The Chukchi Bible

by Yuri Rytkheu, Ilona Yazhbin Chavasse (Translator)

By the celebrated author of A Dream in Polar Fog , a collection of the myths and stories of Yuri Rytkheu’s own family that is at once a moving history of the Chukchi people who inhabit the northern shores of the Bering Sea and a beautiful cautionary tale rife with conflict, human drama, and humor. We meet fantastic Nau, the mother of the human race; Rau, her half-whale husband; and Rytkheu’s own grandfather, fated to be an intrepid traveler, far-ranging whaler, living ethnographic exhibit, and the last shaman of Uelen. The Chukchi Bible moves through vast Arctic tundra, sea, and sky – and to places deep within ourselves—introducing readers, in vivid prose, to an extraordinary mythology and a resilient people.

Genres: Short Stories, Russia, Fiction, Mythology, Folklore, Indigenous, Biography Memoir

354 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

In Cyrillic: Юрий Рытхэу

Yuri Sergeyevich Rytkheu. He was a Chukchi writer, who wrote in both his native Chukchi and in Russian. He is considered to be the father of Chukchi literature.

Yuri Rytkheu was born on March 8, 1930 in the village of Uelen in the Far Eastern Territory (now the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug) in the family of a hunter-St. John's wort. His grandfather was a shaman. At birth, the boy was given the name Rytkheu, which means "unknown" in Chukchi. Since the Soviet institutions did not recognize the Chukchi names, in the future, in order to obtain a passport, the future writer took a Russian name and patronymic, and the name "Rytkheu" became his last name.

Rytkheu graduated from a seven-year school in Uelen and wanted to continue his studies at the Institute of the Peoples of the North, but due to his age he was not among those who were seconded to this university. Therefore, he decided to independently go to Leningrad for training. This path stretched over several years. In order to earn money for travel and life, the future writer was hired for various jobs: he was a sailor, worked on a geological expedition, participated in the hunting game, was a loader at a hydro base.

Rytkheu studied at the literary faculty of Leningrad State University from 1949 to 1954. The writer was a little over 20 years old when his stories appeared in the almanac "Young Leningrad", and a little later in the magazines "Ogonyok", "Young World", "Far East", the youth newspaper "Smena" and other periodicals. In 1953, the publishing house "Young Guard" published his first collection of short stories in Russian "People of Our Coast" (translated from Chukotka by A. Smolyan). During his student days, Yuri Rytkheu was actively involved in translation activities, translated into Chukchi the tales of Alexander Pushkin, the stories of Leo Tolstoy, the works of Maxim Gorky and Tikhon Syomushkin. In 1954 Rytkheu was admitted to the Writers' Union of the USSR. Two years later, in Magadan, his collection of stories "The Chukotka Saga" was published, which brought the writer recognition not only of Soviet, but also foreign readers.

Reviews

[Elena Sala · Rating 5 out of 5]

THE CHUKCHI BIBLE (first published in 2000) is a truly extraordinary book, a fascinating blend of memoir, folk tales and history centered on a community which still lives, albeit in small numbers now, in the coastal Siberian village of Uelen, just over the Bering Strait from Alaska (if you read this book, I would recommend you Google Uelen so that you can get a better sense of the actual geography of this place).

Yuri Rytkheu tells us about how the Chukchi, who were nomadic reindeer herders and hunters, struggled to survive in this harsh landscape: we learn about how and what they hunted, what they ate, what their dwellings were like, what they wore, how they found their spouses, and, most importantly, how their culture was slowly but irrevocably changed by the impact of both Russian and American ‘civilization’ on Indigenous ways of life.

Why is it called a "Bible"?, you may wonder. Rytkheu’s grandfather was the last shaman of Uelen and the story is told from his perspective. The narrative covers hundreds of years of human and cultural changes, beginning with the creation stories from their oral tradition, up to the present day. It is a moving narrative rendered in an evocative prose of the merciless connection between man and nature and the hardships endured by Rytkheu’s resilient ancestors.

