The Reindeer People: Living with Animals and Spirits in Siberia

My son is a history major at college and needed this book for class. The price was affordable and a book he will have for many years to use in his teaching career.

Fascinating historical and factual account of the animal itself but more over, an incredible view of how they have influenced the social evolution of a huge part of the world. Very informative. Affords the reader a rare glimpse into a world (mostly Siberia) that so few us have any comprehension of.

I learned here that Reindeer herding for the commercial meat market has been a staple of Artic communities throughout the 20th Century (hence the effort to translpant it to Alaska in the 1920s). This is an amazing story of a British anthropologist's 25+ years visiting and documenting the life of some of the last indigenous Siberian people to herd domestic reindeer. We meet many keenly individual men women and children, from the university-trained to the descendants of shamans. I was reminded of the Mongul family in the documenary movie "The Weeping Camel," and of Amundson's antarctic expeditions, which used native skills while Scott died using modern mechanical aids. We learn what it was like to live under Soviet rule (when labor camps drove the meat markets); we watch Perestroika as it affects both animals and people, and we witness the region's disastrous ecological and economic decline under Putin's Russia.

For someone who has only traveled so far as a few hundred miles in a sedan, my world is mind-numbingly small. Logistically, I rely on MapQuest to get me from "Point A" to "Point B"... and hopefully back in one piece. Without truly comprehending the land and life enveloping me in a "rural-suburban" town located somewhere in the cesspool of Bowash, I sorely needed a wake-up call to the raw emotion and spirit that has been inherently ingrained in the Eveny people, their reindeer, and their relationship to the expanses of Sakhan Siberia. As Vitebsky relives such experiences in The Reindeer People, his strikingly vivid account of living side-by-side with the Eveny not only intrigues, but brings to light the troubles faced by indigenous people that have been perpetuated by the Soviet era as well as its horrendous aftermath. Vitebsky's tale of the inevitable downfall of what was once a pristine way of life for these people offers a poignantly bittersweet glimpse of what is becoming all but history. Without a doubt, this is one of the greatest books to come my way in a long time!

Vitebsky's book is a wonderful look at the life, lives and living conditions in an area of the world most of us would consider uninhabitable. While it is an anthropological study, it overflows with human feelings and contact that make this a truly unforgettable read. This truly shows the need for humans to coexist with nature, not rule it. Read this book.