Handiworks based on Yukaghir traditions

Elena Semyonovna Vorontsova comes from the village of Arylakh, Verkhnekolymsky District, Republic of Sakha (Yakutia). Member of the Union of Masters of Indigenous Minorities of the North of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia). Member of the Association of Yukaghirs of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), delegate to the VII Congress of Yukaghirs in 2023. Head of the ethno-folklore Yukaghir group ‘Kujoon Shorile’. The ensemble is organised at the A.E. Kulakovsky House of People's Friendship. 

Expressing reverence for the traditions of her Yukaghir ancestors, Elena is engaged in handicrafts: she sews bags from fish skin, bones, scales; reconstructs Yukaghir ethnographic finds; makes wooden utensils and anthropomorphic figures that had a spiritual purpose in the Yukaghir dwelling. Elena realised her Yukaghir roots as an adult and notes that it is easier to learn the language through songs. In the video she will tell about her products, the interesting tradition of spiritual kinship of man with wood, and how she came to be active in the development of native culture.

Photos of Vorontsova Elena's products

Vorontsova Elena Semyonovna
Bag made of flax leather with the use of beads
Bag made of crucian carp scales, fish gills, faux fur and small bones
Traditional Nordic headband decorated with beads
Set of jewellery made of painted crucian carp gills, scales and pearls
Fish knuckle and pearl chain
Headband and necklace
Headband and necklace
Anthropomorphic figurines made of larch wood
A figurine in the form of a mammal or other desired prey was left by hunters on the trail where they were going to hunt. Such figurines also symbolise the spirits of the hearth or clan, more often they have a function of protection.
The seven-day calendar. Before going hunting, the father of the family would mark on a stick how many days he would be gone, then the rest of the family would make marks on top of his father's marks, so they counted the days.
Reconstruction from birch bark of a famous pictographic letter from a Yukaghir woman to a young man. The girl describes her thoughts and feelings to her beloved.
Map of the Kolyma River area on birch bark
A boat with oars
Moose and geese made of birch bark. Such items belonged to children.
A hunter's letter on birch bark. The hunter from the chum went hunting for 6 days (the number of bones on the trail). The semicircle at the end of the path means the return in some days. Fish bones, scales and gills are used in the work.
Wooden tableware
Owl. Fabric, feathers, beads, fish scales are used in the work.
A mock-up of a crucian carp

When making her products, Elena turns to the Yukaghir people's researcher Lyudmila Nikolaevna Zhukova for ethnographic clarifications, and for folklore to Tatiana Innokentyevna Ignatyeva, a researcher of Yukaghir musical folklore.

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