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A LINE IN THE SAYANS:
HISTORY AND DIVERGENT PERCEPTIONS OF PROPERTY AMONG THE
TOZHU AND TOFA OF SOUTH SIBERIA
Brian Robert Donahoe
Submitted to the faculty of the University Graduate School
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree
Doctor of Philosophy
in the Department of Anthropology,
Indiana University
December 2003
UMI Number: 3133859
Copyright 2004 by
Donahoe, Brian Robert
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?2004
Brian Robert Donahoc
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
To my mother, Rho Donahoe
Lord knows you 've waited long enough!
IV
PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I was first introduced to the Republic of Tyva (more commonly known as Tuva) by Prof,
Roman Zlotin of Indiana University's Department of Geography, who had done his
dissertation research in Tyva in the early 1960s. I was particularly intrigued by its
position at the ecological crossroads of the Siberian boreal forests and the Inner Asian
steppes; cultural and linguistic crossroads of the Turkic and Mongolia peoples; and
historical, political and administrative crossroads between Russia, Mongolia, and China.
My interest was furiher kindled through communication with the organization Friends of
Tuva, and its founder, Ralph Leighton. I began to read all I could find on Tyva in English.
Of course, prior to the glastnost' and perestroika movements in the Soviet Union under
Gorbachev, virtually no Western researchers could get into Tyva (or anyplace else in the
former USSR), so there was very little English-language literature up to that time.
Following that, the great majority of English-language material, both academic and
journalistic, focused on one of three things: Tyva's national art, throat-singing (khoomei);
the revival of shamanism in Tyva; or the nationalist-secessionist movement in Tyva in
the early 1990s. Tyva is also known to stamp collectors for its curiously shaped postage
stamps issued during Tyva's short-lived national independence (1921-1944). As I am not
musically inclined nor a philatelist, a study of Ty van throat-singing or of postage stamps
was out of the question. That left shamanism and the nationalist-secessionist movement.
Hence my initial research interest was to investigate the critical juncture where, I imagined,
the discourses of nationalism, shamanism, and environmentalism converge to contribute to a
unique Tyvan national identity and to justify Tyva's claims to sovereignty over its natural
resources. At the time, based on available materials (e.g., Alatalu 1992; Eismont 1996;
McMullen 1993). I was speculating that in the wake of Chechnya's efforts to secede, Tyva
appeared to be subtly positioning itself to become the next secessionist test-case to challenge
Moscow in the volatile politics of the fragmenting Russian Federation.
However, when I made my first trip to Tyva in .1997,1 found that neither of these
issues was foremost in people's minds, and to ray understanding, both had been blown
out of proportion by the handful of Western academics and journalists who had made
their way to Tyva in the early 1990s. No one in Tyva talks about seceding anymore, and
"shamanism" has, in my opinion, been woefully misrepresented. Western attention has
focused on a highly publicized, newly institutionalized form of shamanism, represented
by shamanic training institutes, certification boards, and clinics. In my experience most
Tyvans emphatically reject this version of shamanism as inauthentic. and view these
shamans as charlatans. The belief system that has legitimacy in the eyes of most Tyvans
is for the most part tacit, an internalized worldview that incorporates a spirit world
manifest in nature. This worldview permeates the consciousnesses of most Tyvans and is
reflected in many subtle ways, but is in no way dependent on a shaman, hence is more
accurately described as a type of animism (with appropriate caveats - see inter alia Bird-
David 1999) or spiritism.
Given the lack of salience of these two issues to the everyday lives of the Tyva
people. 1 found myself without a topic. But several people said to me, "You know, we
used to have a lot of reindeer up in the Tozhu region, but now we don't. Why don't you
look into that?" And thus a dissertation topic was born.
But the first task was to become proficient in the Tyvan language. Tyva has
always been unique among the republics of the former in USSR in that il is one of the
few places where the titular nationality has always been in the majority, and where
virtually all Tyva people still speak Tyvan as their first language. In fact, many of the
older reindeer herding peoples (as well as some yak herders in the west), being the most
removed from urban areas and still leading nomadic or semi-nomadic iifestyles, speak
Russian only as a distant second language, and are uncomfortable expressing themselves
in Russian. At the time of my initial trip to Tyva, I knew no Russian. This proved to be an
advantage for me - I probably would not have been able to 3eam Tyvan if I had known
Russian, because everyone in the capital would have reverted to speaking Russian with
me. But with a strong background in Turkic languages and my total lack of Russian, the
easiest thing for me and others to do was to try to speak in Tyvan. Of course, I couldn't
become fluent in a single summer, but 1 returned in 1998, and then lived in Tyva for two
full years from September 1999 through September 2001.1 conducted all fieldwork in the
Tyvan language, including extensive interviews and surveys. I became proficient in
reading Russian, as this was necessary for archival work and to read earlier ethnographic
accounts, most of which are written in Russian.
Toward the end of my first year in Tyva, I was contacted by a colleague who was
in the process of applying for a grant from the Volkswagen Stiftung to document
endangered Tyva-reiated languages in and around Tyva. He got the grant and set up the
Altai-Sayan Language and Ethnography Project (ASLEP). This allowed me to stay in
Tyva for another year (Sept.. 2000 - Sept. 2001). While my main task within the ASLEP
project was to document the Tozhu dialect of the Tyva language via video and audio
vii
recording, as well as to assess people's attitudes toward their language and its decline, I
was also able to go up to an area informally known as Tofalaria in southwestern Irkutsk
Oblast', just on the other side of the border between Tyva and Irkutsk Oblast'. In this
remote region live the Tofa (more commonly known as Tofalar), an ethnic group very
closely related ethnically, historically, linguistically, and in their traditional lifestyles to
the Tozhu reindeer herders I had been working with. The short time I spent with the Tofa
(two trips totaling five weeks) was very informative and particularly productive for the
comparative framework it allowed me to construct. This comparative framework is the
structural backbone of the entire dissertation.
Needless to say, any project of this size can only be accomplished with the support and
assistance of an army of people. Stateside, I would like to thank my dissertation
committee, first and foremost my principal advisor and committee chair, Dr. M. Nazif
Shahrani. Dr. Shahrani brought me into anthropology and made my doctoral studies
possible by nominating me for a Social Science Research Council (SSRC) Fellowship,
despite the fact that I had had no prior anthropological training. He was the perfect
advisor for an older student such as myself - he gave me the latitude and freedom to
make my own decisions (and mistakes), but stepped in where necessary with
unconditional support and sage advice. In the dissertation writing process, I thank him for
giving me enough rope to hang myself and then not letting me do it, and for making me
make it better. I thank Dr. Emilio Moran for prompt and insightful comments on earlier
drafts; Dr. Rick Wilk for forcing me to look beyond the ethnography; and Dr. Eduardo
viii
Brondizio for agreeing to step in at the last minute and sit on my committee. I would also
like to thank Dr. Lair)-' Clark for offering a course on the structure of Tyva Turkic when
there was only one student to take it. The administrative staff at Indiana University's
Department of Anthropology, especially Connie Adams and Debra Wilkerson, have
given me unconditional administrative, logistical, and moral support.
Funding for this project has come from a variety of sources. The Anthropology
Department funded me throughout my graduate student career with teaching
assistan.tshi.ps, partial funding for two pre-dissertation summers in Tyva, and travel grants
to attend conferences. Indiana University's Office of International Programs also helped
fund two pre-dissertation fieldtrips to Tyva. The SSRC funded my first year of graduate
study and one summer of language study. Foreign Languages and Area Studies (FLAS)
fellowships funded two more summers of language study and my final year of course
work. Dissertation fieldwork was funded by a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation
Research Fellowship and the Altai-Sayan Language and Ethnography Project, funded by
the Volkswagen-Stiftung's Initiaiive for the Documentation of Endangered Languages
(DoBeS).
Thanks also to my entire wonderful and sprawling family, especially my brother
Mike, who took care of all my business stateside during my extended periods overseas
and who has always made me feel that su casa es mi casa (and storage unit): my sister
Lyn, for moral support, cheap air tickets and free travel advice; and of course my mother,
Rho, to whom this dissertation is dedicated. I have also been blessed with the most
generous and supportive friends a person could hope for. I am especially indebted to my
life-long best buddy, Joe Clarke, for years of unstinting generosity, fully aware that I
would never be in a position to repay him. Jeff and Missy Zaraya and Missy's mother,
Margaret Baldwin, gave me free use of Mrs. Baldwin's house in Bloomington for two
years and treated me to many wonderful dinners. I'd like to thank my support network of
fellow graduate students at Indiana University who slogged through the trenches with me,
especially Sebastian Braun, Christina Burke, Jennifer Cash, Margaret Dorsey, Kimberly
Hart, Candice Lowe, Tracy Luedke, Kathy Mctzo, Lena Mortenson, Kathy Pelrie, and
Ann Reed.
In Moscow, special thanks go to the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology,
Russian Academy of Sciences, especially to Prof. Dr. Sevyan Vainshtein, the grandfather
of Tyvan and especially Tozhu ethnography. Everything I have done here rests firmly on
the ethnographic and historical foundations he has built over his long and distinguished
career. Drs. Anatolii Yamskov and Natasha Novikova were always especially attentive
during my visits to Moscow, introducing me to people, suggesting important Russian-
language literature, and pointing me in directions I would not have otherwise gone. My
dose friends in Moscow, Grigorii Neverov and Taraa Kuular, always made sure I had a
place to stay in Moscow and helped me navigate and negotiate that sprawling and hectic
metropolis.
The number of people in Tyva who have helped me is simply too long to recount,
but the following deserve special recognition: Lyubov Shuluyevna Shoiduk, my ugbam
(big sister), with whom I lived my first two summers in Tyva and who has always been
there to help; Rollanda Nikoiaevna Kongar, my other ugbam, who arranged my living
situation and language lessons when I first went to Tyva; and Afanasii Myldyk, Kyzyl-
Maadyr Simchit, and Kheimer-ool Kuular for patient research assistance, accompanying
me on difficult fieldtrips, and being general factotums and all-round good friends. Special
thanks to the Tyvan Institute for the Humanities (TGI - formerly TNIIYaLI) and its
former director and assistant director, Churguy-ool Mikhailovich Dorzhu and Svetlana
Mongushevna Biche-ool; and current director and assistant director, Vyacheslav
Dongakovich Mart-ool and Valentina Suzuksi, for taking care of difficult visa issues and
for granting me affiliation with the -institute and unlimited use of the library. In Toora-
Khem, the family of Vaierii and Galina Shyyrap opened their home to me and accepted
me as a member of their family. Arena Dongakovna Kashkak, the director of the school
museum in Toora-Khem, shared with me her insights garnered over years of collecting
material culture and life histories of the Tozhu people. And of course, this research would
not have been possible without the cooperation of all the Tozhu reindeer herders and
former herders who gave so willingly of their time, information, knowledge and wisdom,
which is so inadequately reflected here, and who patiently taught me all I could learn and
tried to teach me much more. Special mention goes to Viktor (Piko) and Valentina
SambuLi and their son Sholban Bimba, with whom 1 lived out in the deep taiga for six
months and who didn't let me freeze to death or get eaten by a bear.
And to the hundreds of other people in Tyva who provided help and support at
various stages of this research, whether with tips as to how to navigate the archives, or
language help, or a hot banya, or an iraportant contact, or a helpful phone call to someone
important, or simply a friendly word of support and encouragement - if I listed them all it
would more than double the size of this dissertation, so let me just thank in general the
warm, helpful and hospitable people of Tyva.
I am now comfortably ensconced at the Max Planck Institute for Social
Anthropology (MPISA) in Halle, Germany, and so. appropriately, the final
acknowledgements go to people affiliated with that institution. Patty Gray helped me get
my foot in the door at the MPISA by putting forward my name for an appointment as a
visiting scholar in 2001. The Institute's directors. Prof. Drs. Chris Hann and Gunther
Sehlee, have followed up with several invitations and generous support, and have shown
remarkable patience with me as this process has dragged on far longer than any of us
expected. This dissertation has benefited greatly from the unparalleled facilities and
exceptionally stimulating intellectual atmosphere at the MPISA. Conversations with
current and former researchers here have shaped my thinking. Special thanks to Keebet
Benda-Beckmann, Joachim Otto Habeck, Alexander King, Frances Pine, Mihaly Sarkany,
Lale Yalcin-Heckmann and John Ziker for reading and commenting upon drafts of
various chapters along the way. Thanks also to John Eidson, Deema Kaneff, Gordon
Milligan, and the members of the Siberian Studies Centre - Katharina Geraet, Joachim
Otto Habeck, Agnieszka Haleniba, Istvan Santha, and Virginie Vate - for moral support
and patience with my mood swings. Also in Halle 1 would like to acknowledge ray friend
and colleague Sven Grawunder and his wife, Ulli, for helping me get settled in Halle.
My final thanks go to my fiancee Chaizu Kyrgys. for everything else.
Brian Robert Donahoe
A LINE TN THE SAYANS: HISTORY AND DIVERGENT PERCEPTIONS OF PROPERTY AMONG
THE TOZI-fU AND TOFA OF SOUTH SIBERIA
This dissertation is a study of comparative change and continuity among two of the
smailest and most neglected of Russia's indigenous minorities in the post-Soviet period,
the Tozhu of the Republic of Tyva (Tuva) and the Tofa of southwestern Irkutsk Oblast'.
The Tozhu and the Tofa are closely related reindeer-herding and hunting peoples
inhabiting the Eastern Sayan mountain region of southern Siberia. Geopolitics and
accidents of history have set these otherwise closely related peoples on different
historical trajectories. As a result, the Tozhu have maintained their reindeer-herding
traditions and native language, while the Tofa no longer practice reindeer herding nor
speak their native language. I employ concepts from institutional analysis to explain the
differences between these two peoples, particularly their different senses of property in
land and animals, and to explain why post-Soviet development initiatives have failed
among the Tozhu and Tofa.
Moving out from the local level to the constitutional level, I analyze the history of
the legal framework affecting the indigenous peoples of Russia, paying particular
attention to the official category of "Indigenous Small-numbered Peoples of the North,"
which includes both the Tozhu and the Tofa. I examine three new framework laws
specifically designed to provide a legal structure through which the indigenous peoples of
Russia can assert their rights, and the potential problems with these legal protections. One
xiii
of these problems is the recently legalized privatization of land, which threatens Russia's
indigenous peoples' access to land and resources. By way of conclusion, I suggest
reasons why local-level governance structures have not emerged among the Tozhu and
Tofa. and speculate on the future of reindeer herding in south Siberia.


LIST OF FIGURES
Figure I.I. "Cha Cha" Shyngylai and his wife; Roza 3
Figure 1.2. Cherlik-Kys Sambuu 4
Figure 3.1. The Centre of Asia Monument 19
Figure 3.2. Valya Sambuu milking a myndy (female reindeer) ....87
Figure 3.3. A Tyvan postage stamp from the 1930s 88
Figure 3.4. A postage stamp from 1935 100
Figure 3.5. Detail from a map 100
Figure 4.1. Viktor Sambuu butchering an elk 112
Figure 4.2. Social Deer 128
Figure 4.2. View of Alygdzher 137
Figure 5.1. ATozhu campsite in the autumn 173
Figure 5.2. Sholban Bimba working on his family's cabin 175
Figure 8.1. Slag heaps along the Oina River 243
Figure 9.1. Viktor Sambuu with a large male kara kush (wood grouse) 253
Figure 9.2. Bear paws 254
Figure 9.3. Kiosk offering to buy musk-deer glands. 256
Figure 9.4. High school seniors in Toora-Khem 261
Figure 9.5. Dan Plumley delivers veterinary medicine to Tozhu herders 264
Figure 9.6. Valentina Matvienko at Sambuu camp near the Oina River. 265
XVI1
LIST OF MAPS, TABLES, AND GRAPHS
Map 1.1. Reindeer herding peoples of South Siberia 7
Map 3.1. Tyva at the center of the Asian continent .78
3.2. The Sayan Cross 84
Table 3.1. Ethnic Composition of Krasnoyarsk Uezd iu the 17 c. 93
Map 5.1: Tofa clan divisions, early 20lh century 150
Map 5.2. Reduction in Tofa territory, 1915-1927 154
Map 5.3. Principal Tozhu reindeer herding areas 172
Graph 6.1. Reindeer population in Tyva, 1929-2001 191
Part I
Research Setting:
Theoretical and Historical Background
Ivizhi dep eres attyg!
("To be called a reindeer herder is to have a brave and daring reputation."
From the folk song Tozhu Try ("Song of Tozhu"), words by Leonid
Chadamba).
Ivi chok bolsa, Tozhu kizhi baza chok boor.
("If there were no reindeer, there would be no Tozhu people." - an often
repeated refrain by Tozhu people during interviews.)
Kandyg-daa bske azhyl bar bolza, bis ivi azhylyn kagbas bis. Ol bisting
khanyvysta, bisting chiireeviste, bisting sagysh-setkiliviste.
("Even if there were other work available, we wouldn't quit reindeer
herding. It's in our blood, our hearts, our souls." Tozhu reindeer herder
Baak-ool Andylayovich Ak, July 1998)
Ish chok. Ish bar bolza men mynda ishtenir men. Ibi bile ishtenmez iyik men.
("There's no work. If there was any other work, I'd work here in the
village. I wouldn't work with the reindeer!" Sergei Amostaev, the last
remaining full-timeTofa reindeer herder, May 2001.)
July 1998. Sitting knee-to-knee with Tozhu reindeer herder and hunter Aleksandr
Akovich Shyngylai on a rough platform of pine trunks in his canvas tent. We are at bis
summer camp on the upper reaches of the Bedii River amidst the highest peaks of the
Eastern Sayan mountains, on the border between the Republic of Tyva and the Irkutsk
Oblast', in southeastern Siberia. The sun had gone down long ago, and the right side of
his narrow lined face and forward-thrusting jaw are illuminated only by the red glow
seeping oat of cracks in the iron wood-burning stove. My assistant had excused himself
for the night, but Aleksandr Akovich, who goes by the nickname "Cha-Cha," wants me to
stay. I protest that I am afraid I won't be able to follow the conversation, but he grips my
knee and says to me in Tyvan, "You'll 'understand. I'll
make yon understand." Then he throws back another shot
of vodka, leans in so that his face almost touches mine,
and intones gravely. "Truly, in a year, maybe two, three at
the most, there will be no more reindeer in Tyva."
April 2000. On a sunny spring day on the high banks
above the Chaiynda River in the Tozhu District, in the
northeastern quadrant of the Siberian Republic of Tyva,
Viktor Shamboiovich Sambuu sits outside his tattered canvas tent, hunched over a piece
of birch wood that he is hacking and whittling away at with his homemade Bowie knife.
Viktor, nicknamed "Piko," is shaping the wood into one of the two side supports that will
eventually be the frame of an ezer, a saddle for his reindeer. He could just as easily be
making a mongiu (a muzzle to prevent reindeer calves from nursing), or an axe handle, or
a chess piece, for that matter.
Inside the tent his wife, Valya (Valentina), tends to a loaf of kakbak, a dense.
soda-Ieavened bread, baking on the top of the izig demir. a wood-burning stove welded
together from sheets of beaten iron. She's city-educated and not an ethnic Tozhu nor
from a reindeer-herding background, but since her marriage to Piko she has left her home
in the town of Saryg-Sep to live in the taiga. Their 6-year-old daughter, Cherlik-Kys
("Wild Girl"). 9-ysar-old son Adygzhy ("Shooter") and 12-year-old nephew Ay-Kherel
("Moon Beam") who goes by the nickname Opei-ool ("Baby Boy") are outside playing
reindeer herder, hobbling one of their good-natured, long-suffering hunting dogs by tying
3
Figure 1.1. "Cha Cha"
Shyngylai cranks the generator
as his wife, Roza, makes
contact with the village of
Kham-Syra.
a rope around its neck and then tying the other end of the rope to its forepaw, much as
they've seen Piko do with the reindeer, Cherlik-Kys has lived nomadically in the taiga
with her parents sines she was two months old. Now it's time for her to start gradeschool
in the village, but Piko and Valya aren't ready to let her go yet, and she herself doesn't
want to leave the taiga. They hold her oat for another year. Every April Adygzhy is
Figure U. Cherlik-Kys Sambuu with the released from school a month early to join his
first calf of the new millennium, Spring
family out in the taiga. Opei-ooi, son of Piko's
older brother who lives in the village of Adyr-
Kezhig, also comes along. He's a quiet boy, but
quick and clever and loves the reindeer and life
out in the taiga. Ask these children what they
want to do, and all of them say, in their native
Tyva language, Men ivizhi boluksap tur men ("I
want to be a reindeer herder!").
Valya's son by an earlier relationship. 24-
year-old Sholban ("Morning Star") and Piko's older sister's son, 24-year-old Artysh
("Juniper") are away on an extended hunting trip, hoping to bring back meat for the
camp. Although Sholban. is not of the Tozhu ethnic group himself, he, like his mother,
has taken to the nomadic reindeer-herding lifestyle. Artysh likewise looks forward to the
time when he will be able to establish his own herd. Sholban and Artysh, and after them,
Adygzhy. Cherlik-Kys, and Opei-ooi, represent the next generations of Toz'hu reindeer
herders.
November 2001. To the north, just on the other side of die Eastern Sayan Mountains from
Cha-Cha's summer camp, 18-year-old Mllya Amostaev saddles up a reindeer next to his
family's wooden house in the picturesque village of Alygdzher, in the southwestern
comer of Irkutsk Oblast' unofficially known as Tofalaxia. He's been in town for a few
days to pick up supplies, and is getting ready to start out on the three-day ride back to the
reindeer herd in the deep taiga. When asked if he would carry on reindeer herding in the
future, he shrugs and answers in Russian, "I suppose. What else is there for me to do?"
His father, Sergei, the last remaining full-time reindeer herder among the Tofa people and
one of only a handful who still speak the Tofa language, is less equivocal. "If there was
any other work, I'd work here in the village. I wouldn't work with the reindeer!"
This is a story of comparative change and continuity among two of the smallest and most
neglected of Russia's ethnic minorities in the post-Soviet period, the Tozhu1 of the
Republic of Tyva2 and the Tofa3 of southwestern Irkutsk Oblast'. The quotes that serve as
epigraphs to this Introduction and the three vignettes above frame nay ficldwork
experience and help highlight the research questions this dissertation sets out to answer.
Simply put, those questions are:
1 Also variously referred to as Todzhu, Toja, and Tuvintsy-Todzhintay.
2 Tyva is more commonly transliterated as Tuva, which reflects the Russian pronunciation and spelling.
I've chosen to transliterate it directly from the Tyvan as "Tyva," with the "y" representing a high,
unrounded back vowel in Cyrillic, in standard IPA, and in turcological convention).
Likewise, I've chosen to refer to the people as 'Tyva people," which is a direct translation of the Tyvan
"Tyva kizhi," and is truer to the Tyva people's self designation than the more common "Tuvan" or
"Tuvinian."
3 In earlier literature the Tofa were referred to as the Karagas, and since the 1930s they have been more
commonly referred to as the Tofalar, singular, Tofa. The -tar is a suffix marking the plural form in the Tofa
language, as it is in all Turkic languages. However, m most contemporary Russian-language sources, the
Tofa are referred to as Tofalar (singular), and Tof alary (the -y forming the plural in Russian).
1) Why has there been such a drastic decline in the number of domesticated reindeer
and a concomitant decline in the number of reindeer herders among both the
Tozhu and Tofa?
2) What are the reactions of both Tozhu and Tofa peoples and government officials
to.this decline? How are they responding to the collapse of the Soviet Union, the
withdrawal of state subsidies and other forms of support and organization? In the
face of this institutional void, from where will new institutions emerge, and what
will they look like?
3) Why is there such a difference in attitudes between the Tozhu and their cousins,
the Tofa, on the other side of the Eastern Sayan mountains?
4) What might the future hold? Is there a future in reindeer herding in this Eastern
Sayan region?
5) And what, if anything, can the experiences of these two groups tell us about the
relationships between indigenous peoples and larger state systems, and the
cultural survival of indigenous peoples more generally?
In this dissertation I have chosen to address these questions as a history of
institutional change from pre-Sovier times through the Soviet period and now into this
post-Soviet period of economic and political upheaval and integration into the global
market system.
The Tozhu and the Tofa are two of four closely related reindeer-herding and hunting
peoples inhabiting the Eastern Sayan mountain region of southern Siberia. The other two
are the Soyot of the Oka River region of Buryatia, and the Dukha of northwestern
Mongolia, in the territory west of Lake Hovsgol In Chapter 3, I will present a case for
considering all four groups as having very closely related histories and ethnic
backgrounds. For the purposes of this chapter, suffice it to say that geopolitics and
accidents of history have set these otherwise closely related peoples on different
historical trajectories. As a result they constitute a sort of a continuum, from the Tozhu
and the Dukha, who have maintained to varying degrees their reindeer-herding traditions
and native languages, to the Tofa and Soyot, who, with a few exceptions, no longer
practice reindeer herding nor speak their native languages. These groups thus present
compelling comparative case studies on the impact of different administrative regimes on
historically very similar communities.
Map 1.1 Reindeer herding peoples of South Siberia. For example, the Tofa
live in Irkutsk Oblast' and
the Soyot in the Buryat
Republic, regions that have
been under Russian influence
for more than 350 years.
Both groups were subjected
to the Soviet Union's nationalities policies4 from the very beginning, and both were
among the original 26 officially designated Indigenous Small-Numbered Peoples of the
Russian Federation (Korennye Malochislennye Narody Rossiiskoi Federatsif), which
entities them to certain rights and privileges intended to protect their "traditional ways of
life." Despite these rights and privileges, however, a number of factors including
centuries of Russian influence, the small population of the Tofa and Soyot (at present
approximately 730 and 2,300 respectively), the attraction of perceived improvements in
various social services that came along with inclusion in the Soviet, family, and pressures
to assimilate into the dominant Russian and Buryat linguistic and cultural communities
have led to the decline of their native languages and traditional reindeer-herding lifestyle,
and to the degradation of other markers of ethnic identity.
The Tozhu, on the other hand, live in the Republic of Tyva. Tyva is a constituent
member of the Russian Federation today, and the Tozhu, like the Tofa and Soyot, are also
among the Indigenous Small-Numbered Peoples of the Russian Federation, although they
only received this designation in 1993. Tyva was the fast territory incorporated into the
USSR, in 1944. Prior to that, Tyva was officially subject to the Manchu Qing dynasty
until 1911, and was nominally an independent state from 1921-1944, therefore had much
less exposure to Russian influence (see Chapter 3 for a more detailed historical
background). In addition, the Tozhu population of approximately 5,200 is larger than
either the Tofa or Soyot, and is generally considered a subgroup of the Tyva people, who
make up the majority in the Tyva Republic, numbering approximately 210,000 of a total
population of 310,000 within the republic. Thus the Tozhu have had far less exposure to
This is discussed in more detail in Chapter 7.
Russians over the years, and far fewer pressures to assimilate. All Tozhu still speak the
Tyvan language as a first language, and reindeer herding, while undeniably in decline, is
still practiced and is a vital facet of their economy and ethnic identity.
In contrast to these three groups on the Russian side of the border, the Dukha,
most of whom fled to Mongolia from the Soviet Union in the 1930s and 1940s to escape
forced collectivization and sedentarization, have only the most limited recognition as
minority peoples. They face such extreme marginaiization in Mongolia that they are
forced to fall back onto the only support system they have - their own people and culture.
Numbering approximately 500, most Dukha still speak their native language (a dialect
very similar to the Tozhu dialect of Tyva), and many still practice nomadic reindeer
herding. Hence, somewhat paradoxically, the Dukhas' lack of protected status has served
to encourage maintenance of their language, livelihood, and traditions.
With their transboundary distribution and different administrative regimes, these
southernmost reindeer-herding groups provide a unique opportunity for comparative
analysis of the impacts of different state systems, administrative regimes, and
institutional environments on the livelihoods of indigenous peoples. In this dissertation I
focus on two of these groups - the Tozhu and the Tofa. However, it is my belief that a
study including the Dukha and Soyot would be not only more complete, but more
productive theoretically and more widely applicable. For these reasons, I hope to be able
to carry out research arnong the Soyot and Duldia in the future to build on the work of
this dissertation.
The initial impulse for this study was the decline in the number of domesticated
reindeer and, consequently, the decline in reindeer herding as a way of life among the
9
Tozhu. I first visited the Tozhu District in the summer of 1998, when i spent two weeks
in the summer reindeer-herding camp of Aleksandr Shyngylai. I returned to Tyva in
September of 1999, with the intention of living there for at least one year. For reasons
outlined below, I was able to stay in Tyva continuously for two years. During that time I
lived out in the taiga with nomadic reindeer herders for six months and spent another four
months in the Tozhu villages where the herders' relatives live and where their children go
to school. Most of the remainder of the time was spent in Kyzyl, the capital of Tyva,
where I conducted research in archives and various government agencies.
My research confirmed, not surprisingly, that the decline in reindeer herding is
inextricably linked to the collapse of the Soviet Union and all the attendant changes,
including die collapse of the state farm (sovkhoz) system; the establishment of the
Russian Federation within the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS); new
constitutions at both the federal and republic levels; and measures to encourage
privatization. Of particular interest to me were nation-wide efforts of the federal
government to address the collapse of the state farm system by devising and providing
incentives to implement new administrative structures, and the responses of the Tozhu
reindeer herders to these efforts. Initially these efforts were aimed at forcing the state
farms to be more productive and economically self-sufficient One such measure
mandated the annual cutting of reindeer antlers-in-velvet for sale to the Far East.3 This
measure, however, proved misguided as the practice was detrimental to the health of the
5 Known aspanty in Russian, antlers-in-velvet (also called wet antler) are the newly sprouted antlers. In the
spring and early summer, before they have started to harden, they are covered in a soft down (hence the
term "in velvet") and are still soft and full of blood. Panty is considered a valuable medicinal supplement
and is in high demand particularly in the Far East; however, the process of cutting them is very bloody and
traumatic for the deer.
10
reindeer and ultimately quickened the pace of the decline of the reindeer population.
Once the total collapse of the state farms became imminent, these measures gave way to
other initiatives such as state-granted private landholdings and family/clan-administcred
collective enterprises. These measures were ostensibly designed to give the Tozhu and
Tofa herders and hunters themselves more control over their activities, and I expected
that they would be enthusiastically embraced. This was not, however, the case, and these
structures have for all intents and purposes collapsed (see Chapter 6).
Concepts from institutional analysis can help explain this failure of post-Soviet
reforms and other initiatives to help stimulate economic growth. I was first introduced to
anthropological applications of institutional economics (Acheson 1994) in an Economic
Anthropology course at Indiana University taught by Dr. Richard Wilk in the fail of
1996. The following spring I came across the Institutional Analysis and Development
(IAD) framework (Ostrom 1990; Ostrom, Gardner and Walker 1994; Crawford and
Ostrom 1995; Ostrom 1999), developed over the course of the past three decades at
Indiana University's Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, under the
direction of Elinor and Vincent Ostrom.
I find the IAD framework compelling for a number of reasons. In the first place, it
is conceptually very precise and detailed, thus provides an unambiguous analytical
language and a very concrete and practicable approach. In the IAD framework, the term
institution refers to "shared concepts used by humans in repetitive situations organized by
rales, norms, and strategies'" (Ostrom 1999:37, but see Chapter 2 for the modified
working definition used in this dissertation). Humans are assumed to devise institutions
on the basis of repeated interaction and reiterated behavior that occur in a social space
11
called an action arena, which is the fundamental unit of analysis in the IAD framework.
The action arena is composed of an action situation and actors, each of which is in turn
characterized by a specific cluster of variables (Ostrom, Gardner and. Walker 1994: ch.2;
Ostrom 1999:41-46). I find the action arena as defined in the IAD framework to he a
more concrete unit of analysis than some others commonly invoiced in anthropological
studies to gi'asp the dynamic by which individual human actions aggregate into larger
social "structures." and to help analyze and explain what occurs at the interstices of
human agency and social structure. Secondly, IAD is a. framework rather than a theory
(Ostrom 1999:39-41). As such it is inherently interdisciplinary, bridging the disciplines
of economics, political science, and anthropology, and is compatible with a variety of
theories coming out of ecological and economic anthropology. In particular, the action
arena as a conceptual unit maps very neatly onto what Sally Falk Moore has termed
diagnostic events in her call for a more "processual" ethnography (Moore 1987:730 - see
Chapter 2 for a more detailed outline of my theoretical orientation). Finally, while the
IAD framework has built into it plenty of room for ethnographic data and anthropological
analysis, it nevertheless employs a language that makes sense to policy makers,
development planners, and other non-anthropologists in a way that some of the more
esoteric jargon coming out of anthropology simply does not..0 This makes institutional
analysis particularly appropriate for those interested in applied anthropology.
Institutional anaiysis has frequently been used to study changes in property rights,
which some scholars see as the single most important institutional matrix (Eggertsson
6 See Ostrora e.t al. 2002b for an excellent example of institutional analysis applied to development
programs.
12
1993, cited in Acheson-1994:2). It has proven particularly effective in analyzing rights to
and management of a certain type of resource system, common-pool resources (CPRs -
see Chapter 2), under a variety of property regimes (Ostrom 1990; Ostrom, Gardner and
Walker 1994; Ostrom et ai. 2002a). While I had been interested in the institutions
regulating the management of CPRs since before my first field trip to Tyva in 1997, my
interest in property rights as such did not coalesce until I made ray first field trip to the
Tofa in November 2000, as one of five researchers who make up the Altai-Sayan
Language and Ethnography Project.7 During the first field trip in November 2000,1 was
struck by some remarkable similarities between the Tozhu and Tofa, but more so by the
differences, particularly differences in their attitudes toward property rights and reindeer
herding. Most notable was the sense of exclusive rights of access to assigned hunting
grounds referred to as rodovye taigi (family/clan hunting grounds), and the very divisive
conflicts that arose in connection to these hunting grounds. I heard about cabins that had
been burned down as a result of arguments over rights to hunting grounds, and about
people threatening to shoot their own neighbors for trespassing. One woman begged me
to appeal to the United Nations to help her reclaim territory she felt she had been
wrongfully forced off. One young man, having been denied access to hunting grounds he
felt he had a right to, went to those grounds and shot himself. Such strict exclusivity with
regard to assigned hunting grounds was striking in contrast to the very open and non-
exclusive sense of property rights I had witnessed among the Tozhu. In interviews,
virtually all Tozhu vehemently deny that there is or ever has been any feeling of
' The Altai-Sayan Language and Ethnography Project (ASLEP) is an endangered language documentation
project focusing on a variety of Turkic languages closely related lo the Tyvan language in south Siberia and
Mongolia. It is funded by the Volkswagen Sliftung under its Initiative for the Documentation of
Endangered Languages (DoBeS).
13
exclusive property rights. "No one owns the taiga," they would assert. "Whoever wants to
can come and get what they can."
In May and June of the following year (2001) I was able to make a return trip to
the Tofa, specifically to pursue issues related to the assigned rodovye taigi for the
purposes of comparing the Tofas' sense of property to the Tozhu people's sense of
property, In the fall of 2001, Prof. Chris Hann, co-director of the Max Planck Institute for
Social Anthropology in Halle, Germany, invited me to spend three months there to write
up my research. While there, I began to understand property in a much broader and more
vital sense, and came to see propeity rights as the key not only to understanding the
differences between the Tozhu and the Tofa, but also to understanding the changes that
were threatening their reindeer-herding and hunting way of life. Furthermore, I saw an
institutional analysis of changes in property relations as a key to constructing culturally
appropriate solutions to the problems the Tozhu and Tofa are facing with regards to the
management of their common-pool resources specifically and their cultural survival more
generally.
Significance of the study
My research is a test case for the applicability and usefulness of the IAD framework as a
tool for systematizing the ethnographic process in such a way that will make cross-
cultural comparisons possible. While institutional analysis is not entirely new in
anthropology (see especially Acheson 2003, 1994; Ensminger 1996; Ensminger and
Knight 1997), I feel that it is an underappreciated and underused analytical approach, and
that its precision has a lot to offer anthropologists struggling with the vagueness and
14
protean nature of such more commonly used concepts as practice and nodal capital. In
addition, this dissertation, with its focus on the "micro-processes of transition" (Burawoy
and Verdery 1999) and local-level institution building in the face of the collapse of the
monolithic and hegemonic Soviet institutional structures, is a case study in the responses
of indigenous peoples to the transition from socialism Lo a market economy. Thus, it
contributes to the burgeoning body of postsocialist literature (Burawoy and Verdery
1999; Hann 2002; Humphrey 1998, 2002).
Ethnographically, this dissertation will also make an important contribution to the
body of literature on nomadic reindeer herding and hunting peoples. The Tozhu and Tofa
herder-hunters (and the other South Siberian and Mongolian reindeer herding groups:
Soyot, Evenki, and Dukha) represent the southernmost extreme of reindeer pastoralism in
the world and practice a unique form of reindeer husbandry. They raise small herds of
reindeer not for meat, but rather as pack and riding animals (to facilitate their hunting),
and as a source of milk products, while fish and wild game are the principal sources of
animal protein. Yet these groups and their cultures remain virtually unknown. There is
nothing of note in the English-language anthropological literature about either the Tozhu
or Tofa, and very little in the Russian-language literature (notable exceptions include
Vainshtein 1961 on the Tozhu; Mel'nikova 1994; Petri 1926, 1927a, 1927b, 1928;
Rassadin 1996, 1999 on the Tofa).
I will place this research in the broader context of indigenous Siberian peoples'
struggles for access to and control over the natural resources that they have depended
upon for centuries but which are being eroded out from under them. As such, my
dissertation will address issues of indigenous minorities' struggles to adapt and survive
15
within large state systems. This leads into legal issues of land tenure and protection, of
rights to land and resources, and more generally to the issue of the human rights of
indigenous peoples. This is particularly relevant now, as we are nine years Into the United
Nations-declared Intemationai Decade of Indigenous Peoples (1994-2004), with yet little
to show for it. The outcome of the struggle of the indigenous forest-dwelling peoples of
Siberia for self-determination and control over natural resources will have a significant
impact on the fate of the world's largest contiguous forest - the taiga and the boreal
forests of Siberia and western Russia - and therefore an impact on the global
environment. Securing indigenous Siberian peoples' rights to their traditional lands may
well prove to be the best defense against wholesale, unregulated exploitation of this
global resource and the most effective way to prevent cultural and environmental
degradation.
The threats to the Tozhu and Tofa peoples presage further cultural and
environmental degradation. The local and informal institutions emerging to manage
pastures and hunting grounds in this contemporary contest allow us to observe the
negotiation of the collective action problem, which has a significant impact on culturally
and environmentally sustainable development. This case study will serve as a harbinger
of the future of other Siberian and Inner Asian nomadic pastoral and hunter-gatherer
groups thai find themselves in a similar situation of economic transition and institutional
flux.
16
Structure of the Dissertation
This dissertation is divided into three parts. Part I consists of two chapters and provides
the necessary background for the study. Chapter 2 provides a more detailed explication of
ray theoretical orientation and situates the study within the anthropological literature.
Chapter 3 describes the unique ecology of the Eastern Sayan mountain range that has
allowed that region to be the southernmost reindeer habitat in the world. I discuss the four
ethnic groups in the Eastern Sayans that comprise the "Sayan Cross" of reindeer herding
and hunting cultures, and which make up. the core of the "South-Siberian Reindeer
Herding Complex" (Donahoe 2003), and discuss those groups" ethnic, historical, and
cultural similarities and connections. I discuss the remoteness and inaccessibility of these
areas as a critical feature of their current political, economic, social, and cultural
situations. I then move into more specific discussions of the Tozhu and the Tofa, the two
reindeer herding groups who are the primary focus of the rest of the dissertation. I outline
the ethnic, linguistic, and demographic characteristics of the two groups. In this chapter i
establish the grounds for considering them as two branches of what was formerly the
same ethnic group, split in the early 18th century by international geopolitics.
Part II compares the contemporary Tozhu and Tofa peoples with regards to their
different senses of property in animals and land. Chapter 4 looks at the differential impact
of Russian and Soviet state policies and imposed institutional arrangements on the
relationship between humans and animals - both the reindeer they raise and the wild
animals they hunt. I suggest that for the Tozhu, their relationship to wild animals is still
predominantly a social one based on trust, mediated by the cher eeleri (sing, cher eezi -
spirit masters / owners of places, who are aiso the masters / owners of the wild animals in
17
their places), and wrapped up in a "cosmic economy of sharing" (Bird-David 1992).
Domesticated reindeer are often described as angsyg (wild animal-like); they have a
special status that lies somewhere between wild animals and domesticated livestock, and
are accorded respect similar to wild animals. In the Tofa case, these social relationships
have almost completely broken down. Wild animals are seen in terms of their economic
value, while reindeer are livestock to be used and dominated. These differences can be
explained through an analysis of the different experiences the two peoples had with
Soviet-era collectivization. In the Tofa case, the collective farms (kolkhoz; plural:
kolkhozy), and later the state farms (sovkhoz; plural: sovkhozy) were set up exclusively
for hunting, which diminished the cultural importance of reindeer for the Tofa. In the
case of the Tozhu, the collective and state farms were set up for reindeer husbandry and,
to a much lesser degree, hunting. This allowed for reindeer to retain their cultural
significance in the lives of the Tozhu people, while their continued nomadic lifestyle
allowed them to maintain their social relationships to the cher eeleri and, by extension, to
wild animals.
Chapter 5 focuses on differences between the Tozhu and the Tofa with regards to
their perception of the single most important set of institutional arrangements affecting
natural resource management - land tenure and property rights. I draw comparisons
between the Tofa people and the Tozhu people regarding senses of property rights,
suggesting that one of the principal reasons for the differences is degree of contact with
and influence from Russia and Russians. Specifically, I discuss the institution of rodpvye
laigi (clan hunting grounds) among the Tofa as a sort of de facto exclusive, private
property. This situation is striking in contrast to the sense of property just across the
IS
border in the Tozhu District. Prior to being incorporated into the USSR in 1944, the
Tozhu people had minimal contact with and influence from Russians. Non-exclusivity is
still the salient feature of Tozhu people's sense of property today. However, the situation
among the Tozhu is undergoing changes as a result of the collapse of Soviet-era
institutions, particularly the sovkhoz (state farm). These changes are manifest particularly
in the Tozhu people's migration patterns, and suggest a gradual movement toward a sense
of de facto private property in land similar to the Tofa.
Part III focuses on the constitutional level of governance with regards to reindeer
herding and hunting among the Tozhu and Tofa. in Chapter 6 I provide a brief overview
of the Soviet policy of collectivization of agriculture, which I characterize as one of the
principal reasons for the failure of the Soviet experiment. I then analyze a variety of
prescribed formal instituiions and centrally mandated policies initiated since the collapse
of the Soviet Union, which have also failed for many of the same reasons that
collectivization failed.
Chapter 7 outlines the history of the legal framework affecting the indigenous
people of Russia in general and the Tozhu and Tofa in particular. In doing so, I go back
to the 1822 law known as Speranskii's law which first established legal rights for the
indigenous peoples of Siberia. 1 discuss the official category of "Indigenous Small-
numbered Peoples of the North," in which the Tofa have been included since 1926, but
into which the Tozhu were included only in 1993. Then I examine three new framework
laws that have been passed in the Russian Federation since 1999 specifically to provide a
legal structure through which the indigenous peoples of Russia can assert their rights, and
the potential problems and weaknesses with these legal protections.
19
Chapter 8 focuses on one of these potential problems with the legal structure,
specifically the privatization of land, which has been formally legalized with the passing
of the new Land Codex in 2001. Privatization of land has been presented as a necessary
condition for economic development and the emergence of democratic institutional
structures, but in the case of a nomadic hunting and herding population working at a
subsistence level and within a virtually non-cash economy, privatization of land
represents the single greatest threat to their cultural survival. The Republic of Tyva
recognized this in 1993 when it passed its own constitution which forbade the
privatization of land, in direct contradiction to the constitution of the Russian Federation.
However, in 2001 Tyva passed a new constitution that allows the privatization of land.
This potentially opens the Tozhu District up to wholesale privatization, which will favor
outside gold mining interests, timber operations, and tourist operations, and will work
against the indigenous population, who simply do not have the money to purchase the
large tracts of land necessary to continue their extensive herding and hunting lifestyles,
nor do they have effective political representation to protect their lands, despite the
existence of federal-level laws designed to provide that protection.
By way of conclusion, Chapter 9 sums up the arguments presented, suggests
reasons why my hypothesis that local-level governance structures would somehow
spontaneously emerge out of the upheaval of Soviet-era institutional arrangements and
the ensuing institutional void has not come to pass, and speculates on the future of
reindeer herding among the Tozhu and Tofa. I compare the perceived cultural
significance of reindeer herding to the Tozhu and Tofa people and the attitudes of young
people (who make up the next generation of reindeer herders) to taking up and carrying
20
on the reindeer herding lifestyle. I also discuss existing and potential sources of financial
and infrastructural support and development at the republic and federal levels, and from
sources such as non-governmental organizations and private enterprise development. In
light of all this, I discuss some of the forces working against the reinvigoration of
reindeer herding in the region, and suggest ways to address the problems, including some
suggestions as to how the new legal framework discussed in Chapter 7 might, be able to
be used to protect these lands, if the political will and genuine representation to do so
were to exist at the local, regional, and national levels.
2!
Chapter 2
Property, Process, and Institutions in the Anthropological Tradition
Introduction
As Eric Wolf reminds us, history matters, and all peoples have history, even prior to
being colonized by European powers (Wolf 1982). In this respect the peoples of Siberia
are no different from other colonized peoples the world over (Forsyth 1992; Slezkine
1994). Within anthropology, various "processual" approaches have emerged as one way
to incorporate history into the analysis and to overcome synchronic and deterministic
neofunctional and neoevolutionary theories and assumptions (Moore 1975, 1987; Orlove
1980; Ortner 1984; Vincent 1986). Processual approaches operate within a diachronic, or
historical time frame; incorporate actor-based decision-making models; and seek to
discover the mechanisms of change through a focus on the interaction between human
behavior and the social and physical environment (Orlove 1980:245, 262). Thus, the
analytical approach throughout this dissertation is processual, in that it analyzes the
social, political, and administrative changes that have occurred in the histories of the
Tozhu and Tofa peoples. My approach is also institutional, in that it analyzes the impact
those changes have had on the building up and tearing down of the institutional
arrangements that channel human interaction at the local level, especially human
interaction related to the management of natural resources and the environment. Douglass
North, Nobel laureate in Economics and one of the founding fathers of the "new
22
institutional economics," observes that "Institutional change shapes the way societies
evolve through time and hence is the key to understanding historical change" (North
1990:3). Institutional analysis provides a methodology for observing and analyzing
institutional change. In addition to being inherently historical, institutional analysis uses
an actor-based decision-making model of human behavior, thus supports and
complements a processual approach from anthropology. Yet despite its compatibility
with anthropology, the concept of institution has been neglected by anthropologists, an
oversight pointed out by John Bennett: "All modern uses of the physical environment are
mediated by institutions. The concept of institution is absolutely crucial to the problem of
environment in the contemporary world. However, it is one concept that remains largely
unfamiliar to anthropologists. ... If anthropologists wish to adequately deal with
contemporary environmental problems, they will be required to use the concept of
institution" (Bennett 1990:441).
Institution Defined
Institution defies easy definition in part because the more specific meaning intended by
institutional analysts is different from common, everyday usage of institution as an
established organization or foundation set up for a specific purpose. Even within the
"new institutional economics" literature there is a great deal of ambiguity and
contestation over the definition of the term "institution" (see Maki 1993). As Thrainn
Eggertsson has observed, "the new economics of institutions is a Tower of Babel, a field
in search of a common language" (cited in Acheson 1994:6), and Acheson's 1994
collection of essays, Anthropology and Institutional Economics, demonstrates as much as
23
anything that conceptual consensus and a common language among anthropologists
regarding the concept of institutions still have not been reached.
Nonetheless, Douglass North's oft-cited definition from his seminal study.
Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance, has met with general
acceptance: "Institutions are the rules of the game in a society or, more formally, are the
humanly devised constraints that shape human interaction" (North 1990:3). Within the
Institutional Analysis and Development framework, institutions are defined as:
the shared concepts used by humans in repetitive situations organized by rules,
norms, and strategics. By rules, I mean shared prescriptions (must, must not, or
may) that are mutually understood and enforced in particular situations in a
predictable way by agents responsible for monitoring conduct and for imposing
sanctions. By norms, I mean shared prescriptions that tend to be enforced by the
participants themselves through internally and externally imposed costs and
inducements. By strategies, I mean the regularized plans that individuals make
within the structure of incentives produced by rules, norms, and expectations of
the likely behavior of others in a situation affected by relevant physical and
material conditions. (Ostrom 1999:37; cf. Crawford and Ostrorn 1995)
Leach, Mearns and Scoones define institutions as "regularized patterns of
behavior that emerge from underlying structures or sets of 'rales in use'" (Leach, Mearns
and Scoones 1999:237) I find Leach, Mearns, and Scoones' emphasis on "regularized
patterns of behavior" more accessible to analysis than Ostrom's "shared concepts," which
are not observable in the way that behavior is. However, in their definition the
regularized patterns of behavior emerge from "underlying structures" or sets of "rules in
use." This definition posits the underlying structures as a priori and generative of human
behavior. I believe the definition of institutions must include the dialectic and feedback
between the regularized patterns of behavior and the underlying structures. I contend thai
the "underlying structures" and "rules in use" that Leach, Mearns, and Scoones refer to
24
are in fact created by the regularized patterns of behavior in the first place, which in turn
feed back into and recreate the underlying structures. Thus for the purposes of this study I
combine the above definitions to arrive at the following working definition: Institutions
are regularized and repeated patterns of human behavior organized by rules, norms, and
strategies, ifiat feed back into, and recreate those rules, norms, and strategies.
Property and Common-Pool Resources
The institutional matrix I am most concerned with in this dissertation is property rights.
Property and property relations per se have not been the focus of much anthropological
inquiry in recent years, a trend Chris Hann laments in his edited volume Property
Relations: Renewing the Anthropological Tradition (1998). In that volume, Hann sets out
to "approach property as a key category in cross-culturai analysis with a view to restoring
it to its nineteenth-century role as a fundamental concept in anthropology" (Hann
1998:9). While the common understanding of property is as a thing, an object -
"something owned; a possession,"1 property in the anthropological context is "not a
thing, but a network of social relations that governs the conduct of people with respect to
the use and disposition of things" (Hoebei 1966:424, cited in Hann 1998:4). But, as Hann
observes, the emphasis on "things" in this definition is too restrictive in this day and age,
where rights to "such intangibles as names, reputation and knowledge, personal and
collective identities" are also viewed as "intellectual property" (Hann 1998:5). Hann
continues: "Moreover, since people everywhere do taik about the ties that bind them to
1 From The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 3"J Edition. Boston and New York:
Houghton Mifflin Company, 1992.
25
all sorts of non-human entities, and since these are often crucial to social identities, these
relationships need to be included in our definition. ... The word 'property' is best seen as
directing attention to a vast field of cultural as well as social relations, to the symbolic as
well as the material contexts within which things are recognized and personal as well as
collective identities made" (Harm 1998:5).
Property rights thus broadly defined determine access to resources. Of particular
concern in this dissertation is access to reindeer pasturage, wood for fuel and tent frames,
non-timber forest resources such as mushrooms, berries, pine-nuts, and medicinal plants,
and most importantly, wild animals and fish. These resources were the basis of
subsistence for south-Siberian reindeer herding peoples in pre-Soviet times, and have
since the collapse of the Soviet Union once again become of paramount importance. Such
resources in this context can accurately be described as "common-pool resources," or
CPRs (Ostrom 1990; Ostrom, Gardner, and Walker 1994). In CPR systems, successful
management of common-pool resources is critical both for the economic security of the
local peoples and for the sustainability of the resource base. However, CPR systems are
notoriously difficult to manage effectively because rights of access tend to be poorly
defined and it is difficult and costly to exclude potential appropriators from using the
resources or to limit the use of legitimate appropriators. Subtractability, lack of
excludability, and difficulty in monitoring extraction and enforcing restrictions can lead
to unregulated exploitation of scarce resources and ultimately the degradation of the
resource base (the "tragedy of the commons" - see Hardin 1968). Subtractability refers to
the degree to which "the benefits consumed by one individual subtract from the benefits
available to others" (Ostrom 2000:337- see also Ostrom, Gardner and Walker 1994:4).
26
This leads to a situation In which users of a scarce resource "will be tempted to try to
obtain as much as they can of the flow for fear that it will not be available later" (Osirom
1999:55). Excludability refers to how difficult it is to exclude outside appropriators (those
without legitimate rights of access) from exploiting the resource: "When the benefits of a
good are available to a group, whether or not members of the group contribute to the
provision of the good, that good is characterized by problems with excludability. Where
exclusion is costly, those wishing to provide a good or service face a potential free-rider
or collective-action problem" (Ostrom 1999:54, citing Olson 1965).
Problems of subtractability and excludability have been exacerbated since the
collapse of the Soviet Union, as the Tozhu and Tofa have been forced to rely even more
heavily on common-pool resources than during the Soviet era. Specifically, the
withdrawal of state subsidies and subsequent pressures to become economically self-
sufficient, have forced Tozhu and Tofa to intensify hunting and fishing, since wild game
is the major source of meat, and furs (mostly sable and squirrel) are the principal source
of income. Particularly in the Tozhu District, sports hunters and fishermen from other
regions put additional pressures on these resources. Thus the institutions of particular
interest when analyzing a coramon-poo! resource system are the rules that "define who
has access to a resource; what can be harvested from, dumped into, or engineered within
a resource; and who participates in key decisions about these issues and about
transferring rights and duties to others. The stimulus for changes of institutional
arrangements frequently has been fights over the distribution of resources" (Dietz,
Dolsak, Ostrom and Stern 2002: 21).
