Pottery Craft of the Yakut

By Richard L. Bland, Irina S. Zhushchikhovskaya and Natalia K. Danilova

This book offered to the reader’s attention is an ethnographic study devoted to the traditional pottery of Yakutia. The author, A. A. Savvin, collected materials for the book during field research in 1939–1941, when ceramic tableware had largely already lost its former role in the household way of the Yakuts. But the skills for its manufacture were still preserved in certain localities. Savvin managed to document the last “living” evidence of a craft that had a centuries-old history and established traditions. It is noteworthy that the research conducted by Savvin was a scientific project in the modern sense of the term. It was carefully planned and executed in accordance with a pre-written program, which is also included in this edition. The sources of information were not only direct observations of the working processes of the production of ceramic tableware but also conversations-interviews with potters, memoirs of representatives of the older generation. A special layer of research consisted of materials of folklore, folk beliefs, and customs related to pottery.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Academica Press
• Release date: Jun 20, 2023
• ISBN: 9781680536348

Book preview

Cover: Pottery Craft of the Yakut by Andrei A. Savvin

Pottery Craft of the Yakut

by

Andrei A. Savvin

Translated and Edited

by

Richard L. Bland,

Irina S. Zhushchikhovskaya,

and Natalia K. Danilova

¹

Academica Press

Washington~London

¹ Richard L. Bland, University of Oregon Museum of Natural and Cultural History, USA; Irina S. Zhushchikhovskaya, Institute of History, Archaeology, and Ethnography of Peoples of the Far East, Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Vladivostok, Russia); Natalia K. Danilova, Candidate in Historical Sciences, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Yakutsk, Russia).

Исследования выполнены с использованием научного оборудования ЦКП Федерального исследовательского центра Якутского научного центра Сибирского Отделения Российской Академии Наук в рамках реализации мероприятий по гранту №13.ЦКП.21.0016.

The studies were performed using the scientific equipment of the Central Collective Use Center of the Federal Research Center of the Yakut Scientific Center of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences as part of the implementation of activities under grant No. 13.TsKP.21.0016.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

Names: Savvin, A. A. (author), Zhushchikhovskaya, Irina S. (editor), Danilova, Natalia K. (editor), Bland, Richard L. (translator)

Title: Pottery craft of the yakut | Savvin, A. A., Zhushchikhovskaya, Irina S., Danilova, Natalia K., Bland, Richard L.

Description: Washington : Academica Press, 2023. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2023940840 | ISBN 9781680536331 (hardcover) | 9781680536348 (ebook)

Copyright 2023 Richard L. Bland

Andrei Andreevich Savvin (1896–1951)

Contents

Translators’ Introduction

Preface to the English Edition

A True Ethnographer

The Importance of the Scientific Creativity of A.A. Savvin in the Formation of the Intellectual Landscape of New Yakutia

A.A. Savvin’s Contribution to the Study of Yakut Traditional Pottery

A.A. Savvin The Program Pottery Craft Among the Yakuts

Appendix I

Appendix II

Pottery of the Yakuts in the Works of Scientists

Appendix III

Prytkova N.F. Glinyanaya posuda yakutov [Yakut Pottery]. Sbornik MAE [Collection of Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography]. Vol. XVI. Leningrad: Publishing House USSR Academy of Sciences, pp. 147–164. 1955.

Translators’ Introduction

This book was originally published as Гончарное ремесло у якутов by the National Library of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), 2022. It is presented here in English translation with permission of the museum authorities.

This book offered to the reader’s attention is an ethnographic study devoted to the traditional pottery of Yakutia. The author, A.A Savvin, collected materials for the book during field research in 1939–1941, when ceramic tableware had largely already lost its former role in the household way of the Yakuts. But the skills for its manufacture were still preserved in certain localities. A.A. Savvin managed to document the last living evidence of a craft that had a centuries-old history and established traditions. It is noteworthy that the research conducted by Savvin was a scientific project in the modern sense of the term. It was carefully planned and executed in accordance with a pre-written program, which is also included in this edition. The sources of information were not only direct observations of the working processes of the production of ceramic tableware but also conversations-interviews with potters, memoirs of representatives of the older generation. A special layer of research consisted of materials of folklore, folk beliefs, and customs related to pottery.

