The tribe that defied Russia
QUESTION
Did the Chukchi tribes successfully defend themselves against the Russian Empire?
CHUKOTKA, the north-eastern part of Siberia, is one of the 85 federal subjects (or areas) of Russia. It gets its name from the indigenous Chukchi people, who were never defeated by the Russians.
The Chukchi came into conflict with Russian settlers during the early 18th century. At that time, they were a group of nomadic tribes numbering 10,000 reindeer herders and fishermen.
From the time of Ivan the Terrible in the 16th century, the Russian Empire steadily expanded eastwards. Conquered peoples were made to pledge allegiance to Russia and pay the yasak tribute, usually in valuable furs. Those who refused were slaughtered by Cossack soldiers.
In the mid-17th century, Russian settlers built a fort at the head of the Anadyr River that flows into the Bering Sea. At first, the local Chukchi were deemed insignificant and mostly ignored. However, skirmishes flared when the Russians began trapping in their traditional hunting grounds.
In 1711, Peter the Great sent his ambassadors to collect the yasak, but the Chukchi refused to pay. In 1727, his widow, Empress Catherine I, ordered a full-scale assault on the Chukchi. A Russian force of more than 400 raided their settlements, slaughtering 800 people.
The Chukchi planned revenge. Steeled by millennia living in the harshest of environments, they proudly considered themselves ‘the only true people’ and prepared for battle. Warriors in armour made from hardened leather launched a guerrilla campaign on Russian settlements.
In 1742, Empress Elizabeth ordered the Chukchi to be ‘totally extirpated’. The mission to wipe them out was headed by the ruthless Dmitry Pavlutsky, who had led bloody raids on inhabitants of the Kamchatka peninsula.
Between 1744 and 1747, he led his Cossacks in a military expedition to slaughter the Chukchi. However, they joined forces with other tribes to repel the Russians. In 1747, Pavlutsky’s regiment was ambushed and he was decapitated. His head was kept as a trophy for years.
The war was officially ended by the Russian senate in 1764 and the Russians retreated west.
In 1778, Catherine the Great offered the Chukchi Russian citizenship, and a peace treaty was signed in which the Chukchi were exempted from the yasak.
Thereafter, the Russians began trading guns, ironware and textiles with the Chukchi.
Roger McIntyre, Leeds.
QUESTION
Where did family coats of arms come from? And were there certain types of families who had them?
COATS of arms were first created in medieval times and were originally restricted to members of the nobility; they first came into use in Ireland in the 13th century.
The use of heraldry started because of battles and jousts in medieval times, when the participants had their faces obscured by helmets and armour; distinguishing marks started to be used so that individuals could be easily identified, and this was the beginning of coats of arms.
By the 12th century, these ‘badges’ were widely used by members of the nobility; a century later, they could be inherited.
Gradually, coats of arms started to be used by other high-ranking families, and were also employed by people in professions such as the law.
Following the Anglo-Norman conquest of Ireland in the 12th century, coats of arms started to be used here. References to the coat of arms of the king of Ireland go back to the 13th century. Later on, during the 17th century, many people with non-Gaelic names settled here, bringing their own coats of arms with them. At that time, it was a big disadvantage to have a Gaelic surname, so many were anglicised, reflected in the coats of arms involved.
The Register of Arms, detailing all the coats of arms in Ireland, was established in 1552 and it continues to this day. These days, the office of the Chief Herald of Ireland is part of the genealogy and heraldry department of the National Library of Ireland. The Chief Herald is responsible for granting arms to individuals and corporate bodies.
Readers can inspect the Register of Arms in the manuscript room of the National Library.
These days, coats of arms are far more widespread, with more than 1,000 family crests, or coats of arms, in existence.
Very often, particular families have more than one crest – the most prolific is the O’Connor clan, which has over a dozen.
Over the years, the language of heraldry, in other words the descriptions of coats of arms, has become ever more intricate, so much so that the whole business has acquired its own vocabulary, rules and syntax.
Cameron Deasy, Co. Carlow.
QUESTION
Are Tipperary and Yorkshire unique in having ‘ridings’? Why do other counties not have them?
TIPPERARY wasn’t unique in having ridings and neither was Yorkshire, but this strange local government structure was never imposed on a wider scale as it wasn’t relevant to more modern times.
In Ireland, the ridings of Tipperary were created in 1838, when the county was divided into a North Riding and a South Riding. The county town of Clonmel was too far away from the North Riding for jurors from there, so Nenagh was created as the assize or judicial centre for the North Riding.
The two ridings in Tipperary were devolved into two administratively separate counties in 1898; then, just over a century later, in 2001, they were reclassified as two separate counties: North Tipperary and South Tipperary. That arrangement didn’t last long, as they returned to single-county status in 2014.
Two other very big counties in Ireland were also divided into ridings during the early 19th century. Cork, the biggest county in Ireland, was divided into East and West ridings for judicial purposes, quarter sessions and petty sessions, but not assizes. Galway was divided into East and West ridings for police and surveying work.
The ridings in Cork and Galway became redundant after the Irish Free State came into being in 1922, but strangely enough, the two ridings in Co. Cork, East and West, remained in use for Garda purposes until the 1990s.
More modern systems of local government were developed during the 19th century, making the concept of ridings outdated.
In England, while Yorkshire was the main county divided up into ridings, the 12th-century concept of ridings was also applied to parts of Lincolnshire.
The ancient county of Yorkshire was divided into three ridings – North, West and East – and in 1888, each of these ridings was made into an administrative county. These were abolished in 1974, during a big shake-up of local government in England.
The only other county in England to have ridings was Lincolnshire, which had North, South and West ridings.
Colette Lambert, Waterford.