Altai people

Altay people

Altay ethnic flag, adopted by Russia as the official flag of the Altai Republic.
Regions with significant populations
Russia Altai Republic	74,238
Languages
Altay
Religion
Shamanism, Burkhanism, Russian Orthodox
Related ethnic groups
other Turkic peoples

The Altay or Altai are a Turkic people living in the Siberian Altai Republic and Altai Krai. For alternative ethnonyms see also Teleut, Tele, Telengit, Mountain Kalmuck, White Kalmuck, Black Tatar, Oirot.

The Altaians are represented as a totality of small Turkic peoples like the Altai-Kizhi, the Teleut, the Kumandin, the Chelkans, the Shor, etc.

The Altaians are presented by two ethnographic groups:

• The Northern Altaians include the Tubalar (the Tuba-Kizhi), the Chelkans, the Kumandin, the Shors
• The Southern Altaians include the Altaian (the Altai-Kizhi), the Teleut, the Teles, the Telengit

The Northern and Southern Altayans formed in the Altay area on the basis of tribes of Kimek-Kipchaks.

History

Altay man in national suit on horse

The Uriankhai people were annexed by the Oirat Zunghars in the 16th century. After the fall of the Zunghar Khanate in the 18th century, the Uriankhai were subjugated by the Qing Dynasty; and their one part, Altayans, was called by the Qing court as Altan Nuur Uriyangkhai. They have had skills in metalworking dating back to the 2nd millennium BC. The Altay came into contact with Russians in the 18th century. In the tsarist period, the Altay were known as oirot or oyrot (this name means oirat and would later be carried on for the Oyrot Autonomous Oblast). The Altay report that many of them became addicted to the Russians' vodka, which they called "fire water".

The Altay were originally nomadic, with a lifestyle based on hunting / trapping and pastoralism (mainly cattle, sheep, goats), but many of them settled as a result of Russian influence. In regard to religion, some of the Altay remain Tengriists or Shamanists, while others (in a trend beginning in the mid-19th century) have converted to the Orthodox. (The Altai mission took shape under Saint Makarii Glukharev, Apostle to the Altai.) In 1904, a religious movement called Ak Jang or Burkhanism arose, perhaps in response to Russian colonization.

Prior to 1917 the Altai were actually considered to be many different ethnic groups.

With the rise of the 1917 revolution, the Altay attempted to make their region a separate Burkhanist republic called Oryot, but their support for the Mensheviks during the Civil War led to the venture's collapse after the Bolshevik victory and the rise of Joseph Stalin. In the 1940s, the Altay were accused of being pro-Japanese, and the word "oyrot" was declared counterrevolutionary. By 1950, Soviet industrialization policies brought Russian immigrants reducing the proportion of Altay from 50% to 20% of the population. Ethnic Altaians currently make up about 31% of the Altai Republic's population.

Demographics

According to the 2010 Russian census, there was a total of 69,963 Altaians who resided within the Altai Republic. This represented 34.5% of the total population of the republic, compared with 56.6% ethnic Russians, which makes the former a minority in their own homeland. However, ethnic Altaians have a much higher fertility rate than Russians and other Slavic peoples who have transplanted into the region, and while the median age of the Altaian population is much lower than Russians, the Altaian population growth is expected to continue exceeding that of the others for the foreseeable future.

Genetic composition

A recent discovery of Iron Age burials of the Pazyryk culture in the Altai Mountains of Mongolia revealed that the gene pool of the inhabitants of the Mongolian Altai site during the Iron Age may have been similar to that of western Iron Age Altaians (Russia and Kazakhstan), additionally suggesting that the Altai Mountains played an important role of a geographical barrier between West and East Eurasian lineages until the beginning of the Iron Age. The study also revealed that modern-day Altaians not only shared the same culture (Pazyryk), but also shared the same genetic east-west population admixture. In turn, Pazyryks appear to have a similar gene pool that current Altaians.<ref>Mercedes González-Ruiz et al. "Tracing the Origin of the East-West Population Admixture in the Altai Region (Central Asia)". PLoS ONE 7(11): e48904. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0048904

See also

• Altay language
• Altay Mountains
• Altai Republic
• Altay S.K.

External links

• NUPI - Centre for Russian Studies profile
• Hunmagyar profile
• The legend of Altay
• Tortuga foundation