[Bryn Hammond · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was desolate at the end… except for the fact that the author has written this book. Native cultures of Siberia were declared worthless in the 20thC, and the main character sees his children schooled to be Bolshevik – and not Chukchi. Then I found out that Rytkheu - the main’s grandchild – toed this line for much of his life, and comes late here to celebrate Chukchi culture. Quote from A History of the Peoples of Siberia: Russia's North Asian Colony 1581-1990: Rytkheu even came to regret the Communist Party’s indiscriminate campaign against the primal religion of his people and to feel a new sympathy not only with its inherent respect for nature, but even with the shaman, whom he no longer saw, in the stereotype of anti-religious propaganda, as merely an ignorant, predatory charlatan, but in many cases as a highly gifted person with a skill in healing, wisdom above the average, and the spiritual elevation of a poet. [p.408]

The author's grandfather, whose story is two-thirds of the book, was ‘the last shaman of Uelen’. He has failures and difficulties with his calling, but is steadfast in sticking to his beliefs, even though, as arguably the wisest of his tribe – at least the most-travelled - he has learnt Russian and American and has brought home surgical instruments from San Francisco, to help a shaman’s practice. It began with Bogoraz, a political exile who devoted his time in north-east Siberia to anthropology; after aiding him in his study, Mletkin – our last shaman – decides he wants to do anthropology of his own and signs up on a whaling ship. He didn’t mean to sign up (no-one told him what the fingerprint was for) and he sees, from the perpetrators’ side this time, the exploitation that goes on, along with the disastrous effect on sea-animal numbers.

His people descend from a whale – not from apes, like the foreigners, or made as in the Bible. The epigraphs at the start of this book are:

And God created man in his own image.
(Genesis)

Men make gods in their own likeness.
(Mletkin, the last shaman of Uelen)

It’s what he learns. His people’s name for themselves, Luoravetlan, translates as the True People. This is so of most tribes, who simply have ‘humans, people’ in their own language for a name. Horizons are widened, for better or worse, through this book, that starts with the Raven’s creation of the earth, goes on through first discoveries – of reindeer-herding (on the face of it a wonderful idea: ‘food on four legs’ in handy vicinity of the tent) and onwards to first contact with the Cossacks.

The book is titled as it is for more than one reason. A Bible features: Mletkin’s grandfather trades for a Bible at a fair, out of curiosity about these Russian shamans and their abilities. It remains in the family – no-one reads, and no-one’s Christian – until Mletkin, known also for his curiosity, pulls it out to startle a Russian trader - ‘What’s a Bible doing here?’

There’s a hot trade in vodka or any alcohol, and its ravages are pitiful. The Russian government attempts to ban the trade. They also leave the Chukchi to their ways, in a pact with them: don’t attack your neighbours, we won’t force-convert you. It’s not always abuse. Mletkin finds a friend in Nelson, a black sailor; he thinks of the anthropologist Bogoraz as a friend, with different attitudes than most of his kind – yet their acquaintance ends on a note of the alienness between them, as Mletkin settles down to family life in Uelen. With a girl he fixed on in his youth… who failed, twice over, to wait for him (he did take years, and no-one comes back from San Francisco) but that does not deter Mletkin, though he has to resort to an old cultural practice to get her.

As I say, the end is sad. The only consolation is the book.

There's lovely description of the tundra and the sea, as - I had to feel - only an eye native here can see them. I also felt (though this is not a tract) that the questions put by Uelen's inhabitants are a fundamental sort that is hard for us, who aren't Chukchi, to even think to ask. Not because we're pigs. But the questions are so simple and direct, and asked from a sense of the absolute worth of Chukchi knowledge and ways.

[Andy Weston · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve read, and greatly enjoyed, one of Rytkheu’s two translated works of fiction, A Dream in Polar Fog, and will soon get round to the other, When the Whales Leave.

I came to Rytkheu’s books after reading the story of the disastrous Jeannette expedition in Hampton Sides’s excellent In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette. For a tale such as this, I would direct readers to A Dream In The Polar Fog.

Rytkheu, born in 1930, is the only Chukchi writer to be translated into English, and is considered the ‘father’ of Chukchi literature. He, and his forebears, are from the coastal village of Uelen, which is located on a spit of land in the Chukotka region in the far northeast of Russia and is the country’s eastern most settlement, about sixty miles from Alaska. I’d encourage anyone remotely interested to search for some images, it looks an incredible place to live.

This book is classed a non-fiction, and is a blend of legend and actual history. In the author’s own words..

