KAMCHATKAN NIGHTS' ENTERTAINMENTS--CHARACTER OF PEOPLE--SALMON-FISHING--
SABLE-TRAPPING--KAMCHADAL LANGUAGE--NATIVE MUSIC--DOG-DRIVING--WINTER
DRESS
After our unsuccessful attempt to pass the Samanka Mountains, there
was nothing for us to do but wait patiently at Lesnoi until the rivers
should freeze over, and snow fall to a depth which would enable us
to continue our journey to Gizhiga on dog-sledges. It was a long,
wearisome delay, and I felt for the first time, in its full force, the
sensation of exile from home, country, and civilisation. The Major
continued very ill, and would show the anxiety which he had felt about
the success of our expedition by talking deliriously for hours of
crossing the mountains, starting for Gizhiga in the whale-boat, and
giving incoherent orders to Viushin, Dodd, and myself, about horses,
dog-sledges, canoes, and provisions. The idea of getting to Gizhiga,
before the beginning of winter, filled his mind, to the exclusion of
everything else. His sickness made the time previous to Dodd's return
seem very long and lonesome, as I had absolutely nothing to do except
to sit in a little log room, with opaque fish-bladder windows, and
pore over Shakespeare and my Bible, until I almost learned them by
heart. In pleasant weather I would sling my rifle across my back and
spend whole days in roaming over the mountains in pursuit of reindeer
and foxes; but I rarely met with much success. One deer and a few
arctic ptarmigan were my only trophies. At night I would sit on the
transverse section of a log in our little kitchen, light a rude
Kamchadal lamp, made with a fragment of moss and a tin cup full of
seal oil, and listen for hours to the songs and guitar-playing of the
Kamchadals, and to the wild stories of perilous mountain adventure
which they delighted to relate. I learned during these Kamchatkan
Nights' Entertainments many interesting particulars of Kamchadal life,
customs, and peculiarities of which I had before known nothing;
and, as I shall have no occasion hereafter to speak of this curious
little-known people, I may as well give here what account I can of
their language, music, amusements, superstitions, and mode of life.
The people themselves I have already described as a quiet,
inoffensive, hospitable tribe of semi-barbarians, remarkable only
for honesty, general amiability, and comical reverence for legally
constituted authority. Such an idea as rebellion or resistance to
oppression is wholly foreign to the Kamchadal character _now_,
whatever it may have been in previous ages of independence. They will
suffer and endure any amount of abuse and ill-treatment, without any
apparent desire for revenge, and with the greatest good-nature and
elasticity of spirit. They are as faithful and forgiving as a dog. If
you treat them well, your slightest wish will be their law; and they
will do their best in their rude way to show their appreciation of
kindness, by anticipating and meeting even your unexpressed wants.
During our stay at Lesnoi the Major chanced one day to inquire for
some milk. The _starosta_ did not tell him that there was not a cow
in the village, but said that he would try to get some. A man was
instantly despatched on horseback to the neighbouring settlement of
Kinkil, and before night he returned with a champagne-bottle under his
arm, and the Major had milk that evening in his tea. From this time
until we started for Gizhiga--more than a month--a man rode twenty
miles every day to bring us a bottle of fresh milk. This seemed to be
done out of pure kindness of heart, without any desire or expectation
of future reward; and it is a fair example of the manner in which we
were generally treated by all the Kamchadals in the peninsula.
