Women's Stories Among Indigenous Peoples of the Russian Far East

In the Russian Far East, as in many parts of the world, indigenous women are the principal carriers of culture and language. Even within a larger culture, however, women create subcultures with similarities on a deep level that defy geography, defining and celebrating women's achievements while enriching tradition as a whole. A major part of this subculture involves storytelling, both of traditional tales and of contemporary life stories. I would like to introduce here some aspects of women's storytelling I have met among indigenous people in northern Asia, in Chukotka and the Amur River region of the Russian Far East.