THE SAMOJEDES AND OTHER TRIBES OF ARCTIC ASIA.
The Samojedes are the immediate neighbours of the Lapps. Like them,
they are nomads; but they are even less civilized, and have profited
less by the arduous and enthusiastic labours of the Christian
missionaries. They range over the forests and stony tundras of Northern
Russia and Western Siberia; driving their reindeer herds from the banks
of the Chatanga to the icy shores of the White Sea, or hunting the wild
beasts in the dense woods which extend between the Obi and the Yenisei.
They are sunk far deeper than the Lapps in a coarse and debasing
superstition. It is true that they believe in a supreme deity--Num,
or Jilibeambaertje, who resides in the air, and, like the Greek Zeus,
sends down thunder and lightning, rain and snow; and they evince that
latent capacity for poetical feeling which is indicated even by the
most barbarous tribes in their description of the rainbow as “the
hem of his garment.” They regard him, however, as so elevated above
the world of man, and so coldly indifferent to humanity, that it is
useless to seek to propitiate him either by prayer or sacrifice; and
they have recourse, accordingly, to the inferior gods,--who, as they
believe, have the direction of human affairs, and are influenced by
incantations, vows, or special homage.
The chief of all the Samojede idols is still supposed to consecrate
with its presence, as in the days of the adventurous Barentz, the bleak
and ice-bound island of Waigatz. It is a block of stone, pointed at
the summit, and bearing some rude resemblance to a human head, having
been fashioned after this likeness by a freak of nature. This has
formed the model for the Samojede sculptors, who have multiplied its
effigy in wood and stone; and the idols thus easily created they call
_sjadæi_, because they wear a human (or semi-human) countenance
(_sja_). They attire them in reindeer-skins, and embellish them
with innumerable coloured rags. In addition to the _sjadæi_,
they adopt as idols any curiously contorted tree or irregularly
shaped stone; and the household idol (Hahe) they carry about with
them, carefully wrapped up, in a sledge reserved for the purpose, the
hahengan. One of the said penates is supposed to be the guardian of
wedded happiness, another of the fishery, a third of the health of his
worshippers, a fourth of their herds of reindeer. When his services are
required, the Hahe is removed from his resting-place, and erected in
the tent or on the pasture-ground, in the wood or on the river’s bank.
Then his mouth is smeared with oil or blood, and before him is set a
dish of flesh or fish, in return for which repast it is expected that
he will use his power on behalf of his entertainers. His aid being no
longer needed, he is returned to the hahengan.
Besides these obliging deities, the Samojede believes in the existence
of an order of invisible spirits which he calls _Tadebtsios_.
These are ever and everywhere around him, and bent rather upon his
injury than his welfare. It becomes important, therefore, to propitiate
them; but this can be done only through the interposition of a
_Tadibe_, or sorcerer; who, on occasion, stimulates himself into
a state of wild excitement, like the frenzy of the Pythian or Delphic
priestess. When his aid is invoked by the credulous Samojede, his first
care is to attire himself in full magician’s costume--a kind of shirt,
made of reindeer leather, and hemmed with red cloth. Its seams are
trimmed in like manner; and the shoulders are also decorated with red
cloth tags, or epaulettes. A piece of red cloth is worn over the face
as a mask, and a plate of polished metal gleams upon his breast.
[Illustration: SAMOJEDE HUTS ON WAIGATZ ISLAND.]
Thus costumed, the Tadibe takes his drum of reindeer-skin, ornamented
with brass rings, and, attended by a neophyte, walks round and round
with great stateliness, while invoking the presence of the spirits
by a discordant rattle. This gradually increases in violence, and is
accompanied by the droning intonation of the words of enchantment. The
spirits in due time appear, and the Tadibe proceeds to consult them;
beating his drum more gently, and occasionally pausing in his doleful
chant,--which, however, the novice is careful not to interrupt,--to
listen, as is supposed, to the answers of the aerial divinities. At
length the conversation ceases; the chant breaks into a fierce howl;
the drum rattles more and more loudly; the Tadibe seems under a
supernatural influence; his body quivers, and foam gathers on his lips.
