Evenki party

Yesterday was the International Day for Indigenous Peoples. Our neighbour where we live is a Dolgan lady. She often sells us reindeer meat from the Taimyr Peninsula up north. (There are 88,000 reindeer being herded by some 7,000 Dolgan people on the Taimyr Peninsula. The Dolgan people are descended from mostly Evenki people, but have mixed with Russians and Sakha and speak a language that is mostly related to Sakha.) This neighbour Yevgenia invited us to an event for the International Day of Indigenous Peoples. Yevgenia was organising a "round table" at the state library, and she invited us to sit on it. Important people were there, government and ethnic representatives. We were a little surprised that she invited us to sit at the table. There were some people sitting behind us that perhaps would have qualified more.
Various people spoke, one of them Artur an Evenki prince who we met back in 2010. He spoke about the future of the Evenki people in the north. Life is so expensive when they try to live in the modern world with houses and electricity. Artur advocated a more traditional lifestyle.
When we spoke, we tried to remain humble, explained our role as linguists that we want to help people teach their language to children, so they can save their language. People were happy to hear from us, and we came away with more contacts.

Then today we were invited to a casual party of Evenki people. We had a picnic at the ethnic sports centre. It was a fun opportunity to get to know some people a bit more. One particular Evenki lady, a journalist interviewed Melody for a newspaper called Evenki Life, which is release in Tura in the north. This lady says there are a few hundred Evenki living in Krasnoyarsk city. I'm still not sure I believe those figures. The most I have ever seen at any event is 15. I could currently guess at a number around 50, but I could be very wrong. Still we are slowly getting to know people. In an urban context they seem to be quite reserved.

Picnic gathering

A competition at throwing the lasso. This is generally used for catching reindeer when herding. (The lasso is likely an ancient practice that was taken across the Bering Strait and transferred to Western Pioneers in America from native peoples.)

Melody taking her turn. (I had a go too, during the practice phase before the competition. I managed to lasso the pole once, it wasn't easy. Imagine doing it with a running animal! The women's competition was first, and then got rained out.)