Volgid: some Mari and Udmurts

[Liquid Len]

Lundman wrote about the Volgid race:

In eastern Russia we frequently have a very small, dark, high-skulled and also long-skulled (dolichocephalic) race - the Volgid. This race has a broader, somewhat protomorphic face and a smaller, plumper nose. The Volgid race is high in the frequency of blood type gene q. Strains of a similar race are found westward to Bohemia, where it is known as the "Sudeten-race."

A. Caspid Southeastern High-Skulled Racial Group.
I. More boreal body build.
a) Face somewhat protomorphic.
1. Eye sockets often somewhat slanted. More-or-less high in frequency of blood type gene q.
+ Volgid Race: dark pigmented, very short-statured, thickset, long- to medium-skulled

Some say it's a subtype of "Uralic", but well, there are many Uralic peoples who look quite different, and the NE-Russians with their Uralic admixture on average as well. So it may be questioned if that makes any sense.

I've picked out some without too strong and obvious Mongoloid admixture:

Mari:



Udmurts:



They are both Volga Finnish peoples.

And for comparison a drawing of an extreme Sudetian woman:

[Ilmatar]

Interesting post ! However, the Mongoloid admixture both Mari and Udmurts demostrate isn't necessarely of "Uralic" origin. Both Udmurts and Mari were part of the Volga Bulgaria, Golden Horde and even Khanate of Kazan. There still are considerable ethnic Tatar minorities both in Urmurtia and the Mari Republic. I don't know if Lundman took this into the considartion....

[Mike the Jedi]

Wow, if those are the unextreme examples, I'd love to see the extreme ones!



From the front, I thought this guy looked perfectly Caucasian, but from the side, his profile is very Mongoloid-esque.

[zemelmete]

Soon I'll post photos of mari (as I promised). They really look interesting.

[Liquid Len]

cheeks said:

Interesting post ! However, the Mongoloid admixture both Mari and Udmurts demostrate isn't necessarely of "Uralic" origin. Both Udmurts and Mari were part of the Volga Bulgaria, Golden Horde and even Khanate of Kazan. There still are considerable ethnic Tatar minorities both in Urmurtia and the Mari Republic. I don't know if Lundman took this into the considartion....

Lundman didn't write about Uralic admixture. For him the Volgid type was simply a subrace of Caucasoid. (Albeit now more or less mixed with Mongoloids.)
But Bunak for example doesn't use the word Volgid; instead he subsumes these ethnicities to his Uralic complex, to the Uralic type or race, which according to him is most clearly visible at present among the Mari, the Udmurts and the Permjaks. He doesn't commit himself to whether it's a Mongoloid, Caucasoid or mixed type; he mentions only that there are various theories about its origin.

zemelmete said:

Soon I'll post photos of mari (as I promised). They really look interesting.

Yes; and from the bit that I've heard (Värttinä) they've got some nice folk music too.

[Liquid Len]

waldm said:

He doesn't commit himself to whether it's a Mongoloid, Caucasoid or mixed type

I've just seen: He does commit himself in presenting his (seemingly?) own hypothesis that the Uralic type got developped during the Mesolithic and Neolithic independently from the Mongoloid formation process. Little differentiated characteristics such as a relatively flat upper face, slight alveolar prognathism and a weak growth of beard thus got preserved in the isolated forest and marsh areas. In Siberia this starting type got altered through Mongoloid influence, while it remained better recognizable west of the Urals. In support of this hypothesis he mentions the fact that the Voguls are in all body- and head dimensions more gracile than the supposed starting types of the mixture (Andronov type and northern Mongoloids) and some characteristics don't fit into the merging hypothesis.

[Ilmatar]

Yes; and from the bit that I've heard (Värttinä) they've got some nice folk music too.

Värttinä are actually Finnish Karelians. Main influence to their music is Karelian, but they do draw influences from the folklore of various Finno-Ugric popolations, most notably from
the Setu people.

They even have made a record called Ilmatar.

[zemelmete]

Finally I have scanned some pictures of mari from one book:








Russian anthropologists count mari into sub-uralic category which is closely related to uralic in Western Siberia and Ural mountains. It might be true because many mari really do resemble ob-ugrians.

[zemelmete]

Do you think they have cro-magnid influence?

[jam]

More recent Mari:




This is from a page called Uralica!
uralica.com/

[zemelmete]

jam said:

More recent Mari:

This photo also is in my book. I suggested to post older pictures because I thought mari earlier were less mixed than nowdays.

jam said:

She seems has tatar influence, because looks more turanid.

[jam]

There's some info here:
www.suri.ee/

Although some of it is in Estonian language, it is also in English.

This udmurt (if that's what she is) has very similar drum and clothes to the Sámi?
( I made it an url link, as the picture is big)
www.suri.ee/hoimup/hp2001/olga2.jpg

Unfortunately, the page is in Estonian:
www.suri.ee/hoimup/hp2001/olga.html

[Liquid Len]

zemelmete said:

Russian anthropologists count mari into sub-uralic category which is closely related to uralic in Western Siberia and Ural mountains. It might be true because many mari really do resemble ob-ugrians.

Obviously there isn't much consensus about the meaning of "Uralic". To some Russian anthropologists it means something quite Mongoloid, at least if they take the Western Siberians as typical for it. To Bunak on the other hand the Mari, Udmurts and Permyaks are the most Uralic of all. That means they had different ideas about what kind of type the term denoted.

Interesting pictures by the way. Some of them look really sort of "Sudetian".
That’s a Sudetian-Nordic from Saxony:

[One Humanity]

xcalator1 said:

Wow, if those are the unextreme examples, I'd love to see the extreme ones!

It would be great for comparison to the already provided pictures, yes.

[Liquid Len]

Alright, here are the other two:

Udmurt:


Mari:


They're less Volgid than the others.