WHY THE KORAKS WANDER--THEIR INDEPENDENCE--CHEERLESS LIFE--USES OF
THE REINDEER--KORAK IDEAS OF DISTANCE--"MONARCH OF THE BRASS-HANDLED
SWORD"
The Wandering Koraks of Kamchatka, who are divided into about forty
different bands, roam over the great steppes in the northern part of
the peninsula, between the 58th and the 63d parallels of latitude.
Their southern limit is the settlement of Tigil, on the west coast,
where they come annually to trade, and they are rarely found north
of the village of Penzhina, two hundred miles from the head of the
Okhotsk Sea. Within these limits they wander almost constantly with
their great herds of reindeer, and so unsettled and restless are they
in their habits, that they seldom camp longer than a week in any one
place. This, however, is not attributable altogether to restlessness
or love of change. A herd of four or five thousand reindeer will in a
very few days paw up the snow and eat all the moss within a radius of
a mile from the encampment, and then, of course, the band must move to
fresh pasture ground. Their nomadic life, therefore, is not entirely a
choice, but partly a necessity, growing out of their dependence upon
the reindeer. They _must_ wander or their deer will starve, and then
their own starvation follows as a natural consequence. Their
unsettled mode of life probably grew, in the first place, out of the
domestication of the reindeer, and the necessity which it involved of
consulting first the reindeer's wants; but the restless, vagabondish
habits thus produced have now become a part of the Korak's very
nature, so that he could hardly live in any other way, even had he
an opportunity of so doing. This wandering, isolated, independent
existence has given to the Koraks all those characteristic traits of
boldness, impatience of restraint, and perfect self-reliance, which
distinguish them from the Kamchadals and the other settled inhabitants
of Siberia. Give them a small herd of reindeer, and a moss steppe to
wander over, and they ask nothing more from all the world. They are
wholly independent of civilisation and government, and will neither
submit to their laws nor recognise their distinctions. Every man is
a law unto himself so long as he owns a dozen reindeer; and he can
isolate himself, if he so chooses, from all human kind, and ignore
all other interests but his own and his reindeer's. For the sake of
convenience and society they associate themselves in bands of six or
eight families each; but these bands are held together only by mutual
consent, and recognise no governing head. They have a leader called a
_taiyón_ who is generally the largest deer-owner of the band, and
he decides all such questions as the location of camps and time of
removal from place to place; but he has no other power, and must refer
all graver questions of individual rights and general obligations
to the members of the band collectively. They have no particular
reverence for anything or anybody except the evil spirits who bring
calamities upon them, and the "shamáns" or priests, who act as
infernal mediators between these devils and their victims. Earthly
rank they treat with contempt, and the Tsar of all the Russias, if he
entered a Korak tent, would stand upon the same level with its owner.
We had an amusing instance of this soon after we met the first Koraks.
The Major had become impressed in some way with the idea that in order
to get what he wanted from these natives he must impress them with a
proper sense of his power, rank, wealth, and general importance in the
world, and make them feel a certain degree of reverence and respect
for his orders and wishes. He accordingly called one of the oldest and
most influential members of the band to him one day, and proceeded
to tell him, through an interpreter, how rich he was; what immense
resources, in the way of rewards and punishments, he possessed; what
high rank he held; how important a place he filled in Russia, and how
becoming it was that an individual of such exalted attributes should
be treated by poor wandering heathen with filial reverence and
veneration. The old Korak, squatting upon his heels on the ground,
listened quietly to the enumeration of all our leader's admirable
qualities and perfections without moving a muscle of his face; but
finally, when the interpreter had finished, he rose slowly, walked up
to the Major with imperturbable gravity, and with the most benignant
and patronising condescension, patted him softly on the head! The
Major turned red and broke into a laugh; but he never tried again to
overawe a Korak.
Notwithstanding this democratic independence of the Koraks, they are
almost invariably hospitable, obliging, and kind-hearted; and we were
assured at the first encampment where we stopped, that we should
have no difficulty in getting the different bands to carry us on
deer-sledges from one encampment to another until we should reach the
head of Penzhinsk Gulf. After a long conversation with the Koraks who
crowded around us as we sat by the fire, we finally became tired and
sleepy, and with favourable impressions, upon the whole, of this new
and strange people, we crawled into our little _polog_ to sleep. A
voice in another part of the _yurt_ was singing a low, melancholy air
in a minor key as I closed my eyes, and the sad, oft-repeated refrain,
so different from ordinary music, invested with peculiar loneliness
and strangeness my first night in a Korak tent.
