The Natural History of the Varieties of Man

by R. G. Latham

YUKAHIRI.

Native name.—Andon-Domni. Called by the Koræki Atal=spotted, from wearing rein-deer skins.

Locality.—Valley of the Kolyma, originally of the Yana and Indijirka also.

Particular tribes.—1. Tsheltiere, on the River Omolon. 2. Omoki, on the Atasey. 3-4. Tshuvantsi and Kudinski on the Anisey. 5. Konghini, on the Kolyma. 6. Shelagi, on the promontory of Shelagskoi Noss.

Conterminous with the Yakut Turks, the Lamut Tungusians, and the Koriaks.

The Yukahiri, although said to have been, even as late as the beginning of the last century, a powerful people, are at present rapidly diminishing. The Omoki and Shelagi are either extinct, or nearly so. So also, most probably, are the Tseltiere, the Kudinski, and the Konghini. Laying out of the account the influence of Russia, the northern Koriaks on the east, the Yakuts on the west, and the Lamut Tungusians on the south, have been the chief encroaching tribes.

The writer who has paid most attention to the language of these three divisions of the Siberian population is Klaproth; who, I believe, was also the first who separated the Yeniseians from the Ugrians. With these they were confounded, from the fact of their being denominated by the Russians, Ostiaks; a term, which from being already applied to the Ugrians of the Obi, was equivocal. To obviate this ambiguity, it was necessary to speak of two kinds of Ostiaks, those of the Obi, and those of the Yenisey; and so the nomenclature became confused. All this, however, is remedied by adhering to Klaproth's term Yeniseian. And such is the present custom of philologists.

Respecting the extent to which the Yeniseian, the Samöeid, and Yukahiri, are isolated languages; the classification of the present writer is opposed to that of the Asia Polyglotta. Klaproth raises each to the rank of a separate family, and neither admits any definite relationship between the three, as compared with each other, nor yet between any one of them and any of the neighbouring languages. Still he indicates some important general and miscellaneous affinities; and Prichard does the same. The following table helps to verify the present classification.

A.