MUNDURUCU
The Yakuts, who call themselves Sakha, live chiefly in the vast region around the Lena River in northeastern Siberia. Their language belongs to the Turkic family. Horse and cattle husbandry are important in many Sakha communities, alongside hunting, fishing and, in northern areas, reindeer keeping.
Older accounts describe tattooed lines on the chin and cheeks of some Yakut individuals, drawing comparisons with neighbouring Siberian peoples. Such records preserve examples of facial decoration, but they do not establish that everyone wore the same designs or that tattooing had one meaning throughout Sakha society.
The historical images in this collection also show dress, ornament and ways of life adapted to a landscape of long winters and short summers. They place the recorded tattoos within a broader visual culture, rather than treating a few facial lines as the whole story of a people.