The Nivkh (also known as Nivkhs and formerly as Nivkhi, Gilyak or Gilyaks; ethnonym: Нивхгу, Nʼivxgu around the Amur, or Ниғвңгун, Nʼiɣvŋgun in East Sakhalin; "the people")Gruzdeva 1998, p.5 are an indigenous ethnic group inhabiting the northern half of Sakhalin Island and the lower Amur River and coast on the adjacent Russian mainland. Historically, they may have inhabited parts of Manchuria.
Nivkh were traditionally fishermen, hunters, and dog breeders. They were semi-nomadic, living near the coasts in the summer and wintering inland along streams and rivers to catch salmon. The land the Nivkh inhabit is characterized as taiga forest with cold snow-laden winters and mild summers with sparse tree cover. The Nivkh are believed to be the original inhabitants of the region, and to derive from a proposed Neolithic people that migrated from the Transbaikal region during the Late Pleistocene.Fitzhugh, William, and Durbreui pp.39, 40
The Nivkh had long maintained trade and cultural relations with neighboring China and Japan. Previously within Qing China's sphere of influence, the Russian Empire annexed the region following two treaties in 1858 and 1860. Subsequently, traditional Nivkh lifestyle was significantly altered by colonization and collectivization.Bassett, p.1Jesup Exhibition: " Culture: Nivkh (Gilyak)" - American Museum of Natural History
Today, the Nivkh live in Russian-style housing and, with the overfishing and pollution of the streams and seas, have adopted many foods from Russian cuisine. Most Nivkh speak Russian, and less than five percent speak their native Nivkh language. Nivkh is considered a language isolate or small family, although it is grouped for convenience with the Paleosiberian languages. Nivkh is divided into four dialects or languages.Mattissen, p.515 The Nivkh practice shamanism, which is important for the winter Bear Festival, though some have converted to Russian Orthodoxy.Chaussonnet, pp. 34, 35 The population of Nivkhs according to successive Russian censuses is
Etymology Nivkh (plural Nivkhgu in the Nivkh language), an endonym, means "person" in the Nivkh language. They may also be referred to as Nivkhi in 1920s Western literature, due to the romanization of the Russian term plural "" from "" (nivkh). In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Russian explorers first termed the group Gilyak, also Giliaks or Giliatski.
The etymology of the name "Gilyak" is disputed by linguists, with some believing the name originated from an exonym given to the Nivkhs by a nearby Tungusic group. Other scholars believe that "Gilyak" derives from Kile, another nearby Tungusic group that the Russians had mistakenly named Nivkhs.Gall, pp.2-4 "Gilyak" is the Russian rendering of terms derived from the Tungusic "Gileke" and Manchu-Chinese "Gilemi" (Gilimi, Gilyami) for culturally similar peoples of the Amur River region, and was applied principally to the Nivkh in Western literature.
Origins
The origins of the Nivkh are hard to discern from current archaeological research. Their subsistence by fishing and coastal sea-mammal hunting is very similar to the Koryak and Itelmen on the Kamchatka Peninsula. The rigging of dog-sledges is also similar to these Chukotko-Kamchatkan groups. Spiritual beliefs are similar to those of the Northwest Coast Indians of North America, whose ancestors migrated from this area.
The Nivkh are physically and genetically different from the surrounding peoples, and scholars believe they are the indigenous inhabitants of the area. The current archaeological model suggests that a sub-Arctic microlithic culture originating from the Transbaikal region migrated across Siberia and populated the Amur and Sakhalin region during the Late Pleistocene, or perhaps earlier. Scientists believe that people of this culture were the first to migrate eastward into the Americas.Fitzhugh, William, and Durbreui, p.35; "Indigenous Peoples of the Russian North, Siberia and Far East" by Arctic Network for the Support of the Indigenous Peoples of the Russian Arctic
The microlithic culture was technologically adept in the harsh climate of Siberia during the last ice age. After the ice receded, Tungusic peoples from the south pressed into the warmer northern areas, soon dominating the settled peoples. The Nivkh are considered the last surviving ethnic group able to adapt to the warmer climate and not be assimilated or squeezed out by the newcomers, hence the Nivkh isolate language.Chaussonnet, p35 The earliest archeological radiocarbon dating for Northern Sakhalin as of 2004 is the Neolithic Age Imchin Site 2, dated to 4950–4570 BC near the Tym' River estuary on the west coast.Kuzmin, Vasilevski, Gorbunov, Burr, Jull, Orlova Shubina, pp. 355, 359-360
Michael Fortescue suggests that Nivkh might be related to the Mosan languages of North America (however, Mosan is generally considered a Sprachbund rather than a language family).Fortescue, M. (1998). Language relations across Bering Strait: reappraising the archaeological and linguistic evidence Fortescue also presents evidence that Nivkh is related to the Chukotko-Kamchatkans, forming a Chukotko-Kamchatkan–Amuric family, though the evidence was judged to be "insufficient" by Glottolog.
More recently, Sergei Nikolaev argued in two papers for a systematic relationship between Nivkh and the Algic languages of North America and a more distant relationship between these two together and the Wakashan languages of coastal British Columbia.
History
Pre-modern history The Sakhalin Nivkhs populated the island during the Late Pleistocene period, when the island was connected to the Continent of Asia via the exposed Strait of Tartary. When the ice age receded, the oceans rose and the Nivkh were split into two groups.Fitzhugh, William, and Durbreuil p32 It is suggested that the Nivkh people were present in a wide area of Northeast Asia and influenced other people and their cultures. Nivkhs may be related to the Susuya, Okhotsk, and Tobinitai culture that reached Hokkaido and met the Satsumon culture.
