Kereks. General Information: Endonyms, Ethnographic Groups, Population, and Settlement

Kereks, whose endonym is Ankalakku ( meaning “those living by the sea ”) , belong to the Paleo-Siberian ethnic group. They are descendants of prehistoric dwellers of the Arctic and the groups belonging to the Lakhtin culture who had lived along the ocean coast of Chukotka and Kamchatka. According to the archaeological data, numerous ancient Kerek settlements were scattered along the coast of the Bering Sea from the Anadyr estuary to the estuary of the River Opuka. As shown by the history of the exploration of the area, the “Kereks’ land” was outside the principal routes of the first Russian explorations, as well as the trade routes, remaining unexplored for a long time. Therefore, the first written records have autochthonous Kereks enter history as a subgroup of larger ethnic groups – Chukhmari (the Kamchadal term for the Chukchi) or Koryak people ( Koryaks ) – newly-arrived communities in that area. Only in the late 19 ^th century, on the initiative of the well-educated governor of the Anadyr Province N.L. Gondatti, they started singling out Kereks as a separate group, adopting the Chukchi term for them, Kerekit . Since then, Kereks adopted a similarly sounding endonym of Karakykku . In his work, N.L. Gondatti points out Kereks’ distinct identity. He argues: “The language of these people is not intelligible either to the Chukchi or to Lamuts or even to Koryaks. The Chukchi set the Kerekit apart from the Koryaks accepting them as an absolutely separate people.”

Since the very moment of starting to study Kereks as a research object, the issue of their origin and their ethnocultural identity has remained controversial. V.G. Bogoraz paid a visit to the areas where Kereks lived in 1900-1901, and though he found a considerable influence of Eskimo ethnic groups on Kereks, he still felt they were “the descendants of Koryak and Chukot tribes.” In 1937, a member of staff of the Museum of the Arctic and Antarctic N.B. Shnakenburg studied only one group of southern Kereks and concluded that Kereks belonged to the group of Koryaks living by the sea. This conclusion brought about a temporary exclusion of the name of Kereks from official ethnic maps and censuses of Soviet ethnic groups. But in the 1950s, the opinion that Kereks were a distinctly different group – the opinion based on linguistic research, first and foremost, - started to grow stronger. Thus, in 1957, during an expedition, a well-respected linguist, P. Skorik, made records of the mythology and household narratives and analyzed the phonetics, morphology, and syntax of the language used in them. He argued that the Kerek language is a separate language, though it has undergone a degree of influence from contacting the Chukchi, Koryak, and Eskimos. The key role in substantiating the separate identity of the Kerek culture was played by V.V. Leontyev’s fundamental archaeological and ethnographic studies carried out in the 1970s. As V.V. Leontyev thought, Kereks are divided into two groups according to their language and origin: the Navarin group ( ыйулаллакку , yyulallakku – “the upper ones” in Kerek) and Khatyr ( иутылаллакку – iutylallakku – ‘the lower ones”) . As the linguistic analysis shows, these groups had their own dialect variations: Meinypilgyno and Khatyrka. Even when analyzing the 1970s field results, V.V. Leontyev admitted that “The reconstruction of the Kerek ethnic history is fraught with difficulty. The main problem is that there are very few Kereks left who know their native language, their ancient customs, traditions, trades, and occupations. Kereks have adopted the Chukchi culture, and with the advent of the kolkhoz they adopted new collective forms of labor activities.”

Currently, Kereks are one of the smallest ethnic groups in Russia. According to the 2010 census, their numbers have gone down to the critical figure of 4 people. In 2020/2021, 23 people recorded themselves as Kereks.

The ethnographic map of North-East Russia in the early 20 th century indicating “the land of the Kereks ”.