In the Russian 2010 and 2021 censuses, two people identified as Kamassian and listed under the subgroup "other nationalities".[2][3] Also, 21 people, comprising 0.5% of the population of Sayansky District, are declared as Kamasins and their descendants by the district administration in the official tourist guide (2021).[4]
Kamassian settlement — the stand of the Uner rural locality at the Sayan Bird Fest, Aginskoye, July 2023
The origins of the Kamasins remain obscure but it is believed that they are descended from Proto-Samoyed tribes. Around the 17th century, the Kamasins moved and settled along the Kan and Mana rivers. Later on the Kamasins were partly Turkicized.[5]
In the late 19th century, the Kamasins were split into two groups: The Taiga and the Steppe Kamasins,[5] each with their own distinct dialect.
The Taiga Kamasins engaged in hunting, reindeer breeding and fishing. The Taiga Kamasins spoke the Kamass dialect of Kamassian until the early 20th century.[5]
Many of the Kamasins had assimilated into the Russianpeasantry by the early 20th century.[5] Other Kamasins were assimilated into the Koibal subgroup of the Khakass and underwent Turkification.[7] The Kamasins are now ethnically classified as Koibal Khakass or Russian.[5][6]
In 1989, Klavdiya Plotnikova, the last Native speaker of the Kamassian language, died. She was half Kamassian.
Ago Künnap, in an 1999 essay on the Kamassian language,[8] indicates that there are no more than 50 descendants of Kamasins.
In the All-Russian population censuses of 2010[2] and 2021,[3] 2 people indicated being of Kamasin ethnicity.
The unified tourist passport of the Sayansky district of the Krasnoyarsk Krai (developed by the local administration in 2021) shows the ethnic composition of the district's population. 0.2% of the total population of 10,500 people (=21 people) are attributed to the Kamasins, the indigenous people.[4]
^ abcdefAkiner, Shirin (1986). Islamic peoples of the Soviet Union : with an appendix on the non-Muslim Turkic peoples of the Soviet Union : an historical and statistical handbook (2nd ed.). London: KPI. p. 431. ISBN0-7103-0188-X.
Russia