Several historians suggest that the Nivkh were present in the kingdom of Goguryeo. There are indications that the ancestors of the Nivkh may have played a much more prominent role in pre- and protohistorical Manchuria. Nivkh lands extended along the northern coast of Manchuria from the Russian fortress at Tugur Bay eastward to the mouth of the Amur River at Nikolayevsk, then south through the Strait of Tartary as far as De Castries Bay. Formerly their territories had extended westwards at least as far as the Uda river and the Shantar Islands until pushed out by the Manchus and, later, the Russians.
The earliest mention of the Nivkh in history is believed to be a 12th-century Chinese chronicle, referring to a people called Jílièmí (), who were in contact with the Mongol rulers of Yuan China. They had been allied with the Mongols since 1263, and the Mongols invaded Sakhalin to aid the Nivkh against the Ainu, who had been encroaching on Sakhalin from Hokkaido. In 1643, Vassili Poyarkov was the first Russian to write of the Nivkh, calling them Gilyak, a Tungus exonym, by which they would be referred until the 1920s.
After the Yuan period, Ainu and Nivkh of Sakhalin became tributaries to the Ming dynasty of China after Manchuria came under Ming rule as part of the Nurgan Regional Military Commission. Boluohe, Nanghar and Wuliehe were Yuan posts set up to receive tribute from the Ainu after their war with the Yuan ended in 1308. Ming Chinese outposts in Sakhalin and the Amur river area received animal skin tribute from Ainu on Sakhalin, Uilta and Nivkh in the 15th century after the Tyr-based Yongning Temple was set up along with the Nurkan (Nurgan) outposts by the Yongle emperor in 1409.
The Ming also held the post at Wuliehe and received marten pelt fur tribute from assistant commander Alige in 1431 from Sakhalin after the Ming assigned titles like weizhenfu (official charged with subjugation), zhihui qianshi (assistance commander), zhihui tongzhi (vice commander) and Zhihuishi (commander) to Sakhalin Indigenous headmen. The Ming received tribute from the headmen of Alingge, Tuolingha, Sanchiha and Zhaluha in 1437.
The position of headman among Sakhalin Indigenous peoples was inherited paternally from father to son and the sons came with their fathers to Wuliehe. Ming officials gave silk uniforms with the appropriate rank to the Sakhalin Ainu, Uilta and Nivkh after they paid tribute. The Maritime Province region had the Ming "system for subjugated peoples' implementers in it for the Sakhalin Indigenous peoples. Sakhalin received iron tools from mainland Asia through this trade, as Tungus groups joined in from 1456-1487. Local Indigenous hierarchies had Ming Chinese given political offices integrated with them. The Ming system on Sakhalin was imitated by the Qing.
Nivkh women in Sakhalin married Han Chinese Ming officials when the Ming took tribute from Sakhalin and the Amur river region.(Sei Wada, ‘The Natives of the Lower reaches of the Amur as Represented in Chinese Records’, Memoirs of the Research Department of Toyo Bunko, no. 10, 1938, pp. 40‒102) (Shina no kisai ni arawaretaru Kokuryuko karyuiki no dojin 支那の記載に現はれたる黒龍江下流域の土人( The natives on the lower reaches of the Amur river as represented in Chinese records), Tõagaku 5, vol . 1, Sept. 1939.) Wada, ‘Natives of the Lower Reaches of the Amur River’, p. 82. The references in the documents are to a people called the ‘Chi-li-mi’ (the term generally used in early Chinese texts to refer to the Nivkh) living next to the Ku-wu (Ainu). Local Sakhalin native chiefs had their daughters taken as wives by Manchu officials, as sanctioned by the Qing dynasty when the Qing exercised jurisdiction in Sakhalin and took tribute from them.(Shiro Sasaki, ‘A History of the Far East Indigenous Peoples’ Transborder Activities Between the Russian and Chinese Empires’, Senri Ethnological Studies, vol. 92, 2016, pp. 161‒193.) Sasaki, ‘A History of the Far East Indigenous Peoples’ Transborder Activities’, p. 173.
Due to Ming rule in Manchuria, Chinese cultural and religious influence such as Chinese New Year, the "Chinese god", Chinese motifs like the dragon, spirals, scrolls, and material goods like agriculture, husbandry, heating, iron cooking pots, silk, and cotton spread among the Amur natives like the Udeghes, Ulchis, and Nanais.
Tsarist Russia and Imperial Japan
For many centuries, the Nivkh were tributaries of the Manchus. After the Treaty of Nerchinsk in 1689, they functioned as intermediaries between the Russians, Manchu and Japanese, and also the Ainu, who were vassals of the Japanese. Early contact with the southern Sakhalin Ainu was generally hostile, although trade between the two was apparent.Chaussonnet, p. 35
The Nivkh suffered severely from the Cossack conquest and imposition of Tsarist Russians; they called the latter (devils).Shternberg, p. 183 The Russian Empire gained complete control over Nivkh lands after the 1858 Treaty of Aigun and the 1860 Convention of Peking.Kolga, pp. 269-273 The Russians established a penal colony (katorga) on Sakhalin, which operated from 1857 to 1906. They transported numerous Russian criminal and political exiles there, including Lev Sternberg, an important early ethnographer of the Nivkh. The Nivkh were soon outnumbered; they were sometimes employed as prison guards and to track escaped convicts. The Nivkh suffered epidemics of smallpox, plague, and influenza, brought by the immigrants and spread in the crowded, unsanitary prison environment.Smolyak, p.175
The Empire of Japan and Russia jointly ruled the island as part of the 1855 Treaty of Shimoda. From the 1875 Treaty of Saint Petersburg until the 1905 Treaty of Portsmouth, Russia governed all of Sakhalin. From 1905 to 1945, Sakhalin was partitioned between Russia and Japan along the 50th parallel north, with an interlude from 1920 to 1925 which would see .