A people who brought the horse and fire to the land of eternal permafrost, beneath the White Sun of Orto Doidu. Nine commandments born of the Aiyy faith, the Olonkho epic and the teaching of the soul — Kut-Sür.
The Sakha (Yakuts) are the indigenous people of Yakutia, the largest region of Russia, sprawling across 3 million km² along the great Lena River. Their ancestors — Turkic horse-breeders of the Baikal region — migrated north in the 13th–15th centuries and achieved the impossible: they preserved cattle- and horse-breeding where winter plunges to −60 °C and the earth never thaws.
From a steppe culture they forged a culture of cold — and never lost their Turkic soul: an ancient language, a heroic epic, and a faith in the harmony of human and cosmos.
Nine is the sacred number of the Sakha people. These nine commandments are drawn from living ideas of the culture: the Aiyy faith, the sacred word кэс тыл, the purity of the soul кут, and a responsibility toward seven generations of descendants.
Humankind is not the master of the world but only a part of Orto Doidu, the Middle World. Take from the land exactly as much as you need, and thank the iccí spirits for all that you take.
Kes tyl is the binding word. A promise once spoken is sacred and unbreakable. A person's name is worth exactly as much as the weight of their given word.
Bright thoughts draw the forces of creation; dark ones breed destruction. Radiate kindness and gratitude: your kut is your light across the three worlds.
Through the iyä-kut the wisdom of the clan has come to you. Heed your elders, remember your ancestors — the thread of the generations must not break at you.
In the land of frost a guest is sacred. Share the fire of the hearth and the choron of kumys: by sheltering one in the cold you save them, and you raise yourself up.
Like Nurgun Bootur, defend the weak and do not yield before evil — the abaahy. Courage without cruelty, strength in the service of justice.
The smith, the horse-breeder, the craftsman and the storyteller are all honored. Idleness shames the clan, while skilled hands — сатабыл — feed the family and warm the winter.
Every deed echoes through seven generations. Live so that the trace you leave in the clan is bright, and your name kind on the lips of grandchildren not yet born.
Like the circle of the osuokhai dance, which moves with the sun, hold to harmony. Discord tears the circle; the unity of clan and people is life itself.
To understand the Sakha, you must enter their epic. Olonkho is not a bedtime tale but an entire model of the cosmos: cosmogony, a moral law and the memory of a people, sung in a single voice through the dark of the long northern night.
Olonkho is the common name for dozens of heroic tales, and together they form a single chronicle of creation. The first tell how the bright deities айыы of the Upper World created Orto Doidu — the Middle Land of humankind. The second recount how the heaven-cast exile Эр-Соготох, the Lone Man, descended to the earth and gave rise to the human race. The third — the most beloved — tell how the warriors of the Middle World waged war against the abaasy demons of the Lower World.
The universe of the olonkho has three tiers, and all three worlds are pierced by the great Tree of Life Аал Луук Мас: its roots reach down into the underworld, its crown touches the ninth heaven. The Lower World fell to the youngest of three brothers, Arsan Duolai; his thirty-six tribes of abaasy monsters are the embodiment of every vice: malice, greed, lust and vengeance.
Almost every olonkho is built upon a great canon. It opens with a solemn praise of the hero's wondrous land — its mountains, rivers and pastures. Then the abaasy fall upon the uluses of the aiyy and carry off the warrior's sister or bride — and from that moment the journey begins.
The hero — one such as Нюргун Боотур Стремительный — arms himself for the road, and his mighty steed bears him to the edge of the universe. To rescue the captured maiden, he descends into the Lower World and meets in single combat the mightiest of the warriors of darkness — the fiery serpent Уот Усутаакы. Victorious, he frees the languishing captives and the sun-maiden Туйаарыма Куо, and returns home — and the tale is crowned by a wedding feast and a peace established upon the earth.
Olonkho was never written down — it was sung. The олонхосут, the storyteller, alone and without a single instrument, carried the tale for 8–10 hours on end, over two evenings in a row. The tale alternates recitative narration and song: the storytelling flows in a rapid patter, while the heroes' direct speech is sung.
In each olonkho there live 10–20 characters, and each has its own unchanging melody. The bright warriors and guardian spirits sing in a solemn, flowing chant — дьиэрэтии ырыа — adorned with a special throat-overtone, the кылысах, like an echo of the heavens themselves. The abaasy, meanwhile, rasp and growl in a harsh, clipped patter. By legend, the longest of the tales were sung by the masters without pause for seven days and seven nights.
In the 20th century the poet Платон Ойунский gathered from many variants and recorded "Nurgun Bootur the Swift" — 36,000 lines, the largest of the Yakut olonkho. And in 2005 UNESCO proclaimed Olonkho a masterpiece of the oral and intangible heritage of humanity — the voice of the Sakha was heard by all the world.
Today the Театр Олонхо works in Yakutsk, a new generation of olonkhosuts is growing, and the ancient song of dark and light rings out again — now from the stage, yet as alive as ever.
