Kereks. Material Culture: Dwelling Spaces, Means of Transport, Clothes, and Food

The traditional lifestyle of Kereks, which historically depended on hunting marine mammals coupled with catching birds and fishing along with gathering, defined the character of their settlements and dwelling spaces.

Dwelling Spaces

Like some other ethnic groups of the North East, Kereks used to have underground and semi-underground dwelling places, including, for instance, valkar (“house made of whale jaws”).

Starting with first frosts, Kereks lived in their winter settlements on gravel, on small hills or necklands. A typical settlement usually had from one to several dugouts. The pit for the dwelling place was around 0.5 m. deep. Four pillars were dug in in the corners at the distance of 2 to 4m from each other, with crossbeams between them. Thick poles were leaned against these crossbeams, which were secured at an angle in the ground. Kereks made those constructions coldproof with sand and turf, and sometimes covered them with a layer of ice as well. During very low temperatures, they built a long snow passage in front of the entry. The floor in the dugout was covered in a layer of pebble stones. The earthen ledge along the walls was used as a household table. Each family had their own canopy, but used the common fireplace. The beds had their heads to the sunrise.

Another common type of housing was adopted from other ethnic groups - nomad’s tents, a yurt or yaranga , used in summer. Judging by N.B. Shakenburg’s descriptions, this variation of the dwelling place was a conic yurt with a round base, made of reindeer skins with inner sleeping quarters.

In Soviet times, due to multiple economic transformations, there was an agglomeration of settlements. Kereks along with other residents of the area had to abandon their camps and move to new settlements to live alongside the Chukchi majorities: Meinypilgyno and Khatyrka.

Present-day descendants of the Kerek culture live in wooden logs or weatherboard-covered houses common for such community buildings in the North East.

 The remains of a Kerek dugout near Meinypilgyno. August 2017. I.A.Golovnev’s photo.

Means of Transport

Kereks’ principal means of transportation were the bidar boat in summer and the sled pulled by a team of dogs in winter.

Many academics agree that it was Kereks who introduced sledge-dog breeding in this area. It is known that Kereks bred the sled dogs which the neighboring ethnic groups, the Chukchi and Koryaks, also widely used. Besides, they had an original way of harnessing dogs in tandem (either two or one in a row). The tandem team of dogs is considered to have been the oldest and most efficient way of traveling with a dog-sled. Other ethnic groups, for instance, the Chukchi and the Eskimos, first used a fan-like method of harnessing dogs. In winter, Kereks also used snowshoes as a means of transport. The most common type of transport for winter periods now is the snowmobile.

A Kerek, K.A. Turylkot, with a dog sled. T.Kutegina’s private archive (Meinypilgyno). Re-photographed by I.A.Golovnev, 2017.

In the past, in summer time, Kereks used as a means of transport the massive bidar boats whose frame was covered in hides of marine mammals such as bearded seals or walruses. With such marine bidars, Kereks could sail out for long hunts for walruses far into the Gulf of Anadyr. With the gradual reduction of marine animal hunting, these huge Kerek bidars became a thing of the past, replaced first by blunt-fronted kayaks used by Koryaks, and now by standardized industrially produced motorboats.

Clothes

The traditional Kerek men’s outdoor clothing was a tunic-like closed-cut kukhlyanka made of two reindeer hides with the fur inwards, narrow at the top and wider at the bottom. The men’s headgear was the double hood made of skins off legs of dogs, wolverines, or otters and consisting of three parts: the long diamond-shaped part covered the top and the back of the head, two side parts covered the ears and the cheeks. In its front and back, the hood had a dog fur trimming and it was tied under the chin. Women wore two layers of one-piece garments ( kerkers ). The deep V-neckline of this garment which went down to the breasts was tied up with laces. The sleeves were trimmed with dog fur. The bottom of the legs of the one-piece were brought together by drawstrings below the knees and tied over the shoes. In summer, women wore only their underwear kerkers. The shoes were bucket-like: the vamp and the bootleg with a front stitch were sewn onto the sole made of thick walrus skin. On the sides were loops made of seal skin tied together with wide straps. Bootlegs for women were made of four strips with a narrow strip going around the sole. Women covered their heads with kerker hoods. Kereks’ clothing had ample and rich ornaments. These ornaments were embroidered on clothes and shoes and were most often schematic, simplistic images of natural objects. They had not only an aesthetic function but also served as symbolic protective charms as well as carried ancestral information.

A Kerek, K.Turylkot, in his winter clothes. T.Kutegina’s private archive (Meinypilgyno). Re-photographed by I.A.Golovnev. 2017.

Just as with many other settlements in the North, traditional clothes-making with the use of natural materials has only been preserved in making souvenir products, therefore, modern clothing worn by the descendants of Kereks is mass-manufactured, bought in retail outlets and has no traditional ethnic features at all.

T.Kutegina. Meinypilgyno. August, 2017. I.A.Golovnev’s photo.

Food

Kereks’ staple diet was based on the meat of marine mammals. Kereks either eat it fresh or cut it into thin slices and preserve it. For instance, they consumed the meat and fat of spotted or spotted seals. Their favourite delicacy was walrus meat fermented in special pits ( kopalkhen ). There were special places for long-term storage of food supplies.

Kereks ate the meat of all sea fowls, but they mostly hunted for guillemots or murres (genus Uria). In general, hunting birds and gathering eggs on the sea cliffs played an essential role in the nutritional culture of Kereks. Poultry meat was preserved in large quantities to make supplies before the spawning season of salmonid fish. Kereks also had related traditions of skinning and processing captured poultry.

If the hunt was successful, Kereks consumed the meat of the wild reindeer, the argali (or the mountain sheep), and even the bear. There is a culinary term in the Kerek language – “ puyalkyk ” – meaning “steaming” or “stewing” food. This method of food processing involved putting raw food into a previously heated pit and simmering it with its own natural juices.

Kereks went fishing from mid-July to mid-September. The main tools for fishing were harpoons, special blunt arrows, and nets. Kereks built locks and dams and clubbed fish such as the sockeye salmon, the pink salmon, the chinook salmon, the chum salmon, and the chars on their way up to spawning spots. Fish was processed for future consumption. It was sun-dried or fermented in pits. For daily consumption, they caught the saffron cod, the smelt, the whitefish in rivers, the halibut, and the flatfish in the sea. Among the culinary technologies which came down to our days, the most popular is so-called Kerek balyk , annually processed (dried on racks) in family fishing plots.

 A fishing plot near Meinypilgyno. 2017. I.A.Golovlev’s photo.