Paleoasians in the Ethnogenesis of the Yakuts (on Mythology Data of the Yakut Ethnical Community of the Khoro)

The article is devoted to the results of the study of an old but not solved up to now problem in the Yakut ethnography concerning the origin of a big ethnical group Khoro which is one of the main units in the ethnical composition of the Yakuts living in the North of Siberia. The problem is urgent for its being unsolved does not make it possible to create an integral picture of the formation of the Yakut people. Most researchers think that the original motherland of the Khorolors (the plural of “Khoro”) was on the western side of the Baikal in Bargujin-Tokum, where they were a part of a Buryat tribal community of the Khori living now in Transbaikalia. In 1207 during the conquest of Bargujin-Tokum by Chinggis-khan’s troops a part of the Khori tribe escaping from the Mongols fled to the Middle Lena and never came back to the Baikal. When identifying both the groups only the resemblance of the names Khoro and Khori was taken into account which could not provide an exact result. Meanwhile the Khorolors cults of the Raven and the Eagle and associated with them “raven” and “eagle” myths and the same, typologically similar myths about the totemic forefathers mentioned above among the Paleoasians of the North-East Asia and NorthAmerican Indians make it clear that the Khorolors of Yakutia are of paleoasian origin. The Khorolors belonged to the southern branch of the Paleoasians and they resided in the lower Amur where there was their motherland Khoro sire. In a number of early Chinese and Korean chronicles this locality is called Kori. It is just there that one can find the sources for the ethnogenesis of the Koreans in which the northern Paleoasian component took a noticeable part. Supposedly at the end of the I millennium A.D., the Khorolors from the Lower Amur migrated to the North and permanently settled in the land of Yakutia. This is an evidence of the fact that in the ethnogenesis of the Yakuts the Paleoasian ethnical layer played a considerable part in addition to the ancient Tiurk substratum.


Introduction
The Yakut people consist of the three large ethnic groups who were headed in accordance with the folklore data by Omogoi, Ellei and Uluu Khoro.Omogoi and Ellei are thought to personify the Turkic clans and tribes that created the kernel of the Yakut ethnos on the banks of the Middle Lena.There is a viewpoint that Uluu Khoro personified the arrival from the Baikal in the Middle Lena area of a big Mongolian-speaking community of the Khoro people.The Buryat scholars advanced an idea that in 1207 there was an intrusion of the troops headed by Joci and sent by Chinggis khan in the Baikal territory.A certain part of the ancestors of modern Khori-Buryats who did not want to surrender the Mongols escaped to the Middle Lena.Since they have been living there and are known as Khorolors (Rumyantsev, 1962: p. 144).In the historic chronicles on Yakuts the Khorolors are also identified as the Khori people of Bargujin-Tokum but their arrival in Yakutia is not associated with the Mongolian conquests.According to one of the versions they arrived there before the I-II millennium BC, whereas according to the second one they arrived in the XVI century when the Middle Lena had already been inhabited by the descendents of Omogoi and Ellei (Bagdaryyn, 2004: p. 19; The history of the Yakut ASSR, 1995: p. 359).The folklore and ethnographical material concerning the Khorolors proper have not been well elucidated in the scientific literature.However one should note that the material mentioned allows for a new approach to the problem of the origin of Khorolors and new solutions.I am convinced that the assumption of the Khori people having left Bargujin-Tokum for the North is not correct.This particularly concerns the hypothesis put forward by the Buryat scholars.If the Khori folk had been fully beaten by Mongols at the Baikal and left downwards along the Lena river, the event would have necessarily been mentioned in written sources.But such information is lacking because at the beginning of the XIII century the military actions of the Mongols to conquer forest peoples were aimed at the Sayans and Altai (Zoriktuev, 2000: pp. 119-127).
One should not think that the echo of the events taking place in the Mongolian steppes in the XIII century could not have reached Yakutia.One of the legends of Ellei narrates how he and his father Tatar-Taima with great difficulties ran past the Baikal and further down along the Lena river escaping from the great battle that burst out in the cradle of the Moguol's tribe when Chyngys Khaan was on the throne and which shook the whole world .The legends of Khorolors depict quite a different cycle of stories.They narrate how an old man by name of Uluu Khoro arrived in the Middle Lena on back of a quick bull together with a lot of people and cattle.The newcomers spoke quite a different bizarre language which resembled the twitter of birds (khoro tyla).The khorolors said that their cradle land was called Khoro sire which meant "the land of Khoro".It was far in the South in a warm land of eternal summer where the coming birds spent winter (Bolo, 1938: p. 14).In the tales there is no evidence that Uluu Khoro came to Yakuts escaping from war.Therefore one cannot identify the Khorolors and the Bargujin-Tokum Khoris and think that they appeared in Yakutia driven by the Mongols' intrusion to the Baikal.This conclusion well agrees with all the existing data.