The Sakha have no single creator god. There are the айыы — bright deities who do not create but govern destinies and guard the Middle World. The elders feared to anger them more than the abaasy demons themselves.
The supreme deity, the embodiment of the sun and the sky. He dwells on the ninth heaven — in a land without winter, where white grass grows. Not a creator, but the steward of human destinies.
The giver of horses and cattle, the multiplier of herds. His thunderous neigh is the thunder of the heavens. To him is dedicated the people's chief festival — Ysyakh.
Patroness of women in childbirth and of the continuation of the clan. It is she who brings the infant its кут — its soul — and guards the thread of the generations.
The goddess who watches over happiness and plenty. Through her the soul descends from the branches of the World Tree to the human being — and keeps the bond with the Upper World.
The spirit of the hunt and the taiga, granting fortune to the hunter. With him one shares the first catch and does not raise one's voice in the forest — the forest hears everything.
The spirit-mistress of the earth, dwelling in the sacred Tree Aal Luuk Mas. The nurturer of all that lives, to whom one turns with the blessing-algys before beginning any undertaking.
By the philosophy of the Sakha, a human being is woven of three souls. Above them stands сүр, the life-force and character. To lose one's kut-sür is to lose oneself.
The body and matter, flesh made of earth. It is born first and is the first to return to the earth.
The inheritance of the clan — traditions, culture and ancestral memory, handed down from the mother and the forebears.
Reason and speech. It enters the human being with the first cry upon the green grass — a gift of the Upper World.
Once a year, on the day of the summer solstice, the steppe comes alive with the Ysyakh festival — the meeting of summer, the blessing of nature and the union of the clan.
The New Year of the Sakha people: the drinking of kumys, the algys blessing, white food and the greeting of the Sun.
A round-dance of unity: people move with the sun, merging into one living circle of clan and people.
A carved wooden goblet on legs — the sacred cup from which kumys is drunk at the rites.
The Yakut khomus — the voice of the wind and the shaman. Yakutia is one of the world's great centers of khomus music.
Сэргэ — the carved hitching post — is for the Sakha a symbol of the World Tree and the axis of the universe. To set up a serge is to root a family in the Middle World.
Sakha tyla has preserved archaic features of the Turkic languages — its isolation in the far north kept them intact. In it lies a stratum of Turkic foundation, many Mongolian, Evenki and Russian words, and even echoes of Sanskrit.
In 1917 Semyon Novgorodov created the Yakut alphabet on the basis of phonetic transcription. Today its writing is Cyrillic plus five special letters and two digraphs.
Semyon Novgorodov set down Sakha on the basis of the International Phonetic Alphabet — without capital letters or diacritics, strictly by sound. Here are the authentic Sakha words from this page in Cyrillic and in Novgorodov's phonetic script.
Switch the script — and every Sakha word on the page will be shown in Novgorodov's Latin letters. This is a transliteration of the authentic words only, with no invented translation.
From the steppe herds of the Xiongnu to the diamond capital of the North — two thousand years of journeying. Here are the milestones on which the Sakha people was born and tempered.
The proto-Turkic speech of the Sakha ancestors takes shape in deep antiquity and, preserved by the North, keeps archaic features lost to the other Turkic peoples.
Fleeing the wars of the age of Genghis Khan, Turkic horse-breeders leave the Baikal region for the Lena. The legendary first ancestors Omogoy Baay and Elley Bootur settle the Tuymaada valley. Elley founds the Ysyakh festival and is the first to raise the algys to the Aiyy.
The toyon of the Khangalas people, hero of countless legends and a real historical figure. The first ruler of all-Yakut scale: he united his own and the neighboring uluses — the "Yakut king" of the age before the coming of the Russians.
The Cossack Pyotr Beketov raises a stockade on the Lena — the future Yakutsk. This date is regarded as the entry of Yakutia into the Russian state.
The classic Sakha culture takes form: horse- and cattle-breeding on the alases, the smith's craft, the Aiyy faith and the flowering of the Olonkho epic.
Thinker, poet and historian — the founder of Yakut written literature. With him begins a new, literary epoch of the Sakha word.
Semyon Novgorodov creates the Yakut alphabet on the basis of phonetic transcription — the foundation of mass literacy and enlightenment.
An autonomous republic is formed within the RSFSR — the first statehood of the Sakha people in modern times. To this day that date is the Day of the Republic.
The poet and scholar (1893–1938) brings together and records "Nurgun Bootur the Swift" — 36,000 lines. A founder of Soviet Yakut literature; he perished in the repressions and was rehabilitated posthumously.
Geologists find a kimberlite pipe and send the famous radiogram: "Lit the pipe of peace, the tobacco is excellent." Yakutia becomes the country's diamond treasury.
On 27 September 1990 sovereignty is proclaimed, and in 1991 the republic takes its modern name — Sakha, the people's own name for itself, sounding as the name of the land.
UNESCO proclaims the Yakut heroic epic a masterpiece of oral intangible heritage. The voice of the Sakha is heard by all the world.
Honor nature. Keep your word. Guard your kut.
By the path of the Aiyy gods, beneath the Sun of the earth
