Keeping pace with the seasons
The pastoral lives of Yakuts and Kazakhs, whether nomadic or not
p. 105-131
Résumés
This article explores the role of seasons in the nomadic and pastoral practices of two Turkish-speaking pastoralist populations who live in large areas of Inner Asia with marked continental climates: the Yakuts in alaas of the Eastern Siberia taiga forest region, and the Kazakhs in the steppes of Central Asia. Different forms of pastoral mobility are practiced with the aim of softening the seasons and prolonging their best moments. Over the past century, these populations have adapted with flexibility to historical changes, creating original forms of sedentary life. The calendar of pastoral activities is marked by a strong degree of seasonality, linked to the reproductive cycle of livestock. A dichotomy separates two contrasting halves of the year: the warm season being largely devoted to preparing the harsh season which will follow.
En rythme avec les saisons : la vie des pasteurs iakoutes et kazakhs, nomades ou non
Dans ses travaux, Claudine Karlin a employé les méthodes de l’ethnologie et de l’archéologie pour établir des passerelles entre les millénaires, entre les continents et entre les régions. Ses descriptions ethnographiques montrent la grande variabilité saisonnière des techniques employées par les éleveurs et les chasseurs. Les nomades en particulier savent jouer sur les saisons. Par le mouvement, ils tirent le meilleur parti de différentiels saisonniers existant entre les étapes de leur parcours, par une heureuse conjonction de l’espace et du temps. Suivant son exemple, je dresse des parallèles entre deux peuples à la fois proches et distants : les Iakoutes, qui habitent la taïga de Sibérie orientale, et les Kazakhs, la steppe d’Asie centrale. Ils ont en commun d’être des pasteurs turcophones de l’ex-URSS qui vivent dans d’immenses territoires au climat continental extrême. Qu’ils soient nomades ou non, leur vie quotidienne est marquée par la saisonnalité. En m’appuyant sur des données de terrain recueillies entre 1994 et 2017 en Iakoutie, Altaï et au Kazakhstan, j’examine le rôle des saisons sur leur mobilité pastorale et sur le calendrier de leurs activités.
Saisons nomades
Nomadiser pour suivre l’herbe nouvelle. Le pastoralisme nomade est un système d’élevage extensif d’herbivores en troupeaux qui optimise l’emploi des ressources naturelles en exploitant leur hétérogénéité et en stabilisant leur disponibilité par le mouvement. Les déplacements saisonniers épargnent au bétail les excès climatiques d’une continentalité extrême. Les pasteurs nomades « suivent l’herbe », selon un principe qui consiste à se trouver à chaque moment de l’année à l’endroit le plus favorable pour le bétail. La nomadisation est un voyage non seulement dans l’espace, mais aussi dans le temps qui permet de prolonger les meilleurs moments de chaque saison.
Le départ de l’hivernage est vécu comme une renaissance printanière. La technique du « déprimage » est une exploitation rationnelle de l’herbe précoce. Les éleveurs sont attentifs au comportement des animaux pour décider de l’opportunité d’une nomadisation. Les déplacements réguliers des nomades, sur un parcours éprouvé, entraînent une association entre lieux et saisons, puisqu’en raison des cycles de nomadisation, les pasteurs se retrouvent sur les mêmes lieux à une époque donnée de l’année, qui correspond également à une activité pastorale particulière. La sédentarisation, en fixant l’habitat, rompt cette association et elle rend, de fait, le climat plus rude pour les hommes et leur bétail.
Les Kazakhs, du quasi-nomadisme à la sédentarité. L’élevage pastoral centrasiatique est multispécifique : ovin, bovin, caprin, équin et camelin. Au tournant des XIXe xixe et XXe siècles, la mobilité pastorale kazakhe relevait majoritairement du quasi-nomadisme, où tout le groupe humain nomadise, mais demeure au même endroit durant une saison. Les parcours nomades étaient méridiens ou altitudinaux. La collectivisation soviétique a d’abord entraîné une famine dramatique puis, après la guerre, une professionnalisation de l’élevage qui a dissocié les habitats de la population et du bétail, selon le modèle de la transhumance. Après la privatisation des années 1990, le cheptel a chuté puis s’est redressé. Aujourd’hui, les Kazakhs mènent un mode de vie sédentaire, et parfois quasi sédentaire, quand une partie de la famille étendue se déplace avec les troupeaux sur les différentes stations saisonnières.
Semi-sédentarité iakoute dans les alaas. Les Iakoutes étaient semi-sédentaires au début du XXe siècle, avec un double habitat fixe (hivernage durant huit mois et estivage durant quatre mois). Jusqu’au regroupement en villages, dans les années 1940 ou 1950, leur habitat était dispersé, dans des alaas (clairière en cuvette, dotée d’un lac) au sein de la taïga, milieu favorable à leurs activités pastorales (élevage équin et bovin) et qui permet aussi la pêche et la chasse. La fenaison est cruciale pour l’élevage bovin, en raison de la longue période de stabulation (huit mois par an).
Une sédentarité flexible. Aujourd’hui, les habitants des villages iakoutes gardent un lien privilégié avec l’alaas de leurs ancêtres et continuent à le fréquenter pour faucher et pêcher. L’alaas sert pour le repérage dans l’espace et peut même être utilisé comme mesure de distance. Il crée un paysage en archipel, où des « îles » familières, les alaas, sont disséminées dans un « océan » plus hostile : la taïga. Cette configuration discontinue diffère du découpage kazakh de l’espace en cercles concentriques de familiarité et de normativité décroissantes, centré sur la iourte et le campement au sein d’une steppe ouverte. Les maisons iakoutes et kazakhes (uraha, balağan, izba, iourte et maison de pisé) s’adaptent aux saisons et leur usage évolue dans le temps.
La proximité de l’hivernage et de l’estivage iakoutes rend possibles des allers et retours fréquents entre les stations saisonnières et nuance la semi-sédentarité. Après la décollectivisation, quelques habitants des villages iakoutes ont renoué avec la semi-sédentarité et l’habitat dispersé dans les alaas, où ils passent au moins l’été. À l’inverse, certains bergers kazakhs, qui transhumaient à l’époque du kolkhoze, décident à présent de passer toute l’année sur leur hivernage, quand la taille modeste de leurs troupeaux le leur permet, pour éviter les tracas et l’inconfort de l’estive. Ces choix varient d’une année sur l’autre, en fonction des circonstances. La mobilité pastorale, toute restreinte qu’elle soit, a retrouvé une certaine flexibilité.
Saisons pastorales
Agenda pastoral. Le rythme annuel est scandé par les activités pastorales, qui dépendent largement de la reproduction du bétail. Son nourrissage et son gardiennage connaissent de grandes variations suivant les espèces et les saisons, le pacage restant la source principale d’alimentation. Deux tableaux détaillent le calendrier des activités de subsistance (élevage, agriculture, chasse, pêche et collecte) mois par mois et les modalités de nourrissage et de gardiennage du bétail en lien avec les saisons, chez les Iakoutes et les Kazakhs.
Contrastes saisonniers. Après une suspension du temps due au gel hivernal, qui interrompt le processus de corruption, la nature explose au printemps. En changeant d’état, l’eau inonde les campagnes iakoutes, et plus encore en raison du réchauffement climatique. Les moyens et les durées de transport diffèrent grandement suivant les saisons. La période végétative est très courte. L’intensité du travail journalier varie aussi avec les saisons. En Iakoutie, le mois de juillet est le théâtre d’une activité fiévreuse, liée à la fenaison. Pour les éleveurs kazakhs, la saison de l’agnelage procure une lourde charge de travail. L’hiver est une période rude, notamment en cas de tempête de neige, d’attaques de loups ou de žůt. L’alimentation suit le calendrier de traite, d’abattage, de chasse, de pêche et de collecte, à dominante lactée en été et carnée en hiver. Le cycle saisonnier, en Asie centrale comme en Sibérie, est marqué par de forts contrastes, liés à la continentalité du climat. Le bétail connaît des variations de poids impressionnantes au cours de l’année. Pour les hommes comme pour les bêtes, au début du printemps, saison de disette, s’oppose le début de l’automne, saison d’opulence.