The Khorolor legends despite their being scanty help clarify the issue of the location of the Khoro sire country.They think that mentioned under this name was not Bargujin-Tokum which was well known among the surrounding peoples but a different place.It differed not only from the Middle Lena but from the region of the Baikal as well by its natural and climatic conditions.Besides, the population inhabiting that place had the language and culture quite different from those of Yakuts and Buryat Khoris.Of the similar opinion concerning the Khorolor's problem was one of the founders of the contemporary historical science of Yakutia who was well aware of the Yakut and Buryat ethnography G. V. Xenofontov.He wrote: "The Khorolor kins are of interest because they seem to have been formed up of the parts of some alien tribe which got mixed with the Yakuts.Most of yakutologists normally ascribe them to the Buryat Khoris on the basis of similarity of the names but this opinion is not well grounded" (AYaSC.Inv. No. 1. F. 20. Sh. 427).The above-mentioned means that at present the problem of the origin of khorolors becomes more acute.The integrated picture of the formation of the Yakut people depends on its solution.

Results: The Raven and the Eagle in the Khorolor Mythology
G. V. Xenofontov's conclusion of the incorrect identification of the Khorolors with the Khori people has been supported by the field and archives materials on the mythology and ethnography of the Khorolors collected by me in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) in 1987.I think it proper to once again call one's attention to the fact that this material which has never been used by any scholar before makes it possible to elucidate the problem of the ethnogenesis of the Khorolors with the highest degree of authenticity and reliability.First of all one must state that in all the variants of the legends the head of the Khorolors is called Uluu Khoro.Khordoi-Khoyogos who is sometimes taken as the ancestor of the Buryat Khoris, namely Khoridoi Mergen (Mikhailov, 1990: p. 17) was in fact a son of Ellei who did not have any relation to Khorolors (The history of the Yakut ASSR, 1995: p. 335).According to informant N. D. Burtsev the Khorolor community of the Borogonski ulus of the Ust'-Aldan district of the Yakutia consists of the kins of Khoro, Byrdia and Torbos which break into the branches of Ulakhaan Aiyylaakh, Achchygyi aiyylaakh, Orloob, Chyraanai, Sollat, Chekchekeen (The author's field materials.Informant N. D. Burtsev, born in 1917, the settlement of Borogontsy. Sept. 1987).It is hard to judge by one local group of the ethnic composition of all the Khorolors.But the absence of at least one name reminding of the name of the kins of the Buryat Khorolors among the terms listed above does not seem to be accidental.
The participant of the first academic expedition in Siberia Ya.I. Lindenau was in Yakutia at the beginning of the 40-s of the XVIII century.He noted that the Khoro kins mainly worshipped the raven (Lindenau 1983: 18).His observation is supported by the presence in the Khorolor folklore of a well-developed "raven" theme in which the Raven is always presented as a common Khorolor personage and not a hero of certain ethnic groups.In the myths written down in various districts of Yakutia it is said that the Raven was always hungry and ate whatever he could find.For this he was punished and put down from the Sky to this (i.e.Yakut-B.Z.) land.In some variants of the myths it is said that the Raven brought a flint with a tinder-box to a suffering woman who was giving birth to a child, she was almost dying, cold and hungry in a desolate place.She made fire and herself and the baby remained alive.Her son became the progenitor or forefather of the Khorolors.Therefore they said of the Raven: "Our Lord the grandfather knows the unknown, sees the invisible".The main subject matter of most of the myths is the narrative of how the ancestor of the Khorolors during natural calamity (flood) or accident broke his leg and lay in a desolate place dying from hunger and cold.All of a sudden a raven flew up and brought him a tinder-box with a fire stone.The man-made fire remained alive.Since then the Khorolors began to worship the Raven and call him: "Our grandfather", "Our deity", "Our ancestor".When a raven flew up to a dwelling a daughter-in-law of the Khorolor clan having put on her best clothes came out to meet him.She pressed her hands against her bosom and kneeling bowed to the bird.The Khorolors believed that the Raven could take a revenge for non-respect.Therefore it was prohibited to bother the bird, ruin his nest, trample his quills lying on the ground.Killing of a raven was regarded as the worst sin (AYaSC.Inv. No. 1. F. 20. Sh. 129;Inv. No. 1. F. 54,Sh. 1;68,Inv. No. 3. F. 652. Sh. 10).