The history of pottery in different parts of the world indicates that the development of this type of production activity is significantly influenced by natural and climatic factors. In the cold northern latitudes, operations for the extraction and processing of clay, molding, drying and firing of products made from it have always required not only a lot of effort and time but also the search for the most rational technological solutions. In this sense, the traditional pottery of the Yakuts, as well as the pottery of the North as a whole, can be considered as a phenomenon of quite successful cultural and technological adaptation to the environment.

The materials of archaeological surveys on the territory of Yakutia indicate that baked clay dishes were already known here in the Neolithic era and in the Bronze Age. In harsh climatic conditions, ancient people managed to master the skills of making ceramic containers necessary in everyday life. The continuity of pottery traditions has been preserved for several millennia, being a response to the needs of society. The enduring value of Savvin’s research consists in the fact that it makes it possible through the prism of ethnographic observations and data to look deep into time, to understand the specifics of northern pottery.

Every translation, and particularly from Russian to English, has the problem of finding a suitable form of transliteration. None of the three systems available (U.S. Board of Geographic Names [BGN], Library of Congress [LOC], or the ‘Linguistic’ system [Ling]) was felt to be entirely adequate. We have therefore ‘created’ our own system. In this we use some of the BGN system with a slightly modified version of the LOC. For example, the ‘ye’ of BGN is written as ‘e’ following LOC. The Russian ‘ë’ is also written as ‘e’ (not ‘yo’), following Ling. The Russian ‘э’ is written as ‘e,’ following BGN. Both the Russian ‘и’ and ‘й’ are transliterated as ‘i,’ unlike in any of the three systems. The Russian ‘ю’ and ‘я’ are written as ‘yu’ and ‘ya,’ following the BGN. The Russian soft sign ‘ь,’ which is often dropped in transliterations or replaced with an ‘i,’ is retained here as an apostrophe, following BGN. We have also generally settled on one ending for words, as the English language forces us to do, rather than providing the appropriate ending (masculine, feminine, neuter, plural/nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental, prepositional) that can occur in Russian. And having twenty-four possible grammatical endings is not the end of it. In the masculine nominative, for a name ending in ‘-sky’ there are at least five possible endings that can be found in English (‘-sky,’ ‘-skiy,’ ‘-skij,’ ‘-skii,’ ‘-ski’). In addition, there are aberrant spellings that have been accepted in the literature; for example, Moscow instead of the Russian Moskva has already been adopted in English. Some names are ‘semi’ formalized in English. For names that do not have an accepted English form we have tried consistently to use our system for transliterating. On the other hand, we generally give a (Russian) ‘i’ or ‘y’ plural for plural words that are not translated. This is with the exception of ethnic names, which are given no ending in the plural (following one accepted form found in Webster’s 3rd International Dictionary, 1965). All this in no way exhausts the problems, but rather provides a notion of the difficulties attendant upon any translation project. Nonetheless, we hope the explanation of our method will aid the reader, especially if he/she should want to go back from English to Russian, and we apologize to all whose names we have unintentionally ‘corrupted.’ The system of Russian personal names can be difficult to remember for foreign readers, but it is widely used here. Russian names consist of three parts: family name (like ‘Savvin’), given name (like ‘Andrei’) and a patronymic name derived from the given name of the father (e.g., ‘Andreevich,’ i.e., son of Andrei). In feminine names, the patronymic part according to Russian grammar will be like ‘Andreevna’ (daughter of Andrei). It is customary to call older or more respected person by both given and patronymic names, this is why in places in this book the combination ‘Andrei Andreevich’ (or in abbreviated form ‘A.A.’) is widely used. Some geographic names can confuse readers because they are different from what is most common in English literature. For example, Zabaikal’e is used here instead of Transbaikalia (or simply Trans-Baikal), the region east of Lake Baikal; Pribaikal’e means Cis-Baikal, i.e., region immediately west of Lake Baikal and around the headwaters of Angara and Lena rivers.

