Chums — elongated cone-shaped tents — were traditional dwelling of the Evenks of Transbaikal. One of them is displayed in the Transbaikal Regional Museum of Local Lore.

The Evenks herded reindeer. In early summer, they moved with the animals to mountain moss pastures of the Vitim and Olyokma plateaus, or to the open mountain tundras on the spurs of the Yablonovy and Stanovoy ranges and the Middendorff range. Chums were transported with them to new places. Some families moved all year round.

There were several requirements for the site where a chum was to be set up: it had to be close both to a river to catch fish and to trees that grew in small groups and created shade. Chums were usually placed side by side or, if several families gathered together, in a semicircle. Fires were made in front of the entrance to the dwelling to make tea and cook food.

The frame of the chum was made of poles and thick branches. Most often birch was used for it. The top of the structure was covered with birch bark or larch bark, reindeer skin and wool. There was a hole at the very top, which served as a flue and a window at the same time.

Chums varied in size. For large families, they built spacious dwellings with high ceilings, some reaching up to 8 meters in diameter. Inside, people could walk without bending over. Inside the chum, only the most necessary things which were used daily were kept. The rest of the items were stored in saddlebags, which were placed outside around the chum.

Each member of an Evenk family had their own place in the chum. For example, the woman of the house worked at the entrance, where kitchen utensils, and sewing and weaving supplies were kept. Bedrooms were in the back: on the left side the owners of the chum slept, usually mother and father, and on the right — their children, the elderly and other family members. In the middle, a room for the most honorable guests was located.

Next to the chum, the Evenks built shade shelters for the reindeer so that the animals could hide from the scorching sun. For this purpose, men cut down low larch trees, arranged them in a semicircle and joined them by their crowns. The size of such shelter depended on the number of heads in the herd.

Полное наименование: Evenk chum
Техника: wood, birch bark
Коллекция: Ethnography
Размер: 250×200 cm
Дата создания: the 20th century

The Transbaikal Regional Museum of Local Lore displays a statue of an Evenk dressed in traditional clothing and high fur boots called unty, winter shoes. In his hands he holds a bow and arrows, they were the main attributes of local hunters until the 19th century.

The Evenks used two types of bows: with a simple or a complex design. They were made of wooden plates — spruce, birch, larch, or cedar — which had been harvested and dried for two whole years beforehand. The parts were fastened to each other with fish glue extracted from swim bladders.

The bow of the simpler design was shorter than that of the complex design, about one meter in length. It was made of a curved plate, which was covered with birch bark and sometimes — with hide.

The bow of the complex design had an M-shaped elongated form, while its other elements varied depending on the district. The Yenisey Evenks glued a square or oval birch wedge, called a haran, on the middle of the bow. The Nelkano-Ayansky tribes decorated their bows with baleen on the inner parts.

The Western Evenks covered the outer parts with birch bark, while the inhabitants of Eastern Transbaikal used bird cherry bark. To make the ends more durable, they covered them with animal tendons.

The edges of the bow were pulled by a string, which was called an olin or igin. It was made of hemp fibers, nettles, and strips of hide. The Syktyvkar Evenks sometimes even wrapped a thin layer of birch bark around it.

The arrows differed in their tips, which were made either of metal or bone, and selected depending on the intended purpose. For hunting musk deer, even-toed animals similar to deer, the Evenks used pitchfork-like tips with notches on the inside. They hunted bigger animals with other arrows — they had double or awl-shaped tips. Arrows with wedge-shaped triangular plates of iron were made for hunting sable.

They added fletching on an arrow, which was about 3 centimeters in width and made from the tail feathers of woodpeckers, eagles, and grouse. It helped hunters to shoot farther and more accurately.

In the 18th century, the first Russian explorers of Siberia introduced guns to the Evenks, thus arrows and bows were used less and less.

Полное наименование: Evenk hunter
Дата создания: the 20th century
Место создания: Chita
Размеры: Height — 165 cm; L. hair — 15 cm

A “narta” (“narty”), or a sled, is a narrow long sledge used by the indigenous peoples of Siberia and northern regions of modern Russia. The Transbaikal Regional Museum of Local Lore displays wooden Evenk sleds.

In summer, the Evenks used reindeer to travel. Special saddles were attached on the shoulders of the animal to reduce the load. The Evenks used domestic reindeer to transport goods and to milk them. They ate only the meat of wild animals.

Winters in Transbaikal were cold and long. It was inconvenient to walk over deep snow or ride on the reindeer’ back, as legs were constantly falling through and animals and nomads quickly got tired. Therefore, the Evenks moved across the taiga on wide skis, and for long distances they used nartas.

In summer, Evenk men made nartas from two curved wooden runners. Bars — poles of about 50 centimeters in height — were firmly fixed on each runner. They mostly used strong and flexible wood, like birch, pine or larch. The top parts of the nartas was covered with reindeer skins.

The Evenks who lived in the tundra were introduced to nartas by the Russian and Turkic populations of Transbaikal. However, not all tribes used these sledges — only the tribes that lived to the north of the Nizhnyaya Tunguska River, on the coast of the Yenisey and near the village of Antsiferovskoye. Some of them harnessed dogs to pull the sleds.

The Evenks borrowed nartas and adapted them to the conditions of the taiga. They changed the harness in order to use reindeer to pull the sleds instead of dogs. They also added a “baran” — a horizontal arch — that connected the ends of the runners. Thus, the sledge became stronger and more stable.

Beside sleds, there were cargo nartas on which the Evenks transported sacks with goods and prey from the hunt. They were longer and wider. Three pairs of straight bars were attached to the runners of these sleds to support heavy luggage. In addition, it was tied to the nartas with ropes.

Presently, one can see both kinds of nartas in museums as well as at folk festivals in the region. Jumping over the sleds is one of the popular contests at traditional Evenk festivals.

Полное наименование: Evenk nartas (sleds)
Размер: 194.5×40×25 cm
Техника: wood; carving
Дата создания: the early 20th century