The book is not just the story of my lineage, and not just the story of our clan, but also the genealogy and the root of all my books.

The first part of the book provides detail about the early development of different cultures and land-based economies in the region, setting the scene for the main event, which takes up the majority of the book, the life of Rytkheu’s grandfather, the last shaman of Uelen.

Rytkheu died in 2008, and in his latter years enjoyed some fame as Russia’s leading indigenous writer. He travelled widely, and spoke frequently at significant events worldwide. This was has last book, published in 2000, and reflects quite a bit of criticism of Soviet dealings with the north.

The book has a powerful ending with the murder of his grandfather. It is unsurprising that not only was he a fierce critic of the Soviet Union, but also other attempts to ‘civilise’ indigenous ways of life.

It is likely to be one of the great sadnesses in my life of travel that I will never get the chance to visit the peninsula.

[Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a wonderful, collection of myths, folk tales and short stories that build from the creation of the Chukchi in the harsh Arctic tundra, how the generations evolved from seafaring people to deer herders, to traders with the "hairmouths" from Russia.

The writing is poetic and the stories fascinating. We are treated to descriptions of the icy tundra in the Chukotka Peninsula and the various rituals of the shamans. We see a society evolve from a simple fishing and whaling clan who occasionally raid other clans for women to marry, who later assimilate with the deer herders in the grassy tundra so they would have warm meat, and who are later discovered by Europeans. With the influx of more explorers, their world expands and they now have different choices available to them, some good, some bad and some which would have repercussions on this tribe of people.

[Clayton · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Russian humor, an expanse of jokes and anecdotes as wide and varied as country itself, there exists a little corner of it known as the Chukchi joke, which features the Chukchi people of the Chukotka Peninsula (where Roman Abramovich can see Alaska from his mansion). Some of the punchlines come from the incontrovertible fact that Chukotka is cold ("Chukcha, why did you buy a refrigerator that goes to -4 degrees when it's -40 degrees out?" "Exactly!" said the Chukcha as he stepped into the refrigerator." A few of them are genuinely perceptive, and really belong to the much larger category of jokes Russians tell about themselves. A favorite of mine:

"A Chukchi returned home from the Communist Party Congress: “I attended the Congress. They accepted the new program. They said: ‘Everything for man, everything for the benefit of Man!’ And this Chukchi saw this Man with his own eyes. He was right there, in the Presidium.”

Most Chukchi jokes, however, tend towards condescending racism and hinge on the stupidity of the Chukchi, who speaks in the same kind of broken, Me-Tarzan-you-Jane syntax that anglophones associate with Native Americans, like the one where a Chukcha goes to the store and asks if they have color TV's; the clerk says that they do. "Good! Give me green TV!" Another one starts with a Chukcha trying to join the Soviet Writer's Union. "Have you read Pushkin?" they ask. No, he says. "Tolstoy?" No. "Can you read at all?" they finally ask. He gets indignant. "Chukcha not reader," he says, "Chukcha writer!"

This joke probably wasn't very funny to Yuri Rytkheu(1930-2008), a Chukcha who not only wrote, but wrote well, using Russian better than every ethnic Russian who ever made a Chukchi joke. He's regarded by Russians as the best native Siberian writer ever, and has a following in Germany and Japan where he is published in translation, but in English he was completely unknown until about a decade ago, when Archipelago Books brought out two of his books, both translated by Ilona Yazhbin Chavasse. Something like ten more notable Rytkheu works remain untranslated, but given the minor dent these foreign books made in the fervently insular American market, it's unlikely they'll ever make the leap across the Bering Strait. This is a shame: if half his books are as good as The Chukchi Bible, then Rytkheu is a master.

In terms of genre, this book is somewhat of a mash. The first section deals with the origins of the Chukchi, or as they call themselves, the Tluoravetlan: how the Earth was formed from cosmic raven scat, how humanity descended from a great whale, the creation of the village of Uelen, the origins of reindeer herding, and so on. True to the title, Rytkheu presents all of this sincerely, although this doesn't mean he treats it seriously, adding liberal splashes of humor, irony, and dashing adventure to tales that were, after all, first composed in order to both delight and instruct. Besides being a fantastic bit of literary mythology and ethnography, it tells us most of what we need to know to understand the cultural world of Mletkin, the last shaman of Uelen.