The settled natives of northern Kamchatka have generally two different
residences, in which they live at different seasons of the year. These
are respectively called the "zimovie" or winter settlement, and the
"letovie" (let'-o-vye) or summer fishing-station, and are from one to
five miles apart. In the former, which is generally situated under
the shelter of timbered hills, several miles from the seacoast, they
reside from September until June. The _letovie_ is always built near
the mouth of an adjacent river or stream, and consists of a few
_yurts_ or earth-covered huts, eight or ten conical _balagáns_ mounted
on stilts, and a great number of wooden frames on which fish are hung
to dry. To this fishing-station the inhabitants all remove early in
June, leaving their winter settlement entirely deserted. Even the dogs
and the crows abandon it for the more attractive surroundings and
richer pickings of the summer _balagáns._ Early in July the salmon
enter the river in immense numbers from the sea, and are caught by the
natives in gill-nets, baskets, seines, weirs, traps, and a dozen other
ingenious contrivances--cut open, cleaned, and boned by the women,
with the greatest skill and celerity, and hung in long rows upon
horizontal poles to dry. A fish, with all the confidence of sea life,
enters the river as a sailor comes ashore, intending to have a good
time; but before he fairly knows what he is about, he is caught in
a seine, dumped out upon the beach with a hundred more equally
unsophisticated and equally unfortunate sufferers, split open with
a big knife, his backbone removed, his head cut off, his internal
arrangements scooped out, and his mutilated remains hung over a pole
to simmer in a hot July sun. It is a pity that he cannot enjoy the
melancholy satisfaction of seeing the skill and rapidity with which
his body is prepared for a new and enlarged sphere of usefulness!
He is no longer a fish. In this second stage of passive unconscious
existence he assumes a new name, and is called a "yukala"
(yoo'-kah-lah).
It is astonishing to see in what countless numbers and to what great
distances these fish ascend the Siberian rivers. Dozens of small
streams which we passed in the interior of Kamchatka, seventy miles
from the seacoast, were so choked up with thousands of dying, dead,
and decayed fish, that we could not use the water for any purpose
whatever. Even in little mountain brooks, so narrow that a child could
step across them, we saw salmon eighteen or twenty inches in length
still working their way laboriously up stream, in water which was not
deep enough to cover their bodies. We frequently waded in and threw
them out by the dozen with our bare hands. They change greatly in
appearance as they ascend a river. When they first come in from the
sea their scales are bright and hard, and their flesh fat and richly
coloured; but as they go higher and higher up stream; their scales
lose their brilliancy and fall off, their flesh bleaches out until it
is nearly white, and they become lean, dry, and tasteless. For this
reason all the fishing-stations in Kamchatka are located, if possible,
at or near the mouths of rivers. To the instinct which leads the
salmon to ascend rivers for the purpose of depositing its spawn, is
attributable the settlement of all north-eastern Siberia. If it were
not for the abundance of fish, the whole country would be uninhabited
and uninhabitable, except by the Reindeer Koraks. As soon as the
fishing season is over, the Kamchadals store away their dried _yukala_
in _balagáns_ and return to their winter quarters to prepare for the
fall catch of sables. For nearly a month they spend all their time
in the woods and mountains, making and setting traps. To make a
sable-trap, a narrow perpendicular slot, fourteen inches by four in
length and breadth, and five inches in depth, is cut in the trunk of a
large tree, so that the bottom of the slot will be about at the height
of a sable's head when he stands erect. The stem of another smaller
tree is then trimmed, one of its ends raised to a height of three feet
by a forked stick set in the ground, and the other bevelled off so as
to slip up and down freely in the slot cut for its reception. This
end is raised to the top of the slot and supported there by a simple
figure-four catch, leaving a nearly square opening of about four
inches below for the admission of the sable's head. The figure-four is
then baited and the trap is ready. The sable rises upon his hind
legs, puts his head into the hole, and the heavy log, set free by the
dropping of the figure-four, falls and crushes the animal's skull,
without injuring in the slightest degree the valuable parts of his
skin. One native frequently makes and sets as many as a hundred of
these traps in the fall, and visits them at short intervals throughout
the winter. Not content, however, with this extensive and well
organised system of trapping sables, the natives hunt them upon
snow-shoes with trained dogs, drive them into holes which they
surround with nets, and then, forcing them out with fire or axe, they
kill them with clubs.
The number of sables caught in the Kamchatkan peninsula annually
varies from six to nine thousand, all of which are exported to Russia
and distributed from there over northern Europe. A large proportion of
the whole number of Russian sables in the European market are caught
by the natives of Kamchatka and transported by _American_ merchants
to Moscow. W.H. Bordman, of Boston, and an American house in
China--known, I believe, as Russell & Co.--practically control the fur
trade of Kamchatka and the Okhotsk seacoast. The price paid to the
Kamchadals for an average sable skin in 1867 was nominally fifteen
rubles silver, or about eleven dollars gold; but payment was made in
tea, sugar, tobacco, and sundry other articles of merchandise, at the
trader's own valuation, so that the natives actually realised only a
little more than half the nominal price. Nearly all the inhabitants of
central Kamchatka are engaged directly or indirectly during the winter
in the sable trade and many of them have acquired by it a comfortable
independence.
