Power, Resistance, and Security: Papers in Honor of Richard G. Condon, Steven L. McNabb, Aleksandr I. Pika, William W. Richards, Nikolai Galgauge, Nina Ankalina, Vera Rakhtilkon, Boris

Antler on the Sea: Creating and Maintaining Cultural Group Boundaries among the Chukchi,Yupik, and Newcomers of SirenikiAuthor(s): Anna M. KerttulaSource: Arctic Anthropology, Vol. 34, No. 1, Power, Resistance, and Security: Papers in Honorof Richard G. Condon, Steven L. McNabb, Aleksandr I. Pika, William W. Richards, NikolaiGalgauge, Nina Ankalina, Vera Rakhtilkon, Boris Mymykhtikak, and Nikolai Avanum (1997),pp. 212-226Published by: University of Wisconsin PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40316434 .

Accessed: 12/06/2014 17:45

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

University of Wisconsin Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to ArcticAnthropology.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.174 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 17:45:49 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=uwisc

http://www.jstor.org/stable/40316434?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


ANTLER ON THE SEA: CREATING AND

MAINTAINING CULTURAL GROUP

BOUNDARIES AMONG THE CHUKCHI, YUPIK, AND NEWCOMERS OF SIRENIKI

ANNA M. KERTTULA

Abstract. This article examines the social and cultural construction of collective identity and conflict among the Chukchi, Yupik, and Newcomers in the village of Sireniki, located on the Bering Sea coast of the Chukotka Peninsula in the far northeast of the former Soviet Union. Through relocation programs, mandatory schooling, economic collectivization, the control of natural resources, and the domination of political power, the Soviet State magnified the differences and solidified the boundaries of collective identity between these three groups. It will be shown that the emergence in the village of a discourse of "otherness" was not the result of ancient ethnic rivalries as has been claimed for other post-Soviet regions. Although collective identity was heavily influ- enced by Soviet economic, social, and political change, it was based on prior cultural and symbolic conceptualizations.

Introduction

From the 1930s through the 1980s, the government of the Soviet Union implemented policies aimed at "improving" the social and economic conditions of the indigenous peoples occupying the northern and far eastern territories. As late as 1987, one could still find publications by social scientists from prestigious state institutes which read: "up to the present a strong system of government, economics, and social administration has been instituted, affecting every sphere of activity of the peoples of the North, guaranteeing their fur- ther progressive development" (Boiko 1987:31). The policies which secured this "progressive" evo- lution included economic collectivization through

the creation of cooperative [kolkhoz) and state [sovkhoz) farms, the mass relocation of indigenous peoples from their natal villages or nomadic territories into consolidated multicultural settlements, without regard for social and cultural differences, and the in-migration of young specialists and workers from other republics to fill newly created positions in the infrastructure of the industrializ- ing North.

Analyzing data collected from 1989-1991 in the village of Sireniki, located in the Russian far north on the eastern Chukotka Peninsula, I wish to show that structural changes in the local economic and social systems have reinforced and provided definition for existing boundaries of group identity. I will argue that among the indigenous peo-

Anna M. Kerttula, P.O. Box 1009, Palmer, AK 99645

ARCTIC ANTHROPOLOGY Vol. 34, No. 1, pp. 212-226, 1997



Kerttula: Cultural Group Boundaries in Sireniki 213

pies of the region it was not the demise of Soviet power, as has been suggested for other republics, which allowed the expression of "latent ethnicity," but rather Sovietization itself which created the conditions for the emergence of collective identity.1 Through the structure of work and the control of resources, Soviet authority, as played out in Sireniki, reinforced the structural and symbolic boundaries of identity to which the Chukchi, Yupik, and Newcomers (western immigrants primarily of Slavic origin) adapted and made meaningful through their own prior cultural symbols, meanings, and forms. By de-emphasizing social commonality and accentuating differences, each group's own boundaries become more salient.

Cultural Collectivity This paper is not directly an analysis of ethnicity or nationalism, but because of the dominance of these concepts in social science literature on group identity formation as well as their ubiquitous vernacular usage in the evolving discourse of the development of cultural group rivalries in the post-Soviet milieu, a brief discussion is warranted.

Sovietologists theorize that the developing fervor of nationalism among post-Soviet peoples is a manifestation of the contradictions inherent in multiethnic states and the "fundamental tension between ethnic identities and the territorial Soviet nationalism" (Armstrong 1992:58). They also consider developing conflicts between "various non- Russian peoples who have had long religious, cultural, or territorial disputes" (Suny 1990:29). Analysts hypothesize that nationalist movements in the former Soviet Union are not new develop- ments, but have been given expression in the new openness of the post-Soviet era (Armstrong 1992; Entessar 1993; Gellner 1992; Suny 1990). Because the object of these studies is the Soviet state (today, the former Soviet state) and its relationship to its non-Russian peoples, historians and political scientists have focused their research on the mech- anisms by which cultural groups identify themselves, vis-à-vis the state, and have labeled this process "nationalism."2

Theories of nationalism or ethnicity in the former Soviet Union focus on state policy and ethnic group relations (Gellner 1992; Suny 1990), ra- tional thought and modernization (Gellner 1992), the legitimation of moral authority (Toland 1993), economic and political subordination of minority groups (Suny 1990; Armstrong 1992), Russian cultural hegemony (Smith 1992), and transformist hegemony (Williams 1989). These theories assume the prior existence of ethnic group identity within the pluralism of modern states; therefore, nationalism or ethnicity are the objects of their study rather than the subjects. Anthony Smith, a scholar

of Soviet history, suggests that "analysis of modern nationalism and multinational states must com- mence from an understanding of the forms and role of ethnic identity" (Smith 1992:49). This topic is the purview of anthropology.

Anthropological approaches to questions of identity formation among minority cultures within modern states stress the concept of "ethnicity." Anthropological studies of ethnicity and nationalism have focused on issues of the nation as imagined community (Anderson 1991), the control of productive capacities (Verdery 1991), the subjec- tive sense of belonging (DeVos 1975), domination and subordination (Vincent 1974), primordial bases of ethnicity (Keyes 1974) and its relationship to class structure (Toland 1993), and the dynamics of identity itself (A. Cohen 1974; R. Cohen 1978). Many of these theories, which are based on minority populations in urban areas or on immigrant populations, have little explanatory value when applied to the relationships between indigenous peoples who still occupy their natal territories in the former Soviet Union. Discussions of political subordination, legitimation of moral authority, imagined communities, and transformist hegemony are helpful in understanding the relationship of the Chukchi and Yupik to the Soviet State, but do little to shed light on the emerging conflicts between the Yupik and Chukchi themselves.

Ronald Cohen (1978) contends that anthropology's usage of ethnicity is historically rooted in our traditional object of study, culturally homogeneous groups. (Whether this homogeneity was real or the analyst's construct is beyond the scope of my discussion.) In this context, ethnicity defines the "tribe" of the postmodern world and a concept to aid in the understanding of the cultural diversity which it characterizes.

Abner Cohen's (1974:ix) work in the urban setting focuses on the objective aspects of ethnicity, which he defines as "a collectivity of people who (a) share some patterns of normative behavior and (b) form part of a larger population, interact- ing with people from other collectivities within the framework of a social system." According to A. Cohen (1974:xi), "ethnicity is essentially a form of interaction between culture groups operating within common social contexts." Ethnicity is based on collective representations which are normative and have "constraining power." Essential to this formulation of ethnic groups is the pluralism of the contemporary nation-state and the competing politico-economic interests of its diverse populations.

Charles Keyes (1974) approaches the issue of ethnicity from a descent-based perspective. Keyes (1974:208) discusses the "primordial" character of ethnic groups as related to their being "conceived of as a type of descent group whose members vali-



21 4 Arctic Anthropology 34:1

date their claim to shared descent by pointing to cultural attributes which they believe they hold in common." But Keyes (1974:208), like A. Cohen, discusses the relational aspect of the structure of ethnic groups, stating that "while ethnic groups are based fundamentally on the idea of shared descent, they take on their particular form as a consequence of the structure of intergroup relations," i.e., intergroup communication.

