A chum () is a temporary dwelling used by the

nomad A nomad is a member of a community without fixed habitation who regularly moves to and from the same areas. Such groups include hunter-gatherers, pastoral nomads (owning livestock), tinkers and trader nomads. In the twentieth century, the popu ...

Uralic The Uralic languages (; sometimes called Uralian languages ) form a language family of 38 languages spoken by approximately 25million people, predominantly in Northern Eurasia. The Uralic languages with the most native speakers are Hungarian (w ...

( Nenets,

Nganasans The Nganasans (; Nganasan: ''ŋənəhsa(nəh)'', ''ńæh'') are a Uralic people of the Samoyedic branch native to the Taymyr Peninsula in north Siberia. In the Russian Federation, they are recognized as one of the indigenous peoples of the Russ ...

Enets The Enets (russian: энцы, ; singular: , ; also known as Yenetses, Entsy, Entsi, Yenisei or Yenisey Samoyeds) are a Samoyedic peoples, Samoyedic ethnic group who live on the east bank, near the mouth, of the Yenisei River. Historically nomadic ...

Khanty The Khanty (Khanty: ханти, ''hanti''), also known in older literature as Ostyaks (russian: остяки) are a Ugric indigenous people, living in Khanty–Mansi Autonomous Okrug, a region historically known as "Yugra" in Russia, together ...

Mansi Mansi may refer to: People * Mansi people, an indigenous people living in Tyumen Oblast, Russia ** Mansi language * Giovanni Domenico Mansi (1692–1769), Italian theologian, scholar, historian and archbishop * Kate Mansi, American actress born in ...

, Komi)

reindeer Reindeer (in North American English, known as caribou if wild and ''reindeer'' if domesticated) are deer in the genus ''Rangifer''. For the last few decades, reindeer were assigned to one species, ''Rangifer tarandus'', with about 10 subspe ...

herders of northwestern

Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part of ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

. The

Evenks The Evenks (also spelled Ewenki or Evenki based on their endonym )Autonym: (); russian: Эвенки (); (); formerly known as Tungus or Tunguz; mn, Хамниган () or Aiwenji () are a Tungusic people of North Asia. In Russia, the Even ...

Tungusic peoples Tungusic peoples are an ethno-linguistic group formed by the speakers of Tungusic languages (or Manchu–Tungus languages). They are native to Siberia and Northeast Asia. The Tungusic phylum is divided into two main branches, northern (Evenic or ...

, tribes, in Russia, Mongolia and

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

also use chums. They are also used by the southernmost reindeer herders, of the Todzha region of the Republic of Tyva and their cross-border relatives in northern Mongolia. It has a design similar to a Native American

tipi A tipi , often called a lodge in English, is a conical tent, historically made of animal hides or pelts, and in more recent generations of canvas, stretched on a framework of wooden poles. The word is Siouan languages, Siouan, and in use in Dakot ...

but some versions are less vertical. It is very closely related to the

Sami Acronyms * SAMI, ''Synchronized Accessible Media Interchange'', a closed-captioning format developed by Microsoft * Saudi Arabian Military Industries, a government-owned defence company * South African Malaria Initiative, a virtual expertise net ...

lavvu Lavvu (or se, lávvu, smj, låvdagoahte, smn, láávu, sms, kååvas, sjd, коавас (''kåvas''), fi, kota or umpilaavu, no, lavvo or sametelt, and sv, kåta) is a temporary dwelling used by the Sami people of northern extremes of North ...

in construction, but is somewhat larger in size. Some chums can be up to thirty feet (ten meters) in diameter. The traditional chum consists of reindeer hides sewn together and wrapped around wooden poles that are organized in a circle. In the middle there is a fireplace used for heating and to keep mosquitoes away. The smoke escapes through a hole at the top of the chum. The canvas and wooden poles are usually quite heavy, but could be carried by their reindeer. The chum is still in use today as a year-round shelter for the Yamal-Nenets, Khanty and Todzha Tyvan people of Russia. In Russian use, the terms chum,

yurt A yurt (from the Turkic languages) or ger ( Mongolian) is a portable, round tent covered and insulated with skins or felt and traditionally used as a dwelling by several distinct nomadic groups in the steppes and mountains of Central Asia. ...

and

yaranga A Yaranga ( Chukchi: ) is a tent-like traditional mobile home of some nomadic Northern indigenous peoples of Russia, such as Chukchi and Siberian Yupik. A Yaranga is a cone-shaped or rounded reindeer-hide tent. It is built of a light wooden fr ...

may be used interchangeably. The word ''chum'' (russian: чум) came from kv, ćom or udm, ćum , both mean "tent, shelter". In different languages it has different names: Nenets: ḿāʔ , Nganasan: maʔ,

: (ńuki) χot. Evenki: ǯū . Evenkshome

References

External links

* https://web.archive.org/web/20070609160159/http://www.eth.mpg.de/subsites/siberia/researchers/stammler.html {{Huts Khanty House types Tents