Dichotomie du calendrier. Kazakhs et Iakoutes divisaient l’année en douze ou treize mois lunaires, le Nouvel An correspondant pour les premiers à l’équinoxe de printemps, lors de la fête de Nauryz ; pour les seconds, au solstice d’été, lors de la fête de l’Yhyah. Plusieurs noms de mois, iakoutes et kazakhs, correspondent à des activités agricoles ou des phénomènes naturels saisonniers. Les grandes fêtes iakoutes et kazakhes sont explicitement liées aux saisons. L’année était coupée en deux, chez les Kazakhs comme chez les Iakoutes : une (moitié d’) année froide et une (moitié d’) année chaude. Le principe de l’économie pastorale consiste à bien employer la belle saison afin de se préparer à passer la mauvaise : les hommes doivent accumuler des réserves de nourriture et de fourrage, de combustible et d’eau ; les bêtes, des réserves de graisse. Cette division de l’année en deux correspond, chez les Kazakhs, à une conception originale du temps météorologique et du temps chronologique : ces deux moitiés antagonistes sont symétriques, de telle sorte que les conditions de chaque jour répondent à celle du jour correspondant dans l’autre moitié. Les contrastes saisonniers sont vus comme normaux et même bénéfiques, s’ils surviennent en temps voulu. À défaut, en cas de déséquilibre ou de phénomène hors saison, la nature est censée être dotée d’une capacité de régulation afin de remettre les choses dans l’ordre. Contrairement à ce qu’on aurait pu penser d’un peuple qui vit au pôle du froid, la saison préférée des Iakoutes n’est pas la plus chaude, car juillet pâtit d’un double fléau : le labeur de la fenaison et les moustiques.
Conclusion
S’ils ne sont pas ou plus nomades, Iakoutes et Kazakhs font aujourd’hui preuve de flexibilité dans leur (im)mobilité pastorale et le calendrier de leurs activités est marqué par une forte saisonnalité. La sédentarisation a rompu l’association entre des lieux et des saisons caractéristique du nomadisme pastoral, mais elle a renforcé le contraste des saisons au lieu de l’atténuer. Si la mobilité des nomades tend à niveler les variations climatiques, les pasteurs semblent parfois cultiver les contrastes saisonniers, au lieu de chercher à les amoindrir. Il peut paraître un peu artificiel de dissocier les saisons nomades des saisons pastorales, tant nomadisme et pastoralisme sont deux phénomènes intimement liés, mais cette dissociation révèle, indépendamment de la mobilité résidentielle, une alternance fondamentale qui scande le temps des pasteurs, entre le chaud et le froid, la disette et l’abondance. Les activités saisonnières sont déterminées, d’une part, par le calendrier de reproduction du bétail, d’autre part, par la préparation, à la belle saison, de la saison rude qui lui succédera.
Cet accent mis sur les saisons pastorales ne doit pas donner la fausse impression que la vie des pasteurs iakoutes et kazakhs serait entièrement soumise au rythme de leur environnement naturel et en dehors de l’histoire. Les variations de leur mobilité montrent bien qu’entre la fin du XIXe siècle et le début du XXIe siècle, leur mode de vie n’est en rien immuable, bouleversé par l’administration coloniale russe, la soviétisation, la décollectivisation, mais qu’il a su s’adapter avec flexibilité aux grandes mutations historiques.
Entrées d’index
Mots-clés : pastoralisme, saison, nomadisme, Iakoute, Kazakh
Keywords : pastoralism, season, nomadism, Yakut (Sakha), Kazakh
Texte intégral
Introduction
1Through her work, Claudine Karlin conveys all the value a comparative approach can provide. Over the course of several collaborations, she has implemented the methods of two disciplines, ethnology and archaeology, to advance or substantiate hypotheses, thus building bridges across millennia (David et al. 1998a; David & Karlin 2003), across continents (Baroin & Karlin 1999) and across the regions of Siberia (David et al. 1998b; Karlin 2001; David & Karlin 2006).
2Her precise and well-documented ethnographic descriptions highlight the high degree of seasonal variability in techniques employed by herders and hunters (Chesnokov et al. 1996; Julien & Karlin 2007). The seasonal context presents both constraints and opportunities for technical activities. This has been a classic parameter in ethnology since Mauss1, but one which has often been overlooked and which, if neglected, can lead to over-generalizations and obsolete assumptions. Nomads in particular know how to play with the seasons. By moving around, they make the most of seasonal differentials between the various steps of their route and successfully combine space and time.
3Following the example of C. Karlin, I attempt herein to draw parallels between two populations who share some common features: Yakuts (Sakha) and Kazakhs. They are both Turkic pastoralists from the former USSR who live in vast territories with extreme continental climates. However Yakuts live in the taiga region of Eastern Siberia, while Kazakhs live in the steppe region of Central Asia. Whether nomadic or not, their daily lives are marked by seasonality. I will examine the role of seasons in their pastoral mobility and in the timing of their activities2.
Nomadic seasons
Nomadizing to follow new grass
4Nomadic pastoralism is a system of extensive herding of herbivores, optimizing the use of natural resources by exploiting their heterogeneity3 and also stabilizing their availability through movement. Mobility allows livestock to be fed and watered without using any input and without depleting resources. At the same time, it spares animals from the worst climatic conditions. Moving in concert with seasonal variations, nomads aim to achieve a meteorological levelling in regions characterized by an extreme continental climate, where the year is divided between a long icy winter and a short warm summer. Yakutia and Kazakhstan stand out in particular, due to their high annual temperature ranges, reaching up to 100° C.
We can add to this picture that of the physical transformations which impact the surface of the Kirghiz [Kazakh] steppe. […] These phenomena are of little consequence for nomadic people, as they are constantly moving; but they would be destructive for sedentary populations (Levchine 1840: 315).
5Nomadic pastoralists “follow the grass”, because they uphold the principle of being in the most favorable location for livestock at any time of the year. They must therefore not only move to where the grass is, but moreover, due to seasonal variations, they must move to ensure they are always in areas where the grass is optimal. They live in hot regions when it is cold, in humid regions when it is dry, and vice‑versa.
6Following the trail of new grass by moving north or towards the mountains as spring warms up helps to spread out its presence over time, lengthening the time the animals can enjoy the grass. Nomadization is a journey not only through space, but also through time which, paradoxically, makes it possible to immobilize time, by prolonging “the best moments of each season” (Lavrillier 2013: 57).
7For reindeer herders, this quest for an eternal springtime can sometimes feel like a “chase” or even a “flight” to the northern tundra4. For sheep, cattle, and horse herders too (whose nomadization is less frequent) the departure from the winter quarters (figure 5.1 and figure 5.2)5 is experienced as a race to find grass and as a spring rebirth.
As soon as the first short spring grass - the offshoots of sagebrush or stipa - appears, the Kirghiz [Kazakhs] arrive here from the foothills with their hungry herds, having left their warm winter homes. [...] It is the animals which force them to rush out into the steppe. During the winter, they will have consumed all the tall grasses in the foothills, the shorter grasses being hidden under the snowdrifts (Krasnov 1887: 4).
8Thus, they unknowingly practice the technique of “topping” early grass (déprimage in French), the rationale of this is explained by agronomists: a rapid and superficial grazing of the meadows at the beginning of the season improves their overall yield over the year (Landais & Balent 1993; Léger 2013: 12-14).
Figure 5.1