Focusing on its communicational aspects, Fredrick Barth (1969:10) states that, "ethnic groups are categories of ascription and identification by the actors themselves and thus have the character of organizing interaction between people." He concludes that the very essence of culture lies in the construction of boundaries (psychologi- cal, social, symbolic, and physical) necessary to the structuring of communication, in its broadest sense, between individuals and between groups. Other anthropologists, most notably the ones discussed above (A. Cohen, R. Cohen, C. Keyes), although not focusing their analyses on interaction between "ethnic" groups, have all touched on this topic as basic to collective identity. As R. Cohen (1978:387) concludes, "the division into exclusive groupings is always done in relation to significant others whose exclusion at any particular level of scale creates the we/they dichotomy."

Interaction (relations) is seen as key to understanding the construction of cultural collectivity. Sherry Ortner, in her discussion of class in Ameri- can society, concludes that "classes are relation- ally constituted, . . . they defined themselves always in implicit reference to the other (s). Thus, while we normally think of class relations as taking place between classes, in fact each class contains the other(s) within itself" (Ortner 1991:172). Although Ortner is specifically speaking about class construction, her analysis is applicable to the construction of cultural collectivity. Therefore, as I argue, a very important part of collective group formation among the Yupik, Chukchi, and New- comers is the fact that by constructing each other they are in fact in a process of self-construction. This self-construction occurs through interaction - i.e., dialogue - between groups.

Although the concept of ethnicity has been debated in the anthropological literature for at least 30 years, specifically following Barth's semi- nal essay in Ethnic Groups and Boundaries (1969), only recently have anthropologists begun to exam- ine this phenomenon among the numerically smaller indigenous peoples - or malye narody Sev- era (the small peoples of the North), as they are labeled by demographers and social scientists of the former Soviet Union (Anderson 1995; Balzer 1983; Fondahl 1993; Forsyth 1992; Gellner 1992; Grant 1995; Gurvich 1987; Humphries 1983; Krupnik 1993; Pika and Prokhorov 1990; Vakhtin 1993).

The following ethnographic analysis of the village of Sireniki may be seen by some as a micro- cosm of the larger debate over the developing national rivalries which followed the dissolution of the Soviet Union, but this is not the purpose of the paper. Although the Soviet state created the necessary social, political, and economic conditions which led each group to recreate cultural meanings for collective identity, the purpose of this paper is to describe and analyze some of the fac- tors, structural and cultural, which sharpen Yupik, Chukchi, and Newcomer definitions of the other and which reproduce their own cultural group boundaries.

Setting Sireniki is located on the Bering Sea coast approx- imately 70 km from the regional and administrative center of Provideniya. The village is situated on a terrace of a river valley framed by sea cliffs and extinct volcanic hills. The surrounding lands are characterized by tundra and other permafrost features, punctuated by small rivers, streams, and numerous lakes. These features create the habitat for the flora and fauna utilized by local people.

In 1990 Sireniki's population was approxi- mately 740, consisting of 45% Yupik, 29% Chukchi, 20% Newcomers (Ukrainian, Russian, and Byelorussian are the three main cultural groups represented), and 6% other (Evenk, Tartar, and an unspecified number of soldiers and border guards). Sireniki is a unique village in that it is the only prehistoric Yupik village in the region that is still inhabited, although not exclusively, by Yupik peoples (Krupnik 1987, 1990, 1993). Relocation programs consolidated a number of local communities into Sireniki. Residents from the former Yupik villages of Imtuk and Kinlig'ak as well as later immigrants from Avan and Chaplino make up the nonlocal Yupik population. The Chukchi residents are a fairly recent addition to the village. Starting in the 1950s, the Chukchi were collec- tivized. The series of events following the creation of state farms based on reindeer herding included the forced relinquishment of family herds and the settling of nomadic Chukchi into villages. This was often accompanied by the imprisonment of uncooperative male heads of families.

During this same period (drawn by the promise of higher pay and better jobs than existed in their natal republics) the nonindigenous residents came to the village. These people often work in the North for 15 to 20 years until retirement, at which time they return to their natal republics, where living is perceived as easier and more civi- lized (Dunn and Dunn 1963; Vakhtin 1993). These Newcomers [priezhie), as they have come to be known, although a numerical minority, have rapidly taken control of the economic and political




power in these regions. As such, they are able to influence social and political policy in favor of their own Russified/Soviet goals, ignoring the alternative voices of the indigenous minorities. Thus, these structural changes in the social and economic organization of the region brought together three distinct sociocultural groups (Yupik, Chukchi, and Newcomers) and led to the development of the uniquely pluralistic village that is today Sireniki.

The distinctions between these three groups are not only sociocultural, but also economic. Reindeer herding is the exclusive domain of the Chukchi, sea mammal hunting is the exclusive domain of the Yupik, and professional positions and village infrastructure are primarily, although not exclusively, controlled by the Newcomers. Al- though Chukchi, Yupik, and Newcomer women (and a very few men, primarily during harvesting periods) work together at the local- fox farm, the jobs stratify themselves by Native and Newcomer. The former hold primarily labor positions and the latter administrative ones. These divisions of labor are unique features of Sireniki; other villages on the coast have more homogeneous populations that do not divide themselves along these same economic boundaries. In Sireniki this formaliza- tion of the economic structure, through Sovietiza- tion, accentuates preexisting group definitions of one another and provides delineation of the boundaries across which intergroup dialogue is constrained.

The historical development of this socioeco- nomic structure started with collectivization. In 1928, under the name Udarnik (shock-worker), Sireniki was organized into a hunting cooperative [artel, forerunner of the collective farm) based upon sea mammal hunting. In 1944, a fishing collective was added to the hunting cooperative and it became a "collective farm." Then, in the 1950s, reindeer herding was included to the economic activities of Udarnik, and in the 1960s, with the addition of the fox farm, it officially became organized as a "state farm."

In each of these stages of Udarnik's development, local expertise was utilized. Accordingly, within the state farm, Yupik men were hired as sea mammal hunters and fishermen, Chukchi men were hired as reindeer herders, and women of both groups continued in traditional roles of skin processing and sewing. In order to advance in position and pay, a worker had to gain credentials at a Soviet institution. This included special classes in navigation for sea mammal hunters at an institute in Vladivostok (originally in Magadan), a degree in reindeer veterinary medicine and/or herding economics from an agricultural college in Magadan, or a degree as an animal technician also from Magadan. The irony of learning the "Rus-

sian" way of sea mammal hunting or reindeer herding - activities these people and their ances- tors had been doing for thousands of years - is not lost on the participants. One brigadier of a hunting crew laughed when he told me "I had a great time partying in Vladivostok. Oh, they did teach me how to use a compass." In the two months I trav- eled with the sea mammal hunters I never saw a single hunter use a compass. The implication of the brigadier's statement is clear: more useless information.

This process of economic reorganization, which occurred at Sireniki in the 1930s-1950s, is very important. Paralleling the spread of Soviet influence over the economic sphere was the reorganization of local social structure. Some of the changes which accompanied economic restructuring included: the reorganization of Yupik male kin-based baidara (skin boat) crews for hunting sea mammals into Soviet hunting brigades; the in- corporation of Chukchi reindeer into a state farm herd; the reorganization of herding activities based upon kinship into Soviet herding brigades; the reorganization of female labor from kin-based groups into sewing and skinning brigades; and the introduction of nonindigenous labor, such as on the fox farm, dairy farm, and swine farm.

Other changes in social structure included: the disruption of primary subsistence distribution patterns by the mandatory sale of animals to the state farm; the shifting of the Chukchi from "nomadism as a way of life" [bytovoe kochevanie) to "production nomadism" {proizvodstennoe kochevanie)3; regulations forbidding children under the age of 16 to ride in baldaras, thus alien- ating them from socialization as hunters; and the mandatory attendance of Native children at Soviet schools, which for many meant being placed in boarding schools [internaty] that emphasized Rus- sian culture as the pinnacle of socialist development. The series of events following the establish- ment of the collective farm based on sea mammal hunting and the state farm based on reindeer herding irrevocably changed local social structure. These processes created not only social and cultural diversity in Sireniki, through relocation and in-migration, but redefined the criteria for social and economic advancement, stratifying Sireniki society and reinforcing cultural group boundaries.