This book was originally written in the Yakut language, then translated into Russian. The Yakut language is Turkic, one of the official languages of Yakutia or Sakha and is quite old. As a result, the terminology for pottery making is very old. V.M. D`yakonov suggests pottery making, i.e., the terminology is at least as early as the 17th century. That being said, however, archaeological sites of the Russian Far East with ceramics date to at least 10,000 years ago. So, the craft of pottery making, and the terminology, in Yakutia must far exceed the 17th century in antiquity.

We owe a deep debt of gratitude to the following people who made this project possible: E.N. Romanova, Institute for Humanitarian Research and Problems of the Indigenous Peoples of the North of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences: Yakutsk, Sakha Republic, RU; S.A. Sargydaev, Head of the Municipal Formation Churapchinsky Ulus; A.A. Zakharov, Chairman of the District Council of Deputies of the Churapchinsky Ulus; Yu.S. Tolstoukhov; Director of the Churapcha Museum of History and Ethnography named after A.A. Savvin; and V.M. D`yakonov, Yakutsk Complex Laboratory of Archaeology of the Far North, Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Novosibirsk, Russia). We would also like to thank for their efforts in this work Anna Gokhman for proofreading the initial translation, Nan Coppock for constant editorial advice, and the Yakut authorities for permitting this work to be translated and published in English.

Preface to the English Edition

Today, Yakut ethnography is developing a large-scale project to digitalize the intellectual heritage of Soviet scientists, researchers, local historians – all those who left in their field diaries and records a still-living picture of the changing traditional world of ethnic communities in the North and the Arctic.

At the beginning of the 21st century, the Institute for Humanitarian Research and Problems of the Indigenous Peoples of the North, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (SO RAS), began to implement a scientific and educational project to publish the manuscript heritage of the first explorers of Soviet Yakutia. Thus systematic work began on the publication of the manuscripts forgotten for many years by the ethnographer Andrei Andreevich Savvin (1896–1951). Ekaterina Nazarovna Romanova, Doctor of Historical Sciences and cultural anthropologist, was the author of the idea and the leader of the project initiative. A series of scientific works by Andrei Savvin was begun by the book Food of the Yakuts (Yakutsk, 2005), in which the ethnographer revealed the complex mechanism of the food culture of the Yakuts and classified the traditional food system within the framework of a geolandscape description. This was the first occurrence of a comprehensive study of everyday and sacred aspects of food.

The publication of this unique work initiated new research in the Personal Archive of Andrei Savvin, the compilation of a list of his most valuable works and the restoration of dilapidated documents. The next project, initiated by the Administration of Dhaangy ulus, was dedicated to the northern expedition of Andrei Savvin. The Verkhoyansk Collection, published in 2022 and prepared by a team of scientists from the Institute, was dedicated to field folklore and ethnographic materials collected at the Pole of Cold. Based on rich oral sources, Andrei Savvin revealed the adaptive resource of equestrian culture in permafrost conditions and for the first time singled out the culture of the northern Yakuts as a separate ethno-local group. In parallel with this project, together with the Administration of Churapcha ulus, a project was launched to publish the manuscript Pottery of the Yakuts.

The idea to publish this particular unpublished work by Andrei Savvin is connected, first of all, with the lack of monographic works devoted to the ethnographic description of an important component in the living world of the Yakuts – pottery as the oldest technology for making pottery. Moreover, there are no works of this nature in Siberian ethnography.

The publication of Andrei Savvin’s manuscript Pottery of the Yakuts is, in fact, the return of the scientist’s name to Big Science. In this regard, I would like to make the following points:

– Preparation of a manuscript in two languages expands the readership and introduces Andrei Savvin’s work into a wide scientific discourse.

– The multifaceted phenomenon of pottery as an ancient occupation of the Yakuts, which was described and analyzed by Savvin, is dedicated to one of the fundamental topics of human existence – operational technologies for creating (co-creating) the Universe. We are talking about the inseparable unity of the material and spiritual worlds.

– The book was a compilation of field materials during the period of the still-living pottery tradition (1930s–1940s), which makes this study unique.

– The structure of the text, set by the author himself; the description of the process of making a clay pot; and the magical and mythological world around it allow us to