27
In the case of the Tozhu and Tofa, up until the Soviet era most common-pool
resources were managed under a common-property regime, while domesticated reindeer
were considered private property. During Soviet times, all such resources were
nationalized and became the property of the state. The USSR imposed a very rigid
administrative structure organized around kolkhozy (collective farms) and, later, sovkhozy
(state farms) that strictly regulated many aspects of life and severely constrained people's
choices at the local level. Oslrorn notes thai in such situations where "resources that were
previously controlled by local participants have been nationalized, state control has
usually proved to be less effective and efficient than control by those directly affected, if
not disastrous in its consequences" (Ostrom 2000: 337).
Soviet policies did in fact prove disastrous in many ways. However, the collapse
of Soviet-era adrnirii strati ve structures has proven even more disastrous for peoples like
the Tozhu and Tofa, who are among the most remote, rural,-and infrastructurally and
technologically least developed peoples in Russia. By the time of my first visit to the
Tozhu in 1998, it was clear that the sovkhoz system had collapsed completely, and it
appeared that the Tozhu reindeer herding peoples (and the Tozhu population more
generally) had fallen into an institutional void. The situation the Tozhu and Tofa find
themselves in now makes for ideal case studies in the emergence of local-level
governance systems in the face of the collapse of superimposed state-level governance
systems. I hypothesized that new, local-level institutions would somehow emerge
spontaneously and organically to provide the necessary strudure to everyday interaction,
and at a very small scale this has started to happen. The collapse of the Soviet
administrative regime has given rise to new patterns of behavior, which could be the
28
seeds of new institutions. Examples of this include the unilateral decisions by some
herder-hunters to move from one obshchina (a territorial-based, community-level
administrative structure for managing economic activities) to another; to dispose of
livestock (still technically the property of the state) without official permission from the
obshchina; to build log cabins on what they are coming to consider 'their" territory; to
move closer to and establish regular trading relations with the nearby gold mining bases;
and to move closer to the villages where their relatives live. These are very localized and
often individual actions, and cannot yet be considered institutions ? i.e., they have not
been repeated and reiterated often enough to become instituted as predictable, shared
patterns of behavior. In fact, some of these actions may well exacerbate rather than
alleviate collective action problems. As the herder-hunters move in closer to settled areas
and stay in one place longer than in the past, they are putting greater pressure on the
natural resource base (forest cover, reindeer pastures, and fish and wild game
populations). But effective local-level institutions to deal with these and other related
problems have failed to emerge among the Tozhu and Tofa in the post-Soviet period.
This dissertation in part aims to explain the factors underlying that failure.
The impact of the Soviet Union and its subsequent collapse has not been uniform
between the Tozhii and Tofa, as this comparative study makes clear. Despite drastic
declines in their domesticated reindeer stocks and severe economic deprivation, nearly 30
Tozhu families totaling 150 people still tenaciously and proudly cling to the nomadic way
of life of the reindeer herder and hunter, with its very flexible and relatively non-
exclusive sense of property rights with regards to common-pool resources. The non-
nomadic majority of the Tozhu population lives in several small villages in the Tozhu
29
District, and while I am in no way claiming that they all should or would want to return
to the demanding life of the nomad, the overwhelming majority of Tozhu people assert
that having reindeer is an integral facet of their sense of ethnic identity, and that it is
important to know that they have relatives out there in the taiga maintaining the reindeer
herds. In addition, the Tozhu all speak their native language as a first language. Thus
language and lifestyle are still important markers of Tozhu ethnic identity.
The Tofa people, on the other hand, have virtually completely abandoned reindeer
herding, live a settled lifestyle, and their native language is moribund. While the Tofa
have relinquished control over many of these forms of intellectual or cultural property,
they have constructed a very strict sense of exclusive rights to hunting territories that in
many ways resembles a private property regime, even though they do not hold formal
legal title to these territories. So we see that in many ways, the attitudes with regards to
property rights among the Tofa and the Tozhu are completely reversed. Over the course
of the dissertation I will draw out these comparisons and suggest reasons for these
differences.
Institutional Analysis and Development Framework (IAD)
Institutional analysis offers the most appropriate and useful combination of concepts with
which to study such property rights dynamics within a common-pool resource system.
Institutional analysis has become widely used in political science and has proven
effective in demonstrating that in many CPR systems, a private property regime is
inappropriate, Garrett Hardin's influential "tragedy of the commons" (Hardin 1968)
30
notwithstanding.2 Institutional analysis has also been used successfully to illuminate the
process of negotiating the collective action problem inherent in managing common-pool
resources in small-scale societies (Ensminger 1996; see also case studies in Agrawal and
Gibson 2001; Ostrom 1990; Ostrom, Gardner, and Walker 1994: Ostrom et al. 2002a),
Institutional analysis's theoretical foundations in game theory and rational choice
theory may seem antithetical to the cultural relativity espoused by anthropologists, but
such a reaction is based on a very narrow understanding of rational choice (i.e., that of
strict neoclassical models). The important thing to bear in mind is the "relativity of
rationality" (Tambiah 1990). Tambiah says that a minimal definition of rationality would
include logical consistency and coherence (Tambiah 1990). At a minimum, we must
work, under the assumption that what people do makes sense to them within a given
context. Just such an assumption is built into institutional analysis through the concept of
bounded rationality. Bounded rationality is a concept pioneered by Herbert Simon in
response to the theory of subjective expected utility (SEU). which underlies neoclassical
economics. Simon saw the rationality assumed in SEU theory as having no foundation in
empirical evidence and therefore not a valid explanation of human behavior (Simon
1982). Simon defines bounded rationality as "the limits of human capability to calculate,
the severe deficiencies of human knowledge about the consequences of choice, and the
limits of human ability to adjudicate among multiple goals" (Simon 1982:270).
Rationality mus? be defined by the processes used in reaching decisions, which are
influenced by actors' perceptions of a given context, by how actors define goals, by what
2 See Feeny, Berkes, McCay and Acheson 1990 and Ostrom et al. 1999 for cogent arguments against
applying the "tragedy of the commons" assumption to all cases. It is especially inappropriate in situations
involving common pool resources.
31
information they have, by how they strategize to achieve goals, and how they assess
outcomes. According to Simon, actors will be particularly influenced by "contemporary
social beliefs" which undergo change over the course of time. Thus Simon's bounded
rationality is a procedural, as opposed to a substantive, rationality, and can only be
determined inductively, based on empirical observation (Simon 1982).
Ostrom's Institutional Analysis and Development framework likewise assumes
that users of a given resource are "fallible, boundedly rational, and norm-using"
individuals who can learn from mistakes and improve upon the rules that govern their
actions (Ostrom 1998). The rationality of their actions and decisions is bounded by
incomplete information and imperfect information-processing capabilities, and the
transaction costs that arise from these imperfections (North 1990). In response, people
devise institutions, which "affect human choice by influencing the availability of
information and resources, by shaping incentives, and by establishing the basic rules of
social interaction" (Nicholson 1993). Because of its more flexible assumptions of human
behavior, the IAD framework invites anthropological perspectives and systematizes the
ethnographic process by providing a consistent and coherent structure for identifying and
discerning the relationships among the hard-to-define, unquantifiable cultural values and
social norms that form the basis of local-level institutions. In this way, the IAD
framework is amenable to current anthropological approaches, especially processual
approaches (e.g., processual ethnography [Moore 1987] and processual ecological
anthropology fOrlove 1980]). Such processual approaches are actor-based, with a focus
on the individual as a decision maker, and they are diachronic in that they examine the
mechanisms of adaptation and change over time. Event analysis has emerged within
32
processual approaches as a method of examining processes of change (Lees 1983; Lees
and Bates 1990; Vayda 1983; Vayda and McCay 1975; Vayda, McCay and Eghenter
1991).' Processual analysis in anthropology was popularized by Victor Turner (1969). in
pan building on the foundation established by Arnold Van Gennep, whom Turner called
"the father of formal processual analysis" (Turner 1969:166), Van Gennep, and Turner
after him, analyzed religious rituals as events that embodied a process of transformation
from one culturally defined status or state to another (Turner 1969:166). The importance
of events in processual approaches is emphasized by Moore, who claims that "[E]vents
are to processes what categories are to structures" (Moore 1987:736). Moore suggests
that we must learn "how to understand the fieldwork time as a moment in a sequence,
how to understand the place of the small-scale event in the large-scale historical process,
how to look at part-structures being built and torn down" (Moore 1987:730). Lees and
Bates note that an event-focused approach ''offers a convenient 'point of entry' for the
description of complex and changing relationships," and that it forces the data into a
diachronic perspective (Lees and Bates 1990:255).
But what land of events should one study? Processual approaches have expanded
the field of potential events beyond the rituals favored by van Gennep and Turner to
include a variety of different types of events. Vayda and McCay have written about
3 Pete Vayda has been championing an event-focused approach for years {Vayda 1983; Vayda and McCay
1975; Vayda, McCay and Eghenter 1991; Vayda 1999). In early work Vayda and McCay draw close
connections between processes and events, particularly between "processes of group formation and
dissolution and environmental... hazards" (Vayda and McCay 1975:301) However, in a later work, Vayda
and McCay are critical of process-oriented social scientists for reifying processes, as if they "had lives of
their own, as if they existed independent of human agency and were regulated by some larger dynamic in
history'' (Vayda, McCay and Eghenter 1991:320). For Vayda, events take precedence over processes: "A
line of inquiry with greater explanatory promise and validity requires that we conceptualize processes as
constituted of events and that we translate questions about short- and long-term processes into questions
about events" (Vayda, McCay and Eghenter 1991:328).
33
"environmental hazards" as the appropriate type of event to study, because environmental
hazards "'carry the risk of morbidity or mortality, the risk of losing an 'existential game'
in which success consists simply in staying in the game" (Vayda and McCay 1975:293).
Studying the human responses to environmental hazards can help to illuminate processes
of cooperation, group formation and dissolution, and the role of "such features of human
social life as loyalty, solidarity, friendliness, and sanctity" (Vayda and McCay 1975:300-
302). Lees and Bates recognize the value of the hazard approach, but suggest a broader
"event-focused approach to human-environmental interaction," which would include
"events generated by the human (social, economic, or political) environment that have
environmental components and/or repercussions. Such events might include a change in
the market price of a cash crop, or a land-reform law which alters land tenure, or a
relatively large-scale migration into or out of a locality, or establishment of a quota on
certain types of livestock" (Lees and Bates 1990:266). Moore suggests privileging what
she calls "diagnostic events," which are events that carry a "burden of historical
meaning" by revealing "ongoing contexts and conflicts and competitons and the efforts to
prevent, suppress, or repress these" (Moore 1987:730). Such events - whether Moore's
"diagnostic events" or Vayda's "ecological hazards" - act as external stimuli that propel
people out of patterned and routinized forms of behavior that proceed with little or no
reflection and force them to consciously and intentionally make decisions.
A number of such "diagnostic events" have occurred throughout the histories of
the Tozhu and Tofa and especially in their more recent past, from major structural
changes including forced collectivization and sedentarization during Soviet times
(Chapter 6), the breakup of the Soviet Union, and changes in the legal system
34
encouraging privatization of land (Chapter 8); to smaller events that are nonetheless
diagnostic, such as the thwarted sale of Tozhu reindeer to Mongolia (Chapter 4), forced
antler cutting, and changes in migration patterns (Chapter 5).
Concepts from the Institutional Analysis and Development framework facilitate
the analysis of such events in three main ways. First, the principal unit, of analysis in the
IAD framework, the action arena, is analogous to art event in event analysis, but the IAD
framework is methodologically more refined and explicit than anthropological treatments
of event analysis. Second, the IAD framework's insistence on analysis at multiple levels
responds to what Moore sees as one of the weaknesses of processual approaches in
anthropology - the ignorance of larger-scale processes (Moore 1987:730). Finally. IAD
provides analytical tools to address the attributes of the physical world and the attributes
of the community, allowing for a more nuanced analysis of the interaction between
human behavior and the social and physical environment (see Crawford and Ostrom
1995: Ostrom, Gardner, and Walker 1994, esp. ch. 2; Ostrom 1999 for very complete and
detailed outlines of the framework and its concepts). In the next sections I shall deal with
these three characteristics of IAD in greater detail.
The Action Arena
The principal unit of analysis in IAD is the action arena, which is composed of two sets
of variables, an action situation and actors. The analyst must have information about (or
make assumptions about) these sets of variables in order to proceed with the analysis.
The variables used to describe an action situation include: "(1) the set of participants, (2)
the specific positions to be filled by participants, (3). the set of allowable actions and their
35
linkage to outcomes, (4) the potential outcomes that are linked to individual sequences of
actions, (5) the level of control each participant has over choice, (6) the information
available to participants about the structure of the action situation, and (7) the costs and
benefits - which serve as incentives and deterrents - assigned to actions and outcomes"
(Ostrom 1999:43). The variables associated with the actor or actors include "(J) the
preference evaluation that actors assign to potential actions and outcomes; (2) the way
actors acquire, process, retain, and use knowledge contingencies and information; (3) the
selection criteria actors use for deciding upon a particular course of action; and (4) the
resources than an actor brings to a situation" (Ostrom, Gardner and Walker 1994:33).
Nested Levels of Analysis
The IAD framework addresses another shortcoming of processual approaches in
anthropology. Moore identifies "a tentativeness about processual interpretations" due to
"two significant zones of ignorance," the first of which is ignorance of "the character of
the larger-scale, the supra-local domain. . . . The province, the region, the nation, the
world are often taken account of as a generalized background.. ." (Moore 1987:730-731).
The LAD framework, with its emphasis on linking different levels of analysis, can help
fill this gap. The framework recognizes the "nested structure of rules within rules, within
still further rules" (Ostrom 1999: 38-39), and the need to understand the configural
relationships among "multiple levels of analysis." Ostrom identifies three broad levels of
rules - the consdrational level, the collective-choice (or policy) level, and the operational
level:
36
1) Operational rules directly affect the day-to-day decisions made by the
participants in any setting.
2) Collective-choice rules affect operational activities and results through
their effects in determining who is eligible and the specific rules to be
used in.changing operational rales.
3) Constitutional-choice rules affect operational activities and their effects
in determining who is eligible and the rules to be used in crafting the
set of collective-choice rules that in turn affect the set of operational
rules. (Ostrom, Gardner, and Walker 1994:46)
In this dissertation I will be focusing predominantly on the operational level, as it is the
rules-in-use at the operational level that are the building blocks of new local-level
institutions and that best illustrate the micro-processes of institution building. I will also
look at the collective-choice and constitutional-choice levels to see how they do (or do
not) articulate with the operational level (esp. Chs. 6 & 7), because the changing of rules
at one level impacts the rules at other levels. So for example, recognizing the Tozhu as
one of the specially designated indigenous ethnic groups of the Russian Federation (a
constitutional-level change) affects (in theory) the distribution of resources to them (a
collective-action or policy-level change), which in turn provides incentives for Tozhu
people to assert their Tozhu identity and set themselves apart from their non-Tozhu
neighbors in order to lay claim to resources. The ways in which the Tozhu do this are
changes at the operational level.
In the late 1980s and eatly 1990s, as the Soviet Union was crumbling and in its
immediate aftermath, numerous changes were being experimented with at the
constitutional and policy levels. One effort at the policy level was to reduce state
subsidies to the state farms, thereby forcing them to become more economically self-
sufficient. Shock economic efficiency measures included withholding workers' salaries;
no longer providing veterinary medicines and aid; retracting incentives and material
37
support for protection against predators; and imposing the cutting of antlers as a source of
income. These policy-level decisions led to changes at the operational level, such as
herders selling off or killing off the state-owned reindeer without permission, simply to
survive. Ultimately, the majority of herders were forced to abandon reindeer herding
altogether as a result of these policies. Another example is the privatization movement in
Russia. Now that private property has been enshrined in law (a constitutional-level
change), policy-level rules are changing to facilitate and encourage private enterprise and
privatization of property. The impact this will have at the operational level is not yet
clear.
In the Soviet context these institutional levels did not always articulate well.
People at the local level had little or no influence on institutions at the constitutionai or
collective choice levels. Yet while the overarching Soviet administration provided
institutional structure at the constitutional and collective-choice levels, and, most
importantly, material support, it was so unwieldy and undiffcrentiated that it could not
control all institutions at the operational level. This left plenty of room for people to
devise their own operational-levei institutions within the economic and material security
of the Soviet constitutional and collective-choice institutional framework. Hence, within
the confines of the superimposed constitutional and collective-choice level institutions,
operational-level institutions either carried on from more traditional forms, or new ones
emerged on the basis of everyday interaction among the local people. The collapse of the
Soviet constitutional and collective-choice institutional framework has meant more
freedom at the operational level, but the material means and administrative capacity to
effectively devise larger-order institutions are lacking. People simply don't know where
38
to turn; these higher-order institutions have always been the work of the organs of
government, and the Tozhu and Tofa peoples still look to organs of government and their
representatives to fill these roles.
Attributes of the Physical World and of the Community
As actors do not act in a vacuum, neither environmentally nor culturally, attributes of the
physical world and attributes of the community must also be taken into consideration in
the analysis. As Ostrom notes, "What actions are physically possible, what outcomes can
be produced, how actions are linked to outcomes, and what is contained in the actors'
information sets are affected by the world being acted upon in a situation. The same set
of rules may yield entirely different types of action situations depending on the types of
events in the world being acted upon by participants" (Ostrom 1999:54). As mentioned
earlier in the discussion of common-pool resources, key attributes of the physical world
that must be taken into consideration include the excludability of the resource and the
subtractability of the resource flow. Other important physical attributes include the
mobility or stationarity of a resource; the availability of storage; and the renewability,
size, productivity, predictability, and patchiness of the resource (Ostrom 1999:56). These
attributes will be discussed in more detail later in the dissertation. For the time being, a
couple of examples will suffice to illustrate how these attiibutes play out in the case of
the Tozhu and Tofa peoples. At present it is particularly difficult to exclude people from
hunting in the Tozhu District due to monitoring and enforcement problems and a non-
exclusive attitude toward resources among the Tozhu people in general. In Tofalaria,
exclusive rights 10 resources were established long ago and there are mechanisms in place
to enforce those rights, so exclusion is much less of a problem. Wild animals in both
cases are fully subtractibie (killing one elk means that there is one fewer elk available to
others). Wild animals are ..mobile; there is virtually no storage, neither in nature, with the
possible exception of the Azas Nature Preserve in Tozhu, nor within the community, in
the form of freezers for meat, etc. While the wild animal population is renewable, the rate
of renewability varies from species to species, and in no case is it keeping pace with the
rate of extraction. The predictability of wild animal resources also varies by species, with
small, abundant animals such as squirrel quite predictable, but more valued animals such
as sable and moose quite elusive.
A non-timber forest resource such as pine-nuts represents a different set of
problems. Problems with excludability and subtractability are the same as with wild
animals, but the resource is stationary, its location is predictable, and it is easily stored. It
is fully renewable, in that no matter how many pine cones are taken in a given year, the
following year the pine trees will still produce a full crop, although yield does follow
some cyclical fluctuations.
Clearly, such attributes of the physical world have been a central focus of
ecological anthropologists (Ellen 1982; Moran 1979, 2000; Netting 1976, 1981; Steward
1955). While some ecological approaches have been accused of being overly
deterministic, ecological anthropologists have tended to view physical attributes of the
environment as constraints or limiting, rather than determining, factors. Thus while they
limit options, they also provide a variety of possibilities. Which possibilities are
developed depends in part on the people involved, and this is where the attributes of the
community come into play. "Attributes of the community" are one of the central concerns
40
of Ostram's IAD framework, and m this way it is particularly compatible with
anthropological approaches:
The attributes of a community that are important in affecting the structure of an
action arena include the norms of behavior generally accepted in the community,
the level of common understanding that potential participants share about the
structure of particular types of action arenas, the extent of homogeneity in the
preferences of those living in a community, and the distribution of resources
among those affected. The term culture is frequently applied to this bundle of
variables. (Ostrom 1999:57)
Among the attributes of the community that come into play in the Tozhu and Tof a
contexts are their relationship to property in the forms of land, wild animals, and
domesticated reindeer; cultural proscriptions against certain extractive activities; overall
lack of experience in management; lack of capacity; and lack of effective political
representation. Ail of these attributes have an impact on the potential for their present and
future success in managing resources (see Chapter 9).
With this sel of analytical tools, the IAD framework offers a way of not only
identifying, observing, and describing the institutions that are at the interstices between
individual human agency and larger social structures, but also of analyzing how such
structures come into being, change, and die out. The empirical and ethnographic rigor of
an event-oriented processual approach from anthropology allows the analyst to
understand and place within their cultural contexts many of the variables identified
through the IAD framework. Throughout this dissertation, I analyze some events
explicitly using terms and concepts from processual event analysis and the IAD
framework, others less explicitly so. In any event, informing the overall analysis are the
fundamental assumptions that underlie both processual and institutional approaches: a
focus on change over time; an actor-based model of human behavior; and a search for the
41
mechanisms of change in the interaction between humans and their natural, cultural, and
social environment.
A brief outline of 'institutions' in anthropology
As mentioned before, the IAD framework bridges the disciplines of economics, political
science, and anthropology. While the language of IAD comes out of economics and
political science, the framework has much to offer anthropology, and anthropology has
much to contribute to institutional analysis. Yet, until recently, anthropologists have been
unfamiliar with institutional analysis as a theoretical framework and method. Jean
Ensminger's Making a Market: The Institutional Transformation of an African Society
(1996, first published 1992) and James Acheson's collection of essays (1994) have been
important first steps toward introducing the new institutional economics into
anthropology. Acheson's volume hints at the potential of institutional analysis to
elucidate many ethnographic accounts and anthropological issues, and Acheson himself
offers a useful list of future directions for using institutional analysis in anthropology
(Acheson 1994: 26-29).
In this section, I give a brief outline of the ways in which the term "institution"
has been used in anthropology. This is in no way an exhaustive survey of the term
institution as used throughout the history of anthropology - such a treatment is beyond
the scope of this dissertation, as virtually all anthropologists have used the term
institution in its more generic sense to refer to various social structures, conventions,
customs, or organizations. Rather, I have selected for discussion those anthropologists
who explicitly discuss institutions as concrete units of analysis, similar to the way I am
42
discussing it. or who present other cancepts that strike me as analogous to the concept of
institutions as I am using it.
A focus on institutions in anthropology goes back at least as far as Malmowski. In
Argonauts of the Western Pacific, Malinowski often uses the terms "institutions" and
"social institutions," and even refers to the Kula as a "big institution connected with ever
so many associated activities" (Malinowski 1984(1922]: 13), yet he never explicitly
defines the term. His most explicit statement regarding institutions in Argonauts is the
following:
The natives obey the forces and commands of the tribal code, but they do not
comprehend them; exactly as they obey their instincts and their impulses, tat
could not lay down a single law of psychology. The regularities in native
institutions are an automatic result of the interaction of the mental forces of
tradition, and of the material conditions of environment. (Malinowski
1984[1922]:11)
Malinowski's emphasis on the "automatic result," the "forces of tradition," and the
"material conditions of the environment" make institutions sound akin to large,
deterministic social structures.
However, in his later theoretical work, institutions take on a much greater and
more specific role in cultural analysis, with an effort to place individual behavior and
agency at the center. The institution becomes for Malinowski the "legitimate isolate of
cultural analysis" (Malinowski 1944:51-66), and institutional analysis becomes "not only
possible but indispensable" (Malinowski 1944:54), because "the best description of any
culture in terms of concrete reality would consist in the listing and analysis of all the
institutions into which that culture is organized" (Malinowski 1944:49):
A theory which does not present and include at every step the definitions of
individual contributions and of their integration into collective action stands
condemned.
Indeed, functionalism is, in its essence, the theory of transformation of
organic - that is, individual - needs into derived cultural necessities and
imperatives. (Malinowski 1939, reprinted in Bohannan and Giazer 1973:291).
As Elvin Hatch observed, "According to Malinowski. the institutional framework
provides the basis for cross-cultural comparisons. All cultural systems mast satisfy the
same needs, and consequently different societies have analogous institutions. ... By
recognizing the analogous nature of institutions we are able io understand them" {Hatch
1973:323-324).
Malinowski defines institution as "definite groups of men united by a charter,
following rales of conduct, operating together a shaped portion of the environment, and
working for the satisfaction of definite needs" (Malinowski 1939, reprinted in Bohannan
and Giazer 1973:291), and as "an organized system of purposeful activities" (1944:52).
Examples of institutions include:
universal forms such as the family, the clan, the tribe, the age-grade, the
association (club, secret society), the occupational group (professional or
economic), or the church, and the status group of hierarchy in rank, wealth, or
power. We have designated such organized groups, connected with definite
purposeful activities and invariably united by special reference to environment
and to the material apparatus which they wield, by the term "institution."
(Malinowski 1939, reprinted in Bohannan and Giazer 1973:281).
In order to make his concept of institution a concrete and practical unit of
analysis, Malinowski breaks it down into six aspects, which he lays out in a diagram
(Malinowski 1944:53):
44
Elvin Hatch summarizes this diagram: "Each institution has six aspects: first, the charter,
which is a set of values, myths, or beliefs which legitimize the activity; second, the
personnel, the people who engage in the pursuit; third, the norms which the group
follows; fourth, the material apparatus which is employed; fifth, the activities themselves;
and sixth, the function of the institution" (Hatch 1973:322).
This schema provides the bridge between the actions of individuals and larger,
more enduring social structures:
The analysis into aspects and the analysis inlo institutions must be carried out
simultaneously, if we want to understand any culture completely. The study of
such aspects as economics, education, or social control and political organization
defines the type and level of the characteristic activities in a culture. From the
point of view of the individual, the study of these aspects discloses to us the
totality of motives, interests, and values. From the point of view of the group it
gives us an insight into the whole process by which the individual is
conditioned or culturally formed and of the group mechanism of this process.
The analysis into institutions, on the other hand, is indispensable because they
give us the concrete picture of the social organization within the culture.
(Malinowski 1939, reprinted in Bohannan and Glazer 1973:285-286).
But there are & number of problems with Malinowski's use of the concept
institutions. In the first place, he never actually carries out a systematic, cross-cultural
study using institutions as the unit of analysis. Phyllis Kaberry, one of Malinowski's
closest students, notes that "He himself never attempted a systematic survey of one type
45
of institution from a selected range of societies. The difficulties would have been
formidable, and one suspects that the generalizations would have been so vague as to be
valueless" (Kaberry 1957:83).
Hatch criticizes Malinowski's focus on institutions on the basis of its extreme
functionalism. The diagram outlining the six aspects is on the whole "directed toward the
institution's function" (Hatch 1973:322):
Malinowski contended that there is an immediate and fundamental relationship
between the functions of an institution and the biological needs and drives of
human beings. He lists seven "basic needs" (metabolism, reproduction, bodily
comforts, safety, movement, growth, and health). ... A consideration of the
hunger drive (a metabolic need) therefore leads directly to the institutions which
function in relation to eating. The reverse is also true: the analysis of any
institution leads eventually to the biological needs which it serves. (Hatch
1973:323).
Hatch concludes that "Malinowsk's attempt to bring the institution into direct
relationship with biological needs may be one of the most unfortunate aspects of his
work.... It was an embarrassing failure. . ." (Hatch 1973:323-324).
Another problem with Malinowski's definition of institution is that it conflates
institutions and organizations, a distinction that the new institutional economists have
deemed of critical importance. "A crucial distinction in this study is made between
institutions and organizations. . . . Conceptually, what must be clearly differentiated are
the rules from the players" (North 1990:4), where "the rules" are institutions and "the
players" are organizations. Organizations are
groups of individuals bound by some common purpose to achieve objectives,"
and include "political bodies (political parties, the Senate, a city council, a
regulatory agency), economic bodies (firms, trade unions, family farms,
cooperative), social bodies (churches, clubs, athletic associations), and
educational bodies (schools, universities, vocational training centers). . . . Both
46
what organizations corne into existence and how they evolve are fundamentally
influenced by the institutional framework. In turn they influence how the
institutional framework evolves. (North 1990:5)
While Malinowski fails to make this distinction between organizations and
institutions, Radcliffe-Brown does make such a distinction, and thus his understanding of
institution is more in line with the new institutional economists. According to Radcliffe-
Brown, an institution is "an established norm of conduct recognized as such by a
distinguishable social group or class .... Institutions . . . refer to the.ordering by society
of the interactions of persons in social relationships" (Radcliffe-Brown 1952, reprinted in
Kuper 1977:20). "Social institutions, in the sense of standardized modes of behaviour,
constitute the machinery by which a social structure, a network of social relations,
maintains its existence and its continuity" (Radcliffe-Brown 1940, reprinted in Kuper
1977:36). Radcliffe-Brown distinguishes between institutions and organization, but for
Radcliffe-Brown, organization is not a group of individuals, but rather the arrangement of
their activities (Radcliffe-Brown 1952. reprinted in Kuper 1977:21). Radcliffe-Brown
fails to address the question of where institutions come from. The closest he comes is the
vague assertion that institutions "refer to the ordering by society of the interactions. . . "
(see above). He thus fails to work in the role of individuals and their interactions as the
generators of institutions, and privileges structure over agency. In addition, he never
focuses on the institution as a unit of analysis.
Raymond Filth, like Radcliffe-Brown, makes a distinction between social
structure and social organization:
Social organization has usually been taken as a synonym for social structure. In
my view it is time to distinguish between them. The more one thinks of the
47
structure of a society in abstract terms, as of group relations or of ideal patterns,
the more necessary it is to think separately of social organization in terms of
concrete activity. Generally, the idea of organization is that of people getting
things done by planned action. This is a social process, the arrangement of action
in sequences in conformity with selected social ends. These ends must have some
elements of common significance for the set. of persons concerned in the action....
This involves the exercise of choice, the making of decisions. (Firth 1961: 35-36).
However, unlike Radcliffe-Brown, Firth does not neglect individual agency; in fact, he
regards a focus on social organization as more appropriate to the analysis of change than
a focus on social structure:
Some views in social anthropology and sociology have regarded structure as the
cardinal object of interest in social analysis, and would treat the behaviour of
individuals as primarily determined by structural considerations.... But while
structural considerations are of great importance, normally occupying first place
in the order of analysis, human behaviour is the resultant of many considerations,
in which alternative modes of procedure are presented to individuals, and in
which their personal choice, decision, and adjustment are therefore also of prime
significance. Hence, subjoined to the concept of social structure must be another
concept, whether entitled social organization or not, which is concerned
with such proccssual activities. (Firth 196I:x-xi)
Firth's understanding of "social organization" is quite similar to the concept of
institutions as I am using it:
[T]he form of a society...consists really in the persistence or repetition of
behaviour; it is the element of continuity in social life. The social anthropologist
is faced by a constant problem, an apparent dilemma - to account for this
continuity, and at the same time to account for social change. Continuity is
expressed in the social structure, the sets of relations which make for firmness of
expectation, for validation of past experience in terms of similar experience in the
future..., At the same time there must be room for variance and for the
explanation of variance.
This is found in the social organization, the systematic ordering of social
relations by acts of choice and decision. Here is room for variation from what has
happened in apparently similar circumstances in the past. Time enters here. The
situation before the exercise of choice is different from that afterwards....
Structural forms set a precedent and provide a limitation to the range of
alternatives possible - the arc within which seemingly free choice is exercisable is
often very small. But it is the possibility of alternative that makes for variability.
48
A person chooses, consciously or unconsciously, which course he will follow.
And his decision will affect the future structural alignment. In the aspect of social
structure is to be found the continuity principle of society; in the aspect of
organization is to be found the variation or change principle - by allowing
evaluation of situation and entry of individual choice. (Firth 1961:39-40)
For Firth, social organization is the process by which individual acts of choice aggregate
into "the continuity principle of society," but it is also the process by which the "change
principle" is made possible. Implicit in social organization is a dialectic between human
agency and social structure. In this way, my definition of institutions given in the
Introduction echoes Firth's concept of social organization.
The work of Julian Steward, with its emphasis on the interaction between
environmental factors and humans in culture change, should also be mentioned here.
Steward's cultural ecology is an attempt to develop a theory and method for analyzing
culture change, and, in its broad outlines, has much in common with Ostrom's IAD
framework. Steward asserts that cultural ecology's "method requires examination of the
interaction of societies and social institutions with one another and with the natural
environment" (Steward 1977:43). Steward's explicit statements about the need to take
into consideration the "interacting phenomena" of "features of the environment" and the
"nature of the culture" (Steward 1977:45), along with his emphasis on "levels of
sociocultural integration" (Steward 1951; Steward 1955, ch. 3), are analogous to the
principal components of Ostrom's IAD framework (attributes of the physical and
material world; attributes of the community; and the rules-in-use at. multiple, nested
levels of analysis).
49
Steward's theory of cultural ecology, while undeniably seminal and progressive
for its time, reads more like a laundry list of variables that may or may not have
explanatory value in a given situation. Ostrom's framework is much more specific in its
methodology, precise in its definitions, and has a concrete unit of analysis (institution),
all of which are lacking in Steward's theory. Steward does not use the term institutions in
the way intended in this dissertation. For Steward, institutions are "supracommunity" or
"supratribal" structures at the national or state level that serve as a means for the state to
control and extract labor and resources from native populations (see Steward 1955, ch.4;
Steward 1967). For Ostrom, institutions emerge out of "patterns of interaction" among
actors in a given situation, and much of her framework is geared toward analyzing those
patterns of interaction and understanding how they articulate with higher levels of
institutions. For Steward, such patterns, which he terms "processes of change," are not
the unit of analysis nor are they the focus of his efforts. These "processes of change"
remain a vague, catch-all black box concept, somehow "caused by institutional factors,"
but "this causal aspect of process has not been clearly conceptualized nor have the more
substantive processes been distinguished by appropriate terms" (Steward 1967:16).
In addition, Steward's theory lacks the dialectical element that allows for
individual actions and operational-level institutions to feed back into and influence
higher-order institutions. As noted by Murphy, Steward's work is characterized by a
"total absence of dialectical process" (Murphy 1977:36). The influence of the
"supracommunity (state or national institutions)" (Steward 1977:45) is wholly
unidirectional, with the "supracommunity institutions" impacting and changing relatively
powerless and passive "simple," "traditional" societies, which in turn appear not to have
50
much say in the matter (see esp. Steward 1967). Steward's theory of culture change is a
very top-down approach, with no sense of agency at the individual or community level.
While institutions per se do not figure largely in Fredrik Earth's writing, he is
nonetheless the anthropologist whose approach most closely resembles an institutional
approach a la Ostrom. In a retrospective on his work, Barth claims that his perspective
has been shaped in opposition to "conceptual habits that are deeply entrenched in
anthropological thinking" (Barth 1981:4), namely, structuralism, a narrow historicism,
and functionalism. Barth is particularly critical of structuralism's focus "on the macro-
level of forms, institutions and customs, ignoring the micro-level of the distribution and
inter-connections of concrete acts and activities" (Barth 1981:4). For Barth, these macro-
level structures and forms are not a priori and determinative of human behavior, but
rather arc generated from human behavior. In his much celebrated (and critiqued - see
Paine 1974) essay Models of Social Organization (1966), Barth tried to construct a
generative model of human behavior. The basic building blocks are transactions between
individuals (and later, interaction - see Barth 1981), which occur in a matrix of statuses
and involve reciprocity, values, incentives, and constraints on choice. The problem, for
Barth, is one of institutionalization: "how a multiplicity of individual decisions under the
influence of canalizing factors can have the cumulative effect of producing clear patterns
and conventions" (Barth 1966:3). Earth's mode!, rudimentary as it is (as he himself
admits), is designed to generate the "gross frequentative patterns of behavior" (Barth
1966:11) - i.e., what I'm calling institutions. While these patterns of behavior are
generated from aggregated acts of people exercising choice, the patterns then feed back
and influence individual behavior. As Barth puts it, "I see a dialectic...between these
51
codes, values, and knowledge on the one hand and human acts on the other. Not only do
the former provide premises and constraints for particular acts, but acts also affect codes.
values and knowledge by increments and so can change and modify their own
preconditions" (Barth 1981:3). Earth's model, based as ii is on game theory and the
concept of choice under constraints, is very similar in theory, method, and intent to
Ostrom's IAD framework (although Ostrom's is much more explicit and nuanced).
Institutions play an important role in Giddens' theory of structuration. The most
important aspects of "structure," according to Giddens, are "rules and resources
recursively involved in institutions" (Giddens 1984:24). Giddens tries to provide a
mechanism through which individual actors' behavior influence and alter more macro-
level structures. He calls this mechanism, confusingly, "structures" (as distinct from
"structure" in the singular). "Structures" are "relations of transformation and mediation
which are the 'circuit switches' underlying observed conditions of system reproduction"
(Giddens 1984:24). This is the mechanism by which individual actors construct and
mediate the more enduring institutions, which then are "implicated" (a vague term that
Giddens uses frequently) in the process of social reproduction. What I find potentially
useful about this is the idea of "structures" (to use Giddens' term) as "circuit switches."
This concept of structures (plural) strikes me as akin to Earth's idea of "transactions," as
the observable building blocks of institutions. Thus, there is a two-way conduit or
pathway, composed of structures, or transactions, at the interface between individuals'
actions and institutions, and institutions, in turn, mediate between individuals and the
larger, more overarching social structures.
52
In a discussion of institutional analysis within anthropology, I would be remiss to
neglect to mention Karl Polanyi and the impact his substaiitivist institutional analysis had
on anthropologists in the 1960s and 1970s.4 The very title of Pait III of Polanyi,
Arensberg, and Pearson's Trade and Market in the Early Empires is called "Institutional
Analysts," thus calls attention to itself for the purposes of this dissertation. Indeed,
Stanfield (1980) for one considers Polanyi a pioneer of institutional analysis, and finds it
perplexing that Polanyi is largely ignored by recent institutional economists.
Polanyi's definition of the empirical economy - "an instituted process of
interaction between man and his environment, which results in a continuous supply of
want satisfying material means" (Polanyi 1971fl957J:248) - emphasizes two terms that
play a major role in theoretical undeipinnings of this dissertation: process and institution.
However, as we shall see, Polanyi uses both of these terms differently from the way I
intend them in this dissertation. That the economy is a process suggests "change, but for
Polanyi process is not change over time, as in processual approaches in anthropology, but
rather the synchronic movement, transportation, or transferal of material elements:
"Process suggests analysis in terms of motion. The movements refer either to changes in
location, or in appropriation, or both. In other words, the material elements may alter
their position either by changing place or by changing 'hands'. . . . Between them, these
two kinds of movements may be said to exhaust the possibilities comprised in the
economic process as a natural and social phenomenon" (Polanyi 1971 f\i 957 J: 248).
4 This is not the time nor place to go into a detailed account of Polanyi's work, nor to rehash the formalist-
substantivisl debate. For more on Polanyi and his work, see Annales J98.1 [1974]; Daiton and KScke 1983;
Frankenberg 1975; Humphreys 1969; Neal and Mayhevv 1983; Polanyi 1969; Polanyi, Arensberg and
Pearson 197i[1957]: Smelser 1959; and Stanfield 1980. For overviews of the formalist-substantivist
debate, see Kaplan 1968; Wilk 1996, ch.l.
53
In addition, what Polanyi means by the terra institution is quite different from the
way it is used by the new institutionalists (and therefore different from the way I am
using it in this dissertation). For Polanyi, institutions are concentrations of activities of a
certain kind (Polanyi 1971 [19571:249). The institutions he is most concerned with are
trade, money, and the market. Such institutions do not simply arise from the aggregate of
individual human behavior; human behavior must be structured by a priori
"symmetrically organized structures" such as "kinship, neighborhood or totem" (Polanyi
1971[i957]:25i-253). Such "institutional preconditions" must exist before interpersonal
behavior - what Polanyi terms "forms of integration" (reciprocity, redistribution, or
exchange) - can "result in economic institutions of any importance" (Polanyi
1971[1957]:252). Polanyi does not concern himself with the question of where these
preconditions come from; they are a structural given and as such appear somewhat
deterministic. Institutions for Polanyi are larger overarching social structures and
therefore not analogous to institutions as new institutionalists such as North and Ostrom
use the term.
In fact, Polanyi's "forms of integration" are closer in meaning to institutions as
the new institutional analysts use the concept, but they remain the unanalyzed underlying
background activities Polanyi's formulation. It was Marshall Sahlins who took these
"forms of integration" seriously as units of analysis (one in particular - that of
reciprocity). Although Sahlins does not refer to these as "institutions," his treatment of
reciprocity could be seen as a sort of institutional analysis in the way I intend the term
(Sahlins 1965). However, Sahlins is concerned exclusively with the institutions
regulating exchange among members of a society, and not with institutions regulating
54
1999: 232). The extended environmental entitlements approach goes beyond simpler and
more static approaches by acknowledging the variety of means of gaining and
legitimating access to and control over resources, including kin networks, customary law,
social conventions and norms (Leach, Mearns, and Scoones 1999:233). As such, the
extended entitlements approach is well-suited to anthropological and ethnographic
approaches. Through its focus on institutions, this approach emphasizes power relations
in the process of entitlement mapping, and in this way complements the IAD
framework's attention to the actor within the action arena. In addition, the environmental
entitlements approach maps onto the IAD framework's focus on the attributes of the
natural world and of the community by taking into account ecological variability and
disequilibrium (see also Botkin 1990; Behnke and Scoones 1993; Kates and Clark 1996);
the dynamism and internal differentiation within a "community" (see also Benda-
Beckmann and Benda-Beckmann 1999); and the diversity of potential stakeholders and
ecological benefits. This is particularly applicable to the Tozhu and Tofa situations, with
nomadic herder-hunters, their settled relatives, sport hunters and fishermen, gold-mining
operations, tourists, and those involved in the black market in contraband animal parts all
vying for limited environmental goods and services, with no effective regulation on any
of these activities.
My research comes out of the long tradition of "ecological anthropology"
("cultural ecology") (Steward 1955; Geertz 1963; Vayda and McCay 1975; Orlove 1980:
Netting 1981, 1986; Moran 1982, 1990: Ellen 1982; Crumley 1994). More specifically,
my research is informed by the anthropological literature on the relationship between
nomadic-pastoralists and state structures (Barth 1964; Shahrani 2002; Khazanov 1994:
57
Benson and Svanberg 1998), and on reindeer herding (Ingold 1980; Paine 1988; Beach
1990; Krupnik 1993); by new developments in "ethnoecology" (Berlin 1989; Nazarea
1999); and by work that has come to be known under the rubric of "traditional ecological
knowledge" (TEK) (Brokensha, Warren and Warren 1980; Ellen, Parkes and Bicker
2000; Johannes 1989: Sadler and Boothroyd 1994).
This research is also a response to the recent anthropological critiques of
development (Escobar 1995; Ferguson 1994; Gardner and Lewis 1996; Hobart 1993;
Sillitoe, Bicker and Pottier 2002), in particular the literature critiquing development
initiatives targeting nomadic populations (Goldschmidt 1981; Galaty and Aronson 1981;
Sandford 1983; Fratkin 1991; McMillan 1995). Development planners have often
assumed that nomadic pastoralism and hunting and gathering are inefficient, obsolete,
and inflexible modes of production, and have exacerbated "the crisis of pastoralism"
through forced settlement programs, destocking programs, programs to "rationalize" and
"industrialize" herding, and forced privatization of land (Galaty and Aronson 1981).
While all of the abovementioned sources focus on development initiatives in the post-
colonial third world, much of what they have to say applies equally well to the forced
sedentarization of nomadic populations and collectivization of agriculture imposed
during the Soviet-era, as well as other Soviet-era efforts to industrialize and rationalize
production (Andreev 197011968]; D'yachenko and Kuzakov 1970[1968]; Fedotov
1970[1968]; Zhigunov 1968[1961j). These measures, like development initiatives in the
developing world, were dismissive of indigenous peoples' accumulated knowledge and
of the cultural importance of their nomadic ways of life. In the case of the Tofa, the very
abrupt and successful forced sedentarization campaign along with a mandated de-
emphasis on reindeer herding in the early 1930s distorted property relations and led to the
rapid decline in reindeer herding. In the case of the Tozhu, the emphasis was in the
opposite direction ? an imposed increase in reindeer numbers to meet quotas for reindeer
meat and hides. This forced the Tozhu into a very different type of reindeer husbandry
and disrupted not only their indigenous institutions regarding land use, but also the
relationship between herders and reindeer.
Efforts to jump-start the economy through increased production and to integrate
the indigenous peoples of Siberia into a market economy since the collapse of the Soviet
Union have focused on privatization of land, resources, and enterprises. As is the case
with development projects in the post-colonial third world, planners have invoked Garrett
Hardin's argument in "Tragedy of the Commons" (1968) to justify calls for wholesale
privatization of common-pool resources (Feeny, et al. 1990; Ostrom 1996), under the
assumption that privatization and the development of market economies are the only
ways to economic development and "democratization." But as Hann (1996), D.Anderson
(1996; 1998), Osherenko (1995) and Verdery (ND) all point out, privatization, exclusive
land tenure, and market relations are more likely hindrances to the development of
democracy and "civil society" than they are necessary preconditions, at least in the
former Soviet Union. In fact, numerous empirical studies have demonstrated that many
initiatives based on Hardin's analysis have failed and that nomadic pastoralism and
hunting and gathering within a common-pool resource regime is often the most efficient,
rational, and flexible use of resources (Artz, Norton, and O'Rourke 1986; Barfield 1993;
Feeny, Berkes, McCay and Acheson 1990; Fratkin 1991; Gadgil and Rao 1995; Galaty
and Aronson 1981; Gilles, Hammoudi and Mahdi 1986; Gilles and Jamtgaard 1981;
59
McCabe 1990; Mearns 1996a; Netting 1981,1986; Salzman 1981). The body of literature
on common-pool resource regimes in forests is smaller but arrives at similar conclusions
(Agrawal 1994; Gibson, McKean, and Ostrom 2000; Ostrom 2000:337; Tucker 1999).
Finally, recent development initiatives in the former socialist countries have
focused on the development of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and other
structures that make up what is called "civil society." The assumption that civil society
can only exist outside of the state often does not apply in the former Soviet Union, where
there was a long tradition of civic practice in which people managed to manipulate,
negotiate, and recombine elements of formal, state-imposed structures and elements of
informal, indigenous institutions to construct various "'citizenship regimes," through
which they defined and secured their entitlements to resources (D.Anderson 1996; Hann
1996).
The IAD framework, event-focused processual analysis, and the extended
entitlements approach offer a constructive response to these critiques, especially when
informed by a cultural ecological approach to development planning (Galaty, et al. 1981;
Sandford 1983; Salzman and Galaty 1990; Mearns 1996a, 1996b). In fact, Ostrom's
Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis at Indiana University was
commissioned by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) to
study how "aid, incentives and sustainability are related" and to "suggest an approach as
to how to evaluate the relation between aid, incentives and sustainability" (Ostrom et al.
2002:347). To conduct the study, Ostrom and her colleagues very effectively applied IAD
to the analysis of Sida's international development operations (see Ostrom et al. 2002).
60
In the case of the Tozhu and Tofa, and Russia's indigenous peoples in general,
more anthropologically informed approaches to economic development are imperative.
Much of what occurred in Siberia and Central Asia during Soviet times under the
auspices of the command and control economy is comparable to misguided development
efforts throughout the developing world. In the post-colonial third world, development
initiatives have often focused on Increasing GNP and GDP through the extraction of
natural resources, the creation of monocultures for export, and the exploitation of cheap
labor. In the Soviet context, such initiatives find their parallels in "modernization"
through forced collectivization of agriculture, unregulated natural resource extraction,
and industrialization of production through massive technological inputs and
specialization in a single product. In both cases, such initiatives generally did not take
into consideration cultural variables (religious proscriptions against overhunting and
against extractive activities on sacred sites; the cultural importance and ecological
appropriateness of nomadism; indigenous systems of property rights), nor ecological
variables (such as industrial pollution; depletion of the natural resource base; the
renew ability of resources). Many third-world development initiatives have used GNP as
an indicator of success, assuming ii to be an effective measure of the overall welfare of a
nation-state. However, GNP does not take into consideration problems of distribution of
wealth and various other indicators of welfare such as life expectancy, education level,
infant mortality, etc., all of which have generally suffered under various development
programs (Cobb, Halstead and Rowe 1995: Davidson 200G; Donahoe 1994a, 1994b;
England and Harris 1997; Hueting 1991). In the Soviet case, success was measured by
similarly narrow indicators, such as the gross value of output, or simple technological
61
ratios such as fuel input per kilowatt hour of electricity produced (Campbell 1992:45).
These measures, focusing as they did only on quantity, ignored both the quality of
products and the quality of life of the great majority of Soviet citizens. Yet another
parallel between the Soviet situation and that of the developing world are principal-agent
problems and moral hazard problems (Ostrom et ai. 20()2:xviii), both of which can lead to
corruption. This parallels the abuses of wealth in many third-world economies, where a
small cabal of corrupt political elites get rich off the labor and resources of their countries
(and off of international development assistance) while the great majority of the
population and the environment suffer. In the case of the USSR, wealth was diverted to
its military-industrial sector in order to maintain its status as a global superpower, while
the general population and natural resource base became increasingly impoverished. In
the post-Soviet context, with Russia and the other members of the CIS receiving large
amounts of international development aid, similar problems are appearing in the guise of
political cronyism, corruption, and organized crime (Wedel 1998).
The emerging body of literature about the former Soviet Union, its relations to
peripheral regions of Siberia and Central Asia (Brower and Lazzerini 1997; Forsyth
1992; Friendly and Feshbach 1992; Humphrey 1983; Slezkine 1994), and the adjustments
that these areas are making to the collapse of the Soviet Union and to the transition from
a command economy model to a more market based economy (Alexander 2000; Burawoy
and Verdery 1999; Hann 2002; Humphrey 2002; Kasten 2002; Marsh and Gvosdev 2002)
also informs this dissertation. More specifically, the rash of new ethnographies on the
impact of these changes on various Siberian peoples (D.Anderson; Golovnev and
Oshercnko 1999; Fondahl 1998; Grant 1995; Gray 1998: Jordan 20(53; KertulJa 20(30;
62
King 2000; Pika 1999; Rethman 2001; Robinson and Kassam 1998: Ssorin-Chaikov
2003; Ziker 2002) have provided valuable insights and helped direct this research.
63
Chapter 3
A Line in the Sayans
Introduction
A critical assertion in this dissertation (and the proposed follow-up study involving the
Dukha and Soyot) is that these four groups - the Tozhu, Tofa. Dukha, and Soyot - now
recognized as separate ethnic groups, emerged from a loose collection of closely related
bands and larger ethnic groupings, all living in adjacent quadrants of the Eastern Sayan
mountains, speaking mutually intelligible languages, involved in hunting and reindeer
herding, trading with one another, and moving relatively flexibly into one another's
recognized territories. As lineage, band, trad / or territorial affiliation would have almost
certainly been the most salient and conscious levels of identification,1 these different
groups would not have identified themselves as a single ethnic group, nor would they
have identified themselves as the four ethnic groups officially recognized today. The
purpose of this chapter is to establish the shared ethnic background and cultural history of
these groups, then to sketch out the historical events that have led to their separation and
delineation into what have come to be considered four different ethnic groups.2
1 Much of pre-Soviet and Soviet ethnography, influenced by the theories of Morgan and fcngeis, assumed
that the lineage-based rod (clan) was the fundamental unit, of social organization among indigenous
Siberians (see my discussion of c.lnogenez below.) However, this emphasis OQ lineage has been called into
question more recently, with many ethnographers now asserting that the territorial obshchina (community}
was the fundamental unit of social organization (Pika 1999:65). See also Skalnik 1981 for a discussion of
the concept of "community" in Soviet ethnography.
2 Several scholars have noted the similarities among these groups, but Wheeler has put is most succinctly:
"Although these lesser-populated peoples of the Eastern Sayan region share a similar ancestry and are
linked by common origins, the course and events of history have divided them into four distinct cultural
entities in separate locales of south Siberia and northwest Mongolia" (Wheeler 2000:3).
64
It is also important for me to distinguish the Tozhu from the majority of Tyva
who live in the central, southern, and western regions of the Republic of Tyva. Until
1993, the Tozhu were not officially recognized as distinct from the larger group of Tyva
people. Yet many first-hand accounts remark on the differences between the Tozhu and
Tyva peoples in language, dress, and lifestyle, and note the remarkable ecological
disjuncture between the Tozhu region and the rest of the republic. In this chapter, I
demonstrate that historically the ethnic boundaries (Barm 1998[1969]) between the
Tozhu and the rest of the Tyva are much more distinct than the ethnic boundaries
between the Tozhu, Tofa, Dufcha, and Soyot.3 Establishing this is crucial to my centra]
assertion that historical differences in administrative regime and associated institutional
arrangements have led to the differences we observe among these groups today with
regards to their senses of property in land and animals.
Soviet etnogenez
It has become virtually axiomatic in anthropology today that ethnicity, like race, gender,
and so many other differentiating categories, is socially constructed. Ethnic groups come
into being and die out, expand and contract, merge and fragment. The territory associated
with an ethnic group can likewise expand and contract, change, and be contested.
Different names can be assigned to the same people, sometimes a more inclusive name
subsumes several groups perceived by someone (often an outsider) to be similar on the
basis of language,-customs, phenotype, etc; in other cases several names may refer to the
same people or to smaller groupings of people who might consider themselves the same.
See Wheeler 2000:ch 1 for a similar assessment of the ethnic situation pertaining to these groups.
65
Great confusion can arise from an inability to differentiate among the profusion of clan
names, tribal names, territorial names, the ethnonym a group of people give themselves
versus the ethnonym their neighbors refer to them by, and of course the different
pronunciations and subsequent transliterations of the same ethnonym by various
chroniclers. Ethnic group membership has likewise been shown to be fluid and flexible in
many ways, and not "essential" and established "from time immemorial" (B.Anderson
1983; Barth 1998[1969]; Chatterjec 1993; Schlee 2002; Wilmsen and McAllister 1996).