Kazakh nomadization, 1st day: on wintering grounds with low vegetation, Rajymbek, June 2012, photo C. Ferret.
Figure 5.2

2nd day: towards high mountain summer pastures, Rajymbek, June 2012, photo C. Ferret.
9The departure from winter quarter and pastures depends on the time when the snow melts and on the condition of the livestock, which must be capable of moving. It must be timed at the optimal period to preserve the surrounding pastures for the following winter (Čormanov 1906: 23-24), and to provide water for the livestock (in winter, the snow is sufficient to quench their thirst). Sometimes it is the animals themselves, especially large ones (cattle and horses) which are used to following the same route every year, which give the signal that it is time to leave (Čermak 1902). Livestock herders are attentive to the behavior of their animals: if the flock or herd disperses, it is because the quality of the grass is no longer good enough and it is time to move6. Sometimes they have to counteract the tendency of the livestock to scatter, escaping from insects, or to eat the grass right down to its roots in winter pastures; and sometimes they simply have to follow them, because the animals are perfectly aware of the seasonal changes and are the best judges of their needs.
10However, not all nomadic movements are linked to pastoralism. The classic distinction between these two large productive systems of hunting has largely ignored the fact that in Siberia, many populations practice both activities, sometimes using similar techniques. Among the Taimyr Dolgans, for example, the nomadic route not only follows the major meridian movement necessary for their domestic reindeer, but also the choice they must make each year between the proximity of fish-rich lakes for fishing and the wild reindeer route for hunting (Chesnokov et al. 1996: 32-35). Finally, other imperatives, whether social or commercial, also influence the layout of their routes.
11The regular movement of nomads, on a familiar route, leads to associations between places and seasons (Habeck 2006: 130 sq., 135), since, due to the nomadic cycles, herds and people find themselves in the same places at a given time of the year, which will correspond to a particular pastoral activity. By fixing a permanent abode, sedentarization breaks this association between space and time and actually makes the climate harsher for people and their livestock.
Kazakhs: from quasi-nomadism to a sedentary lifestyle
12At the turn of the 19th to the 20th century, Kazakhs practiced several forms of pastoral mobility, ranging from strict nomadism to a sedentary lifestyle. The most common was quasi-nomadism, where the entire human group is nomadic, but remains in the same place for one season (more than three months), usually winter (Ferret 2013b, 2014a: 971 sq.). Their nomadic routes were mostly meridian - spending summer in the North and winter in the South, the scope of their itinerary ranging from a few dozen to several hundred kilometers - and sometimes altitudinal, spending summer in the mountain pastures and winter in the valleys, covering smaller distances7. Pastoralists thus spent the cold season in the least snowy areas and the hot season in the least arid areas, playing on latitude, altitude, and the orientation of mountain slopes. Based on these criteria, as well as the nature, quantity and quality of the vegetation cover, wind direction, absence of insects, presence of water points and accessibility, the territory was divided into four categories of pasture suitable for grazing in each season: qystau in winter, kôkteu in spring, žajlau in summer and kùzeu in autumn (Radlov 1989: 254; Gejns 1897, I: 59-60). The quality of a pasture is not defined in an absolute way, but always in relation to a given species of livestock and a given season (figure 5.3 and figure 5.4). The composition of the livestock varies according to time and region, but Central Asian livestock rearing is always multi-species and it is not accurate to establish an unequivocal synchronic or diachronic correlation between the species reared and mobility (Ferret 2014a: 988-995).
13In Soviet Kazakhstan, collectivization first resulted in a dramatic famine and then, after the war, in a professionalization of the herding occupation. Human settlements were dissociated from livestock pastures. According to the transhumance model, herds and flocks followed seasonal rotational grazing routes, accompanied by professional shepherds, while the rest of the rural population stayed in villages throughout the year (Ferret 2017a: 162-163; Ohayon 2017: 133-134).
Figure 5.3