The Other

They're different from us. They can be joking with very serious faces; don 't believe everything they say (a Yupik woman speaking about the Chukchi).

They're different. They're meaner, we are a quiet and shy people (a Chukchi woman speaking about the Yupik).



216 Arctic Anthropology 34:1

We're from the materik (mainland) and we try to continue life here as there. The two lifeways are incompatible - therefore, the people are incompatible (a Russian teacher).

The above statements make it possible to infer that the Yupik, Chukchi, and Newcomers have a devel- oped sense of otherness. Prior to Soviet intervention in the 1950s, the Chukchi and Yupik of Sireniki had very little contact with one another. The Chukchi lived a nomadic existence on the in- land tundra and the Yupik occupied settled coastal villages. Up until the nineteenth century, contact between these two groups was primarily for trading and warfare, with the occasional herd- less Chukchi man coming to the coast to serve on a baidara crew (Bogoraz 1904-1909; Krupnik 1993; Vdovin 1965). Barth (1969:16) says that the main- tenance of collective group boundaries during cultural interaction depends upon structuring the in- tercourse according to agreed upon prescriptions for dialogue which "need not extend beyond that which is relevant to the social situation." Between the Chukchi and Yupik, as late as the mid-1800s, trade and warfare were highly structured forms of social interaction, often almost ritualized (Bogoraz 1904-1909:53-69). Before Sovietization, the Chukchi traded reindeer products for Yupik sea mammal products in a classic symbiotic relationship across ecozones. Due to the highly structured nature of the interaction, it is reasonable to assume that prior to Soviet intervention the Chukchi and Yupik had a restricted sense of one another as "other" which has been magnified in the contemporary setting.

Before the Soviet Revolution, Native contact with outsiders was limited to a few Russian traders and foreign whalers. It was not until collectivization in the 1930s that indigenous peoples, of either group in the Sireniki region, experienced sustained contact with Newcomers. Today, this interaction occurs primarily in the village. The village is the space where all three groups, Chukchi, Yupik, and Newcomers, interact and more fully form their perceptions of one other. The Soviet State created a physical and social landscape that encouraged the articulation of otherness in ways previously nonexistent. By changing the social and physical proximity of these three groups to each other, the state encouraged the refinement of a language of difference. Each group's own collectivization became more salient through interaction with the other two.

The modern village of Sireniki is a Soviet phenomenon. Through village closures and reloca- tions, collectivization, and in-migrations of young non-Native professionals, the Soviet government created the present form of Sireniki. Three fundamentally different cultural groups (Chukchi,

Yupik, and Newcomers) were artificially brought together to create a pluralistic community. It will be shown that each group's unique conceptualiza- tion of itself and its relationship to the natural environment creates a tripartite structure in their discourse of otherness. Sireniki has become the point of intersection between Chukchi and Yupik, tundra and sea, Native and Newcomer, tradition and progress.4 In order to unwrap this package more fully, it is necessary to look at each of its elements: the tundra, the sea, and the village.

Antler on the Sea5

"I'm going to the tundra, " I said timidly. Olga looked up at me in acknowledgment of my having spoken, then took another drag on her cigarette. I was apprehensive of the response I would receive, because until now I had primarily spent time in Yupik companionship and I instinctively knew my decision would be questioned.

We were sitting on the gravel beach as we had every day that spring during our breaks from scrap- ing the walrus and seal hides brought in by the hunting brigades. Our breaks provided the much needed opportunity, not only to stretch our back muscles which had become tight from the strain of our labor, but also gave us time to discuss the day's events, what would be sold in the store when it opened at 3:00, and whether a concert or a film would be on TV that night. Such collective moments always occurred over a cup of tea and a cigarette.

Olga fixed her stare on the horizon where the sea intersected the sky and replied, "You know what we say. You're at home on the sea but on the tundra you are a guest.

" "It's okay to be a guest once in a while, " I asserted. She simply looked at me in disbelief - a look I frequently saw whenever I made a statement that unequivocally made sense to me but was at absolute odds with what my com- panions knew to be true (fune 1990, edited diary entry).

Andrei looked down at the young Chukchi woman, Iulia, from the top of the vezdekhod on which we had been traveling for two days across the tundra carrying supplies to the reindeer brigades. The driver had stopped to make tea and give the passengers a much needed rest from the bone-breaking ride of this tank-like vehicle. Al- though his consciousness had been numbed by the ordeal, Andrei immediately became fixated on Iulia' s feet, upon which she wore house slippers. Finally overcome by curiosity, the city born Rus- sian spoke up, "Why are you wearing house slippers on the tundra? House slippers are to be worn at home. " Iulia was undaunted by the Russian's admonishment and without embarrassment re- torted, "Why not? Isn't the tundra my home?" (July 1 990, edited diary entry).

They can't survive without us. They don't have the knowledge or training to do what we do. They




can't even run the electrical plant. Let them kick us out, they'll be begging us to return (Newcomer's comment).

These passages, taken from my field notes and diary, serve to illustrate fundamental cultural differences between the Chukchi, Yupik, and New- comers in Sireniki. Contrasting the statements made by the Yupik and Chukchi women about sea and tundra exposes one of the ways in which Chukchi and Yupik identify themselves. The Rein- deer Chukchi culture is oriented to the tundra and the Yupik culture is oriented to the sea. An example of what is meant by orientation is that root metaphors and many associated symbols are drawn by them from the features of the tundra and the sea, respectively. The tundra and the sea as symbols within the Chukchi and Yupik cultural systems fit Sherry Ortner's (1973) categorization as both summarizing and elaborating symbols. As summarizing symbols, tundra and sea "synthesize . . . complex experience," and as elaborating symbols they provide "cultural orientation" as well as strategies for the "ordering of action" (Ortner 1973). Unfortunately, because of their cultural diversity, the Newcomers do not easily lend themselves to this type of characterization. This paper is much too limited in scope to deconstruct all of the symbols and metaphors of Soviet culture, and of each cultural group which formed the core of the Newcomer collectivity. However, economic production, while not exactly a root metaphor, is certainly the raison d'etre of most of the Newcom- ers in the village and, as such, informs their actions, especially in relation to the other two groups.

To make the statement that the Chukchi are oriented toward the tundra and the Yupik toward the sea may seem to be a very superficial observa- tion; one would expect reindeer herders to be most familiar with and thus have an affinity for the tundra and sea mammal hunters to have an affinity for the sea. However, the relationships which exist between these cultures and their environment are not purely materialistic. The tundra and the sea are root metaphors within the Chukchi and Yupik symbolic worlds. As such, they form one of the ways in which the Chukchi and Yupik construct their world as well as their experiences of one another. The tundra is a metaphor for the Chukchi, who are physically as well as spiritually con- nected to the land, and the sea coast is a metaphor for the Yupik, who are of the ocean.

It is not my intention here to set up a Lèvi- Straussian dichotomy as the core structuring ele- ment of group interaction within Sireniki. The tundra and sea are not oppositional, certainly not emically so. They are, in fact, complementary. The Chukchi and Yupik depend upon the resources of

both the tundra and the sea. As mentioned, in the past they created trading partnerships in order to ensure access to each other's resources. These con- trasts are, however, expressed in a variety of ways, the most obvious being that Yupik men labor on the ocean as sea mammal hunters while Chukchi men labor on the tundra as reindeer herders. But the structure of men's work, although highly significant, is not the only way in which tundra and sea are divided.

Leisure time is also separate. The Yupik prefer to spend their free time on the seashore. The Chukchi not only prefer afternoon walks and weekend picnics on the tundra, but they often spend their vacation time with the reindeer brigades. One Chukchi woman who is married to a Yupik man said that this was one of the major bones of contention between them. On their day off he would always suggest the beach while she wanted to picnic on the tundra. The Chukchi view the tundra as distinct from the village. They travel to the tundra to relax, finding peace in its open spaces; the village is seen as too confining. More than one herder expressed a desire to return to the tundra in order to escape drinking; the tundra was felt to have a healing effect on alcoholic behavior. Men told me how, during their military service, they yearned to be on the tundra and how they continued to find solace there in its openness and cleanliness. For the Chukchi, the tundra is distinct from the sea and the village which are the do- mains of the Yupik and Newcomer.