Then suddenly the frenzy ceases, and the Tadibe utters the will of the
Tadebtsios, and gives advice how a straying reindeer may be recovered,
or the disease of the Samojede worshipper relieved, or the fisherman’s
labour rewarded with an abundant “harvest of the sea.”
The office of the Tadibe is usually transmitted from father to son;
but occasionally some individual, predisposed by nature to fits of
excitement, and endowed with a vivid imagination, is initiated into
its mysteries. His morbid fancy is worked upon by long solitary
self-communings and protracted fasts and vigils, and his frame by the
use of pernicious narcotics and stimulants, until he persuades himself
that he has been visited by the spirits. He is then received as a
Tadibe with many ceremonies, which take place at midnight, and he is
invested with the magic drum. It will be seen, therefore, that the
Tadibe, if he deceives others, partly deceives himself. But he does not
disdain to have recourse to the commonest tricks of the conjuror, with
the view of imposing upon his ignorant countrymen. Among these is the
famous rope-trick, introduced into England by the Davenport Brothers,
and since repeated by so many professional necromancers. With his hands
and feet fastened, he sits down on a carpet of reindeer-skin, and, the
lights being put out, invokes the spirits to come to his assistance.
Soon their presence is made known by strange noises; squirrels seem to
rustle, snakes to hiss, and bears to growl. At length the disturbance
ceases, the lights are rekindled, and the Tadibe steps forward unbound;
the spectators, of course, believing that he has been assisted by the
Tadebtsios.
As barbarous, says Dr. Hartwig--to whose pages we are here indebted--as
barbarous as the poor wretches who submit to his guidance, the Tadibe
is incapable of improving their moral condition, and has no wish
to do so. Under various names,--_Schamans_ among the Tungusi,
_Angekoks_ among the Eskimos, _Medicine-men_ among the Crees
and Chepewyans,--we find similar magicians or impostors assuming a
spiritual dictatorship over all the Arctic nations of the Old and the
New World, wherever their authority has not been broken by Christianity
or Buddhism; and this dreary faith still extends its influence over at
least half a million of souls, from the White Sea to the extremity of
Asia, and from the Pacific to Hudson Bay.
The Samojedes, like the Siberian tribes, offer up sacrifices to the
dead, and perform various ceremonies in honour of their memory. Like
the North American Indians, they believe that the desires and pursuits
of the departed continue to be the same as they were on earth; and
hence, that they may not be in want of weapons or implements, they
deposit in or about their graves a sledge, a spear, a cooking-pot,
a knife, an axe. At the funeral, and for several years afterwards,
the kinsmen sacrifice reindeer over the grave. When a prince dies,
a Starschina, the owner, perhaps, of several herds of reindeer, his
nearest relatives fashion an image, which is kept in the tent of the
deceased, and to which as much respect is paid as was paid to the man
himself in his lifetime. It occupies his usual seat at every meal;
every evening it is undressed, and laid down in his bed. For three
years these honours are kept up, and then the image is buried, from
a belief that the body by that time must have decayed, and lost all
recollection of the past. Only the souls of the Tadibes, and of those
who have died a violent death, are privileged with immortality, and
hover about the air as disembodied spirits.
[Illustration: A SAMOJEDE FAMILY.]
* * * * *
The Samojedes are scattered--to the number of about a thousand
families--over their wild and inhospitable region. Ethnologists
generally consider them to have a common origin with the Finns of
Europe. In stature they are somewhat taller than the Lapps, and their
colour is more of a tawny. The marked features of their countenance
recall the Hindu type. The forehead is high, the hair black, the nose
long, the mouth well-formed; but the sunken eye, veiled by a heavy
lid, expresses a cruel and perfidious nature. The manners of the
Samojedes are brutal; and in character they are fierce and cunning.