Fishing and sable-hunting, therefore, are the serious occupations of
the Kamchadals throughout the year; but as these are indications of
the nature of the country rather than of the characteristics of its
inhabitants, they give only an imperfect idea of the distinctive
peculiarities of Kamchadals and Kamchadal life. The language, music,
amusements, and superstitions of a people are much more valuable
as illustrations of their real character than are their regular
occupations.
The Kamchadal language is to me one of the most curious of all the
wild tongues of Asia; not on account of its construction, but simply
from the strange, uncouth sounds with which it abounds, and its
strangling, gurgling articulation. When rapidly spoken, it always
reminded me of water running out of a narrow-mouthed jug! A Russian
traveller in Kamchatka has said that "the Kamchadal language is spoken
half in the mouth and half in the throat"; but it might be more
accurately described as spoken half in the throat and half in the
stomach. It has more guttural sounds than any other Asiatic language
that I have ever heard, and differs considerably in this respect
from the dialects of the Chukchis and Koraks. It is what comparative
philologists call an agglutinative language, and seems to be made up
of permanent unchangeable roots with variable prefixes. It has, so far
as I could ascertain, no terminal inflections, and its grammar seemed
to be simple and easily learned. Most of the Kamchadals throughout
the northern part of the peninsula speak, in addition to their own
language, Russian and Korak, so that, in their way, they are quite
accomplished linguists.
It has always seemed to me that the songs of a people, and especially
of a people who have composed them themselves, and not adopted them
from others, are indicative to a very great degree of their character;
whether, as some author supposed, the songs have a reflex influence
on the character, or whether they exist simply as its exponents, the
result is the same, viz., a greater or less correspondence between the
two. In none of the Siberian tribes is this more marked than in the
Kamchadals. They have evidently never been a warlike, combative
people. They have no songs celebrating the heroic deeds of their
ancestors, or their exploits in the chase or in battle, as have many
tribes of our North American Indians. Their ballads are all of a
melancholy, imaginative character, inspired apparently by grief, love,
or domestic feeling, rather than by the ruder passions of pride,
anger, and revenge. Their music all has a wild, strange sound to a
foreign ear, but it conveys to the mind in some way a sense of sorrow,
and vague, unavailing regret for something that has for ever passed
away, like the emotion excited by a funeral dirge over the grave of a
dear friend. As Ossian says of the music of Carryl, "it is like the
memory of joys that are past--sweet, yet mournful to the soul." I
remember particularly a song called the Penzhinski, sung one night by
the natives at Lesnoi, which was, without exception, the sweetest, and
yet the most inexpressibly mournful combination of notes that I had
ever heard. It was a wail of a lost soul, despairing, yet pleading for
mercy. I tried in vain to get a translation of the words. Whether it
was the relation of some bloody and disastrous encounter with their
fiercer northern neighbours, or the lament over the slain body of some
dear son, brother, or husband, I could not learn; but the music alone
will bring the tears near one's eyes, and has an indescribable effect
upon the singers, whose excitable feelings it sometimes works up
almost to the pitch of frenzy. The dancing tunes of the Kamchadals
are of course entirely different in character, being generally very
lively, and made up of energetic staccato passages, repeated many
times in succession, without variation. Nearly all the natives
accompany themselves upon a three-cornered guitar with two strings,
called a _ballalaika_ (bahl-lah-lai'-kah), and some of them play quite
well upon rude home-made violins. All are passionately fond of music
of every kind.
The only other amusements in which they indulge are dancing, playing
football on the snow in winter, and racing with dog-teams.
The winter travel of the Kamchadals is accomplished entirely upon
dog-sledges, and in no other pursuit of their lives do they spend more
time or exhibit their native skill and ingenuity to better advantage.