In comparison, the Yupik go to the sea for contemplation and peace. Hunters explain that they have chosen their profession because of the freedom of the ocean. Those few Yupik who, for financial and familial reasons, work on the tundra feel uncomfortable and desperately miss the ocean. One man said that he had spent many hours walking the river banks just to be close to water. For the Yupik the tundra is a "dangerous place filled with quicksand and non-human be- ings." A favorite Yupik tale about the tundra is that it is filled with flesh-eating worms, and if one lies on the tundra without properly securing one's garments, one will awaken to bony appendages devoid of flesh.

Another illustration of the separateness of sea and tundra lies in metaphysical conceptualizations. Both the Chukchi and Yupik have rules con- cerning the proper disposal of reindeer and sea mammal bones. Once the bones of both terrestrial and marine animals have been stripped of edible material, they are kept in separate containers. Ide- ally, reindeer bones are burned6 and sea mammal bones are tossed into the sea. Although this rule is known to most adults in the village, it is not always practiced. Many bones end up in the garbage dumpster. However, reindeer bones are never



21 8 Arctic Anthropology 34:1

tossed into the sea and sea mammal bones are never burned. One Yupik friend became very agi- tated when she saw some seal bones placed next to the hearth in her cabin. She quickly gathered them up and placed them in a pouch, explaining that she would dispose of them later by throwing them into the sea.

Prior to collectivization these practices were more prevalent and in addition would have included the proper ritual preparation of animal remains. Elderly Yupik believe that in order to ensure the continued reincarnation of sea mammals, their carcasses must be returned to the sea. This practice has all but been abandoned in Sireniki. Younger hunters know about it, but feel it is too difficult and costly, especially for whale and walrus carcasses. Besides, "the fall storms will wash them out to sea anyway." Elderly Yupik women can be seen walking past the rotting animals on the beach with tears running down their cheeks, because "it shows such disrespect and these animals are dead to us." This practice is often pointed to as the reason for the recent decline in the walrus population. The Chukchi in Sireniki, although they know of these practices, express concern only over the smell the rotting carcasses produce in the village.

The Chukchi face a similar dilemma in the slaughter of reindeer. After the first freeze in the fall, the reindeer brigades herd their deer into Sireniki for the state farm slaughter. The preferred and proper method of slaughter for the Chukchi is to lasso the reindeer and stab it in the heart with a lance or a knife, carefully processing the carcass and saving every part of the animal except the stomach and intestinal contents. After a Chukchi reindeer slaughter, all that remains on the ground as evidence of the event is the content of the animal's stomach and a few patches of blood. This is the way in which privately owned reindeer [lich- nie oleni) are slaughtered (Kerttula n.d.). In marked contrast, the state farm slaughter resem- bles a modern stockyard. Reindeer are chased down a chute off a corral into a small room, then they are bludgeoned with a sledge hammer, decap- itated, eviscerated, and skinned. After the state farm slaughter, the ground is a pool of blood. Workers are covered with it and are standing in it. The unskinned, unprocessed heads are discarded into a pile with only the "valuable" tongues and antlers removed. There are hundreds of steaming barrels filled with blood and internal organs, and bludgeoned reindeer are crying and writhing on the ground awaiting slaughter. Although the Chukchi participate, as it is their duty, it makes them uncomfortable, for it shows such disrespect to the reindeer. The Yupik who work at the state farm slaughter are uncomfortable only because it seems brutal to kill animals in such a way and because it is very messy.

These examples illustrate a few of the ways in which the Chukchi and Yupik symbolically and socially construct themselves. The Chukchi, as people of the tundra, have a symbolic relationship with reindeer, and thus consider themselves to be different from the Yupik, people of the sea, who are related to sea mammals, and visa versa. These differences provide the Chukchi and Yupik not only with their own identities but with a context for identifying each other as well.

The third side of this social triangle is the Newcomer. It is not possible to discuss a unified Newcomer identity because Newcomers are not a single cultural group, but include people from a variety of different cultures, the most prevalent being Ukrainian, Russian, and Byelorussian. Nev- ertheless, by virtue of being Soviet and from the industrialized western regions, most Newcomers share some common cultural assumptions.

Having spoken about the relationship of the Chukchi to the tundra and the Yupik to the sea, it seems logical that the third part of this triad, the Newcomer, will be represented by the village. However, this is not entirely the case. To Newcom- ers, the village is merely a temporary place of physical residence. There are exceptions to this. Some Newcomers are born in Sireniki and others are married to local people and choose to build their homes there, but for most their rodina (birth- place) rests in their natal republics and villages. Some Newcomers have ideological attachments to the village, such as building the future of Commu- nism in the primitive North, but most Newcomers primarily think about Sireniki as a means to a sound economic future.7

Because the Soviet goals in the North sur- rounded resource utilization and exploitation, the Newcomer's orientation is production. They are focused on resources that have monetary value (minerals, salmon, and furs) and on the most expedient ways to extract and utilize those resources. Making a very simplified statement about the very complex relationship which exists between the state governmental apparatus and the Soviet military-industrial complex, one can say that this type of resource production is accompanied in the North by an ideology that accepts ecological disas- ters as simply the small cost of building a new, productive socialist life.

This ideology allows the Newcomers throughout the North to strip mine without recla- mation; to recklessly extract oil, while ignoring leaky pipelines; to overharvest the fisheries; and to clear cut forests with no plan for reforestation. The Sireniki variations of this behavior include: driv- ing vezdekhods (all-terrain vehicles) indiscrimi- nately across the tundra irrespective of the ecological consequences; overharvesting of sea mammals to provide feed for the fox farm; abandoning used




fuel barrels on the tundra, which pollutes the groundwater; and, when fishing for salmon, removing the caviar but discarding the flesh. One young woman expressed her distress at these practices in the following way:

I worry about what's happening here, the huge number of walrus which we kill to feed the foxes. Earlier we never questioned, when the government commanded we just did what they said (she made a marching movement with her hands and feet). This year the hunters brought in too few wal- ruses to provide enough feed so the kitoboi (government whaling ship) brought in whales to make up the difference. We never used to kill females or pups, now they take everything - this should not be done! These actions are destroying our bonds with the animals and eventually the spiritual base of our culture. (Yupik woman, 1990).

In Sireniki, as all over the Russian North, the Newcomers are blamed for the poor physical up- keep of the village and the general deterioration of the environment in the area. Local people say that Newcomers "priezhaiut i yezhaiiut i v tundre odni pomoiki ostalis (they come and they go and on the tundra they leave only garbage dumps)." Newcom- ers themselves admit that the Soviet system has had a disastrous effect on the local ecology. "Eto mesta hez khoziain (this is a land without a mas- ter)," is a frequently heard remark, meaning that they come knowing they will leave and therefore do not bother to take care of the land (Schindler 1992 makes a similar point).

Although individuals are concerned about the ecological effects of their behavior - they may complain about the fuel barrels on the tundra and the garbage dump at the edge of town - most feel powerless to make a change. Occasionally, individuals do something. In order to stop the stench of rotting whale carcasses from permeating the village, one young man, Kolya, a traktorist (tractor driver), dragged them off the beach and deposited them on the side of the nearest mountain.

This action created a rather surreal scene for anyone taking a hike along the mountain trail. Sun-bleached whale crania, vertebrae, femurs, and pelvises line the path, almost reminiscent of an ancient Inuit ritual site. It had the desired effect of removing the odor, but completely ignored the spiritual consequence of abandoning sea mammal remains on the tundra. Ironically, these skeletons provide a fitting monument to the Newcomers' at- titude toward Native beliefs and toward the environment.

