Russia is |
Peoples of Russia
Chuvans
Chuvans are a people living on the Chukotka peninsula. Their self-designation is Etel, Etal. The exoethnonyms are Yukagir (Chukotkan) or Chuvans (Russian). In 2000, by a decree of the Government of the Russian Federation they were given the status of native small-numbered people.
Language
The Chuvan language, which was presumably close to the Yukagir one, has been lost. The nomadic Chuvans speak Chukotkan. The language situation of the settled Chuvans is unique: they believe that between themselves, in families and friend groups, they speak the Markovo dialect of the Russian language, and in school and with strangers they speak Russian close to the standard.
Dispersion
The majority of the Chuvans live in Chukotka (in the Anadyr district). The Chuvans living in the Ust-Belaya, Snezhnoye and Chuvanskoye villages have the Chukotkan language as their native language, and in the Markovo village and Anadyr, Russian-speaking Chuvans live.
Traditional occupations
For the settled Markovo Chuvans the Yukagir type of economy was typical; it included fishing, hunting wild deer on river crossing and raising sledge dogs. The basis of the economy of the nomadic Chuvans was large-herd reindeer breeding of the Chukotkan-Kamchatkan type.
Dwellings
The settled Chuvans lived in villages common with Russian old-timers and Yukagirs which included up to thirty loghouses, usually with a flat roof, without a ceiling, with a wooden floor or a dirt floor covered with deer skins. The window openings were covered with film made from whale intestines or with specially made okonchina deer skins. The houses were heated with chuvals – hearths from thin poles joined with wickerwork and daubed with clay. Nomadic Chuvans lived in Chukotka-type yarangas with a sleep canopy.
