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The Yakuts or Sakha (, ; сахалар, ) are a Turkic peoples ethnic group native to North Siberia, primarily the Sakha Republic in the Russian Federation. They also inhabit some districts of the Krasnoyarsk Krai. They speak Yakut language, which belongs to the Siberian branch of the Turkic languages.
In the mid-19th century, Nikolai S. Schukin wrote "A Trip to Yakutsk" based on his experiences visiting the area. He presented a somewhat different origin of the Yakuts that is based upon local oral histories. Groups of Khakas inhabiting the southern Yenisey watershed migrated north to the Nizhnyaya Tunguska River to the Lena Plateau and finally onward to the Lena River. Schukin is credited as introducing the concept of Yenisey Khakas as the ancestors of the Yakut into Russian historiography. The most authoritative account in support of the Yenisey origin hypothesis was written by Nikolai N. Kozmin in 1928. He concluded that some Khakas moved from the Yenisey to the Angara River due to difficulties in the regional economy. In the 12th century, Buryats arrived at Lake Baikal and through military force pushed the Khakas to the Lena.
Among scholars a commonly accepted hypothesis is that the Khoro Yakut originate from the Khori Buryat of Lake Baikal, and therefore spoke a Turko-Mongolic language. This is largely based on their similar ethnonyms. Proponents see the word Khoro as arising from the Tibetan word hor (). For example, according to G. N. Runyanstev, during the 6th through 10th centuries CE the inhabitants of Lake Baikal were called Chor. Okladnikov guessed that Khoro sire was near China and adjacent to the X.
This premise is not universally accepted and has been challenged by some researchers. George de Roerich has argued that the word is based on the Chinese word hu (胡]]), a term used as general reference by the Chinese to refer to nomadic Mongolic peoples of Central Asia. In contemporary Tibetan hor is used to describe any pastoralist "nomad of mixed origin" regardless of their ethnonym. After researching their origins, Gavriil Ksenofontov concluded that while the Khorolors were "formed from parts of some alien tribe that mixed with the Yakuts", there was no compelling evidence connecting them with the Khori Buryat.
A more recent argument by Zoriktuev proposes that the Khorolors were originally Paleo-Asians from the Lower Amur River. In contrast to their Yakut relatives, Khoro folklore focuses largely on the Raven, with some tales about the Eagle as well. In the mid 18th century Lindenau noted the Khorolors focused their religious devotion on the Raven, who was alternatively referred to as "Our ancestor", "Our deity", and "Our grandfather" by the Khorolors. This reverence arises from the Raven enabling a struggling human (either the first Khoro man or his mother) to survive by giving a flint and tinder box. Their mythos is similar to cultures from both sides of the Bering Sea. The Haida, Tlingit, Tshisham of the North American Pacific Northwest Coast and the Paleoasians of the Siberian Coast like the Chukchi, Itelmen, and Koryaks all share reverence for the Raven.
"...the Turkic-speaking ancestors of the Yakuts not only pushed out the aborigines but also subjected them to their influence by peaceful means; they assimilated and absorbed them into their mass... With this, the local tribes lost the former ethnic name and a proper ethnic consciousness, no longer separating themselves from the mass of Yakuts, and were not opposed to them... Consequently, as a result of the mixing with Northern aborigines, the southern ancestors of the Yakuts supplemented their culture and language with new features distinguishing them from other steppe tribes."
Traditional Yakut histories contain stories of the aboriginal peoples of Yakutia. From the subarctic Bulunsky and Verkhoyansky Districts, accounts state that the Black Yukaghir (Yakut: хара дъукаагырдар) descended from migrants pushed north from the Lena River. Related stories recorded in Ust'-Aldanskiy Ulus and Megino-Kangalassky District mention certain tribes leaving the region due to rising pressure from the incoming Yakuts. While some remained and intermarried with the newcomer, most went to the northern tundra.
The Yakuts called the Tumat people "Dyirikinei" or "chipmunk people" (Yakut: Sдьирикинэй), arising from the Tumatian "tail-coat." Bundles of deer fur were dyed with red ocher and sewn into Tumatian jackets as adornments. Tumat hats were likewise dyed red. This style was likely spread by the Tumatians to some Tungusic peoples. Similar clothing has been reported during the 17th century for the Evenks on the upper Angara and for Evens residing on the lower Kolyma in the early 19th century. Additionally there are many similarities between the clothing of the Tumats and Altaic cultures. Archeological work on Pazyryk culture sites have turned up both hats dyed red and tail-coats made of sables. While the "tails" were not dyed red, they were sewn with red dyed thread. Stylistic and design choices are also comparable to traditional Khakas and Kumandin clothing.
Some peaceable interactions including intermarriage did occur with the Tumats. One such example is the life of Džaardaakh (), a Tumatian woman. She was renowned for her physical strength and martial repute as an archer. However Džaardaakh eventually married a Yakut man and is considered a notable ancestor of the local Vilyuy Yakut. The origin of her name has been linked to a Yukaghir word for ice (Yukaghir: йархан).
The ancestors of Yakuts were Kurykans who migrated from Yenisey river to Lake Baikal and were subject to a certain Mongolian admixture prior to migration in the 7th century. The Yakuts originally lived around Olkhon and the region of Lake Baikal. Beginning in the 13th century they migrated to the basins of the Middle Lena River, the Aldan River and Vilyuy River rivers under the pressure of the rising . The northern Yakuts were largely hunters, fishermen and reindeer herders, while the southern Yakuts raised Yakutian cattle and Yakutian horse.
In the 18th century the Russians reduced the pressure, gave Yakut chiefs some privileges, granted freedom for all inhabitants, gave them all their lands, sent Eastern Orthodox missions, and educated the Yakut people regarding agriculture. The discovery of gold and, later, the building of the Trans-Siberian Railway, brought ever-increasing numbers of Russians into the region. By the 1820s almost all the Yakuts claimed to have converted to the Russian Orthodox church, but they retained (and still retain) a number of shamanist practices. Yakut literature began to rise in the late 19th century, and a national revival occurred in the early 20th century.
Certain named Kigilyakh, as well as places such as Ynnakh Mountain, are held in high esteem by Yakuts.
According to Adamov, haplogroup N1c1 makes up 94% of the Sakha population. This genetic bottleneck has been dated approximately to 1300 CE ± 200 ybp and speculated to have been caused by high mortality rates in warfare and later relocation to the Middle Lena River.
The primary mitochondrial DNA haplogroups are various East Asian lineages, making up 92% of the total: haplogroup C at 36% to 45.7% and haplogroup D at 25.7% to 32.9% of the Yakut. Minor Eastern Eurasian mtDNA haplogroups include: 5.2% G, 4.49% F, 3.55% M13a1b, 1.89% A, 1.18% Y1a, 1.18% B, 0.95% Z3, and 0.71% M7. According to Fedorova, besides East Asian maternal lineages, "the mtDNA pool of the native populations of Sakha contains a small (8%), but diverse set of western Eurasian mtDNA haplogroups, mostly present among Yakuts and Evenks", the most common being H and J.
" The Sakha people had made a temporary footprint in the U.S. in 1820 at Fort Ross in Jenner, California. According to the 1820 census, five Sakha men lived in the fort with 260 people, working for the Russian-American Company, a fur-trading business. This fort became a melting pot of different cultures, including Russians, Native Alaskans and local Native American tribes, such as the Kashaya Pomo. The Sakha were part of the diverse workforce that supported the fort operations in areas, such as hunting, trapping, farming and construction. By 1860, there were at least 20 Sakhas living at Fort Ross before the Russian-American Company ended its North American operations in the early 1880s." - Lynnwood Today
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