The classification of the natural environment by the Soviets according to economic production is in such radical contrast to the indigenous cultural-spiritual relationship that it stands out as one of the defining features of the Newcomers' orientation. Their perception of the natural environ-

ment is rooted in a concept of production. This is not to say that the Yupik and the Chukchi are the original environmentalists. They too have ex- ploited their environment, not always as conserva- tionists (for a full discussion of prehistoric and early historic Yupik subsistence practices and their effect on local resources, see Krupnik 1993); however, these conflicting perspectives permeate the contemporary interaction between Newcomers and local people, inhibiting their dialogue.

The Evolving Discourse of Otherness

It is not possible to conclude a discussion of collective identity formation without addressing the issue of interest. Researchers examining the questions surrounding group identity frequently point to economic, political, or psychosocial interest as the motivations for group cohesiveness. A. Cohen (1981:325), using a resource-competition model, argues that ethnicity is a "communal organization that is manipulated by an interest group in its struggle to develop and maintain its power." DeVos (1975) points to group membership as pro- viding support and as a way of dealing with personal insecurity and questions of self- worth. Keyes (1981:14) outlines how ethnicity functions "in the pursuit of social interests." These types of models dominate discussions of collective identity formation. As previously noted, while these models are frequently based on immigrant minority populations in urban settings, they do provide insight into the evolving politicization of discourse in Sireniki.

Social stratification and access to scarce resources do play a role in Sireniki. Newcomers im- migrated to the area in pursuit of economic and/or ideologic goals and they fill most of the jobs in the infrastructure (e.g., schools, warehouses, transportation, and administration), leaving few of these economically and socially advantageous positions to the Yupik and Chukchi peoples. R. Cohen (1978:393) suggests that "ethnicity and oc- cupational stratification enhance one another with the lower status ethnic groups restricted to lower regarded and poorly paid economic positions." Economic stratification of the system in Sireniki is perceived by the Yupik and Chukchi to be dis- criminatory and therefore has become the main topic of discourse between them.

Although the Soviet system ideologically did not condone discrimination against Native peoples, in practice its Russified goals inherently con- ferred advantage upon Newcomers. In 1990, out of the 413 people registered by the local government as workers, 51% of all Newcomers held professional positions [spetsialisty] while 49% held la-




borer positions [rabotniki nekvalifitsirovannogo truda). By comparison, 85% of the Native population held laborer positions while 15% held professional positions. Of the white collar professional positions (101 total), there were nine top administrative positions (e.g., director of the state farm, first party secretary, director of the school, doctor, hunter and herder administrators, director of the warehouse, and mayor) and eight of these were held by Newcomers. One position, that of pediatri- cian, was held by a Chukchi woman, but the status of most doctors in Russia is not comparable to the high status of MDs in the United States. Some Yupik and Chukchi individuals are given opportunities for economic and social advancement through higher education; however, with New- comers controlling the infrastructure (schools, state farm administrations, local governments, hospitals, warehouses, transportation, and supplies), the majority of opportunities open to the Yupik and Chukchi are laborer positions or Native economic endeavors, such as fishing, trapping, skin sewing, reindeer herding, and sea mammal hunting. Although these positions sometimes en- tail equal pay (a reindeer brigadier in a productive year may receive better pay than a schoolteacher), they are still systematically lower status positions. Clearly, such labor is culturally valued by the Chukchi and the Yupik themselves. In many ways the very definitions of Chukchi and Yupik men are as reindeer herder and sea mammal hunter. This work confers status within their own groups but not by the larger national system. The stratification of the economic system reinforces the structural and cultural boundaries between the New- comers, Chukchi, and Yupik peoples.

One of the main ways in which the system favors Newcomers is the control of access to material resources. This control plays itself out in a number of ways in the village, from job assign- ments to special goods from the village warehouse and store. In Sireniki, as all over the former Soviet Union, access to material goods carries with it a certain amount of social influence and power. In areas where goods are scarce, as they are in Sireniki, one of the most powerful positions is that of the warehouse administrator, in this case held by a Russian woman. Because goods are barged into Sireniki from Vladivostok in the summer, the warehouse contains all of the goods, both food and clothing, needed for the following year.

The warehouse administrator, sometimes in counsel with the state farm director, the chairman of the local council [selsoviet], and the state farm economists, decides when and in what quantity goods will be sold. Either through favors, social connections, or political position, certain individuals, almost exclusively Newcomers, have access to the goods in the warehouse outside of the state

sanctioned channels. It is not unusual, as a visitor, to be invited to dinner at the state farm director's home and to be served products which have never been offered for sale in the store.

One of the most tightly controlled products is alcohol, sold only by coupon and only once a month, on a Saturday, after 6:00 p.m. But alcohol, like other products, is accessible through connections. The informal economy, as it operates in Sireniki, is controlled by Newcomers. Newcomers are in the systemically more powerful positions and Native people recognize their own lack of access to those positions. Although many Yupik and Chukchi people find alternative pathways to material goods, they understand the system to be in- equitable.

We never received the bottles for her birthday party. They're (Newcomer warehouse administrators) covering up bottles they drank or brought to their husbands. I signed a complaint against them. They won't do anything and I'll probably pay for it in the end.

This Chukchi woman's comments refer to a complaint she made against the Newcomer warehouse director, who never delivered the alcoholic beverages she signed for for her mother's 70th birthday celebration.

Because the Soviet system had its basis in Russian social structure and culture, Newcomers are inherently advantaged. However, in Sireniki they interpret their social and economic advancement in the system as a sign of their cultural and intellectual superiority to the Chukchi and Yupik. Williams (1989:437) points out that "members of the ruling race/culture/nation often assume a superiority based on their alleged innate intellectual capabilities."

Newcomers are identified as nonlocal, literally "in-comers." The Chukchi and Yupik, who are local [mestnye), are frequently spoken of by New- comers as primitive and uneducated. Newcomers point to basic cultural differences as proof of these labels (e.g., dietary preferences, the smell of the fur garments hanging in communal hallways, the perception of a high incidence of childbirth among unwed Native mothers, and their "choice" of jobs). The work which many Yupik and Chukchi people do, such as slaughtering reindeer and sea mammals, is considered repugnant, especially to New- comer women. One teacher provided as evidence of Yupik primitiveness an incident where a child did not cry over the death of his brother and in fact played basketball the afternoon of the tragedy. What the teacher did not know is that it is considered unsafe to shed tears over the dead as their spirits might hear your sadness and refuse to leave the village. These few examples illustrate the Newcomers' very basic cultural nonunderstanding




of the Chukchi and Yupik peoples. These structural and cultural constructions of Chukchi and Yupik by Newcomers are a classic "we/they" dichotomy, which for many anthropologists is the keystone of what defines a collectivity.

This division is compounded by the physical separation of the three groups both at their places of work and in their free time. Very few Newcom- ers have anything but superficial contact with Chukchi or Yupik. On Sundays, the one non- work- ing day of the week, Chukchi families and friends head to the tundra for picnics, Yupik families and friends go to the beach, and Newcomers relax at home. A favorite activity, in both summer and winter, is fishing. All three groups love to fish, but again segregate themselves in this endeavor. Na- tional holidays, birthdays, and weddings are cele- brated by eating and drinking, but almost exclusively with one's own collective group. The exception to this would be family members among the few exogamous marriages. Even many apartments or sections of apartment buildings (called koridora, corridors) tend to be shared by members of the same group, sometimes of the same family. This lack of interaction hinders the possibility of creating a meaningful dialogue between the groups and reinforces their separation.

All three groups define food differently. Al- though Natives and non-Natives consume Rus- sian/Soviet food (e.g., bread, sugar, butter, cheese, beef, chicken, and tea) they do so in varying amounts. For the Chukchi, reindeer meat is the very definition of food. Although they consume and even relish sea mammal meat, the Chukchi confess that they had to be taught to like it. In contrast, the Yupik define sea mammal meat and fat, especially that of the bowhead whale (Krupnik 1983; Kerttula n.d.), as their "real" food. Like the Chukchi, they eat reindeer, but it is not savored like sea mammal meat. Most Newcomers will consume reindeer meat because of its availability and similarity to beef, but very few will eat sea mammal meat and almost none consume the fat.

