Ethnography

The history of creation of the ethnography unit in the Museum of the Chair of Archaeology of the Kemerovo State University (KemSU) is related to the names of its workers. The repository acquisition in the museum of the Archaeology department started from expeditions to taiga regions of Gornaya Shoriya organized by a junior research worker, graduated from the Leningrad University, ethnographer V. M. Kimeev who went to Gornaya Shoriya with the first expedition, being a third-year student. Since 1980-s expeditions under his direction are organized to Shorts’ villages: Ust-Anzas, Kezek, Parushka, Ust-Orton, Adyaksy, Kamzas, and to Bachat Yeleuts (villages Bekovo, Chelukhoevo). This expedition resulted in collecting of articles of material culture – wooden, birch bark and metal utensils, leather shoes, hunter equipment, work tools, clothes, shoes, decorations and less numerous articles of cultural life: hunt and house ritual figures, shaman equipment, musical instrument komus, popular pedagogy articles.

Unique ritual articles of Kets, fishing tools and fragments of deer harness were brought by a worker of the Chair of Archaeology R. V. Nikolayev in 1978 from the Krasnoyarsk region, village Maduyka, Serkovo. He also made a small collection of Evenks’ deer harness articles and utensils found near the river Nizhnyaya Tunguska. In 1980 these collections were given to the archaeology museum for creation of an exposition about Siberia peoples.

In 1980 the first ethnography exposition based on the collected material was opened. When the Museum moved to a new building in 1985 the exposition about Siberia peoples’ ethnography was temporarily placed in one of the Museum halls. At the same time the Chair of Archaeology workers      N. A. Belousova, V. I. Kimeev, E. A. Miklashevitch, Ye. V. Popov were working on creation of thematic plans of future ethnographic expositions.

The ethnographic repository has been completed during the following years. The Shorts’ articles were mainly collected in the above-mentioned places because only there some elements of the Shorts’ traditional culture were conserved. In 1987 students of historical faculty of Kemerovo State University collected a lot of material culture articles in villages Chilisu-Anzas, Bugzas on the river Pyzas, as well as in villages Uchas, Trekhrechye, Ilyinka on the river Orton. In 1990-1993 the collection was added with some articles collected by ethnographer V. M. Kimeev only in villages Chilisu-Anzas, Kezek, Cheley, Parushka. In 1992 the director of the museum N. A. Belousova added some articles of material and cultural life to Teleuts’ collection according to the thematic plan of the ethnography hall.

KemSU professor D. V. Kotsyuba, a famous Kuzbass researcher of local lore, made a collection of rare diversity of Shorts and Teleuts’ traditional culture articles. It consists of wooden and birch bark utensils, tribal and shaman rituals, clothes. This material was collected in Teleuts’ villages of Belovo region  - Shanda, Verkhovskaya, Chelukhoyevo, Bekovo in 1972, 1990; in Shorts’ villages  - Karchit, Kabyrza of Ust-Kabyrza Village Soviet in 1970-s. A part of this collection was given to KemSU museum “Archaeology, Ethnography and Ecology of Siberia”. The Khakassian collection has been gathered by N. A. Belousova and E. A. Miklashevich during two years of the South Siberia archaeology and ethnography expedition in 1983-1985 in Abakan, in villages of Askiz region – Askiz, Nizhnyaya Teya, Politovo, Ust-Chul, Otty, Beltirsky; Tashtyp region – Anchul, Bolshiye Arbaty. Collection material consists of several Khakass-Sagayts’ clothes, wooden, birch bark and metal utensils, fragments of horse harness, shaman equipment.

The materials about Russians appeared in the museum occasionally. In general these are objects presented to museum by inhabitants of Kemerovo city: a distaff, a loom, a trunk, an arbalest, woman shirt, an icon, a carved wooden casing and other objects brought by a worker of the Chair of Archaeology A. M. Kulemzin.

A small Kalmaks’ collection consists of head-dresses and utensils presented by folk group from the village Yurty-Konstantinovy.

The smallest collection is a pair of children boots brought from the Onguday region of the Altai Republic.

In 1995 there took place a ceremonial opening of the exposition about the South Siberia autochthon population, presented in two halls and consisting of seven show-cases and dioramas.

In 2000, by the initiative of the ethnographer V. M. Kimeev, a re-exposition was organized in order to show the inter-influence of Russian and Siberia autochthon cultures in the conditions of their common life in the same region. As a result the ethnographic exposition was added by materials about Russian old residents. The show-cases and dioramas number increased to 12.