They are shepherds, hunters, traders--and when opportunity serves,
robbers. Like the other Arctic peoples, they clothe themselves in
reindeer-skins. They shave off their hair, except a tolerably large
tuft which they allow to flourish on the top of the head, and they
pluck out the beard as fast as it grows. The women decorate their
persons with a belt of gilded copper, and with a profusion of glass
beads and metallic ornaments.
* * * * *
Continuing our progress eastward, we come to the Ostiaks, a people
spreading over the northernmost parts of Siberia, from the Oural
Mountains to Kamtschatka.
Some interesting particulars of their habits and customs are recorded
by Madame Felinska, a Polish lady whom the Russian Government condemned
to a long exile in Siberia.
One day, when she was seeking a pathway through a wood, she fell in
with a couple of Ostiaks on the point of performing their devotions.
These are of the simplest kind: the worshipper places himself before a
tree (the larch, by preference) in the densest recess of the forest,
and indulges in a succession of extravagant gestures and contortions.
As this form of worship is prohibited by the Russian Government, the
Ostiak can resort to it only in secret. He professes, indeed, to have
accepted Christianity, but there is too much reason to fear that the
majority of the race are still attached to their heathen creed.
Nearly every Ostiak carries about his person a rude image of one of the
deities which he adores under the name of _Schaïtan_; but this
does not prevent him from wearing a small crucifix of copper on his
breast. The _Schaïtan_ is a rough imitation of the human figure,
carved out of wood. It is of different sizes, according to the various
uses for which it is intended: if for carrying on the person, it is a
miniature doll; but for decorating the Ostiak’s hut an image can be
had on a larger scale. It is always attired in seven pearl-embroidered
chemises, and suspended to the neck by a string of silver coins. The
wooden deity occupies the place of honour in every hut,--sometimes in
company with an image of the Virgin Mary or some saint,--and before
beginning a repast the Ostiaks are careful to offer it the daintiest
morsels, smearing its lips with fish or raw game; this sacred duty
performed, they finish their meal in contentment.
The priests of the Ostiaks are called _Schamans_; their immense
influence they employ to promote their own personal interests, and
maintain the meanest superstitions.
In summer the Ostiak fixes his residence on the banks of the Obi or
one of its tributaries. It is generally square in form, with low stone
walls, and a high pointed roof made of willow-branches, and covered
with pieces of bark. These having been softened by boiling, are sewn
together so as to form large mats or carpets, which are easily rolled
up and carried from place to place. The hearth is in the centre; it
consists of a few stones set round a cavity in the soil. Here the
Ostiak lives; supporting himself on fish, which he frequently eats
without cooking--and purchasing a few occasional luxuries, such as
tobacco and drink, with the salmon and sturgeon caught by his dexterity.
In winter he withdraws into the woods, to hunt the sable or the
squirrel, or to pasture the herds of reindeer which some of them
possess. He builds his jurt on a small eminence near the bank of a
stream, but out of reach of its spring inundations. It is low, small,
squalid; its walls plastered with clay; its window made of a thin sheet
of ice.
The Ostiaks are generally of small stature, dark-complexioned, and with
black hair, like the Samojedes; but this is not invariably the case.
They seem to belong to the same family as the Samojedes and Finns.
They are honest, good-natured, inert, and extremely careless and dirty
in their habits; though it may be conceded that their huts are not
filthier than the “interiors” of the Icelandic fishermen. Their women
are not much better treated than African slaves, and are given in
marriage to the highest bidder. The price necessarily varies according
to the condition of the parent; the daughter of a rich man sells for
fifty reindeer, of a poor man for half-a-dozen dried sturgeon and a
handful of squirrel-skins.
* * * * *
[Illustration: JAKUT HUNTER AND BEAR.]
The Ostiaks and the Samojedes are great hunters of the white bear.
