Yakuts
Yakuts ( jakut. Сахалар / Sachalar; Russian Якуты / Jakuty ) is the name of today's Turkic people, which is located within the Russian Federation in the Far Eastern Siberia in the Autonomous Republic of Sakha ( Yakutia).
The Russian census of 2002 showed that 443 852 Yakuts live in Russia. 432 290 Of these, lived in the Republic of Sakha. Yakutian minorities, there are on-Amur, Sakhalin, Magadan and in the Krasnoyarsk region.
Origin
Archaeological finds show great similarity with the Buryats. Both the distribution of vocabulary as well as older ethnological research shows belonging to the Tungus ( Evenki ) group, which was part of today Yakut Turkish Siert during the 14th century. Today's Yakut language is considered one of the Turkic languages , which is due to vocabulary, phonetics and grammar. This origin has now been confirmed by a study by the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology ( 2003) again. When comparing the mitochondrial DNA of 117 Yakuts with the other Eurasian peoples was a high genetic similarity with both the Evenki, which in part colonize the same area, as detected with living in southern Siberia Turkic Tuwinern.
History
The Yakut society traditionally was divided into nobles, freemen and slaves. They lived as hunters, fishermen and to a very limited extent as farmers, or reindeer and horse breeder.
The migration of the Yakuts was the last migration of Turkish populations from Central Asia. In contrast to all other Turkic peoples, the Yakuts have not followed the southern or western routes, but migrated to the north-east - to the valley of the Lena. The migration of the Yakuts, began in the 12th century - at a time when the Mongol clans stretched their sphere of influence.
Religion
The Yakuts were Christianized in the 1820s and are committed today by the majority of Russian Orthodox Christianity, wherein a plurality shamanic religious practices has been preserved and is still commonly practiced.