Evenks

   / Evenki

   Ethnic group. Formerly known as the Tungus, the Evenks are an indigenous Paleo-Siberian population of approximately 35,000, widely scattered across some 2.5 million square kilometers. They are classified as one of the indigenous peoples of the north. The Evenki language is a member of the northern branch of the Manchu-Tungus family, distantly related to Manchu. The Evenks reside in a huge swath of Siberian taiga from the Ob River in the west to the Sea of Okhotsk in the east, and from the Arctic Ocean in the north to Manchuria in the south. While they form the titular minority of Krasnoyarsk Krai’s Evenkiysky Municipal District, where they make up 21 percent of the population, they are also located in the Russian regions of Tyumen, Tomsk, Irkutsk, Zabaykalsky, Amur, Buryatiya, Sakha, Khabarovsk, Sakhalin, and other parts of Krasnoyarsk, as well as Mongolia and China. Evenks are nominally Russian Orthodox but maintain many of their traditional shamanistic beliefs.

   See also Evens.