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Peoples of the Mountain Taiga in Central Asia
 
Not only the Tsaatan live the hunter/gatherer lifestyle of reindeer herders, but also peoples on the Russian side, in the Todja region of Tuva, in the Eastern Sayan mountain range and in the Tofilar region in Irkutsk.
 
All of them are at the risk of losing their traditional lifestyle and knowledge.
 
The Evenki in the Aldanksi mountains of southern Yakutia and in the northeast of the Baikal Lake also live with reindeer in mountain taiga areas. Their situation is better so we hope to be able to buy reindeer off them.
 
The reindeer further in the north are smaller tundra reindeer and cannot be integrated into the population of mountain taiga reindeer and their habitat.
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The following article is by Dan Plumley, president of the Totem People Preservation Project, about the Dukha (Tsaatan) and their fellow turkic-speaking people, the Todji-Tuvin, Soyot, and Tofilar.

We are Dukha: This is the Way of Our People; The Totem People's Preservation Project

By Plumley, Daniel R.

Issue 24.2

In the center of Asia, the Dukha People of northern Mongolia coexist with their totem animal and their culture's central connecting aspect: the northern reindeer (sp. Rangifer tarandus). In an interdependent cultural and ecological habitat, reindeer illustrate the full range of Dukha experience: cows provide milk important to the Dukha's health, while the bulls make for excellent transportation in the boreal taiga forests. Meat and hides are used, preferably sparingly, for the Dukha are in fact hunter-gathering pastoralists. When a deer is culled, no part, save the bile, is wasted. Thanks is offered in the Dukha way, continued from the days of forefathers and shamans.

Decades of communist rule have wrought many changes in Dukha society. Over 400 people of Dukha heritage live in northern Mongolia with less than half seeking to continue the old ways of reindeer herding.

Approximately 37 families (180 people) still herd, ranging nomadically throughout the entire year to bring their reindeer to new, high mountain pastures, just as their ancestors did for thousands of years. Dukha who continue their nomadic pastoral lifestyle are proud of their heritage -- a life in the open air with their deer. "Without the reindeer we are not Dukha," says Batulga, a Dukha specialist on reindeer.

Fellow turkic-speaking people, the Todji-Tuvin, Soyot, and Tofilar, also have reindeer and once ranged, traded and periodically inter-married across what is now a strictly controlled border across the Sayan Mountains dividing Mongolia from Russia. Only 15 years ago, all four groups ranged perhaps as many as 15,000 reindeer, but due to the fall of the Soviet economic system and the difficult, unguided path toward a market economy, the reindeer peoples of Mongolia and Russia are facing their greatest challenges. Only 2,200 reindeer remain, and most herds have been without veterinary care for over a decade. The Dukha and their relations in Siberia face continuing challenges of industrial mining, gold and mineral exploration and the newer demands of ecotourism and timber exploitation, with little if any financial support or actual recognition for indigenous rights or status as minority peoples.

"We have had success in our difficult work, but we have only just begun," says Batulga. "We give our deepest thanks to all who can help us, the Dukha, to continue the proud way of our people."

Article copyright Cultural Survival, Inc.

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Dan Plumley has also written an extensive essay about the fate of the reindeer peoples in the 21st century. He has worked in the area for several years.
This is the link to his article:
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