The same typologically similar plots and motives are found in the myths of the Paleoasians of North-East Asia (Chukchi, Koryaks, Itelmen) and Indians of the North-Western coast of North America (Tlinkits, Khaida, etc.) which evidences of the common roots of the mythological semantics of the image of the Raven with the Yakut Khorolors and the peoples just mentioned above.At the same time the "Raven" fragments in the traditional culture of the Khorolors reveal all the illusions relating to the hypothesis of their Mongolian origin and identification with the Khori people living in the vicinity of the Baikal.The latter had never had the cult of the Raven.The supposition of their having left for the Middle Lena and their starting to worship the Raven following somebody's example would be quite wrong for there was no one in Yakutia from whom they might have borrowed the myths of the Raven in the form they were spread among the Khorolors.In the mythology of the Yakuts proper there are a few tales of the Raven but they were borrowed from the peoples of Kamchatka and Chukotka and were not widely spread (Ergis, 1974: p. 129).From those tales it is only known that the Raven was a grandson (in some myths -a son) of Uluu Toyon-a mythological head of evil spirits of the upper world abaasy, from whom he got the fire and gave it to people (AYaSC.Inv.No. 3. F. 652, Sh. 10).From the above example it is seen that the "raven" motives in Yakutia proper are imperfect as compared with those of the Khorolors.This evidences of the fact that the mythological cycle of the Raven with all its diversity of themes not much worse than those of the Paleoasian cycle was brought to Yakutia by the Khorolors themselves.
The incorrectness of the hypothesis of the Mongol origin of the Khorolors is illustrated by some other materials.Excavated in 1920 by archeologist Ye.D. Strelov on the ridge of the mountain Lysaya between the Khorinsk and Atlasov folds to the South-West of Yakutsk were two Khorolor burial places in which buried were two women.The degree of conservation of the corpses and their clothes and other things was very good owing to the permafrost.The clothes belong to the middle of the XVIII century judging by the coins and fishes found in the graves.Painter M. M. Nosov skilfully made drawings in color (Figures 1 and 2).One of the clothes was sewn of broad cloth, the other one of thick rovduga, they looked like the costumes of the Evenks (Historical and ethnographic atlas 1961: Table 13   (1), 252; Table VI (6), 309) and they have not anything in common with the traditional clothes of the Mongol peoples, in particular with the Khori Buryats (Figure 3).
These seem to have been the last patterns of the genuine Khorolor clothes which the time had got out of use almost completely.No other clothes of the kind have been found on the territiory of Yakutia.According to Ye. D. Strelov this kind of clothes was substituted for by the Yakut ones because in the North the clothes of the Khorolors who came from the South proved to be quite unadapted to the local climate (Strelov, 1936: pp. 75, 89-99).
If the analysis of all the sources shows the incorrectness of the existing views on the problem of ethnic identification of the Yakutsk Khorolors, then who are they by their origin after all?The material on their "raven" mythology given by me is identical to the one found in the myths of the Paleoasians and North-American Indians.This clearly evidences of the common ethnical roots of the Khorolors and all those peoples mentioned above.In the Paleoasian and North-American folklore the Raven is presented in a few hypostases, one of them being that of a powerful shaman.One might think that genetically connected with that hypostasis of the Shaman-Raven is the image of the ancestor of the Khorolors Uluu Khoro who was, as legends put it, a descendent of renowned shamans.Therefore the most powerful shamans in Yakutia were formerly thought to be those of the Khorolors.G. V. Xenofontov wrote that at the beginning of the XX century in the Western-Kangalas ulus near the Kuraanakh-kyuel there was a peculiar clan of the Khoro.It was headed by shaman Khoro-Byukteen.He had nine sons and eight daughters who all became eminent he-and she-shamans afterwards (AYaSC.Inv.No. 12. F. 69.Sh. 49 -49 r.).