A burgeoning body of literature is examining the processes of ethnic construction
in the case of Siberian peoples within the Russian Empire, and later, the Soviet Union
(D.Anderson 2000; Brower and Lazzerini 1997; Hirsch 1997; Slezkine 1994; Sokolovski
n.d; Ssorin-Chaikov 2003; Weiser 1989). Starting in the late 1960s, the principal
theoretical framework for Soviet ethnographers was etnos (ethnos) theory. Etnogenez
(e(hnogenesis) is a methodology that employs archeological, anthropbmetric, and
linguistic data to try to establish the origins of and "ethnic processes" leading to the
development of existing ethnic groups. Although etnogenez was around long before etnos
theory came into prominence, it was pressed into service by the proponents of etnos
theory as one of that theory's principal methodological approaches, and as a result has
become closely associated with etnos theory. Soviet etnos theory has been roundly
criticized m recent years (D.Anderson 2000;. Dragadze 1990; Skalnik 1990; 1986;
Tishkov 1992) for its essentialist and primordialist assumptions, for the way it reifies
ethnoses, and for the way it was used to further Soviet social policies. Etnogenez, because
of its associations with etnos theory, has likewise been tarnished by the same brush
(Shnirel'man 1993; Slezkine 1996). But, as Peter Schweitzer points out, it is important to
66
separate out the method of etnogenez from the theory of einos (Schweitzer 2003, personal
communication).
According to its official formulation, Soviet ethnography was based, first and
foremost, ''on historical materialism and on Marxism in general" (Pctrova-Averkieva
1980:19). This historical materialist, approach assumes a process of unilinear social
evolution: "Soviet ethnographers proceed, first of all, from the Marxist-Leninist teaching
concerning social progress and the onward march of history" (Petrova-Averkieva
1980:19). On the basis of this Marxist-Leninist teaching, Soviet scholars use the material
provided by the "vast experience of nation building in such a multinational state as the
USSR" to "work out a scientific typology of ethnic processes, to reveal the factors and
rate of their development, and to specify stages of their history" (Petrova-Averkieva
1980:26).
Starting in the 1960s, Soviet ethnography was likewise based on an assumption of
the fundamentally essential nature of the etnas. The etnos is defined most famously by
ethnographer Yulian Bromley as "a firm aggregate of people, historically established on a
given territory, possessing in common relatively stable particularities of language and
culture, and also recognizing their unity and difference from other similar formations
(self-awareness) and expressing this in a self-appointed name (ethnonym)" (Bromley
1975:11, cited in Dragadze 1980:162). En another context, Bromley asserts that
ethnoses belong to that variety of communities which emerge as a result of the
natural-historical process and not as a result of the given people's will. At the
same time we must remember that ethnoses are complex formations: each
possesses not only & certain internal unity but also specific features which
distinguish it from all other formations of the same type. A particular role is
played by the ethnic consciousness of the members of an ethnos both through
67
mutual iderstification and by differentiation as a whole from other similar
communities with a 'we-they' antithesis. ...
At the same time it would be an. oversimplification to confine the essence
of ethnos to the ethnic consciousness of its members, which delimits a given
ethnos from all other similar communities; underlying this ethnic consciousness
are the distinctive features of each elhnos which exist independently and which
express its inner integrity. (Bromley 1980:153).
Foremost among these distinctive features are the "ethnic aspects of psychology"4
which form, in part, the unique "national (ethnic) character" of each etnos (Bromley
1973:79-855). This unique character is stable across generations and even spans the
evolutionary stages of social formations (see Banks 1996:18-24), and is maintained
through endogamy (Bromley 1969, 1974:65; Bromley and Kozlov 1989:430). Thus for
Bromley there is something fundamentally essential, primordial, and deterministic6 in the
concept of the etnos that goes beyond and is independent of the consciousness of its
members. Banks concludes that "the case of Soviet etnos theory stands as an important
example of a theory of primordial ethnicity" (Banks 1996:24). Or, as Skalnik has put it,
"As a matter of fact the whole 'theory' rests on the presupposition of a biological and
psychological nature" (Skalnik 1990:187).
But how can Bromley reconcile his insistence on these essential characteristics of
etnos with a Marxist-Leninist emphasis on historical processes and social evolution? This
apparent paradox leads Bromley to break etnos down into two components: the etnikos
4Etnicheskie aspekty psikhiki. Bromley also uses the term psikhicheskii sklad (psychological mold / stamp).
See esp. Bromley 1973:78-113.
5 Bromley look up this psychological aspect of etnos from Stalin's famous definition of "nation," which
included "a common psychological make-up" (Rus: psikhologicheskii uklad). See Hutchinson and Smith
1994:18-21 for Stalin's definition of nation.
6Bromley asserts a sort of ecological determinism in the formation of the more primitive forms of ethnic
societies (i.e., (hose at the stage of pervobytnoe obshchestvo - primordial or primitive society), but notes
that the influence of the environment rapidly decreases with the progressive development of societies
(Bromley 1973:164-165).
6S
and the "ethno-social organism" (ESO) (Bromley 1973:39-46; 1974:67-71; 1978;
Broraley and Kozlov 1989; see also Banks 1996:19). The etnikos is that part of etnas that
is stable: "specific features of culture (including language) and psychology" (Bromley
1978:18, quoted in Skalnik 1986:158; see also Skalnik 1990). The ESO, on the other
hand, includes socio-economic factors that arc "considerably more flexible than the
ethnic ones" (Bromley 1978:19, cited in Skalnik 1986:158). These more dynamic aspects
of ethnoses can be understood through the study of what Bromley terms "ethnic
processes":
Ethnoses are dynamic systems. Hence one of the most important tasks of
ethnography is to study the changes which take place in them, i.e., the ethnic
processes. Though in the past these processes were rather slow, in the end they led
to the disappearance of some ethnic units and the emergence of others. It is for
this reason in particular that Soviet ethnographers pay considerable attention to
the question of the origin of peoples (ethnogenesis) which they study jointly with
archaeologists, anthropologists, linguists, etc. (Bromley 1980:160)
Thus the way to study the origins of peoples was to track the changes in ethnoses back
through time from the present to their origins on the basis of material culture, historical
linguistics (loan words, toponymy, other evidence of language contact and shift),
archeological records, and various archival sources (including censuses, tax registers,
trade receipts, travelers' reports). This
historical method of Soviet ethnography was especially productive when applied
to the study of the genesis of ethnoses, the periods in the ethnic history of peoples,
and their relation to the general history of mankind. Soviet scholars single out
three types of ethnic communities which succeeded one another in the process of
history, they are tribes, nationalities, and nations. All these bore their specific
features in different historical epochs of different socio-economic formations.
(Petrova-Averkieva 1980:25-26)
The hallmark of the "tribal" stage of development in this evolutionary schema
was a lineage based social organization; hence much of the work on etnogenez operated
69
on the assumption that all peoples at the "tribal" stage had a lineage-based clan structure.
Contradictory data were assumed to be wrong and was reinterpreted to conform to the
assumption (Skalnik 1981:185). Peter Schweitzer notes that
The reemphasis on the study of bilateral kinship systems, beginning in the West in
the 1960s and 1970s, threatened the Soviet concept of rod (best English
translation 'lineage,' 'exogamous clan,' or - in Engels's terms - 'gens'). The rod
held a very prominent place in the Soviet theory of primitive society. The
assumption that social evolution is characterized by the subsequent stages of
matrilineal and patrilineal kinship organization was transformed into dogma in
Soviet ethnography since the 1930s. This was to a large extent connected with
Engels's work The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (Engels
1972), which gave priority to the notion of 'lineage' over the notion. of
'community' (Gemeinschaft), still very much used by Marx. (Schweitzer
2000:37).
Thus all ethnographers engaging in etnogenez were operating under these evolutionary
assumptions: all the tribes of Siberia at the time of contact with Russia were assumed to
be at the stage of pervobytnoe obshchestvo (primordial or primitive society), which was
assumed to be strictly lineage based and characterized by the rod7
Much contemporary Western anthropology regards such exercises in ethnogenesis
as fruitless and misguided, in that they start from an assumption that etnoses can be
defined by similarities in material culture, language, ritual practice, etc. In doing so, they
objectify the etnos as something outside of and prior to the individual or even group,
thereby denying the fluid, situational or relational nature of ethnic identity, and the
individual actor's role in constructing it. Yet no matter how dismissive we might be today
of ethnogenesis, the evolutionary assumptions of Soviet-era etnos theory, and their
service in support of Marxist-Leninist historical materialism and the construction of the
Soviet state, we cannot be dismissive of the quality of the empirical data gathered in the
7 Arakchaa 2002 is a good example of the persistence of these Marxist-Leninist assuraptions.
70
name of ettiogenez. The methods were sound and called for "cooperation by experts in
the spheres of language, ethnography, social history, physical anthropology, archaeology
and so on" (Arutyonov 1980:261). The research was often meticulously carried out,
leaving us with a wealth of valuable data and a sound basis on which to understand some
of the dynamics of migration, movement, intermingling, trade relations, and other forms
of interaction among ethnic groups. Peter Schweitzer asserts that "the 'ethnogenetic
approach' as such should not be discredited. Among its positive aspects is that it calls for
a combination of .several anthropological subdisciplines and neighboring disciplines, .. ."
(Schweitzer 2000:43). He goes on to note that, while in the American tradition, "the unity
of the 'four-field approach' is often more an ideological statement than a fact in actual
research practice, the Russian tradition of cross-disciplinary research is necessitated by
historical questions that could not be answered otherwise" (Schweitzer 2000:43-44).
From this research, we now have a wealth of data on the interactions among different
ethnic groups that can be reevaluated and reanalyzed through different theoretica] and
analytical lenses, not looking for essential characteristics of ethnic groups, but rather
seeing in the data the processes of the construction of ethnic identity.
The seminal work of B.O. Dolgikh, Rodovoi i Plemennoi Sostav Narodov Sibiri v
XVII v. ("Clan and Tribal Structure of the Peoples of Siberia in the 17th c." - 1960), is a
prime example of such valuable, meticulously conducted research that uses the methods
of ethnogenesis to reconstruct the ethnohistory and ethnic processes of the peoples of
Siberia.8 The following sections draw heavily on Dolgikh and other scholars who were
David Anderson is highly critical of Dolgikh as the epitome of a "state ethnographer" (ethnographers
employed by the state to implement a "unique administrative ideology whereby ethnography was wielded
71
engaged in ethnogenesis (principally S.L Vainshtein and N.A. Serdobov), while always
bearing in mind the limitations of this type of research, in order to establish the close
ethnic ties among the Tozhu. Tofa, Dukha, and Soyot. First, however, it is necessary to
establish a corollary argument: that the Tozhu are historically and ethnically more distinct
from the majority Tyva population than they are from the Tofa, Soyot, and Dukha,
despite the fact that the Tozhu have generally been treated as an ethnic subgroup of the
Tyva, if indeed any distinction at all has been drawn.
Tozhu vs. Tyva
In the aforementioned work, Dolgikh implicitly acknowledges the Tozhu as distinct from
the majority Tyva. He does not explicitly deal with the majority Tyva population (the
steppe pastoralists of western and southern Tyva) because they were not living in
territory that was considered part of Siberia in the 17th century, and therefore were not
within the scope of his research. However, he recognizes the Tozhu as distinct, asserting
that they were a Samoyedic-language people (as opposed to the Turkic-MongoHc Tyva
people). He goes on to note that the territory they inhabited was in fact within the borders
of the Russian Empire until 1727, while the sieppelands of the southern and western
regions of present-day Tyva were never within the borders of the Russian Empire: "We
can consider that the Todzhinskii khoshun [district - BD\ of Tuva in the second half of
the 17* c. and the first quarter of the 18fl1 c. until the demarcation of the border with
China in 1727 was included in the composition of the Russian domains" (Dolgikh
as a primary instrument of social power" (D.Anderson 2000:74; but see all of Ch. 4). Slezkine, on the other
hand, singles out Dolgikh's best-known work. Clan and Tribal Structure of the Peoples of Siberia in the
l7th c, as '"A remarkable example of a work deliberately ? and apparently inoffensively ? divorced from
the Party line" (Siezkme 1994:320-321, n.67).
72
1960:260). Even after the Tozhu region came under the administrative control of the
Manchu Dynasty, the central and western regions of the territory that is Tyva today
remained under the control of the Oirat Empire (Dzhungaria) until this empire was finally
defeated by the Manchus in 1757. Thus the territory associated with the Tozhu was
administratively distinct from the rest of the lands inhabited by Tyva people up until
1757.
It should be noted here that most scholars refer to the ancestors of the present-day
Tyva as a loose confederation of predominantly Turkic-language tribes (Serdobov 1971;
Vainshtein and Mannai-ool 2001) descended from the Huns, who inhabited the steppe
regions of present-day Tyva, northwestern Mongolia, and the Altai Mountain area as
early as the 6th century c.e.9 In the territory of present-day Tozhu District and the adjacent
Khovsgol region of northwestern Mongolia (where the Dukha live), the most often
named tribe was Dubo (from which it is generally believed derive, through various
processes of phonetic change, the ethnonyms Tyva and other variants: Tuva, Tofa, Topa,
Tuba, Dukha), first noted in Chinese chronicles of the 6rh - 7th centuries. Whether this
group was Samoyedic in origin (and later Turkicized), or Turkic in origin is a much
debated and as of yet unresolved (and probably unresolvable) question (see Serdobov
1971:36-41, esp. 41, n.l; see also Vainshtein 1974; Wheeler 2000: Ch.2).
Be that as it may, the close ethnic affiliations among the four Eastern Sayan
reindeer herding / hunting groups - the Tozhu, the Tofa (formerly Karagas10), the Soyot,
9 Most research on the ethnic makeup of the Tyva people emphasizes their Turkic and Mongolic roots
(Arakchaa 2002:130-131; Dulov 1956; Kabo l934;Potapov 1969:56; Serdobov 1971; Vainsbtein 1970).
110As noted earlier, until around 1930 the Tofa were referred to as Karagas (Mel'nikova 1994:22), a name
that almost certainly derives from the Tola clan name Kara-khash (see Vainshtein 1961:21). This appears
to be an example of a clan name coining to be used by outsiders as a general term for a larger grouping of
73
and the Dukha - are indisputable (see below). The inaccessible high-mountain fastness of
the heavily forested Eastem Sayaits provided asylum for those fleeing from first Turkic
and then Mongolian invaders. Those who retreated into the mountains (or who already
lived there) were the ancestors of the present-day Tozhu, Tofa, Soyot, and Dukha. Larisa
Pavlinskaya, an ethnographer who has worked with the Soyot, notes that the reindeer
herding peoples of the Eastern Sayan "managed to resist the onslaught of [Turkic and
Mongolian] cattle and horse breeders by retreating into the inaccessible mountains"
(Pavlinskaya 2003:46). However, the Tozhu, by virtue of having been included in the
Uriankhai Territory11 and later in the Tyva Republic, are generally lumped together with
the Tyva people of the steppes. The fact that until 1993 they remained officially
undifferentiated from the Tyva in census data, and that once they were recognized, it was
as Tuvintsy-Todzhintsy (Tuvan-Todzhins) indicates the degree to which the Tozhu have
been assumed to be a sub-group of the Tyva ethnic group. It is my assertion that the
Tozhu are historically., culturally, and ethnically more closely related to the other Eastem
peoples who may or may not have had a sense of ethnic unity. However, other etymologies have been
suggested, including that it comes from Kara kas ("black goose" in many Turkic languages - see, e.g.,
Mel'nikova 1994:22). Since 1930, they have consistently been referred to as Tofalary, which is the Russian
piuralization (-y) of the already pluralized form of Tofa in the Tofa language (-lar).
11 In Russian and Mongolian documents of the 19th and early 20th centuries, and on maps of Mongolia
during the Manchu Dynasty, the territory of present-day Tyva is marked as "Uriankbai" or "Uriankbai
Territory." The exact etymology of the term uriankhai (also uryankhat, urianghai, uraarikha) is disputed
(see Serdobov-1971:239-240; Vainshiein 1961:30-31, n.76; Krueger 1977:9-10). In any case, within
Mongolia it was (and in fact still is) a very commonly used generic term to refer to all of the people (mostly
Turkic-language populations, but also Mongolian-language) inhabiting the northwestern reaches of
Mongolia, which until 1914 included the territory of present-day Tyva. Thus the term Uriankhai included
all Tyva people, as well as the Tozhu, Soyot, and Dukha.
74
Sayan groups than they are to the Tyva people of the central., western and southern steppe
zones of the Tyva Republic/'2
According to Dolgikh, the Sayan zemlitsa13 roughly corresponds to what is now
the present-day Tozhu Kozhuun (district) (Doigikh 1960:257). The first recorded mention
of an ethnic group called Tochigasy was in a report from 10 August 1634, which noted
that the population of the Sayan zemlitsa, including the Tochigasy, was under the
jurisdiction of Krasnoyarsk (Dolgikh 1960:257). Then in 1636, the "Tochi" and "Sayany"
are mentioned in a list of peoples who, as a result of the construction of a fort on the river
Tuba were "to be forced over into Russian citizenship" (Dolgikh 1960:257). The Tochi
(Tochigasy) are, presumably, the ancestors of today's Tozhu people. Sevyan Vainshtein,
the author of the only monograph on the Tozhu (Vainshtein 1961), offers support for this
theory in his suggestion that the name "Todzha" (the Russian transliteration of Tozhu) be
compared to "the name of the tribal group known in Russian documents of the 17th
century under the name tochi or tochigasy" (Vainshtein 1961:21) He goes on to note that
the name tochigasy incoiporates the common Samoyedic ethnonym marker kasa / gasa,
meaning "man" or "person," and supports this argument by comparing the endings of the
ethnonyms Tochigasy and Karagasy, i.e., the earlier ethnonym of the Tofa (Vainshtein
1961:21; see also Dolgikh 1960:259). Vainshtein also points out that several of the
12I am not making a claim for the originality of this assertion. As will be demonstrated below, this has Jong
been recognized by scholars who have done research on the ethnic origins of Tyva {inter alia Dolgikh
1960; Serdobov 1971; Vamshlein 1961: Wheeler 2000).
l3 Zemiitsa was an older Russian territorial unit, without exactly defined borders: "A peculiarity of the
administrative structure of the Krasnoyarsk uezd in the 17th c. was that it consisted of what were called
'zeaiiitsy'. in this case, some of these zemlitsy coincided with the territory of a single tribe . .., in others, a
conglomeration of tribes and clans, even of different ethnic origins.. ..
in Krasnoyarskii uezd there were six basic zemlitsy. .. and closely abutting these six were the Sayanskaya
and 'Kaisotekaya'" (Dolgikh 1960: 223).
75
principal clan names among the Tozhu - Choodu (Chogdu), Kyshtag, Khaazyt, and
perhaps others, were Samoyedic in origin. The largest of the Tozhu clan names - Choodu
- is cognate with the largest of the Tofa clan names - Chogdu and Kara-Chodgu - some
of whom as recently as the late 18th century still spoke a Samoyedic language (Vainshtein
1961:20, citing Pallas 1788). In addition, Vainshtein determines another major Tozhu
clan name. Todut (including Ak-Todut and Kara-Todut), to be of Ket origins (Vainshtein
1961:22). Despite this emphasis on the Samoyedic and Ket elements of the Tozhu in
Vainshtein's work, in a later work he ultimately disagrees with Dolgikh (and Pallas and
others) who claim the people of the Eastern Sayans were of Samoyedic origin, and
concludes that all these people were already speaking a Turkic language in the middle of
the first millennium, and that their origins can be traced back to the early Turkic Uigurs
of the fourth century c.e. (Vainshtein 1974).
German ethnographer Otto Manchen-Helfen is of the opinion that all the Tyva
people were originally Samoyed: 'The Samoyed territory' extended into the Sayans, and
there is much evidence that the Tuvans are in part merely Turkified Samoyeds"
(Manchen-Helfen 1992[1931]:55). According to Manchen-Helfen, the people of the
Tozhu region, by virtue of its remoteness and inaccessibility, managed to escape to a
great degree pressures to assimilate to the Turkic and Mongolian conquerors, and still
represent a more original form of Tyva culture.
As noted above, Dolgikh asserts the Ket and Samoyedic origins of the Tofa and
Tozhu (but not of the steppe Tyva people, whom he sees as being of Turkic and
Mongolic origin), and suggests that the Turkicization of the Ket and Samoyedic
76
populations of the Eastern Sayans probably began with the more compact groups living
closest to the Turkic tribes of the Tyva steppes.
In any case, virtually all observers to Tyva have remarked upon the distinction
between the reindeer-herding and hunting Tozhu and the pastoraiist Tyva people of the
steppes. As Sevyan Vainshtein has put it,
Tuvans ? the indigenous population of the Tuva Autonomous Oblast' - are
divided by the form of their economic activities into pastoraiists of the steppes
and mountain steppes of the districts in Central. Southern, and Western Tuva and
the hunter-reindeer herders, inhabiting the mountainous taiga districts of Eastern
Tuva (Todzha and Tere-Khol14).
The hunter-reindeer herders differ from the pastoraiists not only in their
economic activities, but also in many ethnographic specifics and in their origins.
{Vainshtein 1961:3).
Pyotr Ostrovskikh, on assignment from the Imperial Russian Geographic Society in 1897,
observed
Whereas the western regions of the Uryankhaiskii Territory are of a
predominantly steppe character, the population is rather dense, and their main
occupation is livestock herding, the eastern region is predominantly of a forested
taiga character, inhabitants are rare, livestock herding is practically non-existent,
but reindeer breeding and hunting of wild animals flourishes. The Uryankhais of
western parts call themselves "Tuba" or "Tuva," but the Todzhins give
themselves the name "Tuna" and "Tuhalar" (plural). (Ostrovskikh 1898:425-
426)15
14 In this dissertation I do. not separate out the reindeer-herding peoples of the Tere-Khol region
(Kungmtuk) in southeastern Tyva. There are at present only two families still herding reindeer, with a total
of fewer than 150 deer. These people are very closely related ethnically and historically to the Tozhu and to
the Dukha across the border in Mongolia, and much of the analysis of the Tozhu is applicable as well to the
people of Tere-Khol.
115Ostrovskikh goes on to note that the western Uryankhais' are "renowned thieves," but the Todzhins are
"exceptionally honest, straightforward people and this can hardly be explained exclusively as a result of the
Russian influence. .. but, I think, is also the result of tribal structure." (Ostrovskikh 1898:425-426).
77
The "Centre of Asia"
Since both Vainshtein and Ostrovskikh make such a point of the ecological
differences between the Tozhu region and the rest of Tyva, it would be useful to situate
the Republic of Tyva geographically
{with a specific focus on orography),
and then move oh to differences
between the Tozhu Kozhuun and the
rest of Tyva.
Situated in the very center of
the Asian land mass between 89? and
100? East and 49? and 53? North, the
distance from Tyva to the nearest
ocean is farther than for any other
place in the world. An obelisk with a plaque proclaiming "The Centre of Asia" in three
languages stands in a small plaza in the capital city of Kyzyl, just below the confluence
of the Bii-Khem and the Kaa-Khem, the two rivers that join at Kyzyl to form the Yenisei,
the world's sixth longest river.
Tyva's territory occupies 170,000 sq.km. - approximately the size of the state of
Washington - and is shaped like an east-west oriented chicken drumstick, with the
meatier end to the east. It is 80 percent mountainous, with the remaining 20 percent
predominantly inter-range depressions. Since Tyva's borders are defined by the peaks of
several connected mountain ranges, its outline is clearly visible in satellite photos. An arc
of mountain ranges with an east-west orientation, comprising the Western and Eastern
78
Sayan ranges, wraps around Tyva's northern border,
while a matching east-west arc of the Eastern and
Western Tannu-Ola ranges defines the southern
boundary (the Tannu-Ola ranges separate the Arctic
and North Pacific watershed from the self-contained
watershed of the Central Asian basin). These arcs are
joined together in the west by a series of massifs with a
general north-south orientation, 'including the
Shapshalsldi and the Chikhacheva Massifs, which
define the western border of Tyva with the Altai
Republic, and are part of the Altai mountain range system. Tyva's southeastern border
with Mongolia, is marked by the Sengilen Range. Finally, a series of north-south oriented
spurs, the largest of which is called Ulaan Taiga, connects the Sengilen Range to the
Eastern Sayans and completes the circuit, defining Tyva's eastern borders with Mongolia
and the Buryat Republic.
There are also internal ranges within Tyva that divide the republic into four major
inter-range depressions. Most dramatically, the Academician Obruchev Mountains, with
an east-west orientation, separates the watersheds of the Bii-Khem and Kaa-Khem rivers
(the two rivers that meet at Kyzyl to form the Yenisei), and in doing so separates the
Tozhn (Todzhinskii) Depression from the Central (Tuvinskii) Depression. The peaks of
this range, along with the peaks of the Eastern Sayans, also define the boundaries of the
Tozhu Kozhuun ("district"; Rus. raion), at 44,800 sq.km., 26.2 percent of Tyya's territory
and the largest of Tyva's 16 administrative districts. These mountain ranges also
79
?determine a peculiarity of Tyva's climate: its varied precipitation. While the Sayan ranges
and the Tozhu Depression receive 600-10(30 rum of precipitation annually, the southern
ranges and the Central Depression at their southern base get only 200 mm annually.
This disparity in precipitation causes remarkable differences in ecosystem types.
The Tozhu kozhuun is characterized by deep, fast-moving rivers, hundreds of lakes, and
dense forests, with mixed conifer (larch) and deciduous (birch) forests in the lower
altitudes grading into fir. spruce and pine forests higher up. The high mountains above
the tree-line are permafrost zones of glacier and alpine tundra. This northeastern quadrant
of Tyva exhibits the geo-ecological characteristics of Northern rather than Central Asia,
and can be considered a continuation of the eastern Siberia taiga ecosystem. The southern
and western two-thirds of the country, on the other hand, resemble Mongolia, and can be
considered part of Inner Asia. These regions have only very limited taiga zones, and are
characterized by wide bands of mountain steppe, steppe proper, and desert steppe. In
Tyva can be found not only the world's southernmost permafrost belt, but also the world's
northernmost zonal desert ecosystems.16
Like Vainshtein and Ostrovskikh, the German historian and ethnographer Otto
Manchen-Helfen correlated ecological differences between the Tozhu region and the rest
of Tyva with ethnic differences. Describing the road from Tyva's northern border with
Khakassia to Kyzyl, which first runs through the Eastern Sayan taiga before dropping
down into the steppe zone, Manehen-Hslfen comments: "Suddenly the countryside is
entirely different. The taiga has disappeared. To the south opens a wide plain, encircled
16 In addition to personal observation, the information on the ecology of Tyva was culled from a variety of
sources, including Carruthers 1913,1914; Govorov 1990; Grebneva and Shaktarzhik 1989; Krueger 1977; and
lecture notes from "The Ecology of Central and Northern Asia," a course offered by Prof. Roman Zlotin at
Indiana University in the spring of 1995.""
80
by mountains and blown smooth by the winds of the millennia. The thin sod of hard grass
makes it appear more denuded than bare ground. Siberia has ended; Central Asia has
begun" (Manchen-Heifen 1992[1931]:40). The Tozhu people of the taiga region "do not
cultivate grain; climate and soil characteristics of the mountainous, wooded, swampy
Northeast make agriculture impossible. . . . The Tozhuans live mainly from huntings"
(Manchen-Heifen 1992[3931]:59). In reference to the Tyva people of the steppes,
Manchen-Heifen observed: "Cattle, sheep, and goats are the animals kept by the Tuvans
of the Khemchik Valley kozhuuns [west and central Tyva]. In fact, the western Tuvans
live off their herds: hunting as a line'of occupation is relatively unimportant (compared to
hunting in Tozhu)" (Manchen-Heifen 1992[1931]:69). Manchen-Heifen also notes other
significant differences in clothing, dwellings, and material culture between the Tozhu and
the steppe Tyva.
As Manchen-Heifen observes, the demarcation between 'the mountainous taiga
region in northeastern Tyva and the semi-arid high steppes of central Tyva is abrapt and
dramatic, and the differences between the peoples are likewise remarkable. In his
elegantly written and highly informative two volume tome, Unknown Mongolia, the
British geographer Douglas Carruthers pinpoints a certain stretch of the Bii-Khem17 (the
northern source of the Yenisei) just above the confluence where the Bii-Khem and the
Kaa-Khem18 join together to form the Yenisei, as the true demarcation between Siberia
17 Carruthers writes it as Bei-Khem. The Bii-Khem, referred to in Russian as the Bol'shoi Yenisei ("Big
Yenisei'" or "Greater Yenisei"), is the northern source of the Yenisei. The name comes from the Turkic
word beg, meaning 'prince' or 'lord,' foccaase it is the larger of the two source rivers. In older sources it is
referred to as the Beg-Khem.
18 The Kaa-Khem (Rus. Malyi Yenisei - "Small Yenisei" or "Lesser Yenisei") is the southern and smaller
of the two source rivers. Its name is derived from the Turkic word kkaa, meaning 'manservant.' In some
older sources it is spelled this way.
81
and Inner Asia. At this point the Bii-Khem squeezes through a narrow defile in the
Academician Obruchev Mountains, creating the famed Hut rapids, and spills over into the
Inner Asian steppelands of central Tyva:
Above the barrier are beautiful reaches of rapid-flowing rivers, clear deep
back-waters and racing mid-streams, with their typical high-piled log-
jams, spits of shingle, and palisaded banks of pine-trees. . . . Below the
barrier there extends a more barren land of slow-flowing rivers which
sweep in majestic curves across the wide steppe-valleys, a land of
deforested hills and dusty plains, a land of altered conditions now
suffering, it seems, from the great and far-reaching blight of desiccation ?
a condition brought about by the slow-moving but certain increase of
aridity in the interior of Asia.
That part of the Upper Yenisei, which was truly Siberian in
character, ended at the Bei-Khem rapids; below the rapids the land
approached Mongolia in climate and in general aspect; a region which, as
we came later on to leam, formed in' reality a transition-stage between
Siberia and Mongolia. (Carmthers 1913:177-178)
But it was not only the dramatic differences in topography and ecology that
impressed Carruthers. Commenting on the differences between the reindeer-herding and
hunting people inhabiting "that part of the Upper Yenisei, which was truly Siberian in
character" and the rest of the Tyva population, Carruthers notes that
All other Uriankhai, apart from the reindeer-keepers, can be classed
together. . . . [C]ertain conditions under which they live tend to make them
all very alike in customs and character. The most potent influence in
causing this resemblance is environment. . . .
An open country, which is easily accessible, has the effect of
making these people less shy and more ambitious, with an eye to bettering
themselves. (Carruthers 1913:236-237)
Among the differences Carruthers attributes to environment are the steppe Tyvans' use of
felt yurts as opposed to the birch-bark tipis of the reindeer herders; their greater
involvement in trade and commerce with the Mongols; their limited agriculture, which
the reindeer herders assiduously eschew: and the fact that they raise livestock for meat,
82
whereas the reindeer herders rely on hunting for most of their meat and "probably never
kill [reindeer] for meat, except under exceptional circumstances" (Carruthers 1913:236).
Carruthers, with his colonialist presentiments, cannot help but impute moral
values to these differences: "The Uriankhai of the central and western basin, who own
and cultivate their lands, live in a manner approaching to the more advanced state of the
Abakan Tartars. The semi-sedentary habits which they are slowly acquiring indicate an
approach to a higher state of culture, and grant, the possibility of the Uriankhai becoming
in time a more useful and capable race" {Carruthers 1913:240). Compare this to
Carruthers' depiction of the typical reindeer herder of the Tozhu region, who is
lazy and independent; he works only when he has a desire to work, and
would far sooner ran wild in the forest hunting the roe-deer and the maral
and live in comparative poverty, than work for the Russian colonists and
earn a good wage. He is a child of the forest, and has no desire to better
himself. This has hindered his advance and doomed him to perpetual
serfdom. (Carruthers 1913:215)
Sayan Cross
While the Tozhu are notably distinct from the majority of Tyva people, they are much
more similar to their neighbors in different administrative regions to the north and east.
As discussed in the previous section, the Eastern Sayan mountain range wraps in a
northwesterly-to-southeasterly arc, defining the borders between the Irkutsk Oblast' and
Buryat Republic on the north, and the Tyva Republic and Mongolia to the south. A north-
south running spur, the Uiaan Taiga, creates a natural border between Tyva and
Mongolia. The peaks of these ranges neatly divide this region of southern Siberia into
four adjacent quadrants - what ecologist Dan Plumley has dubbed the Sayan Cross. The
mountain wall that Carruthers said marked the transition from Siberia to Mongolia also
83
marks the southwestern comer of this Sayan Cross region. While that wall of mountains
serves to separate the reindeer-herding Tozhu people from the pastoralist Tyva people in
the steppelands to the south and west, it is precisely this mountain ecosystem that allows
for the existence of reindeer and thus unites the four closely related reindeer-herding and
hunting groups inhabiting each quadrant of the Sayan Cross: the Tozhu in the
southwestern quadrant; the Tofa. of Irkutsk Oblast' in the northwestern quadrant; the
Ditkha (Tuha: Tsaatan) of northwestern Mongolia in the southeastern quadrant; and the
Soyot of the Republic of Buryatia the northeastern section, Inhabiting this fragile
transition belt of taiga and alpine tundra between the Siberian boreal forest and the Inner
Asian steppes, these peoples represent the southernmost extreme of reindeer pastoral ism
in the world and constitute the core of what I call the South Siberian and Mongolian
reindeer-herding complex (Donahoe & Plumley 2003).
Map 3.2. The Sayan Cross
One of the most striking features of this area, and a feature that has played an
important roie in the cultural and political histories of these peoples, is the remoteness
and inaccessibility of the Sayan Cross region. Compare the observations about the Tozhu
District that we have seen above with the following, Regarding the Dukha, anthropologist
Alan Wheeler has observed, "Of course, there is no wonder why little is known about this
hidden people considering the extreme remoteness of their mountainous homeland of
coniferous forests and patches of tundra" (Wheeler 1999:58). Larisa Pavlinskaya notes
that reindeer herding among the Soyot managed to survive into the 20th century because
"reindeer still enabled the Soyoi to travel through vast territories of mountainous taiga
that were completely impassible by any other domesticated animal" (Pavlinskaya
2003:46). Tofalaria, the informal name for the region where the Tofa live, has been
described as "that enigmatic country on the northern slopes of the Eastern Sayans, from
its highest peaks down to its foothills, where roiling rivers finally calm down and
smoothly carry their waters further, to the north. These severe, inhospitable places have
from the earliest times been inhabited by tribal groups, who have come to be known
under the name Karagas, or Tofa" (Svinin 1994:3). Linguist David Harrison, remarking
that the three remote villages where the Tofa live "are accessible only by helicopter or
small 1950s vintage biplanes," links this remoteness to the Tofas' efforts at language
maintenance: "The Tofas' extreme isolation has proved to be both a hardship and a
benefit as they struggle with the impending loss of their language" (Harrison 2003:53).
Although this region lies at only between 50 and 55 degrees north, the altitude of
the Eastern Sayan mountains (up to 3000m) makes for ecological effects similar to areas
as much as 12 degrees (-1400 km) further north (Camithers 1913:209, 218; see also Beach
85
1990:259), providing tundra habitat for the deer far below the tundra line. Further south,
beyond the taiga zone, the landscape abruptly transitions into the semi-arid high steppes
of Inner Asia, which do not get enough precipitation to provide the necessary vegetation
for reindeer to survive. To the north "of this region, the Sayan Mountains descend quickly
to a wide swath of flat, marshy lowlands ? inhospitable to reindeer in the summer months
because of the heat and swarms of biting, blood-sucking insects, with no opportunity for
escape. For these reasons, the Sayan Cross region is like an island of ideal reindeer
habitat far removed from the "mainland" of reindeer habitat in the tundra regions of the
north.19
V.I. Rassadin described this situation with regards to Tofalaria (the homeland of
the Tofa), but his description applies equally well to the entire Sayan Cross region: "The
natural conditions of Tofalaria, situated in the mountainous taigas of the Eastern Sayan
range, in the covered mountain taiga and supporting on the high mountain plateaux . . .
wide expanses of high-mountain tundra, completely covered in yagel' - reindeer moss -
presents itself as the ideal habitat for the northern reindeer" (Rassadin 1999:3).
Not only is the Sayan Cross region the ideal habitat for reindeer, but reindeer are
the ideal animal for the people of the region. Carruthers himself, despite his criticism of
the lifestyle of the reindeer-herding and hunting Tozhu, noted that "in such a region the
only domesticated animal which could be of service to man is the reindeer' (Carruthers
1913:127). The reindeer has proven to be an exceptionally hardy, versatile beast (Paine
19 There arc, of course, transition zones between this southernmost island of reindeer habitat and the tundra
rones further north that in the past may have linked the Sayan Cross reindeer population with other reindeer
populations. However, the reindeer population of the Eastern Sayans is now completely isolated from other
reindeer populations, not only by features of the natural environment, but also by the Trans-Siberian
railroad, which creates an east-west running line of population centers that bisects Siberia and has cut off
the Sayan Cross region from the vast taiga and tundra regions to the north of the Trans-Siberian railroad.
1988:32), well adapted to the extreme cold temperatures of the Arctic tundra and the
south-Siberian mountains (Kropnik 1993:166-167). The summer heat actually causes
more problems than the winter cold. The heat of the summer causes the deer to move
higher up into the mountains, above the tree line, in search of glaciers to avoid the heat
and escape persecution from the swarms of mosquitoes, horse flies, midges, and other
blood-sucking insects, which have achieved near mythical proportions in travelers'
accounts of Siberia.
Reindeer have flexible, independent feeding habits (Beach 1990:269; Paine
1988:32-33). Their highly developed sense of
smell allows them to locate lichens under deep
snow, and their shovel-shaped hooves enable
them to dig through deep snow to reach the
lichens. Adults require little effort in the way
of supervision and care; they are left free to
wander and forage, and always return to their
owner's tent. They require no prepared fodder
to survive the winters as do other domestic
livestock. Their broad hooves splay,
preventing them from sinking as deeply into
snow as the much heavier horses (Beach 1990:270: Carruthers 1913:230, 234; Paine
1988:39). While certainly slower than horses in ideal conditions, conditions are seldom
ideal, and reindeer are much more sore-footed on steep, rocky, ice-covered slopes than
horses.
87
This coincidence of habitat and endemic species has given rise to a form of
reindeer husbandry common to these Sayan Cross groups but otherwise unique in its
history, methods, functions, ecology, and cultural expressions. While these south-
Siberian and Mongolian reindeer herding peoples indeed breed and raise reindeer, they
are very unlike large-scale reindeer "ranchers" of northern Siberia, European Russia, and
Scandinavia, who live in tundra areas and raise" large rierds of reindeer principally for
meat. The south-Siberian and northern-Mongolian groups raise small herds of deer in the
taiga and alpine tundra (Donahoe and Plumley 2001, 2003). They use the deer
predominantly as pack and riding animals (to facilitate their hunting). They avoid the
slaughter of animals unless
absolutely necessary
(Vainshtein 1980[1972];126;
Carruthers 1913:236; Ingold
1980:101), preferring instead
fish and wild game as their
principal sources of animal
protein. Even though the
herders of the Sayan Cross
region don't raise reindeer for meat, the deer do provide an important supplement to their
diets in the form of high-tat milk and milk products, especially in the summer, when the
pastures are particularly luxuriant Ingold says the Tozhu reindeer herders have "the
closest approach to pure milch pastoralism based on reindeer," and considers this the
most practical and efficient use of reindeer (Ingold 1980:100-101).
88
The colonialist assumptions and grand agricultural visions expressed above by
Carruthers don't allow for the recognition that reindeer herding and hunting of the type
practiced by the Tozhu and the other Sayan Cross groups may well be the most efficient
and profitable use of this mountainous region of southeastern Siberia. The great majority
of the land in the Tozhu District is not arable, and what minimal agricultural endeavors
might be feasible would be vulnerable to the unpredictable vagaries of weather,
Reindeer herding in this region, on the other hand, has stood the test of time.
Yairtshtein notes the existence in Tyva of 3000-year-old rock paintings depicting reindeer
herding (Vainshtein 1980[19723:I20; cf. Carruthers 1913:56), and cites a number of
scholars who "have expressed the view that Tuvinian deer-herding is the oldest in
Eurasia" (Vainshtein 1980[1972j:12i). Manchen-Helfen likewise quotes Wiihelm
Koppers, who wrote, "[W]e believe the possibility remains that the reindeer was made the
first herd animal by the prehistoric hunters in South Siberia" (Manchen-Helfen
1992[1931]:48).
Reindeer herding for the Tozhu appears to be, like cattle and other livestock
herding for the East African pastoralists and yak herding in the high Pamirs and
Himalayas, the most efficient way to utilize available resources in light of the ecological
risks and uncertainties, and an important buffer against environmental variability
(Coughenour, et al. 1985; Ekvall 1983[1968]; Netting 1986:41-58; Shahrani 2002[1979]).
Siberian herders have historically claimed that reindeer herding is the most economically
stable form of subsistence, and that they never experienced the famine that periodically
plagued Siberians who depended on other forms of subsistence (Knipnik 1993:87; see
also Vitebsky 1992).
89
A unique culture has grown up around this mode of production, which is widely
celebrated in the history, music, and folklore of this region (Carruthers 1913; Ergep 1994;
Mendume 1965; Potapov 1969; Saryg-ool 1942; Vainshtein 1980[1972]; 1961; Wheeler
2001; Pavlinskaya 2002; Rassadin 1996; Kenin-Lopsan 1994, 1999; Sherkhunaev 1975).
The Hungarian ethnographer Vilmos Dioszegi has written extensively on the shamanic
practices of the peoples of the Sayan Cross region, and noted the similarities it) their
shamanic practices and attributes in contradistinction to the shamanic trappings and
practices of the steppe Tyva, Buryat and Mongol peoples (see esp. Dioszegi 1962:147,
182-188). Even now, with Buddhism well established in the steppe regions of Tyva,
Mongolia, and Buryatia, the reindeer herding peoples of the Sayan Cross are indifferent
to Buddhism, retaining more of their animistic conceptions and practices (Pedersen 2001;
Wheeler 2001 and personal communication 2003). Among the Tofa and Tozhu, any kind
of Buddhist precepts are almost completely absent, while animistic beliefs are prevalent.
One resident of Toora Khem, the provincial capital of the Tozhu District, newly arrived
from the Erzin District in southeastern Tyva on the border with Mongolia, where
Buddhism is quite predominant, complained that she had tried to organize study groups
about Buddhism and other activities, and had gotten absolutely no interest from the
locals.
All four groups of the Sayan Cross speak (or used to speak} very closely related
dialects of the Tyva language. The dialectologist Sh.Ch. Sat, referring to the Tozhu
dialect as "the most peculiar (T. onzagai) and interesting of all the Tyva dialects" (Sat
1987:73). observes that, "except for the Tozhu dialect, there are not such great
differences among the Tyva dialects. . . . Because the dialect of the Tozhu people is so
clearly different, the people of central Tyva refer to it as tozhu chugaa. ("Tozhu-talk"), as
if it were a separate language" (Sat 1987:22). Linguist David Harrison likewise asserts
90
that "Dialects spoken on the periphery of Tuva differ considerably. These include the
dialect of the former reindeer herding Tozha people20 of northeastern Tuva," the dialect
which "differs most radically from other varieties of Tuvan" (Harrison 2000:10). Z. B.
Chadamba considered the Tozhu dialect interesting and different enough to devote an
entire monograph to it (Chadamba 1974).
But while observers have remarked upon the differences between the Tozhu
dialect and the other dialects within the Tyva Republic, others have commented upon the
closeness of the Tozhu dialect to the other languages of the Sayan Cross. The Soyot no
longer speak Soyot, having been linguistically assimilated into the majority Russian- and
Buryat-language communities by the beginning of the 20th century, but the Soyot
language was very similar to the Tozhu and Tofa languages (see Castren 1999:265;
Iril'dccva 2000:132-133). Only a handful of elderly Tofa still speak Lhe Tofa language,
which is easily understood by any Tozhu person,21 and shares many dialectical
characteristics with Tozhu that are not found in the standard Tyva dialect. Writing in the
1930s, N.P. Dyrenkova explains that the linguistic similarities attest to the
"unquestionable closeness of the Tofa to the Soyot-Tyva, especially to the Tyva-Tozhu,
living adjacent to the Tofa" (Dyrenkova 1963[1934]:5). Petri cites Karagas (Tofa)
informants as making a distinction between the language of the Tozhu and the language
of the steppe Tyva people (whom Petri's informants refer to as "livestock people"):
20 Harrison writes "former reindeer herding Tozha" here, and in fact the majority of Tozhu people have left
reindeer herding. However, there is still a healthy population of reindeer herding families.
21 In fact, the Tofa language is quite understandable not only to Tozliu people, but also to any Tyva speaker,
including the few non-native speakers of Tyva, such as myself, David Harrison, and Sven Grawunder. On
field trips to Tofalaria between 2000-2002, we bad no difficulty using our Tyva language to communicate
with native Tofa speakers. In this sense, Tofa could be considered a dialect of Tyva.
91
To the south the Karagas territory is bordered by the Sayans, where live the
Soyot. Here the border coincides with the international border as well. The
Karagas distinguish two groups of Soyot: One of these is the "Soyot-Karagas".22
They live, nomadize, raise reindeer, and hunt just like the Karagas - they are
"reindeer people," "nomads" - and speak the same language: "Almost exactly the
same, just a bit different". . . , Besides these remdeer people live other Soyots -
"livestock people" (steppe-horse raising Soyot). They "Jive in clear places'"
(steppes) and the Karagas "have nothing to do" with them; they've only "heard
that such people exist." One Karagas who had come across these "horse Soyots"
recalled that "it was possible to converse" with them, but that it was a "different
language,*' "some words it was possible to understand, others it was not possible)
(Petri 1927:23)23
Another of Petri's informants succinctly concludes, 'These Soyot, who travel by
reindeer, speak exactly our language; but those others, who have livestock, they speak
something different" (Petri 1927:23). Many of the remaining Dukha still speak their
language, which is virtually indistinguishable from the Tozhu dialect of Tyva, except that
it has more lexical items borrowed from Mongolian. As will be demonstrated below, the
Dukha are close relatives to the Tozhu (and to the reindeer herding peoples of the
Kimgurtuk region of southeastern Tyva24), and their language is accordingly close.
Beyond their shared ecology, economic activities, religious, linguistic, and other
cultural similarities, these groups' overlapping ethnic histories, shared clan names, and
the confusion of various self-designations and extemaliy attributed ethnonyms, make it
i.e., the Tozhu.
23 Words in quotation marks are quotes from Petri's informants; words in parentheses are Petri's own
clarifications.
i4 As mentioned earlier, in this dissertation I am not dealing explicitly with the reindeer herding Tyva
people of the Tere-Khol-Kungurtuk region in southeastern Tyva. However, by history, geography, and all
the ethnic criteria discussued above (language, religion, economic activities, etc.), they also belong to the
Sayan Cross reindeer herding peoples.
virtually impossible to separate these groups out from one another ethnically. The
following excerpt of a table from Dolgikh will serve to introduce this confusion and
highlight the constructed nature of ethnic groupings:
Table 3.1: Ethnographic Composition of the Population of K
from Dolgikh 1960:272-273)
. (excerpted
Ethnic Groups.
Tribes, and Clans
SAMOYEDIC
Karagasy
Kangaty
Yugdintsy
Sayantsy
Kaisoty
TURKIC
Sayantsy
Kaisoty
Number of
Yasalk25 payers
24
18
43
90
30
60
70
Total
Population26
100
70
170
360
120
240
280
Groupings of the 19th c. Corresponding to the
Cians and Tribes of the 17th c.
The Karagas [Tofa] of Nizhneudinskii Okrug;
possibly some of them included among the
Tuvintsy-Todzhinsty [TozhuJ
The Tuvintsy-Todzhintsy [Tozhu] of the Ak-
Chodu and Kara-Chodu sumons
Those who are now called "Tunkinskie
Soyoty" [SoyotJ of the Irkhit clan
Tuvintsy-Todzhintsy [Tozhu] of the Kol and
Khoyuk sumons
The Tuvintsy-Khasuty [Dukha] near Lake
Kosogol (Khubsugul) [Khovsgol] and part in
south-eastern Tozhu District [Tozhu]
According to this table, the Sayantsy (a variation on the name Soyot), appear under both
the Samoyedic and Turkic subheadings, and later came to be known as the Tuvintsy-
Todzhintsy (Tozhu). Three different ethnic units (tribes or clans) appear to have
consolidated to make up the Karagas, today's Tofa. However, some of the people from
those three earlier groupings went into the composition of the Tozhu. Finally, the group
referred to as Kaisoty in the above table appear to have been split into Turkic and
Samoyedic groups in the 17th century. The Samoyedic branch becomes the Soyot, while
the Turkic branch of the same group becomes the Dukha. The ethnonym Yugdintsy is the
25 Yasak is the term for the duty or tax paid to the Russian Empire, usually in the form of sable, squirrel, or
other wild animal pelts.
26 Dolgikh provides justification for assuming that the average family size at the time was 4; thus he arrived
at these figures by multiplying the number of yasak-paying individuals by 4.
93
origin of the clan name Chogdu, which is widespread among the Tofa and Tozhu (see
below). Sayantsy is, as mentioned above, a variant of the ethnonym Soyot, which is not
only the name of the ethnic group living in the Oka and Tunka regions of western
Buryatia, bat is also a clan name among both the Tozhu and Dukha.
Iril'decva explains that the ethnonym Soyot comes from a clan name, soy an (for a
detailed discussion of this ethnonyra, see Tatarintsev 1984). According to Iril'deeva, the
first written records of the Soyot were Cossack tales of the 17m century, in which the
Soyot were referred to as kaisety, irkety, or soyoty irketskogo roda ["Soyots of the Irket
clan"] (Iril'deeva 2000:132-133). Other sources from the mid 17th century mention the
Soyot (in the forms sayany, soyany) as living alongside the Tozhu (tochi, tochigasy)
(Dolgikh 1960:257; Milier 2000[1941]:622; Vainshtein and Mannai-ool 2001:183),
establishing a close link between these two groups from their earliest documentation.
While the ethnonym Soyot (also Oka Soyot, Tunka Soyot) now refers exclusively to the
officially recognized ethnic group of former reindeer-herding peoples living
predominantly in the Okinskii District of Buryatia (the northeast quadrant of the Sayan
Cross), it appears in many forms (soiot, soyod, soyan, sayan, soyong, sain, soyeng) in
different sources as a clan name, a tribal name, or even the name of a much larger
grouping of related tribes inhabiting an expanse of territory from the Irkut River in the
northeast to the Altai Mountains in the west, and from the northern edge of the Sayan
mountains in the north to northwestern Mongolia in the south. This territory includes all
of present-day Tyva, the entire Sayan Cross region, parts of northwestern Mongolia and
eastern Gorno-Altai Republic. Adding to the confusion is the fact that in many sources all
peoples living in this area were indiscriminately referred to as Soyot. Serdobov points out
that "In literary sources Tyvans up to the Revolution were called either soyot {soiot) or
uryankkaiisy''27 (Serdobov 1971:239; see also Vainshtein 1961:38). Note, for example,
Petti's comment above that the Karagas (Tofa) call all people on the other side of the
Sayan mountains (i.e., in Tyva) "Soyot." Some sources refer to the Soyot as a subgroup
of Tyva, as in the following definition from Wixman's The Peoples of the USSR:
"SOYOT: Other designation: Tunica Soyot. The Soyot are a group of Tuvinians who have
been partially assimilated by the Buryats" (Wixman 1984:180; see also Dioszegi
.1962:145; Vyatkina 1964[1956]:203). Other observers who make a distinction between
the Tozhu and Tyva identify the Soyot more specifically with the Tozhu rather than the
Tyva in general. For example, Serdobov cites archival sources as indicating that the
So)rot (whom he refers to as Soyan in this context) came from the northeast of Tyva
(Tozhu), and concludes that these facts "reflect the intimate km connections [Rus.:
rodstvennost'] between the Soyans and the Tochi [Tozhu]" (Serdobov 1971:156).
Iril'deeva asserts the ethnic closeness of the Soyot, Tozhu and Dukha:
The Okinsku District, where today live the main part of the Soyot, borders with
the Tozhu District of the Republic of Tyva, where Jive the Tyva-Tozhu [Tuvintsy-
Todzhintsy], and with Khubsugul'skii [Khovsgol] aimak [region] of Mongolia, in
the north of which live a people kindred to them, the Tsaatan [Dukha]. All three
of these ethnic societies - the Soyot of Buryatia, the Tozhu of Tyva and the
Tsaatan [Dukha] of Mongolia - are close to one another in language . . . , type of
economy (hunting and taiga reindeer herding), and way of life. According to the
suggestions of scholars, the Soyot are the descendants of ancient Samoyed
population of the Eastern Sayans, who were subsequently subjected to
Turkieization. (Iril'deeva 2000:132-133; words in square brackets are my
clarifications.)
Moving on to the Dukha, it should be recalled that, according to Dolgikh's data,
the Dukha emerged out of the Turkicised branch of the Kaisoty people, which, along with
the shared clan names, links the Dukha to the Soyot, who also came out of the Kaisoty
27 "'See note 1 l,p.74.
95
people.28 Until early in the 20ta century, the Dulcha were, like the Tyva people in general,
referred to as either "Soyot" or "Uryarikhai": "[the Dukha] were named without any
distinction from the other Eastern [Tuvans] or Toji-Tuvinians to whom they originally
belonged'" (Farkas 1992, cited in Wheeler 2000:7). The Mongolian ethnographer Kb.
