Explore: Itelmens

The Itelmens (Itelmen: Итәнмән, romanized: Itənmən; Russian: Ительмены, romanized: Itel'meny) are an Indigenous ethnic group of the Kamchatka Peninsula

were about 20,000 ethnic Itelmens. The explorer Stepan Krasheninnikov, who gave the first detailed description of the Itelmen language and culture, identified

similar phenomena not only among the Itelmens but also among the Koryaks; however, the latter kept koekchuch, unlike Itelmens, "not in honor, but in contempt"

to the descendants of the local Siberians and aboriginal peoples (the Itelmens, Ainu, Koryaks and Chuvans) who assimilated with the Russians. The descendants

in 1768–1769 quickly decimated the native population; the roughly 2,500 Itelmens present in 1773 were reduced to 1,900 in 1820, from an original population

Chukchi people and plays a central role in the mythology of the Koryaks and Itelmens of Kamchatka. Many of the stories regarding Kutkh are similar to those

Chukotko-Kamchatkan language family. They are more distantly related to the Itelmens on the Kamchatka Peninsula. All of these peoples and other, unrelated minorities

endangered. The Kamchatkan branch is moribund, represented only by Western Itelmen, with less than a hundred speakers left. The Chukotkan branch had close

coast. It belonged to the Itelmen group of the Chukotko-Kamchatkan family (not all researchers recognize that the Itelmens belong to the Chukotko-Kamchatkan

Kamchatka, the Russians crushed the Itelmen uprisings against their rule in 1706, 1731, and 1741. The first time, the Itelmens were armed with stone weapons