To be awakened in the morning by a paroxysm of coughing, caused by
the thick, acrid smoke of a low-spirited fire--to crawl out of a skin
bedroom six feet square into the yet denser and smokier atmosphere of
the tent--to eat a breakfast of dried fish, frozen tallow, and venison
out of a dirty wooden trough, with an ill-conditioned dog standing at
each elbow and disputing one's right to every mouthful, is to enjoy
an experience which only Korak life can afford, and which only Korak
insensibility can long endure. A very sanguine temperament may find
in its novelty some compensation for its discomfort, but the novelty
rarely outlasts the second day, while the discomfort seems to increase
in a direct ratio with the length of the experience. Philosophers
may assert that a rightly constituted mind will rise superior to all
outward circumstances; but two weeks in a Korak tent would do more to
disabuse their minds of such an erroneous impression than any amount
of logical argument. I do not myself profess to be preternaturally
cheerful, and the dismal aspect of things when I crawled out of my
fur sleeping-bag, on the morning after our arrival at the first
encampment, made me feel anything but amiable. The first beams of
daylight were just struggling in misty blue lines through the smoky
atmosphere of the tent. The recently kindled fire would not burn but
would smoke; the air was cold and cheerless; two babies were crying
in a neighbouring _polog_; the breakfast was not ready, everybody was
cross, and rather than break the harmonious impression of general
misery, I became cross also. Three or four cups of hot tea, however,
which were soon forthcoming, exerted their usual inspiriting
influence, and we began gradually to take a more cheerful view of
the situation. Summoning the _taiyón,_ and quickening his dull
apprehension with a preliminary pipe of strong Circassian tobacco, we
succeeded in making arrangements for our transportation to the next
Korak encampment in the north, a distance of about forty miles.
Orders were at once given for the capture of twenty reindeer and the
preparation of sledges. Snatching hurriedly a few bites of hardbread
and bacon by way of breakfast, I donned fur hood and mittens, and
crawled out through the low doorway to see how twenty trained deer
were to be separated from a herd of four thousand wild ones.
[Illustration: TENTS AND REINDEER OF THE WANDERING KORAKS]
Surrounding the tent in every direction were the deer belonging to
the band, some pawing up the snow with their sharp hoofs in search of
moss, others clashing their antlers together and barking hoarsely in
fight, or chasing one another in a mad gallop over the steppe. Near
the tent a dozen men with lassos arranged themselves in two parallel
lines, while twenty more, with a thong of sealskin two or three
hundred yards in length, encircled a portion of the great herd, and
with shouts and waving lassos began driving it through the narrow
gantlet. The deer strove with frightened bounds to escape from the
gradually contracting circle, but the sealskin cord, held at short
distances by shouting natives, invariably turned them back, and they
streamed in a struggling, leaping throng through the narrow opening
between the lines of lassoers. Ever and anon a long cord uncoiled
itself in air, and a sliding noose fell over the antlers of some
unlucky deer whose slit ears marked him as trained, but whose
tremendous leaps and frantic efforts to escape suggested very grave
doubts as to the extent of the training. To prevent the interference
and knocking together of the deer's antlers when they should be
harnessed in couples, one horn was relentlessly chopped off close to
the head by a native armed with a heavy sword-like knife, leaving a
red ghastly stump from which the blood trickled in little streams over
the animal's ears. They were then harnessed to sledges in couples, by
a collar and trace passing between the forelegs; lines were affixed to
small sharp studs in the headstall, which pricked the right or left
side of the head when the corresponding rein was jerked, and the
equipage was ready.
Bidding good-by to the Lesnoi Kamchadals, who returned from here, we
muffled ourselves from the biting air in our heaviest furs, took
seats on our respective sledges, and at a laconic "tok" (go) from the
_taiyón_ we were off; the little cluster of tents looking like a group
of conical islands behind us as we swept out upon the limitless ocean
of the snowy steppe. Noticing that I shivered a little in the keen
air, my driver pointed away to the northward, and exclaimed with a
pantomimic shrug, "Tam _shipka_ kholodno"--"There it's awful cold." We
needed not to be informed of the fact; the rapidly sinking thermometer
indicated our approach to the regions of perpetual frost, and I looked
forward with no little apprehension to the prospect of sleeping
outdoors in the arctic temperatures of which I had read, but which I
had never yet experienced.
