The vast expanses of Siberia are inhabited by an amazing relict people, the smallest in Russia - the Tofalars. There are only about 700 representatives of this small ethnic group. Their history goes back to hoary antiquity, and no one knows when and where the Tofalars came to Siberian land, who their ancestors were, and why their ancient legends contain accurate astronomical data. There is an assumption that Tofalars are from outer space …
Dissimilar and not "local"
The fact that the Tofalars are a mysterious people and not too “local”, despite the centuries-old history of living on this harsh land, is already evidenced by their appearance. There are some differences between Tofalars and their closest neighbors - Altai, Khakass, Tuvim and Buryats.
Real Tofalars have not yellow skin, as is usually the case with Mongoloids, but grayish, which is generally quite strange - few can boast of such a rare shade. And the cut of the eyes is also by no means Mongoloid - the eyes of the Tofalars are curved in a different way. They are shorter than other Siberian peoples - a rare Tofalar man grows above 160 cm.
The differences cannot be said that they are striking, and people who are not very attentive will not distinguish the indigenous Tofalar from other small peoples living in the neighborhood, but for ethnographers the Tofalars are truly unique.
People and geese
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Why are Tofalars called Tofalars? The question is also very interesting, one might say - a mystery.
For the first time, this people is mentioned in the Chinese chronicles dating back to the 5th century AD, and the Chinese called them the word "tubo" or "dubo". The Tofalars themselves, until the 1930s, called themselves Karagas, which presumably means "black geese". Such a self-name indicates the totemic nature of the origin of the self-name and reflects ancient beliefs.
But after the 1930s, when the Tofalars found themselves in the strong "embrace" of Soviet propaganda, it became somehow not "communist" to be called "black geese". And instead of Karagas, Tofa or Tofalars appeared - also a self-name, and Karagas suddenly became an offensive nickname.
Meanwhile, "tofa" is a word that is still not clear. Nobody knows what it really means. Previously, it was believed that "man", but a man in Tofalar is "kishi", and the mysterious tofa, as it turns out, has no meaning at all.
Also, the territory in which the Tofalars lived and which was formerly called Karagasia, after 1934 began to be called Tofalaria. On the geographical map, this is an area of southern Siberia, namely, the valley of the Uda River and the northeastern slopes of the Eastern Sayan Mountains, not far from Irkutsk.