The Raven in view of Paleoasians initially lived in the Sky (Jochelson 1908: 82).In a number of myths he is represented as a partner of the Supreme celestial deity of Paleoasians.The offsprings of the deity are the cloud people with whom the Raven is connected through his children (Meletinski, 1979: p. 71).I assume the myths about the cloud people in the Paleoasian folklore to be genetically connected with the myth of the daughters of the clouds which was spread among the Khorolors of the Ust'-Aldan district, not to mention all the Yakut Khorolors.I would like to quote my informant M. V. Pukhova with whom I worked in 1987: "In the Ust'-Aldan district there are two small lakes with the common name of Nyokyunyu.Near one of them there is quite a big hill.When we were small the adults did not allow us to climb it and play on top of it.They told us that on top of the hill there had once lived the daughters of the clouds-"bylyt kyrgyttara".Nobody told us what they looked like and whom they resembled.The old people said that the clouds' daughters took from the people their small children to nurse.Those children did not suffer from any diseases and did not die.In some time the clouds' daughters flew up to the sky and were never back" (The author's field materials.Informant M. V. Pukhova, born in 1926, the settlement of Borogontsy. Sept. 1987).
The Paleoasians of the Chukotsk-Kamchatsk group at the early stages of their development recognized the Raven to not only the demiurge, cultural hero and shaman but also a totemic forefather.S. P. Krasheninnikov wrote of that hypostasis of the Raven: "The Kamchadals worship a certain Kutkhu (i.e. the Raven-B.Z.) as their deity from whom came their people" (Krasheninnikov, 1949: p. 406).V. Jochelson noted that the Koryaks of the western coast of the Penjinsk bay called the Raven as Achichenyaku which means "Big Grandfather" (Jochelson, 1908: p. 17).The name is closely connected with the cult of appapil' (in Koryak: "grandfather") which occupies one of the central places in the mythological ideas of the Koryaks who are direct ancestors of the family or community endowed with the shaman gift and who protect their descendents.They called him Big grandfather because with the Koryaks the Raven was taken to be not only a family or community ancestor but an all-tribal ancestor as it is with all the Paleoasians.Now let us recollect that the Yakut Khorolors taking the Raven in their myths as the all-Khorolor personage also called him "Our Lord the grandfather".This enables us to state that the Raven was a totemic ancestor of not only that part of the Khorolor ethnos that takes its origin from him directly but of all the Khorolors.
Another part of the Khorolors thought the Eagle (Khotoi) to be their forefather who flew to them from the country of Khoro sire as the Raven too.The Buryat Khori did not have the cult of the Eagle.One should note that the Eagle in contrast to the Raven is represented in one hypostasis of the ancestor.This is evidenced by the tradition of taking his name as a taboo: Khotoi was substituted for by khoro.In this connection V. M. Ionov wrote that instead of khotoi тöрÿттäх ("descending from the eagle") they say khoro тöрÿттäх ("descending from the khoro"), khoro is used instead of khotoi for the sake of precaution kharystan (protecting as the Yakuts say) (Ionov, 1913: pp. 2-3).
The "Eagle" clans like those of the "Raven" created the myths of their forefather the Eagle but their contribution to the Khorolor folklore is not great.This is accounted for by a big predominance in the ethnical composition of the Khorolors of those who were originated from the Raven.One of such myths was written down from V. M. Ionov.Once in spring a woman on horseback was coming back from Aldan to the river Tattu.Her horse and herself were hungry, they were dead tired and quite exhausted.All of a sudden she saw a wood grouse falling down from above and not far off an eagle that was perching on a tree.The woman understood that the eagle knocked down in flight the wood grouse just for her.She bowed three times before him and said: "Eagle, the lord grandfather!May it be your joyful meeting prepared by you to save me for you know that I am walking quite tired along the mistress-road with eight windings!"(Ionov, 1913: pp. 11-13).
In this myth one should take note of the address to the Eagle in the same way as to the Raven: "Lord the grandfather" which is associated with the Koryak cult appapil'.This confirms the conclusion of the Eagle being a totemic forefather of a part of the Khorolors.In a broader context this form of address is another unquestionable argument in favor of the Paleoasian origin of the whole of the Khorolor community and at the same time a most convincing argument not in favor of the hypothesis of the identity of the Khorolors and the Buryat Khoris.With the latter the whole tribal mythology is reduced to one myth of the hunter by name of Khoridoi-mergen whose marriage with the swanbird on the lakeside who turned into a girl helped initiate the formation of the eleven Khori clans.This myth in its structure and content sharply contrasts with the "Raven" and the "Eagle" Khorolor myths which are undoubtedly the reflection of a different world outlook and world view of the Khorolors and the Khoris and, which is most important, of their quite different origin.