This was my first trial of reindeer travel, and I was a little
disappointed to find that it did not quite realise the expectations
that had been excited in my boyish days by the pictures of galloping
Lapland deer in the old geographies. The reindeer were there, but they
were not the ideal reindeer of early fancy, and I felt a vague sense
of personal injury and unjustifiable deception at the substitution
of these awkward, ungainly beasts for the spirited and fleet-footed
animals of my boyish imagination. Their trot was awkward and heavy,
they carried their heads low, and their panting breaths and gaping
mouths were constantly suggestive of complete exhaustion, and excited
pity for their apparently laborious exertions, rather than admiration
for the speed which they really did exhibit. My ideal reindeer would
never have demeaned himself by running with his mouth wide open. When
I learned, as I afterward did, that they were compelled to breathe
through their mouths, on account of the rapid accumulation of frost in
their nostrils, it relieved my apprehensions of their breaking down,
but did not alter my firm conviction that my ideal reindeer was
infinitely superior in an aesthetic point of view to the real animal.
I could not but admit, however, the inestimable value of the reindeer
to his wandering owners. Besides carrying them from place to place, he
furnishes them with clothes, food, and covering for their tents; his
antlers are made into rude implements of all sorts; his sinews are
dried and pounded into thread, his bones are soaked in seal oil and
burned for fuel, his entrails are cleaned, filled with tallow, and
eaten; his blood, mixed with the contents of his stomach, is made
into _manyalla_; his marrow and tongue are considered the greatest
of delicacies; the stiff, bristly skin of his legs is used to cover
snow-shoes; and finally his whole body, sacrificed to the Korak gods,
brings down upon his owners all the spiritual and temporal blessings
which they need. It would be hard to find another animal which fills
so important a place in the life of any body of men, as the reindeer
does in the life and domestic economy of the Siberian Koraks. I cannot
now think of one which furnishes even the four prime requisites of
food, clothing, shelter, and transportation. It is a singular fact,
however, that the Siberian natives--the only people, so far as I know,
who have ever domesticated the reindeer, except the Laps--do not
use in any way the animal's milk. Why so important and desirable an
article of food should be neglected, when every other part of the
deer's body is turned to some useful account, I cannot imagine. It is
certain, however, that no one of the four great wandering tribes of
north-eastern Siberia, Koraks, Chukchis, Tunguses, and Lamutkis, uses
in any way the reindeer's milk.
By two o'clock in the afternoon it began to grow dark, but we
estimated that we had accomplished at least half of our day's journey,
and halted for a few moments to allow our deer to eat. The last half
of the distance seemed interminable. The moon rose round and bright as
the shield of Achilles, and lighted up the vast, lonely _tundra_ with
noonday brilliancy; but the silence and desolation, the absence of any
dark object upon which the fatigued eye could rest, and the apparently
boundless extent of this Dead Sea of snow, oppressed us with new
and strange sensations of awe. A dense mist or steam, which is an
unfailing indication of intense cold, rose from the bodies of the
reindeer and hung over the road long after we had passed. Beards
became tangled masses of frozen iron wire; eyelids grew heavy with
white rims of frost and froze together when we winked; noses assumed
a white, waxen appearance with every incautious exposure, and only by
frequently running beside our sledges could we keep any "feeling" in
our feet. Impelled by hunger and cold, we repeated twenty times the
despairing question, "How much farther is it?" and twenty times we
received the stereotyped but indefinite answer of "cheimuk," near,
or occasionally the encouraging assurance that we would arrive in a
minute. Now we knew very well that we _should not_ arrive in a minute,
nor probably in forty minutes; but it afforded temporary relief to be
_told_ that we would. My frequent inquiries finally spurred my driver
into an attempt to express the distance arithmetically, and with
evident pride in his ability to speak Russian, he assured me that it
was only "dva verst," or two versts more. I brightened up at once with
anticipations of a warm fire and an infinite number of cups of hot
tea, and by imagining prospective comfort, succeeded in forgetting
the present sense of suffering. At the expiration, however, of
three-quarters of an hour, seeing no indication of the promised
encampment, I asked once more if it were much farther away. One Korak
looked around over the steppe with a well assumed air of seeking some
landmark, and then turning to me with a confident nod, repeated the
word "verst" and held up _four fingers_! I sank back upon my sledge
in despair. If we had been three-quarters of an hour in losing two
versts, how long would be we in losing versts enough to get back to
the place from which we started. It was a discouraging problem, and
after several unsuccessful attempts to solve it by the double rule
of three backwards, I gave it up. For the benefit of the future
traveller, I give, however, a few native expressions for distances,
with their numerical equivalents: "cheimuk"--near, twenty versts;
"bolshe nyet"--there is no more, fifteen versts; "sey chas
priyédem"--we will arrive this minute, means any time in the course of
the day or night; and "dailóko"--far, is a week's journey. By bearing
in mind these simple values, the traveller will avoid much bitter
disappointment, and _may_ get through without entirely losing faith in
human veracity. About six o'clock in the evening, tired, hungry, and
half-frozen, we caught sight of the sparks and fire-lit smoke which
arose from the tents of the second encampment, and amid a general
barking of dogs and hallooing of men we stopped among them. Jumping
hurriedly from my sledge, with no thought but that of getting to a
fire, I crawled into the first hole which presented itself, with a
firm belief, founded on the previous night's experience, that it must
be a door. After groping about some time in the dark, crawling over
two dead reindeer and a heap of dried fish, I was obliged to shout for
assistance. Great was the astonishment of the proprietor, who came to
the rescue with a torch, to find a white man and a stranger crawling
around aimlessly in his fish storehouse. He relieved his feelings with
a ty-e-e-e of amazement, and led the way, or rather crawled away, to
the interior of the tent, where I found the Major endeavouring with a
dull Korak knife to cut his frozen beard loose from his fur hood and
open communication with his mouth through a sheet of ice and hair. The
teakettle was soon simmering and spouting over a brisk fire, beards
were thawed out, noses examined for signs of frost-bites, and in half
an hour we were seated comfortably on the ground around a candle-box,
drinking tea and discussing the events of the day.