The book's second part is a biography of his life. Mletkin was born in 1868 and lived long enough to die a Soviet citizen, spending significant amounts of his adult life wandering Chukotka, Alaska, and the continental United States. In Rytkheu's telling, Mletkin was present at some very significant events and befriended figures important to the history of Chukotka, Alaska, and Arctic science (and also, uh, Theodore Roosevelt). Rytkheu calls it family history, although a pedant might call it fiction. It's probably best, if we're being honest, to just call it a historical novel that weaves circles of fancy around the life of a real man.

Whatever we call it should not distract from the fact that this book is a major achievement on a literary level. I mean on a word by word, nuts-and-bolts level. The book moves in a kind of sturdy realism, unshowy and linear, nudging us towards certain emotional responses through an accumulation of detail and incident, rather than appeals and dramatic pandering. And those details! Somehow, Rytkheu is able to balance mythology, history, anthropology, and biography without losing control of the story. The chapters on whaling, for instance, manage to convey a lot of information about the American whaling industry simply by telling the story of Mletkin's time on a whaling ship and grounding it in specific details that are directly relevant to the action and, more important, interesting to Mletkin and his perspective. This is exactly the kind of writing that is easy and obvious to do until you sit down and try to do it yourself.

Most of that background information that we get is, of course, about the Chukchi themselves. The Tluoravetlan, in Rytkheu's portrait of his people and his ancestors are stoic but good-natured, curious and practical. They value strength and hold poetry competitions where the winner is the one whose poems are memorized and sung the most in the following months. Polygamy is tolerated, bridenapping is celebrated in the old songs, and the definition of infidelity is quite relaxed, by our standards. The women use their urine to moisturize and perfume their faces, especially before a romantic tryst. Shamans are trained from an early age to be not only masters of improvised incantations, but also experts survivalists and athletes. They can turn into birds, and know magic spells that can kill a man from beyond the horizon. They talk to the winds, which have their own personalities and require different sacrifices. They actually do use every part of the animal.

The history of their encounter and gradual integration with the wider world in the second part is, inevitably, violent and sad. As more and more hairmouths (or Tangitans) encroach on the Chukchi world, alcoholism becomes rampant and the ancient custom of wife-sharing shades into prostitution. The hideously violent whaling industry destroys the whale and fish stocks that sustain Chukchi traditions (in a bitter historical irony, the descendants of those same Tangitans who destroyed the whales now place restrictions on how many whales the Chukchi can hunt every year). The arrival of the Soviets brings ill-tempered revolutionaries who conduct crude inquisitions in order to figure who among these hunter-gatherers are bourgeoisie so they can be executed. The withdrawal of the Soviets destroys the modern infrastructure that replaced the old ways so that, despite having so many more possessions and modern technologies than before, the Chukchi seem to be in greater poverty than ever. And to top it off, they have to live in a country where the people who decide their fate are also the people who tell Chukchi jokes.

But there is this book, a tribute to an ancient culture and, perhaps for that culture's descendants, a way to keep it alive, which is after all one of the magical things about books. But that's for the Chukchi people to decide. The rest of us can get around to reading more Yuri Rytkheu.

[Dana · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am impressed by this book’s audacity.

Is this book the history of the world told from the perspective of a corner of the world rarely mentioned in histories? Yes.

Is this book a calmly structured expression of the dual nature of cultural change and cultural continuity? Yes.

Is this book a biography of the author’s grandfather, a man who stood at the latterday edge of Chukchi civilization and stared into the abyss of its decline, and who seemed to be present at an audacious (audacious if it’s a lie, audacious if it’s true) number of historically important events? A man who was, for instance, one of the shamans who lived/performed on the Midway Plaisance during the Chicago World's Fair? Yes.

When you read it, you will be sometimes skeptical but always impressed.

[Mirjana (Mirjana_bere) · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 ⭐️

[Shannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This account of the myths and legends of the Chukchi people (a native Arctic tribe) is written by a contemporary Chukchi author, which sets it apart from a more anthropological narrative in some vital ways. Yuri Rytkheu is telling the history of his own family, and he claims the right to tell it in his own way--which in this case means with a rather modern narrative voice. Though the stories themselves may have been handed down through an oral tradition, this book was *written*: there's none of the formulaic, repetitive cadences that you generally find when encountering narratives that are primarily designed for storytellers to memorize and repeat. Instead we are told what characters thought and felt and sensed in each moment, as with a modern novel.

