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THE OCCURRENCE OF "NON-EXISTENT" TURKO-UGRIC CONTACTS: COMMUNICATIONS BETWEEN THE TATARS OF THE MIDDLE IRTYSH REGION AND THE KHANTY OF THE TURTAS AND DEMYANKA RIVERS IN THE 18TH – 20TH CENTURIES // Tomsk Journal of Linguistics and Anthropology. 2018. Issue 4 (22). P. 60-70

The article presents an overall picture of the direct contact between the Kurdak-Sargat Tatars and their northern neighbors – the Khanty of the Turtas and Demyanka rivers in a historical retrospective. The Tatar and the Khanty groups have conducted mutual visits for several centuries. The northern areas have been mainly of hunting and gathering interests to the Siberian Tatars, and the Khanty trips to the villages of the Middle Irtysh river aimed at trade and exchange, labor relations and the maintenance of social ties. The issue of these Turko-Ugric relations has not been discussed in ethnography prior to this. The authors have revealed the stages, supporting factors, connecting routes, places, forms and the circle of direct participants of the interaction. The research results have led to the hypothesis of the successive nature of the Tatar hunting rights in the Demyanka river area, inherited from the group of Middle Irtysh Khanty assimilated by them earlier. It is also assumed that between the second half of the 18th and early 19th century, the Khanty of the Yugan river, who came from the north, forced the Kurdak-Sargat Tatars into the periphery of the Demyanka hunting grounds after an open conflict. Traces of the previous history, among other things, are reflected in the local toponymy and folklore of both ethnic groups.

Keywords: Kurdak-Sargat Tatars, indigenous peoples of the North, communication routes, watershed territories, interethnic interactions