Sakha - Early

  General Description   The Lena River Valley, also known as Sakha, is a territory in eastern Siberia over four times the size of Texas. ^[1] One of the coldest places on Earth, it has been home to the Sakha people since at least the 13th century CE. ^[2] Cossacks first arrived in the 1620s, and after a long siege of a Sakha fortified settlement, the entire region was placed under tribute to the Russian czar in 1642. ^[3] The region remained under czarist control until the Russian Revolution, when it was one of the last Russian territories to be consolidated under the new regime. ^[3]
Population and political organization
Prior to Russian rule, the region was not politically centralized. Early Sakha communities were governed by lineage councils, clans, and elders rather than a bureaucratic state apparatus. ^[4] After the Russian occupation, the czarist administration imposed taxes and established an administrative infrastructure. ^[5] For most of the rest of its Russian history, the territory was controlled by governors under the umbrella of the czarist regime. ^[6]
It is difficult to find population estimates for Sakha. It was very sparsely populated, and according to one account of a late 18th-century expedition to the region, the district of Gigansk (in the Lena River Valley) had 4834 ’tributary natives’ in 1784 but only 1938 by 1789. ^[7] The account unfortunately does not provide figures for the entirety of the province.

[1]: (Balzer and Skoggard 1997, 1) Balzer, Marjorie Mandelstam, and Ian Skoggard. 1997. “Culture Summary: Yakut.” eHRAF World Cultures. http://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=rv02-000. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/GD78HCEV.

[2]: (Gogolev 1992, 65) Gogolev, A. I. 1992. “Basic Stages of the Formation of the Yakut People.” Anthropology & Archeology of Eurasia 31 (2): 63-69. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/F428XZIE.

[3]: (Balzer and Skoggard 1997, 2) Balzer, Marjorie Mandelstam, and Ian Skoggard. 1997. “Culture Summary: Yakut.” eHRAF World Cultures. http://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=rv02-000. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/GD78HCEV.

[4]: (Balzer and Skoggard 1997, 7) Balzer, Marjorie Mandelstam, and Ian Skoggard. 1997. “Culture Summary: Yakut.” eHRAF World Cultures. http://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=rv02-000. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/GD78HCEV.

[5]: (Jochelson 1933, 220) Jochelson, Waldemar. 1933. The Yakut. Vol. 33. Anthropological Papers of the AMNH. New York: The American Museum of Natural History. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/FTJS2I4W.

[6]: (Jochelson 1933, 224) Jochelson, Waldemar. 1933. The Yakut. Vol. 33. Anthropological Papers of the AMNH. New York: The American Museum of Natural History. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/FTJS2I4W.

[7]: (Sauer 1802, 112) Sauer, Martin. 1802. An Account of a Geographical and Astronomical Expedition to the Northern Parts of Russia. London: T. Cadell, Jun. and W. Davies, in the Strand. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/WEZG6MTS.