Winter quarter, Rajymbek, June 2012, photo C. Ferret.
Figure 5.4

Summer camp, Koš Agač, June 2017, photo C. Ferret.
14Today, in independent Kazakhstan, the overwhelming majority of Kazakhs lead a sedentary lifestyle. Most rural people continue to raise small and large livestock (sheep, cattle, goats, horses and camels, in a descending order of numbers), but small herds and flocks graze year-round around villages, the larger ones around isolated farms (qystau), sometimes migrating in transhumance with shepherds (Tolebi Sept. 1995, Aug. 2005, Nov. 2009; Rajymbek, June 1994, 2012, Aug. 2013). Following the privatization of livestock in the 1990s, the fall in livestock numbers temporarily deprived pastoral mobility of its raison d’être, but it has since resumed in some regions with an increase in herds since the 2000s. Here and there, the system adopted is rather a quasi-sedentary one where, within agro‑pastoral family farms, part of the extended family moves with the herds and flocks to the different seasonal locations, following a meridian route (Robinson & Milner-Gulland 2003; Kerven et al. 2006, 2015) or an altitudinal route, which has remained the same in some cases for a century (Hauck et al. 2016: 105-7; Ferret 2018a).
Semi-sedentary Yakuts in the alaas
15The Yakuts, who mainly raise cows and horses, were semi‑sedentary at the beginning of the 20th century, having two fixed abodes and dividing their time unevenly between a long stay in winter locations (kystyk) lasting 8 months and a short stay in summer locations (sajylyk) lasting 4 months. Kystyk and sajylyk would be around ten kilometers in distance from each other (Seroševskij 1896: 269-270; Mészáros 2016: 41). This semi-sedentariness was motivated by the need to preserve the meadows close to the winter location from summer grazing, rather than by a need to exploit seasonal differentials between the two places, this latter being the rationale for Kazakh meridian and altitudinal nomads.
16Until settlements were organized into villages in the 1940s or 1950s, depending on the locality, dwellings were dispersed, scattered in alaas spread across the taiga. An alaas is a thermokarstic depression, a geomorphological formation typical of Central Yakutia. It is a bowl-shaped clearing with a lake surrounded by steppe vegetation, like a hole in the forest (figure 5.5). It is created naturally as a result of the partial thawing of permafrost, and is man-maintained through the practices of grazing and haymaking (Mészáros 2012: 5; Crate et al. 2017: 90). Alaas are also artificially modified by slash-and-burn technique and lake drainage practices (Bašarin 1962: 58-60; Mészáros 2012: 14; Mészáros 2016: 42-44; Crate et al. 2017: 95). Alaas are traditional Yakut dwelling places. They suit their pastoral activities and also enable them to fish and hunt in the surrounding taiga. Since 1994, several Yakut people told me that “In the past, we all lived separately, each in his own alaas”. In reality, each alaas, variable in size, was not always reserved for a single family, but sometimes accommodated a small group of households (tùôlbe), whose members were often kin (Takakura 2010a: 55; Mészáros 2012: 12).
17Haymaking is crucial for cattle breeding because, unlike horses and reindeer, cows are kept in barns and fed for eight months of the year. The best sites are reserved for overwintering, near hay meadows mowed in summer, and the most remote sites are reserved for summer locations (Jochelson 1933: 142; Mészáros 2012: 26), near summer pastures. The wettest and highest grasslands are used for grazing, while intermediate grasslands, which provide better quality hay, are reserved for haymaking (Mészáros 2012: 7; Crate et al. 2017: 93-94).
Figure 5.5

Alaas in summer, Ust’-Aldan, July 2008, photo C. Ferret.
A flexible sedentary way of life
18Still today, the inhabitants of Yakut villages maintain a privileged link with the alaas of their ancestors and continue to use them for haymaking and fishing. There is no private property on alaas, but usufruct is clearly established8 and it is customary to ask permission before hunting or fishing in other people’s alaas (Mészáros 2012: 14). Haymaking even creates a land right which has the particularity of being seasonal, from May to September, on hay meadows (Takakura 2010a: 61). The alaas is the preferred location for subsistence activities and is therefore familiar. It is used to identify spatial location and can even be used as a measure of distance. Thus, horse herdsmen, who spend most of their time looking for their animals (Ferret 2007), follow the itinerary taken by the herds, which go from one alaas to another. Mihajl, for instance, qualified the length of his inspection tour, or the distance from a given herd, by quantifying the number of alaas he had to ride through (Ust’-Aldan, March 1994).
19This spatial configuration of the Yakut system of alaas creates a discontinuous landscape, where familiarity with a territory is linked more to the activities that are practiced there than to the actual distance that separates us from it (Mészáros 2012: 2-3, 9). In this archipelago landscape, the familiar “islands”, the alaas, stand out in a foreign, wild and hostile “ocean” represented by the taiga (figure 5.6). This fragmentary arrangement of the landscape differs significantly from the Kazakh division of space into concentric circles of diminishing familiarity and normativity, centered on the yurt and the camp within an open steppe, although this central axis is nevertheless susceptible to move along the nomadic route (Aouelbekov & Ferret 2013: diagram p.101).
Figure 5.6

Aerial view of alaas, Central Yakutia, Nov. 2012, photo C. Ferret.
20The proximity of kystyk and sajylyk allows Yakuts to make frequent trips between their seasonal locations. Consequently, their past semi-sedentariness and their present sedentary lifestyle need to be qualified: in the past, some people stayed at their winter locations (kystyk) in summer to make hay, while the rest of the family stayed on the summer pasture (sajylyk) with the livestock (Mészáros 2016: 41). In the days of the sovkhozes (Soviet farms), when animal husbandry became specialized and professionalized, with each worker devoted to a particular species of livestock or a particular task, cows went to sajylyk from the end of May to August or October, but only with those who cared for them or milked them (Srednekolymsk, July 1995, Nov. 2012, March 2015). Today, some people spend a month in their alaas, in autumn or spring, to hunt or fish, while the rest of the family remains in the village. In summer, some women who work in the village walk to and from the summer pastures on foot every morning and evening to milk the cows (Ust’‑Aldan, June 1995).
21Seroševskij (1896: 271) described a borderline case of semi-sedentariness: some southern Yakuts owned a winter house and a summer house in the same courtyard, and lived alternately in each for reasons of hygiene and comfort. I have also observed a similar configuration in present-day villages in Kazakhstan, the winter house being easier to heat, the summer house more airy or shaded (Rajymbek, June 2012).
22The Central Asian yurt can be inhabited in summer and winter alike, with some adaptation9, but many Kazakhs already had permanent houses on their winter grounds at the end of the nineteenth century, and today, the felt yurt is reserved for summer and mid-season stays (figure 5.7). The form of Yakut houses, however, differs according to the season. The ancient summer house was a light conical hut covered with birch bark (uraḥa), while the winter house was entirely made of wood (balağan), and sometimes semi-underground. The balağan is trapezoidal, its wooden pieces arranged vertically and regularly coated with a mixture of clay and dung. Today, the uraḥa has disappeared, the balağan model has remained for cowsheds (hoton) but has been replaced by the Russian-style izba (where logs are arranged horizontally) for human habitation (figure 5.8).
Figure 5.7