It is the same with the Jakuts (or Yakouts), a people dwelling near
the Bouriats, and, like them, approximating to the Mongol type. Their
object in the chase, however, is not always to kill the animal, but
to take it alive. Madame Felinska asserts that, one day, she saw a
considerable herd of bears conducted to Bérézov, like a herd of tame
cattle, and apparently quite as inoffensive. She does not inform us,
however, by what means they had been reduced to such a desirable
state of subjection. Frequently the Ostiaks and the Jakuts attack the
white bears body to body, without any other weapon than a hatchet or
long cutlass. They require to strike their formidable antagonist with
immense vigour, and to slay it at the first blow, or their own danger
is extreme. Should the hunter miss his stroke, his sole resource is to
fling himself on the ground and lie motionless, until the bear, while
smelling his body and turning him over, incautiously offers himself
again to his attack.
* * * * *
We now reach the peninsula of Kamtschatka. In area it is equal to Great
Britain, and its natural resources are abundant; yet, owing to the
ravages of smallpox, and excessive brandy-drinking, its population does
not exceed seven or eight thousand souls. Its climate is much milder
than that of the interior of Siberia, being favourably affected by the
warm breezes from the sea; and though cereals do not flourish, its
pasture-grounds are rich and ample, and its herbaceous vegetation is
exceedingly abundant.
The fisheries of Kamtschatka enjoy a well-deserved reputation. In
spring the salmon ascend its rivers in such astonishingly numerous
legions, that it you plunge a dart into the water you will surely
strike a fish; and Steller asserts that the bears and dogs in this
fortunate region catch on the banks with their paws and mouths more
fish than in less favoured countries the most skilful anglers can
ensnare by all the devices of piscatorial science. Hermann also refers
to the teeming myriads of the Kamtschatka waters. In a stream only six
inches deep he saw countless hosts of chackos (_Slagocephalus_),
two or three feet in length, partly stranded on the grassy banks,
partly attempting to force a passage through the shallows.
The coasts of Kamtschatka swarm in like manner with aquatic birds,
which roost and breed on every crag and ledge, in every niche and
hollow, and at the slightest alarm rise from their resting-places with
a whirr of wings and a clamour of voices repeated by a thousand echoes.
The Kamtschatkans display in the pursuit of these birds and their eggs
a skill and a daring not inferior to the intrepidity and dexterity of
the inhabitants of the Faroe Isles or the Hebrides. Barefooted, and
without even the aid of ropes, they venture to descend the most awful
declivities, which the foaming waters render inaccessible from below.
On the left arm hangs a basket, to be filled with eggs as they advance;
in the right hand they carry a short iron hook, with which to drag the
birds from their rocky roosts. When a bird is caught, the fowler wrings
its neck, slings it to his girdle, and lowers himself still further
down the rugged precipice.
* * * * *
The Kamtschatkans are of small stature, but strong-limbed and
broad-shouldered. Their cheek-bones are high, their jaws massive,
broad, and prominent, their eyes small and black, their noses small,
their lips very full. The prevailing colour of the men is a dark brown,
sometimes approaching to tawny; the complexion of the women is fairer;
and to preserve it from the sun, they embellish it with bears’ guts,
adhering to the face by means of fish-lime. They also paint their
cheeks a brilliant red with a sea-weed.
[Illustration: KAMTSCHATKANS.]
Kamtschatka boasts of a very valuable domestic animal in its dog.
Mr. Hill is of opinion that he must be considered indigenous to the
country, where he roves wild upon the hills, and obtains his existence
in exactly the same manner as the wolf. In his nature, both physically
and in respect to his temper and disposition, he seems about equally to
resemble that tameless animal and the mastiff; yet not altogether in
the same manner that might be supposed to arise from the cross breed
of the two species, but rather as possessing some of the qualities
of both, neither confounded nor modified, but distinctly marked, and
perhaps in equal perfection to the same qualities possessed severally
by those animals. He is about the size of the ordinary mastiff, and
his colour is usually buff or silver-gray, with the several darker or
lighter shades of these colours as an invariable basis. In the form
of his body, too, he resembles the mastiff, but his head is more like
that of the wolf. Still more do we recognize the wolfish character
in the eye, which is cruel and furtive, as well as in his habits and
disposition. Like his fellow-rover, he sleeps more by day than by
night, and he sees better through the scanty light afforded by the
stars or moon than in the full radiance of the sun: this has given
rise to the same vulgar error concerning his vision which, in Britain,
prevails respecting that of the cat,--that he can see in the dark.