Nyambuu links the Dukha (whom he refers to as Tsaatan29) to both the Soyot and the
Tyva in general: "The so-called Tsaatan are the Mongolianized forest Soyod Uriankhai of
the Tuva ethnic group who nomadize in counties such as Ulaan Uul, Rinchenlkhumbe,
Bayanziirkh, and Khankh of Khovsgol aimag. They name themselves the Dukhalar and
the Uigar, and the Mongolians named them 'Tsaatan,' metaphorically alluding to their
herding of reindeer" (Nyambuu 1992:138).j0 In discussing the "Uryankhai" on the
western shore of Lake Hubsugul (Khovsgol) - i.e, the Dukha - Dioszegi explains,
The members of this "Uryankhai" group call themselves toha (pi. tohalar). This
self-given name furnished conclusive evidence regarding the problem at issue
(transfer of cultural elements or ethnic identity), for the word tohalar is but a
dialectal variation of the word topalar, the name the Tofas (living on the banks of
the rivers Uda, Nerha and Gutara in South Siberia), as also of the word tyvalar,
the name the Tuvas (living along the Little and Great Yenisey and around the
upper stretches of the Yenisey) have given themselves....
The self-given name tohalar and the said clan names make it evident that
the tohalar (i.e. the "Uryankhai" group on the western shore of Lake Hubsugul)
are ethnically identical with the tiwalar (i.e. the Siberian Tuvas) and with the
topalar (Tofas), so that ? far from being different from the Tuvas - they are
actually sylvan (Taigan) Tuvas. (Dioszegi 1961:200)
28 However, Wheeler saw no evidence of the existence of a clan name cognate with Kaisot among the
contemporary Dukha (Wheeler 2000:20-21).
29 The word tsaaian comes from the Mongolian word tsaa, meaning "reindeer," and ?ran, which means
"with" or "having", thus gives the sense of "with reindeer" or "having reindeer" (for a more thorough
discussion of the different ethnonynis variously applied to the Dulcha, see Wheeler 2000:6-10). Wheeler
notes that while the term tsaatan is used in Mongolia to refer to the entire Dukha ethnic group, the Dukha
themselves only use this term when referring to their occupation, and do not consider it an ethnonytn. In
fact, the Dukha find the use of the term tsaaian as an ethnic label offensive (Farkas 1992, cited in Wheeler
2000:8).
30 I'd like to thank my colleague Kathy Petrie for bringing this source to my attention, and for translating
relevant parts of it from the original Mongolian. The translation used here is hers.
96
Although in this passage Dioszegi does not link the Dukha with the Tozhu specifically,
his reference to "sylvan (Taigan) Tuvas" quite clearly aligns the Dukha with the Tozhu.
Nyambuu is more explicit: "The Tsaatan people moved from the Tozh31 khoshuu^2 of old
Tuva and settled in their present herding area...." (Nyarabuu .1992:138).
Wheeler identifies two groups of Dukha, a northeastern group that has a long
history in the area; and a southwestern group that came from the Tozhu District and the
Tere-Khoi region in southeastern Tyva and settled permanently in Mongolia only in the
1940s (Wheeler 1999:60-61). If Dolgikh's interpretation is to be trusted, the northeastern
group would most likely be composed in part of descendants of the Turkicized Kaisoty
people, which suggests a relation to the Soyot. The second group can in fact be
considered the same people as the Tozhu. The lands in eastern Tyva and the Khovsgol
region of Mongolia were hunting and grazing grounds for a]] of these Turkic-language
reindeer herding and hunting peoples - the Tozhu, the Dukha, the Tyva of the Tere-Khol
region - who, until the first quarter of the 18th century, migrated throughout the region at
will, without regard to international borders.
Wheeler explains that on several occasions between 1927 and 1956 the
Mongolian authorities expelled the entire population of Dukha reindeer herders, along
with their reindeer, to Tyva, but because of the good hunting grounds and good
" In fact, the Nyambuu text says "Tom khoshuu" which would translate as the "Large Banner." But this is
clearly a typographical error in the text, since he goes on to list all the khoshims in the Tyva territory by
name, including the "7Wi khoshuu," clearly meaning the Tozhu District. Then, in the same paragraph,
Nyambuu enumerates all the smaller administrative units in the Tozh Khoshuu. As there never was a Tom
khoshuu in the Tyva territory, and since the rest of the paragraph is specifically about the Tozh- Khoshuu, I
must conclude thai this first reference to Tom Khoshuu is an error. In a handwritten manuscript, the Cyrillic
symbol for "zh" (pic) could be easily mistaken by a typist for the symbol for "m" (M).
Ji Khoshuu is the Mongolian word for "banner." If was a large administrative unit, and the term, in the form
kozhuun, is still used in Tyva today as the largest internal administrative unit, equivalent to the Russian
term raion ("district").
97
pasturage, these people persisted in returning to Mongolia (Wheeler 2000:41): "Due to
these various periods of exile in the 1920s and 1930s, most of the current Dukha elders
were born on the Tuvan side of the border and then brought to Mongolia as their parents
returned to their traditional migration and hunting grounds" (Wheeler 2000:42), Shortly
after Tyva became part of the USSR in i 944, forced collectivization was imposed upon
the Tozhu, providing yet another reason for Tozhu people to cross over into Mongolia.
Wheeler concludes that "After one final and unsuccessful attempt in 1952 to remove the
Dukha, the Mongolian government finally recognized that the Dukha would not
pennanently leave the Mongolian taiga and in 1955 began to register them as Mongojian
citizens" (Wheeler 2000:46). In 1958, Mongolia and the USSR signed a border
agreement that more definitively demarcated the boundary between the two countries,
and stipulated stricter surveillance from both sides. This effectively closed the border,
thus permanently separating the reindeer herding people who stayed in Mongolia from
their relatives on the Soviet side of the border (Wheeler 2003: personal communication).
In fact, "certain members of the Dukha population still have immediate relatives
across the border in Tuva" (Wheeler 2000:10). Indeed, throughout my fieldwork among
the Tozhu I often met people who had relatives in Mongolia whom they had not seen in
decades. Baraan Sengeevich Davtk (b. 1928) explained that he had two older sisters (now
deceased) who married reindeer herders from Mongolia and moved there in the 1940s.
One had 11 children, the other nine. Since they moved, they had only had contact via the
occasional letter.33 Davik's daughter, Luda, was very interested in going to Mongolia to
meet her cousins. Another elderly Tozhu woman explained that she had been bom in the
33 Interview with Baraan Sengeevich Davik, 14 January 2001, Adyr-Kezhig, Tozhu District. Tyva.
village of Tsagaan-Nur, in the Lake Khovsgol area of Mongolia. She and her family
crossed back and forth regularly, but when the border between the USSR and Mongolia
started to be more strictly controlled, her mother returned with her younger brothers to
Mongolia, while she stayed in the Tozhu Region of Tyva with her ailing father/4 The
border closed, and she has not seen them since. In a group interview with former herders
from the sovkhoz Pervoe Maya ("The First of May") in the Tozhu village of ly, one
elderly former herder chastised the Tozhu herders who had gone to Mongolia, saying,
'Those people, they left here and went to Mongolia to escape work, to escape the work of
the collective farm. They took our deer and ran away! Those are SovTyva's35 deer. I even
know which deer they took and who took them! There weren't any reindeer in Mongolia
before!"36
Even geopolitically, the Tozhu and Dukha territories have only recently been split
into different nation-states. Until the Treaty of Kiakhta redefined the borders between
Russia and China in 1727 (Dmytryshyn et a). 1988:70-78; Dubrovskii 1995:47-51), the
area west of Lake Khovsgol, referred to in Russian documents of that time as the
Kaisotskaya Zemlitsa, was, like the Tozhu region, politically not part of Mongolia, but
rather was considered within the territories of the Russian Empire (see Dolgikh
1960:263). Then, with the conquest of the Manchu Dynasty and the treaty of Kiakhta in
1727, both the Tozhu and Lake Khovsgol regions were ceded to the Manchu dynasty.
These tenitories made up the noitheastem comer of the Uriankhai Territory of Outer
Mongolia, under the control of the Manchu dynasty. But with the collapse of the Manchu
34 Interview with Aleksandra Charribalovna Baraan, 10 Dec. i999
: Iy village. Tozhu District, Tyva.35
 Shorthand for Sovietskuya Tyva, the official name of the state farm after it consolidated with Pervoe
Maya.
36 Interview with Ak Koibu-ooJovich Myzhyylai, January 2001, Iy village, Tozhu District, Tyva.
99
dynasty in 1911, the entire territory of present-day Tyva found itself in a tug-of-war
between Russia and Mongolia, which Russia ultimately won.37 Initially both the Tozhit
and Lake Khovsgoi areas, so closely linked throughout history, wore claimed by Russia,
(as protectorate over Tyva) on behalf of Tyva (see Dubrovskii 1994; map #6 in Jackson
1968:78-79), Then, when the nominally independent Tyva People's Republic38 was
established in 1921, it also claimed within its borders the territory right up to the western
shores of Lake Khovsgoi. This was never recognized by Mongolia, however, and at the
third session of the Mongol People's Revolutionary Party in 1924, the Mongolian
government made clear its intention of keeping the entire Tyva territory within the newly
declared Mongolian People's
Republic. The Soviet Union
resolutely refused, conceding to
Mongolia only "a small, sparsely
inhabited strip of territory (about
Figures 3.4 and 3.5. A postage stamp from 1935 and a detail
16,000 square kilometers), called from a map clearly showing the Lake Khovsgoi region within
the borders of the Tyva Peoples Republic.
Darkhat, west of Koso Kol
[Khovsgoi] (Lake)" (Tang
1959:437; see also Friters
1951:130-131; Jackson .1968:61;
37 For details see Bawden 19S9[i96S]; Dubrovskii 1994, 1995; Ewing 198Q, 1981; Friters 1951; Tang
1959.
33 Between 1921-1944, Tyva was known as the Tyva Arat Respublika (TAR - often rendered in English as
the Tannu-Tuva People's Republic,) nomiBally an independent state but in fact a satellite of the USSR.
100
Leimbach 1936: .100-101 ).:39 This territory is, of course, the territory inhabited by the
Dukha, and this decision, to which Mongolia reluctantly agreed, marked the first time
that the Tozhu and Dukha territories were in different nation-states.
Despite this official cession of the area west of Lake Khovsgol to Mongolia in
1924. Soviet and Tyvan maps of the 1930s and even a Tyvan postage stamp from as late
as 1935 persisted in showing the territory of Tyva extending all the way to the western
shores of Lake Khovsgol (see Figures 3.4 And 3.5).
The Tozhit and the Tofa
As the remainder of this disseitation focuses on a comparison of contemporary Tofa and
Tozhu, let us now turn our attention to their overlapping ethnic histories, and the common
ground between these two groups. Some scholars have simply presented the two groups
as the same people. In The Peoples of Siberia, Potapov identifies the Tofa as Tozhu: "A
small group of northeastern Tuvans - the Todzhans - numbering several hundred, live at
the present time in the Irkutskaya Oblast, in the taiga belt (Tofalarskiy Rayon) where they
are known as Tofalars" (Potapov 1964[1956]:381).
Ronald Wixman, in his The Peoples of the USSR, claims that the Tozhu are
simply Tyva people who have assimilated with the Tofa:
The Todzhan are a small group of northeastern Tuvininan-s (numbering in the
hundreds) who resettled in Irkutsk Oblast among the Tofalars. These Tuviniarts
adopted the culture and language of the Tofalars and associated with them. They
39 Darbaa (2000:36) gives 1923 as the year for this transaction. I'd like to thank /vlan Leighlon for bringing
these sources to my attention, and for providing maps x and x, and the graphic of the Tyvan stamp.
Mongolian sources indicate that the Darkhat region was never Tyva's (or the USSR's) to cede and that it
was never part of the TAR. It has been suggested to me that the official surrendering of the Darkhat
territory to Mongolia was simply officiai rhetoric allowing the USSR to save face while at the same time
making the maps correspond to reality (Dr. Chris Atwood and Kathy Petrie 2003, personal
communication).
S01
now call themselves, and are called by the Tofalars and other neighboring
peoples, Tofalars (Tubalar). (Wixman 1984:192)
Wixrnan concludes that "The only significant difference between the Tofalars and the
Todzhans is that the Todzhans strongly resisted the influence of the Russians, whereas
the Tofalars were strongly influenced by them. The Tofalars are being assimilated by the
Russians" (Wixman 1984:192-193).
I have to take issue with both of these explanations: Potapov seems to be claiming
that the Tofa (Karagas) are simply the Tozhu who remained in Russian territory (Irkutsk
Oblast') after the demarcation of the border between Russia and China in 1727, This
implies that the Tofa did not exist prior to that, yet Dolgikh has conclusively
demonstrated that both the Karagas (the old name for the Tofa) and the Tochigas (the
ancestors of the Tozhu) were recognized and documented by explorers and tax collectors
in the service of the Russian empire well before 1727. Wixman seems to think the Tozhu
are simply Tyva who happen to live in Irkutsk Oblast'. He appears to be ignorant of the
fact that the great majority of Tozhu live not in Irkutsk Oblast', but in Tyva, where they
are quite distinct from the majority Tyva of the steppelands. Nevertheless, the assertion
made by both of these scholars that the Tozhu and Tofa are, in effect, the same people
lends support to my argument of their ethnic and cultural closeness and interconnections.
Surviving clan names also suggest ethnic affiliation and closeness between the
Tozhu and Tofa. Serdobov claims that "Among the clan composition of the Tofa was
known the clan 'Tyudzhi'" (Serdobov 1971:155), clearly cognate with Tozhu.40 Dioszegi
remarked upon the common clan names among the Soyoi, Dukha, Tozhu and Tofa.
40 However, Serdobov does not cite a source for this information, and I have searched in vain for
verification of the existence of such a clan among the Tofa.
102
Observing among the Dukha the clan names sojan, aq codu, qara codu and sariy cdydu,
Dioszegi noted that "we encounter . . . the sojan and codu along the Great Yenisey [i.e.,
the Bii-Khem in Tozhu District], the cdydu among the Karagas (Tofas). The words codu
and cdydu are the Tuvanian. and Tofan variants of the same name" (Dioszegi 1961:200}.41
Variants of choodu (chodu, chogdu, chota, dzhot, dzhotu, yogdu) appeal* throughout the
literature on the Tofa and Tozhu (see, inter alia, Doigikh 1960:258-259; Mel'nikova
1994:36-40; Petri 1927; Serdobov 1971:155-157; Vainshtrin 1961:20-21; Vainshtein
1968:61-62). In fact, two of the five major clan names among the Tofa today - Ak
('White') Choodu and Choodu42 (formerly Kara ('Black') Choodu) - have direct
counterparts among the contemporary Tozhu on the southern slopes of the Eastern Sayan,
where the two most prominent family-clan names (of three) are Ak ('White') (shortened
from Ak Choodu). and Baraan, which is somehow a mutated form of Kara ('Black') -
shortened from Kara Choodu,4j
But how do the Tozhu and Tofa people themselves view each other? As noted
above, Petri cites Karagas (Tofa) informants as distinguishing between the Tozhu and the
Tyva people of the steppes, referring to the Tozhu as "Soyot-Karagas" and "reindeer
41 In addition, Difiszegi observed the Dukha clan name batiysi in the Kaa-Khem region of eastern Tyva,
where the Kungurtuk or Tere-Khol reindeer herding peoples live (see note 14, p.77).
42 For two versions of a legend on the origins of the two Choodu clans among the Tofa, see Russadin
1996:41 and Sherfchunaev 1975:220.
43 The fact that the Kara-Choodu among the Tozhu became today's Baraan clan is not disputed. However,
I' ve never received a satisfactory answer as to the etymology of the name "Baraan," or why and when
Kara-Choodu became Baraan. Serdobov is the only source I've seen that makes explicit mention of this:
"In present-day Tozhu [1971] there are Ak-Choodu - 125 families, and Baraan-Choodu (evidently Kara-
Choodu) - 73" (Serdobov 1971:158). Members of the Baraan clan explained to me that baraan means
"black" in Mongolian, and that their name was simply the Mongolian translation of kara, which means
"black" in Tyvan as well as in most Turkic languages. In fact, "black" in Mongolian is khara (cognate with
Turkic kara). However, the word baraan is defined in Bawden's Mongolian-English dictionary as "dark,
dark-coloured" (Bawden 1997:43), and is often used in conjunction with the word khara as an intensifier
(e.g., khara baraan kharankhi "pitch-black darkness"; "extremely dark"). It is possible that in this way
Baraan came to stand in for Kara in this clan name.
103
people." a clear indication of the Karagas (Tofa) people's own perception of ethnic
identification with the Tozhu. ID addition to stating that the Tozhu "live, nomadize, raise
reindeer, and hunt just like the Karagas," Petri added that "With these people the Karagas
live in constant, interaction, especially in the summer. From them the Karagas acquire
reindeer with which to increase their own herds. To them, the Karagas give in return
gunpowder, shot, and other Russian goods" (Petri 1927:23). According to Tozhu and
Tofa informants, there has always been intermarriage between the two groups, and Tozhu
and Tofa regularly cross over the mountains to hunt, fish, trade, and sometimes to steal
one another's animals.
Boris Akovich Oybak-ool, resident historian, story-teller, and jokester in the
Tozhu village of Kham-Syra, explained that the Tozhu call the Tofa Khaash, while the
Tofa refer to the Tozhu as Choodu44 (see also Dolgikh 1960, n. 152). Khaash (variants
khash, kaash, kash) is another of the five extant Tofa clan names, and a component of yet
another, Sary-Khaash.4* In fact, Vainshtein asserts that in the past there were not five
Tofa clans, but rather eight, five of which included the component -kliash: Kara-khash,
Tyrk-khash, Irge-khash, Tenek-khash, and Sary-khash (Vainshtein 1968:61-62). (It
should be .remembered that, according to Vainshtein, -khash is a variant of kasa / gasa,
which meant "man," "person" in Samoyedic (Vainshtein 1961:21), which is quite
reasonable as a component of a clan name.) These various -khash cians were all in the
northern and central parts of the Tofa territory, while the two Chogdu clans, Kara-
Chogdu and Ak-Chogdu, were in the southeastern part of the Tofa territory, bordering
4i4 Interview from 4 July 1998, Kham-Syra, Tozhu District, Tyva.
45iThe five extant clan names are: Khaash, Sary-khaaxh (or Saryg-Khaash), Chogdu, Kara-Chogdu, and
Cheptei {or Teptei).
104
Tozhu. Thus the Tozhu refer to the Tofa in genera] using a widespread Tofa clan name,
and the Tofa refer to the Tozhu in general using a different widespread Tofa clan name,
an indication that, in the past, the ethnic boundaries were perceived by local people
differently than the official ethnic groupings that have been more recently constructed
and reified via tax rolls, censuses, official state proclamations and, of course,
ethnographers.
What, then, caused a divergence of ethnic identification between these two otherwise
virtually indistinguishable groups? Potapov, operating under the assumption that the Tofa
are simply a branch of the Tozhu, explains that with the Manchu victory over Dzhungaria
in the mid- 18th century, the territories north of the Sayans and west of the Allay
mountains became part of the Russian state, while the lands and tribes to the south and
east became the subjects of the Manchu (Tai-ch'ing or Qing) dynasty. Thus,
The genealogical and protracted cultural-historical connection between the
Western Tuvans, Khakasy and Southern Altays was broken for almost two
centuries. Also split up were the Northeast Tuvans-Todzhans. A large number of
them remained in the Russian State - on their nomadic grounds in the Eastern
Sayans, where they became known as the Karagasy, and after the October
Revolution, as the Tofalars, (Potapov 1964[1956]:384)
Or, as Sergeyev has put it.
The differences observed at the present lime in the culture of the Tofalars and
reindeer-breeding Todzhans stern to a large extent from their different historical
destinies over the last three centuries. Whereas the Todzhans largely remained
aloof from Russian influence, through their political conditions, the Tofalars had
already felt the effect of Russian culture by the middle of the 17th century.
(Sergeyev 1964[1956]:474)
105
The defining political event that effected this division occurred in 1727. when
representatives of the Russian and Chinese empires met three times to negotiate the
border between the two great powers. The result of the first meeting, the Burinskii Treaty
on the Definition of Borders between Russia and China.46 outlines the border along a
predominantly east-west series of mountain peaks and passes in the Eastern and Western
Sayan mountains. The treaty continues:
Within the established borders of both empires, if again small ignorant people
[i.e., indigenous nomads - B.D.] furtively migrate and within set up their yurts, if
such be the case, then they shall be justly and diligently pursued, and all shall be
conducted back to their own side.
Those people of both empires, who live together in mixed nomadic-
camps,47 if such be the case, then the situation must be justly and diligently
examined, and each side must sort out and determine who belongs on which side
so that the borders on both sides will be uniformly clear.
Those Uriankhai people who, on whichever side, paid yasak. (tax or duty)
of five sables shall remain on that side of the border and continue to pay.
But those Uriankhai who in the past paid yasak of one sable to both sides
shall from the day of the establishment of the boundary never again be required
to pay.48 (Dubrovskii 1995:49)
The second and third meetings resulted in the Treaty of Kiakhta49 and a minor
letter of agreement on the further definition of the border.50 These two documents restate
the conditions of the Burinskii Treaty, with minor clarifications. These agreements
46 Burinskii Traklat ob Opredelenii Granits Mezhdu Rossiei i Kitaem, reprinted in Dubrovskii 1995:47-50.
47 The Russian reads: "Oboikh imperil lyudi, kotorye kochev'yami pomeshahV."
48 While this is an accurate translation, it struck me as strange that any of the nomadic peoples should be
exempted from paying the yasak forever after the signing of the treaty. Other interpretations of this treaty
are also somewhat unclear on this point, but after extensive research and discussions with colleagues, my
overall interpretation is the following: There were Uriankhai peoples (i.e.. the ancestors of today's Tozhu,
Tola, Soyoi, and Dnkha) who were assumed to spend most of their time on one side or the other of the
border. They would have paid yasak of five sables to that side. There were other Uriankhai who nomadized
across the border who paid yasak of one sable to each side. As this treaty stipulates that such transboundary
migrations must be prevented, those who paid one sable to each side will no longer be required to pay that,
but would, presumably, still be subjected to the standard yasak of five sables, payable to whichever empire
they ended up in.
49 21 October 1727 - see Dmytryshyn, Crownheart-Vaughan and Vaughan 1988:70-78.
50 Razmennoe Pis'mo o DopolniteVnom Opredelenii Granits Mezhdii Rossiei i Kitaem (27 October 1727),
reprinted in Dubrovskii 1995:50-52.
106
between Russia and China effectively drew a line in the Sayans separating the present-
day Tozhu District of Tyva and the Khovsgol Aimag in Mongolia, which fell on the
Chinese side of the border, from Tofalaria and the Soyot National Aimag51 in Buryatia,
which fell on the Russian side. The most telling statement in the Burinskii Treaty is the
acknowledgement that these peoples were mixed, but that they nevertheless must be
sorted out and defined, however arbitrarily, and prevented from further transboundary
interaction, and that the boundary area must remain "clear." In this way, these treaties
arbitrarily yet effectively split the Sayan Cross region into two and set the stage for the
construction of separate ethnicities of the inhabitants.
While we cannot assume that, in an area so remote and peripheral to both empires,
such externally imposed geopolitical borders could have been completely enforceable, it
appears that the border delineation and increased efforts to strictly enforce it did have the
desired effect of limiting transboundary nomadic migrations, and in doing so reduced the
contact between the reindeer-herding and hunting peoples on opposite sides of the border.
As .Forsyth has put it, "The Treaty of Kiakhta in 1727 effectively closed the Russo-
Chinese frontier. . . so that for the first time in history, movement between northern
Mongolia and the southern edge of the Siberian forest was arrested by the phenomenon of
a closed border" (Forsyth 1992:99). On the Russian side of the border, aggressive and
ambitious colonization in southern Siberia proceeded apace, as Russian and Ukrainian
gold miners, traders, trappers, and agriculturalists flooded the area, but for the roost pail,
did not cross over into Chinese territory. As we have seen above, initial contact between
51 In 2000, the government of Buryatia changed the name of the Okinskii District to the "Soyot National
Aimag" (see Pavlinskaya 2003)-
107
Russians and the ancestors of the Tola, To?-.hu; Soyot, and Dukha occurred at about the
same time (in the 1630s); however, the 1727 treaties between Russia and China
effectively brought such activity to a standstill in the areas that fell on the Chinese side,
while colonizing activities were stepped up in those areas of southern Siberia that fell on
the Russian side of the border.
In contrast to the very proactive colonizing efforts of the Russians, the Manchu
approach to the nomadic peoples at the frontier was one of benign neglect: "Following
the practice that had been applied so successfully throughout the rest of the frontier, the
Ch'ing endeavored to disturb as little as possible the traditional system of government,
preferring to adapt rather than to create" (Ewing 1981:187). Ewing goes on to assert that
"Indeed, there were few areas of the empire which were so little affected by Ch'ing rule
as Tannu-Urjankhai"52 (Ewing 1981:188), and, as a result, "Tannu-Urjankhai enjoyed a
degree of political and cultural autonomy unequalled perhaps anywhere else in the
empire" (Ewing 1981:189).
In this chapter I have demonstrated that, in addition to the ecological similarities,
remoteness, and difficulty of access, the groups living in these regions have shared
histories and closely related ethnic backgrounds, justifying ray treatment of this Sayan
Cross region as an ethnic and ecological unit. However, the Tofa and Soyot have
experienced some 350 years of intensive and at times overbearing contact with Russians
and other "incomers," with far greater pressures (and opportunities) to assimilate, while
the Tozhu, as a result of the delineation of the border between Russia and China in 1727.
52 Tannu-Urimikhai here refers to the territory of present-day Tyva and the Lake Khovsgol area of
Mongolia.
108
have had interaction with Russians of a much less intrusive nature and of much shorter
duration. An appreciation of these dynamics is central to understanding the present-day
differences between the Tofa and Tozhu with regards to their senses of property in land
and animals as will be detailed in the following section.
109
Part II
Property in Animals and Land
The previous chapter established the close links among the four reindeer herding groups
of the Sayan Cross area with regards to their history, language, geography, and ways of
life. In the remainder of the. dissertation, I narrow the focus to the two principal groups of
the study, the Tozhu and the Tofa. The focus on property in the next two chapters is
inherently institutional, while the analysis of changes in property rights and conceptions
over time as a result of pressures from political and economic events, and the ensuing
impact on people's interaction with their social and physical environments, is essentially
processual. Chapter 4 looks at the differences between the Tozhu and Tofa in their
present-day conceptions of property with respect to the reindeer they raise and the wild
animals they hunt, while Chapter 5 examines 'the strikingly different senses of property
with regards to land expressed by contemporary Tofa and Tozhu peoples.
110
Chapter 4
Trust or Domination? Animals as Property
Introduction
The hunting and reindeer-herding way of life of the Tozhu and Tofa (and other South-
Siberian reindeer herding peoples) confounds the neat typologies of production systems
traditionally recognized in Western anthropology, as it blends traits of hunter-gatherers
and nomadic pastoralists, thus blurring the distinction between these two production
systems. For example, the south-Siberian reindeer herders share a number of
characteristics with other nomadic-pastoral groups. Reindeer in these areas historically
have had a great deal of cultural and symbolic significance, analogous in some ways to
cattle in east Africa (Herskovits 1927). In addition to being measures of wealth
(Vainshtein 1961:58; Mendume 1984; Petri 1927), they have served as important items of
exchange cementing various social bonds (marriage) and at rites of passage (birth and
death). In addition, shamans in this area were said to ride their reindeer into the spirit
world, and reindeer images decorated their costumes and drums (Vainshtein 1961, 1991:
ch. 6; Dioszegi 1961, 1962). Like other types of livestock, reindeer are ridden, used as
pack animals, and milked.
Despite these parallels with other forms of nomadic pastoralism, reindeer herding
in the taiga regions of Siberia is and always has been a secondary activity that facilitated
the principal economic and productive activity, hunting. Wild game is the principal
source of meat. In fact, hunter-herders of the south Siberian taiga have always been loath
111
to kill a domesticated reindeer for food, and only do so in times of dire need, or when one
must be killed because of injury. Thus, Andreeva and Leksia note that, "One might say
that in the taiga there are no reindeer herders but that there are hunters with reindeer"
(1999:92). This has long been recognized by Russian / Soviet ethnographers, who even
have a special category for this type of reindeer
herding ? the Sayan type. Vainshtein, working within
the framework of the "economic-cultural type" theory
of Levin and Cheboksarov (see Humphrey 1980:5),
takes great pains to specify the complex of productive
activities and cultural attributes that define the Sayan
type of reindeer herding, in which herders use the
reindeer as pack animals, to ride, and to milk, but do
not use dogs to help herd and do not use decoy deer to
attract wild reindeer to hunt (Vainshtsin 1980[1972]:121).1
Ingoid (2000) has suggested that the relationship of hunting populations' to the
wild animals they depend on is characterized by '"trust," while the relationship between
pastoral populations and their livestock is characterized by "domination." Using this
distinction as a starting point, I suggest that for the Tozhu, their relationship to wild
animals is still predominantly a social one based on trust, mediated by the cher eeleri
(sing, cher eezi ? spirit masters / owners of places, who are also the masters / owners of
the wild animals in their places), and embedded in a "cosmic economy of sharing" (Bird-
1 Vainshtein follows the typology of Vasilevich and Levin (1951), which breaks reirsdeer herding into 5
types: the Lapp or Saami type: the Western Siberian or Samoedi type; the Twigus or Siberian type; the
North-Eastern type; and the Sayan type.
112
David 1992). Domesticated reindeer are treated analogously: reindeer are described as
angsyg (wild animal-like); they have a special status that lies somewhere between wild
animals arid domesticated livestock, and are accorded respect similar to wild animals.
The relationship between the Tozhu and their domesticated reindeer is not one of an
owner and a property object, but rather a social relationship based on trust. In the Tofa
case, these social relationships have almost completely broken down. Wild animals are
seen in terms of their economic value and assumed to be the property of the person on
whose land they happen to be at any given moment, while the great majority of remaining
domesticated reindeer are the property of a single externally owned and operated
enterprise that rents the reindeer io Tofa hunters during hunting seasons.
I suggest that the reasons for this difference lie in the different experiences the
two peoples had with Soviet-era collectivization, and the fact that the kolkhoz)' (collective
farms; sing.: kolkhoz), and later the sovkhozy (state farms; sing.: sovkhoz), established
during Soviet times were designed differently and set up for different purposes.2 In the
Tofa case, the collective and state farms were set up exclusively for hunting, with
relatively small, well-defined hunting tracts doled out on a family-by-family basis that,
somewhat paradoxically in the Soviet context, took on the character of de facto private
property. The Soviet emphasis on meeting production quotas, along with ever-increasing
competition from non-Tofa peoples, put great pressure on the wild animal resource base
and led to intense competition for the wild game resources, disrupting the social
relationships between humans and animals, humans and the cher eeleri, and between
humans and humans. Reindeer were taken out of the domain of the family and raised by a
2 See pp. 182-188 for a more general discussion of the impact of collectivization in the Soviet Union.
113
handful of specialists exclusively for purposes of transport. They became livestock for
those specialists who raised them, and rental units for the rest of the Tofa, who used the
deer for transport while hunting. This led to a de-emphasis on reindeer as a central part of
the Tofa people's lives and culture and ultimately destroyed the intimate relationship
between reindeer and people. In the case of the Tozhu: the collective and state farms were
set up for reindeer husbandly and, to a much lesser degree, hunting. This difference has
allowed the Tozhu to maintain their social relationships with their reindeer, while the lack
of pressure on wild game resources (relative to the Tofa) has allowed them to maintain
their trusting relationships with wild animals and with the cher eeleri.
Wild Animals as Property
In pre-Soviet times, when virtually all Tozhu and Tofa people were nomadic herders and
hunters, wild animals, like land, were not considered anyone's exclusive "property" as
such, but there were social relations among people built into the rights people could claim
to wild animals. For example, a person from one band was expected to request
permission to hunt on another's recognized territory (this permission was almost never
refused), and if the hunter were successful, he was expected to share Ms kill with the
recognized occupying band of that territory. Among the Tozhu at least, the practice of
hunting on a different band's territory was so widespread that it gave rise to the custom of
uzha, in which the member of the foreign band is supposed to give the highly valued
ramp (uzha) of the slain animal to members of the band on whose territory he hunted."
3 This custom most likely also existed among the Tofa, but I haven't found any references to it in the
literature. Anaiagous customs have existed in almost all north Eurasian cultures (sec Fondahl 1998:32 and
114
Thus while we cannot say that land or the wild animals on that land were objects of
private property over which anyone had exclusive control, we can say that Ihe recognized
occupying band had the rights to the wild animal resources on their territory, and the
right to a portion of any kill made on their territory by a visitor. The visiting hunter, in
turn, could request permission to hunt on that territory with the expectation that that
permission would be granted. This virtually automatic granting of permission and the
subsequent sharing of the kill can be seen as an expression of a sense of equal entitlement
to the wild animal resources (see Hann 1998:34). These rights and entitlements carry with
them various social obligations as well. Ingold notes a "striking parallel between the
alleged 'ownership' of territory, and the 'ownership' of animal kills in hunter-gatherer
societies. . . . An owner is virtually obliged to distribute his spoils, just as he is to admit
outsiders. It seems to be as rare, and to be regarded as equally reprehensible, for
permission of entry to be refused as to withhold shares of meat" (Ingold 1987:134). As
noted in the introduction, property can be defined as "a network of social relations that
governs the conduct of people with respect to the use and disposition of things" (Hoebel
1966:424, cited in Hann 1998:4). According to this definition, the rights expressed above
and the social relationships they're embedded in form a set of property institutions with
respect to wild animal resources.
However, this standard anthropological definition usually assumes that the social
relationships in which property is embedded are human-to-human. As Hann has put it,
"property relations exist not between persons and things but between people in respect of
Forsyth 1992:50 on the custom of nimat among the Evenki and other Tungusic peoples: Ziker 2002a and
2002b on the "Law of the Tundra" among the Dolgan and Nganasan).
115
things" (Hann 2000:1). But in many indigenous contexts, the social relationships that
property is embedded in are as likely to be human-to-non-human persons as they are
human to human, and there are moral obligations that go along with those relationships,
not only to other humans, but also to non-human entities.4
Numerous writers have remarked upon social relationship between the hunter and
his prey, and it is this social relationship that gives the hunter the right to take his prey. In
fact, many claim that the wild animal "gives" itself to the hunter as part of this social
relationship, while the hunter, in turn, manages his hunting and protects the habitat of the
wild animals in such a way as to ensure their continued existence (Brightman 1993;
Harrod 2000; Ingold 2000, esp. chs. 3,4,7). Drawing on Bird-David's "cosmic economy
of sharing" (1992), Ingold asserts that the relationship between hunter-gatherers and their
prey is one of trust, characterized by a recognition that the hunter depends on the prey to
present itself to the hunter, and a respect for the autonomy of the wild animal to either
choose to give itself to the hunter or not (Ingoid 2000:69).
In the Tozhu context there is likewise a social relationship, and one based on trust,
as Ingold observes. However, in this case at least, the relationship is not so much between
the hunter and the wild animal as it is between the hunter and the cher eezi (master /
owner of the place), who is likewise the master of all the wild animals in his place.5
4 For discussions of social relationships between humans and non-human persons, see inter alia, Bird-David
1990, 1999; Brightman 1993; Hallowell 1960; Ingold 1987 (esp. ch.6), 2000; King 2002.
5 A note on the etymology: cher = place / land / earth; cherlik = literally, of the place / land, belonging to
the place / land; but it always carries the connotation of "wild."
1 16
Stories of cher eeleri (plural) abound in Tyvan and Tozhu folklore. A lool-
chugcta,6 Askak ivilig aaryg angchy ("The ailing hunter and his lame reindeer") recorded
by Tozhu writer Alexei Nuguarak,7 features the social relationship between a hunter (and,
remarkably, his deceased father) and a cher eszi. The tale begins with a young orphan
hunter wandering in impenetrable, unforgiving taiga far from his home taiga. He has not
eaten for days. He has used his last bullet and missed, and simply lacks the strength to
search for food. He has practically given up, and is on the verge of death. And to top it
off, his reindeer is injured and limping:
There's so much noise in the taiga it's as if a war going on all around
him. The hoy imagines that the taiga is saying to him, "Hey, man, lie down and
sleep for a bit, refresh your mind and body." The voice was so relentless that he
couldn't resist, and he lay down beside a large white rock and fell asleep. In his
dream, he saw the very taiga, he. was in. He didn't know how he got there. An elk
with ten thousand branching gold and silver antlers, legs as stout as huge larch
trees, breast so broad thai it pressed against both sides of the taiga valley and
touched the raging river's rapids, touched his ear and said, "How I pity you,
young man. Are you doing OK or not? " The young hunter was dumbfounded. He
answered, "Nothing's good with me right now. Elk. I've fallen ill, and my friend
reindeer is also ailing."
Then the Elk sniffed the hunter's ears, kissed his cheeks, his ten-thousand
branching antlers reached up to the sky. "Understand this, hunter, and do as I
say: The land will not deny medicine to a well-meaning creature. Be attentive, go
find some medicine. I am very close friends with your deceased father: he
protected me from being shot, he saved my life. So don't forget your father's
words. You 're very ill, young hunter, you can trust me. . . ." Then it left.
.... And the. hunter woke up. He felt much better. He began to think, "Did
the Oran-eezi8 come to me? Did the Cher-eezi come to me? Is something good
going to come, to me or am I going to die?" He began to remember his father s
words: "Learn the many valuable uses of the elk: antlers, fat; also learn the
mysteries of the taiga ? its generosity with its wild animals, the medicine of its
arzhaans,' my son. For these supplicate, bow down your head. "
6 Tool-chugaa is a folk genre among the Ty va. It is sort of a tale with elements of the magical that is told as
if it were factual, and it is often treated as if it were true.
7 This material is from a sheaf of unpublished materials chat the writer Aiexei Nuguurak gave to me.
8 Oran is another word for cher. hence oran-eezi is another word for cher-eezi.
9 Sacred mineral springs.
117
The hunter started walking, still tired and with, difficulty. He came to a
place where the river leveled out and widened, and- he bent down and drank
deeply. The reindeer also felt invigorated, started walking more quickly, shook off
his rein and waded into deeper water where he could soak his aching legs, and
began to drink. Both of them rested, then again drank from the cool clear waters.
The hunter felt sated, his eyes cleared up. . . . The reindeer also. They drank their
fill, and rested, and felt better.
The hunter looked around and saw something up on the cliff. He went up
the cliff and found a fat mountain goat that had just fallen and died. The cher eezi
had given him a gift to lift his spirits.
The fact that in this story the cher eezi is himself a wild animal (this is not always the
case) further strengthens the argument; for the existence of a social relationship between
bumans and wild animals.
When preparing to go hunting, hunters will always supplicate the cher eezi. The
hunter always feeds the cher eezi by tossing a morsel of food into the fire, even if all he
has is dried bread (sukhari). In the morning, before setting out on a hunt, hunters will
always fling spoonfuls of their morning milky tea to the fire and to the four directions of
the earth (always beginning with the east),10 to show respect not only to the extent of the
territory of the cher eezi whose land they happen to be on, but also to all the spirit
masters of all the lands to the ends of the earth. When feeding the fire hunters will always
say a few simple words to the cher eezi, sometimes out loud, sometimes silently.
Dembirel Karanai, former hunter and reindeer herder resident in the village of Xharn-
Syra, explained that part of his hunting ritual involved praying to the cher eezi:
I'd always go with a bottle or two of vodka. I had to take vodka. Then when I'd
reach my hunting grounds, I'd first boil tea. Then I'd pray to the cher eezi, saying,
for example:
10 There is a special nine-eyed spoon also for this purpose, the tos karak, which symbolizes the nine taigas
(nine is the most sacred number in Tyvan cosmology ? there are tos deer (nine heavens), tos chuzun rnal
(nine types of domestic livestock), etc.) However, these aren't the same nine taigas for everyone, and
although some people have concrete taigas in mind, it more symbolizes the cosmic unity of the hunter with
Jill l-fi.a t'ltirrtc nf t'hp \x/rvrlr1all the taigas of the world
118
Please give me a big beast, a chilve with a fat uzha.
Please give me a young and willing beasi, a chtive with a fat tosh,
Saying this you'd fling your tea, your vodka in the direction of the mountains and
pray to the cher eezi.
Alexei Nuguurak has recorded the following chant, which he says a hunter would sing or
chant to himself while preparing his bullets and cleaning and loading his gun. The hunler
is very happy to be preparing to go out to the taiga to go hunting, and is in a very good
mood:
I've prepared and loaded my gun.
I'm gazing into the smoke of my fire.
Oh, my land! Be generous to me. (Present me with something)
I, your son, will soon come to you.
I've prepared few bullets.12
I'm sitting looking at the smoky deep dark forest.
My encircling Taiga, be generous to me,
I, your friend, your son, will soon come to you.
I'm not alone - I'm with a friend.
My trusty flintlock is in my hands.
I will go dreaming of a wonderful catch.
My true gun is in my hands.
I'm sitting thinking about my beloved land.
What you give me I'll thankfully accept.
I'll never.complain that it's too difficult,
And I'll never brag thai it was easy."
11 Chiive means "tiling," and is used euphemistically to show respect for an animal by avoiding naming it
directly. Uzlia and tosh are the rump and breast, respectively, the fattiest and most desired cuts of an
animal. Recorded July 2001, in the village of Kham-Syra, Tozhu District. Tyva.
12 It was a tradition to prepare and bring few bullets when one wen! hunting. This showed not only
confidence in oneself as a hunter and faith that the cher eezi would present the hunter with some very good
opportunities, but also a recognition of the power of bullets and the unfair advantage they gave to the
hunter over his prey.
13 It was also a custom never to brag that the hunting was easy. To do so would be like patting oneself on
the back and taking credit for a successful hunt, when in fact it's ail up to the cher eezi and aot the hunter.
119
If the hunter makes a kill, he cooks some of the meat and gives the first morsel of the best
bit to the fire (e.g... the purely fatty tip of the tosh, breastbone). And when the hunt is
unsuccessful, the hunter wonders how he has offended the cher eezi, if somehow he has
not upheld his part of the trusting relationship, for this relationship entails certain
responsibilities on the hunter's part in addition to feeding the fire. In some cases, there
are places where hunters may not hunt at all, may not cut down trees, may not sel fires,
may not camp overnight, etc. For example, in the Serlig Khem region of the Tozhu
district of Tyva, where I carried out much of my fieldwork, there is an unusual hillside of
gray mud, approximately 50 meters high by 80 meters wide. Water springs from the top
of this hillside and slowly trickles down, keeping the area permanently muddy. At
various small level spots on the way down the hillside, water collects in small puddles,
and strange-shaped "rocks" can be found. These in fact are not rocks, but accretions of
hardened mud that have tumbled down and been smoothed and shaped by the flow of
water into forms often resembling people or animals. Hence the name of the place,
Charash Tashtyg, which means, "With Beautiful Stones." This is considered a sacred site
among the Tozhu, and one must not spend the night on the top of this hillside. The story
goes that if one docs spend the night there, the cher eezi won't let you sleep, and if you
manage to fall asleep, you'll die within the year. One of my informants told me that,
approaching Charash Tashtyg in the dark and from an unfamiliar direction, she
unknowingly tried to spend the night there. All night the wind blew through the trees and
she could hear the cher eezi telling her to leave. She couldn't fall asleep, and finally at
about 4 in the morning, a strange man came to her and got her up and told her to move
120
on. She left, and.it was only as she was leaving that she realized she had been at Ckara.sk
Tashtyg, and that, the strange man was not a man at all, but the cher eezi.
Toz.hu hunters must also observe proscriptions against killing certain types of
animals. As former hunter/herder Sbombul Sotbaevich Sambuu put it,
White animals must not be shot - it was said that they were the cher eezi- White
elk, white moose, white bears - any completely white thing. Around here there
was a white deer, and no one dared touch it. There was also a completely blood-
red bear, and white breasted elks. If a hunter encountered such an animal, he
would immediately go to the shaman to be shamanized over and purified. The
shaman would look him over and decide: if it was a bad omen, then he would
purify the hunter and get him out of danger; if it was a good omen, the shaman
would compound the hunter's good fortune.14
Former hunter/herder Mikhail Kenden seconded the proscription against killing white
animals with animals with otherwise distinctive markings, and added that one should
never kill more than one needs: "If in one place a hunter were to shoot three or four
animals, he would be scolded by the elders. 'Aren't there any other hunters who will
come after you?' they would scold. 'Won't any of your own children come after you?"'15
By following these proscriptions, the hunters show their respect for the place, for the cher
eeleri, maintain their part of the trusting relationship not only with the cher eeleri but also
with their fellow hunters, and, in the process, help to protect the environment.
These examples clearly illustrate that wild animals are in a sense considered the
property of the cher eezi. It is the cher eezi who decides whether or not to give an animal
to the hunter; it is the cher eezi that the hunter fears and respects, to whom he petitions
for help in the hunt, whom he thanks for success, and with whom he establishes the
14 Interview with Shombul Sotbaevich Sambuu (b. 1921) in his home in Adyr-Kezhig, Toihu District, 13
January 2001.
15 Interview with Mikhail Dondup-oolovicb Kenden (80 years old) in his home in Adyr-Kezhig, Tozhu
Distirct, Tyva, 14 January 2001.
121
relationship of trust, not with the animal directly. Wild animals are the medium
constituting the social relationship between the hunter and the cher eezi. Hence the
hunter's rights to take a wild animal, i.e., his property rights with respect to wild animals,
are embedded in this social relationship with the cher eezi. In this way, then, these
hunters are entering into a "cosmic economy of sharing" to use Nurit Bird-David's
phrase.
Reindeer as property
Reindeer among the Tozhu also enter into this cosmic economy of sharing. Despite a
series of transformations in the official (de jure) recognition of reindeer as property
through Soviet times to the present, the relationship between Tozhu reindeer herders and
their reindeer has remained fundamentally a social one. In this section, I will discuss how
reindeer have been officially recognized as property first by the Soviet state and now, in
post-Soviet times, by the Russian Federation, and how reindeer herders have reacted io
that official status. This is an economistic conception of property imposed on the reindeer
herders during Soviet times that disembeds (Hann 2000:4) property from its social
context and in particular neglects the indigenous conception of social relationships
between human and non-human persons and the moral obligations those relationships
entail. Then, returning to Ingold's discussion of trust and domination, I will make the
argument that the Tozhu reindeer herders' relationship to their reindeer is not a
proprietary relationship, but rather a social one, based on trust and sharing (reciprocity)
and not on domination, hence is akin to their relationship to wild animals.
J22
In the following discussion of the officially recognized property rights with
respect to reindeer, I am considering reindeer as the "property" of the entity who has
proprietary and disposition (alienation) rights over reindeer, and am not considering use
rights (because reindeer herders in all cases I'm aware of have always had use rights,
whether the reindeer were considered state property or not).16
In pre-Soviet times, reindeer were customarily considered the private property of
individual families, meaning that individual families had exclusive rights of access to and
disposal of their reindeer and that reindeer constituted the principal form of wealth
among the Tozhu.17 With the rise of the nascent Soviet state, the new Soviet government
embarked on a massive collectivization campaign. Lees and Bates note that an
"environmental event" suitable for analysis "need not simply arise from 'acts of nature'
such as abnormal rainfall," but can also arise from "policy decisions and centralized
planning" (Lees and Bates 1990:252). Collectivization then can be viewed as an event in
Lees and Bates' terms, or as a "diagnostic event," to use Moore's terms (Moore
1987:730; see Chapter 2). In the case.of the Tozhu, collectivization meant that all
reindeer herders were encouraged to turn their entire herds over to the newly formed
kolkhozy and to become members of the kolkhozy. Officially, the members of the
kolkhozy held all property (land, livestock, buildings, equipment) in communal
ownership. In practice, however, only the administrators of the kolkhozy could exercise
any effective proprietary and disposition rights over kolkhoz property, including reindeer.
16 Here I'm discussing property as bundles of rights that can be divided into four kinds of rights:
proprietary, exclusionary, disposition, and use rights (see Osherenko 1995 for one explanation of this).
"This is according to ethnographic and travellers' accounts, all of which were written by non-indigenous
peoples and as such carry with them ethnocentric European assumptions about property, therefore almost
certainly don't reflect the indigenous conceptions about reindeer as property at that time.
123
The range of choices and decisions made by individuals under these changing
circumstances exemplifies human agency at work. While most of my informants have
told me that they (their parents) willingly joined the kolkhozy, there were a number who
refused to join. In time, most of these recalcitrant herders were also forced to join. But
the herder-hunters didn't always accept this passively. Herders employed a number of
what Scott has called "weapons of the weak" (1985). Shamans and other community
leaders incited reindeer herders to resist collectivization (Mendume 1984:160). Several
herding families fled to Mongolia to avoid having their personal herds seized and forcibly
collectivized.10 Some reindeer herders slaughtered livestock to avoid having to give them
over to the state; others hid parts of their herds in remote and inaccessible areas, thereby
managing to underreport the number of head of livestock; still others simply retreated so
deeply into the taiga that no one could effectively manage them or force them to join the
kolkhozy. These people maintained private herds throughout Soviet Limes and have
attained an almost legendary status, and they (or their descendants), if they are still
herding, are spoken of reverentially as the reaf "private" herders.
in 1969, the three kolkhozy in Tozhu were transformed into sovkhozy. The
principal difference between a kolkhoz and a sovkhoz is that the property is no longer
owned collectively by the members, but rather is officially the property of the state.
Hence reindeer (in addition to land, buildings, etc), became the official property of the
state. In practice, this didn't really change much, as the herders themselves had already
been deprived of their proprietary and disposition rights under the kolkhoz administration,
The descendants of these people make up the care of the Dukha (Man.: Tsaaiari) reindeer herders in the
Hovsgol region of northwestern Mongolia.
124
but could still use the reindeer to ride and for their milk. However, herders managed to
accrue small private herds in a number of ways. A few herders were allowed to maintain
private herds of deer for exclusive use by the gospromkhoz's (state hunting enterprise)
official hunters. The most productive kolkhoz (and later, sovkhoz) herders were annually
recognized and awarded prizes in the form of live reindeer given over into their private
ownership. Additionally, if a herder managed, to oversee the birth of more than 80 calves
per 100 female deer/9 he couJd keep the overproduction as his own private property. The
offspring of these private deer were also considered private. Finally, some herders would
falsely report, deer as having died of illness or having been killed by predators, and then
would keep these deer separate and raise them as private deer.
The relationship between the herders and the sovkhoz is in some ways analogous
to a patron-client relationship (sec Ensminger 1996:110ff), with the state acting as the
patron. As such, it is susceptible to the same abuses. My informants have acknowledged
with a wink and a nod that, somehow it seemed that, only the sovkhoz.es' deer, and never
these private deer, died of illnesses or were killed by predators.20
As the Soviet Union crumbled, state subsidies to the sovkhozy dried up, and the
sovkhozy in Tozhu collapsed. This collapse of the state farm system throughout Russia in
general and in the Tozhu and Tofa regions specifically represents yet another diagnostic
event in the histories of these peoples. In this case, measures to improve economic
efficiency and the withdrawal of state subsidies have thrust the transaction costs
previously borne by the state onto individual herders. The herders' and other people's
119 Some herders told me it was 70 per 100.
20 This recalls the experience of certain wealthy but unpopular livestock owners among the Orma whose
hired herders sold off cattle and then claimed that the animals had died as a result of drought (Ensminger
1996:121).
125
choices, decisions, and actions in response to theses new circumstances reflect the
changing opportunities and constraints that confront individuals. Reindeer, as one form of
sovkhoz property, were doled out not only to herders, but to all members of the former
sovkhoz, including tractorists and drivers and kindergarten teachers, etc., no one got very
many. A few herders who had substantial enough private herds21 officially registered
themselves as aratskoe (ferrnerskoe) khozyaistvo (peasant enterprises), which gives them
a long-term lease on land and allows them to operate as private, small-scale
entrepreneurs. Others who had enough private deer simply went off on their own without
any official lease on land. The majority of herders, however, didn't have enough deer to
make it on their own. In many cases they were forced to slaughter their few remaining
deer for food or sell live animals for money. Those who wanted to remain in herding but
didn't have enough deer of their own joined their herds and created obshchiny (singular:
obshchina: kin-based communal enterprises - see Chapter 6 for a more complete
discussion of these responses to the collapse of the sovkhozes).
Regarding reindeer as property, the obshchiny were similar to the kolkhozy in that
the reindeer were considered the collective property of the members, and the members, in
theory, did not have disposition rights without the permission of the obshchina director.
In practice, however, the herders treated the reindeer as if they had proprietary and
disposition rights over them, justifying this by saying that since the obshchina had not
paid them or provided the promised material support, the reindeer had in effect become
their private property, in lieu of back pay. For example, all the herders of the Serlig
21 Or who had connections to get substantial numbers of deer. For example, one former sovkhoz director
managed to buy up a number of deer from other herders
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Khem branch of the Odtigen obshckina treated the obskchina-owned reindeer in their
care as if they were private property, disposing of reindeer as they saw fit without getting
permission from the obshchina director. If they desperately needed meat they would
slaughter a reindeer without getting permission (albeit rarely). If they sold an animal.
they would keep the money for themselves. While these activities had been going on
somewhat surreptitiously for some time, the issue came out in the open when several
herders challenged the authority of the obshchina director to participate in a large deer
sale to Mongolia. When the obshchina director sent word that the herders were to
contribute a few of the obshchina deer in their care to this sale, one of the herders stated
flatly. "1 just won't give them. I don't have enough deer." Another was willing to sell
deer, but only if he were paid directly by the buyer and given 100% of the purchase price.
"If they don't put the money right in my hand, I'll turn around and come back with the
deer," he said. Rodion Sambuu, the obshchina director, acknowledged that there wasn't
anything he could do about this situation. This proposed deer sale, which ultimately
failed due to official restrictions on the cross-border transportation of livestock, was a
"diagnostic event" that went far toward instituting de facto private ownership of reindeer.