Yurt on summer pastures, Rajymbek, August 2013, photo C. Ferret.
Figure 5.8

Balağan in ruins, Verhoânsk, March 2011, photo C. Ferret.
23After decollectivization, some inhabitants of the Yakut villages returned to their semi-sedentary lives and scattered housing in the alaas, where they stay for at least the summer. The scattered nature and proximity of the meadows facilitate livestock breeding, offering less degraded pastures than those around the villages, and the lake provides an unlimited water supply - but mosquitoes abound in July. In Kurbusah, Anna told me that her ancestors had a winter dwelling (kystyk) 5 km from her present village, where the oldest house, a balağan now serving as a garage, was built by her great-great-grandfather. She now lives there in summer with her younger brother, his wife and their three boys. The two families’ livestock are grouped together and graze in the surrounding pastures. They also have a sajylyk, 2 km away from the kystyk, where three families live, also kin. For a long time uninhabited, these two farms had to be repaired before they could be lived in again. The winter quarter served as a horse-breeding base for the sovkhoz, and some enclosures are still there (Ust’-Aldan June 1995, July 2008). There are numerous such constructions in the alaas, remnants of another era: some have been abandoned and serve as a refuge for herds of horses, some are reused (Davydov 2017). Others build small log cabins (izbuška) on their alaas, or simply put up a tent, which they live in during the haymaking, hunting or fishing seasons (figure 5.9).
Figure 5.9

Yakut summer location (sajylyk), Ust’-Aldan, July 2008, photo C. Ferret.
24Conversely, some Kazakh shepherds, such as Žaqsybaj, who used to migrate to summer pastures (žajlau) in the days of the kolkhoz (collective farm), now decide to spend the whole year in their winter quarter (qystau) when the modest size of their herds allows them to do so, to avoid the hassle and discomfort of moving to the žajlau. There is an intermediate solution whereby they send only an assistant shepherd to accompany the small livestock on the žajlau (figure 5.10). These choices are not definitive and vary from year to year, depending on the circumstances (Rajymbek, June 2012, Aug. 2013). Yakuts and Kazakhs are not —or are no longer— nomads, strictly speaking, but today, pastoral mobility, however restricted, has regained a certain flexibility.
Figure 5.10

Winter quarter inhabited during summer, Rajymbek, June 2012, photo C. Ferret.
Pastoral seasons
Pastoral calendar
25The annual rhythm is marked by pastoral activities, which depend largely on the reproduction of livestock (see the calendars: figure 5.11 and figure 5.12, and also figure 5.13, and figure 5.14). This reproductive cycle lasts around a year, according to the length of the gestation period: 11 months for mares, 9 months for cows, shorter for reindeer (7 months), ewes and goats (5 months), animals which mate in autumn. Shepherds therefore expect breeding females to give them one calf or one foal per year, sometimes two for ewes which, depending on their breed, may give birth to twins or have two pregnancies in a single year. By contrast, the female camel (13 to 15 months of gestation) only gives birth once every two years; but there are few camels. And the Yakuts observe that cows and mares which have calved or foaled three years in a row are often barren in the fourth year, “as if they are resting” (Ust’-Aldan, July 2008).
Figure 5.11

Calendar of Yakut activities. Observation, participation and field interviews: Ust’-Aldan, June 1995, March-Ap. 1994, July-Aug. 2008, Ap. 2011 ; Verhoânsk, July 1995, March-Ap. 2011 ; Srednekolymsk, July 1995, Nov. 2012, Feb.-March 2015 ; Ojmâkon, Oct.-Nov. 2012. See also Crate 2006: 105-107. Average monthly temperatures were recorded in Borogoncy, Ust’-Aldan, Central Yakutia (https://en.climate-data.org/). In the districts of Verhoânsk and Ojmâkon, winter temperatures are lower. Having observed very little reindeer husbandry, which is scarce in the areas where I conducted my field studies, I have not included it in this table. For a calendar of this activity among Dolgans, see Chesnokov et al. 1996: 33-36; and among Evens and Evenks, David & Karlin 2003: 285-286; Takakura 2010b: 30. *Kujuur: a dip net with a wooden bracket used to create a whirlpool. Diagram: C. Ferret.
Figure 5.12

Calendar of transhumant agro-pastoralists in south-eastern Kazakhstan. Observation, participation and field interviews: Rajymbek, June-July 2012, July-Aug. 2013. Average monthly temperatures were recorded in Narynkol (https://en.climate-data.org/). In sedentary farming, in the more southern Tole Bi district, I observed slightly different dates. For more details on mobile pastoralism in South-Eastern Kazakhstan, the system of seasonal stations, see Ferret 2018a; and on rearing techniques, sheep rearing in particular, see Ferret 2017a. Diagram: C. Ferret.
Figure 5.13

Winter fishing: under ice angling, Verhoânsk, March 2011, photo C. Ferret.
Figure 5.14

Summer fishing: using a seine net, Ust’-Aldan, July 1995, photo C. Ferret.
26Livestock keeping and herding vary greatly according to species and season. Grazing is the main source of food for livestock in extensive pastoral systems, but it may or may not be (as with the case of reindeer) supplemented by fodder: episodically, at the beginning and end of winter (Yakut horses) or during lambing, in spring (sheep), for one season (Kazakh cows), or even for most of the year (Yakut cows). Small livestock flocks need to be constantly watched, while large livestock herds are only intermittently checked. In Yakutia, reindeer are monitored permanently in summer, when they disperse to escape mosquitoes, and in autumn, when they look for mushrooms, whereas in winter, a daily inspection is sufficient. Horse herds are left to their own devices all summer long, visited two or three times a week the rest of the year, and once a day during the foaling or foddering season (Ferret 2007; Ferret 2017b).
27Yakuts milk their cows twice a day, sometimes three times in summer (figure 5.15). Milking only stops in January and February, two or three months before calving, and sometimes at the end of summer, when cows go to the summer pastures alone, before returning to the hoton. The milking season can also be prolonged or shortened according to milk quotas (Ust’-Aldan, July-Aug. 2008; Verhoânsk, March-Ap. 2011; Ojmâkon, Oct.-Nov. 2012).
28In Kazakhstan, cows are milked as soon as they calve, usually in March, through to December, after which they no longer let their calf suckle or humans milk them (Rajymbek, June 2012) (figure 5.16). However, calves born early in the season are left with their mothers in September, the latter being consequently no longer milked. In the south, the milking season is slightly earlier, running from February to October (Tolebi, July 2012). In winter, people drink “black” tea, i.e. without milk. Mares are generally only milked in summer, with some exceptions, and only for the purpose of making kumys (fermented mare’s milk). Sheep and goats’ milk have not been used since the 1960s.
Figure 5.15

