“My people are the Onkilons. And this land is ours, conquered by our ancestors. My name is Amnundak. I am the leader of the Onkilons. " This excerpt is taken from the famous novel by V. Obruchev "The Land of Sanniyov". This is how the first acquaintance of travelers with the inhabitants of Sannikov Land - the mysterious Onkilons, happened. V. Obruchev's novel is considered fantastic, so everyone seems to get used to the fact that the Onkilons were also invented by the author and never existed.
Mysterious dugouts
However, it is not. Here's another excerpt. It is taken from an essay by the contemporary author Oleg Kuvaev, who never invented anything. He described only what he saw himself.
“We went down the green slope of the island to the boat, and I saw large, like mounds, hillocks, and from a distance it was clear that these were the remains of the dwellings of the legendary Onkilons - sea people who set such dugouts along the shores of Chukotka, and then somewhere disappeared ….
These hillocks-dwellings Kuvaev saw on the island of Shalaurov - a relatively small one, located near the low-lying swampy coast to the east of Cape Shelagsky. These are all pretty deserted places. On the island of Shalaurov itself, during Kuvaev's journey, there was a small post with a radio station. The task of the post was hydrometeorological service of ships passing through the East Siberian Sea and ice reconnaissance aircraft flying over this region. There was none of the archaeologists, with enthusiasm looking for objects of life and culture of the mysterious sea people. It is quite possible that none of the specialists have been there until now.
The dwellings of the Onkilons were surprisingly well adapted for a settled life in the harsh North. For supports, logs were used, as a rule, fin. The base of the dwelling was usually a square of four vertically set logs. At the top, they were tied with thick crossbars. A hole was left in the central part of the roof for smoke and lighting at the same time. Inclined logs were placed against the thick crossbeams, with the other end resting on the ground. The result was a cross-like structure. In the central part there was a hearth where food was prepared. The rest of the parts could have been "bedrooms".
Everything described is undoubtedly some kind of reconstruction, since by the time the Russians explored these places, the Onkilons were no longer here.
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"Tales" by Lieutenant Wrangel
In the 20s of the XIX century, a wonderful Russian traveler and explorer Ferdinand Petrovich Wrangel worked on the coast of northeastern Siberia. In those days he was still a lieutenant, but already then he was the head of a large expedition. Its tasks included the study and description of the coast to the east of the mouth of the Kolyma River. After these works, Wrangel went to the Bear Islands, then passed with ice from Cape Shelagsky to the north almost to 71 degrees north latitude, but did not find new lands.
Nevertheless, using the oral stories ("fairy tales") of the Chukchi, he mapped a large island that separates the Chukchi and East Siberian Seas and is now called Wrangel Island. Wrangel himself never got to the island named after him.
From the same Chukchi, during his wanderings, he heard "fairy tales" about the Onkilon people.
According to "fairy tales", this people is sedentary. Fleeing from the nomads, they, together with their leader, set off "to an unknown land, visible from Cape Yakan in clear weather." The leader's name was Krehai. Wrangel suggested that the Onkilons took refuge on a then uninhabited island, which he described and mapped.
Sixty years before Wrangel, Colonel Fyodor Plenisner, who was keen on looking for new lands in the Russian northeast, apparently heard the "fairy tale" about the exodus of the Onkilons. Plenisner participated in a number of special expeditions, and after that he himself organized expeditions to search for new lands.
Using the "tales" of the Chukchi, Plenisner mapped the island of Kitegen, inhabited by Khrohai, apparently the descendants of the leader Krekhay. It is interesting that he did not attribute the population of this island to any of the tribes of the northeast of Siberia known to him.
The name "hrohai" did not catch on. But the name "Onkilons" and stuck with this mysterious people.
So, the Onkilons, a sea people who lived for a long time settled on the coast of Chukotka, “set up” many large dugouts of a very complicated design, really existed, but could not withstand clashes with nomads. Where this people came from and where they disappeared - remains a mystery to this day. Let's try to consider some assumptions.
Arctida
Now a lot is being written about the possibility of the existence in ancient times of the large continent Arctida, located on the site of the present Arctic Ocean. The hypothesis of the existence and disappearance of Arctida seems even more probable than the hypothesis of Atlantis, although a colossal number of articles and books have been written about Atlantis. So much has not been written about Arctida. Arctida, of course, did not completely occupy the entire ocean within its present borders, but it was still not an island, but the mainland. It is assumed that on this continent there was a highly developed civilization of the Hyperboreans at that time.
Let's try to make a start from this well-known hypothesis and suppose that the sea people of the Onkilons are people from Hyperborea. As a result of the death of Arctida, which took place very slowly on a historical scale, the inhabitants of Hyperborea migrated to the south. In particular, one of them is the direction through the modern Kola Peninsula and Karelia. The traces of this supposed migration, apparently, were first discovered by the Russian scientist-encyclopedist A. Barchenko (“the occultist of the country of the Soviets,” as he is sometimes called), and recently, Doctor of Sciences V. Demin has been enthusiastically engaged in the search and study of such traces.
But now practically nobody is engaged in the supposed direction of migration through the northeast of Siberia.
Meanwhile, on Cape Shalaurov, which is located about 70 kilometers east of Shalaurov Island with the remains of Onkilon dwellings, there are very strange objects that have come from nowhere. Here is how Kuvaev describes them: “We gasped not because of its majestic views, but because on it (the cape) stood and looked at us with nosed stone people. That year they wrote a lot about Easter Island and these stone figures, it seemed, were thrown here by an unknown transport …”.
A completely natural question arises: who installed these stone statues on the Chukchi coast? After all, they are not nomads! Why do they need it? But the sea people - the Onkilons - such structures on the seashore, sharply distinguished from the surrounding landscape, could be vital. For example, for navigation purposes.
It is hardly worth discussing the level of "civilization" of the former Hyperboreans here. It is doubtful that he was as great as the Greek sources suggest. But, regardless of the Greek ideas about "civilization", it is impossible to imagine a "sea people" who do not know how to navigate the high seas and near the coasts. Moreover, the people who have settled on these coasts.
What happened after the clashes with the nomads and the departure of the Onkilons to the northern islands?
Of course, the easiest way is to assume that they couldn't survive and died. Sadly, this is the most likely outcome. However, there remains an interesting possibility that many of them did escape. This opportunity is associated with the Arctic "ghost islands".
Traveling Islands
Some of the "ghost islands" were discovered already in historical times, and then disappeared. Such islands probably existed during the "exodus" of the Onkilons. One of the most probable hypotheses for the disappearance of the "ghost islands" is their melting, since in the Arctic many islands have a "support" from the permafrost. They can melt from above, then shallows remain in their place. They can melt from below because of the currents, then they, like a solid island, "are unanchored" and drift across the vast expanses of the Arctic Ocean.
At present, the drift paths of perennial ice from the Chukchi Sea are well studied. Ice passes near the North Pole and falls further to the skerry coast of North America. Already in historical times, "ghost islands" were also discovered near this coast, for example, Kinnon's Land or Tak-Puka Land. It is curious that one of the drift lines enters the rather wide and deep-water Amundsen Bay, which, on one side, washes the Canadian coast of the mainland, and on the other, the coast of Victoria Island.
But the assumption about the possible salvation of the Onkilons could remain purely speculative if it were not for the published reports that on the coast of Victoria Island (Canadian archipelago) in 2001, a four-meter statue similar to the stone idols of Easter Island was discovered as on the deserted Chukchi shore.
Magazine: Secrets of the 20th century №51. Author: Maxim Klimov, doctor of physics and mathematics. sciences, professor