Nivkh People - Diet

Diet

The Nivkh had a diverse diet being semi-nomadic before colonization. Fish was the main source of food for the Nivkh, such as pink, Pacific, and chum salmon, Trout, Red Eye, burbot and pike found in rivers and streams. Salt water fishing provided saffron cod, flatfish, and marine goby caught in the littoral coasts of the Strait of Tartary, Sea of Okhotsk, and the Pacific Ocean, though over fishing by Russian and Japanese trawlers have depleted many of these fish stocks. Additionally, industrial pollution such as phenols and heavy metals in the Amur River have devastated fish stocks and damaged the Estuaries' soil. A traditional preservation process called Yukola, involving slicing the fish in a particular way and drying the strips by hanging them in the frigid air, without salt, was used before foreign influences. The preservation process created a lot of dried fish waste, unpalatable for human consumption but utilized for dog food. Pulverizing dried fish and mixing it with fish skins, water, seal fat, and berries until the mixture had a sour cream consistency is a favorite Nivkh dish called mos'. Nivkhs would hunt seal (Larha, Reinged, Reibbon, Sea-lions), duck, sable, and otters. They would gather various berries, wild leeks, lilybulbs, and nuts. Contacts with the Chinese, Manchu, and Japanese from the 12th century on introduced new foods incorporated in the Nivkhs diet such as salt, sugar, rice, millet, legumes and tea. Russian 19th century colonisation introduced flour, bread, potatoes, vodka, tobacco, butter, canned vegetables and fruits, and other meats.