Exploration of the Viluy River basin by Yakut clans in the 16th-18th centuries

The article is devoted to the study history of ethnolocal groups of Yakuts in the South-West Viluy. The Viluy River is the largest left tributary of the Lena River. At the end of the 19th century in Suntar, Marhiinsky (Nyurbinsk) Verkhneviluyisky and Sred-neviluysky (Viluysky and Kobyayskiy) encampments located in its basin, there were about eighty thousand people (a third of the total number of people). This made Viluysky district one of the main centers of the Yakut settlement. The historical and ethnographic literature assumed that the Yakut clans massively settled in the Viluy basin after the arrival of the first Russian Cossacks in Yakutia in the middle of the 17th century. This opinion is based on the archival data, and is still regarded as axiomatic. However, most of the historical legends of the Viluy Yakuts state that the settlement of the Viluy River took place in the era of interclan wars before Yakutia's annexation to the Russian state. The idea of the early settlement of the Viluy Basin is supported by the discovery in the NorthEast Viluy (Verkhneviluysk and Viluysky areas) of monuments of the Kulun-Atakh archaeological culture, which dates back to the 14th-16th centuries, and which is associated with the origin of the Yakuts in the Middle Lena. At the same time, these cultural monuments are not found in the South-West Viluy (territory of Suntarsky and Nurba areas) and on the territory of the Middle Lena valleys, from where most of the colonists were. The archival data show that the migration of the Yakuts from the Lena River to the South-West Viluy and forth continued for a long time, until the mid-18th century. The analysis of oral and written sources shows that these migrations were connected with the nomadic way of life of the Yakut clans. This explains the absence of the Kulun-Atakh culture in the South-West Viluy because representatives of this culture are characterized by settled economy. The predominance of horses over cattle contributed to the mobility of the Yakut clans, who explored new lands. Thus, it can be concluded that by the arrival of the Russian Cossacks to Yakutia in the middle of the 17th century, the Yakuts had two different types of cattle breeding economy: nomadic and sedentary. Only in the conditions of a nomadic life, the Yakuts could explore the vast expanses of Eastern Siberia. The major reason for Yakuts' migrations was the need for pastures and hunting areas. Russian administration banned unregulated migrations of the Yakuts in the middle of the 18th century. Over time, nomadism gave way to settlement, and its remnants continued to exist only in the most remote and inaccessible regions of Yakutia.

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