After this event, Svetlana Khoyadyr, in 2001 the mayor of the village of Iy and by default
the director of the Ulug Dag obshchina, remarked that the obshchina hadn't been able to
pay herders' salaries or provide them with basic necessities. In fact, the obshchina had for
all intents and purposes collapsed, and the deer, while officially still the property of the
obshchina, were now considered the private property of the herders. "There's no official
paperwork." she said. "Bat everyone knows it and no one's arguing it. The deer have
become theirs because we haven't paid them."
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In 2001, the four largest obshchiny in Tozhu were restructured Into a GUP
(Gosudarstvennoe Uniiatnoe Predpriatie ? Unified State Enterprise). The GUP is similar
to a sovkhoz in that the physical assets all once again belong to the state, and the stats is
supposed to pay the herders and hunters a salary. However, there are contradictory views
as to what this means. The herders still feel that they have rights of disposition over the
deer, while the GUP director and the representative from the Ministry of Agriculture
Figure 4.2. Social Deer stated categorically that the deer were the property
of the state, and not of the herders.
The above discussion pertains to the
official recognition of reindeer as property. But
reindeer in the indigenous Tozhu conception are
non-human persons that, like the cher eeleri enter
into social relations with humans. The rights that
people have with respect to reindeer are
negotiated through that social relationship and
carry with them moral obligations. In this sense, I
am not discussing property rights people hold over reindeer vis-a-vis other people and the
social relationships among humans in which tliose rights are embedded, but rather the
rights humans and reindeer have over each other and which are embedded in the social
relationship between humans and reindeer.
In his discussion of trust and domination, bigold asserts that the two principles are
mutually exclusive, and that you will never find, for example, a relationship between a
pastoralist and his livestock based on trust:
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These principles of relationship [trust vs. domination] are mutually exclusive: to
secure the compliance of the other by imposing one's will, whether by force or by
more subtle forms of manipulation, is - as we have seen - an abrogation of trust,
entailing as it does the denial rather than the recognition of the autonomy of the
other on whom one depends. (Ingold 2000:72-73)
However, citing Pernille Gooch's study of the Van Gujjars, 22 nomadic buffalo
pastoralists in northern India, Ingoid notes that the Van Gujjars present
a fascinating exception to this argument, in three respects. First, the Van Gujjars
relate to their buffaloes in the same way that they relate to other animals native to
the forest: thus if the latter arc classed as 'wildlife,1 then buffaloes are wildlife
too, despite their evident tameness and familiarity with humans. . .. Secondly, the
principle of this relationship, according to Gooch, is one not of domination but of
trust. . , . The key to understanding this case lies in the fact that the Van Gujjar do
not hunt, nor do they ever kill or eat their buffaloes - the animals are kept
exclusively for their milk, and eventually die of old age. . . , [This] divests the
caring relationship of its more coercive, authoritarian aspects. Though more cared
for than caring, buffaloes retain a measure of control over their destiny. (Ingoid
2000:422)
I suggest that the Tozhu reindeer herders have a relationship with their reindeer
that is based more on trust than on domination, analogous to that of the Van Gujjars with
their buffalo. Reindeer "are not considered domestic animals" (Dongak 1994:91). Yet
they are selectively bred, herded, castrated, saddled and ridden, used as beasts of burden,
tied up, hobbled, milked and (rarely) slaughtered and eaten. How is it, then, that they are
not considered domestic animals?
The relationship of domination between humans and domesticated livestock is
based on two fundamental assumptions: 1) livestock need to be cared for - they must be
constantly protected from predators by staying with them during the day and corralling
them at night, fodder needs to be prepared for the winter months, etc.; and 2) the
22 The Van Gujjars are a subgroup of a large and diverse people known as the Gujjars. While the majority
of Gujjars are village agriculturalists and may practice either Hinduism or Islam, all of the nomadic
pastoralist Van Gujjars practice a syncretic form of Islam that has elements from a Hindu past (Gooch
1998:27).
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livestock are raised as least partly to be slaughtered for meat Reindeer, however, are by
nature independent, capable of defending themselves, and don't rely on humans for their
food (although the herders provide rock-salt when they have it). In fact, in the dead of
winter, the herds are often left to forage completely on their own, with the herders
tracking them down to check on them once or twice a week just to make sure they know
where the deer are. There is & feeling of respect for reindeer among Tozhu people.
Herders talk of reindeer as luskai (special), onzagai (exceptional), kaigamchyk
(remarkable). Reindeer are often referred to as shydamyk, which means "tough, capable.
durable," in comparison to other livestock, even the revered horse. The following
kozhamyk23 celebrates the pride a Tozhu youth takes in his/her reindeer:
Upon my reindeer I'm a fine fellow,
I'll go up into ly Taiga.
Upon your cow you, my friend,
Can't follow in my tracks.
Upon my reindeer I myself
Will go up into Sharym Taiga.
Upon your ox you, my friend,
Can't hope to keep up with my reindeer.
Among the Tozhu, reindeer are considered angsyg - wild animal-like - and the
herder-hunters have a very ambivalent relationship to them. Domesticated reindeer differ
very little from their wild cousins in appearance; they are of the same species (Rangifer
tarandus), and can interbreed.24 If not properly looked after, reindeer will turn feral - in
23 Kozhamyk (pi. kozhamyktar) are rhymed ditties, usually humorous and / or boastful, often sung against
another person or team in a back-and-forth form of good-natured competition. This one was recorded from
Elizaveta Kenden, former reindeer herder and hunter and font of songs and stories, in her home in Adyr-
Kezhig, Tozhu District, Tyva, 14 January 2001.
24 The ambivalent attitude of Tozhu reindeer herders to allowing wild reindeer to mate with a domesticated
female reflect the ambiguous position of the reindeer: There is fear that the female will run off with the
wild male; fear that the. calf will be too unruly to domesticate. Yet these is an interest in seeing this union
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Tyvan, they become cherlik (of the land = wild). They are of the land and they can return
io the land at any time - they are not dependent on the herder, and the herder knows this.
There is a respect for their autonomy, which is one of the features in gold has noted as
characteristic of the trusting relationship between hunters and wild animals. 1 believe that
this relationship is one of the reasons the Tozhu, like the Van Gujjars with their buffalo,
are loath to slaughter a reindeer for food - to do so is the ultimate abrogation of that
trusting relationship. While the Tozhu will on occasion kill a reindeer, they roust have
very good justification for doing so - either for sacrificial purposes (usually to provide
meat for a funeral or for a very ill family member), or because the deer's spine has
cracked and it must be killed, or because the herders are in such dire need of food that
there is simply no other alternative, at which time they will rationalize by manufacturing
a sacrificial occasion to do so.
Gooch notes that "buffaloes are creatures which are seen to have sentiments and
sensibility and which ought to be treated nicely within the moral order of things" (Gooch
1998:193). The Tozhu reindeer herders likewise treat their deer with care and respect,
and doing so is an integral aspect of being an ivizhi, a reindeer herder, or, more literally, a
reindeer-er.
Who is an Ivizhi?
The right to identify oneself as an ivizhi can be construed as a form of cultural property
among the Tozhu. While few people seriously aspire to become reindeer herders because
on occasion, because the calf will be stronger and larger than others, and because it brings new blood into
the herd (cf. Vainshtein 198OfI972|:123 for one opinion on this).
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of the difficulties and deprivations of the lifestyle, the reindeer herding way of life is
respected and held in some degree of awe among Tyvans generally. It is celebrated in
poetry, song, myth, and fiction, perhaps most famously in the novel Odilgende Taiga
(Ergep 1994). A line from the popular folk song Tozhu Yry (Song of Tozhu) proclaims
"Ivizhi clep eres attyg" (Kenesh 2001:21, words by Leonid Chadamba). This translates to
"To be called an ivizhi is to have a brave and daring reputation."
Knowing how to treat one's reindeer is an important criterion for being accepted
as an ivizhi. This was demonstrated to me in the fall of 2000. I had been taken on a
fishing day-trip by two Tyvan men, neither of whom was a reindeer herder. One was the
son of the herders I lived with. He was an accomplished hunter, but he himself had never
lived with the herds for extensive periods of time, and only came out to the taiga in the
fall to hunt. The other was a family friend who also had come out to hunt. We stayed.at
the lake a bit later than we anticipated, and when we saddled up to head back, the sun
began to set and the temperature dropped dramatically. The leader of our expedition, the
younger of the two and the son of the herding family, pushed the deer exceptionally hard,
making them run faster and longer than I had ever seen anyone else do in my six months
of living with the reindeer herders. In fact, I was surprised the deer could maintain the
pace he was forcing, and was feeling sorry for the beasts. He pushed them beyond their
capacity, ignoring all the signals of their distress that even I had learned to recognize. The
next day, the deer he had been riding was limping and had an open saddle sore on its
back. His older brother remarked on this, saying, "Ol ivizhi eves-tir, Bilbes, toovas."
("He's not an ivizhi - he doesn't know, doesn't care.") Thus, knowing how to treat the
deer with respect is an important part of the relationship between an ivizhi and his
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reindeer, and is what gives an ivizki the right to claim the title. This is analogous to
Anderson's discussion of "property as a way of knowing," and his claim that "knowing
the land properly ... is what legitimated their [Evenki herdsmen] right to fake wood,
water and animals from the land" (D.Anderson 1998:69-70; see also Fondahl 1998 and
Ziker 2002).
Tozhu ivizhiler (plural) treat their reindeer with care, making sure to place plenty
of padding under loads, change heavy loads over the course of the day, get off the deer
and walk on downhills following steep uphills. An animal that begins to exhibit a limp
will foe unloaded and allowed to go off on its own, to find its own way back to the camp
at its own pace. And while it may sound funny, the humans discriminately distribute their
urine (an important source of salt for the deer) to their favorites or to those they feel need
it most., and in other ways make sure the deer have easy access to it (for example, by
cutting troughs into tree stumps and urinating there).
Reindeer herders will go to extreme lengths to make sure their deer are never left
in a situation where they can't forage for themselves. For example, after a long day of
riding during an extended hunt, the deer are very hungry and must be allowed to forage
for themselves, but you must not allow them to go completely free or you would risk
losing them. Thus, the herders hobble them (in a coupie of different ways), and while
they can still wander pretty far away from the hunting camp in the course of the night,
they can be tracked down and brought back. This is also what the Tozhu herders do when
they go into the village or to the nearby gold-mining base to trade for supplies or for
whatever reasons. They will hobble the deer and leave them several kilometers outside
the village, in a place where there is forage, then walk into the village on foot. They do
133
this even if they're staying in the village for several days, walking out to check on the
deer every day. Many of the herders will actually sleep out in the taiga with the deer and
go in to the village only during the day to take care of their business. In the summer of
2002 I met with a group of reindeer herders who came down out of their high-mountain
summer camp to return their school-age children to the village. We camped on the banks
of the Kham-Sym River, in an area where there is not much shulung (various species of
Cladonia; Rus.: yagel', olenii lishai - "reindeer lichen"). At 4:00 in the morning 1 was
awakened by the stirrings of the 71-year-old patriarch of the group. He had gotten up and
was untying the reindeer. 1 asked him what he way doing. "I've got to take them to where
there is shulung" he said. Noting that they had been eating fresh green grass the evening
before, I said, "Isn't there enough fodder for them here?" He shrugged his shoulders and
said, "They need meat." Shulung is considered the "meat" of the reindeers' diet,
necessary for their health and strength. So off he went, at 4:00 in the morning, to lead his
deer several kilometers uphill to where he knew there would be shulung so they could
have a good breakfast before moving on. He was back by 8:00 in the morning.
The final way I want to discuss reindeer as property among the Tozhu is on a
more symbolic and abstract level. Analogous to the way in which the title ivizhi can be
considered the cultural property of the Tozhu reindeer herders, so the image of reindeer
can be understood as the exclusive (within Tyva) cultural property of the Tozhu.
Reindeer exist almost exclusively in the Tozhu district/3 and images of reindeer adorn
virtually any and all material related to Tozhii (for example, official calendars put out by
5 There is one herd in the bordering district of Kaa-Khem, which could be considered an extension of
Tozhu. and a couple herds in the Kungurtuk district in southeastern Tyva.
134
the district administration). Having reindeer is an important element in the Tozhu sense
of ethnic identity, and is one of the things that sets them apart from the Tyva population
in general (others being dialect and, according to some, clothing and phsnotype). In
Tozhu I frequently heard expressions like, "Without reindeer, we can't be Tozhu," or "If
there are no reindeer, there are no Tozhu." It's not important that everyone be a reindeer
herder, but. it is important for them to know that reindeer are out there, and that's what
makes Tozhu different from other parts of Tyva, it's what gives Tozhu people a sense of
a unique ethnic identity.
The Tofa
Now let me turn my attention to the Tofa. In this section, I will briefly look at the same
four phenomena as I have analyzed in the Tozhu context, but in reverse order: 1) the
image of reindeer as cultural property; 2) the right to claim the title ibizhi26 as cultural
property (and the social obligations to reindeer that the title implies); 3) reindeer as
property; and Finally 4) wild animals as property, and by extension, the Tofas' social
relationship to the cher eeleri.
Images of reindeer and reindeer herding are pervasive in the Tofa community's
present-day efforts at cultural revitalization. For example, the cover of the Tofa language
primer for schoolchildren, published in 1989, has a drawing of a schoolboy and
schoolgirl in their Soviet school uniforms, standing next to a saddled reindeer (Rassadin
and Shibkeev 1989); a book of Tofa legends, stories and songs likewise has a picture of a
2(1 Ibizhi, a cognate to the Tozhu ivizfri, is the Tofa equivalent. However, almost no Tofa speak the Tofa
language and so use Russian and Russian terms to discuss reindeer herding.
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reindeer on its cover (Rassadin 1996); and the emblem of the recently reinvigorated Tofa
summer cultural festival. Argamchy, also features a reindeer. In this sense, the Tofa are
trying to (re)claim the reindeer as part of their cultural heritage, as their cultural property.
So the image of the reindeer, and the idea of the reindeer appear to be a form of
cultural property and an important facet of the Tofa people's sense of a unique ethnic
identity, much as among the Tozhu. But what of the reindeer herding lifestyle? In
Alygdzher, the largest of the villages in Tofaiaria, only one young person said that he
planned to be a reindeer herder. He's the son of the one remaining reindeer herder, and
seemed to be of the opinion that it was his best (perhaps only) option of employment. His
father, the only full-time reindeer herder left in all of Tofaiaria, told me he would jump at
the chance to quit herding if there were any other employment opportunities at all. One
Tofa informant, when asked if he was a reindeer herder, responded, "We're all reindeer
herders here." - using the Russian term, olenevody, literally, reindeer "drivers." He was
referring to the fact that virtually all the Tofa men in Alygdzher rent reindeer from the
one remaining herd and use them to go hunting during hunting season. They all know
how to saddle up and ride a deer. But would such limited involvement with reindeer
allow one in Tozhu to claim the title ivizhi in the Tozhu context? I asked this question in
an interview with the oldest still active reindeer herder in Tozhu:
B.D. Would you consider someone who only uses reindeer to hunt during
hunting season an ivizhil
T.A. If it's just for hunting, then I'd say he's a hunter. If he takes an ivizhi's
deer to go hunting, then that'd be a hunter, I'd say.
B.D. O.K., then, who's an ivizhi'?
T.A. A herdsman, a person who looks after (reindeer) would be that, I'd say.2'
27Interview with Dorbit Ak in the Tozhu taiga, July 2002.
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As we saw In the Tozhu case, the right to claim, the title ivizhi comes from a commitment
to the lifestyle as a full-time occupation, and requires demonstration of deeper knowledge
and greater competence in far more than saddling and mounting a deer, to the extent of
Figure 4.2. View ofAlygdzher, the largest Tofa village.
establishing a trusting relationship with the reindeer based on an ethos of caring for the
animals' well being. In Tofalaria, reindeer are no longer vital, active, integral facets of
people's lives, and the way ia which reindeer are treated indicates the extent to which the
social relationship between the Tofa people and reindeer has broken down. In contrast to
the trusting relationship that pertains among the Tozhu, the Tofa have had, since their
forced sedentarization, a relationship with their reindeer that is of the pastoral type, based
on domination.
For example, in Alygdzher we met Mitya, the 18-year-old son of the one
remaining full-time reindeer herder. Mitya was in town for several days, getting supplies
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and taking care of other business. His deer were penned up in the fence next to his house
in the village for the entire time he was in the village. Such a cavalier attitude toward the
deer is something I never saw in Tozhu. He's the only young person who has expressed
an interest in being a reindeer herder, the son of the only remaining full-time reindeer
herder in all of Tofalaria, yet he doesn't know how to the treat the deer in the Tozhu
sense.
As another example of this lack of knowledge: As in Tozhu, with the collapse of
the state farm system came the opportunity to experiment with a variety of ownership and
management options with respect to reindeer. At least three Tofa men had enough of their
own personal reindeer to try to make a go of it as private reindeer herders mfermerskoe
khozyaiatvo (peasant enterprises). When they started in the late 1990s they had a
combined total of approximately 80 reindeer, but at the time of my fieldwork in 2000-
2001. all three enterprises had folded, and the three men had a total of somewhere
between 15-20 reindeer among them - just enough for them to hunt with, but certainly
not an enterprise. An elderly former herder who explained this to me said that they
simply didn't know how to raise the deer and increase the herd. "There aren't any older
people among them," he said. "The deer need to live in several different places; they have
to move around. But those people stay in the same place all year. They don't know how
to increase the herd. I've told them, but they don't listen to me." Another former herder
added that they would bring the animals into the village for long periods of time or leave
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them out in the taiga unattended for too long.28 In other words, these new herders lack the
necessary knowledge, despite the claim that "we're all reindeer herders here."
The contrast is not as stark as I have made it out to be, as the Tofa also do not kill
reindeer to eat, so the relationship is not exactly the same as one of herders with other
livestock. Nevertheless, the differences between the Tofa and Tozhu with regards to their
relationship to reindeer and to the reindeer herding way of life are striking enough to
make us wonder why. I suggest that the different experiences the two groups have had
both under Soviet rule and now in the post-Soviet era can provide an explanation for
these differences.
As noted in earlier chapters, Russian influence among the Tozhu (and in Tyva
generally) has been much less intense and of much shorter duration than in Tofalaria,
beginning only in the late 19lh century. In addition, historically there were far more deer
in the Tozhu region than in Tofalaria ? at the most, there may have been around 5000
domesticated reindeer in Tofalaria, while there were as many as 25,000 in Tozhu.
Accordingly, the collective and state farms in Tozhu were set up for reindeer husbandry
and, to a much lesser degree, hunting. While the Soviet-era emphasis on meeting
production quotas for meat and other reindeer products certainly distorted the Tozhus'
traditional methods and purposes for raising reindeer (most obviously in that reindeer
were being raised for slaughter), it allowed for reindeer to retain their cultural
significance in the lives of the Tozhu people, while their continued nomadic lifestyle and
the relative lack of emphasis on wild game products allowed them to maintain their social
relationships to the char eeleri and, by extension, to wild animals.
28 Interview with Al'bert Tulaev and Pave] Ungushtacv in Tulaev's home in Alygdzher, November 2000.
139
The Tofa, on the other hand, have a much longer history of interaction with
Russians, beginning m 1648. Over the centuries, the influx of non-Tofa hunters and
trappers put great pressure on the natural resource base and distorted the Tofas'
traditional relationship to their land and to the animal resources on the iand. In the early
1930s, the new Soviet government's collectivization and sedentarization programs were
effected with great success in Tofalaria, where the entire Tofa population was settled in
three villages between 1928-1932 (Slezkine 1994:279). Three kolkhozy were set up on
the basis of hunting, and reindeer were to be raised and maintained only as transport for
the state's hunters during the principal squirrel and sable hunting season (October-
January). Since deer were only used for riding and pack purposes, fewer were needed. In
addition, deer, which in some cases had been forcefully taken from the herders and in
other cases had been given voluntarily over to the kolkhoz?29 were now "rented" back to
the kolkhoz hunters, which caused great resentment. According to Mel'nikova, in 1932
herders killed off 75% of newborn reindeer calves in protest against this new system
(Mel'nikova 1994:226).
Thus reindeer were effectively removed from the sphere of everyday life. The
social relationship between the Tofa and their reindeer broke down. Deer became even
less than domestic animals, and more like equipment that needed to be maintained. A
handful of Tofa were designated aspastukhi (herders) and telyatniki (specialists in caring
for the calves), and these positions were relegated to the bottom rungs of social prestige.
Mermkova, noting the Soviet-imposed transition from reindeer herding as an integral
29 Perhaps with some coercion, though I have no evidence of this in the Tofa case.
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and central aspect of daily life to simply raising reindeer for transport purposes, claims
that
Beginning with programs to settle the nomadic population, the state machine very
quickly destroyed the very basis of household economy that had arisen historically.
giving nothing in return. ...
As a result there arose a strange, perverted economic situation, in which the
settled population had to engage in a form of economic activity that demanded a
nomadic way of life (hunting and reindeer herding). By the middle of the 1960s, the
adult male and female indigenous population spent the winter period hunting, and only
a small number of people (herders and calf-raisers [pastukhi, telyatniki]) tended the
reindeer herds, for a miserly payment. (Mel'nikova 1994:278-79).
The ultimate impact of Soviet policies m Tofalaria was to turn deer into a sort of
community transport service - a "rent-a-reindeer" service, if you will - and turn reindeer
herding into a low-prestige occupation. This situation once again obtains in Tofalaria
today. Following the final collapse of the gaszverapromkhoz (state hunting enterprise) in
Tofalaria in the late 1990s, the assets, including all remaining reindeer, were purchased
by the DELTA Group, a gold-mining interest in the area. The hunting enterprise was
reformed into the ZAO "Tofalaria" (a type of closed stock company under the direction
of the DELTA Group), in whose employ the one remaining reindeer herder works (there
are fewer than 300 deer in the herd). Reindeer are now rented to hunters at a rate of 5
rubles (about 16 cents US) per day per deer.
Wild Animals
Not only did reindeer lose their cultural significance and come to be viewed in terms of
their use-value only, but wild animals also lost their symbolic significance in the "cosmic
economy of sharing." With the establishment of the kolkhozy in 1930, all band- and
family-based hunting and grazing grounds were declared state property and carved up
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into separate, small hunting grounds, controlled by the kolkhozy. Most Tofa families were
assigned to a hunting tract, and most of the men became employed by the state as hunters.
In return for a salary and various supplies, the hunters were supposed to fulfill a quota of
squirrel and sable pelts. The formal delineation of these hunting tracts and the pressure to
meet the kolkhozes7 quotas led to a de facto sense of exclusive private property among
the Tofa (see Chapter 5). This disrupted the social relationships between humans and
animals, humans and the cher eeleri, and between humans and humans. The family head
became, in effect, the cher eezi - the master of the place and of the animals on it. ? no
longer answering to a spirit master, but rather to a sovkhoz director. Matta Kangaraeva
explained that in the past, the Tofa used to observe various hunting proscriptions, much
like the Tozhu, but things have changed. "We never used to shoot a female musk deer,
but now hunters do," she said. "In the past, we only took what we needed to eat, no more.
Now, kommersanty [entrepreneurs/businessmen] fly in to our lakes and use nets to take
out all the fish."30
In present-day Tofalaria, the family hunting grounds (rodovye taigi - see Chapter
5) still remain, although ase rights over them have in many cases changed hands,
generally from indigenous Tofa to Russians, Ukrainians, and other priezzhie
("newcomers"). In order to maintain their rights to their hunting grounds, hunters must
be officially registered with the ZAO "Tofalaria." Otherwise, there are no imposed limits
on take or other restrictions (this includes non-Tofa who have hunting grounds). The
local manager of the ZAO 'Tofalaria" told me that the hunters know better than anyone
how many and what kind of animals arc on their ugodya (hunting tract), and how many
Interview with Maria Kangaraeva in her home in Alygdzher, 17 November 2000.
they can take. In other words, with respect to rights io hunt and kill wild animals, the
registered hunters are in effect the "masters" of their own hunting grounds and of the
animals on them.
But any discussion of rights to wild animals must include a discussion not only of
who has the right to hurst and kill, but also what they can or cannot do with the wild
animal products. During Soviet times, not only the land but also all the resources on the
land, including wild animals, were considered the property of the state. Official hunters in
the employ of the state were provided with guns and bullets and licenses to hunt, but they
were salaried employees and their job was to go out and get wild animals for their pelts,
antlers and meat. Thus the products of the hunters' labor belonged to the state, not to the
hunters. In Tofalaria today, while the ZAO "Tofalaria" isn't the owner of the land or the
wild animals in Tofalaria, it has established what amounts to a monopoly on the products
of the hunters' labor, much like the sovkhoz in Soviet times. Tofalaria is very remote, and
there are no roads into or out of it. The only effective way hunters have of disposing of
pelts and other products for cash is through the representative of the DELTA group, so
they are in effect forced to sell to the DELTA group, at prices determined by the DELTA
group. The company provides hunters with licenses, and can if it chooses deny a license
to an uncooperative hunter. In addition, the 11-person commission that determines who
gels a hunting parcel and who doesn't (headed up by the representative of the DELTA
group), can take a hunting parcel away from a hunter if the council deems that the hunter
isn't making productive use of the parcel - i.e., if he isn't selling his products to the
DELTA group. This arrangement clearly puts some limitations on the "ownership" of the
wild animal products and of the hunting grounds. Hence, whereas in Soviet times wild
143
animal resources came to be seen in terms of production quotas, now, in the post-Soviet
economy, these resources are seen in terms of their economic value.
Conclusion
Early on in this chapter I made a distinction between human-to-human relationships and
human-to-non-human-persons relationships, and noted that property relationships are
embedded in both kinds. Of course, these two different kinds of relationships are closely
correlated and influence one another. As Ingold puts it, "Any qualitative transformation
in environmental relations is likely to be manifested similarly both in the relationships
that humans extend towards animals and in those that obtain among themselves in
society" (Ingold 2000:61).
As a result of the highly successful collectivization and sedentarization campaigns
during the early years of the Soviet era. the relations between the Tofa and their
environment ? i.e., between the hunter and wild animals via the mediation of the cher
eezi; between the reindeer herder and his reindeer - appear to have broken down as land
(in the form of hunting tracts) has moved toward exclusive tenure, akin to private
property, and reindeer have been removed from the sphere of private ownership.
Consequently the Tofa have experienced a phenomenon that has been called the
"extinction of experience" (see Maffi 2001:7),3l which has led to a transformation in their
31 Often such an extinction of experience is associated with the loss of the indigenous language that served
to convey the lost experience. "Life in a particular human environment is dependent on people's ability to
talk about it" (Muhlhausier 1995, cited in Maffi 2001:10). An indigenous people's language is undeniably a
critical and valuable form of cultural and intellectual property, and a galvanizing force bolstering ethnic
klentity. In this realm, again, the Tozhu and Tofa present a crystaiizing comparison. The Tozhu language (a
dialect of Tyvan) is alive and vibrant, the true native language of all people in Tozhu. Russian is almost
never heaid in everyday communication and is truly a distant second language. The Tofa language (which
144
human-to-human relationships as well. No longer is there a sense of equal entitlement to
animal resources; no longer does a hunter have the right to expect that he will be given
permission to hunt on another's hunting ground; no longer are meat and other products of
the hunt shared out. Tofa informants express dismay that Russians object to other people
shooting an animal or fishing on their land, even when it's just for food in transit through
the Russian's hunting grounds on their way to their own hunting grounds. Russians, on
the other hand, have never had this tradition and express dismay that the Tofa expect to
be able to do this. The Tofa themselves, however, now also object to this practice, and
encroachment on another's hunting grounds causes tensions that can escalate into
violence, not only between Tofa and Russian but between Tofa and Tofa as well. This
contrasts strikingly with the open and non-exclusive sense of property and the ethic of
sharing that still pertain among the Tozhu today.
Referring back to Bird-David's "cosmic economy of sharing," Ingold notes that:
hunters and gatherers model their relationships with life-giving agencies in their
environments on the institution of sharing, which is the foundation for
interpersonal relations within the human community. . . . Both movements, from
non-human to human beings and among the latter themselves, are seen to
constitute a single 'cosmic economy of sharing' (Bird-David 1992). . . . This
principle which, I maintain, inheres equally in the activities of sharing and in
those of hunting and gathering, is that of trust. (Ingold 2000:69)
Trust has broken down in the Tofa case. The formerly reciprocal relationship between
humans and the cher eeleri has turned into a one-sided exercise in extraction of animal
resources; the relationship between humans and their reindeer has become one of
could also be considered a dialect of Tyvan) is moribund, with perhaps a total of 30 speakers, all over the
age of 40. This will be the topic of a future paper.
32 The hunting tracts closer in to the villages tend to belong to Russians, while more remote hunting
grounds tend to belong to Tofa.
145
domination; and the relationship between humans and humans has become one of
suspicion and exclusion.
146
Chapter 5
Property in Land Among the Tofa and Tozhu1
Introduction
Starting in 1926, when they first received special attention as one of the USSR's "Small
Numbered Minorities of the North,"2 the Tofa, like virtually all the nomadic herding and
hunting peoples of the USSR, were subjected to massive and thorough social engineering
programs such as collectivization and sedentarization (see Chapter 6). Collectivization
entailed the consolidation of virtually all property - land, livestock, agricultural
equipment, guns, etc. - in the hands of the state, and the forced sedentarization of the
nomadic populations in villages (and the creation of villages where there were none). In
the early years of the Soviet Union, collectivization was based on a system of kolkhozy
(collective farms), which were, in theory, collectively owned and operated by the
members, not by the slate. However, starting in the 1960s, many kolkhozy were
restructured into sovkhozy (state farms), or gozpromkhozy and koopzverpromkhozy (state-
organized hunting enterprises), which were state owned and operated, and members
worked for a monthly salary. In 1967, the three kolkhozy in Tofalaria were reorganized
into two koopzveropromkhoz, and then consolidated into one (Rassadin 2000:30;
Sherkhunaev 1975:40). For the Tozhu, forced collectivization came later than for the
! The bulk of this chapter was published under the title "Hey, You! Get Offa My Taiga! Comparing the
Sense of Property Rights Among the Tofa and Tozhu-Tyva." Halle / Saale, Germany: Max Planck Institute
for Social Anthropology Working Paper Series No. 38.
2 See Chapter 7 for more on this designation. The Tofa, then known as the Karagassy, were one of 26
Indigenous minorities designated as Malye Narodnosti (Small Peoples) by the "Provisional Statute on the
Administration of the Indigenous Peoples and Tribes of the Northern Extremes of the Russian Soviet
Federal Socialist Republic." 25 October, 1926. This designation was later changed to Malochislennye
Narody (Small-Numbered Peoples).
147
Tofa - in the late 1940s - and was not pursued as vigorously. In the Tozhu region of
Tyva, all three kolkhozy became sovkhozy in 1969. and subsequently, two of the sovkhozy
were consolidated into one. In practice, there generally wasn't much difference between
the forms of collective farms, and for the purposes of this dissertation no distinction will
be made.
Collectivization was considered necessary for the socio-economic development of
this nascent leviathan of a political entity, the USSR. It was supposed to help develop the
national economy via production of surplus agricultural products and other valuable raw
materials for export, and to feed the rapidly expanding urban, industrial population.
Collectivization was also, in theory, aimed at raising the living standards of all Soviet
citizens, even the most backward Siberian natives (see Forsyth 1992:291).
In the case of the Tofa, part of this effort was the formal codification of the
previously customarily recognized institution of rodovye taigi, or clan hunting grounds.
This, as well as pressure from encroaching Russian and Buryat hunters and trappers, led
to a sense of exclusive access to hunting grounds and the natural resources on them
among the Tofa that is striking in its contrast to the sense of property just across the
border in the Tozhu District of the Republic of Tyva. The Republic of Tyva was not
incorporated into the USSR until 1944, and the Tozhu have just recently been recognized
as one of the Russian Federation's "Small Numbered Minorities of the North." They
never were completely sedentarized, and have never had such exclusive rights to land,
nor any real sense of exclusive property rights. Non-exclusivity is still the salient feature
of Tozhus' sense of property today. In addition, the Tozhu still engage in reindeer
herding and still all speak Ty van as their first language (although the Tozhu dialect is on
148
the wane). The Tofa have virtually completely abandoned reindeer herding and have
almost completely lost their indigenous language.
This chapter follows much the same lines of reasoning as the previous chapter,
but with a focus on land as property rather than animals. As in the previous chapter, both
collectivization and the breakdown of the state farm system (koopzveropromkhozy in the
case of the Tofa; sovkhozy in the Tozhu case) are treated as events that reveal ongoing
conflict, contestation, and negotiation over rights and resources, and that create new
constraints and opportunities for the exercise of individual agency. Specifically, I discuss
the institution of rodovye taigi (clan hunting grounds) among the Tofa and how it has
changed in response to these two major events. I will address the changes in the
allocation of rodovye taigi that occurred with Soviet-era collectivization and
sedentarization, and changes that have occurred since the collapse of the formal
institutions of collectivization, as people scramble to reassert their rights to their clan
territories. I will draw comparisons between the Tofa people and the Tozhu people
regarding their sense of property rights to land, suggesting that one of the principal
reasons for the observed differences is degree of contact with and influence from Russia
and Russians. I also suggest that these differences have contributed to the Tozhu people's
greater retention of their reindeer-herding way of life, while the Tofa have almost
completely lost theirs.
149
The Tofa
As mentioned in the previous chapter, the Tofa have a much longer history of interaction
with Russians than the Tozhu, beginning in 1648. According to B.E. Petri, who produced
a series of excellent ethnographic studies on the Tofa (whom he refers to as Karagas) in
Map 5.1: 'I ofa clan divisions, early 20th century. (Adapted from Petri 1927. Map prepared by
Indiana University Graphics Services-)
the 1920s and 1930s, even prior to the arrival of Russians, the Tofa had been squeezed by
other encroaching indigenous groups onto a fairly well defined, 49.000 km2 area of
heavily forested mountains in the Eastern Sayan range. This territory was subdivided
along mountain ridges separating major watersheds into five unofficial but customarily
150
recognized rodovye taigi3 (clan territories) (see Map 5.1). Within each clan, these
territories were further divided up among lineages.4 One old informant told Petri, "Long
ago it was, I do not remember how many generations (koleri) ago. The Karagas gathered
all the people together at the Suglarn5 and divided among them the taiga. Each clan
received its own share, each household its own river" (Petri 1927:21).6 Generally, the
relatives of a single lineage hunted together (Petri 1927:25; see also Mei'nikova
1994:45). Rights to these hunting grounds were passed down through inheritance along
the male line in a straight line of descent. The hunting territories were exclusive and
inalienable. Petri notes that if, in a clan made up of several lineages, one lineage were to
die out completely leaving no direct male heirs, then that lineage's hunting grounds
would not be divided up among the remaining lineages, but would pass on to the nearest
relative from a different lineage but within the same clan. "Under no circumstances will
3 Singular: rodovaya taiga. Rodovaya is the adjectival form of the Russian noun rod, meaning family, cian,
kin. Taiga is a Turkic-language term that has been incorporated into Russian and refers generally to the
heavily forested hilly and mountainous areas of Siberia. However, in both the Tofa and Tyva languages, it
also often refers to a specific hill or mountain or cluster of hills or mountains, and often forms part of the
loponyms of specific mountains, such as Oduigen Taiga or Mongun Taiga.
4 Here I'm translating the Russian term familiya as lineage.
5 The suglan was an annual gathering of all the clan leaders and as many other people as could make it. It
occurred in late December. The principal business at the suglan was the election of a new shulenge, a sort
of chief for all the Tofa, and new ulug bash or darga (boss) for each clan. In addition, punishments that had
been kept track of all year were meted out, marriages were agreed upon, and "Affairs concerning all clans
(questions regarding migrations, arguments over borders of hunting grounds, interrelationships among
clans and their representatives) were decided" (Sergeev 1956:534-535). See also Petri 1926.
6In this quote, I'm translating the Russian terra khozyuin as household. However, Petri later states that
"Each Karagas clan breaks down into separate lineages {familii (aimak)]. Clan territories are divided up
only among lineages. Within such lineages there is no further division of territory among individual
households, and all brothers, cousins, uncles, etc., hunt together." (Petri 1927:25). Thus there appears to be
a contradiction between what this informant has told Petri and what Petri later asserts. I am inclined to go
with Petri's assessment, i.e., that the clan grounds were not divided up any beyond lineages, as this seems
consistent with what my informants told me. However, it's possible that there was an informal assignation
of stream valleys to each household within the lineage, which would explain Petri's informant's comment.
In addition, the line between household and lineage is often blurred, both in people's minds and in the
anthropological literature.
151
the territory be divided up generally among the remaining lineages. In general changes in
the hunting grounds among the Karagas are not known" (Petti 1927:25).7
Centuries of encroachment into their territory by Russian, Ukrainian, and Buryat
hunters, trappers, and gold miners pushed the Tofa higher and deeper into the
mountainous taiga of the Eastern Sayans, forcing them to redraw the boundaries of their
ever-shrinking rodovye taigi. In addition, the Tofa fled into the Sayan Mountains to
escape the heavy burden of yasak (tax, or duty, in the form of sable pelts). But the Tsar's
forces pursued and managed to track them down anyway.
But the free life of the Tofa did not last long. People of the White Tsar came into
the mountains and tracked down the small peoples. So it came to pass that the
Tofa once again were forced to pay yasak, heavy, like a stone around the neck of
a drowning man, and never-ending, like the Sayan taiga. But there was no place
further to which they could flee, and thus the Tofa have remained forever in the
Sayans. (Mel'hikova 1994:42, citing V. Rasputin 1966).
Despite the relentless erosion of their territory and the seemingly strict division of
property that resulted from it, Petri and other researchers noted that historically if one
lineage's hunting grounds were not productive in a given year, customary law of the
Karagas (Tofa) dictated that all they had to do was request permission to hunt on
someone else's territory. This permission was almost always granted. Permission was not
needed to fish on someone else's territory (Petri 1927:25).
But by the beginning of the 20th century, clan affiliation, while still important for
marriage restrictions and other administrative reasons, had almost completely lost its
significance with regards to territorial divisions and the distribution of hunting grounds
7 PeSri's asseition here is most likely an overstatement of the stability of the clan territories, probably based
on statements of informants who recollected the cultural norms of the past more accurately than actual
behavior.
152
(Petri 1927:3, 14). This dynamic has been noted among other Siberian groups as well,
including the Evenki (Fondahl 1998:48-49) and others (Slezkine 1994:173-174; Forsyth
1992:296ff.).s Petri attributes this change to three factors. One was the competition for
pelts resulting from the influx of Russian and Buryat hunters and trappers, and the
ensuing collapse in the population of fur-bearing animals, particularly in the eastern
section of Tofalana. This led some Tofa families to abandon their ancestral clan hunting
grounds and go in search of new and more productive hunting grounds to the west, where
Russians had not yet deeply penetrated (Petri 1927:3-4). This factor was to a degree
offset by an oppossing west-to-east movement of Tofa families who wanted to be nearer
newly-established trading posts in the eastern section of Tofalana. Finally, Petri notes
that poverty, measured in lack of sufficient deer to migrate regularly, forced some
families to remain in the same area year round, thus violating the seasonally variable clan
and lineage based boundaries (Petri 1927:25-26). Thus territorial group membership
changed annually, depending on different families' priorities, as those in search of better
hunting moved west, those in search of satisfying certain consumer demands moved east
toward trading centers, and those with insufficient numbers of deer tended to remain in
one place, whether it happened to be their rodovaya taiga or not (Petri 1927:4).
These pressures caused a general upheaval in the age-old system of distribution of
hunting territories. In response, new hunting regulations were established, and a new,
late-summer suglan was instituted specifically to address the issue of annual
8 It has been suggested to me that the fact of nomadic herding camps being composed of members of
different clans is so common the world over that the concept of prior-existing "clan territories," in which
only members of a single clan lived, may simply be a historic invention (John Ziker, persona]
communication. See note i, p,64). D.A.nderson's (2000:154) discussion of the artificially constructed
nature of the national territories could be seen as support for this view, albeit at the scale of the entire ethnic
group rather than of the clan.
153
redistribution of hunting grounds, no longer on the basis of clan and lineage affiliations
(Sergeev .1956:534; Petri 1927:27-28). Petri summarizes, "Thus, from the former
ownership-in-perpetuity the Karagas have moved to an annual redi vision of their hunting
grounds" (Petri 1927:27-28).
Map 5.2. Reduction in Tofa territory, 1915-1927- (Adapted from Petri 1927. Map prepared by Indiana
University Graphic Services.)
Yet another development further depleted the land resources the Tofa could rely
on. In 1915, in response to the collapse of the sable population in Eastern Sayan region,
the 500,000-hectare Karagas Sable Preserve was established (see Map 5.2). This territory,
which was in effect the entire southwestern part of present-day Tofalaria, was
"completely withdrawn from the use of the local inhabitants and declared 'zakaznoi,'
[given over to the sole control and possession of the state]" (Mel'nikova 1994:206-207).
154
At that time, five Tofa families lived, migrated, hunted and herded more than 500 deer on
that territory.
In the early years of the newly formed USSR, the influx of Russian, Ukrainian,
and Buryat newcomers into Tofa territory was even more overwhelming than it had been
previously. Trappers came in and in some cases even ran Tofa off their ancestral hunting
grounds. For Tofa with winter hunting grounds along the Gutara River in western
Tofalaria. it was especially difficult to resist, as the newcomers had leases to fishing
rights on the river. "In this way, the Gutara River and neighboring rivers came to be
divided up among renters. When winter fell, the Karagas made their way to their
ancestral hunting grounds. As they reached their hunting grounds, Karagas . . . ran into
new settlers, who did not allow them to hunt, saying, 'Go - I rent here,' and to prove the
truth of their words, they would show a piece of paper" (Petri 1927:27-28).
As the new Soviet regime began to survey all within its purview, there arose an
increasing awareness of the plight of the indigenous minorities within the Soviet territory,
and an interest in defining and protecting them (see Hirsch 1997; D.Anderson 2000, esp.
ch. 4). This led to the creation of the Committee for the Assistance to the Peoples of the
Northern Borderlands (also known as the Committee of the North) in 1924 (Slezkine
1994:152; Forsyth 1992, ch. 12-13), and to enormous resources being poured into
anthropological and ethnographic investigations to define these populations, and
measures to protect their lifestyles. One of these projects - an expedition to the land of
the Tofa in 1925 - was led bv B.E. Petri.
155
Pattiy as a result of Petri's efforts, the Tofa were recognized as one of the USSR's
original "Small Numbered Minorities of the North".9 Petri, noting not only the decline in
the game population upon which the Tofa depended, but also the degradation of Tofa
culture that was rapidly occurring as a result of contact with Russian traders, who
fostered a dependence on alcohol among the Tofa by trading alcohol for pelts at exchange
rates very disadvantageous to the Tofa, suggested the official mapping out of a territory
for the Tofa, as far as possible from the negative influence of exploitative Russian
traders. This approach was consistent with efforts of the Committee of the North in other
areas of Siberia and the Russian Far East, and with the concept of delineating regions of
native administration as outlined in the 1926 act, "Provisional Regulations for the
Administration of Native Peoples and Tribes of the Northern Extremes of the RSFSR"10
(Kryazhkov 1999:26-32). The territory suggested by Petri, meticulously mapped out on
the basis of long and intensive fieldwork, and with great participation from the Tofa,
covered 27,000 km2 (see Map 5.2). Petri noted that this was only 56% of the 49,000 km2
historically attributed to the Tofa. However, it is an area larger than the Tofa themelves
had suggested, and given the small population of Tofa (416 at time of Petri's writing), he
felt that this area was large enough for ihe Tofa to thrive on, On September 10, 1927, the
Soviet, government agreed and created the Central Sayano-Karagas Enterprise to organize
the hunting and other economic activities of the Tofa. The government likewise
9 Tn Chapter 7 I discuss this designation in more detail.
!0 "Vrentennoe polozfienie ob upravlen'u luzemnykh narodnosUd i piemen severnykh okrain RSFSR," 25
October, 1926. See D. Anderson 2000, ch-7 for a cogent discussion of the concept and formation of
national territories; cf. FondahJ 1998:53-57 to see how this played out in the Evenki case.
156
undertook the eviction of "parasitic"11 elements, and organized the protection of the
territory from poachers (Sergeev 1956:535-536). In 1930 this territory became the
"Karagasskii Tuzemnyi Soviet" (Karagas Indigenous Council), which in 1934 became
the "Tofalarskii Natsional'nyi Soviet" (Tofa National Council),12 and in 1939 the
"Tofalarskii Natsional'nyi Raion" {Tofa National District), also called Tofalaria
(Sherkhunaev 1978:7)."
Meanwhile, the new Soviet government embarked on massive social engineering
programs: collectivization of a]] property and settlement of the "nomadic" and
"wandering" populations. Nowhere was this pursued more enthusiastically and with
greater success than in Tofalaria. The entire Tofa population was settled in three villages
between 1928 and 1932. Yuri Slezkine in Arctic Mirrors, his history of the indigenous
minorities of the Russian North, notes that "the case of the Tofalar (the only northern
group that had been subjected to wholesale forced settlement) was presented as an
outstanding success story" of early Soviet collectivization and sedentarization policies
(Slezkine 1994:279). All clan hunting and grazing grounds were declared state property
and carved up into separate, small hunting grounds, controlled by the three newly Formed
kolkhozy.
The new system of land use in Tofalaria followed the pattern imposed by the
Soviet administration throughout much of Siberia (cf. Ziker 2002a, 2002b; Fondahl
1998). Taigas directly adjacent to the villages were considered communal grounds and
11 The original Russian uses the term netrudovye, which literally means, "not engaged in labor," but in the
ideologically imbued rhetoric of Soviet literature, tills term carries connotations of parasitism,
1312 As mentioned earlier, around 1930 the Karagas started being referred to as the Tofalar (see Ch.3
v n. 10).1133
 Tofalaria as an official administrative unit was abolished in 1951 and folded into the Nizhneudinskii
Raion (District), but it is still referred to as Tofalaria by locals.
157
were used mostly by women and children for purposes of gathering berries, mushrooms,
and medicinal plants. Russians involved with running the kolkhozy and other village
operations were granted rights to hunt on certain taigas. The remaining hunting grounds
were assigned to members of the kolkhozy on a family-by-family basis rather than on a
clan or lineage basis. In many cases, these territories were the same taigas that these
families had always hunted on, and the hunting grounds of related families remained
adjacent to one another, effectively keeping some lineage territories intact. Nonetheless,
the Tofa were compelled to stop referring to the territories as rodovye taigi, or as "my
taiga" (miim taigam in Tofa, moya taiga in Russian), terms which implied a sense of
private property contrary to the socialist Soviet ideology. Somewhat paradoxically,
however, the very imposition of socialist collectivization and the land-use dynamics it
gave rise to ? the formal delineation of these tracts on a family basis, the pressure to meet
the kolkhozes' quotas of sable and squirrel pelts, the strictness with which the newcomer
Russians guarded their territories, and the logic of private property such an exclusive
sense of access rights was founded upon - replaced the formerly flexible understanding
of access to resources and led to a de facto sense of exclusive private property hitherto
unknown among the Tofa. For many of the newly settled Tofa, reindeer herding, with its
extensive range requirements and demand for seasonal migrations, was no longer feasible
under the conditions of a settled way of life. They abandoned reindeer herding and began
to rely exclusively on hunting and gathering on their newly allotted tracts, renting
reindeer maintained by the collective farm only as a means of transportation during the
fall sable and squirrel hunting season.
158
With the onset of World War II, many young Tofa men were sent to the front,
some of them never to return (Mel'nikova 1994:235-237). This left a number of taigas
without a rightful occupier, These taigas were reassigned, in most cases to Russians and
other newcomers, further decreasing the amount of land the Tofa had to hunt and make a
living from. The following figures illustrate the demographic shift in favor of Russians;
In 1931, of a total population in Tofalaria of 551, approximately 420 (76%) were Tofa,
and the remaining 131 (24%) were non-Tofa, predominantly Russian (Mel'nikova 1994:
36 and 231). By 1970, the population in Tofalaria had increased to 1368, of whom 498
(36%) were Tofa, and 809 (59%) were Russian (Sherkhunaev 1975:23). However, during
Soviet times, this demographic shift and the consequent transference of taiga rights to
Russians and other non-Tofa was not such a problem, as virtually all able-bodied adults
were employed in some capacity or another by the kolkhoz, so if someone did not have a
taiga, they could get by on their salary.
With the breakup of the Soviet Union and the subsequent collapse of the
koopzverpromkhoz (state hunting enterprise), the land that had come to be officially
considered state property was redistributed in the form of hunting tracts which the Tofa
are once again referring to as nasha rodovaya taiga ("our clan hunting grounds"). Irs
many cases, the rights to these tracts have been given to the families who had been
hunting on them for centuries on the basis of historically and customarily recognized
prior occupation. However, much has changed over the course of the past century. Clan
affiliations have broken down; individual Tofa families have moved away from their
historically recognized clan territories; many non-Tofa families who came in with the
establishment of the kolkhozy and their associated villages are staking their own claims lo
J59
hunting tracts. In addition, many of the tracts no longer had a clear rightful heir, and
others tracts were unoccupied and considered part of the common pool. These have also
been doled out, more often than not to Russians.'4 One young Russian boy. eager to show
his knowledge of which taigas were whose, followed the Uda River on our map rattling
off the names of the taiga occupiers. Of 14 contiguous, demarcated hunting grounds
along the Uda River, only one was occupied by a Tofa family. The rest were Russian.
Many Tofa now find themselves without paid work and without taigas of their
own. Not having one's own taiga in these uncertain times means dire poverty in
Tofalaria, where, according to preliminary survey results, the main source of income for
60% of Tofa is from the taiga (predominantly selling pelts, antlers, and musk glands) and
100% of respondents said they gather berries, pine nuts, mushrooms, and medicinal
plants for their own use. As one informant said, "You can't survive here without your
own taiga." Those who do not have their own taigas cobble together a precarious
existence, either relying on the goodwill and generosity of relatives and friends to be able
to have a place to hunt and gather, thus potentially straining relationships and creating
new tensions: or simply limiting themselves to the overexploited common pool areas
immediately surrounding the villages, further degrading that natural resource base.
14 This situation resembles what Fondahl terms the "socialist land enclosure" with regards to the Evenki
(Fondahl 1998:72), and has been noted also among the Nenets (Golovnev and Osherenko 1999; 117). It is
interesting in contrast to the dynamic observed by Ziker among the Dolgan and Nganasan of the Taimyr
Autonomous Region, where previously assigned exclusive hunting grounds are being transformed into
common pool resources, thus increasing the area of commonly held territory and decreasing the area of
exclusive usufruct (Ziker 2002b)
160
The importance of the rodovaya taiga to the Tofa people was drivers home to me
in two incidents I encountered during my first fieldtrip to Tofalaria in November 2000.15
The first and most dramatic demonstration came during an interview with an elderly Tofa
woman living in a small village near the regional capital of Nizhneudinsk. In response to
a question about her children, she hesitantly told us that she had had one son. After a
thoughtful pause she explained that the taiga her son had grown op using had been her
stepfather's taiga. When the stepfather died, no one used the taiga for a while. Then she
married and had the son. The boy and his father (a Russian with no taiga of his own)
hunted on the taiga. But then the brothers of the deceased stepfather lost the land they had
always hunted on (in fact it had been within Tofalaria before, but with the redrawing of
maps, no longer was within the official border's of Tofalaria), and laid claim to the land as
the rightful heirs (closest relatives in male line). When the son returned from the army
and found out that he no longer had a taiga to hunt on, he went up to the old family taiga,
and shot himself.
The second instance occurred during our first field visit to Alygdzher. I had
enlisted the help of a local woman to administer a survey. She returned one evening and
handed me a batch of completed surveys. From the middle of one fell a handwritten note,
touching in its hopefulness, trustfulness, and naivete. Briefly, it said that the family's
hunting grounds had been taken away from them and given to a wealthy "newcomer"
(Russian) businessman (kommersant). The tract in question was not ever part of this
family's "clan" grounds (they had moved to Alygdzher from another area), but had been
15 While most people talked willingly of conflicts over the rodovye taigi, most requested that I not use their
names.
15?
given to her brother after the collapse of the zveropromkhoz (state hunting enterprise) for
his years of good service to the zveropromkhoz. Her brother died suddenly, leaving no
heirs. Now her son, who lives in the regional capital, Irkutsk, but can find no work there,
wants to come back to the village to make his living off this taiga, which they feel
entitled to rightfully inherit.
Her dispute was heard by the recently established regional Commission for the
Allocation of Hunting Territories, based in the village of Alygdzher. This commission is
composed of 10 members (originally 11, but one died) who were reportedly selected in
an open meeting. Seven of the members are ethnic Tofa. The de facto chairman of the
commission is the former manager of the state hunting enterprise and currently the
representative of the gold mining operation that bought out the state hunting enterprise
and now runs its own private hunting enterprise. The commission rejected the petitioner's
claim for the territory, but agreed to give the son a different tract in exchange for the
disputed tract. However, according to the petitioner, this new tract is not very productive.
Several commission members explained a variety of reasons why her petition was
rejected. One said that since she was not originally from the Alygdzher area, she had no
historic claim to her own taiga there and no right to inherit her brother's. In addition, her
son is not the heir to her brother. Another commission member staled categorically that
"We don't allocate rodovye taigi to women."
When I approached the claimant with these explanations, she pointed out that the
"newcomer" who currently inhabits the disputed tract is the de facto chairman of the land
commission, who runs the hunting enterprise. Since all the members of the commission
162
. J;
are hunters, she said they were all under his thumb, beholden to him for permits, guns
and bullets. She said she wanted to appeal to the United Nations, but did not know how.
Further fieldwork uncovered yet more incidents. One informant who asked not to
be identified gave the following account:
We've got a couple of guys here - well, one of them has already gone away, but
the other one is still here. Anyway, they got into a scandal (rasskandalisya) up in
the Barbitai River area with some Arshantsy [people from the Arshan area]. The
guys who's stiil here, he used to hunt up there, but the Arshantsy said it was their
taiga and kicked him out. Then he came back here. That's it. He doesn't go up
there anymore. Now he bums around here. Well, last year near here, near the
village, a taiga burned down, but. a bit of it was left. It was given to him, and now
he goes there. Half of it burned down, but there's still some little piece of it left
that he can hunt on.