The eagle cult is vividly displayed in the ritual connected with the death of the bird sacred for the Khorolors.In the late 1930s, a prominent collector of the Yakut folklore A. A. Savvin left the following note.An old eagle before his death flies to a dwelling.When he dies, the people sacrifie a heifer to him.They put a piece of the heart to his beak, wrap up the body in bark and put it in the embranchment of a tree.They orient the eagle's beak in the South and utter the following words: "The lord our grandfather, we raised your remains, put your copper bones on the arangas".If the man does not fulfil the eagle's wish to be buried like this, then he and his family are to fall ill with acute rheumatism of joints, lose the ability to move and often die in terrible pain (AYaSC.Inv.No. 12. F. 69.Sh. 26,[32][33][34][35]. With the Indians of North-West America the Raven at one and the same time was not only an all-tribal but also a fratrial ancestor.The Raven was another fratrial ancestor.This opposition remains up to now.Since common ethnical components were presented in the formation of Paleoasians and Na-denespeaking Indians of America one can state that the fratrial arrangement of the tribe was typical for the Khorolors too.The fact that a part of the Khorolors worshipped the Raven whereas the other one worshipped the Eagle as the totemic forefather is a good evidence of their being one tribal community by the time of their arrival in the Middle Lena comprising both the groups of the Raven and the Eagle.The domination of the "Raven's" fraternity as with the American Indians is accounted for by the historical asymmetry in favor of the Raven.The subsequent settlement of the Khorolors almost throughout Yakutia weakened and broke the relations between those fraternal groups as well as among certain groups within each of them.Therefore small parts of the once integrated ethnical formation in the new territories of inhabitation obtained a common name of the Khoro.In the majority of the districts it led to the loss o f the clan names.The exclusions were some compact groups of the Khorolors in Central Yakutia (a bright illustration to it: the Khorolors of the Ust'-Aldan district) who preserved their former clan name as well as their interclan division.

Discussion: Paleoasian Origin of the Khorolors
Since the Khorolors are genetically connected with the Paleasians one can assume that they came from the North-West of Asia.But almost in all the legends there persists an idea of the arrival of the Khorolors from a warm Southern land.According to the direction of their movement to the North and their sub-sequent settling in Yakutia one might assume that they had formerly lived in the undercurrent of the Amur.Probably there was a country Khoro sire from where the old man Uluu Khoro arrived in the Middle Lena.The legends make it clear that having crossed the rivers Aldan, Amga and Tatta in the South-East of Yakutia he settled first in the locality of Myuryu belonging at present to the Borogon ulus but was driven from there by Bert Khara who had been living there since long ago.Then Uluu Khoro settled on the Western bank of the Lena (where the city of Yakutsk is situated now) from where later on his descendents under the pressure of the Kangalassk head Tygyn went deeper to the West and occupied some lands for permanent inhabitation in the Upper-Vilyui Suntar uluses .
In good agreement with the Khorolor legends is the scientific viewpoint at present revealing that of great importance in the genesis of the Paleoasians were the western (from the continental areas of Siberia) and southern (from the areas in the Lower Amur and Primoriye) sources (Meletinski, 1979: p. 13; The history of the Koryaks, 1993: p. 16).The Khorolors were assumed to be a part of the southern Paleoasian branch.In favor of this assumption is the fact that to the south of the city Khabarovsk in the lower current of the Ussuri there are the toponyms like Khor which are to my mind the markers of the habitat of ancient ancestors of the Khorolors.This idea is probably supported by vague information in a number of early Chinese and Korean chronicles (Vei lyue, Lyan shu, Lun'khen, Bei shi, etc.) of there being "a barbarian state" to the north-east of the Chinese estates, one of the names of which was Kori [Jarylgasinova 1972: pp. 62, 89-96].This "state" of Kori is perhaps that very country Khoro sire where the Khorolors had been living before they left and after some wandering found themselves in .