Yupik, Chukchi, and Newcomers also differ in their social organizations. The Chukchi and Yupik domestic groups consist of large extended families, eating and working together and often supporting each other economically. In contrast, Newcomers come to the North as nuclear family groups. Although they would prefer to be near other family members, the structure of work in the northern regions often prohibits this. Thus they grow to depend upon strong friendships to provide the support which the Yupik and Chukchi people get from family.

Other ways in which Yupik, Chukchi, and Newcomers are distinct are in their ritual practices. The Chukchi and Yupik practice of feeding ancestral spirits is largely unknown by Newcom-

ers. Feeding consists of placing a small offering of special products (candy, cookies, tobacco, or alcohol) in the stove, out the window, or in the corri- dor near one's apartment. This practice is believed to placate any restless spirits and keep family members well. During funerals, similar offerings are placed near the body of the deceased as it lies in state in the family apartment and then later at the grave site. This is to ensure an easy passage for the spirit to the other side (see Kerttula n.d. for a full description of these practices).

So as not to create too rigid an image, it should be noted that the boundaries between these groups are flexible and intergroup dialogue does occur. One way in which it occurs is through exogamous marriage. In Sireniki group endogamy is very high. In 1990, 119 or 73% of 163 registered marriages were endogamous. The highest rate of endogamy, 61%, is among Newcomers (this is because they generally come to the region already married) as compared to a rate of 48% among the Yupik. The highest rate of exogamy occurs between Yupik and Newcomers (52%), the second highest rate is between Chukchi and Yupik (41%), and the lowest rate is between Chukchi and New- comers (10%, or three marriages in 1990). Out of a total of 22 Chukchi exogamous marriages, in 18 the spouses are Yupik (14 husbands, 4 wives); out of a total of 44 Yupik exogamous marriages, in 23 the spouses are Newcomers (19 husbands, 4 wives). There are only three registered marriages between Newcomers (Russian husbands) and Chukchi (wives). Three marriages occurred with other groups, such as Evenk, Dolgan, and Tartar. These figures point to a second pattern of interaction among the three groups.

Although the main differentiation for New- comers is between nonlocal and local, there is a second level of stratification. As reflected by marriage patterns, the Newcomers consider the Yupik more comprehensible and therefore more accept- able partners than the Chukchi. It is explained thai the Yupik, being a sedentary people, have had more exposure to Newcomers and therefore they are used to one another. The Chukchi, being a fairly recent addition to the village, are considered more distinct and less understandable. This distinction between the two groups confers certain advantages on the Yupik. They have increased access to goods through their Newcomer spouses, and although children are most often registered as the nationality of the Native spouse (91%), they have relatives on the materik (literally "mainland," referring primarily to western Russia), to which they can travel and thus be exposed to the broader national culture. The advantage which this expanded social group confers on families ranges from access to vegetables in the winter and material goods unavailable in Chukotka, to the




right to live in the natal republic of the non-Native parent. Other arenas of intergroup discourse include classmates, friendships, and trading partnerships, but these are insufficient to overcome the structural and cultural boundaries in place (Kert- tula n.d.).

The Construction of Collectivities R. Cohen (1978:397) states that "it seems as if there is a threshold of issue salience which must be present in a cognitive and evaluative sense before leaders can use socioculturally significant dia- critics to trigger ethnicity into a mobilized ethnic grouping at a particular level of we/they dichot- omization." Having discussed some of the dia- critics of the different groups in Sireniki, it is now possible to describe how these cultural groups gained salience as emergent collectivities through an evolving discourse of negotiated otherness.

Gellner (1992:35) notes that when "ethnicity becomes 'political', it gives rise to a 'nationalism'." In Sireniki, as elsewhere in the former So- viet Union, the destabilization of the centralized state authority opened a new arena for public dialogue. In this arena the Yupik and Chukchi express their demands for a stronger voice and increased local control. In Sireniki these demands range from class interests (better working and living conditions), to cultural interests (language and ritual preservation), to political interests (territorial autonomy). In this multicultural setting, these new movements are complicated by the conflicting and often competing viewpoints of the Chuk- chi, Yupik, and Newcomers. In Sireniki there is a continuous intergroup negotiation over each group's boundaries and definitions of one another. However, the discourse of otherness never gained a public forum until a conference of the Regional Society of the Eskimo of Chukotka which took place in Provideniya, 1990.

Taking advantage of newly enacted legislation "adopted by the USSR on April 26, 1990, enti- tled 'Unhindered Ethnic Development of the Citi- zens of the USSR Who Live Outside their Ethnic Areas or have no such Areas within the Territory of the USSR'," the Yupik started to organize into political associations based upon nationality (Vakhtin 1993:12). One such organization was the Regional Society of the Eskimo of Chukotka, now called Yupik.8

The political demands of this association had been circulating in Sireniki since winter, 1990. They were primarily class concerns stating objec- tions to poor wages (especially for women who worked skins), difficulty in receiving apartments, Newcomers' complaints about the smell of traditional foods and garments, and limited access to prized resources, such as salmon and caviar, as

compared with Newcomers. They also expressed concern over language loss and cultural deterioration as exemplified by their low "pure Eskimo" population (this concept was borrowed by Yupik people from Soviet biological anthropology arti- cles on genetics and has been incorporated into their discourse). Because the Yupik society was formally organized, its members had a high level of political consciousness, and their agenda domi- nated the conference, raising the following issues: the formation of Native associations, the international park between Chukotka and Alaska, and the possibility of national villages. The latter became the focal point of the politicization of collective groups in Sireniki in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

The positions of the different groups con- cerning the issues of national villages and ethni- cally separate Native associations were publicly expressed during a town meeting several months after the Provideniya conference. Regardless of Yupik's intent in raising the issue of national villages, the Chukchi interpreted it as a move on the part of the Yupik to push them out of Sireniki. Ru- mors of this were prevalent and polarized the Yupik and Chukchi communities, giving the discourse of difference decidedly nationalist tones.

My wife is Chukchi, I am Eskimo, where will my children live? This is a stupid idea, you can't split a community in half (Panauge, Yupik hunter).

Why do we need a separate association? We should all be in one together, Russians, Chukchi, and Eskimos (Natasha, Chukchi dance instructor).

You're creating a Nagorno-Karabakh! You [Yupik members] have your association and well [Yupik, Chukchi, and Newcomers] have ours (Zavina, Yupik state farm economist).

These quotes reflect various reactions against the perceived separatist thinking of the Yupik members. Some Chukchi took great offence and re- counted other examples of Yupik discrimination against them on various occasions. However, many were genuinely confused as to why the Yupik would want them out of the village. This was partly due to the influence of Soviet ideology of a brotherhood of workers and social equality, which still col- ored public opinion, and partly due to genuine naivete. Chukchi were hurt by the suggestion that they should be excluded. Some people repeated So- viet rhetoric about brotherhood and equality and in- sisted the Newcomers were Chukotkians as well. (These statements occurred in public forums and were made by Native people who held administrative positions, so it is difficult to determine whether they were adherents to Soviet doctrine or simply making politically expedient speeches.) And still others, those in exogamous marriages, worried about the fate of their dual-nationality children.




Newcomers' impressions were fairly nonde- script. Due to their perception that they were in- dispensable to the continued operation of basic services in the village and the fact that their own intentions had always been to retire to their homelands, most felt that the desire for national villages and associations was a passing phase for local peoples.

The discourse following this incident was couched in otherness. In fact, as Vakhtin (1993: 13-19) later described, following the breakup of the centralized Communist State, economic reorganization of the former Soviet Union began along ethnic lines. In Chukotka, according to Vakhtin, many people felt that the state farms should be re- organized and land transferred to the indigenous communities. Unfortunately, the reorganization legislation was devoid of details and authority for such actions, leaving the very definition of who was indigenous open to debate. Vakhtin concluded that "dealing with economic issues on ethnic lines can lead only to ethnic conflict." He went on to state that in 1992 the Council of People's Deputies of the Chukchi Autonomous Area "appealed to all local councils, the local administration, supervi- sory bodies, the mass media and political movements and parties to refrain from extreme and ill- considered measures which would exacerbate an already difficult economic and social situation in Chukotka and were liable to ignite conflicts of an inter-ethnic nature" (Vakhtin 1993:18).