Yet the stories are infused with a more ancient sensibility. There's an easy interchange between the material and spiritual worlds, and between the animal and human realms. War and rape and murder happen, and are neither excused nor treated as anything particularly shocking. There's euthanasia of the elderly, harsh treatment of children, and one act of human sacrifice (although that IS shocking, even to the people carrying out what they perceive to be a divine mandate). The most thrilling part of the book is Rytkheu's account of the life of his grandfather, who traveled the world during the early twentieth century and witnessed the loss of the traditional Chukchi lifestyle at the hands of the Americans, Europeans and Soviets. Rytkheu doesn't sentimentalize the often-brutal lives of his ancestors, but he's clear-eyed about what the Chukchi have lost, and he brings that heritage brilliantly to life.

[Tony Gualtieri · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book about the people who live on the northeastern tip of Siberia. The book is fiction but based on stories that have been passed down orally as well as the life of the author's grandfather who was a shaman.

[Douglas Penick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yuri Rytheu's epic account of the struggles of the Chukchi people and their shaman/warriors uncovers depths of suffering, beauty, horror and splendor. It is a uniquely unsparing and lyrical account of human survival.

[Marco Montesi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nella Bibbia dei ciukci, Yuri Rytkheu narra la storia dei suoi antenati, che si dipana nelle lande inospitali della Chukotka in una lunga sequenza di fatti e leggende.
La saggezza degli sciamani e l'importanza delle tradizioni si trasmettono da un componente della famiglia all'altro attraverso il rituale del nome, senza la cui protezione i neonati sarebbero in balìa degli spiriti malvagi.
Nelle straordinarie vicende di Mlemekym, Mlakoran e Mletkin c'è tutto il fascino rude e l'ingenua tenerezza dei ciukci, un popolo che può essere definito selvaggio, ma dal cui stile di vita il mondo occidentale avrebbe molto da imparare.

[Jane E · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent introduction to Chukotka through Chukchi legends and a biography of the author's shaman grandfather. Very readable and full of interesting facts and observations. Also tragic in its descriptions of Russian's treatment of the Chukchi people including readily selling them the alcohol that devastated the communities. The author's grandfather who did not drink alcohol led an adventurous and remarkable life. (Borrowed from ship's library during voyage from Chukotka to Southern Kamchatka.)

[Alfia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating, insightful and poignant collection of ancestral Luoravetlan (Chukchi) lore and history as told by the Sovietized grandson of one of its last pre-Soviet era shamans. Another testament to the destructive and stupid impact of racial and ideological supremacism, as well as to the relentless march of time and change. Marvelous cast of characters, stunning atmospheres. 5 out of 5, would read again.

[E.S. Wynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredible, moving book full of sumptuous imagery and emotional beauty. There is so much in this book that resonates with me, and so much that is starkly gorgeous. The writing style is gorgeous as well. I really enjoyed this one.

[Maggie Kane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Is this the best book ever written?

[Layfad · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible book.

[Justin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too violent for me

[leftiesmudge · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is my Roman Empire?

[Paul Simma · Rating 4 out of 5]

I made a interview with Yuri Rytkheu in Leningrad in the end of the 1980ies. He was a respected mmber of the Soviet writers union and lived in a grand apartement near the Tsar Winter Palace. With this background this book gets an extra dimension. In those days never said anything negative about the Soviet powers, but in this book his opinions has changed. I really recomend this book that I like very mutch.

[Kira · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite the slightly clumsy title (the original Russian title is "the Last Shaman"), the author's last book is a wonderful epic story of the people of Chukotka, from the days the universe was created, until the last shaman of Uelen. Rytkheu combines historical facts, legends and good storytelling. One of the books you don't want to end.

[carla · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book about a culture I know nothing about -- the Chukchi people in the northern regions of the world, near the Bering Strait. The language in the book itself is beautiful and it's nice to read about another culture from their point of view.

[Debbie Steiner · Rating 5 out of 5]

If I could walk for a week with a storyteller, I'd walk with him. Original, basic, earthy stories, human as the word should implement.