Khanty, People of the Taiga
Surviving the 20th Century
Distributed for University of Alaska Press
- Contents
- Review Quotes

Notes on Spelling, Pronunciation, and Usage
Preface
1. Iugra
Before the Russians
Vlast’ and Volost’: Russian Power from 1600 to 1917
The Soviet Era
2. Iakh and Sir
Kinship and Residency, History and Territoriality
Soul, Conception, and Rebirth
Adulthood and Social Identity
Courtship and Marriage
Alcoholism, Accidents, and Violence
Being Elderly
Death and Transformation
Tradition, Modernity, and “Being Khanty”
3. Traditions
The Khanty World
Ordinary Competence, Religious Practice, and the Family Sphere
Spirits, Land, and Kin
Pori and Yir: Ritual Communion
Communal Rituals
Other Communal Rituals
4. Transformations
Cultural Specialists and Cultural Change
Russian Orthodoxy
When the Insider Becomes the Outsider
Khanty Traditions
The Politics of Cultural Survival
5. Kurlomkin: Taiga Hunter
Land Use in the Iugan Basin
The Kurlomkins of Bolshoi Iugan
Beyond the Settlement: The Family Hunting Territory
The Domestic Economy
Difficult Futures
6. Kanterov: Muskeg Reindeer Herder
Historic Land Use on the Pim River
Kirill Kanterov and His Brothers
The Kanterov Family Territory
The Domestic Economy
Conclusions
7. Black Snow
Post-Soviet Administration
Defacing the Land
Marginalization and the Press of Oil
Making Way for Oil
Reimagining Land and Community
Emergent Types
8. Land, Leadership, and Community
Oil, Ethnicity, and Perestroika
The Obshchina Movement
The Fight to Save the Iugan
9. Accommodation, Resistance, and Resilience
Vectors of Change
Revitalization, Resistance, and Revival
Strategies of Cultural Persistence
A Resilient People
Bibliography
Index
"Meticulously researched, authoritatively written, and enlivened with a magnificence of ethnographic, ecological, and linguistic detail, this unique study offers a portrait of immense scholarly value that could easily serve as a model for similar social analyses of other native peoples of Siberia. . . . Essential.”
Anthropology: Cultural and Social Anthropology
You may purchase this title at these fine bookstores. Outside the USA, see our international sales information.