G.F. Müller: On peoples’ spiritual qualities

A noticeable event in the cultural and academic life of the year 2009 was the first edition in the Russian language of the fundamental ethnographic work "The Description of Siberian peoples" by G. F. Müller, an outstanding explorer of the 18th century Siberia, a member of the Second Kamchatka Expedition (he was 27 when he set off).

Müller's Siberian heritage counts scores of monographs and papers on local history and geography, maps, historical and geographical descriptions of the uezds, travel notes, etc. It should be stated, however, that on the whole, Müller's archives have been studied much less than the works of other prominent historians of the past. The situation with the scholar's ethnographic works and materials is the worst.

So, the manuscript of his fundamental work "The Description of Siberian peoples" was discovered, after a long search, in The Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts only in 1939. This most significant of Müller's works on Siberian ethnography was first published in the Russian translation in 2009 thanks to the joint effort of the Institute of History, SB RAS (Novosibirsk) and Franke Fund, Halle (Germany). Today, we offer to our readers excerpts from the chapter dealing with personal relations, gender roles, attitude to ownership, and other "spiritual qualities" of the Siberian indigenous nationalities

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