Yakut milking in the hoton, Ojmâkon, October 2012, photo C. Ferret.
Figure 5.16

Kazakh milking on the Koš Agač, June 2017, photo C. Ferret.
29For both Kazakh and Yakut populations, livestock slaughter occurs on a large scale in autumn (kaz. soġym “autumn slaughter”), the period when the animals are at their fattest and their meat keeps best, with outside temperatures which provide immediate freezing. Each family thus slaughters the number of large animals they plan to consume during the year, or those which they think they will be unable to feed the following winter due to insufficient reserves of hay. Autumn is therefore the season of opulence when family celebrations are organized.
Seasonal contrasts
30Nomadic or not, pastoralists experience late winter and early spring as the hardest period, when food is scarce for people and livestock alike, and animals sometimes struggle to put one foot in front of the other10, before the milking period and springtime revival. This ‘rebirth’ with the melting of the snows is not an empty word: the effect is tenfold in these countries with extremely continental climates. Nature, long immobilized by winter frost, literally explodes in the spring.
31On May 1st, Yakuts wish each other a kùôh maj “Green May”, as the nature around them turns green (Ust’-Aldan, Yakutsk, May 2011). The larch, a non-persistent resinous tree that dominates the taiga, first takes on a soft, light green hue, then darkens in June. Birds, such as the cuckoo, begin to sing, and insects proliferate. With the thawing, the water, which had been solid, dry and silent for many months, begins to melt, murmur, wet, and flow, making the streets of the villages muddy and sometimes totally impassable. In recent years, floods have increased due to global warming (Crate 2013; Takakura 2016) (figure 5.17).
Figure 5.17

Cows near to a hoton on a flooded village street, Namcy, May 2011, photo C. Ferret.
32In winter, the extreme cold of Siberia induces a suspension of time, because bodies are no longer subjected to the decomposition process. In the past, the dead were laid out on wooden platforms (araṅas), a unique Yakut ritual which Russian colonization replaced by burial. If the death occurred in winter, the deceased would be laid out in the house —deserted by the other occupants— awaiting their burial the following spring (Lindenau 1983: 40; Hudâkov 1969: 296-297; Ferret 2014b: 240). Still today, animal carcasses are often left where they died in winter, frozen in place by the frost. But in spring, they begin to decompose and so must be gathered and burned. Lena, who now lives in the capital, told me with nostalgia: “At this time of the year [beginning of May], we gather the rubbish around the village, making large heaps and burning them to clean it all up. It gives a specific smell to the village, because everything is burned using cow dung. Everyone who has lived in villages knows this odor and remembers it. When I smell it, it reminds me of my childhood, it is the smell of springtime” (Yakutsk , May 2011).
33The means and duration of transport differ greatly according to the seasons in Yakutia. Travel is easier in winter because the frozen rivers are used as roads. Many villages remain inaccessible between May and November other than by air (but air traffic had dropped since the end of the USSR) as well as several weeks in winter when there is a snowstorm (Srednekolymsk, Feb. 2015; Verhoânsk, March 2011; Ojmâkon, Oct. 2012).
34The vegetative period is very short: potatoes, sometimes planted in standing raised beds to protect them from the cold of the permafrost, only have one month to grow (Ojmâkon, Nov. 2012). Tomatoes and cucumbers are grown in heated greenhouses between June and September. But the most nourishing food is derived from animal products and is also seasonal, according to the periods of milking, hunting and fishing (Argounova-Low 2009; Bianquis & Borissova 2018) (figure 5.18). In Siberia and Central Asia, the breeding calendar reveals a dairy-based diet in summer and meat-based in winter11.
Figure 5.18

No need for a container to transport milk, Ust’-Aldan, March 2015, photo C. Ferret.
35The month of July is, in Yakutia, the scene of feverish activity due to haymaking (figure 5.19). Within a matter of weeks, each family must gather enough hay to feed their cows over the long winter and supplement their horses feed, given that a cow requires about 2 tons of first cut hay per year and a horse less than 1 ton. In the 1990s, hay cutting was mostly done by hand, nowadays with a tractor or gasoline motor mower.
36Haymaking days (mowing, raking, drying in small heaps and then stacking) are long, from 8 o’clock in the morning to 10 o’clock at night, and sometimes later in the North, where the sun does not set (Ust’-Aldan, July 1995, 2008; Hangalas, Aug. 2008; Verhoânsk, March 2011). Sometimes people must work urgently day and night to stack the hay before the arrival of rain, which can make the hay mouldy and make it necessary to repeat the drying procedure (Ust’-Aldan, July 2008). It is an exhausting work, exacerbated by the heat and mosquitoes. City dwellers come and help their village relatives in this task. But this heavy workload, daily tasks in the barn and intense in the summer, makes the younger generation reluctant to keep cows, resulting in a sharp decline in the cattle population.
Figure 5.19

