Chukchee

• Main Author: Emily Pitek
• Other Authors: Monroe, M. Willis
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Zenodo 2024
• Subjects: Religious Group; Circumpolar Religions; Chukchee; Koryak
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.12572548

The Chukchee are indigenous to what is now known as the Chukota Autonomous Okrug of Russia (established 1930), the Lower Kolyma District of the Yakut Republic, and the northern Koryak Autonomous Okrug. The Chukchee are divided into two economic-cultural groups: the nomadic reindeer herders, and the sedentary coastal-dwellers. This entry focuses on the reindeer division of the Chukchee around the time of 1900, and considers the Chukchee religious group to be coterminous with the society at large. Religious beliefs were bound up with the functioning of society as a whole; religious ceremonies, for example, overlap with subsistence, economic, and social activities. The religious beliefs center on shamanism. Shamans serve to communicate with spirits, perform divining rituals, produce incantations, lead ceremonies, and act as healers. A variety of supernatural beings are present.