Although Vakhtin does not specifically discuss Sireniki, the material presented here makes it possible to understand how the situation in the village might escalate to the level of interethnic conflict. The discourse of difference utilized at the town meeting was expressed in other situations as well. During parent-teacher conferences in the school, Yupik and Chukchi parents were sharply divided over the issue of native language courses. Each believed the other group to be receiving in- struction better than their own. The Chukchi complained that there were more Yupik lessons than Chukotkian and Yupik parents complained that the quality of the Yupik lessons was substandard. Both groups accused others of favoritism toward their own group in matters of access to material goods. The saleswomen in the stores were primarily Yupik and therefore were accused of holding special goods for Yupik customers but not for Chukchi. The Yupik responded by pointing to the polka olenevoda (literally the "reindeer herders' shelf," on which reserved goods were held aside for herders until they returned from the tundra) as an example of special privileges for the Chukchi.

This dialogue escalated in the summer of 1990 when the reindeer herders sold panty (antler) to Korea through a middleman in Alaska in ex- change for American goods (food mixers, clothing,

VCRs, and tape recorders). These goods could be purchased through the state farm but only by the reindeer herders. The Yupik hunters became angry because they claimed to have helped the herders in the preparation of the panty for shipping. The Chukchi countered by saying that the Yupik had the special privilege of visa-free visiting to Alaska where they gained access to the very same goods through their relatives. These forms of the dialogue of difference were interest based, and in some instances very gross material interests were being argued. What is important is that the Yupik and Chukchi chose to focus their discourse on each other and not on the Soviet system. Among the Yupik and Chukchi there existed a general anger aimed at the Soviet system's inefficiencies and totalitarianism (opinions shared by Newcom- ers) but very few people were able to objectify their positions within the system. Therefore, they chose as the focal point in their dialogue the familiar - each other.

By reinforcing differences through social and economic stratification, the Soviet system was a divisive force in the community. By limiting access to resources and controlling group economic activities, the system structured intergroup dialogue in such a way as to facilitate the emergence of collectivities. The boundaries between New- comer, Yupik, and Chukchi became more defined and the differences between the three groups were magnified. As Barth suggested, ethnicity "orga- nizes] interaction between people" and in Sireniki collective identity was utilized as a back- drop against which to understand the new context of interaction. What were earlier conceived as cultural and symbolic differences became solidified as political ones. In Sireniki, the very system that sought to control and homogenize difference, instead reinforced it.

Conclusion At the outset of this paper I described how anthropologists and other social scientists have used the concept of ethnic group to explain the developing nationalistic rivalries between cultural groups of the former Soviet Union. I have argued that although the concepts of ethnicity and nationalism are valuable in understanding the relationships between some of the groups within the Republics of the former Soviet Union, they do little to explain the emerging discourse of otherness between the indigenous peoples of Chukotka. I have described the way in which "self" becomes more defined through interaction with "other." The sea and its associated symbols become more meaningful to the Yupik when juxtaposed with the Chukchi and the tundra and its associated symbols. For the Chukchi, the reverse is true.




Examining my data from Sireniki, I have at- tempted to outline the complex interplay between the cultural and symbolic conceptualizations of the Chukchi and Yupik and the directed economic, social, and political changes of the Soviet system. Sovietization in Sireniki created an artificial, plural community, restructured Native economies as socialist labor, devalued Native culture and language, controlled access to valued resources, and stratified the social structure. These changes (among others) amplified existing collective group differences to which the Yupik, Chukchi, and Newcomers adapted and which they made meaningful through their own cultural constructions of each other.

In concluding, I want to avoid the proverbial chicken and egg argument - which came first, political domination and economic subordination or collective identity? These are not mutually exclusive events, and in Sireniki they are both basic to the evolving discourse of otherness. Although these issues provide a focus for political discourse, they are not the impetus for collective organization. Collectivities are formed on the basis of prior cultural and symbolic conceptualizations. The Chukchi, Yupik, and Newcomers have a defined understanding of each other's "otherness." In the context of the Soviet restructuring of local economic, political, and social systems, each group utilized its prior cultural symbols and meanings to make sense of the present structure (i.e., in the So- viet world). In doing so, their sense of self, and therefore their sense of the other, became more salient and more defined.

The Yupik and Chukchi did not organize themselves as collectivities solely for interest- based political and economic gains. Even if social and economic equality were a reality, the Chukchi, Yupik, and Newcomers would still fundamentally not understand each other very well. Yupik husbands would continue to be confused by the actions of their Chukchi wives, and Chukchi wives by their Yupik husbands. Chukchi herders working in the village would still yearn for the tundra, and Newcomers would continue to romanticize about their lives in their home republics.

However, as has been maintained throughout this paper, the emergence of collective identity and the resulting conflicts are not the expression of unconstrained, ancient ethnic rivalries. Instead, the emergence of collective identity among the Chukchi, Yupik, and Newcomers is their attempt to understand one another against the background noise of the economic and social restructuring of the Soviet system, through their own prior cultural symbols, meanings, and forms, and in so understanding, to construct or understand themselves.

End Notes 1. Because "ethnicity" and "ethnic group" seem to be ubiquitous terms in both academic and vernacular usage, which for some analysts (most notably, Karen Blu 1980) has rendered them useless, I have chosen the less controversial label of "cultural collectivity" to refer to the emergent group identity among the Yupik, Chukchi, and Newcomers of Sireniki.

2. What the Soviets labeled natsional'nosti' (nationality) and natsionalizm (nationalism) differs from western academic discussions of nationalism. Nat- sional'nosti', which for the Soviet citizen is a legal notation placed on the individual's internal pass- port, is best translated as "ethnicity." It could as easily be translated as ethnic or cultural group. Natsionalizm is the strong identification with one's own cultural group to the detriment of the Soviet whole. This differs from the western schol- arly usage of the word, which loosely defines "nationalism" as "the contention that the organizing principle of government should be the unification of all members of a nation in a single state" (Arm- strong 1992:29).

3. This is a distinction made by Soviet social scientists between the traditional form of nomadism among the indigenous herding peoples, where the entire family moved together and lived with the herd, and the Soviet form of nomadism, where the herd was tended by a brigade of men (Boiko 1987; Vitebsky 1989).

4. It should be noted that this separation is spe- cific to Sireniki. Other coastal villages were occupied since prehistoric times by sea mammal hunting Chukchi, and therefore this dichotomy between tundra and sea does not exist (Peter Schweitzer, personal communication, 1993). Bogo- raz (1904-1909:97) notes the distinction between "Reindeer Chukchi" and "Maritime Chukchi."

5. Kawawa told me a story of where she believed the name Sireniki came from. She said that mis- takenly some people believed it was from the Yupik word for sun, siqineq, but instead it was from the Yupik word for antler, sighunzk (Jacob- son 1987). At one time there had been a mound of antlers not far from the village, and people used this mound like an oracle. The title of this paper literally means Sireniki, but it is also a metaphor for post-Soviet Sireniki where two symbolic and cultural systems, antler and sea, Chukchi and Yupik, are brought together and thus transformed.

6. Prior to Sovietization the Southern Chukchi cre- mated their dead. This practice is familiar to the Sireniki Chukchi, who only light fires by the grave sites because of the scarcity of wood in the Arctic




(Igor Krupnik, personal communication, 1996). Be- cause they believe that the Chukchi are the human incarnations of reindeer (who are themselves the creation of fire) this practice provides closure in a spiritual cycle of fire, reindeer, and human being - returning to fire that which came from fire (Kert- tula n.d.).

7. Since the fall of the Soviet Union and the developing economic instability in Russia, Newcomers have been leaving this region. The reasons for this mass exodus are uncontrolled inflation and the dra- matic decrease in the value of the northern wage coefficient, the lack of access to goods, and the worthlessness of their savings and pensions. With financial incentives gone, Newcomers have little to hold them in the northern regions, and consequently seek financial security in their homelands.

