NENETS

Russian (singular) Nenets, plural Nentsy, formerly Samoyed, or Yurak, ethnolinguistic group inhabiting northwestern Russia, from the White Sea on the west to the base of the Taymyr Peninsula on the east and from the Sayan Mountains on the south to the Arctic Ocean on the north. At present the Nenets are the largest group speaking Samoyedic, a branch of the Uralic language family. They numbered about 34,000 in the late 20th century. Their name comes from the word nenets, meaning man. Descended from people formerly inhabiting southwest Siberia, the Nenets are reindeer pastoralists, fishermen, and hunters (especially of wild reindeer) of the tundra, but they also include small groups of forest dwellers. Smaller groups of peoples related to the Nenets include the Enets (Entsy, or Yeniseys), the Nganasans (Tavgis), and the Selkups. In some areas Turkic languages and Russian have replaced Samoyedic dialects. Under Soviet administration, communal, collective production was introduced among the Nenets, with reindeer keeping remaining the main activity. Reindeer breeding provides the Nenets with meat, lard, and blood for food; skins for making clothes, footwear, and winter tents; leather for making lassos, harnesses, and summer footwear; tendons for making thread; and horn for making various implements. A herd of 70 to 100 reindeer furnishes everything needed by a household. Descent is traced through the paternal line; clans of people claiming common ancestry have their own territories, as well as common burial and sacrificial grounds and clan symbols and signs. Individuals marry outside their own clan. Women are in a subordinate position. There are several classes of shamans, with different abilities. autonomous okrug (district), Arkhangelsk oblast (province), northwestern Russia. The okrug extends along the northern coast of European Russia, from Mezen Bay to Baydarata Bay. The surface is a level plain, broken by the northern ends of the Timan Hills and the Urals. In the east the okrug is underlain by part of the Pechora coal basin. In the central part of the okrug is an oil and natural-gas province in which several oil and gas deposits have been discovered. The okrug is covered by tundra. The Nenets people, who now constitute only about 15 percent of the population, live chiefly by reindeer herding. The formerly nomadic tribes are settled in permanent villages. Russians live mainly in the administrative centre, Naryan-Mar, and the urban district of Amderma. Area 68,100 square miles (176,400 square km). Pop. (1992 est.) 54,000.