Hunter-Herder Continuum in Anabarski District, NW Sakha, Siberia, Russian Federation

Abstract

Abstract Anabarski district in NW Sakha was traditionally a region with mixed hunting/ reindeer herding economy. Unusual for tundra reindeer herding, domestic reindeer herding in the Anabar tundra contained many features typical of taiga reindeer herding (riding on mounted deer, milking). In the local economic system, rich reindeer owners focused more on herding and poor people either worked for rich reindeer herders or left their animals in the herds of wealthy people and hunted seasonally for wild reindeer and Arctic foxes. Soviet agriculture incorporated this model into the collective farm ecology. While reindeer brigades focused on reindeer herding and hunted for their own needs, hunters migrated with small reindeer herds in their territory and left animals in the care of the reindeer brigades for the summer season. This practice continued up to the 'snowmobile revolution' in 1996. Although the reindeer economy prospered, i.e. the number of reindeer increased constantly, the district 'produced' meat of domestic reindeer only in these periods when the migration direction of wild reindeer was suitable. In post-socialist times, after the collapse of the planned economy, most native people of the district started to hunt intensively for subsistence, but in addition to this, private hunting enterprises emerged. At the same time, the government of the Republic of Sakha banned the slaughter of domestic reindeer. Since domestic reindeer were thus removed from the economic sphere, people in reindeer brigades either left for hunting enterprises or started to hunt wild reindeer to sell meat in order to have extra income. In this article, I argue that the hunter-herder continuum and the model of land use in the Anabarski district was adapted as an economic strategy in Soviet industrial agriculture and resisted general reindeer herding standards based on Komi commercial reindeer herding. This continuum made the shift from the Soviet into the post-Soviet economy easier and regulated the use of common pool resources of the tundra (cooperation between hunting and reindeer herding enterprises).