Samoyed Religion
SAMOYED RELIGION. The Samoyeds are the indigenous peoples of the tundra, taiga and mountainous territories in northern Eurasia who speak a systematically related set of languages. Most live in western Siberia, in the region extending from the Yamal and Taimyr peninsulas at the Arctic Ocean in the north along the waterways of the Yenisei River to the Sayan Mountains in the south; a few live in northeasternmost Europe on the Kola Peninsula and near the Pechora River. As a linguistic group, Samoyed is related to Finno-Ugric; together they form the Uralic language family.
Currently numbering about thirty-five thousand, the Samoyed peoples are broadly divided into the northern Samoyeds and the southern Samoyeds. Northern Samoyed groups include the Nentsy (also called the Yurak Samoyeds or the Yuraks), who, with approximately thirty thousand members, are by far the largest Samoyed group, extending their territory from the Kola Peninsula crossing the Urals and over the Yamal Peninsnula to the Yenisei; the Nganasani (or Tavgi), with about 800–1000 members at the Taimyr Peninsula; and the Entsy (or Yenisei Samoyeds), with about 200–400 members. Of the southern Samoyeds, only one group survives, the Selkup (formerly called the Ostiak Samoyeds), with some 3,500 members.
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