Yakuts

The Yakuts, who call themselves Sakha, are a Turkic-speaking people of northeastern Siberia, especially the region around the Lena River. Horses and cattle have played important roles in many communities.

Older accounts describe tattoos on the chins and cheeks of some people. The few recorded lines do not establish that everyone wore the same pattern, but they preserve a part of the region's body-art history.

Clothing and jewellery provide a wider view. Carefully worked garments and ornaments belonged to daily life, celebrations and different roles within a community.

Long winters and short summers shaped the materials people used and the work they did. Hunting, fishing and, in northern areas, reindeer keeping added to that variety. The portraits show more than facial marks: they place adornment within lives adapted to a demanding landscape.