KHAKAS MIXED RACE MARRIAGES

10.31806/2542-1158-2017-1-1-51-65

Krivonogov Victor Pavlovich

Siberian Federal University, Krasnoyarsk, Russia

Abstract. For the peoples small in population, mixed race marriages are a major indicator of the direction of the ethnic processes under the conditions of being surrounded by the vast majority of other nations.  Such marriages were studied among the Khakas people by the author in 1975-2009 in the course of ethnographic expeditions, as well as in the course of studying different written and statistical sources, primarily the materials of the Civil Registry Offices and rural household registers kept by the village councils (administrations).  The material showed stable growth in the number and percentage of such marriages, however, this growth remains reasonably slow and has not yet crossed the line when one can talk about the total break of endogamy.  As of now, the share of mixed race families among all of the Khakas marriages constitutes 26.3% in the rural area and 28.5% in the urban area.  Various factors influencing the growth in such marriages, primarily ethnic composition of certain settlements, are examined in the paper. One of the consequences of such marriages is the growth in the number of persons of mixed origin (mestizos) within the Khakas people, their percentage is growing quite fast.  This also influences the Khakas anthropological type, and contributes to the loss of the ethnic properties of the ethnic group, as mestizos have worse command of the Khakas language and are less familiar with the Khakas culture.  Growth in the percentage of mestizos within the ethnic group is not only caused by the growth in the number of mixed race marriages, but also by the fact that more and more children in these mixed race families are attributed by their parents to the native Khakas (30 years ago 30-40% of children were attributed to the Khakas nationality, nowadays the figure is over  70%).  At the same time, mestizos being associated with the Khakas nationality promote enhancement of demographic characteristics of the ethnic group.  Mixed race marriages are indicative of integration processes, they facilitate coming closer together with the surrounding majority, but in the future they may lead to transition from integration to assimilation processes.

Keywords: archaeological and ethnographic monuments of Evenkia, Putorana Plateau, rare species of birds