Haymaking, Ust’-Aldan, July 2008, photo C. Ferret.
37In contrast, winter days are much shorter, especially in northern regions, which enjoy only a few hours of light per day, and they are not so busy, punctuated by comings and goings between the house and the hoton, which is located nearby, for feeding, watering, cleaning the barn and milking (Ust’-Aldan, Ap. 1994, Ojmâkon Oct.-Nov. 2012, Srednekolymsk, Nov. 2012, Feb.-March 2015; Ferret 2017b: 31). The intermittent watching of horse herds falls to professional tabunŝik. No other subsistence activities occur in January or February, as hunting and fishing take place in spring and autumn.
38As with the Yakuts, the density of the daily schedule varies according to the seasons among Kazakh pastoralists, although the contrast between summer bustle and winter lethargy is less marked —it could even be said to be inversed in Southern Kazakhstan, where the heat plunges July into a torpor. Elsewhere, winter is the harshest time of year for pastoralists, especially when there are snowstorms, wolf attacks, or žůt, where climatic hazards (ice, drought or heavy snow) decimate herds and flocks. In January, in the wintering, shepherds rise at dawn to put out the horses, which only remain in the stable for a small part of the night in the middle of winter. When the sun appears, the cows are milked and then put out to pasture. Cattle and horses are only inspected from time to time with binoculars. Sheep, however, which are the last to come out of the barn in the morning, are constantly watched over. At midday, the flock is taken to a point not too far from the winter location, so that they remain within view over lunch. The grazing route varies from day to day but is generally plotted to pass through a water point, sometimes remote, for the animals to drink. Around 5.30pm, the flock has returned to the pen. But if the animals are placed in an uncovered pen, the shepherd must get up several times during the night to change their positioning and prevent those on the periphery of the group from getting too cold (Rajymbek, June 2012; Tolebi, Nov. 2009).
39The lambing season also calls for increased care (Ferret 2017a: 165-6). An indicator of these seasonal variations is provided by the organization of labor among kolkhozes and sovkhozes, where extra laborers were temporarily deployed to work with shepherds. Summer is a less worrisome period (Ferret 2004: 258), but there is nevertheless no shortage of tasks on summer pastures, especially for women, who are always the first to rise, from 4:30am with the sun, and are often the last to go to bed (Rajymbek, June 2012, Aug. 2013; Tolebi, Sept. 1995; Koš-Agač, June 2017).
40The seasonal cycle, in both Central Asia and Siberia, is marked by strong contrasts. The first is due to the extremely continental climate. This results in impressive weight variations for the animals over the course of the year12. This saying, recounted by a Kazakh horse trainer: “In the spring he runs with the thigh bone, in the autumn he runs merrily” contrasts the season of scarcity to that of abundance (Žarmin, July 1994). For humans, not only does the nature of the food change with the seasons, but it is also irregular in terms of quantity and calorific value. The proverb “the autumn man laughs, the spring man drools”, is explained as follows by Kulakovskij: in autumn, Yakuts have plentiful reserves of food, their stomachs are full and they are cheerful, but in spring these reserves are exhausted, they are hungry and do not feel like laughing, they can only think of eating and therefore they salivate (Kulakovskij 1925: 51).
A dichotomous calendar
41Kazakhs and Yakuts divide the year into twelve (Hudâkov 1969: 253) or thirteen (Maak 1883-1887, III: 183) lunar months. For the Kazakhs, the New Year corresponds to the Nauryz festival, at the spring equinox. For the Yakuts, it falls on the Yḥyah festival, at the summer solstice. They link the stellar, meteorological and pastoral calendars, noting, for example, that with the reappearance of the Pleiades constellation after 40 days of eclipse in May, if there was abundant rain, then their livestock would fatten up properly (Čormanov 1906: 29).
42In Yakut, several names of months, some still in use, others not, refer to agricultural activities or natural seasonal phenomena: April, “the breaking of the ice”; May, “pine barking” [harvesting sapwood for food consumption]; June, “spawning” [gathering of caviar]; July, “haymaking”; August “holding the fork” [again for haymaking]; September, “entering the balağan” (Srednekolymsk, Nov. 2012, Feb. 2015). Many authors note that the name for the month of March, kulun tutar, “the capture of foals”, proves the southern origin of the Yakuts (Maak 1887: 183; Seroševskij 1896: 196; Jochelson 1933: 100-101; Hudâkov 1969: 253), because in Yakutia, the majority of foals are born much later13.
43In a similar way, among the Kazakh names for the months we find: September, called qyrkùek, literally meaning “forty14 contraceptive aprons” which prevent rams from impregnating ewes too early, as this is the time when sheep reproduce; October, called qazan, meaning “cauldron or pot” as well as “end”, as it is the end of the period of preparations for winter and the autumn slaughter period; April, called kôkek, which refers to the cuckoo bird (Tolebi, May 1996; Čormanov 1906: 29; Syzdykova & Husain 2002: 391, 409, 438-9, 567)15.
44The main Yakut and Kazakh festivals are explicitly linked to seasons. In June, the Yḥyah “Festival of kumys” which has become the national Yakut festival, celebrates spring revival. Its multiple meanings, both religious and political, have evolved over time since the nineteenth century: an offering to benevolent spirits (ajyy), demonstration of the power held by the richest, the unity of the Soviet people, sports performance, national renewal and celebration of the founding myth of the nation (Priklonskij 1887: 1-5; Romanova 1994; Romanova & Ignat’eva 2012; Ust’-Aldan, June 1995, 2008; Hangalas, July 2008) (figure 5.20). In certain regions of Yakutia a “goodbye to winter” celebration is also held, with reindeer races (Èveno-Bytantaj, Ap. 2011).
Figure 5.20

Family Yḥyah, Ust’-Aldan, July 2008, photo C. Ferret.
45In Kazakhstan, Nauryz, at the spring equinox16, common to all cultures of Iranian influence, is also a calendar festival which celebrates the rebirth of nature. This is apparent from the characteristic use of “ritual shoots”, in the form of germinated seeds17 and a cereal soup (nauryz kôže) comprising seven ingredients. For the Kazakhs, this agricultural celebration also marked the lambing season and the beginning of milking (Eitzen 1999: 77). Formerly discreet and modest (Tolebi, Ap. 2013), Nauryz festival has grown since the Independence, but without taking on the same importance as that of the Yḥyah for the Yakuts.
46The year is divided into two by both the Kazakhs and the Yakuts: one (half of the) year cold and one hot. The cold year begins with the first snowfall, in September‑October, and the warm year starts when the snow melts, in March‑April (Priklonskij 1887: 13-14; Čormanov 1906: 28; Jochelson 1933: 100). The principle of the pastoral economy consists of making optimal use of the good season in order to prepare for the bad season: people must gather reserves of food and fodder, fuel and water. The animals must develop their fat reserves. During the Yakut Indian summer, a mild season towards the end of September, when the trees take on their flaming autumn colors, larch needles begin to fall, weather becomes temporarily milder and the animals become rounder, it is time to prepare to enter winter (Ust’-Aldan, Oct. 2012) (figure 5.21).
Figure 5.21

