Dialogues with the Cold: Natural Low Temperatures in the Everyday Life of Rural Residents of Yakutia (Sakha Republic) in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

ABSTRACT

The Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) is famous as a region of extremely low natural temperatures, a territory of cold and the phenomena of snow, ice, and permafrost that owe their existence to it. The anthropology of cold, which the authors term cryoanthropology, including analysis of its role and place in the economic and sociocultural practices of the region’s Indigenous population, is relevant but little studied. The authors present experiences applying traditional knowledge of the Sakha (Yakuts) about cold, allowing for its resources to be used in everyday functioning for life sustenance, in various kinds of economic activity. They analyze systemic ethnocultural adaptations to phenomena connected with natural low temperatures. Drawing on data predominantly from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the authors integrate examples of the “dialogue” of rural inhabitants with the cold, especially its benefits.

KEYWORDS:

• Yakutia (Sakha Republic)
• traditional economy
• traditional knowledge
• rural everyday life
• cryoanthropology
• ice
• snow
• permafrost

Notes

^1. These were prepared with the support of the Russian Scientific Fund in 2017 for the project “Resursy kholoda”: znachenie nizkikh temperatur v khoziaistvennykh i sotsiokul’turnukh praktikakh sel’skikh soobshchestv Iakutii [“Resources of Cold”: The Significance of Low Tmperatures in the Economic and Sociocultural Practices of the Rural Communities of Yakutia].

^2. This observation is from all the authors’ field materials, from 2017 to 2019.

^a. This 2010 census statistic of the Sakha being 48.7% of the republic population has long been considered suspect, given that earlier surveys had put them over the politically significant 50% threshold. More recent 2021 census data has not been fully published, but Indigenous people in the republic, including Sakha, Even, Evenki, and Yukaghir, are estimated to be over 52.9%, or over 500,000.

^b. The editor’s long-term fieldwork in the republic confirms these wide-spread perceptions of health and safety benefits of cold. See the introduction to this issue for more details.