Traditional dwelling of nomadsChum - the dwelling of the indigenous
residents of Yamal

Traditional housing of city residents

Relevance of the research topic

Object of study

Subject of study

Research hypothesis

Research objectives

Characteristics of the Khanty people

Khanty lifestyle

Women are engaged

Plague design

Plague design

Internal space of the plague

Vertical model of the world and plagues

conclusions

National dwellings of Khanty and Mansi. At the end of the nineteenth century, W.T. Sirelius described about thirty types of residential buildings in Khanty and Mansi. And also utility structures for storing food and things, for cooking, for animals.

There are more than twenty varieties of them. There are about a dozen so-called religious buildings - sacred barns, houses for women in labor, for images of the dead, public buildings. True, many of these buildings with different purposes are similar in design, but nevertheless their diversity is amazing.

Does one Khanty family have many buildings? Hunter-fishermen have four seasonal settlements and each has a special housing, and the reindeer herder, wherever he comes, places only tents everywhere. Any building for a person or animal is called kat, khot (Khant.). Definitions are added to this word - birch bark, earthen, plank; its seasonality – winter, spring, summer, autumn; sometimes the size and shape, as well as the purpose - dog, deer.

Some of them were stationary, that is, they stood constantly in one place, while others were portable, which could be easily installed and disassembled. ness – winter, spring, summer, autumn; sometimes the size and shape, as well as the purpose - dog, deer.

There was also a mobile home - a large covered boat. When hunting and on the road, the simplest types of “houses” are often used. For example, in winter they make a snow hole - sogym. The snow in the parking lot is dumped into one pile, and a passage is dug into it from the side. The internal walls need to be quickly secured, for which they are first thawed a little with the help of a fire and birch bark. Sleeping places, that is, just the ground, are covered with spruce branches.

Fir branches are softer, but not only can they be laid, they cannot even be cut; it was believed that this was a tree evil spirit. Before retiring, the entrance to the hole is plugged with removed clothing, birch bark or moss. If several people spend the night, then a wide hole is dug in the snow pile, which is covered with all the skis in the group, and on top with snow. As soon as the snow freezes, the skis are removed. Sometimes the pit is made so wide that two rows of skis are required for the roof and they are supported with pillars in the middle of the pit. Sometimes a barrier was placed in front of the snow pit.

The barriers were built in both winter and summer. The simplest way is to find two trees that are several steps apart (or drive two risers with forks into the ground), put a crossbar on them, lean trees or poles against it, and lay branches, birch bark or grass on top.

If the stop is long or there are a lot of people, then two such barriers are installed, with their open sides facing each other. A passage is left between them, where a fire is lit so that the heat flows in both directions. Sometimes a fire pit was set up here for smoking fish.

The next step towards improvement is to install the barriers close to each other and enter through a special door opening. The fire is still in the middle, but a hole in the roof is needed for the smoke to escape. This is already a hut, which on the best fishing grounds is built more durable - from logs and boards, so that it lasts for several years.

The buildings with a frame made of logs were more capital. They were placed on the ground or a hole was dug under them, and then they got a dugout or half-countryman. Archaeologists associate traces of such dwellings with the distant ancestors of the Khanty - back to the Neolithic era (4-5 thousand years ago).

The basis of such frame dwellings were support pillars that converged at the top, forming a pyramid, sometimes truncated. This basic idea has been developed and refined in many directions.

The number of pillars could be from 4 to 12; they were placed directly on the ground or on a low frame made of logs and connected at the top in different ways, covered with whole or split logs, and on top with earth, turf or moss; finally, there were differences in internal structure. With a certain combination of these characteristics, one or another type of dwelling was obtained.

This is how they build myg-khat - “earth house” on Vakhi. It stands out above the ground only by its upper part, and the lower part is deepened by 40-50 cm. The length of the pit is about 6 m, the width is about 4 m. Four pillars are placed above the pit in the corners, and longitudinal and transverse crossbars are placed on them at the top. They serve as the “wombs” of the future ceiling and at the same time a support for future walls.

To obtain walls, pillars are first placed at an angle at a distance of a step from each other, with their upper ends resting on the mentioned crossbars. Two opposing logs of opposite walls are connected by another crossbar.

On the side walls, the logs in the middle of the height are fastened with a transverse crossbar the entire length of the future house. Now that the lattice base of the ceiling and walls is ready, poles are placed on it, and then the entire structure is covered with earth.

From the outside it looks like a truncated pyramid. There is a hole left in the middle of the roof - this is a window. It is covered with a smooth transparent ice floe. The walls of the house are slanted, and in one of them there is a door. It opens not sideways, but upwards, i.e. it is somewhat similar to a trap in a cellar.

The idea of ​​such a dugout apparently originated among many nations independently of each other. In addition to the Khanty and Mansi, it was built by their close neighbors the Selkups and Kets, more distant Evenks, Altaians and Yakuts, in the Far East - the Nivkhs and even the Indians of Northwestern America.

The floor in such dwellings was the earth itself. At first, for sleeping places, they simply left unexcavated earth near the walls - a raised platform, which they then began to cover with boards, so that they got bunks. In ancient times, a fire was lit in the middle of the home and the smoke came out through a hole at the top, in the roof.

