnt down together with my dolls."Werner Herzog, Happy People: A Year in the Taiga (documentary film) 2010. Kets regard their spirit images as household deities, which sleep in the daytime and protect them at night.Herzog

Edward J. Vajda, a professor of Modern and Classical languages, spent a year in Siberia studying the Ket people, and found a possible relationship between the Ket language and the Na-Dene languages, of which Navajo is the most prominent and widely spoken.{{Cite web|last=University|first=Western Washington|date=2021-03-09|title=How 30 years of research built a language bridge between the peoples of Siberia and North America|url=https://medium.com/gaia-wwu/linguistic-sleuth-building-a-language-bridge-across-the-bering-sea-eff67d4cce|access-date=2021-04-09|website=Medium|language=en}}

Vyacheslav Ivanov and Vladimir Toporov compared Ket mythology with those of speakers of Uralic languages, assuming in the studies that they are modeling semiotic systems in the compared mythologies. They have also made typological comparisons.Ivanov & Toporov 1973Ivanov 1984:390, in editorial afterword by Hoppál Among other comparisons, possibly from Uralic mythological analogies, the mythologies of Ob-Ugric peoplesIvanov 1984: 225, 227, 229 and Samoyedic peoplesIvanov 1984: 229, 230 are mentioned. Other authors have discussed analogies (similar folklore motifs, purely typological considerations, and certain binary pairs in symbolics) may be related to a dualistic organization of society - some dualistic features can be found in comparisons with these peoples.Ivanov 1984: 229–231 However, for Kets, neither dualistic organization of societyZolotaryov 1980: 39 nor cosmological dualismZolotaryov 1980: 48 have been researched thoroughly. If such features existed at all, they have either weakened or remained largely undiscovered. There are some reports of a division into two exogamous patrilinear moieties,Zolotaryov 1980: 37 folklore on conflicts of mythological figures, and cooperation of two beings in the creation of the land, the motif of the earth-diver.Ivanov 1984: 229 This motif is present in several cultures in different variants. In one example, the creator of the world is helped by a waterfowl as the bird dives under the water and fetches earth so that the creator can make land out of it. In some cultures, the creator and the earth-fetching being (sometimes called a devil, or taking the shape of a loon) compete with one another; in other cultures (including the Ket variant), they do not compete at all, but rather collaborate.Paulson 1975 :295

However, if dualistic cosmologies are defined in a broad sense, and not restricted to certain concrete motifs, then their existence is more widespread; they exist not only among some Uralic-speaking peoples, but in examples on every inhabited continent. {{clarify|date=December 2020}} Zolotarjov 1980: 56

The Ket traditional culture has been researched extensively. Some people included as reference are Matthias Castrén, Vasiliy Ivanovich Anuchin, Kai Donner, Hans Findeisen, and Yevgeniya Alekseyevna Alekseyenko.Hoppál 2005: 170–171

1913 photographs by the Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen:

File:No-nb bldsa 3f081.jpg

File:P252 Men and children of the Yenisei-Ostiaks.jpg

File:No-nb bldsa 3f078. En kete-kvinne og et barn sitter i teltet hvor de steker fisk på pinner.jpg

File:No-nb bldsa 3f082.jpg

File:No-nb bldsa 3f087.jpg

File:No-nb bldsa 3f091.jpg

File:No-nb bldsa 3f173.jpg

File:No-nb bldsa 3f083.jpg

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File:P258 The houseboats of the Yenisei-Ostiaks.jpg|Houseboats of the Ket

File:Ket campfire 1914 cropped.jpg|Group of Kets around a campfire. The people in the background wearing fur hats are Russians.{{cn|date=May 2024}}

• Alexander Kotusov, Ket singer

{{Portal|Siberia}}

• Yeniseian languages
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{{Reflist|colwidth=30em}}

