Yerle Qalıq

Yerle Qalıq, meaning older inhabitants, is the self-name of the indigenous Siberian Tatars, distinguishing them from later Volga Tatar settlers. This Turkic population between the Urals and the Yenisei formed from hunters Turkified by Kipchaks from the eleventh century, later absorbing Tatar clans.

From 1242 the country belonged to the Golden Horde; on its breakup the Taibugid khans founded the Khanate of Sibir, ruling from Chimgi-Tura and then Qashliq. Kuchum seized the throne in 1563 and tried to enforce Islam; his raids drew the Cossack Yermak into Siberia. Kuchum was beaten at Chuvash Cape in 1582 and routed on the Ob in 1598, opening the Russian conquest of Siberia.

The Yerle Qalıq became the tsar's yasak-paying subjects, living by hunting and horse breeding. Sunni Islam, adopted from the fourteenth century and general by the late eighteenth, sat alongside shamanic customs.