When asked to elaborate on the "scandal," he continued:
He has his own taiga up there, but with those. . . those Arshantsy, he got into this
scandal, and now he's afraid to go back there. You know, this scandal started out
small and just got bigger and bigger, until he went over to Arshan and burned
down their hunting cabin! Well, that's it. Then it all blew up!
Another informant discussed the conflict he was having with another claimant to
his taiga:
The person I'm having a conflict with - his taiga hasn't been productive, so he
went to hunt over there, where the pine nuts are. But now someone else came
there and Is hunting there. Now he [the person he's having a conflict with] can't
hunt there, so he's returned to his own taiga, next to mine. But it's small and not
productive, and his son has just come back from the army, and he needs a taiga to
hunt on, but his taiga isn't big enough for both of them. So now he's trying to lay
claim to my taiga. My son has also just come back from the army. He also needs a
taiga.... This conflict has blown up to large proportions now.
In a voice wavering on the verge of tears, he concluded, "I'm afraid it's reached the point
where we're ready to start shooting. But that can't lead to any good."
163
In many cases this tension is characterized by undercurrents of ethnic resentment.
The Tofa say the Russians are rapacious and greedy, overexpioii the taiga, have no
customary rights to it anyway, and that it would be better if they were not there. The
Russians say the Tofa are lazy, drink too much, and do not deserve their own taigas
because they do not put in the necessary work to make the most of the resources on their
taiga, relying on the dole to get by and spending all they get on alcohol.
The demographic and economic pictures indicate that the situation will get worse
before it gets better. Dubbing it. a "population explosion without the explosion,"
researcher V.P. Krivonogov (1998) noted that, after centuries of relative stability
(hovering around 450), the Tofa population began to grow rather quickly in the 1960s.
Since the 1960s, the number of mixed marriages has increased rapidly, leading to an
increase in the number of metis, or mixed, children. In the 1970s and 1980s, 90% of all
newborns were metis, and of these, 90% were officially registered as "Tofa" in their
passports. In 1995, there were 158 children under the age of 10 in Tofalaria. Of these,
134 were metis, and of these. 95.5% are registered as Tofa (Krivonogov 1998:55) (partly
in order to be entitled to hunting grounds and other privileges accorded the Small-
Numbered Peoples of the North). Another factor is the lack of out-migration from
Tofalaria. Of the five "small-numbered" minorities that Krivonogov investigated, the
Tofa were least likely to have any desire of leaving Tofalaria. with upwards of 90%
saying they have no intention or desire to leave. As one informant said, "Here the biggest
problem is that the population is increasing. Our children aren't going away after
finishing school. They stay here." Krivonogov notes that one would expect the severe
unemployment in Tofalaria to be an incentive for people to want to move out in search of
164
work. On the contrary, it seems to keep people in Tofalaria. Very few people receive any
kind of higher education or special training, so they lack the skills and training necessary
to compete for jobs. In addition, most do not have relatives or any means of support
outside of Tofalaria. At least in Tofalaria, they can always make ends meet,
supplementing meager government subsidies by hunting, fishing, and gathering.
In fact, there may even be a net in-migration into Tofalaria. One of the most
commonly mentioned causes for such in-migration is that many young Tofa women who
leave Tofalaria end up marrying Russian (or other non-Tofa nationality) men, and then
move back to Tofalaria. As Yuri Ivanovich Antsiferov. the mayor of Alygdzher, put it,
"Some conflicts are arising because these Tofa girls go off to the city [Nizhneudinsk] and
meet boys, and tell them, 'I'm Tofa. I have rights to a taiga' when in fact they've never
had such rights. Then they come back here and try to claim a taiga." I heard
contradictory explanations of females' inheritance rights: One member of the
Commission for the Allocation of Hunting Territories told me his daughter (who is only
10 years old now) would have the right to take over his taiga if her future husband did not
have his own taiga. However, as noted above, another commission member asserted that
the commission does not grant rodovye taigi to women.
All of this is leading to a very tense situation, as ever more people try to get a
piece of a limited taiga. As one informant noted, "The taiga isn't made of rubber. It can't
stretch." At present, disputes are referred to the abovementioned Commission for the
Allocation of Hunting Territories, based in Alygdzher. The commission settles disputes
on the basis of a number of criteria, including traditional inheritance rights and historical
occupation of certain lands (one of the oldest men in the village is on the commission
165
exclusively to consult on matters of historical occupation of certain tracts). A newcomer
with no inheritance rights can apply to the commission for a hunting tract, but at present
there are no unoccupied tracts. A hunting tract can be taken away from someone if he
does not use it for a period of time or if he dees not supply enough pelts to the hunting
enterprise.
The Tozhu
The sense of exclusive access to hunting grounds in Tofalaria and the conflicts it is
provoking is striking in its contrast to the sense of property just across the border in the
Tozhu District of the Republic of Tyva. Like the Tofa, the Tozhu traditionally recognized
clan-based territories.16 And like the Tofa, the clan basis for territorial division eroded
over time. Vainshtein notes that, while the administrative divisions in the Tozhu region
reflected the old clan territories, in fact by the beginning of the 20th c. the herder-hunters
no longer divided themselves along clan lines. Nomadic herding camps became mixed,
containing members from different clans (Vainshtein 1961:37; Vainshtein 1959:83).
"According to older hunter-herders, their grandfathers hunted sable only within their own
clan territories. Already by the turn of the century (19th-20th c), this custom was no longer
being observed" {Vainshtein 1961:43). While almost all Tozhu people could (and still
can) tell you which clan they belong to and where the land of their ancestors is, the
salient feature of their sense of property is non-exclusivity. This comes out in writing
about the Tozhu from the turn of the century through Vainshtein's definitive monologue
(1961), all of which note the openness and flexibility of access to resources on a given
'6 However, see Chapter 3, notes I and 8 above.
166
land. For example. Skabeev (1925) notes that while only members of a certain clan have
the right to hunt sable within their territory, the prevailing custom was to allow members
of other clans to hunt on one's territory if, for any reason, their own hunting grounds
were short of sable. As noted in the previous chapter, hunting on a different band's
territory was so common that it was instituted in the custom of uzha (see pp. 1.04-105).
Vainshtein cites one Tozhu informant as saying that at the beginning of the 20th century,
one hunter lodged a complaint against another, not because the latter had hunted and
killed an animal on the territory of the former, but because he had not observed the
custom of uzha (Vainshtein 1959:85).
During Soviet times the Tozhu people's experience with collectivization and
sedentarization was significantly different from the Tofa people's, a fact that further
contributes to the differences in their present-day attitudes toward property. During the
early years of collectivization, when Tyva was nominally an independent state very much
under the influence of the Soviet Union (1921-1944),n the nascent government of the
Tangdy-Tyva Ulus Respublika (Tangdy-Tyva People's Republic, later shortened to the
Tyva Arat Respublika, the Tyva People's Republic, or TAR for short) tried to force a
rapid transition from a nomadic way of life to a sedentarized one, much as was occurring
in the Soviet Union. While many Tyva people welcomed the advances in education,
medical care, and access to goods that came along with sedentarization and
collectivization, many others resisted, as has already been detailed in Chapter 4 (see
p.124).
' Sec Chapter 3, n. 38.
167
The government of Tyva recognized its mistake. Whereas among the Tofa,
collectivization and sedentarization were externally imposed without due consideration of
the role of the nomadic lifestyle, with disastrous results to the culture of the Tofa (as
noted by Mel'nikova above), in Tyva generally and Tozhu in particular, the tempo of
collectivization and sedentarization was slowed in recognition of the importance of the
nomadic lifestyle to the economic and cultural vitality of Tyva (Grebnyev 1955:28-31;
Mollerov 1991:55-58). This was due in part to simple demographics: in the 1930s there
were some 90,000 Tyva people (among them approximately 2500 Tozhu) compared to
approximately 450 Tofa, so collectivization and sedentarization were much larger
projects. More important was the fact that the government of the Tyva People's Republic
was made up predominantly of indigenous Tyvas who were more sensitive to the needs
of their countrymen. As Mollerov notes, "Collectivization was realized on the basis of the
workers who led a nomadic lifestyle" (Mollerov 1991:57),
But once Tyva was assimilated into the USSR (1944). the pace of sedentarization
and collectivization picked up. In 1949 the Tozhu were, like the Tofa, collectivized into
kolkhozy, and many, but not all, were settled into villages that were built to serve as the
administrative centers of the collective farms. Collectivization and sedentarization were
considered almost complete in Tyva by 1955.
Among the Tozhu, however, what it meant to be settled was interpreted more
liberally than in Tofalaria, where virtually all the Tofa truly were completely settled in
villages. For example, while all Tozhu reindeer-herding families had been assigned to a
kolkhoz and given houses in villages (hence were considered settled), many continued to
nomadize with their reindeer (now officially considered the collective property of the
J68
kolkhoz), reflecting a recognition that, nomadism was still an integral part of the
production system. The fact that even now some 30 Tozhu families still nomadize with
their reindeer herds may explain to some degree the differences between the Tofa and
Tozhu with regards to their senses of property. The extensive grazing needs of the deer
and the vagaries of weather and the natural resource base (mainly pasturage and wild
game) demand flexibility in access to these resources and militate against exclusivity. In
addition, there are several olher reasons for these differences in sense of property: Tozhu
is larger than Tofalaria (44,000 km2 as compared to 27,000 km218), and while there are
more people in Tozhu (app. 7000) and hence a higher population density (1 person per
6.3 km2) as compared to a total population of approximately 1100 in Tofalaria (1 person
per 24.5 km2), the proportion of Russians and other "newcomers" in Tozhu is smaller
than in Tofalaria (20% and 40% respectively),19 hence interethnic competition for and
conflicts over resources with Russians and others is much less pronounced, and their
influence on the understanding of property rights is likewise much weaker. Finally, the
inhabitants of Tozhu District are on the whole less dependent on the taiga for their
survival. The fact that the Tyva people (of whom the Tozhu are a subset) make up the
majority of the population of Tyva and are politically more powerful than any other
ethnic group within Tyva allows for greater diversity of employment opportunities for
indigenous Tyva people within Tyva. Tyva people have always controlled Tyva
18 This figure doesn't include the 500,000 hectare (5000 km2) sable preserve {zakatnik) in the southwestern
corner of Tofalaria, where people are forbidden to hunt.
119 The population of Tofalaria is approximately 1100, of whom about 60% are officially registered as Tofe
(however see p. 164 above on children of mixed marriages) and 40% Russian and other non-Tofa peoples.
However, my fieldwork was carried out in the largest village (of three) in Tofaiaria, Alygdzher, which has
a population of 554, of whom 274 (49%) are officially registered as Tofa and the remaining 280 (51%) are
non-Tofa, predominantly Russian. By contrast, Tozhu has a total population of 6957 (1991 figures), of
which approximately 65% are Tozhu, 15% Tyva, and 20% non-Tyva, predominantly Russian.
169
administratively, and schools, hospitals, etc., are predominantly Tyva-administered and
staffed. During TAR times and later during Soviet times, young people who decided not
to make a living off the land could get an education and pursue professions in state
sectors such as local or regional administration, education, medicine, and law-
enforcement. In doing so, they became less dependent on the taiga, thus were more
willing to relinquish any claims to land and resources they might have had, thereby
reducing competition for these resources.20 Such opportunities have historically been
virtually non-existent for the Tofa.
Following the breakup of the USSR, the state farm system went into steep decline
in the early 1990s and was officially abandoned in the Tozhu District in 1996. The
responses of the herder-hunters to the institutional void left by the collapse of the state
farm system fall into three categories, each of which has implications for property
relations. These will be discussed in more detail in the next chapter. For the purposes of
this chapter, suffice it to say that the salient feature common to all three of these
arrangements remains non-exclusivity with regards to rights of access. Even the
potentially most exclusive of these new property arrangements, private leases for legally
sanctioned peasant enterprises (arat azhyl-agyi in Tyvan, fermerskoe or krest'yanstvoe
khozyaistvo in Russian - see Chapter 6) are not treated as exclusive by the Tozhu. One
20 With the collapse of the Soviet Union, many of these opportunities have dried up in Torfiu as well,
forcing people to once again rely more heavily on the taiga for their survival. However, this is most
pronounced in the most remote villages of Tozhu, namely Syslyg Khem and Kham Syra, located in the far
southwestern and northeastern comers of the district respectively, surrounded by the richest taigas in all of
Tyva. With populations of around 150, of whom more than 95% are Tozhu, and given the difficulty of
access to these villages, there still isn't much competition for or disputes over the Datura! resources in these
areas. In the principal, closely clustered, and more accessible towns of Toora-Khem (pop- 2600) and E and
Adyr-Kezhig (approximately 1300 and 1200 respectively), there is stiil a fair degree of access to salaried
employment.
170
young Tozhu herder-hunter has such a legal lease to some 580 hectares along the Oina
River, from which he has the legal right to exclude others or to charge others for use.
When asked what he would do if he caught someone fishing on his territory, he at first
said, "Nothing." Then he got a mischievous grin on his face and said, "No, I'd tax him.
One fish!" The traditional "Law of the Taiga" continues to be one of helping out guests
and visitors.31 When I asked Tozhu hunter-herders what they would do if they saw an
unknown Russian (playing a bit on inter-ethnic tensions) hunting on what they considered
their territory, a typical response was, "I'd help him. I'd put him up in my tent; I'd feed
him; I'd show him where to hunt. What else can 1 do?" On more than one occasion I
heard Tozhu people say, "No one owns the taiga. Whoever wants to can come and get
what they can." Simply undertaking the rigorous trip into the taiga seems to entitle those
who do it to whatever they can get.22
This sense of inciusiveness extends as well to people's sense of their own
entitlement to hunt and fish wherever they want. Tozhu herder-hunters would outline for
me the territory that they considered "theirs" (territory they habitually ranged over), but
when I asked them to outline the territory they felt they had a righl to range over, most
included the entire Tozhu District, and several included the northern section of the
neighboring Kaa-Khem District as well. When asked about any sense of having one's
own exclusive taiga, as among the Tofa, former herder-hunter Bernbirel Karanai said:
"There isn't anything like that here. Wherever I want to go and hunt. I go there and hunt."
21 Cf. Ziker on the "Law of the Tundra" in the Taimyr (Ziker 2002a: Ch. 6; 2002b: 12).
22 This sense of entitlement to resources for those who "know the land" (D.Anderson 1998) has been noted
throughout Siberia. Cf. D.Anderson 1998, 2000; Fondahl 1998:34. Curiously, in the Tozhu case this
entitlement seems to extend to anyone who can make it out to the taiga, whether they really "know the
land" or not.
171
Even when there were assigned hunting terri topes in the Kham-Syra region (there was a
state hunting enterprise in Kham-Syra), Karanai said, "Even though there were assigned
hunting territories it was no problem; other people could still go there and hunt."23
This sense of freedom and flexibility regarding access to land and resources was
demonstrated to me as I was trying to get a fix on how many herders there are and where
they tend to live. One of the largest groupings of herders, with 5-7 aals (households)
camping together and approximately 300 deer, migrated in the far eastern part of Odugen
Taiga (see Map 5.3) near the border with Buryatia, just south of the Azas Zapovednik
(strict nature preserve - see Chapter 8). When I expressed my intention to get there and
spend some time with therrl, I was informed, by my hosts that they had all pulled up stakes
the previous winter (1999-2000) and moved into the. Serlig Khem region - a completely
different area that was part of a different obshchina and that also historically was part of a
different clan territory. These people took the decision to move because it was simply too
difficult to reach their village (Adyr-Kezhig) or the Kharaal gold mining base from the
Odiigen herding and hunting grounds except in the dead of winter when the rivers were
all frozen over. I asked the director of the Serlig Khem obshchina if they needed any
special permission to move into his obshchina's territory, and he simply shrugged and
shook his head, as if the thought had never occurred to him. In turn, the group in the
Sorug River region on the north side of the Azas Zapovednik and part of a completely
different obshchina, moved around to Odiigen Taiga on the south side of the zapovednik
to escape bears.
But this freedom of movement
and lack of exclusivity with regards to
hunting and herding territories may
change if recent developments continue
putting pressure on the herder-hunt
natural resource base. For example, Tozhu herder-hunters are changing their migration
patterns. According to older ethnographic works and former herders' recollections, in the
past, Tozhu herders would migrate 12-20 times per year in search of good pasturage and
good hunting.24 Former herder Mikhail Kenden explained that it takes at least 10 years
for the shulung (reindeer lichen) to reach its full height of 8-10 cm., and several herders
' For example, Vainshtein cites a figure of 18-20 times per year (Vainshtein 1961:66).
173
explained that, ideally, they would not return to the same camp site for 10-15 years, in
order to allow the shulung to regenerate. In fact, however, most of the herders were
migrating 4-6 times per year, and many did return to some of the same campsites year
after year. Cha-Cha Sbyngylai had used the same summer camp in the upper Bedii River
area three years in a row, and told me he wouid use it again for a fourth year. "We don't
have so many deer now, so there's enough shulung up there nowadays," he said.
Likewise, Piko Sambuu and his family returned to the same fall camp on the Chaiynda
River several years in a row, and that was the very spot where they built their cabin in the
fall of 2000, and then stayed there through until the spring of 2001. However, Gleg Orai-
ool, an experienced herder in the Serlig-Khem area, was critical of the reduced migratory
activities of other herders. He claimed that he had moved 16 times in the previous year
(1999), although he acknowledged that he would camp in the same site several years in a
row.
Last year I moved 16 times. That's why this is a difficult life. But in the summer
you don't need nara [sleeping platform inside tent built of small logs], and I've
got wood already prepared for ray tent frame at every place along my route. But if
you don't move often., it's bad for the deer - they'll get sick, there won't be
enough food for them. The longest I ever stay in one place is three months -
December, January and February. I move so often to preserve the pasture, so next
year I can come again. There's enough food for the deer here around this lake.
That's why I'm building a cabin here. But after three years, I'll have to find
another campsite to spend the winter. But you can't stay for three months in one
place in (he summer - the deer will get sick. In the spring, after calving, you've
got to move - stay in one place at the most seven days, at the least three or four
days.25
The construction of cabins mentioned above represents a new and interesting
development regarding land tenure and property rights. In the past, when herders moved
Interview with Oleg Baraanovich Orai-oo! at his winter camp in the Serlig-Khem region, 9 March 2000.
174
more frequently and would not return to the same campsite for several years, there was
no reason to build more permanent structures. However, in the first year 1 was conducting
fieldwork for this research (2000), all the herders of the Serlig Khem group who had not
yet dons so decided to build small log cabins on
"their" territories, at places where they
habitually establish their fall and/or winter
and/or spring camps. This investment in time
and labor not only indicates a sense of property
ownership ? a way of staking a claim to a
certain territory - but also has implications for
migration patterns and a variety of ecological
factors associated with migration. For example,
for the Sambuu cabin, we sawed down 45
mature larch trees of between 30 and 40 cm. dbh
(diameter at breast height). Trees in Siberia grow very slowly, and based on ring counts, I
determined that these mature trees were all 150-200 years old. Toward the end of the
project, we were having to range several hundred meters in any direction from the
building site to find suitable trees. Hence cabin building causes immediate deforestation,
albeit on a very small scale. More threatening is the fact that herders were building these
cabins where they intend to spend the winters, so wood for heating the cabins becomes a
critical factor. The ideal type of fuelwood is standing dead trees, and where those are in
short supply, the Tozhu will strip the bark off living trees with the expectation that this
will kill the trees for the next winter. Finally, simply having the comfort of the cabins,
275
which are roomier and much warmer than canvas tents, will encourage the Tozhu not.
only lo return to the same sites winter after winter, but to go earlier in the fall and stay
later into the spring, as the Sambuu family did in 2000-2001, when they stayed in the
cabin from October through March. All of these factors combine to put extra stress on the
wood, reindeer pasturage, and wild game resources in the areas immediately surrounding
these cabins.
In addition, these cabins and indeed most current campsites tend to be within one
or two days' ride on reindeer-back from populations centers or the gold mining bases. In
Soviet times, when the costs of transportation were completely borne by the state, the
Tozhu herder-hunters ranged much further afield than they do today, often establishing
summer camps in the highest mountains along the borders with Mongolia, fiuryatia, and
Irkutsk Oblast'. At that time, the state provided vehicles and heavily subsidized fuel
costs, while the state farms paid the remaining nominal fee. In the 1980s, for example,
the nominal fee the state farms had to pay for helicopter use was 60-70 rubles for an hour
of flight time. Translating this into dollar terms, even at the highly inflated official
exchange rate of 1 ruble to $1, helicopter usage was very cheap.26 One former state farm
director toid me that on one day alone 21 helicopter flights were made from the
provincial capital out to various herding camps. Now, however, the price of one hour of
helicopter flight time is 50,000 rubles (approximately $1,750), a price that more
accurately reflects the actual costs of operating these large, fuel-inefficient Soviet-era
helicopters. The facts that all transportation costs must now be borne by the herders
25 In fact, the ruble was worth only a small fraction of its official rate on the world market, so the actual
cost to the state farms in dollar terms was much less.
176
themselves and that the annual income of even the richest Tozhu reindeer-herding family
would barely cover the cost of one hour of helicopter flight time means that helicopter
transportation is simply out of the question for Tozhu reindeer herders. Herders must now
rely on their reindeer for all their transportation needs. Thus it makes perfectly good
sense for them to limit their migration routes and build cabins closer to population centers
for easier accessibility to their settled relatives, consumer goods, basic necessities, and
transportation to the capital.
In addition to the potential ecological impact of such circumscribed migrations,
these changes will almost certainly drive up the relative value of the land and resources
closer to population centers. Not only are reindeer herders moving close in to the villages
and more intensively exploiting the resources, but, as alternative employment
opportunities have dried up, people in the villages are also forced to more intensively
exploit the taiga within a day's walk from the villages. Increasing numbers of hunters and
fishermen - both legal and illegal - from outside the Tozhu District are invading the taiga
in the Tozhu District, leading to noticeable declines in the fish and wild game
popuiations. This, along with encroachment from gold mining, timber interests, and
tourist resorts, and the threat of privatization (see Ch. 8) may force the Tozhu herder-
hunters to more jealously guard their territory and develop a sense of exclusivity that
could lead to an increase in conflicts and tensions such as has been occurring in Tofalaria
since the eariy part of the 20th century.
177
Conclusion
In this chapter I suggest that encroachment first from other indigenous groups, then
starting in the mid-17th century, from Russians and Ukrainians, squeezed the Tofa into a
defined territory and led to the establishment of their rodovye taigi. As they were yet
further squeezed into an ever-shrinking taiga, they were forced to strictly limit access to
their taigas, which was contrary to their earlier form of flexible, fairly open access. After
the formation of the USSR., the Tofa people's early recognition as one of the "Small-
numbered Peoples of the North" led to an effort to protect the Tofa by codifying in law
their reduced territory. The Soviet regime's highly successful collectivization and
sedentarization campaigns settled the Tofa people in villages and further distorted their
rodovye taigi, turning them into very small family hunting grounds, which had to be
jealously guarded if a family was going to try to meet the quotas of the state hunting
enterprise. This also made reindeer herding impracticable, and led to the decline of
reindeer herding as a way of life and as an important component of the Tofa people's
sense of ethnic identity.
The Tozhu, on the other hand, have never been completely sedentarized, have
never developed such a sense of exclusive private property, and still engage in reindeer
herding as an active and important facet of their lives and sense of ethnic identity. The
difference lies mostly in the Tofa people's longer contact with Russians and the sense of
exclusive rights of access to resources within a given territory that have come about as a
result of that contact, and the attention they received as one of the Small-Numbered
People's of the North. In laying all this out, I am not suggesting that the formal
establishment of Tofalaria was in any sense an intentional way of disempowering the
178
Tofa. I believe that it was initially suggested and implemented with sincerely good
intentions toward the protection of the Tofa. In fact, it probably saved the Tofa from
complete annihilation, and has to this day guaranteed a modicum of protection and a
source of food and income for the Tola. The extant writings of B.I. Petri, who
championed the Tofa cause (then known as Karagas) with vigor and dedication, attest to
this sincerity, as does Petri's ultimate fate for his commitment - an "Enemy of the
People" label and a firing squad in 1937. But with collectivization, forced
sedentarization, and the formal establishment of clearly demarcated family-based hunting
grounds came a sense of possessiveness and exclusivity not known previously. Such a
sense of property proved incompatible with a nomadic, reindeer herding and hunting
existence, and thus contributed to alienating the Tofa from the basis of their unique
culture and ethnic identity.
179
Moving Up to the Constitutional Level:
Indigenous Peoples In Russian Law and the Threat of Privatization
Part II of this dissertation dealt with differences between the Tozhu and Tofa with
regards to their perceptions and management of different kinds of properly. I have
suggested that these differences can be attributed to their divergent histories over the
past three centuries, and the degree to which historical events have or have not led to
supplanting indigenous institutions. Recall that property rights are the single most
important institutional matrix that institutional analysis deal with (see inter alia Alston,
Eggertson and North 1996; Eggertsson 1993; North 1990; Ostrom 1990). For the most
part, the impetus behind the ideas in Chapters 4 and 5 came from my direct observations
of and interactions with Tozhu and Tofa people on the ground, at what the institutional
analysts call the "operational" level. What I observed at the operational level was in
part a response of the Tozhu and Tofa to actions taken at the "collective choice." (also
called "policy") level. However, a thorough institutional analysis must also link these
two nested levels to the more overarching "constitutional" level and, in the case of
indigenous peoples, to the global level of international law. It is at the constitutional level-
where official definitions of rights and who qualifies for them are established and
codified. Many of these rights and restrictions have important implications for local-level
institutions regulating common-pool resource use, especially regarding the inclusion and
exclusion of those who have the rights of access to resources. This is the focus of Part III
of this dissertation.
180
Chapter 6
Introduction.
In his polemical study of the breakdown of communist regimes, Antoni Kaminski asserts
that "Clarifying why the Soviet experiment failed is crucial to understanding how to cope
with problems of governance" (Karninski 1992:x). Now, more than a decade after the
collapse of the USSR, Kaminski's imperative needs to be recast: Clarifying why the post-
Soviet experiment is failing is crucial to understanding how to cope with problems of
governance. Perhaps the single greatest reason for the failure of the Soviet experiment
was the misguided policy of collectivization. Now, in the post-Soviet period, policies
designed to pick up where collectivization left off and which in many cases have been,
like collectivization, centrally mandated with the same top-down mentality, are likewise
failing. This chapter first outlines the impact of Soviet-era collectivization, then examines
the formal institutions that have been prescribed since the collapse of the state farm
system to manage economic activities, but which have failed. While this collapse of
institutional structures and subsequent institutional void has devastated the reindeer
herders, it has also given rise to new patterns of regularized and repeated behavior, which
could be the seeds of new grassroots institutions.
181
Institutional Upheaval from the Top-Down
Collectivization of agriculture was the crown jewel of the Soviet Communist Party's
social engineering policies in the 1930s (Forsyth 1992: 290-291). Ostensibly geared
toward the social and economic development of the Soviet Union's rural population,
collectivization proved to be more a method of socio-economic control than socio-
economic development. Forsyth believes that the true aim of collectivization "was to
proietarianise them [Siberian peoples] by binding them in collectives subordinated to the
superstructure of the Soviet state" (Forsyth 1992:291), while Campbell asserts thai "the
collectivization of agriculture provided the basic institutional mechanism for eliminating
the economic power and independence of the peasantry" (Campbell 1992:44).
Leaving the question of motive aside, collectivization was flawed from the
beginning, principally because it was predicated on imposing a uniform institutional
structure on all rural communities throughout the vast Soviet Union, without adequately
taking into consideration differences in the physical attributes or characteristics of the
diverse communities.1 In outlining their "design principles" for robust institutions for the
management of common-pool resources (CPRs), McGinnis and Ostrom note that "Given
the diversity of the settings, one should not expect to be able to discover a single
formulation or set of optimal mechanisms"' (McGinnis and Ostrorn 1992:54; italics in
original). Siezkine likewise criticized the "mechanical and crude application" of the
1 Of course, the collectives did allow for regional variation in that they were set up to exploit the
"competitive advantage" of each region, so, for example, collectives in Uzbekistan focused on cotton
production, while those in the far north of Siberia focused on raising reindeer for meat. But' even these
superficial efforts to match production to ecological suitability proved misguided, with the Uzbek cotton
monoculture being perhaps the most dramatic example. The failure of the Soviet experiment has been
cogently discussed by, inter alia, Kaminski (1992) and Campbell (1992). Campbell in particular discusses
the perverse incentives built into the Soviet system that prevented effective functioning (I992:43ff.).
182
methods of collectivization based on more "advanced" regions of European USSR to the
nomadic peoples of Siberia (Slezkine 1994:206). The indigenous populations of Siberia
were nomadic reindeer herders, hunters, and fishermen who did not produce a surplus of
valuable raw materials that could be used by the Soviet state as exportable commodities
"(Forsyth 1992:291). Thus, production had to be increased via rationalization and
industrialization, along the lines of the model that had been implemented in the more
"advanced" agricultural regions of European USSR. Management mandates designed by
agricultural experts in Moscow were handed down to be implemented in these very
remote areas. Production quotas for reindeer meat were mandated. Productivity was
determined on the basis of live weight or processed weight of meat. Reindeer were
devalued because they weren't as productive as other large livestock, but the fact that
reindeer are far better suited to the ecological conditions and require no imported fodder
was not taken into consideration. Efforts aimed at increasing meat production were
implemented, including separating females and calves from the males: building corrals in
which to pen up the animals; dictating migration dates and routes; establishing "brigades'
of workers who would be helicoptered in and out of herding areas on a rotating basis
This approach completely ignored the cultural value of reindeer to the south-Siberian
peoples, the traditional use-value of reindeer as a means of transportation and as a source
of milk, and the fact that the south Siberian reindeer herding peoples were loath to
slaughter a reindeer unless absolutely necessary.
Throughout the Soviet Union, reindeer husbandry was viewed by the Communist
Party's agricultural apparatus as problematic to centralized Soviet agricultural goals
because of its range requirements and associated nomadic lifestyle. A 1957 1aw that made
Infrastructural development and social services contingent upon the "complete
'liquidation1 of the reindeer herders' way of life" (Vitebsky n.d.:2) further exacerbated
the problem.2 To move this process along, the Soviets made an administrative distinction
between "production nomadism" and "nomadism as a way of life," and did all they could
to discourage the latter. "Production nomadism" was an effort to "rationalize" and
industrialize herding practices. It included only the able-bodied men who were directly
involved in reindeer herding and excluded all others who had formerly been integral to
"nomadism as a way of life." Herders' children were forced to attend full-time boarding
schools in village centers, while herders' wives were also settled in village centers and
assigned to secondary economic activities such as sewing and fur processing. These
policies in general had a negative impact on production: "Once again, we see the
inappropriate transfer to herding of industrial models of the organization of labor. It is
precisely because herding is much more than a productive process that this attack on the
family was inevitably destructive of production as well" (Vitebsky n.d.:5).
Many indigenous Siberians resisted collectivization however they could:
The native response took traditional forms: they asked for more time, withdrew
into silence, or tried to placate the Russians by passing resolutions. .. . Those who
could do so moved away or changed their migration routes. When confronted
directly, they often refused to pay new taxes and part with their animals. . . .
When there were no more people, ploys, and arguments left and no more pastures
to go to, the herders slaughtered their animals... or killed thecollectivizers.
Finally, there was the ultimate and most traditional act of resistance -
suicide. (Slezkine 1994:203)
2 O merakh pa dal'neishemu razvitiyu ekonomiki i kui 'fury narodnostei Severn: Postanovlenie TsK KPSS i
Sovcta Ministrov SSSR No. 300 (On measures for the further development of the economy and culture of
the peoples of the North), dated 16 March 1957. This is discussed in Vitebsky n.d.
184
Such measures are representative of what Scott has dubbed "weapons of the weak" (Scott
1985), and what Levi has described as "the behavioral withdrawal of acquiescence with
or consent to current institutional arrangements" (Levi 1990:403) and "undermining. . .
contingent consent" (Levi 1990:407).
The experience of collectivization started out differently in Tyva than in other
parts of Siberia. Forsyth points out that the Tyvan collective farms "were at first
organized on the basis of traditional communities and clan pastures, but later the Soviet
Russian authorities imposed new measures of amalgamation and denomadisation
intended to break down clan-territorial allegiances and reduce the tribespeople to a single
amorphous class of collectivized peasants" (Forsyth 1992: 374). Throughout Tyva, this
forced collectivization, sedentarizatian, and intensification of production to meet quotas
disrupted established migration patterns and overrode indigenous strategies regulating
herd, pasture, and game management (Humphrey 1989; Humphrey, Mongush and
Telengid 1993; cf. Yitebsky 1992, n.d.). As in other parts of the Soviet Union, Tyvan
herders engaged in various forms of resistance, principal among them, the slaughter of
their own livestock. In just three years, the livestock population throughout Tyva was
reduced by 34 percent (Forsyth 1992: 373).3
But it is important to note that Soviet policies were not entirely negative and
destructive, nor were they completely at odds with pre-Soviet traditional institutional
arrangements. Indeed, in some senses, Soviet collectivization was (unintentionally) built
on a continuation of traditional structures. In discussing collectivization in Tyva's
neighboring republic, Buryatia, Caroline Humphrey asserts. "Although the economic and
3 I haven't been able to come up with accurate figures specifically for reindeer in Tyva.
185
political functions of their communal institutions (clans, land-holding communities) were
destroyed by collectivization, the Buryats were provided with Soviet institutions of an
equally non-individualist, non-capitalist kind" (Humphrey 1983:2). This holds true far
the Tyva as well. The collective (and later, state) farm was, as Humphrey has called it, a
"total social institution." It was not only employer, but educator, doctor, bank, social life,
and raison d'etre for entire communities. In fact, there were no permanent settlements in
the Tozhu District prior to the establishment of the kolkhozy. The handful of villages in
the region were built to serve as administrative bases for the kolkhozy- Hence these
villages became very much like "company towns." Humphrey takes issue with Marshall
Sahlins' famous and widely accepted concept of the Domestic Mode of Production
(Sahlins 1972), which states that "in many kinship-based societies, both production and
consumption are restricted to the requirements of the household sphere," giving
households a sort of "natural autonomy" to use Sahlins' phrase (Humphrey 2002:164).
Sahlins' view imputes rational egoistic motives, but to the household rather than to the
individual. Humphrey, however, disagrees. She claims that "The indigenous idea. . . is
one in which farmers are social beings right from the start, from their innermost
inclinations, from their understanding of the person to their concepts of the state"
(Humphrey 2002:165). Humphrey believes that the collective "appears as a stage in a
series of nested hierarchies, from the household, through production teams, brigades,
collectives, the sub-district, the district, and the republic itself," and that this vision is
propogated through public pronouncements, which "reinforce indigenous ideas of
belonging to a whole within which there is a process of allocation" (Humphrey
2002:166). Far from being naturally autonomous, there is in fact "resistance to the idea of
186
independence" on the part of domestic groups, because the domestic group is
"economically incomplete" (Humphrey 2002:167). Humphrey suggests that "this is not
just a 'fallout' of the socialist economy but is also a reflection of an indigenous view of
how things are or should be" (Humphrey 2002:167). Humphrey's notion, which she calls
"hierarchical shareholding" (Humphrey 2002; 165), finds support in some of the recent
literature on co-evolution (sec, inter alia, Jones 2001; Reyna 2002). Noting that much of
human behavior does not conform to predictions based on rational choice theory (with
assumptions of the rational egoist), Bryan Jones builds a strong case for the genetic
development of social behavior as advantageous:
In human societies, however, we observe more fitness-sacrificing behavior than
can be accounted for by such kin altruism. The only answer for the continuing
appeal of so-called altruistic motives is that some other factor offers even more
evolutionary advantage.
It must be the case that the fitness of individuals is advanced by social
interaction. (Jones 2001: 116)
While it may well belie a selective memory in choosing to ignore the repressive
measures of forced collectivization of the Soviet period, both the collective farms and
state farms are remembered fondly and with nostalgia today among the Tozhu and Tofa
and indeed throughout Siberia generally, not only because they provided all basic
necessities, but also because they were in some ways a continuation of an earlier way of
life. Konstantinov and Vladimirova have coined the term "sovkhoism" to describe the
tendency of many former state farm workers to idealize the state farm as "a fatally lost
world, to somehow be regained," and to imagine "a desired life, but this time
retrospectively - one ideally lived again in a protected social reality like that of the state
187
farm" (Konstaniinov and Vladimirova 2002:3). The collective became an important
aspect of people's sense of identity (D.Anderson 2000; Humphrey 1983).
While on paper and in fact much of the peoples' lives was dictated from Moscow,
people working on collective and state farms, especially those most removed from
Moscow, managed to devise internal, informal institutions within the broader framework
of the farms. Levi points out that while formal institutions like the collective and state
farms are often very difficult to dissolve, "they remain susceptible to change that is the
consequence of internal institutional decisions that alter, often subtly, the distribution of
resources" (Levi 1990:415). David Anderson has termed this "citizenship regimes"
(D.Anderson 1996). Anderson, rejects the myth of the "complete absence of any kind of
autonomously managed or socially meaningful public sphere" (Anderson 1996:99), i.e.,
"civil society," in Siberia. "[T]hirty years of resistance and negotiation with a rigid yet
segmental bureaucratic structure also formed a ti-adition of civic practice which came to
be experienced as varied citizenship regimes" (Anderson 1996: 107). He insists that
"civil society in Siberia was harboured within different 'citizenship regimes' which
formed restricted yet significant channels for economic and political practice" (Anderson
1996:100). In this way, a form of civil society (often assumed not to have existed during
Soviet times) managed to percolate up from within the state-run institutions.
Institutional Upheaval in Post-Soviet Russia
When the Soviet Union began weakening and showing signs of collapse in the late 1980s,
a general directive went out to force the state farms to become more economically
"rational" and self-sufficient, State subsidies were drastically reduced. The state farms
188
based on reindeer herding were suddenly and for the first time to be held accountable for
their economic performances.4 One misguided measure implemented on the reindeer
herding farms in the Tozhu District of Tyva was the annual cutting of fresh reindeer
antlers for sale to Moscow and the East Asian market. In the early summer, when
reindeer antlers are still soft and full of blood, they are covered in a soft down, hence are
known in English as being "in velvet." The soft antlers contain a variety of compounds
believed to have powerful medicinal and aphrodisiac properties, and have proved to be a
valuable export commodity for Alaskan as well as Siberian reindeer herders. In the early
1990s, the sovkhozy in Tozhu started cutting the antlers in order to generate income.
Some herders explained that cutting antlers was simply bad for the deer no matter what.
As one former herder put it,
The blood in new growth antlers is flowing with vitamins, you know. It's
important for the immune system. If you cut them while they're growing, it
weakens the reindeer's organism, and illnesses will result. They start coughing,
and get lung diseases. When you ride them, after two or three hours they're ready
to collapse. 5
Chanchangmaa Dovut, another former herder, gave this account:
It's better not to ever cut the antlers. When you cut the antlers, the deer get weak,
they begin to feel bad, and they lose their strength. Right from the beginning they
start tremling and shivering, they're just pitiful. And the bleeding - it just doesn't
stop, it keeps pouring out. Even their legs get covered in it - sometimes it really
stinks! So then the deer start to feel sick, after cutting, they start to feel really sick.
It was a really damaging thing for a lot of reindeer, that antler-cutting time. One
family suddenly lost 10, maybe 20 deer - they just immediately died, And they
were that guy's best deer - his charylar [castrated males for riding}.0
4 In Soviet times, the great majority of state farms in Siberia chronically operated at a loss (see Humphrey
1983:13 and note 19)."
5 Interview with Aleksei Chykymaa, 21 January 2001, in his home in Toora-Khem.
6 Interview with Chanchangmaa Dovut in her home in Adyr-Kezhig, 19 January 2001.
189
While some herders insist that this practice is inherently detrimental to the health of the
deer, other herders and former sovkhoz administrators maintain that the cutting of antlers,
if done properly, is sound practice, and that the herders did not follow the prescribed
method properly. There is no dispute, however, that in this case the practice proved
detrimental to the health of the reindeer and led to a massive die-off, culminating in the
loss of 400 deer in 1996, at which time the practice was discontinued.
The state farms fell into arrears and could no longer afford to provide basic
supplies and services, nor to pay salaries. When I first arrived in Tozhu in 1998, herders
had not been paid for several years. In the face of this economic crisis and rampant
inflation, many herders were forced to slaughter deer to feed themselves or to sell the
meat for cash. The state farms were no longer able to provide necessary services such as
veterinary assistance and predator control. As a result, large numbers of deer died of
easily treatable diseases, or were killed by wolves. This combination of factors led to a
the drastic decline in reindeer herds - from 14,000 in 1982 to 1,100 in 2001 - as
illustrated in Graph 6.1. This decline is equaled only by the decline in the period from
1940 and 1951. For the first half of this period - during World War II - thousands of deer
were slaughtered to send meat to the front. Then from 1946-1951, the decline continued
due to resistence to forced collectivization, as many Tozhu fled to Mongolia with their
deer, and others slaughtered their own deer rather than surrender them to the collective
farms.
190
Graph 6.1
When it became undeniably clear that the state farms could not survive on their
own, they were liquidated in 1996. The failure of the state-subsidized farms sounded a
clarion call for market-based reforms and wholesale privatization, assumed by many to
be the only alternative. Former members of the state farms were encouraged to take their
"shares" and strike out on their own. Sovkhoz property was shared out to the members in
two forms; land shares (cher Ulugleri in Tyvan, zemel'nye doli in Russian) and property
shares (onchu khorenge ulugleri in Tyvan, imushchestvennye pai in Russian). But land
shares were only very small plots in and around the villages, and did not include reindeer
pastures or hunting grounds. The property shares ? equipment, machinery, vehicles, and.
livestock - were very unequally doled out, with the sovkhoz administrators managing to
gamer most of the physical property for themselves. As mentioned in Chapter 4, reindeer
were shared out not only to herders, but to all members of the former state farm. Most of
these people weren't reindeer herders and didn't know what to do with the deer, so they
191
slaughtered them for food or sold the deer to someone who could afford to buy them.
This further contributed to the decline in the number of reindeer in the Tozhu District.
The Tozhu people have responded to the collapse of the state farm system in one
of three ways: 1) officially and legally sanctioned peasant enterprises (ami azhyl-agyi in
Tyvan, fermerskoe or krest'yanstvoe khozyaistvo in Russian); 2) officially and legally
unrecognized private ownership of reindeer and usufruct of land; and 3) legally
sanctioned, state-affiliated, kin-based communities torel bolukteri in Tyvan, rodovye
obshchiny in Russian).
Peasant Enterprises
In order to establish a peasant enterprise, applicants must demonstrate a legitimate
historical claim to the territory, meaning that they can show that their family lived within
that territory in pre-Soviet times. This arrangement-gives them a renewable 5-year lease
on a certain territory, explicitly mapped out, and complete freedom to exploit the
resources on that land as they choose, which includes the right to exclude people from the
land or to charge people who want to extract resources. Successful applicants were given
a state-subsidized loan to get their enteiprises off the ground, which they were lo start
repaying in the second year, in addition, they were granted a five-year tax holiday on the
revenues from their enterprises. But the entire initiative was plagued from the beginning
by an intimidatingly complex, bureaucratic, and time-consuming application process (cf.
Ziker 2002a: 128-134); a cultural predisposition against private enterprise7 (D.Anderson
7 Tyva flew in the face of the overwhelming pressures toward privatization, and even forbade private
ownership of land in the 1993 constitution. This was reversed in the new constitution of 200 L See Ch. 8.
192
1996; Humphrey 2002; Tavemise 2003); and a perverse incentive structure that
encouraged people to abuse the system. For example, many people with no intention of
setting up private enterprises applied for these peasant enterprises only to get the initial
state-sponsored loan. They used the credit for other purposes, e.g., to fix up their houses
or purchase vehicles, then defaulted on the loans, and had the land taken away from
them/ Others managed to pay back the loans, thus were allowed to maintain leases on
their landholdings, but haven'I been able to turn a profit or even to pay taxes on the
landholdings (after the initial 5-year tax-free period), so have had to restructure into
"personal subsidiary activities" (lichnoe podsobnoe khozyaistvo ? LPKh). This
arrangement allows them to keep the plots they were granted in perpetuity and with
inheritance rights, but they are allowed to use the land only for subsistence purposes., and
not for any kind of entrepreneurial activities. The Tozhu, as specially designated "Small-
Numbered Indigenous Peoples of the Russian Federation," do not have to pay taxes on
this land. In 1997, there were 118 registered peasant enterprises. Now there are zero.
Sixty-eight have reformed into LPKh, and the rest have folded.
From the beginning only two reindeer herders tried to form peasant enterprises for
purposes of reindeer herding.9 In the first place, most of the herder-hunters did not have
enough private reindeer to establish a private herd, nor the financial resources to purchase
livestock from other former sovkhoz members when the sovkhozy collapsed, so private
ownership of livestock was out of the question. These two herders who initially registered
as peasant enteiprises had the financial resources to purchase deer from the state farms or
8 They would still retain their land share, which included the land their houses sat on and the land enclosed
within their fences - usually between 1/4 and 1/2 hectare - enough for a vegetable garden and a potato patch.
9 The rest were established as hunting and fishing camps, private vegetable plots, or hay fields.
193
had managed to accumulate sizeable private herds during Soviet times (see Chapter 4),
and had representatives (usually relatives) with political connections and legal savvy. The
largest of the two, at 580 hectares, was set up by the then-director of the Azas
Zapovednik, who is the current'mayor of the district capital, and put in his older brother's
name. The other, a 200 acre lease, was set up by a former sovkhoz director. These
territories, however, are much smaller than the herder-hunters have traditionally used,
and are not large enough to meet the extensive range requirements of reindeer. This has
not yet posed a problem, as the herder-hunters simply range over the territory they have
always ranged over, not bothering to observe the limits imposed by the agreement, but it
could pose a problem now with the current politics of privatization (see Chapter 8).
Unofficial Private Reindeer Herding
There is one small but persistent group of herder-hunters who have always defied the
authorities. These herders maintained private herds even when it was forbidden to do so,
either by staying in such remote locations that authorities could not track them down, or
by maintaining herds for the state Institutions (the state farms, the state hunting
operations, the state forestry operations) and also maintaining, but not reporting, their
private herds. In addition, these few herders are the ones who have tended to keep to
lands their parents and grandparents historically used. Now these herder-hunters have no
official affiliation with the obshekiny, nor do they have officially recognized leases to
land. They own their livestock and range them as they see fit, secure in their right to do
so because of their family histories of herding and hunting in a certain territory. This right
194
is acknowledged and respected by ail the other herders, although not officially recognized
by the state.
Since the majority of the reindeer herders didn't have enough reindeer to strike out on
their own, establishment of the rodovye obshchiny was the most common reaction to the
collapse of the state farms. In his seminal work on the rights of the indigenous peoples of
Russia, Russian ethnographer Aleksandr Pika champions the concept of
"neotraditionalism" (Pika 1999). According to Pika, the institutional foundation of
"neotraditionalism" must be the obshchina (plural: obshchiny), which he asserts is
distinct from and more sociaily fundamental than "clan" structures, a. concept he
considers problematic.
[T]the term "clan" in Siberia obscured a different form of social organization: the
territorial obshchina, consisting of groups of relatives, by blood and by marriage,
through various genealogical lines. The obshchina is a universal form of social
organization of'peoples found at the pre-class or pre-industrial stage of social
development. The significance of the obshchina as a universal form of economic
territorial organization, and as a structural unit for survival [zhiizneobespechenie],
autonomy, and the reproduction of the ethnos is especially important for minority
peoples seeking to preserve their cultural and. economic distinctiveness. (Pika
1999: 63-65)
Pika notes that such territorial obshchiny "were relatively stable, economic and
demographic collectives, oriented to self-sufficiency and reproduction, which were able
to exert real control over their territory, and effectively use local natural resources" (Pika
1999:66-67).
The concept of the obshchina found its way into Russian central planners'
lexicons, and soon it was being touted as the ideal intermediate step between the state
195
Obshchiny
farms and the shock therapy of abrupt and complete privatization. Thus it was a system of
obshchiny that was supposed to replace the sovkhozy among indigenous peoples
throughout the former Soviet Union. The obshchiny were in effect built on the ruins of
the sovkhozy, and were intended to fulfill many of the functions formerly performed by
the sovkhozy, i.e., organize the productive activities of the herders and hunters, provide
food, tents, clothing, guns, bullets, transportation and a regular salary in return for the
products of the members' work as herders and hunters.
In the Tozhu region, six obshchiny were initially established in 1996. Of these,
four were founded on the economic basis of reindeer herding and hunting; the other two
were founded on hunting only. While in theory this was an effort to return to traditional
forms of self-organization and should have placed more control in the hands of the
indigenous Tozhu, the plan was hampered from the beginning. In the first place, it was
mandated from the center and implemented in a uniform fashion throughout Russia.
Secondly, the obshchiny started with nothing. While ostensibly they should have started
with the remaining assets of the sovkhozy, the sovkhozy had been cannibalized by the
sovkhoz administrators. Finally, the membership rolls of the obshchiny were notable for
their lack of community leaders. As mentioned earlier, the handful of former sovkhoz
members who had the means to do so chose not to join the obshchiny, preferring instead
to try to set up their own enterprises. Other defiantly independent reindeer herders simply
struck out on their own. This left the poorest and in many cases least able reindeer
herders and hunters to stay with the obshchiny.
These problems, along with the failure of the state to provide the promised
support and the collapse of the formerly state-subsidized transportation and distribution
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networks, rendered it virtually impossible for the obshchiny to effectively organize
themselves as going concerns. While the obshchiny gave their members a legal guarantee
of sorts that they could continue herding and hunting on the territory officially recognized
as obshchina territory, the herder-hunters learned to expect nothing in the way of material
support from the obshchiny. This failing of the obshchiny did, however, have one
potentially positive, albeit unintended, result. As Margaret Levi has put it, "In the case of
formal institutions, an individual's cooperation or compliance is conditional upon the
provision of promised benefits by institutional managers and personnel and upon the
continued compliance of others" {Levi 1990: 409). Because they failed from the
beginning to fulfill their stated purpose, the directors of the obshchiny had no leverage to
dictate and control the activities of their members. Hence there was a great deal of
freedom and flexibility at the operational level for the reindeer herders, which allowed for
the emergence of new patterns of regularized and repeated behavior - the seeds of new
institutions. For example, as discussed in Chapter 4, the obshchina members treated
reindeer as personal property despite the fact that, in theory at least, the deer were the
property of the obshchiny. Likewise, as detailed in Chapter 5, the herder-hunters saw no
need to stay within the officially demarcated boundaries of the obshchina's territory, and
continued-to range their herds in effect wherever they wanted.
So while the herder-hunters readily asserted their membership in the obshchina in
order to guarantee their right to continued usufruct of the land and its resources, and to
claim their share of the rare delivery of provisions from the obshchina, they did not feel
compelled to obey the director.
197
In another new arrangement that has developed since the collapse of the state
farms and the subsidies they provided, the herder-hunters have turned to the gold mining
bases as their principal trading partners. They trade fish, game meat, antlers, berries, and
pine nuts for necessary foodstuffs (primarily flour, sugar, tea, oil, cigarettes). They also
take in guns and axes to be repaired at the bases; pick up useful scrap metal, nails, boards,
plastic sheeting; and get free transportation to and from the capital in the vehicles
operated by the gold mines. Whenever they're at the bases, they eat free of charge at the
base cafeteria. One private herder even had a contract with one of the gold-mining bases
that allows the base to use some of his territory as cattle pasture in the summer in
exchange for delivery of flour. These examples of new arrangements and self-organized
activities, while admittedly not without their drawbacks, demonstrate that when given the
flexibility and freedom to act, the Tozhu herder-hunters will experiment with a variety of
activities in search of the combination that best satisfies their needs and enhances their
chances for survival.
The failure of the obshchiny has forced the Tozhu herder-hunters to rely on their
own resources to survive and to muddle through, as McCay puts it:
The value of muddling through processes, through which initial changes are
small, relatively cheap, and not necessarily informed by consideration of larger
values and goals, is similar to an argument made by Bateson (1963, 1972) and
Slobodkin (Slobodkin and Rapoport, 1974; Slobodkin, 1968) concerning the
'economics of flexibility' in evolution and adaptation. (McCay 2002:375)
Contrary to popular preconceptions of "traditional" societies as static, stable, and
stagnant, such flexibility has always been the hallmark of indigenous institutions. Bjorn
Bjerkli has used the term "deinstitutionalized institution" (Bjerkli 1996:9) to describe the
198
flexibility of the nomadic lifestyle as the true "institution" of indigenous peoples.
Hunters, gatherers, fishermen, and herders have always depended on flexibility of
lifestyle to survive in the unpredictable conditions and fluctuating resource base that
characterize the Arctic and subarctic environments. Their "tradition" is and has always
been one of change and flexibility.
However the newest turn of events in the post-Soviet saga could threaten 10
eliminate this flexibility for the Tozhu reindeer herders. The Tozhu District is 4,475,749
hectares (44,000 km2) in area, the largest of 16 districts in Tyva (26% of.Tyva's
territory). Within this district, the six obshchiny covered nearly half of the district. As
obshchiny, they provided a degree of security to the land tenure for the Tozhu reindeer
herders under the new law on obshchiny.10 In 2001 the four largest obshchiny in Tozhu
were unilaterally closed down11 by the state (without consulting the president of the
Tozhu branch of the Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North), and
consolidated into a GUP (see p. 128). The critical difference between the GUP and the
obshchiny is in the amount of land that is protected from sale to private firms or
individuals (I will discuss the problems of privatization in more detail in Chapter 8).
