Dolgan

Dolgan 

(self-designation, Dolgan, Tya-kikhi, Sakha), a people of the Taimyr (Dolgan-Nenets) National Okrug, Krasnoiarsk Krai, RSFSR. The group numbered 4,900 in 1970. They speak the Dolgan dialect of the Yakut language. Believers were Orthodox, but ancient animistic beliefs were also preserved, especially shamanism and the religion of the hunt. The Dolgan developed as a people in the 19th and early 20th centuries out of the Evenkis and Yakuts who had migrated from the region of the Lena and Olenek rivers, as well as local Evenki, some families of Entsy, and the so-called tundra peasants. The Dolgan were nomadic reindeer herders and hunters; later they settled and joined kolkhozes (reindeer herding, hunting, fishing, fur farming, dairying, and market gardening). The old dwelling of the Dolgan, the chum, has been replaced by log houses built in the Russian style.

REFERENCE

Narody Sibiri. Moscow-Leningrad, 1956. (Bibliography on page 1010.)