Yakut Religion

Yakut Religion

YAKUT RELIGION. The Yakuts, who numbered 328,000 during the 1979 census, are the northernmost of Turkic peoples. Beginning in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, under pressure caused by Buriat encroachment, they gradually emigrated northward from the Lake Baikal region of southern Siberia. They moved upstream along the course of the Lena River and finally settled in northeastern Siberia, the coldest region in the world. The horses and cattle bred by these semisedentary people have successfully adapted to the rigorous climate; however, hunting and fishing provide the Yakuts with a significant additional source of income. The Yakuts are organized in patrilineal and exogamic clans regrouped into tribes.

Under pressure from the Russians, who subjugated them during the first half of the seventeenth century, the majority of Yakuts were baptized by the end of the eighteenth century. They adopted Christianity primarily for material reasons (e.g., gifts of crosses, shirts, and various privileges). At the same time, they secretly preserved their own religious system, shamanism, which was modified superficially as the result of contact with Russian Orthodoxy. The practitioners of shamanism accepted the new idea of a reward after death and attributed the traits of God, the Virgin Mary, and the guardian angels to some of their spirits.

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