Under the obshchina system, the four reindeer-herding obshchiny had usufruct rights to
approximately 1,500,000 hectares (15,000 km2). The GUP has control over 26,132
hectares (261 km2). Kyzyl-ool Sangy-Badra, the president of the Tozhu branch of the
Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North, points out that the
transformation from obshchiny to GUP will be disastrous for the Tozhu because Lhe
10 "On the General Principals of Organization of Clao Communes {Obshchiny) of the Indigneous Small-
Numbered Peoples of the North, Siberia, and the Far East of the Russian Federation" (20 June, 2000).
11 In fact, all had already collapsed for all intents and purposes and only still existed on paper.
199
government won't support the GUP in the way they've promised, because there are no
legal protections for GUP lands, and because the transformation from obshchiny to GUP
will make it easier for the formerly protected obshchina lands to be sold out from under
the indigenous peoples of the Tozhu district.
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Chapter 7
"Indigenous" and "Traditional" in the New Russia
Introduction
Well-established, clearly defined membership, and the authority to monitor and exclude
ineligible people from access to a given resource, are among the most important design
principles for effective common-pool resource management institutions (McGinnis and
Ostroxn 1992). In the case of the Tozhu, Tofa, and other officially recognized indigenous
peoples of the Russian Federation, these rights are being worked out at the constitutional
level through a series of laws specifically aimed at defining the rights of the indigenous
peoples of the Russian Federation. The federal constitutional level articulates with the
global level of international law in that these new laws are very much influenced by the
international movement of indigenous peoples and debates over their rights (see Anaya
2000; Ivison, Patton and Sanders 2000; Niezen 2003). In fact, Article 69 of the Russian
Constitution explicitly guarantees the "rights of the indigenous small-numbered peoples
in accordance with the universally recognized principles and norms of international law
and international agreements that the Russian Federation has entered into."1
Eligibility for the status of "indigenous small-numbered peoples" and the rights
and privileges that attach to it hinges on the definition of the term "indigenous," which in
turn hinges on the definition of a closely related concept, "traditional." These are highly
1 From Konstttutsiya Rossiiskoi Federatsii, Moscow: Iuridlcheskaya Literatura, 1993. As discussed in the
next chapter, Russia has not ratified ILO Convention 169, but has ratified both the U.N. International
Covenant on Civij and Political Rights and the U.N. International Covenant on Economic, Social and
Cultural Rights (Osherenko 2001:703).
201
abstract and controversial concepts, and some have argued that it is misguided even to
attempt to define them (Magnarella 2001:428). Yet these are also questions of immediate
practical significance that have a very direct impact on the day-to-day lives of millions of
people the world over.
It is not my intention here to review all the Russian laws that touch on indigenous
peoples.2 That would be an enormous task that would lead me into dealing with the
confusing array of often overlapping and at times contradictory statuses that include not
only the "Indigenous Small-Numbered Peoples," but also "Territories inhabited by the
Indigenous, Small-Numbered Peoples," and "Regions of the Far North and Regions
Equivalent to Regions of the Far North," all of which touch on the indigenous peoples
and in principle confer upon them (and at times others) a variety of rights and privileges
that are nowhere laid out clearly and that tend to get hammered out at the local and
regional levels.
Rather I want to discuss how Russia's indigenous peoples, particularly the
peoples who have come to be known as the "Indigenous, Small-Numbered Peoples of the
North" (Korennye Malochisiennye Narody Severn), have been defined. I take issue with
the concept of the "traditional" as a central concept in defining these peoples, and suggest
that as a defining concept it can only serve to fossilize the indigenous peoples of Russia
in an externally imposed and artificially constructed "traditional" ethnographic present. I
argue that to truly grant these indigenous peoples any degree of self-determination, the
indigenous peoples must not be limited to a "traditional way of life," and must be given
"This task has been approached by numerous scholars (see inter alia.. Foudahl and Poelzer 2003;
Kryazhkov 1996, 1999; Novikova and Tishkov 1999a, !999b; Osherenko 2001; People's Friendship
University of Russia 1997; Pika 1999).
202
more actual control and even ownership over their lands and the valuable natural
resources on those lands, including subsurface resources.
Historically, Russia's (and the USSR's) relationship with the peoples within its territory
who are now referred to as "indigenous" has undergone a series of transformations, in the
17111 century, as representatives of the Tsar moved eastward in their effort to claim and
colonize Siberia in the name of the Russian Empire, they began to encounter the native
populations of these areas. The initial reaction was simply to collect yasak - a tax or duty
- from these peoples, usually in the form of sable and squirrel pelts, and otherwise to let
them be. But as the abundance and wealth of Siberia's natural resources came to light,
more and more Russians began to move into the area to exploit these resources, and the
need was felt to try to assimilate the native Siberians into a Russian way of life. This
proved a failure and had a disastrous impact on the native populations, leading the
Russian government to try a different, more enlightened and humanistic tack. This effort
culminated in Count Mikhail Speranskii's Charter of Administration of Siberian Aliens
of 1822, the "first 'civilized' law governing the non-Russian peoples of the empire" (Pika
1999:37; see Kryazhkov 1999 for the text of this charter; see also Siezkine 1994 and
Forsyth 1992 for detailed discussions), and Russia's first official effort to grants rights
and protections to its indigenous populations. While this Charter was indeed very
progressive in its treatment of the native Siberians, its very title is a telling indication of
how native Siberians were viewed at that time - as inorodtsi, or aliens (literally, "of
different stock" or "different by birth"), even in their own land.
203
Background
In the early years of the Soviet Union there arose an increasing awareness of the
plight of the indigenous minorities within the Soviet territory, and an interest in defining
and protecting them (see Hirsch 1997; D.Anderson 2000, esp. ch. 4). This led to the
creation of the Committee for the Assistance to the Peoples of the Northern Borderlands
(also known as the Committee of the North) in 1924 (Slezkine 1994:152; Forsyth 1992,
ch. 12-13), and to enormous resources being poured into anthropological and
ethnographic investigations to define these populations and to protect their lifestyles. One
of the results of this committee was the "Provisional Statute on the Administration of the
Native Peoples and Tribes of the Northern Borderlands of the Russian Soviet Federal
Socialist Republic" (25 October, 1926), which identified and enumerated 26 indigenous
ethnic groups designated as Malye Narodnosti Severnykh Okrain RSFSR (Small Peoples
of the Northern Borderlands of Russia). Again, the title of statute gives a clue as to how
the native Siberians were viewed. The term I have translated as "native" is, in Russian.
tuzemnyi, which literally means "from that land," i.e., not from this land, thus still carries
the implication, like the earlier term inorodtsy, that the native Siberians were considered
aliens in their own land. This term is now considered demeaning.
The term Malye Narodnosti (Small Peoples) also came to be seen as demeaning,
and was replaced in official documents by the term Korenny'e Malochislennye Narody
Severn. Korennye is from the Russian word for "root," hence gives the idea of being
rooted in a place, autochthonous. It is this term that most closely approximates, and is
most often translated into English as, "indigenous" (some people translate it as
"aboriginal"). Malochislennye means, literally, "small-numbered'" (also often translated
as "numerically small"). According to Novikova (1999a:55), this designation first
204
appeared in the statute, "On the fundamentals of state regulation of the socio-economic
development of the North" in 1966. That same 1966 law also provided the definition of
korennye malochislennye narody Severa that is the basis of the contemporary
understanding of this term: "Peoples, living in the territories of traditional settlement of
their ancestors, preserving a traditional way of life, traditional economic system and
economic activities, numbering within the Russian Federation less than 50,000 persons
and recognizing themselves as independent ethnic communities" (Novikova 1999a:56).
Thus, when I use the term "indigenous, small-numbered peoples," I am referring
specifically to this group of specially designated peoples" (which has, since the collapse
of the USSR, been expanded to include more than 60 peoples, not all of whom are
Siberian4).
Article 69 of the new constitution of the Russian Federation (1993) guarantees the
rights of Russia's indigenous peoples, but nowhere does it actually define the
"indigenous, small-numbered peoples," so it must be assumed that the framers of the
Constitution were operating with the above-mentioned definition in mind (see Pavlenko
2001:92 for confirmation of this).
In his book on neotraditionalism, Aleksandr Pika wrote, "The legal status of
minority peoples of the Russian North as it now exists is inadequate" (Pika 1999:29, first
published in Russian in 1994). The vagueness of the Constitution is a case in point.
3 Fond ah] and Poelzer (2003) make a distinction between "indigenous" and "aboriginal" in the Russian
context, using the former to refer to the broader category that includes native peoples who number more
than 50,000, and using the term "aboriginal" to refer only to those peoples officially designated as
"indigenous, small-numbered peoples of the North." They note Ihat this usage, while not yet widely
recognized, is gaining acceptance. I have chosen not to make this distinction.
4 The Yedinyi perechen' korennykh malochislennykh narodov Rossiiskoi Federatsii ("Unified list of the
indigenous small-numbered peoples of the Russian Federation") of 24 March 2000 lists 45 groups, but
Pavlenko says there are more than 60 now .(Pavlenko 2001:92).
205
Recently, however, there have been numerous attempts to address this shortcoming.
These attempts have resulted in the passing of several major new framework laws ihat are
designed to clarify the legal status of the indigenous peoples of Russia and provide them
with a legal basis for asserting their rights as indigenous peoples."
These laws are:
1) "On the Fundamentals of State Regulation of Socioeconomic Development of the
North of the Russian Federation" (19 June, 1996)
2) "On Guarantees of the Rights of the Indigenous Small-Numbered Peoples of the
Russian Federation" (30 April, 1999).
3) "On the General Principals of Organization of Clan Communes (Ohshchiny) of
the Indigneous Small-Numbered Peoples of the North, Siberia, and the Far East of
the Russian Federation" (20 June, 2000).
4) "On Territories of Traditional Natural Resource Use of the Indigenous Small-
Numbered Peoples of the North, Siberia, and the Far East of the Russian
Federation" (7 May, 2001)
(In addition, a draft law specifically concerning reindeer herding is being worked on).
The first, third and fourth of these laws are specifically directed toward the
indigenous peoples of the north, Siberia, and the Far East (thus they don't apply to
indigenous groups in, for example, the Caucasus), while the second applies to all the
recognized indigenous, small-numbered peoples of Russia. The working definition of
"indigenous, small-numbered peoples" in these laws has come down from the 1966 law
5 "These laws have been thoroughly analyzed and discussed in a variety of publications its English and
Russian (see inter alia Fondahl and Poelzer 2003; Novikova 1999a, Kryazhkov 1996, 1999, Oshererko
2001; Mischenko 1999; Peoples Friendship University of Russia 1997; Mir Korennykh Narodov Zhivaya
Arktika No.6-7, 2001).
206
virtually unchanged: Article i, paragraph 6 of the law "On the Fundamentals of Slate
Regulation" defines the indigenous small-numbered minorities of the North as "peoples
living in the areas of traditional inhabitance of their ancestors, preserving their original
ways of life, numbering within Russia fewer than 50,000 people and recognizing
themselves as independent ethnic communities."6
Thus there are 4 separate components involved in this definition. The first
stipulates where people must Live to qualify for this status; the second stipulates haw they
must live; the third specifies a population maximum (thus excludes larger indigenous
groups such as the Sahka, Buryat, and Tyva); and finally the fourth is the criterion of self-
identification.
These laws and a variety of other laws and decrees confer special rights,
privileges, and concessions on those who qualify for this status: They are exempt from
land tax if they are engaged in "traditional economic activities in places of inhabitance
and economic activities of the small-numbered minorities."8 They are exempt from
income tax if they belong to officially registered nomadic clan communities
(obshchinas).9
They also have, in theory, special rights to natural resource use, including "the
priority right to the application of traditional methods of harvesting wildlife and products
6 This definition is virtually identical in all four of the laws mentioned. See Article I, para. 1 of the law "On
the guarantees of the rights. . ."; Article 1, paragraph 1 of the law "'On the general principles of
organization. . . ." The law "On Territories of Traditional Natural Resource Use. . ." doesn't give a
definition, bul it can be assumed that the same definition applies.
7 Fondahl and Poelzer (2003) suggest that the criterion of self-identification is the principal reason for the
proliferation of groups with this status (see note 3 above), as it has allowed many of these ethnic groups
who were formerly not recognized to successfully assert their claims to official recognition.
8 Law on Payment for Land, N44, Statute 1424, Oct. 11, 1991, Article 12.
9 Law on Income Tax. from Physical Persons, Dec. 7 1991.
207
of wildlife activities unless these methods cause, .. reduction in biological diversity," and
"priority choice of hunting and fishing grounds. . . . privileges in terms of dates and areas
of harvesting wildlife, the age and sex. composition and the numbers of harvested
wildlife. ... an exclusive right to harvesting definite items of wildlife and products of
their activity " 10 They are supposed to be compensated for mineral extraction by the state
in the form of special funds directed to their social and economic development;'1 and for
damage caused to their traditional places of inhabitance caused by economic activities of
the state.12
They have the right to substitute military service for alternative civil service.13
While even in Russian Constitutional Law the specifics of "alternative civil service" still
haven't been delineated (Pavlenko 2001:78), informants told me that they were under the
impression that "alternate service" could simply mean continuing as reindeer herders.
(Nevertheless, none of the reindeer herders I met availed themselves of this right, and
most consider serving in the army a good opportunity to see something of the world and
to improve their Russian language skills,)
They can start collecting retirement benefits at an earlier age (45 for women and
50 for men as opposed to 55 for the general population), although only 6% of the
indigenous northern peoples actually ever reach the age when they can collect a pension
10 Law on Wildlife, April 24, 1995.
11 Law on Amendments to the Law of the RF on Mineral Resources, March 3, 1995.
12 Law on the Guarantees of the Sights of Indigenous Small-Numbered Peoples of the Russian Federation.
April 30, 1999.
!3 Law on the Guarantees of the Rights of Indigenous Small-Numbered Peoples of the Russian Federation,
April 30. 1999, Article 9.
208
(Haruchi 1999:24).14 Recognized reindeer herders are exempted from the mandatory 5-
year probationary period with a shotgun before they become eligible to purchase a rifle.
"Genealogical" vs. "Relational"
At this point, I'd like to take a moment to look at the Russian definition of "indigenous"
within the context of a dichotomy set up by Tim Ingold in The Perception of the
Environment (Ingold 2000). Ingold constructs a provocative argument contrasting what
he terms the "genealogical method" of defining indigenousness with the "relational
method." Ingold points out that the most commonly cited definitions define "indigenous"
in terms of descent from inhabitants who lived in a certain place prior to contact with
colonizers. Ingold cites Article lb of the International Labour Organisation's "Indigenous
and Tribal Peoples Convention" (ILO Convention 169): People "are regarded as
indigenous on account of their descent from populations which inhabited the country, or
geographical region to which the country belongs, at the time of conquest of colonization
or the establishment of present state boundaries."15 Ingold objects to such definitions on
14 Reasons for short life expectancy among indigenous Siberians include alcohol-related violence and
accidents; tuberculosis; and limited access to medical care.
15 In a sense, Ingold is overstating his case for the purposes of argument. He provides only the part of the
ILO definition that supports his argument. The oilier half of the definition, article la, states that the
Convention applies to "tribal peoples in independent countries whose social, cultural and economic
conditions distinguish them from other sections of the national community, and whose status is regulated
wholly or partially by their own customs or traditions or by special laws or regulations." This definition is
more in line with Ingold's "relational" method. However, the two criteria in the Convention are mutually
independent, hence at least one of the criteria is certainly based on the "genealogical method." Another
international definition of indigenousness - that put forth by the World Bank in their Operational Directive
4.20, is quite "relational." It suggests that "Indigenous peoples can be identified in particular geographical
areas by the presence in varying degrees of the following characteristics: (a) a close attachment to ancestral
territories and to the natural resources in these areas; (b) self-identification and identification by others as
members of a distinct cultural group; (c) an indigenous language, often different from the national
language; (d) presence of customary social and political institutions; and (e) primarily subsistence-oriented
production." Hence, this international definition is much more "relational," to use Ingold's terminology.
Ingold could have better supported his argument by referring to the way the United States determines
209
the grounds that they define indigenousness on the basis of descent (the "genealogical
model") rather than on the basis of "emplacement in the world" (the "relational model"),
and in doing so provide a definition of indigenousness that reflects a colonial mentality:
To describe indigenous people as those who were 'there first' is to situate them
within a history conceived as a narrative of colonial conquest and state formation.
... In a sense, then, the official definition of indigenous status faithfully reflects
the self-perception of the non-indigenous populations of nation states, as
descendants of settlers who founded the nations they represent on alien soil. . . .
For the genealogical model is fundamentally a colonial model. . . . (Ingold
2000:151).
The very idea that originality can be passed on by descent, along chains of
genealogical connection, seems to imply that it is a property of persons that, can
be transmitted, rather like a legacy or endowment, independently of their
habitation of the land. On the other hand, this very habitation is claimed as the
root source of aboriginal identity. How, then, can an identity that lies in people's
belonging to the land reappear as a property that belongs to them? (Ingold
2000:132).
Ingold argues that "the genealogical model fundamentally misrepresents the ways in
which the peoples whom we class as indigenous . ... actually constitute their identity,
knowledgeability, and the environments in which they live" (Ingold 2000:133). People
actually constitute their identity and recognize one another as sharing an identity not
through "their genealogical proximity as determined by a past history of relatedness, but
the extent to which their own life-histories are intertwined through the shared experience
of inhabiting particular places and following particular paths in an environment" (Ingold
2000:148).
In Ingold's view, then, indigenousness is relational to and inseparable from
inhabiting the land. In this way it recalls Anderson's concept of "sentient ecology," in
Native American status, which h by blood quantum (generally 1/8) and is therefore quintcssentiaJly
"genealogical."
210
which it is through "knowing the land" that one acquires rights to the land and its
resources (D.Anderson 2000, 1998; sse also Fondahl 1998:18, 34 for a discussion of this
among the Evenki in Transbaikalia). Thus the more restrictive definition in Russian law
of those eligible for the status of "indigenous, small-numbered peoples," with its
insistence on residence "in the territories of traditional settlement of their ancestors," and
on "preserving a traditional way of life" more closely approximates Ingold's relational
model. In fact, such emplacement in and engagement with the land has consistently been
more important in the Soviet / Russian context than the genealogical criterion, at least for
the determination of who qualifies for certain concessions. For example, the original
1926 statute enumerating the indigenous minorities of the Soviet Union states that
"Persons and groups belonging to any small ethnic national group living a settled way of
life in cities and settlements, the inhabitants of which are not included in small ethnic
national groups" shall not qualify for special consideration (quoted in Novikova
1999:55). Hence, they lose out on the privileged status by virtue of not living what was at
that time considered a "traditional way of life." Likewise, two of the three new
framework laws discussed above extend to "persons not belonging to the small-numbered
peoples, but permanently living in places of their traditional residence and traditional
economic activities, and conducting, like the small-numbered peoples, traditional nature
use and a traditional way of life."16 Lifestyle and connections to the land are critical
criteria for this status, and in this way, the Russian definition of who qualifies for
16 Article 3 of the law "On Territories of Traditional Natural Resource Use of the Indigenous Small-
Numbered Peoples of the North, Siberia, and the Far East of the Russian Federation"; see also Article 3
paragraph 3 of "On Guarantees of the Rights of the Indigenous Small-Numbered Peoples of the Russian
Federation" for a similar statement of extension of rights to non-indigenous peoples.
211
concessions is a "relational" one rather than a "genealogical" one, to use Ingold's term-
inology.
While I'm sympathetic to Ingold's objections to the genealogical model and find
his relational model compelling in theory, I am uncomfortable with its policy
implications. To be fair to Ingold, he explicitly acknowledges and addresses this
objection, and qualifies his analysis by saying, "[W]hat follows is not intended as a
contribution to the analysis of the relations between indigenous minorities and nation
states" but rather an exploration of the patterns of thought that underlie official
definitions of indigenous (Ingold 2000:133, 151). In this dissertation I am less interested
in defining "indigenous" as an analytical concept and more interested in understanding
what the concept does and how it is used by actors and stakeholders to lay claim to
certain rights and privileges.
Any attempt to put Ingold's relational definition to work in policy would
effectively limit indigenous peoples to a subsistence lifestyle based on the land if they are
to qualify for the rights and privileges that go along with the status. Hence, it would
either discourage people from choosing a "non-traditional" path off the land, or, in the
event they were to choose such a path, would jeopardize their indigenous status. In many
cases it is exactly these people who have formed the cores of politically active and
17 In fact, in practice in the Russian context, the genealogical method comes into play, as in Soviet Union
and until very recently in Russia, all citizens had their nationalities written in their passports, and it was on
the basis of this official identification of nationality that census figures were derived and on this basis
people could qualify for the concessions allotted to the indigenous minorities. At birth, the parents would
declare a nationality for the infant; then, when a person turned 16, they had the right to determine their own
nationality, which would be selected from the nationalities of their parents or grandparents. So, for
example, a person with one Russian grandparent, one Ukrainian, one Tyvan, and one Tofa could choose to
have any one of these four nationalities in his/her passport. See below for the impact this has had on the
demographics of the Tofa people.
212
effective indigenous intelligentsia who have done much to advance the causes of
indigenous peoples.
If, for example, a family of reindeer herders has five children, and two of them
continue with the reindeer herding lifestyle while the other three do other things - one
gets married and moves to the regional capital but can't find work; one finds work with a
gold mining operation; and one goes on to university and medical school and becomes a
doctor. Do these three children (or if not they, then their children) lose indigenous status
by virtue of having left the life on the land, while their siblings are still indigenous? This
strikes me as problematic. It is important to recognize that an increasingly crucial
component of indigenous people's cultural survival and their continuing movement
toward self-sufficiency and self-determination will be just this sort of diversification of
the population, this branching out into non-traditional as well as traditional spheres, and
the interdependence between them. In my research among the Tozhu, I had expected to
find marked differences in attitudes between settled villagers on the one hand and
nomadic taiga dwellers on the other. What I found instead is that they perceive these as
two interdependent, mutually compatible aspects of the same lifestyle, and shift quite
easily from one to the other. The taiga-dwelling nomads go into the village several times
a year for supplies, and their children tend to live with settled villagers during the school
year. The villagers, on the other hand, send their children out to stay with their nomadic
relatives for the summer, and will spend several weeks a year out in the taiga with their
relatives, hunting and gathering pine cones, medicinal plants, berries, and mushrooms.
While the distinction between the taiga/village and the city was much more marked, there
are examples of taiga dwellers with friends and relatives in the city, and they each
213
provide certain necessary services to one another, Piko Sainbuu, my principal host when I
was in the taiga, has relatives in Kara Khaak, a village near Kyzyl. He and his brothers
from the Tozhu District stay with them when they have to come into the city. Their urban
relatives, in turn, go out to Piko's camp to hunt and gather pine cones in the autumn.
Indeed, such diversification is one more manifestation of the flexible and adaptive
tradition of indigenous peoples, and shouldn't be constrained or prevented by legal
definitions stipulating conformance to an idealized "traditional" lifestyle and place of
residence.
Another objection I have to the "relational method" in practice is that it could
arguably grant indigenous status (or at least a status equal to indigenous) to non-
aboriginals living "a traditional way of life," who, using the relational method, could be
considered "indigenous." Indeed, many have argued that the special status, if there is to
be one, should be conferred not on the basis of ethnic affiliation, but rather on the basis of
lifestyle (i.e., the relational method). As mentioned earlier, this was the rationale behind
the initial 1926 statute mentioned earlier and is to some degree present in the current laws
discussed above.18 Pika acknowledges this objection: "Does the accordance of special
rights to minority peoples on their historic territories not "simultaneously infringe upon the
rights of those living on the same territory but not belonging to that group?" (Pika
1999:31). He responds with an unequivocal "NO," and justifies this response on the basis
of the overwhelming demographic, economic, and political domination of non-
18 The Constitution of the Sakha Republic protects non-indigenous "Russian and other :old residents'"
(such as Old Believers) (see Osherenko 2001:712). Osherenko (citing Fondahl) also notes that the
temporary rules for creating territories of traditional nature use in the Chita Oblast' "avoid ethnic criteria
and extend use rights not only to the indigenous Evenk population, but also to non-Evenks who participate
in traditional activities such as hunting" (Osherenko 2001:722).
214
indigenous peoples throughout Siberia (Pika 1999:32; see also Kurilov 1999:73-74 and
Yamskov 1999:122 for similar responses to this objection).
I second that argument and would further argue that non-aboriginals should be
excluded from the preferential treatment because, in general, they have very different
relationships to the land and to the natural resource base than do the descendants of
aboriginals. This is not to put forth the naive and romanticized notion of the nobb
indigenous, nor to suggest that there is a single "native" or "aboriginal" or "indigenous"
mentality or worldview that is "in harmony with nature." Indeed, I have witnessed To/hu
reindeer herders violate their own stated norms of behavior with regards to hunting- For
example, while traveling up to Cha-Cha Shyngylai's summer campsite, he explained to
me that he would not kill a female elk or moose during the summer, while it was still
nursing its young. Yet the very next day, when he saw a female elk with a calf, he
grabbed his gun and ran off to try to shoot it (he was unsuccessful). On another occasion,
while returning from a fishing trip with two Tozhu herder-hunters, a white owl flew low
over our heads. One of the men raised his shotgun and shot at it. I had often heard that
.owls, especially white ones, might be cher eeleri (spirit masters), so I asked him why he
had tried to shoot it. He shrugged his shoulders a bit sheepishly and replied, "Well, It's
not like I could have really hit it."
Nor is it to say that all non-aboriginal people are rapacious and unconcerned
about the consequences of their actions. Even Pika makes an exception for what he calls
"nativized" people - especially the Starovery (Russian Old Believers) - who practice
"traditional economic activities" and "traditionally sensitive resource use" (Pika
1999:71). Yet one can say that, in general, there are deeply ingrained differences in
215
attitudes toward nature and natural resources between indigenous peoples and colonizers
or descendants of colonizers that are often the source of conflict between these two
groups. Colonizers' attitudes toward land are historically rooted in Enlightenment
philosophy and the Bible and best exemplified by John Locke's arguments that "God has
given to Humanity the earth and the reason to make use of it to its best advantage"
(Durman 2000:81), and that "ownership of land required the transformation of nature
through the investment of human labor. In this view, one had to farm Hand in order to
claim if* (Perry 1996:15; cf. Cumberland 2002). A similar rationale underlay the U.S.
Homestead Act of 1862, which granted "unappropriated public lands" to anyone who
cultivated it continuously for five years, and the legal fiction of terra nullius used to
justify British colonizers' expropriation of land from aboriginals in Australia. The
Brazilian government has justified clearing rainforest (and the indigenous people on it) to
create cattle pasture using a similar argument - that the land is not being used
productively. While living on an Israeli kibbutz in predominantly Palestinian populated
territory, I often heard Israelis justify such settlements in Palestinian territory with a
similar argument: 'The Palestinians don't use the land, but look what we've done! We've
made the desert bloom!" All such initiatives have operated on assertions that the land in
question was unoccupied, unappropriated, or underutilized, and that it must be
"improved" or "transformed" through labor to meet the needs of the human population.
Such an approach lo property rights denies either the existence of the indigenous peoples
occupying those lands, or, where it recognizes their existence, denies their rights to those
lands.
216
The Russian Empire and its successor state, the Soviet Union, was perhaps the
greatest advocate of transforming nature of them ail, using many of the same rationales as
European colonial powers. In some cases Russian / Soviet authorities used a terra
nullius-type argument to justify this transformative impulse (Forsyth 1992:182, 186). As
Meshcheryakov has put it, in official Soviet ideology the natural landscape prior to
industrial transformation was "at best qualified as an empty void, as a sort of
nothingness" (Meshcheryakov 1993:45). In other cases, the authorities acknowledged the
existence of the indigenous population, but presented the indigenous peoples as lazy,
dirty, godless, uncivilized, and in need of guidance and salvation (see Khodarkovsky
1997; Slezkine 1994), and justified the radical transformation of nature by blaming the
environment for the social and cultural shortcomings of the native Siberians: 'The
environment bore the sole responsibility for backwardness and superstition [of the
indigenous population], and a revolutionary change in the environment was expected to
result in prompt and predictable changes in society and the human psyche" (Slezkine
1994:254). Nature was, in fact, "depicted not as an ally of man, but his enemy," and "the
main duty of Soviet man is to conquer the earth" (Meshcheryakov 1993:44-45). I needn't
to go into the ecological consequences of this attitude toward nature (Feshbach and
Friendly 1992; Komarov (Wolfson) 1980). The whole emphasis on ever-increasing
production quotas in the five-year plans, without regard for carrying capacities or the
regenerative capacity of the natural resource base imposed a regime upon the indigenous
peoples totally at odds with their understanding of their relationship with nature and their
role as integral parts of nature. The "virgin lands campaign" in the Kazakhstan steppes in
the 1950s and the introduction of a cotton monoculture in Uzbekistan are just two
217
examples of culturally and ecologically devastating Soviet initiatives based on this
attitude. In many cases, it is this conquering and transforming approach to nature that
carries over in the descendants of the early colonizers, and it is still at odds with the
overall attitudes of the indigenous population.
Such conflicting attitudes are manifest in the Tozhu and Tofa peoples'
perceptions of Russians, and vice-versa. Many of the Russians who still live in Alygdzher
were bora there and have roots there that go back three or four generations. They were
all, to a person, gracious, open, and hospitable to me. Their homesteads were
impressively appointed, tangible results of their own hard work and industriousness, and
presented quite a contrast to what appears to the Russians (and indeed it is the overriding
impression of most Westerners) as the generally dilapidated conditions in which most of
the indigenous Tofa population live. But for the Tofa, their spartan lifestyle simply
reflects the fact that they do not feel the need to accumulate wealth in the form of
personal belongings.
Russians in Alygdzher hold virtually all the administrative posts, from mayor of
the village to director of the post office to school librarian to representative of the gold
mining firm (de facto director of the hunting enterprise), and even, somewhat
paradoxically, director of the Tofa cultural center. They see Alygdzher as their village,
and express the belief that it would simply disintegrate if they didn't maintain it. They
resent the subsidies the indigenous Tofa people are entitled to - in addition to a monthly
posobiya (subsidy), the Tofa get free helicopter transport to the nearest town
(Nizhneudin.sk) to deliver babies and for other medical situations, which the Russians do
not get. Yuri Antsiferov, the Russian mayor of Alygdzher, complained that the benefits
218
inscribed in the new laws are ail for the indigenous Tofa, "But this is our place too," he
said. "Here live Tofa and Russians, and we're all mixed up, intermarried. Our lives are
the same, we all have the same problems. We've also been here for three or four
generations." Russians also express resentment at the attention the Tofa people have
gotten from international journalists and anthropologists, which has included material
support to establish programs to help Tofa students get into university with below
minimum qualifications, and financial resources to help jumpstart a Tofa culture and
language revitalization program.19 The Russians say the Tofa are lazy and drink too
much. If only they were willing to work harder, they could be doing fine on their own.
But they don't get out and hunt enough, don't work hard enough at it, and that's why
they're still poor. Of course, from the Tofa perspective, the Russians are rapacious and
overhunt. One Tofa man who sits on the Land Commission exclaimed, "It would be
better if there were no Russians here at all. The city is for Russians - Russians shouldn't
leave the city. They have cows, milk . Come winter, all they have to do is slaughter one
cow - that's enough for a family. They don't need wild game meat. We do. Why should
they come here and hunt?"20
Similar undercurrents of ethnic tension and resentment exist in the Tozhu District
in particular and throughout Tyva in general. The Tozhu people accuse Russians of
poaching and of indiscriminately shooting all they see. At the First International Exhibit
of Hunting Trophies - 2002 in Moscow, representatives from Tyva - mostly Russians -
won by far the most medals of the 84 administrative regions participating. One Russian
19 In the interests of full disclosure, I was involved in both of these activities.
20 This particular respondent asked not to be identified.
219
hunter in particular from the Tozhu District won more medals than any other single
individual. When I have shown the catalogue to Tyva people and they see this particular
hunter's name attached to so many of the trophies, they express anger and dismay at the
excess this demonstrates. As one informant told me, "If a Russian sees five elk, he'll
shoot them all, then just take the parity [the antlers-in-velvet] and the penis and leave the
rest to rot. A Tozhu will only kill one and use all of it, and let the others go free."
This is not only an issue between Tozhus and Russians, but between Tozhus and
other Tyva people as well. As an example, in 1999 a Tyva kommersant (entrepreneur)
from Kyzyl had used a tanketa (a sort of tractor with tank treads) to make his way from
one of the gold-mining bases out to a lake in one of the principal Tozhu reindeer-herding
regions. There he and his partner fished with nets - a practice the local Tozhu people do
not consider acceptable - and caught some two tons of fish to bring back to the city to
sell, but on his way back to the gold-mining base, his tankeia broke down, and all the fish
rotted. The wasting of the fish added insult to the injury of perceived overfishing using
unacceptable means, When the reindeer herders heard that he was planning another such
trip in 2000, one young herder asked if 1 could help him try to blow up the tanketa. This
reaction was quite surprising, especially in light of the generally non-exclusive attitude
toward outsiders that most Tozhu expressed, and I can only attribute that to the sheer
volume of the fish caught, so much in excess of subsistence needs. However, from the
kommersant's perspective, he was doing nothing wrong. In fact, he had official
permission, and as far as he was concerned, he was simply conducting business and
working hard to make some money.
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These observed differences in attitudes toward the environment and natural
resources lead me to agree with Pika and others that non-aboriginal peoples should not be
considered "indigenous," nor should they be granted the same rights and concessions
simply because they live a life on the land. There truly is a different attitude toward the
environment and natural resources that is expressed in their behavior. The Russian hunter
mentioned above has lived his life in the taiga and is highly regarded as one of the best
"taiga men" - a tough, resourceful person who can handle whatever situation the forces
of nature throw at him. Yet his relationship with the taiga and with the animals of the
taiga, his attitude toward the resources of the taiga, is distinctly different from the
Tozhus' attitudes.
On "traditional"
The more important objection I have to the Russian definition of "indigenous" has to do
with exactly what makes this definition "relational," to use Ingold's term. That is the
insistence in all these Jaws - and in the very definition of "indigenous small-numbered
peoples" - on the "traditional."
In outlining his concept of "neotraditionalism," Pika explicitly asserts that
neotraditionalism "does not mean a return to the past. It is a forward-looking
development" (Pika 1999:23). Pika discusses at length the artificial dichotomization
between the "traditional" and the "modem" (Pika 1999:ch,2), and is careful to avoid this
trap: "Rather than get lost in a sea of false oppositions, we need to search for
alternatives, or better, create them. One such alternative, free from the extremes of a
narrow 'traditionalist' or 'modernizing' approach, is the concept of neotraditionalism'"
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(Pika 1999:20). According to Pika, "Normal development (especially for ?numerically
small ethnoses) should allow for a person to inculcate the 'modern.' 'developed' and the
'ethnic' simultaneously" (Pika 1999:20-21). Such development would include "not only
monetary help from state funds. , . , but transfer of the means of production (land,
resources, and special economic rights). Land and water resources, rights of resource use,
rights to a share of profits from developed sub-surface resources. . . should all be
transferred directly to obshchinas, family-clan groups, northern associations, and
individuals" (Pika 1999:23-24). If this were the case, "Peoples of the North themselves
could then develop entrepreneurial activities in the non-traditional branches of the
economy such as services for the infrastructure of their villages, allocation of paid
services to newcomers, tourism, and so on" (Pika 1999:24-25).21
The framers of the new Russian laws appear to have taken the "traditional" to
heart, but to have left the "neo-" out of the picture. Thus Article 1 of the law "On the
General Principals of Organization of Obshchiny of the Indigenous Small-Numbered
Peoples of the North, Siberia, and the Far East of the Russian Federation" (20 June, 2000)
limits the activities of the obshchiny to "protection of the primordial environment of their
inhabitancy preservation and development of their traditional ways of life, economic
systems, economic activities and cultures." Article 6 of the same law explicitly prohibits
any activity that doesn't fall within these limitations, while article 5 explicitly states that
"The activities of the obshchiny must be of a non-commercial nature." The law "On
Territories of Traditional Natural Resource Use of the Indigenous Small-Numbered
21 However, at another point, Pika asserts that special laws for the ethnic minorities "'should reach out
primarily to culturally specific issues," and that "Ethnic law should encroach to a lesser extent (perhaps
even a minimal one) upon general civil law, and the formulations of macro-economic structures in the
regions" (Pika 1999:32).
222
Peoples of the North, Siberia, and the Far East of the Russian Federation" (7 May, 2001)
stipulates that members of the small-numbered peoples and their obshchiny "have the
right to free-of-charge use of common mineral and fossil resources, located within the
territories of traditional natural resource use, for personal need' (my italics) (see also
Article 14 of the Law on Territories of Traditional Natural Resource Use for a similar
restriction). The "for personal need" stipulation again limits the members of the small-
numbered peoples to subsistence use of these resources. In addition, economically
valuable mineral and fossil resources such as gold, natural gas and oil are not included in
the term "common mineral and fossil resources."
Of course, this insistence on the "traditional" begs the question of
definition.There is a large literature discussing and analyzing the concept of "traditional"
(see, inter alia, Bjerkli 1996; Gusfield 1967; Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983). But in the
Russian-language literature, "traditional" has become a buzz-word, and phrases with
"traditional" have become catch-phrases, bandied casually about without ever
questioning their premises. Witness not only the use of the terms "traditional way of life,"
"traditional economic systems and activities," and "territories of traditional settlement" in
these laws, but also, in the Russian-language literature, the proliferation of studies with
such terms as "traditionalism" (traditsionalizm), "traditional natural resource use"
(traditsionnoe prirodopol'zovaniye), "traditional land use" {traditsionnoe
zemlepol'zovanie), "traditional branches of economy" (tradiisionnye otrasli
khozyaiisivovaniya), etc. in their titles.22 Many of these articles and studies have
22 As an example, no fewer than eight of the articles in the collection Customary Law and Legal Pluralism
(Novikova and T ishkov 1999b) have these phrases in their titles.
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sophisticated and nuanced analyses of such difficult topics as customary law,
assimilation, representation, the pros and cons of granting special rights and privileges to
indigenous minorities, etc. However, with the notable exception of Pika (1999), to there
has been little discussion questioning or problematizing the term "traditional" and its
underlying assumptions (however, see Ovsyanikov 1999; Fondant and Poeizer 2003 and
Sokolovsid 2002 also note that, this concept needs to be clarified). When I have discussed
this with some of my Russian and Tyvan colleagues, they've expressed surprise that I
feel a need to have the term "traditional" defined. As one colleague put. it. "If your
parents and grandparents were hunters and reindeer herders, then that's what's traditional
for you. My parents and grandparents are goat herders, not hunters, so goat herding is
traditional for me, not hunting. We hunt anyway, but it's not traditional." When I
suggested that the means of carrying out these activities have changed so much that they
are no longer traditional, she objected: "It's not the way you do it that makes it
traditional; it's what you do."
Yet the laws themselves indicate that the way of doing things does indeed matter.
The only one of these laws that posits a definition of sorts is the 1996 law "On the
Fundamentals of State Regulation": 'The traditional lifestyles of indigenous small-
numbered peoples of the North is the mode of existence based on the historical
experience of their ancestors in the areas of natural resource use, social organization, and
way of life, based on their original culture and customs, and religious beliefs" (Article I,
paragraph 7). The law "On territories of traditional natural resource use" defines
"traditional natural resource use" as the "historically formed ways of using natural
resources by the indigenous, small-numbered peoples that guarantee inexhaustible natural
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resource use...." (Article 1). The same article goes on to define the customs (obychai) of
the indigenous, small-numbered peoples as the "rules for conducting traditional natural
resource use and traditional ways of life that have been traditionally formed and widely
practiced by the indigenous peoples." These definitions certainly imply that the way of
doing things, the means, and the goals of the activity do matter. But the activities that are
considered "traditional" - hunting, fishing, gathering, reindeer herding - while still being
pursued, are in all cases I know of in the Soviet/Russian context very different from the
way they were pursued in "the historical experience of their ancestors." For example, the
introduction of snowmobiles has revolutionized reindeer herding in the tundra areas of
Siberia. During Soviet times, helicopters were routinely used not only to get all sorts of
supplies out to herders and hunters - supplies that certainly wouldn't have been
considered traditional - but also to herd reindeer, to hunt wild reindeer and other game,
and to hunt predators such as wolves. Prior to that, the introduction of firearms caused a
revolution in the lifestyles of the hunting populations in Siberia. Thus the means of
leading a "traditional" lifestyle have changed dramatically over the years. What now of
the goals? It is generally assumed that indigenous peoples leading traditional lifestyles
are engaged in subsistence activities. How exactly does one define "subsistence," and
what is necessary for a subsistence lifestyle? Is a snowmobile necessary? A high-powered
rifle with a scope? A house in the village for the wife and children during the schoolyear?
A television for the house? A truck to move one's belongings from camp to camp? If so,
are the activities necessary to generate the cash to purchase such necessities still
considered subsistence? In pre-Soviet times, the indigenous peoples of Siberia had to kill
more fur-bearing animals than they needed for subsistence to pay the required yasak (tax
225
or duty). During Soviet times, hunters were organized into state-run hunting enterprises
to hunt fur-bearing animals far beyond their subsistence needs to generate state revenues.
So hunting hasn't since the 17th century at least been a purely subsistence activity. Was
hunting for these purposes still "traditional"? If so, then is it still to be considered
"traditional" when indigenous hunters kill fur-bearing animals and other wild game
beyond their subsistence needs to supply the black market in contraband animal parts to
generate cash to purchase the abovementioned items? These are obvious examples of
how difficult it is to define "traditional," and yet the term is still bandied about as if
everyone knows exactly what it means.
What arc the underlying assumptions about "traditional" that are not being dealt
with in the Russian context? First, the insistence on the "traditional" in the Russian laws
assumes that there is an objectively identifiable "traditional" out there. Secondly, it
assumes that this "traditional" remains more or less intact, or at least is somehow
available and accessible to the indigenous, small-numbered peoples for them to
reconstruct. Let me deal with these one at a time.
The Russian conception of indigenousness as being based on "living a traditional
way of life" assumes that "traditional" is something that was always there before Russian
contact changed it all, something that was static, stagnant, and unchanging, as opposed to
the dynamism of progress and modernity (see Pika 1999 Ch. 2; see also Gusfield 1967;
Bjerkli 1996). Yet in fact the real "tradition" of indigenous peoples has always been one
of flexibility, adaptability, and change, not stability and stagnation. Tradition itself is not
ahistorical, as Eric Wolf (1982) has so convincingly reminded us. It is a historical
process, a product of change, growth, and development, the shedding of some elements
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and taking on of others. As Gusfieid observes, tradition "is rather plucked, created, and
shaped to present needs and aspirations in a given historical situation" (Gusfieid
1967:358). Gusfieid further notes that what is considered "traditional" within a single
"traditional" society often includes a wide variety of expressions, some of which may
even seem contradictory. He suggests that such diversity "provides legitimizing
principles for a wide set of alternative forms of behavior" (Gusfieid 1967:354). Witness
the alacrity with which indigenous peoples the world over have accepted innovations
introduced by foreigners. But forcing people to identify and define a certain way of doing
things as "traditional" risks "traditionalizing the traditional" (Bjerkli 1996:18). "If we
codify the flexible, we risk standardization. Hence adaptation will lose some of the
elasticity that it requires, and a genuine 'traditional5 condition slips between our fingers"
(Bjerkli 1996:18).
The problem is that the people involved face a situation where they feel that their
rights are not recognized unless they live up to a certain understanding and certain
expectations. A consequence could be that they are forced to 'invent' the [land]
use as a fixed 'tradition.' Such a situation could do damage to the flexibility that
is an important element both in previous and present use. (Bjerkli 1996:4-5).
Ronald Niezen likewise sees the need for indigenous peoples to live up to an unrealistic,
romanticized image as a constraint on their options:
Indigenous peoples are unlike other ethnic minorities in the extent to which they
must rely upon such presentations of collective self to achieve a desired degree of
political influence. . . . Indigenous identity is thus not a simple reflection of
timeless values and practices; ii is based in large measure on a compendium of
cultural facts and artifacts intended for consumption within a dominant national
society and an international audience. Indigenous lobbying is inseparable from the
cultural and spiritual trends within its audiences, trends that seek some form of
perfection or ancestral source of wisdom from the native, aboriginal, or
indigenous "others." From the point of view of indigenous lobbyists, this is as
much a source of constraint as influence. . . . [T]he expectations of those from a
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dominant culture seeking indigenous wisdom as a corrective to their own lives
intrude upon the abilities of indigenous peoples to adapt, to develop (heir
economies, and to move beyond compelling cultural images as the source of their
entry into global society. (Niezen 2003:191-192).
The second major problem with the concept of the "traditional" is the underlying
assumption that the "traditional" forms survive - in either active or latent form - and are
readily accessible to the indigenous minorities of Russia. I have already cited the
tautological Article 1 of the law "On territories of traditional natural resource use," which
defines the traditions of the indigenous, small-numbered peoples as "rules for conducting
traditional natural resource use and traditional ways of life that have been traditionally
formed and widely practiced by the indigenous peoples." The implicit assumption is that
these rules are still more or less intact in some vague original form: Phrases such as "the
indigenous peoples. . . of the Russian Federation, who continue to live the way their
ancestors did" (Haruchi 1999:23), and "historically arising folk norms of land and natural
resource use, that is to say, those norms which were completely formed by the beginning
of the 20th century, which are partially preserved by elders to this day, which have been
recorded by ethnographers and which are today accepted by the population as 'of the
people from time"immemorial' (iskonno narodnykh)" (Yamskov 1999:120) abound in the
Russian-language literature. It's not as if these researchers have ignored the impact of the
Russian and Soviet influence on the indigenous minorities. On the contrary, both of these
articles I've just cited and many more have discussed it eloquently and at length (see,
inter alia, Ovsyanikov 1999; Yetylin and Tregubov 1999). Yet there persists in these
writings a disconcertingly sanguine assumption that the "traditional" - living "the way
their ancestors did," the "mode of existence based on the historical experience of their
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ancestors," the "historically arising folk norms" - are still out there just waiting to be
released. In discussing the Chukchi, Krupnik and Vakhtin remark
During the early 1990s, both the district administrations and many native leaders
were convinced that as soon as the cumbersome state-operated reindeer farms
were dismantled, the indigenous Chukchi herding culture would recreate itself
almost immediately and be all but intact. With this, all the former subsistence
knowledge, individual herder's initiative, and social support network would soon
flourish again. The reality turned out to be quite different. ... To almost
everyone's surprise, the core and the 'soul' of the Chukchi herding culture was. in
fact, crashed by the pressure of the Soviet welfare state and by the modernisation
it enforced. (Krupnik and Vakhtin 2002:16-17)
Gray, also referring to the Chukchi reindeer breeders, has arrived at similar
conclusions about the lack of a ready "traditional":
... it must be recognized thai the Soviet system both systematically destroyed
reindeer herding as it was practiced in Chukotka prior to collectivization - what is
often called 'traditional' reindeer herding - while at the same time it reconstructed
it in a new, Soviet form and then maintained its existence throughout the
twentieth century. This new form was a reinvention in the image of the Soviet
socialist economy, and by the 1980s any resemblance it bore to pre-
collectivisation reindeer herding was for the most part superficial. In other words,
that, form of reindeer herding - a diversified subsistence economy that had been
developed over many generations and which was rather beautifully self-sufficient
- simply does not exist any more. What does exist is a thing created by the state, a
thing which survives only by virtue of the extent to which it is propped up by that
state. (Gray, forthcoming)
As with the Chukchi, so among the Tozhu and Tofa there is very little left of such
traditional structures to fall back upon. The profound transformation of Tofa culture
wrought by Tsarist Russian and Soviet policies has already been detailed in Chapters 4
and 5. While the situation among the Tozhu is more hopeful, I would still argue that there
is no ready or latent "traditional" for the handful of remaining reindeer herders to fall
back on. The Soviet system created a dependency on the state so complete that once the
state retreated in the early 1990s, nothing was left to fill the void. Herders had become
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dependent on the slate for all basic necessities - clothes, tents, guns, bullets, and food
staples such as flour, sugar, and tea. Today's Tozhu herders have no experience with
making their own ctothes out of animal skins; peeling and boiling birch bark with which
to cover tipis; locating, digging up, drying and grinding lily bulbs for flour and porridge;
making deadfalls and snares to catch game; etc. They also have lost much of the
necessary veterinary knowledge for administering to ill reindeer, since during Soviet
times a trained veterinarian would be helicoptered in on a regular basis to perform this
function.
Finally, with this insistence on the "traditional" with the federal government as its
guardian, these laws ran the risk of degenerating into a modem version of the old Soviet
state paternalism. Note, for example, the wording in the title of Article 5 of the law "On
the Guarantees of the Rights of Indigenous Small-Numbered Peoples of the Russian
Federation" (April 1999): "The Participation of the Russian Federation in the Protection
of the Small-Numbered Peoples." The Russian government has the right (but not the
obligation) to provide federal funds for programs to protect the "primordial dwellings,
traditional ways of life, economic activities and trades" - but note again the emphasis on
the "traditional" and even "primordial"! Such laws as written will freeze people in a
"traditional" way of life and engender dependency on the government to protect and
perpetuate that way of life.
Why descent matters
Ingold's insistence on the "relational method," like the insistence on "traditional" in the
Russian laws, threatens to fossilize indigenous peoples in a prescribed way of life that
230
should in fact remain fluid and flexible, as it has always been. Ultimately the criteria
determining who is indigenous for purposes of rights to resources and ownership of land
should not. impose an unrealistic expectation of an idealized "traditional" way of life on
people. While it cannot be asserted that all non-indigenous people dominate nature and
overexploit resources, while all indigenous peoples integrate harmlessly with nature, I
would argue that there are significant differences that can be generalized across ethnic
groups. These differences in attitude, it is often argued, are what make indigenous
peoples better stewards of the land.
But this sort of presumed indigenous ecological ethic should not be the
justification nor a necessary prerequisite for granting indigenous peoples rights to land
and resources. Their entitlement to land and resources is not grounded in a specified way
of life nor in an idealized relationship to nature, but rather on the fact that the land and
the resources are theirs by virtue of prior or "original occupancy" as the basis for
entitlement to land and resources (Makka and Fleras 2000:89; Niezen 2003:19), no
matter what they choose to do with them now. These lands and resources were
incorporated into modem nation-states often by force, coercion, and treachery. As a result
of economic, technological, military, and demographic inequalities between indigenous
peoples and colonizers, indigenous peoples are disadvantaged, disenfranchised,
discriminated against, and undcrrepresented in the political process. The World Bank's
Operational Direction 4:20 defines "indigenous peoples" as "social groups with a social
and cultural identity distinct from the dominant society that makes them vulnerable to
being disadvantaged in the development process.'" The important point is that their
distinct cultural (ethnic) identity works against indigenous peoples vis-a-vis the dominant
231
majority, and for this reason a distinction must be made.
Other definitions of "indigenous" emphasize a sense of continuity: "Indigenous
communities, peoples and nations are those. , . having a historical continuity with pre-
invasion and pre-coionial societies. . . ,"23 and recognition and acceptance by the
community (see Cobo's definition in Howard 2003:96). These are criteria that pertain at
different levels: original occupancy and historical continuity confer entitlement upon a
collectivity - an indigenous ethnic group. Recognition and acceptance by that collectivity
confer entitlement upon an individual (see Niezen 2003 for a thorough discussion of the
individual vs. collective rights issue). Recognition and acceptance by the collectivity may
be gained through place of birth and / or current residence of an individual (or the
individual's relatives), through affinal relationships with an accepted member, and / or
through descent. In the face of the impracticality of determining group acceptance for
each and every individual, for policy purposes, descent (the "genealogical method") and
place of residence (of an individual or members of an individual's family) serve as the
best proxies for determining individual membership in indigenous groups.
No single definition of indigenous will satisfy everyone in all cases. The original
or prior occupancy criterion risks infinite regression, especially in places with long
histories of conquest, invasion, and occupation. This also causes problems for historically
nomadic populations who migrated over large areas. There will always be conflicting
claims between different indigenous groups, issues of internal differentiation and
fragmentation within indigenous groups, and the potential for what Niezen calls
"indigenous despotism" (Niezen 2003:100) - the tyranny of one faction or group of an
From a United Nations study, cited in Anaya 2000:5.
232
indigenous people over others: "To what extent might indigenous peoples themselves
become oppressive states within states, purveyors of small-scale nationalist chauvinism,
xenophobia, intolerance, and - almost as a corollary - strident repression of those,
weaker still, with whom their vision and identity are at odds?" (Niezen 2003:137).
The genealogical criterion is also not without its problems and ambiguities.
According to Chapter 1, article 26 of the Russian Constitution of 1993, "Each person has
the right to determine and declare his/her own national affiliation." As noted by Fondahl
and Poelzer, "No language requirement, blood quantum, or acceptance by other members
of the people is stipulated" (Fondahl and Poelzer 2003). Even if there were some kind of
blood quantum requirement as the genealogical method implies, there is always the
thorny issue of defining percentages, and the potential to start inclining toward racism.
As Ingold observes, "All attempts to ascribe indigenous identity on the criterion of
descent have been plagued by the problem of miscegenation, and by concern over the
degrees of racial impurity to which this is perceived to give rise" (Ingold 2000:137). The
lack of such requirements leads to situations such as among the Tofa, where anyone with
a remote Tofa ancestor somewhere down the line and who doesn't speak a word of the
Tofa language24 can claim to be Tofa (and have it written in passports), in order to claim
the privileges (and potentially be saddled with the constraints) thai come with the status.
This has resulted in the somewhat misleading population increase among Tofa (see pp.
164-165 above).
The Tozhu case presents ambiguities of another sort. While there is very little
24 The Tofa language is moribund, and almost no one under the age of 40, no matter how Tofa they may be
by descent, speaks Tofa today.