• {{cite book |last=Alekseyenko |first=E. A. |chapter=Categories of Ket Shamans |title=Shamanism in Siberia |publisher=Akadémiai Kiadó |year=1978 |location=Budapest |editor= Diószegi, Vilmos |editor2=Hoppál, Mihály}}
• {{cite book |last=Diószegi |first=Vilmos |title=Sámánok nyomában Szibéria földjén. Egy néprajzi kutatóút története |series=Terebess Ázsia E-Tár |publisher=Magvető Könyvkiadó |location=Budapest |year=1960 |language=hu |url=http://mek.oszk.hu/02100/02181}} The book has been translated to English: {{cite book |last=Diószegi |first=Vilmos |title=Tracing shamans in Siberia. The story of an ethnographical research expedition |others=Translated from Hungarian by Anita Rajkay Babó |publisher=Anthropological Publications |location=Oosterhout |year=1968}}
• {{cite book |last=Hoppál |first=Mihály |title=Sámánok, lelkek és jelképek |publisher=Helikon Kiadó |location= Budapest |year=1994 |language=hu |isbn=963-208-298-2}} The title means "Shamans, souls and symbols".
• {{cite book |last=Hoppál |first=Mihály |title=Sámánok Eurázsiában |year=2005 |publisher=Akadémiai Kiadó |location=Budapest |language=hu |isbn=963-05-8295-3}} The title means "Shamans in Eurasia", the book is written in Hungarian, but it is published also in German, Estonian and Finnish. [http://www.akkrt.hu/main.php?folderID=906&pn=2&cnt=31&catID=&prodID=17202&pdetails=1 Site of publisher with a short description on the book (in Hungarian)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100102125239/http://www.akkrt.hu/main.php?folderID=906&pn=2&cnt=31&catID=&prodID=17202&pdetails=1 |date=2 January 2010 }}
• {{cite journal |last=Ivanov |first=Vyacheslav |author-link=Vyacheslav Ivanov (philologist) |author2=Vladimir Toporov |author2-link=Vladimir Toporov |title=Towards the Description of Ket Semiotic Systems |journal=Semiotica |publisher=Mouton |location=The Hague • Prague • New York |year=1973 |volume=IX |issue=4 |pages=318–346}}
• {{cite book |others=Collected, appendix, editorial afterword by Hoppál, Mihály |last=Ivanov |first=Vjacseszlav (=Vyacheslav) |title=Nyelv, mítosz, kultúra |chapter=Nyelvek és mitológiák |publisher=Gondolat |location=Budapest |year=1984 |language=hu |isbn=963-281-186-0}} The title means: "Language, myth, culture", the editorial afterword means: "Languages and mythologies".
• {{cite book |others=Collected, appendix, editorial afterword by Hoppál, Mihály |last=Ivanov |first=Vjacseszlav (=Vyacheslav) |title=Nyelv, mítosz, kultúra |chapter=Obi-ugor és ket folklórkapcsolatok |pages=215–233 |publisher=Gondolat |location=Budapest |year=1984 |language=hu |isbn=963-281-186-0}} The title means: "Language, myth, culture", the chapter means: "Obi-Ugric and Ket folklore contacts".
• {{cite book |last=Middendorff |first=A. Th., von |title=Reis Taimхrile |location=Tallinn |year=1987}}
• {{cite book |last=Paulson |first=Ivar |chapter=A világkép és a természet az észak-szibériai népek vallásában |pages=283–298 |editor=Gulya, János |title=A vízimadarak népe. Tanulmányok a finnugor rokon népek élete és műveltsége köréből |publisher=Európa Könyvkiadó |location=Budapest |year=1975 |language=hu |isbn=963-07-0414-5}} Chapter means: "The world view and the nature in the religion of the North-Siberian peoples"; title means: "The people of water fowls. Studies on lifes and cultures of the Finno-Ugric relative peoples".
• {{cite book |last=Zolotarjov |first=A.M. |chapter=Társadalomszervezet és dualisztikus teremtésmítoszok Szibériában |editor=Hoppál, Mihály |title=A Tejút fiai. Tanulmányok a finnugor népek hitvilágáról |pages=29–58 |publisher=Európa Könyvkiadó |location=Budapest |year=1980 |language=hu |isbn=963-07-2187-2}} Chapter means: "Social structure and dualistic creation myths in Siberia"; title means: "The sons of Milky Way. Studies on the belief systems of Finno-Ugric peoples".

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{{Indigenous peoples of Russia}}

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Category:Ethnic groups in Russia

Category:Ethnic groups in Siberia

Category:Indigenous peoples of Siberia

Category:Indigenous small-numbered peoples of the North, Siberia and the Far East

Category:Turukhansky District