Only then did they begin to close it and turn it into a window. This became possible when a fireplace-type hearth appeared - a chuval, standing in the corner by the door. Its main advantage is the presence of a pipe that removes smoke from the living space. Actually, the chuval consists of one wide pipe. For it, they used a hollow tree and placed rods coated with clay in a circle. At the bottom of the pipe there is a mouth where the fire is lit and the boiler is hung on the crossbar.

There is a riddle about the chuval: “A red fox is running inside a rotten tree.” It heats the house well, but only while the wood is burning in it. In winter, the chuval is heated all day and the pipe is plugged at night. In folklore, many plot knots are tied around the wide pipe of the chuval. The hero either looks into it to find out about what is happening in the house, or deliberately drops a snowflake and puts out the fire. An adobe oven was placed outside for baking bread.

At the initial stages of their history, the Khanty, like many before them, built dugouts various types. Dugouts with a frame made of logs or boards predominated among them. From these, log dwellings subsequently emerged - houses in the traditional sense of the word for civilized countries. Although, according to the Khanty worldview, a house is everything that surrounds a person in life... The Khanty cut huts from the forest, caulked the joints of the logs with moss and other materials.

The actual technology for building a log house has changed little over the years. Neighboring for centuries with the Nenets, the Khanty borrowed from the latter the chum, the portable dwelling of nomadic reindeer herders, which was most suitable for nomadic travel. Basically, the Khanty chum is similar to the Nenets, differing from it only in details. Two or three families often live in a plague, and, naturally, life is regulated by the moral and ethical standards of the people, developed over centuries, by the rules of intraclan behavior, and by the aesthetics of everyday life. Not so long ago, tents were covered with birch bark sheets, deer skins, and tarpaulins.

Nowadays it is mostly covered with stitched deer hides and tarps. In temporary buildings, mats and skins were laid on sleeping places. In permanent dwellings there were bunks, also covered. The fabric canopy insulated the family and also protected them from the cold and mosquitoes. A cradle - wooden or birch bark - served as a kind of “micro-dwelling” for a child. An indispensable accessory of every home was a table with low or high legs.

To store household utensils and clothes, shelves and stands were installed, and wooden pins were driven into the walls. Each item was in its designated place; some men's and women's items were kept separately.

The outbuildings were varied: barns - planks or logs, sheds for drying and smoking fish and meat, conical and lean-to storage facilities.

Shelters for dogs, sheds with smoke smokers for deer, corrals for horses, flocks and stables were also built. To tie horses or deer, poles were installed, and during sacrifices, sacrificial animals were tied to them.

In addition to household buildings, there were public and religious buildings. Images of Dainoi ancestors were kept in the “public house” social group, holidays or meetings were held. Along with “guest houses” they are mentioned in folklore. There were special buildings for menstruating women and women in labor - the so-called “little houses”.

In villages or remote, hard-to-reach places, barns were built to store religious objects. The northern groups of the Ob Ugrians had miniature houses in which images of the dead were placed. In some places, sheds were built for snoring bear skulls.

Settlements could consist of one house, several houses and fortress-towns. The size of the villages was determined to a greater extent by the cosmogonic views of the people than social needs. The policy of “consolidation” of settlements, practiced in the recent past, is now a thing of the past, and the Obdorsk Khanty are beginning to build houses in the taiga, on the banks of rivers, as in the old days.

Most Khanty traditionally led a semi-sedentary lifestyle, moving from permanent winter settlements to seasonal settlements located on fishing grounds. The winter house of the Khanty is a half-dugout log house, and the above-ground log house is low: 6-10 logs (up to 2 meters high), with a furnace-stove and spacious bunks along the walls.

To build such a myg hut - “earth house” - you first need to dig a hole approximately 6 x 4 m in size, and 50-60 cm deep, and sometimes up to 1 m. Four pillars are placed in the corners above the pit, longitudinal and cross bars. They serve as the “wombs” of the future ceiling and at the same time a support for future walls. To obtain walls, pillars are first placed at an angle at a distance of a step from each other, with their upper ends resting on the mentioned crossbars. You can determine the next stages of construction yourself by examining the log half-dugout in ETNOMIR - its construction was carried out according to traditional technology Khanty

There could be many options for such a home. The number of pillars could be from 4 to 12; they were placed directly on the ground or on a low frame made of logs and connected at the top in different ways; covered with whole or split logs, and on top with earth, turf or moss; finally, there were differences both in the internal structure and in the roof - it could be flat, single-slope, gable on a ridge riser, double-sloped ridge, etc.

The floor in such a dwelling was earthen; originally the bunks along the walls were also earthen; the Khanty simply left unexcavated earth near the walls - a raised platform, which they then began to cover with boards, so that they formed bunks.

In ancient times, a fire was lit in the middle of the home and the smoke came out through a hole at the top, in the roof. Only then did they begin to close it and turn it into a window, which was covered with a smooth transparent ice floe. The appearance of a window became possible when a hearth like a fireplace appeared - a chuval, standing in the corner by the door. The guide will tell you in detail about the structure of the chuval during the excursion and you will understand the riddle “A red fox is running inside a rotten tree.”

If you are not interested in details, you can simply look at this compact house yourself, imagine the Khanty way of life, take photographs - Park of the Peoples of Siberia and Far East open for independent visits by ETNOMIR guests all year round.