They may even be said to have made dogs for themselves in the first
place, since the present Siberian animal is nothing more than a
half-domesticated arctic wolf, and still retains all his wolfish
instincts and peculiarities. There is probably no more hardy, enduring
animal in the world. You may compel him to sleep out on the snow in a
temperature of 70° below zero, drive him with heavy loads until his
feet crack open and stain the snow with blood, or starve him until
he eats up his harness; but his strength and his spirit seem alike
unconquerable. I have driven a team of nine dogs more than a hundred
miles in a day and a night, and have frequently worked them hard for
forty-eight hours without being able to give them a particle of food.
In general they are fed once a day, their allowance being a single
dried fish, weighing perhaps a pound and a half or two pounds. This
is given to them at night, so that they begin another day's work with
empty stomachs.
The sledge, or _nart_, to which they are harnessed is about ten
feet in length and two in width, made of seasoned birch timber, and
combines to a surprising degree the two most desirable qualities of
strength and lightness. It is simply a skeleton framework, fastened
together with lashings of dried sealskin, and mounted on broad, curved
runners. No iron whatever is used in its construction, and it does not
weigh more than twenty pounds; yet it will sustain a load of four or
five hundred pounds, and endure the severest shocks of rough mountain
travel. The number of dogs harnessed to this sledge varies from seven
to fifteen, according to the nature of the country to be traversed and
the weight of the load. Under favourable circumstances eleven dogs
will make from forty to fifty miles a day with a man and a load of
four hundred pounds. They are harnessed to the sledge in successive
couples by a long central thong of sealskin, to which each individual
dog is attached by a collar and a short trace. They are guided and
controlled entirely by the voice and by a lead-dog who is especially
trained for the purpose. The driver carries no whip, but has instead a
stick about four feet in length and two inches in diameter, called
an _oerstel_ (oar'-stel). This is armed at one end with a long iron
spike, and is used to check the speed of the sledge in descending
hills, and to stop the dogs when they leave the road, as they
frequently do in pursuit of reindeer and foxes. The spiked end is then
thrust down in front of one of the knees or uprights of the runners,
and drags in that position through the snow, the upper end being
firmly held by the driver. It is a powerful lever, and when skilfully
used brakes up a sledge very promptly and effectively.
[Illustration: TOWARD NIGHT; A TIRED DOG-TEAM
From a painting by George A. Frost]
The art of driving a dog-team is one of the most deceptive in the
world. The traveller at first sight imagines that driving a dog-sledge
is just as easy as driving a street-car, and at the very first
favourable opportunity he tries it. After being run away with within
the first ten minutes, capsized into a snow-drift, and his sledge
dragged bottom upward a quarter of a mile from the road, the rash
experimenter begins to suspect that the task is not quite so easy as
he had supposed, and in less than one day he is generally convinced by
hard experience that a dog-driver, like a poet, is born, not made.
The dress of the Kamchadals in winter and summer is made for the most
part of skins. Their winter costume consists of sealskin boots or
_torbasses_ worn over heavy reindeerskin stockings and coming to the
knee; fur trousers with the hair inside; a foxskin hood with a face
border of wolverine skin; and a heavy _kukhlánka_ (kookh-lan'-kah), or
double fur overshirt, covering the body to the knees. This is made of
the thickest and softest reindeerskin, ornamented around the bottom
with silk embroidery, trimmed at the sleeves and neck with glossy
beaver, and furnished with a square flap under the chin, to be held up
over the nose, and a hood behind the neck, to be drawn over the head
in bad weather. In such a costume as this the Kamchadals defy for
weeks at a time the severest cold, and sleep out on the snow safely
and comfortably in temperatures of twenty, thirty, and even forty
degrees below zero, Fahr.
Most of our time during our long detention at Lesnoi was occupied in
the preparation of such costumes for our own use, in making covered
dog-sledges to protect ourselves from winter storms, sewing bearskins
into capacious sleeping-bags, and getting ready generally for a hard
winter's campaign.
[Illustration: Root Digger]