Ethnocultural landscape of the Chukchi village of Meynypilgyno

The study of ethno-cultural landscapes is an actively developed research area at the interface of ethnology and human geography. Culture is an active socio-forming force which structures human habitat and opens in geographical landscape new contexts and meanings, which, in turn, actively influence culture. The article considers structure and evolution of ethno-cultural landscape formed in the course of development of the southern tundra coastallagoon ecosystem by the local community of the Meynypilgyno village on the Bering Sea coast. In 2016-2019, the author conducted informal and semi-formal interviews there, observed ritual practices and recorded folklore texts related to the natural landscape. Chukchi reindeer herders and sedentary Kerek fishermen were involved in the shaping of the landscape. Now they have merged into one local community and occupy a common ecological niche in the landscape. The used landscape area as well as the amount of used biological resources have greatly decreased during the last decades. The ethno-cultural sustainability of the community is maintained through the preservation of cultural codes. The most important of these are ritual practices, associated with folklore traditions. In symbolic form, they reflect people's relationship with both tundra and aquatic ecosystems. The preservation of the cultural codes maintains the balance in the landscape. It can also be linked to the restoration of the reindeer herding that was lost here 20 years ago. In this way, the mental components of the cultural landscape do not disappear, but, transforming themselves, continue to organize and guide the activities of the local community.

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