Secrets of the landscapes of the Evenks of the Northern Baikal region: Reciprocation of knowledge and collection of non-timber forest resources
The proposed article is devoted to a classic topic for social anthropology and ethnology - gathering of non-timber forest resources among indigenous peoples, in this case, Evenkis of Kholodnoe village, Northern Baikal region. The ethnographic material, on which this article is based, refers rather to the history of the region, as it was collected quite a long time ago: in 2008. Of course, many changes in the local society and culture have taken place since then, and those dynamics will still be comprehended by anthropologists in the future. I hope that my work, on the one hand, will serve as a document of traditional ecological knowledge and ethno-economic gathering practices of Evenkis, which I recorded during that period, and, on the other hand, will show the versatility and complexity of the human-landscape alliance through reflexion of local patterns of knowledge reciprocity regarding the places of valuable wild-growing products of gathering. This article examines how locals and the taiga landscape cope with the interest of visiting wild-growers, in the local treasury of non-timber forest resources. In this relationship, cultural memory acts as a mediator between secrecy and the principles of knowledge reciprocity regarding the significant places of the resource of North Baikal gatherers. This article also explains how the relationship between the Evenks and the taiga, here designated as an alliance relationship, is formed through gathering practices and narratives about them. Ethnographic data obtained from the Evenks demonstrates practical skills related to the organization, search and redistribution of medicinal herbs, pine nuts and berries. Inhabitants of the village of Kholodnoye give explanations of their behavior in the forest and their attitude to the obtained natural resources, demonstrating the rules of human interaction with the natural environment that have been formed over the centuries.