YAKUT

YAKUT. This is the Turkic language of the most northern Turkic people, whose language, religion, and people are all known as Yakut. Living in the Lena River basin in northeastern Siberia, the Yakut herd horses and cattle, hunt, fish, produce crafts, and trade. Subjugated by Russia in the first half of the 17th c., many adopted Christianity by the 19th c. Nominally Russian Orthodox, some preserved their own shamanism modifying it with Christianity, for example attributing traits of God, Mary, and angels to shaman spirits-a type of “dual-faith” (q.v.). In 1979 the Yakut numbered approximately 328,000.