Generally acknowledged in the Korean studies is the view that in the ethnogenesis of the Koreans of great importance was a Northern Paleoasian component (Jarylgasinova, 1972: p. 176;Vorob'yov, 1994: pp. 158-166).There is an opinion that one of the ancestors of the Koreans by name of Tonmyon having left the locality which is in a number of sources called Kori and having reached the area of Puyo became the progenitor of the people of the same name.His successor became Chumon who left Puyo, went far into the Korean peninsula and became the forefather of the people Koguryo that had formerly got separated from Puyo.It is assumed that the myths of those heroes reflect the two stages of the ethnical history of the closely-related peoples of the Puyo and Koguryo.The myths depict the reminiscences of the migration of their ancestors from the North to the Southern territories (Jarylgasinova, 1972: p. 92).
There are a few dates of migration of Chumon from Puyo to the South as given by scholars.Most reliable among them is the one given by N. Ya.Bichurin in his commentary to "Bei shi".(Bichurin, 1950: p. 50).According to the sources Chumon came to Koguryo not alone but with his two companions whose names were Oyin and Ovi.It is noteworthy that in "Vei shu" when giving the names of Chumon's companions the first syllable in them was written as the hieroglyf o (Chinese u) which means "raven" (Jarylgasinova 1972: 96).Chumon's companions as well as himself and his consanguinity predecessor Tonmyon are most likely the personification of ethnic groups of Paleoasians who worshipped the Raven and came from Kori to Puyo and further to Koguryo.This is also substantiated by the fact that in Koguryo the image of the Raven, the main deity of the Paleoasians, was not only forgotten but was further developed having obtained important additional functions.With the Koguryo people the Sun whose cult was one of the most important was depicted on the tombs of their chieftain in the form of a three-pawed Raven (Jarylgasinova, 1972: p. 165).Taking into account the whole material given one might suppose that the ethnical groups of Paleoasians whose forefathers were Tonmyon and Chumon who joined the Koreans represented in fact parts of the Khorolor ethnos living on the banks of the Lower Amur in the area of the Kori.It follows that since the chief forefathers of the Koreans Tonmyon and Chumon were Paleoasian Khorolors then the name of their ancient motherland Kori underlies the name of the people Koguryo (Koryo) who united within the borders of a state of the same name the population of the Korean peninsula.There are some other hypotheses, e.g. that the ethnonym koguryo originated from an Old Korean word kuru-"town, city", a nanai word golo-"estate", an evenk word karko-"bear", etc.But they are unconvincing in view of their being quite groundless and lack of distinct argumentation.
It is appropriate give here the results of the latest studies of geneticists.They evidenced that 70% -80% of the variants of mitochondrial DNA of Koreans bear resemblance to the population of North-East Asia whereas 20% -30% to the population of South China and South-East Asia (Pan Min Kyu & Bakholdina 2008: p. 158).The first figure that cannot be taken as quite unexpected well correlates with the subject of the present article.It does confirm the opinion just advanced by me that the ancestors of Paleoasians and Koreans residing more to the South and North of the present inhabitation area of their descendants presented once a unified ethnos, with a part of it, namely that of the Khorolors, inhabiting the Amur lower reaches.The material at our disposal evidences of the fact that from among the Paleoasians the most noticeable part in the ethnogenesis and even politogenesis of Koreans was played by the Khoro community.Therefore one can extrapolate the results of the mitochondrial DNA of Koreans studies just to this Khoro community.Thus one might say with full confidence that in the ethnogenetical aspect the Koreans (the Koguryos) are close both to the peoples of North-East Asia on the whole and to the Yakut Khorolors, being closer to a greater extent just to the latter.
All that is given above can imply that in the last centuries BC the ancestors of the Khorolors under the name of the Khoro resided in the Lower Čis-Amuriye.Departure of a part of them to the North to Yakutia, the other part's joining the Korean people evidences of the fact that it was a big Paleoasian ethnos with all the main components of ethnic culture.In my view, the exotic and incomprehensible to the Yakuts Khorolor language (khoro tyla) was an ancient Paleoasian language that together with its native speakers had been functioning for some time in the area of the Middle Lena.This might be said of the Khorolor clothes too that were excavated by archaeologist Ye.D. Strelkov.The patterns discovered by him are hard to identify for they differ from all known traditional clothes of the Siberian peoples.One might suppose that they represent the elements of an ancient Paleoasian costume used by the Khorolors on the Lower Amur before their move to Yakutia.This loose jacket opening down the back is most close to the Evenks' clothes.That's not surprising for relying on the elegant conception by Yu.B. Simchenko on the ethnogenesis of the ancient hunters for wild deer of the North Euroasia one can assume that an ancient tungus component played a considerable role in the formation of the ancestors of the Paleoasions (Simchenko, 1976: p. 39).One could suggest that the buried people had the funeral clothes on which owing to the special functional setting could have kept for so long, up to the middle of the XVIII century and remained in the ethnical culture of the Khorolors.Initially this kind of clothes might have been used in everyday life.But on the arrival of the Khorolors in Yakutia when the traditional clothes passed out of use due to their being not adapted to the severe climate some of its elements were used in the ritual ial clothes.