Cubes of ice, cut from the surface of a lake and stored in front of the house for drinking water (in the background we can see a bull in front of the hoton), Verhoânsk, March 2011, photo C. Ferret.
47This division of the year into two segments corresponds, among Kazakhs, to an original conception of meteorological time and chronological time: these two halves are symmetrical, so that the conditions of each day correspond to those of the symmetrically matching day in the other half. For example, if it has rained in April, it will snow on the matching day in October. If the westerly wind blows very strongly one day in August, there will be a storm on the same day in February. But a cold spell on a specific day in the cold period will correspond to a hot spell on the corresponding day of the hot period of the year (Čormanov 1906: 28). The qys šìlde, the forty coldest days of the year (between 25 December and 5 January), is balanced out by the žaz šìlde, the forty hottest days (between 25 June and 5 August). These two periods of extreme temperatures are difficult for the body to endure (Ajtbaev 1957), but they also have unique properties, described as qasiet, or “healthy”, for training and fattening the kôkpar horses, for example (Ferret 2018b).
48Seasonal contrasts are seen as normal and even beneficial, if they occur when expected. So, for the Yakuts, the extreme cold is a good thing in winter (Crate 2008: 580); spring mud is not a curse, but rather assurance against a summer drought, which is always feared. At the end of April 2011, for example, it dried “too quickly” and “much earlier than usual” in Ust’‑Aldan, according to inhabitants of the region. “I know an old man who can predict the weather. Last autumn, he said that the snow would not do any good next year. And that is what happened. There was wind, and the snow melted very quickly, leaving no trace… We predict a drought this summer”.
49Otherwise, in the event of an imbalance or out-of-season phenomenon, nature is supposed to have the ability to re-balance, to put things back in order. Thus, in early April 2011, after an unusually premature spring heat, the temperature dropped back down to -20°C, which was interpreted as follows: “when the weather heats up too soon in spring, nature “blocks” things, it locks down to return things to normal. So, the process stops. Spring must arrive when it should arrive, not too early” (Ust’‑Aldan, Ap.-May 2011).
50Thus, Kazakhs and Yakuts share a dichotomous calendar which divides the year into two symmetrical and antagonistic halves, one warm and the other cold, and expresses the continental nature of their climate. But the contrast between summer and winter, the hot and the cold seasons is completed by a second opposition, slightly shifted in time18, between the beginning of spring, a period of shortage, and the beginning of autumn, a period of plenty, both for animals and for the people, who feed on their milk and meat. Despite what we might assume of a population living in such a cold region, the season preferred by the Yakuts is not the hottest, because July represents a double scourge: the toil of haymaking and mosquitoes.
Conclusion
51Although they are no longer nomadic, Yakuts and Kazakhs today show flexibility in their pastoral mobility. The annual timing of their activities is marked by strong seasonality. Sedentarization has broken the association between places and seasons, characteristic of pastoral nomadism, but it has reinforced rather than diminished the contrast of the seasons. While the mobility of nomads tends to level out climatic variations, pastoralists sometimes seem to favor seasonal contrasts rather than trying to reduce them. It may seem somewhat artificial to dissociate nomadic seasons from pastoral seasons, since nomadism and pastoralism are two intimately linked phenomena, but this dissociation reveals a fundamental alternation which punctuates the pastoralists’ time, irrespective of their residential mobility. It is the contrasting alternation of hot and cold, scarcity and abundance. Seasonal activities are determined, on the one hand, by the breeding schedule of the livestock and, on the other hand, by preparation, in the summer season, of the harsh season to follow.
52This emphasis placed on pastoral seasons should not give the false impression that the lives of Yakut and Kazakh pastoralists are entirely subjected to the rhythm of their natural environment and outside history. The changes in their pastoral mobility clearly show that between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 21st century, their way of life was in no way immutable, It was disrupted by the Russian colonial administration, by sovietization and by decollectivization, but they were able to adapt with flexibility to major historical changes.
Notes de bas de page
1 “Seasonal variations of the Eskimo: A study in social morphology” in Mauss 1950. For a recent example, see Sillar 2009.
2 This text is based on field data collected by the author between 1994 and 2017 in Yakutia, Kazakhstan, and Altai, during missions financed by the CNRS, the Paul-Émile Victor Polar Institute and the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. These data are indicated in the text by location and date, for the ulus of Yakutia (Hangalas, Ojmâkon, Verhoânsk, Srednekolymsk, Ust’-Aldan) and for the districts of Kazakhstan (Tole Bi in Southern Kazakhstan; Rajymbek in the Almaty region; Žarmin, in the Semipalatinsk region), as well as the Koš-Agač district, in the Altai Republic (Russia). For example: (Ust’-Aldan, April 2011).
3 “Extensive livestock farming systems are characterized by the high degree of spatial and temporal diversity of resources used within a single farm. […] These resources are heterogenous and variable over time. The vegetation grows over a long period of time, and its digestibility varies over the season. While in intensive systems, the aim is to limit the heterogeneity and qualitative variability of resources, the management of this accepted and even sought-after diversity plays a central role in extensive systems. […] In mountainous regions, the use of pastures over time follows the evolution of grass growth, which is itself dependent on the altitudinal gradient of the land” (Landais & Balent 1993: 24-25).
4 Golovnev 2013: 52, 54. For a more detailed description, see Golovnёv et al. 2018: 166 sq.
5 About Yakut nomadization, see Seroševskij 1896: 270.
6 Čormanov 1906: 24. See the quote translated into French in Ferret 2013a: 167.
7 Dobrosmyslov 1895:12-13; Dahšleiger 1980: 71-78; Masanov 2011: 66. See Ferret 2013c and 2014a, for a more detailed analysis of these nomadic routes, which could locally be reversed, compared to the classical meridian or altitudinal patterns. In the altitudinal pattern in particular, spring and autumn were often spent at a lower altitude than winter, but summer pastures were the highest.
8 See Crate 2003 on the post-Soviet distribution of hay meadows; and Takakura 2010a on the evolution of land ownership in the longer term.
9 Among camel breeders in the Sahara, the shape and size of the tent varies with the season to adapt to the climate (Baroin & Karlin 1999: 20). In Central Asia, the shape of the yurt remains the same all year round, but the felt panels can be folded up for ventilation.
10 Troŝanskij 1911: 75, for cattle. The Yakuts take advantage of this seasonal weakness to break in their horses at that time, in March, when their resistance is greatly reduced, so much so that some of them will lie down instead of jumping or kicking (Ust’-Aldan, March 1994; see. Ferret 2006: 519, 525-526). On the scrawniness of Central Asian cattle in spring, see Zeland 1885: 22.
11 In Yakutia, the ease of preserving food by freezing it, in cellars constantly frozen by permafrost, can reduce the seasonality of the food available.
12 The Yakut horse has an exceptional fattening capacity, accumulating in one month of autumn enough fat reserves to enable it to endure the winter season. Yearlings take on 130 kg (which is 51% of their usual weight) in their third summer, but they stop growing in winter and adult horses lose 21% of their weight in winter (Maak 1887: 149; Seroševskij 1896: 163-164; Ferret 2006: 355-6).
13 This assertion is frequent but not well-founded, because even in southern Siberia, most foals are not born as early as March.
14 The number 40 here signifies a large and undetermined number.
15 Several Dolgan names for the months are related to reindeer husbandry (Chesnokov et al. 1996: 32).
16 Nauryz is also the name of the month of March in Kazakh.
17 D’Onofrio (2018) compares the ritual use of these germinated seeds in Persian Nowruz (Iran and Central Asia), and in Christian Easter (Southern Italy and Provence).
18 In addition to the time differences, mainly related to latitude, between the Yakut and Kazakh calendars and, within these two countries, the different regions.
Auteurs
-
Carole Ferret
Ethnologist, Research Fellow (CRCN) at the CNRS - UMR 7130 – Laboratoire d’anthropologie sociale (LAS), Collège de France & EHESS (École des hautes études en sciences sociales), 3 rue d’Ulm, 75005 Paris (France)
- Wendy Leslie (trad.)
- Carole Ferret (trad.)
Le texte seul est utilisable sous licence Licence OpenEdition Books. Les autres éléments (illustrations, fichiers annexes importés) sont « Tous droits réservés », sauf mention contraire.
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