The Tsaatan (named also Dukha, Dukhans or Duhalar) are a small Tuvan (Tozhu Tuvans) Turkic community of reindeer herders living in northern Mongolia. The North Taiga band was organized under the Qing Dynasty as part of Uriyankhai banner. With Mongolian independence in 1911, the banner became part of independent Tuva, which was annexed by the Russians in 1944, leaving only North Taiga band on the Mongolian side of the frontier. The South Taiga group of the Tsaatan and other Uriankhais fled over the frontier from Tuva to avoid conscription in the 1930s. At first, the Mongolian government repeatedly deported them back to Tuva, but in 1956 finally gave them citizenship and resettled them at Tsagaan Nuur Lake on the Shishigt River. Only 44 Tsaatan families remained, totaling somewhere between 200 and 400 people.
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