If there be any exception, says Mr. Hill, to the distinct manner in
which the dog of Kamtschatka possesses the character and qualities of
both the wolf and mastiff, it is in regard to his voice, which is heard
in loud cries and undistinguishable sounds, something between the bark
of the one and the howl of the other.
In all things connected with the labour in which he is engaged, the
Kamtschatka dog displays a more than ordinary intelligence. He is very
eager to work, and obedient, like the canine species generally, to one
master only; but he gives no indications of that attachment which, more
or less, in all other species of the dog, enables man to sympathize
with them, and sometimes even excites a degree of friendship which
not every one of his own species is able to inspire. Thus, every pack
or team of dogs must always be driven by the same hand and guided by
the same voice, which the whip, and not caresses, has taught them to
remember and obey.
With these qualities, the dog becomes in this country a very
serviceable animal. Whatever, indeed, our horses and bullocks perform
for us here in Britain, if we except carrying us on their backs and
ploughing our arable land, the dogs perform for the Kamtschatkans.
There is not much employment for them, however, in the summer; and at
that season they are allowed to range about and secure their food,
which they usually find in the rivers, in the best way they can. Some
pains are at all times necessary to keep them in good temper and at
peace with their neighbours, whether canine or human. And therefore all
Kamtschatkans who keep a team near their houses are careful, when the
snow is on the ground, to drive a number of stakes into the earth, or
poles set up in the same manner as the frame of a hut or wigwam; and
to these the dogs are attached singly or in pairs. But when paired,
whether at the stakes or in harness, it is requisite that those yoked
together should be not only of the same family, but of the same litter,
or at all events they should have been paired when they were puppies.
It is at no time safe to leave the greater part of them loose; and the
younger dogs are described as the most dangerous in this way. They will
not only at all times kill domestic fowls,--which the Kamtschatkans,
therefore, are unable to breed,--and dogs of the smaller species that
may chance to be brought to the place, but they have been known to
destroy children. While they do not work they are tolerably fat, and
have usually an allowance of half a dried salmon, or a portion weighing
about two pounds, a day; but when they labour they are worse treated
and more stinted than the Siberian horses, and receive only half the
quantity of food apportioned to them when at rest; yet they will, under
this treatment, perform journeys of three or four weeks’ duration with
much less repose than the horses require. Nay, they will even, upon a
journey of four or five days’ duration, work for fourteen or sixteen
hours out of the twenty-four without tasting any food whatsoever,
and without appearing to suffer any diminution of strength; and the
universal opinion seems to be, that the less food they receive on this
side of starvation, when travelling, the better.
Five of these dogs will draw a sledge carrying three full-grown persons
and sixty pounds weight of luggage. When lightly loaded, such a sledge
will travel from thirty to forty versts in a day over bad roads and
through the deep snow, while on even roads it will accomplish eighty
to one hundred and twenty. And herein lies the inestimable value of
the Kamtschatkan dogs, for the horse would be useless in sledging: in
the deep snow it would sink; and it would be unable, on account of its
weight, to cross the rivers and streams which are covered only with a
thin sheet of ice.
[Illustration: A KAMTSCHATKAN SLEDGE AND TEAM.]
But travelling with dogs is by no means easy. Instead of the whip, the
driver uses a crooked stick with iron rings, which, by their jingling,
supply the leader of the team with the necessary signals. If the dogs
show symptoms of relaxing in their efforts, the stick is cast among
them to rouse them to greater speed; and the driver dexterously picks
it up again as his sledge shoots by. In a snow-storm they keep their
master comfortably warm, and will lie round about him quietly for
hours. They are experienced weather-prophets too, for if, when resting,
they dig holes in the snow, it is a certain sign of a storm.
