Dukha people

The Dukha, Dukhans or Duhalar (Цаатан, Tsaatan) are a small Tuvan (Tozhu Tuvans) Turkic community of semi-nomadic reindeer herders living in Khövsgöl, the northernmost province of Mongolia. The name Tsaatan, which means ‘those who have reindeer’ in the Mongolian language, were originally Tuvinian reindeer herders. Dukha language The Dukhan language (SIL International dkh is an endangered Turkic variety spoken by approximately five hundred people in the Tsagaan-Nuur county of the Khövsgöl region of northern Mongolia. Dukhan belongs to the Taiga subgroup of Sayan Turkic (Tuvan, Tofa). Originally from across the border in what is now Tuva Republic of Russia, the Dukha settled in northern Mongolia. Tuva became independent in 1921, when Mongolia gained its independence from China. At that time, the reindeer herders were able to cross the border freely between Tuva and Mongolia. However, when Tuva was annexed to the Soviet Union in 1944, the border was closed. In 1944, Russia was involved in World War II. So the Dukha people fled from Tuva to settle in Mongolia mainly for the following reasons: Since the border zone was their original territory, they had good trade relationships with the Mongolian herders in the Mongolian steppes. There were food shortages in the Soviet Union due to World War II. Domestic animals were requisitioned by the Soviet government during the war. Many schoolchildren died from the spread of diseases they had little resistance to. People were afraid of losing their domestic animals due to collectivization. At first, the Mongolian government repeatedly deported them back to Tuva. In 1956 the government finally gave them Mongolian citizenship and resettled them at Tsagaan Nuur Lake on the Shishigt River. The Dukha are one of the few remaining groups of nomadic (or semi-nomadic) reindeer herders in the world. As the reindeer populations shrink, only about 40 families continue the tradition in the year 1998. The Dukha's sense of community is structured around the reindeer.