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Sunday 26 June 2016

Siberian Folklore and the Na-Dené Origins

Archaeology, Ethnology and Anthropology of Eurasia
Volume 43, Issue 1, March 2015, Pages 122-134
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Y.E. Berezkin berezkin1@gmail.com, berezkin@kunstkamera.ru
Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkammer), Russian Academy of Sciences, Universitetskaya Nab. 3, St. Petersburg, 199034, Russia European University at St. Petersburg, Gagarinskaya 3, St. Petersburg, 191187, Russia

Available online 10 November 2015
Six folklore motifs shared by the native Na-Dené speakers in North America and in Southern Siberia are revealed. In such combination, these motifs are known nowhere else. The spread of the Na-Dené languages to North America was related to the migration of the bearers of the Dyuktai culture. The lack of parallels for the Na-Dené folklore in Yakutia, Kolyma, Chukotka, and Kamchatka is understandable: the Dyuktai people had gone to Alaska and their heritage was erased by the waves of newcomers. The folklore motifs that are shared both by Na-Dené and Siberian peoples go back to the traditions of the southern neighbors of the Dyuktai people. The population density across the area between Altai and Trans-Baikal region was higher than in northward territories; therefore, the remains of the “Paleolithic” folklore could survive, notwithstanding the multiple language changes.

Keywords

  • America peopling;
  • Siberian folklore;
  • American Indian folklore;
  • Dené-Yeniseian hypothesis;
  • Sino- Caucasian hypothesis;
  • Athabaskan people;
  • Dyuktai culture

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Supported by the Russian Science Foundation, Grant No. 14-18-03384; many thanks to J. Bengtson, E. Vajda, D.N. Duvakin, I. Peiros, G.S. Starostin, and M.P. Dyakonova for their critical remarks and submitted materials
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