8. The name of the organization will appear in ital- ics to distinguish it from reference to the Yupik population at large.

Acknowledgments. This text is from my doctoral dissertation, Antler on the Sea (Kerttula n.d.). I give special thanks to the people of Sireniki who were my hosts, friends, research assistants, and collaborators in this work. I also thank the Hewitt Foundation Research Program to Promote Interna- tional Partnerships and the Department of Anthro- pology at the University of Michigan which provided funding for the original fieldwork of 1989-1991 on which this paper is based. Addi- tional funding and support came from the Institute for Biological Problems of the North, Magadan, Russia, and my parents, Joyce Campbell Kerttula and Jalmar Martin Kerttula, to whom I am very grateful.

References Anderson, B. 1991 Imagined Communities: Reflections on the

Origin and Spread of Nationalism [Revised Edition]. Verso, London.

Anderson, D. 1995 National Identity and Belonging in Arctic

Siberia: An Ethnography ofEvenkis and Dol- gans at Khantaiskoe Ozero in the Taimyr Au- tonomous District. Ph.D. dissertation, Depart- ment of Anthropology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge.

Armstrong, J.A. 1992 The Autonomy of Ethnic Identity: Historic

Cleavages and Nationality Relations in the USSR. In: Thinking Theoretically about Soviet Nationalities: History and Comparison in the Study of the USSR, edited by J. Motyl,

pp. 23-44. Columbia University Press, Oxford.

Balzer, M. Mandelstam 1983 Ethnicity without Power: The Siberian

Khanty in Soviet Society. Slavic Review 42(4): 633-648.

Barth, F. 1969 Introduction. In: Ethnic Groups and Bound-

aries: The Social Organization of Cultural Difference, edited by Frederick Barth, pp. 9-38. Little, Brown and Company, Boston.

Blu, K. 1980 The Lumbee Problem. Cambridge University

Press, Cambridge.

Bogoraz, V. 1904- The Chukchi. Memoirs of the American 1909 Museum of Natural History Vol. 1 1 . New

York.

Boiko, V.I. 1987 Problemy Sovremennogo SotsiaVnogo Razvi-

tiya Harodnostei Severa (Problems of Con- temporary Social Development of Northern Peoples). Nauka, Novosibirsk.

Cohen, A. 1974 Introduction: The Lesson of Ethnicity. In:

Urban Ethnicity, edited by A. Cohen, pp. ix-xxiii. Tavistok Publications, London.

1981 Variables in Ethnicity. In: Ethnic Change, edited by C. Keyes, pp. 307-331. University of Washington Press, Seattle.

Cohen, R. 1978 Ethnicity: Problem and Focus in Anthropol-

ogy. Annual Review of Anthropology 7:379-403.

De Vos, G. 1975 Ethnic Pluralism: Conflict and Accomoda-

tion. In: Ethnic Identity, edited by G. DeVos and L. Romanucci-Ross. Mayfield Publishing Co., Palo Alto.

Dunn, S., and E. Dunn 1963 The Transformation of Economy and Culture

in the Soviet North. American Anthropologist l(2):l-28.

Entessar, N. 1993 Azeri Nationalism in the Former Soviet

Union and Iran. In: The Rising Tide of Cul- tural Pluralism: The Nation State at Bay?, edited by C. Young, pp. 116-137. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison.

Fondahl, G. 1993 Siberia: Native Peoples and Newcomers.

In: Nations and Politics in the Soviet Succes- sor States, edited by I. Bremmer and R. Tara. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.




Forsyth, }. 1992 A History of the Peoples of Siberia: Russia's

North Asian Colony 1581-1990. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Gellner, E. 1992 Nationalism in the Vacuum. In: Thinking

Theoretically about Soviet Nationalities: His- tory and Comparison in the Study of the USSR, edited by AJ. Motyl, pp. 23-44. Columbia University Press, Oxford.

Grant, B. 1995 In the Soviet House of Culture: A Century of

Perestroikas. Princeton University Press, Princeton.

Gurvich, I.S. 1987 Etnich eskoe Razvitie Narodn ostei Severa v

Sovetskii Period (The Ethnic Development of Northern Peoples During the Soviet Period). Nauka, Moscow.

Humphrey, C. 1983 Karl Marx Collective: Economy, Society and

Religion in a Siberian Collective Farm. Cam- bridge University Press, Cambridge.

Jacobson, S. 1987 Dictionary of the St. Lawrence Island/

Siberian Yupik Language. Alaska Native Lan- guage Center, Fairbanks.

Kerttula, A. n.d. Antler on the Sea. Ph.D. dissertation, Depart-

ment of Anthropology, University of Michi- gan, Ann Arbor. In preparation.

Keyes, C.F. 1974 Towards a New Formulation of the Concept of

Ethnic Group. Ethnicity 1:202-213.

1981 The Dialectics of Ethnic Change. In: Ethnic Change, edited by C. Keyes, pp. 4-30. Uni- versity of Washington Press, Seattle.

Krupnik, I. 1983 Gray Whaling off the Chukotka Peninsula:

Past and Present. Report of the International Whaling Commission 3:557-562.

1987 The Bowhead vs. the Gray Whale in Chukotkan Aboriginal Whaling. Arctic 40(l):16-32.

1990 Toward the Reconstruction of the History of the Sirenikski Language, an Ethnographic View. Unpublished manuscript.

1993 Arctic Adaptations: Native Whalers and Rein- deer Herders of Northern Eurasia. University Press of New England, Hanover and London.

Ortner, S. 1973 On Key Symbols. American Anthropologist

75:1338-1346.

1991 Reading America; Preliminary Notes on Class and Culture. In: Recapturing Anthropology: Working in the Present, edited by R. Fox, pp. 163-189. School of American Research, Santa Fe.

Pika, Aleksandr, and Boris Prokhorov 1990 Les Grand Problèmes des "Petits Peuples"

(Big Problems for the "Small Peoples"). Ques- tions Siberiennes 1:7-15.

Schindler, D. 1992 Russian Hegemony and Indigenous Rights in

Chukotka. Etudes/Inuit/ Studies 16(l-2):51-74.

Smith, A.D. 1992 Ethnic Identity and Territorial Nationalism in

Comparative Perspective. In: Thinking Theo- retically about Soviet Nationalities: History and Comparison in the Study of the USSR, edited by A. J. Motyl, pp. 45-66. Columbia University Press, Oxford.

Suny, R.G. 1990 Nationalities and Nationalism. In: Chronicle

of a Revolution: A Western-Soviet Inquiry into Perestroika, edited by A. Brumberg, pp. 14-34. Pantheon Books, New York.

Toland, J.D. 1993 Introduction: Dialogue of Self and Other: Eth-

nicity and the Statehood Building Process. In: Ethnicity and the State. Political and Legal Anthropology Series, Volume 9, edited by J. Toland, pp. 1-20. Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick.

Vakhtin, N. 1993 Indigenous People of the Russian Far North:

Land Rights and the Environment. Paper presented at the United Nations Consultations of Indigenous Peoples.

Vdovin, I.S. 1965 Ocherki Istorii i Etnografii Chukchei (Essay

on the History and Ethnography of the Chukchi). Nauka, Moscow.

Verdery, K. 1991 Theorizing Socialism: A Prologue to the

"Transition." American Ethnologist 18:419-439.

Vincent, J. 1974 The Structuring of Ethnicity. Human Organi-

zation 33(4):375-379.

Vitebsky, P. 1989 Perestroika among the Reindeer Herders. Geo-

graphical Magazine 6:22-25.

Williams, B.F. 1989 A Class Act: Anthropology and the Race to

Nation across Ethnic Terrain. Annual Review of Anthropology 18:401-444.



Documents

Power, Resistance, and Security: Papers in Honor of Richard G. Condon, Steven L. McNabb, Aleksandr I. Pika, William W. Richards, Nikolai Galgauge, Nina Ankalina, Vera Rakhtilkon, Boris