The training of these dogs begins at a very early age. Soon after their
birth they are placed with their mother in a deep pit, so as to see
neither man nor beast; and after being weaned, they are still condemned
to a total exclusion from “the madding crowd.” A probation of six
months having expired, they are attached to a sledge with older dogs,
and being extremely shy, they run at their very fastest. On returning
home they undergo another period of pit-life, until they are considered
perfectly trained, and capable of performing a long journey. They are
then allowed to enjoy their summer freedom. Such a mode of training
may render them docile and obedient, but it renders them also gloomy,
mistrustful, and ill-tempered.
* * * * *
Siberia, so far as the valley of the Lena is concerned, and even
eastward to the Kolima and westward to the Yenisei, is inhabited by
the bold and vigorous race of the Jakuts. Their number is computed at
about 200,000, and they inhabit the extensive but dreary province of
Jakutsk, with a chief town of the same name.
The Jakuts are to a great extent a pastoral people, but as they trade
in horses and cattle, and also carry on a brisk fur-trade with the
Russians, they have attained a far higher level of civilization than
is common among pastoral races. In summer they live in light conical
tents (“urossy”), which are fixed upon poles, and covered with birch
rind. These they pitch in the open plains and valleys, and then devote
themselves to gathering supplies of hay against the coming winter. This
is with them a very important labour, for their chief wealth is in
their herds of cattle, and to find a sufficient provision for them in
the bleak climate of the Lena basin, and on the borders of the Arctic
World, is a task of great difficulty. Often, indeed, the supply fails
before the return of spring, and the oxen must then be fed upon the
young shoots and saplings of the birch and willow.
When winter approaches, the Jakut removes from his tent into a warm,
timber-built hut, or _jart_, which assumes the form of a truncated
pyramid, and has an exterior covering of turf and clay. Its windows
are made of thin sheets of ice; which, as soon as a thaw sets in, are
replaced by fish-bladders or paper steeped in oil. The floor is of
earth, very rarely boarded, and generally sunk two or three feet below
the surface of the ground. The seats and sleeping-berths are arranged
along the sides; the hearth, or _tscherwal_, occupies the centre,
and its smoke finds an exit through an aperture in the roof. Clothes
and weapons are suspended from the walls, and the general appearance of
the interior is squalid and disorderly.
Near the jart are stalls for the cows; but when the cold is very
intense, they, like the Irishman’s pigs, find accommodation in-doors.
As for the horses, they remain night and day in the open air, though
the weather may be so severe that even mercury freezes; and they have
no other food than the decayed autumn grass, which they find under the
snow.
The capacity of endurance which the Jakut horses exhibit is almost
incredible. Like other quadrupeds in the Arctic regions, they change
their hair in summer. Traversing, month after month, the dreary
wilderness where the only vegetation is a scanty and half-rotten grass,
they still retain their strength and energy; and notwithstanding the
hard conditions of their lives, they do not age so quickly as our own
more carefully-tended steeds. To aim at improving the Jakut horse
would be, in the opinion of many travellers, to gild refined gold, and
perfume “thrown on the violet.” He will continue a steady trot for
hours, over roads of which no Englishman can form an idea, and stop to
take his rest with no other food but the bark of the larch and willow,
or a little hard grass, no covering protecting his foaming sides from
the cold, and the temperature down at 40°.
As the horse, so the master. The Jakut is the very personification of
hardiness. He seems able to endure anything, and to attempt everything.
On the longest winter-journey he carries neither tents nor extra
coverings with him, not even one of the large fur-dresses, such as
the Siberians generally use. He contents himself, in fact, with his
usual dress; in this he generally sleeps in the open air: his bed, a
horse-rug stretched upon the snow; his pillow, a wooden saddle. With
the same fur jacket which serves him by daytime as a dress, and which
he pulls off when he lies down for the night, he defends his back and
shoulders, while the front part of his body is turned towards the fire,
almost without any covering. He then stops his nose and ears with
small pieces of skin, and covers his face so as to leave only a small
aperture for breathing; these are all the precautions he takes against
the severest cold. Even in Siberia the Jakuts are known as “iron men.”