Just as Viushin was filling up our cups for the third time, the skin
curtain of the low doorway at our side was lifted up, and the most
extraordinary figure which I ever beheld in Kamchatka crawled silently
in, straightened up to its full height of six feet, and stood
majestically before us. It was an ugly, dark-featured man about thirty
years of age. He was clothed in a scarlet dress-coat with blue facings
and brass buttons, with long festoons of gold cord hung across the
breast, trousers of black, greasy deerskin, and fur boots. His hair
was closely shaven from the crown of his head, leaving a long fringe
of lank, uneven locks hanging about his ears and forehead. Long
strings of small coloured beads depended from his ears, and over one
of them he had plastered for future use a huge quid of masticated
tobacco. About his waist was tied a ragged sealskin thong, which
supported a magnificent silver-hilted sword and embossed scabbard. His
smoky, unmistakably Korak face, shaven head, scarlet coat, greasy
skin trousers, gold cord, sealskin belt, silver-hilted sword, and fur
boots, made up such a remarkable combination of glaring contrasts
that we could do nothing for a moment but stare at him in utter
_amazement_. He reminded me of "Talipot, the Immortal Potentate of
Manacabo, Messenger of the Morning, Enlightener of the Sun, Possessor
of the Whole Earth, and Mighty Monarch of the Brass-handled Sword."
"Who are you?" suddenly demanded the Major, in Russian. A low bow was
the only response. "Where in the name of Chort did you come from?"
Another bow. "Where did you get that coat? Can't you say something?
Ay! Meranef! Come and talk to this--fellow, I can't make him say
anything." Dodd suggested that he might be a messenger from the
expedition of Sir John Franklin, with late advices from the Pole
and the North-west Passage, and the silent owner of the sword bowed
affirmatively, as if this were the true solution of the mystery. "Are
you a pickled cabbage?" suddenly inquired Dodd in Russian. The Unknown
intimated by a very emphatic bow that he was. "_He_ doesn't understand
anything!" said Dodd in disgust; "where's Meranef?" Meranef soon made
his appearance, and began questioning the mysterious visitor in a
scarlet coat as to his residence, name, and previous history. For the
first time he now found a voice. "What does he say?" asked the Major;
"what's his name?"
"He says his name is Khanálpooginuk."
"Where did he get that coat and sword?"
"He says 'the Great White Chief' gave it to him for a dead reindeer."
This was not very satisfactory, and Meranef was instructed to get some
more intelligible information. Who the "Great White Chief" might be,
and why he should give a scarlet coat and a silver-hilted sword for a
dead reindeer, were questions beyond our ability to solve. Finally,
Meranef's puzzled face cleared up, and he told us that the coat and
sword had been presented to the Unknown by the Emperor, as a reward
for reindeer given to the starving Russians of Kamchatka during a
famine. The Korak was asked if he had received no paper with these
gifts, and he immediately left the tent, and returned in a moment with
a sheet of paper tied up carefully with reindeer's sinews between a
couple of thin boards. This paper explained everything. The coat and
sword had been given to the present owner's father, during the reign
of Alexander I., by the Russian Governor of Kamchatka as a reward for
succour afforded the Russians in a famine. From the father they
had descended to the son, and the latter, proud of his inherited
distinction, had presented himself to us as soon as he heard of our
arrival. He wanted nothing in particular except to show himself, and
after examining his sword, which was really a magnificent weapon, we
gave him a few bunches of tobacco and dismissed him. We had hardly
expected to find in the interior of Kamchatka any relics of Alexander
I., dating back to the time of Napoleon.
[Illustration: Iron Skin Scraper]