It goes without saying that in the Priamuriye the Khorolors had many similar features with the local population in everyday life and culture.In particular, the Khorolors were also engaged in breeding and using the bull as draught and transport animal.This animal as with many other East-Asian peoples was introduced in the system of their religious rites connected, for example, with the cult of nature.Therefore it was not unusual that according to the legends the ancestor of the Khorolors Uluu Khoro arrived in Yakutia on the bull.The sacral meaning of the bull persisted for a while after their move to Yakutia which is evidenced by his being mentioned in legends along with the Raven.In one of them it is said that in the Jabyl'sk locality of the Meginsk ulus there lived the people of the Khoro clan.In the old times a man from the Western Khoro Kangalas decided to move there.In order to examine the land he crossed the river (the Lena-B.Z.) on back of a white bull and having examined the eastern side of the river came back home.During that trip in the east in the Tatta land he broke his leg and lay dying with hunger and cold.Then the Raven who flew up threw him a tinder-box with fire stone with the help of which he made fire and remained alive (AYaSC. Inv. No. 3. F. 652. Sh. 10).
According to a well spread view the direct ancestors of the Chukchas, Koryaks and Itel'mens who were hunters for wild deer appeared in the area of the northern coast of the Okhotskoye sea and Southern Chukotka in the middle of the I millennium AD. (Arutyunov & Sergeyev, 1975: pp. 195-196).It was there that the formation of the ethnic community of the northeastern Paleoasians occured.As for the Khorolors in order to determine the time of their arrival in the Middle Lena one should orient at the Yakut legends of the first stage of settlement.Almost all of them think Omogoi to be the first settler.There is a viewpoint that the escape of the Tiurk-speaking groups from the Baikal down along the Lena where the formation of the Yakut people began took place in the X-XI centuries under the pressure of the Mongols.But recently the new data have been discovered according to which the appearance of the first Mongols in the western coast of the Baikal where the main bulk of the prayakut clans lived took place supposedly at the beginning of the VIII century (Zoriktuev, 2011: p. 204).This means that at the end of the I millennium when the ancestors of the Yakuts who had left for the Middle Lena were developing new territories, the Khorolors arrived there from the land of Khoro sire located in the Lower Amur and in the course of time became an indispensable and important part of the Yakut people.

Conclusion
The analysis of the mythological and ethnographical material of the Khorolors of Yakutia provides convincing data of the in-correctness of the hypothesis of their common origin with the Buryat tribal group of the Khori who reside in Transbaikaliya.The "Raven" and the "Eagle" myths, their typological similarity with the analogous myths of the North-Eastern Paleoasians and Indians of North-West America vividly evidence of the common ethnogenesis of the Khorolors and the peoples mentioned.The original motherland of the Khorolors called Khoro sire was located in the lower course of the Amur from where they arrived supposedly in the end of the I millennium A.D. to the Middle Lena and became part of the Yakuts.
The problem should be further studied in two lines.It is important to deeply study the folklore and ethnography of the Koreans, in particular of the Koguryo.The tracing in them of a past Paleoasian culture will be a most convincing argument in favor of the reliability of the hypothesis of the common origin and common original motherland of the Koguryo and the Khorolor (the "state" of Kori and the locality of Khoro sire) on the Lower Amur.A comparative study of the Khorolor words and expressions found in the notes and the living languages of the North-East Paleoasians should be made on the basis of the newest methods.This will enable detecting in them common elements of deep structural identity which is to eventually clarify the issue of the Paleoasian origin of the Khorolors of Yakutia.

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.The clothes of the Khorolors richly decorated with braids of leather with a through pattern(Soviet Ethnography, 1936, No. 2-3).