u/mon_sizinj

"Chuvashkino" is a unique thing in the history of the culture of the indigenous peoples of the Volga region. This is a Chuvash film studio that made films about the Chuvash people from 1926 to 1932. After that, the policy changed, the authors were arrested, and the films are believed to have been destroyed in 1937. Today, in the United States, a private collection has a copy of at least one film, and there may be other copies.

The star of Chuvashkino was actress Tani Yun, who is in these frames (the first frame is very memorable for me)

Reagan Ripley and Brett Hand from "Inside Job" – they are best friends and close to each other (Reagan is even Brett's emergency contact), who the show doesn't push into a romantic relationship.

Holga Kilgore and Edgin Darvis from "Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves" – they have a very strong and deep relationship, but they are amused and outraged when they are mistaken for a couple.

Elida and Isaac from "Vagrant Queen" – they have a very close, non-romantic relationship, with much of the series focusing on the problems in their relationship, which is great for showing the idea that friendships can be just as complicated as romantic relationships.

Maeve Millay and Lee Sizemore from "Westworld" – over the course of the show, they gradually develop a close relationship and come to appreciate each other greatly; however, their relationship does not take a romantic turn, and Maeve can even tell the difference between the real and the fake Lee because Lee has never been romantically obsessed with her.

I really like this trope for its representation of male-female friendship and the fact that not all close relationships between women and men have to be romantic. It's a great counterpoint to the common trope of writers throwing a male and female character into a relationship just because they're the available male and female characters.

Some time ago I made a post here about the clothing of the indigenous people of the Volga-Ural region and saw a misunderstanding of our context. I was very upset about this, although I understand that this is all almost unknown to anyone globally (although even here and on Indian Country there were posts about the indigenous people of this region). I was also upset because this is a global indigenous reddit and we all rely on understanding the different contexts of indigenous peoples in different regions.

I want to talk a little bit about our region and our context. This is a text about our region and the indigenous Finno-Ugric inhabitants (there are also Turkic inhabitants, but I don't know much about their context, so I won't say anything).

The Finno-Ugric indigenous people of the Volga-Ural region have lived here for thousands of years. We speak Uralic languages, which come from either Eastern Europe or North Asia. Our languages, together with our partial East Eurasian ancestry (the Volga-Ural peoples, like the Sami, have up to a third of Eastern European ancestry), are one of the reasons why later nineteenth-century "historians" and "scientists" said that we had no right to live in our homeland - since we do not speak Indo-European languages, we have no right to live in Europe and our cultures and languages should be destroyed. This is also very ironic, because for a very long time our region was not classified as Europe, it was part of "Tartaria" and Asia for people who lived further west.

For centuries, we practiced a complex economy that included hunting, fishing, gathering wild honey, and farming. Because of this, Europeans, people who lived further west, considered us "savages" - because we did not practice the monocultural arable farming that they did. The forest was very important for survival, so religion was also associated with the forest - people chose sacred forests, which still exist, in which they prayed and which were protected from human interference. The basis of religion was and partly remains animism - rivers, forests, houses, and other places had their own deities-patrons. People also believed (and some still believe) in several higher gods who are connected with the sky, air, and space. Another significant myth is the myth of the creation of the world by diving for land. This myth is very ancient, researchers believe that it is the myth that once existed among the ancestors of various Ural peoples and other peoples of North Asia and also America.

Life changed a lot when in the 16th century all the indigenous peoples of the region came under the rule of the Moscow kingdom. Over time, the resettlement of Russians to the region began. In addition to the confiscation of lands by monasteries and the Russian nobility, this brought such things as the cutting down of forests for gunpowder factories and the capture of people to work there, and forced Christianization, accompanied by torture and murder, especially during the Tseryushev uprising. I don't want to just list the various unpleasant things and prohibitions that existed in the Russian Tsardom and Empire, I just want to say that it was a very xenophobic place for the indigenous peoples of the Volga-Ural region, who had almost no opportunities to get an education, live outside of the village, have their own religion, and were also subjected to persecution (for example: the Multan Process) and racism because of their part Eastern Eurasian descent. And so, yes, the term "natives" ("туземцы") was used by Russians for the indigenous inhabitants of the Volga-Ural region.

Even people who helped (like Korolenko, a writer who helped the Udmurts in the Multan process) wrote that the Erzyans had "less dignity" than the Russians and saw them as people who were simply savages who attacked monasteries for nothing (as if the monasteries were not the ones who often illegally took the land of the indigenous people as seen from the lawsuits). Maxim Gorky, who supposedly supported the indigenous peoples of the region, often compared them with animals and wrote about their "ancient magic" and deep connection with nature in his works. Thus, Russian culture had its own long tradition of the "magical Finno-Ugric indigenous" trope, in which the Finno-Ugric people of the region were seen as more "primitive", "close to nature people" who possessed some ancient magic.

In the early Soviet period there was some policy improvement and the situation improved, but still to this day the indigenous people of the region face inequality and xenophobia (the names of indigenous peoples are used as insults, indigenous people are still perceived by many as stupid and their culture as "primitive") live in depressed areas, are less urbanized than others and have, on average, lower education. Also, the Finno-Ugric peoples of the Volga region are now forming a minority in their territories. Indigenous languages are endangered and the number of indigenous people is constantly decreasing.

I think from all this it is clear why today the Erzyans, Mokshans, Udmurts and Mari use the term "indigenous" relatively widely. This term is also used for these peoples by other indigenous groups in Russia (for example, groups of North Asia). This term is used in relation to these groups in literature, encyclopedias (including in English), other resources, as well as in some official contexts.

I just hope that indigenous people from different regions will have more understanding towards each other.

Photo: Mari traditional religion's prayer

...as well as indigenous peoples of nearby regions (photo 6)

1,2 – Erzya, 3 – Chăvash, 4 – Udmurt, 5 – Bashkort, 6 – Crimean Tatar

It could also be: names of settlements ending in -ley, "family x hasn't spoken to family y for 20 years because family y's garbage was brought to them by the wind", ancient bee hives on trees, one shop that isn't even in a real building, where there might be an old granny who only speaks in short phrases and avoids eye contact, etc.

I made a quick sketch of the Erzyan Earth Goddess. I was actually thinking about how shocked I was when I found out that we once had beautiful, full-flowing rivers (today they are all completely shallow because those who came to our land cut down almost all of our forest to make gunpowder). So much has been lost, not only in culture, but even in the way the land itself looked.