Chuchuna

On April 26, 1929, the newspaper Autonomous Yakutia published an article entitled “Chuchuna”. It was told that even in Tsarist Russia in the northern regions of Yakutia there was a belief that an unknown people called Chuchuna, “in the far north”, existed. Every year they were seen in the Butantaysky nasleg of the Verkhoyansk ulus in the direction of Zhigansk . According to the descriptions of eyewitnesses, chuchuns were distinguished by tall stature and strong build, with very long hair; they dressed in animal skins, knew how to shoot a bow and very quickly ran. Two or three chuchuns were killed by “hunters” who concealed this in fear of being prosecuted for the murder. In the sixth issue of the magazine “ Future Siberia ” in 1933, P. Dravert’s article titled “The Wild People of Mühlen and Chuchuna” was published. It described the primitive people living in northeastern Siberia. The Ayano-Nelkan Tunguses called them Mühlens. They represent a mortal danger for people crossing the Dujungjur Ridge. Yakuts are afraid of Mühlens. These wild people with long hair and a face covered with hair have height below or above the average person, dressed in animal skins, walking with a bow and a knife. Their speech is inarticulate, supposedly living in caves. Attack people at night by archery or throwing stones. Steal deer and food. The last time Mühlen was killed in 1913 by the Yakut. Gathering material about chuchuna, P. Dravert came to the conclusion about the real existence of "peculiar representatives of the human breed" in the territory of Yakutia, which are on the verge of extinction. At the same time, he drew attention to the lack of information in these stories about women and children of wild people. In the same issue of the journal was published a review of the article written by G. Ksenofontov . In the review, the author referred the stories about wild people to primitive beliefs: the Yakuts believed in the existence of spirits who lived in the mountains and forests. In the Yakut language there is the word chuchus - “ghost, evil spirit” ^[2] .

Russian old-timers of the Russkoye Ustye village in the lower reaches of Indigirka in the second half of the 20th century still believed in the existence of the tundra spirit, which was called “sendushny” (from “sendukha” - tundra, land ^[3] , by analogy with wood or lake ). He was tall and took women as wives. Who knows with sendushny in the next world go to Satan. They remembered the Russians and Eurasians about the "thin" Chukchi who came from the Chukchi Nose . Sometimes they stole horses at night; had a bow and were able to run fast. In the Yakut village of Allaikh, there were stories about the "thin" Chukchi, who were also called Chuchuns. Ruskoustians were considered the enemies of these Chukchi. A local resident by the name of Rozhin, who spoke Russian, quoted this story: “The Chukchi, as you know, are roving people. They wander for a few years in our direction, then again go to Chukotka ... They were killed - it was painfully harmful. They kill too ” ^[4] . The manuscript of the exiled I. Khudyakov “A brief description of the Verkhoyansk district” of 1868–1869 has been preserved. The author told about the rumors about the existence of some wild people wandering through the desert area. They are very few in number, sometimes they dress in rags, they carry a bow, and their feet are large. They had clashes with industrial people. They can throw a stone in the back to Yakut women. Yakuts are afraid to see these people. They live on the coast of the Arctic Ocean in Zhigansk ulus , as well as in the Net, to the west. They are called in the Tunguska chuchana , which means “runaway” ^[5] .

According to the findings of the largest ethnographic specialist of the peoples of the Far North of the USSR Academy of Sciences, I. S. Gurvich (d. 1992) ^[6] , who has been collecting and studying ethnographic data related to Chuchuns for more than thirty years: Chuchuns, they are also Mühlen, wild or “skinny” Chukchi - were by origin coastal Chukchi . During the hunt for the sea animal in the summer and autumn, the ice broke off and took the solitary sea hunters away to the west, to the shores of Yakutia. Tearing away from their relatives, they considered themselves to be rejected: the Chukchi custom forbade them to return to their homeland, where they were already considered dead. Having appeared in new unusual conditions, the Chukchi “ Robinsons ” were doomed to hunger, because they had no tools for hunting wild deer. Therefore, they were forced to steal food, and in extreme cases - to attack fishermen and hunters, which often turned into death for them ^[7] .

It should also be noted that the archetype of malicious savages who secretly inhabit the tundra, in the mountains or forests, is very common in the mythologies of the peoples of the world. For example, in the folklore of the Greenland Eskimos there are characters similar to Chuchun called "tuniit". Perhaps this is a mythologized memory of earlier cultures and tribes that inhabited the area.

Professor BF Porshnev (d. 1972), who headed the Commission for the Study of the "Bigfoot", put forward the idea of ​​the existence of a Neanderthal in Northern Asia - a relic hominoid . During the expedition conducted by the commission, fossil paleoanthropes were not found. The result of the research was the publication by Porshnev in 1963 of the monograph “The current state of the question of relic hominoids”. Despite the fact that his hypothesis did not find sympathy among specialists, he did not abandon his convictions ^[8] .

• Stray Chukchi
• Big Foot

• Gurvich, I. S. Mysterious Chuchuna (the story of a single ethnographic search). - M .: Thought, 1975. - 95 p.
• Chuchuna and Sulanya, or, The Story of a "snowy" man. - Yakutsk: Yakut book publishing house, 1992. - p. 73.