233
Russian-Tozhu intermarriage, there has been a great deal of intermarriage between the
Tozhu and the Tyva populations. Complicating matters is the fact that, while the Tozhu
are recognizably distinct from the majority of Tyva people, they are nonetheless
considered an ethnic subgroup among the Tyva, identify themselves as Tyva as well as
Tozhu, and were only officially recognized as one of the indigenous, small-numbered
minorities in 1993, a status the rest of the Tyva population doesn't qualify for because the
population exceeds 50,000 (see Chapter 3). Thus far the Tozhu have received very little
in the way of extra benefits from this status,25 but if they were to press for their rights,
particularly to priority rights to wild game resources, it could cause quite a bit of
resentment among the general Tyva population, and create ethnic tensions that do not at
present exist.
At the practical level of policy making, recognizing indigenous peoples based on
principles of descent from people who originally inhabited an area prior to colonization
and, where applicable, on continuity of residence / occupancy, is still the fairest and most
practical way of providing those peoples with opportunities that have been systematically
denied them. These opportunities are needed to compensate for the loss of opportunities
associated with coloniaiization, the loss of control over land and resources, and all the
other negative consequences of their forcible incorporation into large state structures -
along the lines of what we call "affirmative action" in the United States for minorities.
Ingold's analysis attempts to remove the concept "indigenous" from the political context
in which it has arisen. It is a bit late for this, as the term "indigenous" has acquired a
"? In fact, when I started ray research in 1998, most Tozhu didn't know they had been granted this status,
and there was absolutely no effective representation.
234
certain currency and cultural capita] in international spheres that lends deserved and
needed legitimacy to the political projects of these peoples.
235
Chapter 8
The Threat of Privatization
Problems with the new legal framework
While the new framework laws outlined in the previous chapter appear to foe quite
progressive with regards to indigenous minorities' rights, in fact they suffer from a
number of weaknesses that render them ineffectual. In addition to the ambiguity
introduced by the term "traditional" in the definition of "indigenous," these laws all
studiously avoid the term "self-determination" (samoopredelenie), preferring instead
"self-administration" (samoupravlenie). This allows the Russian Federation to continue
to deny indigenous peoples true control over their economic resources. Natalia Novikova,
a legal anthropologist who was instrumental in drafting the original version of the law
"On the General Principals of Organization of Obshchiny of the Indigenous Small-
Numbered Peoples of the North, Siberia, and the Far East of the Russian Federation,"
clearly expresses her disappointment with the final version of the law: "The draft has
been changed so drastically that it has almost nothing in common with our original
version. The very ideology of the law had been changed - now there is no provision for
definite land rights or self-government left in it" (Novikova 2002:86).
Russia has not ratified ILO Convention 169, which explicitly and unequivocally
asserts the right to self-determination for all indigenous peoples. Russia is, however, a
member of the United Nations, whose charter somewhat vaguely states that one of the
236
purposes of the United Nations is "to develop friendly relations among nations based on
respect for the principle of equal rights and sell-determination of peoples" (Article 1,
paragraph 2). Article 1 of both the U.N. International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights and the U.N. International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
(both of which Russia has ratified - see Osherenko 2001:703) more specifically assert
that "All peoples have the right to self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely
determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural
development" (cited in Magnareila 2001:433). There has been much heated debate over
who qualifies as "peoples" (see Niezen 2003). The United Nations has limited its
application of the term "peoples" to those who already have "full membership in the
community of nation-states," but not for "stateless peoples" (Niezen 2003:139). The
United Nations recognizes indigenous peoples of classically colonized lands - i.e.,
colonized lands that lie across an ocean from the colonizing country (the "salt-water test"
- see Magnareila 2001, 2002; Niezen 2003:138), but has carefully eschewed recognizing
indigenous minorities who are not separated by an ocean from their colonizers as
"peoples." This lack of recogniztion implicitly denies such indigenous peoples the right
to self-determination. This is the case for the indigenous peoples of Siberia.
In addition, these laws are only very general framework laws. The actual details of how
they are implemented tend to get hammered out at the regional level, so they are not
always interpreted in the same way or evenly enforced. This is further complicated by the
fact that the benefits and privileges that go along with various special statuses and
designations are expressed through a variety of laws, acts, decrees, and codes (e.g.,
republic and federal level forest codes, republic and federal level laws on hunting,
237
republic and federal level land codices - see Fondahl and Poelzer 2003). In many
instances, decrees arc not taken as seriously as laws, and in some cases may simply be
selectively disregarded where it serves the interests of more politically and economically
powerful stakeholders. In the Tozhu case, for example, the president of the Tozhu branch
of the Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North told me that a republic-
level law had to be passed in order to activate these federal-level laws within the Tyva
Republic. He has written one and submitted it to all the necessary legislative bodies, but
has heard nothing back. He asserts that those in power do not want to recognize the rights
of the Tozhu because the resources are simply too valuable to lose control over. In
addition, as numerous commentators have noted, the court system in Russia is still very
weak and ineffectual as a means for indigenous peoples to assert their rights. Finally, the
commitment of the government to these processes is questionable. The vague wording of
the documents imposes no concrete commitments on the government and provides for no
mechanisms of enforcement that the indigenous peoples can fall back on in the event the
government does not show good-faith efforts at protecting the lands and lifestyles of the
indigenous peoples. For example, Article 5 of the law "On the Guarantees of the Rights
of Indigenous Small-Numbered Peoples of the Russian Federation" (April 1999 - cited
above, p. 208) lists 12 actions that the federal government "has Che right" to undertake in
order to protect the lifestyles of the indigenous minorities, but nowhere does it require
the federal government to undertake these actions.
238
The average Russian's suspicion of the market economy and privatization and deep-
seated distrust of the wealthy goes back at least as far as feudal tsarist times, and was, of
course, reinforced by 70 years of anti-capitalist rhetoric. Nowadays it is manifest in the
sneering way Russians and indigenous people alike refer to businessmen as kommersanty
and in the popular play on the word privatization: prikhvatizatsiya, from the Russian verb
prikhvatif, "to seize" (see Humphrey 2002; Tavernise 2003). Privatization of land poses
the greatest threat to both the cultural survival of the indigenous peoples of the Russian
North and to the environmental health of Siberia.1 David Anderson has observed that
"the assault on forms of civic entitlement and participation has never been greater than
with the current politics of privatization" (D.Anderson 1996:100). Anderson and others
(Verdery (ND): Osherenko 1995; see also Hann 1996) have conducted case studies
demonstrating that the Soviet system of property allowed "multiple modes of
appropriation to coexist" (D.Anderson 1998:64). Within this system of social property,
which Verdery characterizes first and foremost as a "cultural system," and as a "system
of power and social relations" (Verdery ND:2), actors employed a variety of strategies
and social relations to gain entitlements to resources. Where post-Soviet land reform
policies of privatization and exclusive land tenure have been instituted, they "have had
the effect of entitling only those who know how to reach the marketplace" (D.Anderson
1 Virtually all observers have commented on the threat of privatization to the indigenous cultures of Siberia.
Cf. inter alia, D.Anderson 1996:100; 1998; Fondahl 1998:84ff.; Golovnev and Osherenko 1999:114-115.
Both Ziker (2002) and D.Anderson (2000:16Qff; 19,98) discuss the Doigans's, Nganasans', and Evenkis'
unwillingness to participate in the decollectivization and privatization processes.
239
Privatization
1998:83), and have tended to disenfranchise politically and economically disadvantaged
groups, especially those leading subsistence lifestyles.
Tyva is an interesting case with regards to privatization. Until 2001. Tyva had
flown in the face of the trend toward privatization that swept the rest of the formerly
socialist world (except Mongolia) by explicitly refuting articles 9 and 36 of the 1993
Constitution of the Russian Federation, which allow for piivate land ownership. This was
even written into the defiant Tyvan constitution of 1993, In which Tyva claimed
sovereignty over its territory and natural resources, and even asserted its right to secede
from the Russian Federation. The relevant article (Article 9) of Tyva's 1993 constitution
states that "Within the territory of the Republic of Tyva private ownership of land will
not be allowed." This rejection of private property reflects an underlying understanding,
developed over centuries of hunting and gathering and free-range pastoral activity, that,
given the low resource density and low predictability of the resource base, management
of forests, hunting and fishing areas, pastures and grasslands under a common-property
regime is more productive and sustainable than under a private-property regime (Mearns
1993; Netting 1976, 1981; Berkes 1989; Gilles and Jamtgaard 1981; Ostrom 1996). In
addition, to this divergence from the Russian constitution, the Tyvan constitution of 1993
unequivocally asserts that it takes precedence over the Russian constitution (Articles 1, 2,
and 11).
In 1998 the president of the Tyva Republic, Shcrig-ool Oorzhak, put before the
voters a referendum to reverse the clause on land privatization. It was soundly defeated.
However, in May of 2001, Oorzhak rammed a new constitution through the parliament
and got it passed. In addition to capitulating on the assertion that Tyva's constitution
240
takes precedence over the Russian Constitution ("The constitution of the Russian
Federation, as an act, possesses supreme juridical authority . . ." Article 8, paragraph2),
the new constitution also replaces the clause prohibiting private ownership of land with
the following (Article 14):
Possession (Vladeniye), use and disposal of land, subsurface minerals and
other natural resources within the territory of the Republic of Tyva shall be
realized in the interests of the people of the Republic of Tyva and in
accordance with the conditions of the constitution of the Russian Federation,
federal laws, laws and other normative legal acts of the Republic of Tyva.
Questions of ownership of land will be regulated by federal legislation and
the constitution of the Republic of Tyva....
The private form of ownership of land within the Republic of Tyva will be
determined by the constitution of the Russian Federaton, federal laws, and also by
the constitution of the Republic of Tyva.
These concessions to the Russian Federation in Tyva's new constitution will pave the
way for wholesale privatization in Tyva now that the Russian Federation has passed the
new Land Codex legalizing the privatization of land (Zemel'nyi Kodeks, 25 October,
2001). In practice, small-scale buying and selling of land has been going on since the
early 1990s, mostly in and around urban areas. But the passage of this Land Codex makes
enormous tracts of land throughout Russia eligible for purchase by private firms and
individuals, thus threatens the insecure tenure of Russia's indigenous peoples.
In the debates leading up to the vote on the new Land Codex, the single most
contentious issue was whether land classified as "agricultural" should be subject to
privatization or not. The Russian government ultimately decided that agricultural lands
will be subject to privatization. In the Russian classification system, reindeer herding falls
under agricultural activities, and reindeer pasturage in some cases is considered
agricultural land. In the Tozhu District. 91,000 hectares of designated reindeer pasture is
241
classified as agricultural lands. Most officially designated reindeer pasturage, however.
lies in lands categorized as lesnoi fond (forest fund), which, under the Land Codex., could
be leased for up to 49 years, but not purchased. However, in an effort to stimulate
development of the timber industry in Russia, on September 17, 2003, the Russian
government approved in principle a new draft of the Forest Codex (Lesnoi Kodeks) that
allows the outright sale of forest lands to private companies, or the opportunity to lease
forest lands for 99 years, with the option of purchase.
As discussed in Chapter 6 (pp. 178-179), the restructuring of the four largest
obshchiny into a GUP took away from Tozhu reindeer herders certain guarantees to
usufruct rights to large tracts of land. The GUP has control over 26,132 hectares (261
krn2). In addition, a bit less than 14,000 hectares (140 km2) is split up among 66 private
leaseholders in the form of LPKh (Lichnoe Podsobnoe Khozyaistvo - Private
Supplementary Economic Activities). To put this into perspective, the local people living
in the Tozhu district have some form of limited legal control over 39,740 hectares (397
km2), which represents less than one percent of the total area of the district.
Almost all of the remaining territory - 4,040,040 of the Tozhu District's total
4,475,749 hectares (90%) - is officially listed as stale forest land,2 and thereby remains
ineligible for sale to private firms or individuals. At present, the Tozhu reindeer herders
range freely over much of this land, but without secure legal rights or tenure. If the
" The statistical information in these two paragraphs has been culled from documents at the State
Committee for Land Resources and Land Tenure of the Republic ofTyva, especially the "Amended Active
Cadastre Map of the Territory of the Tozhu District" (Inv.# 689D, 24 May, 2001), and the "Resolution of
the Chairman of the Administration," No. 312 (26 November, 2001). My thanks to the State Committee for
access to these documents.
242
suggested changes to the Forest Code are implemented, all of these forest lands could
suddenly be up for sale.
The Tyvan government has been planning for the opportunity to develop its timber
resources. Small-scale timber operations have been working in the more accessible areas
of southwestern Tozhu District for some time now. In July 2002, the Tyva government
announced a project to improve
water transportation on the upper
Yenisei River specifically to take
better advantage of timber
resources. The Tozhu District is
the most heavily forested region of
Tyva, and the Bii Kheni River,
one of two large rivers that come
together to foran the Yenisei, runs
through the southern part of the Tozhu District, while the Kham Syra River, a large
tributary of the Bii Khern, runs through the northern part. Forests in the vicinity of these
rivers will most likely be the first to be exploited for timber, with the timber either floated
downriver or brought downriver by barge. Gold mining is another extractive industry
that has expanded in the Tozhu District since the introduction of privatization. Gold
mining is an important part of Tyva's economy, with revenues from the nine existing
mines making up 15% of Tyva's industrial output, more than half of that coming from the
243
Timber and Gold
Tozhu District. At present, there are two active mines in Tozhu, one along the Oina
River, and one along the Kharaal River, both located in the southwestern comer of the
district. The director of these mines, A.A. Nivolin, is conducting explorations for new
veins of gold to the north and east, along the Oo, Temirchi, and Ulug-Bash overs, and to
the northwest along the Kadyr-Os River. These are prime reindeer herding territories, and
also important hunting and fishing grounds for the Tozhu. In addition, in 2002 the Tyvan
Ministry for Natural Resources granted permission for Nivolin and another entrepreneur
to set up yet another gold mining operation in the Tozhu District, along the heretofore
untouched upper reaches of the Bedii River, which serves as the lifeline for one group of
reindeer herders. The Bedii dumps into the Kham-Syra River, the most prolific fishing
river in the Tozhu District. Silt, run-off, and other pollution from the mines will threaten
the fish stocks in the Kham-Syra (although one of the organizers of the new mine denies
that this will be a problem). A crude road linking the upper Bedii to Toora-Khem (the
district capital) has already been built, and stalling in the summer of 2003, heavy
machinery was being transported to the region.
Gold mining has a negative impact on the natural resource base upon which the
hunter-herders depend. The method of river-bed scouring used in Tyva muddies rivers
and severely disrupts riverine ecosystems, and the noise and human activity chases away
wildlife. Nivolin insists that his operations use no chemicals, and denies that they are
detrimental to fish stocks. In fact, he claims that the holding pools their raining operations
create actually serve as food reserves for fish and as safe breeding grounds. The Tozhu
reindeer herders, on the other hand, have complained that there simply are no more fish
downstream from the active gold mines.
244
Many of the 150-200 mine workers (ail non-Tozhu, and only 6 Tyva) hunt and
fish throughout the mining season (March-October). The gold mines pay a certain
surcharge that grants mmewoxkers the right to exploit the natural resources within the
land leased by the mining operation, including timber, fish, and wild animals. But their
hunting and fishing activities often go beyond the borders of their leased land. One of my
Tozhu informants told me that the manager of one of the gold mining bases tried to
exclude him and other Tozhu from a prolific tract of hunting ground, arguing that the
gold-mining base had the right to exclude them. But according to my informant, the tract
the manager tried to exclude him from extended well beyond the mine's leased land. The
construction of a road to the Kharaal and Oina bases has faciJitated access to the taiga
regions of the Tozhu District and enabled a rapid rise in the number of hunters and
fishermen - both legal and illegal - into this region. The gold mining bases provide a
comfortable base of operations for non-Tozhu hunters and fishermen from the capital city
and other areas outside the region to come in and extract resources, The new road and
mining base in the Bedii River region will almost certainly have the same impact.
The new privatization policies threaten the Tozhu in other ways as well. The
government of Tyva has started awarding exclusive fishing rights in certain lakes to the
highest bidder. One woman tried to purchase an entire lake in the Tozhu region. Her bid
was unsuccessful, but that was several years ago, before the new Land Code went into
effect, and her attempt shows that there are people out there just waiting to snatch up land
as soon as it becomes available.
Tourism in Tyva is developing rapidly, and many tour operators have their eyes
on Tozhu. There is already one large and active private turbaza (tourist camp) and a
245
private fishing operation on the shores of Lake Azas in Tozhu. Hunting tourism presents
a particular threat. Stored in the left-luggage facility in Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport
were 12 enormous racks of moose antlers, each rack spanning at least five feet, and each
individual antler as broad as an armchair. The attendant explained that they belonged to
German tourists, and while I cannot confirm that these came from Tyva, the attendant did
say that they came from southern Siberia. While hunting tourism in the Tozhu region is
not yet developed, it is developed in other parts of Tyva, and it's only a matter of time
before it reaches Tozhu. Several tour operators (and even employees of the Hunting
Directorate, and other governmental agencies entrusted with protecting the wild animal
populations) have asked me to find foreign tourists interested in hunting. They have also
asked me to help them make arrangements with reindeer herding Tozhu people to serve
as guides and hosts for foreign hunters. I have refused to participate in such
arrangements, as they seldom benefit the local people, and more often serve to disrupt
their lifestyles and have a negative impact on their resource base.
In the past, the Russian Federation has tried to combat the negative consequences of such
environmentally detrimental human activities as poaching, gold-mining, and timber
operations by establishing protected territories. The Russian Federation has one of the
world's most extensive systems of protected areas, with some 100 zapovedniki (sg.
zapovednik: "strictly protected nature reserves") encompassing 34 million hectares, 1.4%
of Russia's territory. Within Tyva, there are two zapovedniki - the 300400 hectare Azas
Zapovednik in the Tozhu District and the 323,000 hectare Ubsunurskaya Kotlovina
246
The problem with parks
Zapovednik, based in Tyva's southeastern corner. When other protected territories are
taken into consideration,3 protected territories of various statuses occupy 1.3 million in
Tyva (nearly 8% of Tyva's territory).. Tyva has a particularly ambitious program for
expanding its protected territories by 44%, with 35% of the proposed increase planned for
the Tozhu District (Kupriyanov 2001).
While these are laudable goals, the philosophy behind protected territories in
Russia has been one of top-down planning, excluding humans from the territories and
prohibiting all human activities. Under the current thinking, there is no difference
between protected territories and privatized land as far as the Tozhu are concerned. In
either case, they are prevented from entering and using the resources. The Azas
Zapovednik offers an instructive example. With the establishment of the Azas Zapovednik
in 1984, rich reindeer pastures, hunting grounds and rivers important to the subsistence of
the Tozhu people suddenly became off-limits. Tozhu reindeer herders protested
vociferously until in 1991 the government made a minor concession, opening up a narrow
migration corridor across the eastern end of the zapovednik that allows herders to migrate
from the north side of the reserve to the south side. But the great majority of this rich
territory remains off-limits.
Such disregard for the local people in the establishment of parks, combined with
reduced hunting territories and the withdrawal of state salaries since the collapse of the
Soviet Union, have forced local inhabitants to turn to poaching to meet subsistence needs
and to generate an income. In August 2000, one Tozhu person admitted to having killed
3 In addition to zapovedniki (here are less strictly protected areas such as zakazniki (wildlife refuges),
natsional'nye parki (national parks), and pamyatniki prirody (natural monuments).
247
18 musk deer (a threatened species) already that year, principally to sell the highly valued
musk gland.
Experience in other parts of the world has shown that "decentralization of
management over natural resources will provide local benefits, and thus encourage their
conservation" (Taylor 2001:157). As Tyva plans to increase its protected territories,
especially in the Tozhu District, a policy of co-management of protected areas that would
involve the Tozhu herders and hunters in the design of protected areas and give them
some responsibility for monitoring and enforcing regulations is called for. Such a policy
would recognize the Tozhus' reliance on wild animals for their subsistence and respect
their right to hunt, and give them a sense of ownership over the land and resources.
Conclusion
For the time being, such economic activities as gold mining, timber extraction, and
tourism are being conducted on land that still officially belongs to the state and therefore
can co-exist to some degree with the reindeer-herding and hunting activities of the Tozhu
people. But the threat of privatization has suddenly become much more imminent now
that the Russian government has passed the new Land Codex and is preparing a new
Forest Codex. This puts the Tozhu and other indigenous reindeer herders and hunters at
particular risk. They operate in a virtually non-cash economy, and could not possibly afford to
purchase the extensive tracts of land necessary to migrate seasonally, which is crucial to
reindeer husbandry and effective exploitation of wild animal resources alike. They would be
prevented from hunting and grazing their herds on newly privatized land. Parks and other
forms of protected areas can provide protection for indigenous peoples against the threats
248
posed by privatization, but only if they are designed in such a way that involve the
indigenous peoples in their design and implementation.
249
Grappling with Self-Governance and Collective Action
This study was inspired by Cha Cha Shyngylai's dire prediction in 1998 that "In a year,
maybe two, three at the most, there will be no more reindeer in Tyva." Fortunately, that
has not come to pass. As I was designing and preparing for this research project, I had
formed the naive and somewhat romanticized expectation that effective indigenous
institutions for managing both reindeer and common-pool resources would somehow
spontaneously emerge among the Tozhu, perhaps on the basis of some latent, long-
supressed "traditional" knowledge. That has also not come to pass. The reality of the
situation lies somewhere in between. The circumstances the Tozhu and Tofa find
themselves in now arc just as precarious as in 1998, and it is quite possible that Cha
Cha's prediction was only off by a couple of years. As we cast our gaze toward the
future, the question then beomes: How likely is it that the Tozhu and Tofa will ever be
able to (or ever have the opportunity to) develop effective local institutions of sell-
organization and collective action? Examples of successful self-organization at the local
level and creation of local-level institutions for the management of common-pool
resources abound (Bromley, et al. 1992; McCay and Achcson 1987; Berkes, Fecny,
McCay and Acheson 1989; Ostrom, Gardner and Walker 1994; Ostrom 1990). But many
of these success stories point out structural issues that render self-organization in the
Tozhu and Tofa situations especially difficult.
250
Chapter 9
Ostrom, Gardner and Walker suggest that an institutional analysis might begin
with an examination of three factors that affect the action situation under study. These are
"attributes of a physical world," "attributes of the community," and "the rules individuals
use to order their relationships" (Ostrom, Gardner, and Walker 1994:37). These three
factors are intricately intertwined, and interrelated and virtually irapossible to separate
out, as I have been showing throughout the dissertation. However, for the sake of analysis
let me start with the attributes of the physical world.
Attributes of the physical world
In both the Tozhu and Tofa cases, the single most important economic resource is wild
animals, both for meat (predominantly elk, moose, and deer), and for furs (predominantly
sable and squirrel). Blomquist, Schlager, Tang and Ostrom's discussion of the "physical
characteristics that make a difference" (in Ostrom, Gardner, and Walker 1994:308ff)
brings up the issues of storage and stationarity. For the Tozhu and Tofa, wild animals
represent a common-pool resource with nonstationary resource units and unavailable
storage. As Ostrom, Gamder and Walker have put it, "All other things being equal,
appropriators of CPRs that lack storage and / or yield nonstationary resource units face
greater difficulty in devising allocation rules that reduce appropriation externalities"
(Ostrom, Gardner and Walker 1994:309). With nonstationary resource units, it is often
difficult to determine beyond doubt that there is a decline in the resource base, and even
if it were determined definitively, it isn't always clear whether this is a temporary,
cyclical change or evidence of a more permanent condition. Schlager cites J. Wilson's
251
argument that CPR dilemmas meeting the following three criteria are more amenable to
institutional solutions:
? repeated encounters among appropriaiors
? an effective information network
? a collective means for enforcing rules
(Schlager 1994:251).
The Tofa are settled in villages and their hunting grounds are clearly defined, compact,
and adjacent to one another. Hunters often run into one another during the hunting
season, and return trips to the village during hunting season are common. This facilitates
communication and information exchange (as well as violent encounters as detailed in
Chapter 5). The Commission for the Allocation of Hunting Territories discussed in
Chapters 5 settles disputes of rights to rodovye taigi, and the closed stock company ZAO
"Tofalaria" mentioned in Chapter 4 has the power to give and take away hunting permits,
distributes guns and bullets, and is in effect the sole buyer for hunters' products. As such,
these two organizations provide a means - however imperfect and imbalanced - for
enforcing rules. Thus with regard to regulating the wild animal resources within their
territory, the Tofa meet the above criteria to a greater degree than the Tozhu reindeer
herders and hunters.
In the Tozhu case, none of the three conditions holds, leading to a situation where
appropriation externalities are extremely difficult and least amenable to solution
(Schlager 1994:251-252). The Tozhu were until 1950 or so entirely nomadic, and even
today all those intimately involved with reindeer herding still lead a nomadic existence.
in addition to regular migrations as outlined in Chapter 5, since the collapse of the
252
sovkhozy, the size of the herding camps has shrunk to one or two tents (families) as souse
herders feel they can herd and hunt more successfully in smaller groups, Both of these
factors limit opportunities for face-to-face communication (see Ostrom, Gardner and
Walker 1994: Chapter 7 on the importance of face-to-face communication). In Soviet
times, every herding camp had a two-way radio with which they could maintain contact
and exchange information with other herders and with the sovkhoz base. Now, only three
herding camps I know of have functioning radios.
The Tozhu have very little accurate information on the wild animal populations
beyond their personal experience, which varies greatly. While some hunters claim that
the animals are out there and you just have to know where to go to find them, most of the
Tozhu herder-hunters complain that it is becoming
more and more difficult to find wild animals to
hunt and indeed my fieldwork bears this out. For
the first six weeks I was with the herders (March-
April 2000), all of us in the camp ate nothing but
fried bread, macaroni, and rice. Despite almost daily
forays into the nearby taiga and several extended
hunting trips, wild game was simply not to be
found. Even tracks were a rare sight. It was not until
mid-April that Piko came home with a large male
kara hush (wood grouse), the first meat we had had in six weeks. Viktor Syratovich. the
former assistant director of the Hunting Directorate of the Republic of Tyva, the
governmental agency entrusted with the task of monitoring wild animal populations,
253
acknowledged that lack of funds had prevented his agency from conducting an accurate
animal population count since 1985.
Monitoring and enforcement of sanctions against illegal hunting pose yet more
problems. For example, the Azas Zapovednik could, in theory, serve as a source of
storage for wild animal resources. However the structure of the monitoring system has
perverse incentives built into it. All employees of the zapovednik have the right to harvest
natural resources (berries, pine nuts, mushrooms, medicinal plants, and wild animals)
from preserve lands for subsistence purposes, while everyone else is prohibited from
entering the preserve. Such activities are considered a perk of the job and a necessary
supplement to the meager salary (about S30 per month).
In a comparison of the monitoring and enforcement arrangements in 44 irrigation
systems throughout the world, Tang observes that "Effective rale enforcement often
depends on guards that are proactive and willing to impose sanctions whenever rule
violations are found" (Tang 1994:240). At the Azas
Zapovednik. the rangers and inspectors are the opposite
of "proactive." In addition to being allowed to hunt and
gather as a result of their employment, zapovednik
employees are culturally bound to share what they take
with friends and family, and to allow friends and
relatives to come in to the preserve to hunt and gather. While I was staying with the
director of the Azas Zapovednik in the summer of 2003, a young man presented him with
five fresh bear paws, which are considered a delicacy. The director explained that they
came from three different bears, a mother and two cubs. When I pointed out that it
254
appeared to my Western sensibilities to be a bit of a contradiction for the director of a
nature preserve to be accepting the meat of illegally killed animals (out of season and
without a license), he said, "Well, what can I do? It would be insulting of me to refuse
them." Indeed, it would not only be insulting, but it just would not make cultural sense,
and would serve to alienate him from the community at large. Only later did I learn from
another acquaintance that the person who gave the bear paws was an employee of the
zapovednik, and that it was quite likely that he had killed the bears within the park. On
another occasion, a zapovednik ranger (Tozhu) asked me completely unselfconsciously if
I could hook him up with foreign tourists who wanted to go hunting in the zapovednik.
The head ranger (non-indigenous) of the zapovednik has a storehouse full of trophies, and
is commonly referred to as one of the biggest poachers in the entire republic. Such abuses
lead to resentment among those who don't have such easy access to the resources, so they
are not very inclined to respect the rules. Hence some of the Tozhu herders who feel that
they have a right to hunt and graze within zapovednik territory anyway as a result of long
family histories of use of that area feel no compunction about hunting within the
zapovednik. This situation recalls the resentment the Harijans feel toward the Brahmins
that leads them to break rules in the Ahmora region of India (Agrawal 1994).
Despite the Jack of accurate wild animal population counts mentioned above,
anecdotal evidence of the decline of certain wild animals was strong enough to convince
the government to place a moratorium on licenses for mink and musk deer in 2001, and
to cancel the one-month summer elk hunting season (when elk antlers are in velvet) in
2002. Despite these measures, I still personally knew of two hunters who killed elk
during this time. In addition, Syratovich estimated that some 18,000 musk deer were
255
taken illegally. He said that the illegal take of sable was at least three times as great as the
legal take; for elk, he estimated that illegal take was at least 700 - two and a half times
the legal take - out of an estimated total population of 5000 (Donahoe 2003b). The
problem with poaching is further aggravated because appropriates tend to deny that their
own individual actions have anything to do with the decline, and blame other
appropriators (Ostrom, Gardner and Walker 1994: 311). With mobile resource units such
as wild animals it is also more difficult to determine whether people are violating rales or
not unless you catch them in the act, because there is not the same kind of clearly visible
physical evidence that exists when stationary resources are harvested (e.g., freshly cut
grass or branches), as Agrawal describes in his case studies in the Almora district of India
(in Ostrom, Gardner and Walker 1994: 267-282).
In addition, there are exogenous pressures hindering the development of effective
management of wild animal resources. With the collapse of the USSR and withdrawal of
all state subsidies, a thriving black market in contraband animal parts (bear gall bladders,
musk deer glands, elk
genitalia) has emerged as
the best source of income,
not only for the Tozhu but
for everyone in Tyva. In
Kyzyl, one young man in
the central marketplace
who was wearing a sign |
256
around his neck offering to buy gold, dollars and various animal parts, explained that he
would pay up to 4000 rubles ($130) for a large musk gland or bear gall bladder. Such
prices create quite an incentive to poach for anyone in Tyva, where the average monthly
salary for those lucky few who have regular jobs is about $30, but especially for reindeer
herders, who have no regular income at all, Samuel Bowles notes that markets can frame
choices and affect behavior; "The morality of economic agents embedded in a market
context may. . . be quite different from their morality in isolation. While we are not
claiming that people change their nature when they function in markets, it may be that the
competition inherent in markets and the need to survive offers justifications for actions
that in isolation would be unjustifiable" (Bowles 1998:11). As detailed throughout the
dissertation, since the collapse of the sovkhoz system, the Tozhus' financial situation has
become ever direr. Many have been forced to abandon herding altogether and have
returned to the villages, where there is no work. They have no regular income and they
receive little or no support from the GUP, thus they are forced to rely completely upon
themselves, and the most fungible currency for them is wild animal parts. Hence they are
also implicated in a competitive market system and engage in poaching even though this
violates their expressed ideological aversion to overhunting. As put by Ovsyanikov,
"Under the attack of the industrial civilization indigenous peoples either perish or get
involved in the competition for resources according to the laws of market economy.
Participating in that competition, they inevitably pass from traditional use of natural
resources to their use under the rules of industrial civilization" (Ovsyanikov 1999:115).
The Tozhu herder-huntsr who had killed 18 musk deer for their musk glands (mentioned
257
in Chapter 8) is but one example of what may become a more common occurrence
among the Tozhu.
Attributes of the community
Equally significant in the Tozhu case are the attributes of the community. As discussed in
Chapters 4 and 5, in pre-Soviet times, when virtually all Tozhu people were nojuadic
herders and hunters, land was not exclusively "owned" by anyone (although there were
recognized band territories), and wild animals were not considered anyone's exclusive
"property" as such. This lack of exclusivity, and the generosity and hospitality Tozhu
people show to any and all outsiders who come to the Tozhu District for whatever
purpose ? whether to hunt or fish or gather pine nuts or conduct anthropological
fieldwork - are admirable cultural values, but they violate McGinnis and Ostrom's first
"design principle" for robust CPR institutions: "Individuals or households who have
rights to withdraw resource units from the CPR must be clearly defined, as must the
boundaries of the CPR itself (McGinnis and Ostrom 1992:55). Without such boundaries,
common pool resources such as wild game animals and fish cannot be effectively
managed to the advantage of the local indigenous population. Ensminger's study of
institutional change among the Onna and Galole of Kenya could prove instructive here.
Ensminger observes that changes in relative prices (of land and cattle) had the effect of
changing the Ormas' ideological resistance to selling cattle and the Galoles' ideological
commitment to common grazing (Ensminger 1996:169). If the Tozhu perceive these
pressures on resources to be severe enough, it could force a change in their ideology of
non-exclusivity.
258
Another attribute of both the Tozhu and Tofa communities that works against
self-organization is lack of effective leadership. The fact of their nomadic existence prior
to entering the Soviet Union in 1944 combined with the very low population density and
a traditional social organization based on camps of three to seven families would also
have limited their experience with conflict resolution and having to negotiate collective
choice problems. In times of serious interpersonal problems, the preferred solution was
for one person or one group to leave and join up with a different group. There was a fair
amount of flexibility between bands, and with such low population density, there was
always someplace else to go to. This lack of leadership and experience with self-
govenance reveals itself in the Tozhu people's general lack of interest in establishing
private enterprises, as outlined in Chapter 6. Applying for and establishing such an
enterprise requires access to a variety of different kinds of resources, including the
information that such opportunities exist, the time it takes to run around chasing down
officials and getting signatures, facility with the Russian language in order to fill out the
necessary paperwork, an understanding of and patience for bureaucratic processes,
money to be able to travel to the capital, etc. Most of the Tozhu herder-hunters I know
lack formal education, are somewhat ashamed of their poor Russian, and are easily
humiliated by condescending officials and clerks; they feel intimidated by bureaucratic
processes; and they have little or no financial resources. Most importantly, they have to
be out in the taiga with their reindeer. A trip in to the district capital can take up to four
days each way (if indeed it's possible at all), and is very demanding for both humans and
reindeer. Travel to Kyzyl, the republic capital, requires far more time and resources,
including money and a place to stay. Herders simply cannot, leave their herds for such
259
lengths of time. These are all transactions costs that outweigh the perceived benefits for
individual Tozhu herders, who have confidence that they can go out to the taiga and
survive on their own if necessary, as iong as they have reindeer. As discussed in Chapter
6, the only two private enterprises set up for reindeer herding were established by people
in positions of power, who had financial resources and political savvy. The obshchiny
likewise were set up not by reindeer herders themselves, but by others who had the
necessary time, patience, and resources to do so, and who for one reason or another saw
an advantage to going to the trouble of setting them up (see example in next section). As
Bowles has put it. "self-direction . . . requires opportunities and experiences that are
much more available to people who are more favorably situated in the hierarchical order
of society" (Bowles 1998:17).
The Tozhu also have problems with effective representation. During Soviet times,
educated Tyvans from the more populated areas of central and western Tyva, who were
more familiar with the demands of administration, were brought to the Tozhu district to
administer the villages, to direct the sovkhozy, to teach in the schools, to run clinics, etc.
Historically, almost all of the kolkhoz and sovkhoz directors were non-Tozhu and still
today the Tozhu people are greatly underrspresented in positions of authority and
influence, even in their own district. The district governor from 1992-2002 was non-
Tozhu (the current governor is Tozhu). The school director, the director of the Azas
Zapovednik, the director of the GUP., even the representative for the Tozhu to the Russian
Association for the Indigenous Peoples of the North (RAIPON) are all non-Tozhu. In a
group interview with high school seniors in Toora-Khem, one young man started to
260
complain that there wasn't any work in Tozhu, when another senior, Nadia, impatiently
interrupted him. "There's work here," she said,
The problem is, for the most part, that people who have already become dargalar
[bosses, managers] in other districts come here after they retire to work.1 Then
when the korennye [indigenous] Tozhu people come here [to Toora-Khem, the
regional capital], they can't find work because these other dargalar from outside
have got all the good jobs and then give other jobs to all their unemployed
relatives and churitakchyiar [people from their district].2
There is no well-educated Tozhu intelligentsia living in urban areas to represent
their interests to those in power. The earlier lack of distinction between the Tozhu and the
Tyva population in general has also led to problems of effective representation of the
Tozhu at both the republic and
federal levels. At the republic
level, none of the people in the
administration who deal with
issues related to the Tozhu
people and the Tozhu District is
ethnic Tozhu. At the federal
level, the failure to distinguish
between Tozhu and Tyva has led to even greater problems of representation. The
presumption has been that, since Tyva is a republic where the majority of the population
is ethnic Tyva, the best interests of all Tyva people, including the Tozhu, are
1 Throughout Russia people can retire quite early (50-55) and start collecting their pensions, but they can
also continue working. People from other parts of Tyva want to go to Tozhu because of its special status as
a "region equivalent to regions of the far north." This status makes it a sort of "hardship post" and grants
state employess and pensioners a significantly higher amount of money than regions that do not have this
designation,
2 Group interview with the senior class of Toora-Khem High School in their classroom, 23 September
2003.
261
automatically considered. But the Tozhu are an underprivileged indigenous minority
within a republic dominated by an indigenous (but not small-numbered) majority. One
non-Tozhu Tyva man used his political connections and legal savvy to establish one of
the reindeer-herding and hunting obshchina in the Tozhu region. He then managed to use
his documentation as director of one obshchina to convince authorities in Moscow that he
was the representative of all six obshchiny in the Tozhu region. He proudly displayed to
me a letter officially acknowledging his right to represent these Tozhu obshchiny at the
federal level. In fact, except for the two members of his obshchina, the Tozhu people
very openly acknowledged that they did not recognize him as their representative. When I
asked a RAIPON representative in Moscow how this had happened, she said that they
didn't know any Tozhu people and he was very convincing, so there was no reason not to
believe him. Now, still claiming to represent the Tozhu reindeer herders, he has applied
for and been granted permission to set up the new gold-mining operation in the Bedii
River area (mentioned in Chapter 8).
As we have seen throughout the dissertation, Tozhu herder-hunters have exerted
their own agency in an effort to take control of their situations. During Soviet times they
employed a variety of strategies to gain entitlements to resources, even within the
framework of the sovkhozy. Now, in post-Soviet times, we see that they are "muddling
through" (McCay 2002:374) by deciding on their own to build cabins, change migration
patterns, vary camp size and composition, and assert their de facto ownership of reindeer.
Yet the attributes of the community outlined above are proving to be obstacles to
effective management of the commons. The building of cabins and changes in migration
patterns may make sense for individual families in the short term, but as such activities
262
become institutionalized they may well prove to be inefficient institutions that actually
exacerbate the collective action problem. This result runs counter to the assumption of
those institutional analysts who, following Oliver Williamson (1981), believe that
"institutions are expressly designed to reduce transaction costs and that, in a competitive
market, those that fail to do so will not survive" (Ensminger 1996:22). More
anthropologically minded institutional analysts whose investigations range beyond
Western market economies will immediately recognize that there are differences between
individual and group rationality, and that "Given that some actors have more bargaining
power than others, as well as diverging goals, it is not surprising that the institutions they
promote rarely represent the most efficient outcome for society as a whole" (Ensminger
1996:22). Without effective organization and leadership, without communication
between different members of the community, decisions taken as different individuals
"muddle through" will never have the chance to aggregate into effective institutions. At
the time of my last visit to the Tozhu (2003), I would have to say they were still at this
stage of acting as isolated units (whether individual herders or families or camps),
muddling through, more or less uninformed about the activies and goals of the larger
community.
263
I have presented a rather pessimistic picture of the possibilities of the development of
effective self-governing institutions among the Tozhu. Let me now search for the silver
lining. A number of recent positive developments appear to have arrested the decline in
reindeer numbers and begun.to provide the necessary support and incentive for Tozhu
people to continue with reindeer herding. At the forefront of these initiatives has been the
Totem Peoples Preservation Project.
a U.S.-based NGO that has been
making deliveries of veterinarian
medicines and other necessary
supplies, as well as veterinary
training, to the Tozhu (and Dukha)
reindeer herders. 3 The Totem
Project, through its affiliation with Cultural Survival, inc., has also brought some
international attention to the plight of the Sayan Cross reindeer herders that seems to have
made officials at the republic and even federal levels take notice. In 2000, Valentina
Matvienko, Minister for Social Development and Russian president Vladimir Putin's
right-hand woman, helicoptered into a Tozhu herding family's camp. One of the herders'
principal complaints was the poor condition of their tents and the lack of new tents
(which in the past were provided by the sovkkoz). Shortly thereafter, 1000 meters of
canvas for herders' tents arrived from the federal government - enough to make 20 new
tents. More importantly, since 2001 all reindeer herders have been receiving an annual
'' I should reiterate that I have been involved with this project.
264
The Brighter Side
subsidy based on the number of reindeer they have. This
subsidy has gone from 350 rabies per head ($11) in 2001 to
500 rubles per head ($16). This has proved to be Important
encouragement for the reindeer herders, and even a
powerful incentive for new people (mostly former herders)
to enter reindeer herding. At least three new herders have
started up herds since 2000. One former herder in the
village of Kham-Syra was putting together a new herd by
recapturing domesticated reindeer that had turned feral
during the previous years of neglect. The number of
domesticated reindeer in the Tozhu District has increased from a low of 1,100 in 2000 to
1,500 in 2003.
Reindeer herding is taught at the regional vocational school in Toora-Khem
(although in fact few students express serious interest in pursuing it). In September 2003,
two recent high school graduates were given scholarships to study veterinary medicine
with specialization in reindeer at the respected Reindeer Institute in Yakutsk (Sakhia
Republic). More importantly, the sons and other relatives of current herders willingly and
eagerly carry on the reindeer herding lifestyle. Almost every Tozhu herder has two or
three sons or nephews living with him and helping out, hoping to start their own herd.
Reindeer herding is not only economically important in that it provides the transportation
necessary to exploit the resources of the taiga, but it is culturally important as well. It is a
highly respected occupation and way of life, and remains the central element in Tozhu
people's sense of ethnic identity,
265
The outlook for reindeer herding among the Tofa is not as rosy. The only thing
keeping reindeer herding alive at all is the efforts of the DELTA group, because they
have a vested interest in facilitating the successful hunting of the Tofa, and they know
that the hunters need reindeer for transportation. DELTA bought the assets of the former
zveroprotnkhoz (state hunting enterprise), paid the hunters half of their backpay (three
years in arrears), and maintains the only viable herd by paying the salary of the one
remaining full-time herder. If for any reason the DELTA group folds or decides to
withdraw its support for the ZAO "Tofalaria," I suspect that the one remaining viable
reindeer herd would slowly dwindle to nothing or, perhaps more drastically, the DELTA
group could decide to slaughter the entire herd in order to get what they could in meat,
skins, antlers, etc., before pulling out completely. There would still be two or three Tofa
with a few reindeer each, but these would not make a viable or sustainable herd.
Ultimately, without some sort of heroic measures and a great deal of external support,
reindeer herding among the Tofa appears destined to die out, as has happened among the
Soyot of Buryatia. Hunting, however, will continue to be the basis of the Tofas' economy
sad a fundamental aspect of their culture.
If the Tozhu and other south-Siberian reindeer herding and hunting peoples are to stand
any chance of genuine cultural survival, they must gain greater control over their lands
and the natural resources on those lands, and be granted the opportunity, freedom, find
support to design and implement their own institutions of self-goveraance without the
overbearing control of interested outsiders, secure in the knowledge that they will not be
266
Steps Toward a Change
displaced by industrial development or have their land bought out from under them. The
following suggestions could form the basis of future policy initiatives in this direction:
? Market-based privatization is not the only path toward good governance, and can
in fact be detrimental. As Caroline Humphrey has pointed out, "collective
enterprises of one kind or another are still highly relevant to our times.... [L]arge
numbers of collectives still exist in Russia, and in many regions they and other
forms of joint agricultural enterprise are indispensable to the way farming in now
organized and the way people imagine their lives. ... It is not just in Russia that
people see that the problems facing them cannot be resolved simply by a choice
between the State and the Market" (Humphrey 1998:ix).
? The indigenous reindeer herding peoples must find a way to make the new
changes at the constitutional level translate into real opportunities and protections
at the collective action and operational levels. The first and most important step
along these lines would be to use the new federal laws to establish secure land
tenure and exclusive access to resources immediately.
j
? The indigenous peoples must be allowed to establish some boundary rales
defining who has rights to hunt, fish, and extract other natural resources, and they
must have a way of monitoring and enforcing these boundary rules (see McGinnis
and Ostrom 1992: 55-57).
? Communication and information networks must be improved. Face-to-face
M
communication is most desirable, but if that is not feasible due to the nomadic
nature of the herders, at least each herding camp should be equipped with a two-
267
way radio so that the herders could maintain contact with one another and
exchange important information.
? Government officials must demonstrate more genuine and sincere efforts to
enforce hunting restrictions and crack down on the illegal trade in animal parts.
They roust pursue and prosecute violators at every stage of the process, from the
point of taking the animal lo the final sale (within Russia) of animal parts to
agents who will ultimately take them to foreign destinations.
? Education and training programs for Tozhu people should be established to
provide the technical skills necessary to effectively manage their resources and
develop a seif-governing, self-sufficient, sustainable economy; to build leadership
capacity; and to learn how to effectively represent the Tozhu people at the
republic and federal levels.
Great strides are being made the world over in establishing and protecting indigenous
peoples' rights. In the Russian context, the designation of "indigenous, small-numbered
peoples" clearly has its advantages, even with its insistence on the "traditional." The
"traditional" aspect inherent in the definition can form the basis of an explicit ideology
(Gusfield 1967: 351). It can serve as a flag to rally round for purposes of ethnic
revitalization movements (Gray, forthcoming). The status can also be asserted, coopted,
and manipulated by indigenous peoples themselves to further their own goals, where they
can be "traditional" and claim indigenous status where it is to their advantage, but ignore
the dictates of artificially imposed traditionally - whether imposed by the state, the
international movement of indigenous peoples, or well-meaning but naive outsiders -
268
where it doesn't serve them. In this way, perhaps this is a potential successor to the
unwritten perquisites that went along with various Soviet-era "citizenship regimes'" as
discussed by D.Anderson (1996).
Ac the constitutional level, despite the weaknesses in the new laws aimed at
protecting the rights of Russia's indigenous peoples, there is room for optimism (see, for
example, Fondahl and Poelzer 2003 and Osherenko 2001 for a more positive reading of
these laws). Now that the Tozhu have been designated as one of the "Small-Numbered
Indigenous Peoples," these laws may provide a basis for them to assert their
independence and gain some control over the management of their resources. But
proponents for indigenous peoples' land rights will have to move more quickly than more
politically and economically powerful entrepreneurs determined to buy up large tracts of
land for extractive industries or to set up tourist resorts if they are to take effective
advantage of these new laws' potential. For example, the law "On Territories of
Traditional Natural Resource Use" might be able to be used as a mechanism to have
indigenous peoples' land declared "specially protected natural territories." Doing so
could delimit at least some territories, which would be declared federal lands, and make
them federally protected for the exclusive, inalienable rights of the indigenous peoples
(see Bicheldei 2001:21; also Semenova 2001, personal communication).
Another creative use of the new laws suggested to me by Tamara Semenova of
the Russian. Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North (RAIPON) is to put lands
inhabited by indigenous peoples under the protection of the Sovet Bezopastnosti - the
Federal Security Council. Such a move would effectively put such lands out of reach
even of the president of Russia, so, for example, the president could not issue an act to
269
withdraw the protected status in favor of industrial development. This ploy is based on
the notion that the environmental sustainability of the land is important to national
security (Semenova 2001, personal communication).
While ''indigenous" status is at present advantageous, it is a two-edged sword.
There is always the danger that the authorities will at some point decide to enforce the
letter of the law, and divest those who are not "traditional" enough of their privileges.
More importantly, as discussed in Chapters 7 and 8, there has been very little discussion
of granting Russia's indigenous peoples control over the real wealth that lies in their
lands. While they might in theory be granted some degree of control over the wildlife and
fish and perhaps even the forests, except for suggestions from disaffected indigenous
peoples themselves, there has been no serious discussion of granting indigenous peoples
control over the subsurface minerals and fossil fuels.
There have been a few fairly feeble attempts to increase indigenous people's
control over other parlies' exploitation of subsurface resources. Article 5 paragraph 5 of
the law, "On Guarantees of the Rights of the Indigenous Small Numbered Peoples of the
Russian Federation" (30 April, 1999), notes that the "Organs of state power of the
Russian Federation" have the right "to establish limitations on the non-traditional-for-
small-numbered-peoples economic activities of organizations under federal control, in
places of traditional residence and economic activities of the small-numbered peoples."
But this doesn't give the actual small-numbered peoples the right to limit these activities,
nor does it require the organs of state power to limit these activities. Novikova (1999b)
discusses efforts of the Khanty and Mansi (two more officially recognized indigenous,
small-numbered peoples) to regulate their own relationships with representatives of
270
extractive industries, but these measures have proved unenforceable, easily circumvented,
or otherwise ineffective, Yet even such explicit attempts to gain more control over
subsurface resources for indigenous peoples do not broach the subject of the indigenous
people actually having title to land and control over subsurface resources for the purposes
of exploiting them for their own economic development. This seems to be forbidden
territory to tread upon.
These new laws still fall short of realizing Aleksandr Pika's vision of providing a
framework within which the indigenous peoples of Russia will be able to develop
economically and socially with any degree of true self-regulation or self-determination,
and it is because of this insistence on "traditional" ways of life that they fall short. In fact,
while I personally know that many of the people who worked on these new laws had the
best interests of indigenous peoples in mind, these laws can still be viewed as ways to
placate the indigenous peoples while making sure that they will not cause any real
problems when it comes to the natural resource extraction that the Russian economy so
depends upon. The state still owns all the land, and while it gives leases of various types
to indigenous peoples for their obshchiny and other forms of landholdings (and in the
case of the Tozhu at least, tracts far too small to support their "traditional" reindeer
herding and hunting lifestyle), those leases only apply to the above-ground resources,
while the state retains control of and rights of extraction over the subsurface resources -
the minerals and fossil fuels.
In this context a brief comparison of land claims agreements between indigenous
peoples and states in other parts of the world would be instructive. While such
agreements are far from uniform in their approach, the tendency has been to recognize
271
indigenous peoples' legal title to land, and in some cases to recognize their right to
exploit all the resources on those lands, including subsurface resources. In Canada, for
example, in 1984 the MacKenzie Delta Inuvialuit won recognition of title to
approximately 91,000 sq. km. of land, including the rights to subsurface minerals on
11,000) sq.km of that land (Osherenko 1995:228). More recently, the Nunavul Land
Claims Act of 1993 gives title of 350,000 sq. km. to the Nunavut Inuit, of which one-
tenth (35,250 sq. km.) include mineral rights. It also gives the Nunavut a share of
government royalties from oil, gas and mineral development on Crown Lands that lie
within the Nunavut Settlement Area (which is nearly 2 million sq. km.).4 In the United
States, the much discussed Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971 granted title of
44 million acres (approximately 175,000 km. sq.) to Native Americans and gave them the
right to negotiate contracts with oil, gas and mineral companies to exploit their mineral
resources.5 US Code Title 25 (most relevantly, chapters 12 and 14) recognizes Native
Americans' rights to subsurface resources and therefore their right to negotiate leases for
the development of those resources. In 2002, George Bush approved legislation
addressing mineral rights of the Acoma Pueblo.6 These rights are not conditioned upon
living a "traditional" way of life. Witness, for example, the very non-traditional casinos
4 The Act also provides for financial compensation to redress past grievances ($1.1 billion to be paid out
between 1993 and 2007).
5 The ANCSA has not been without its problems and controversies (see, for example, Garber 1985), and is
a pertect example of how indigenous peoples have been foiced to negotiate their land claims within an
imposed European discourse of property and rights that is often not compatible with indigenous
conceptions (see Nadasdy 2002 and Niezen 2003 for cogent discussions of this).
6 The legislation recognizes the Acoma Pueblo tribe's rights to subsurface resources under 67,000 acres of
their land. The land had been declared in the public domain in 1866, in direct contradiction to an earlier
1848 treaty agreement that gave ownership of that land to the Acorna Pueblo. The legislation provides for
funds to buy out the current owners of the mineral rights and put the subsurface mineral rights into a trust
for the tribe. (From a press release, "Skeen-Udall Praise President for Signing Acoma Pueblo Mineral
Rights Legislation," dated 7 Feb., 2002.)
272
that so many Native American nations have set up, and the right to negotiate contracts for
and receive revenues from natural resource extraction. These activities, while not without
their attendant problems, have in many cases provided the impetus for a resurgence of
ethnic identification and the financial means for the revitalization of cultures and
languages among these Native American communities. It is not until the Russian
Federation is willing to grant true ownership of land and rights to all the resources on
those lands, including economically valuable ones, as in the cases mentioned above, and
the right to pursue non-traditional lifestyles and activities, that the indigenous peoples of
Siberia will have any chance of realizing true self-determination.
Of course, giving such control over economic resources is not without its own
share of problems and conflicts. In the first place, there will always be problems with
answering the question, "Who's indigenous here anyway?" - and therefore who should
have rights of access to resources of all kinds? Then there's the very real possibility that a
particular group of indigenous people, once given control of resources on territory that
has been officially recognized as "theirs," will engage in (or consent to) wholesale
extraction of those resources without regard for the long-term sustainability of the natural
resource base or for the environmental consequences. After all, indigenous peoples too
have to compete in the global marketplace to survive economically (Ovsyanikov
1999:115, cited above), and indigenous peoples too can mismanage natural resources
(Yamskov 1999:122-123; Osherenko 2001:721). But at least they should have the right to
do so for themselves rather than be forced to stand by idly, "traditionally," while
someone else mismanages their resources right out from under them.
273
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