The horse to the Jakut is as valuable and as important as the camel to
the Arab or the reindeer to the Lapp. It is not only his steed, which
seems incapable of weariness,--his beast of draught, patient under
heavy loads,--but its skin provides him with articles of dress; with
its hair he makes his fishing-nets; boiled horse meat is his favourite
food, and sour mare’s milk, or _koumis_, his principal beverage.
By mixing this milk with rye flour, or the inner rind of the fir or
larch, he makes a thick porridge, which he flavours with berries, or
dried fish, or rancid fat.
Before commerce had been diverted into the valley of the Amur,
thousands of pack-horses, under the guidance of Jakuts, annually
crossed the Stanowoi hills on the way to Ochotsk; a journey of terrible
difficulty, which might appal the stoutest nerves. But the Jakut
endures the extremes of cold and hunger with a wonderful equanimity.
He fears neither the stormy winds, the darkened heavens, the depth of
the treacherous morass, nor the darkness and silence of the forest.
Nothing appals him but the unseen presence of “Ljeschei,” the spirit
of the mountain and the forest. The traveller frequently comes upon a
fir-crowned hillock, and from the branches of one of the oldest firs
sees suspended innumerable tufts of horse-hair. What does it mean? He
needs not to inquire, for, lo! his Jakut driver, dismounting from his
steed, hastens to pluck a few hairs from his horse’s mane, and then,
with much reverence, attaches them to the nearest bough, in order to
propitiate the terrible Ljeschei. Even Jakuts who have been baptized,
and are nominally enrolled among the Christian population, are guilty
of this silly bit of superstition; while it is suspected, on good
grounds, that they still cherish their belief in Schamanism, and their
ancient dread of evil spirits. When we remember, however, the absurd
beliefs and vulgar errors still lingering in many parts of our own
land, we are unable to pass a very severe verdict on the credulity of
the Jakuts.
When on the road they beguile the tedium of the way by singing songs of
the most doleful character, corresponding to the habitual melancholy
which they seem to have inherited from their forefathers; a melancholy
suggested, probably, by the gloom of the landscape, the chilling aspect
of the sky, the inclemency of the climate, and the prolonged battle
in which their lives are passed. Their songs, not the less, are songs
worthy of a bold and intelligent people, and, like the poetry of the
Norsemen, are replete with images borrowed from nature. They constantly
describe in glowing language the lofty magnificence of the snow-crowned
mountains, the starry beauty of the night, the roll and rush of the
river, the wail of the wind as it streams through a forest of pines.
The Jakut minstrels are mostly improvisatores; and, to secure the
favour of the Ljeschei, they will extol the charms of the wilderness
over which it rules, as if that wilderness were a portion of Elysium.
* * * * *
The Jakut merchants are remarkable for their enterprise. Their capital
is Jakutsk, on the Lena, and thence they extend their operations in all
directions. In the rigour of winter they will lead their caravans to
Ochotsk, or Kjachta, or Ostrownoje.
Yet the country they traverse is at all times a desert. The mean
temperature of the year is only +14°. In November the thermometer sinks
to -40°, or 72° below freezing-point. The Yana, at Nishni Kolymsk,
freezes early in September; and lower down, where the current is
sluggish, loaded horses can cross its frozen surface as early as
the middle of August: yet the ice does not melt before June. The sun
remains, it is true, about fifty-two days above the horizon; but its
light, shrouded by almost continual mists, is attended by but little
heat,--and its orb, compressed by refraction into an elliptical form,
may be examined by the naked eye without inconvenience.
As the climate, so the vegetation. Dwarfish willow-shrubs, stunted
grass, moss, and a few berry-bearing plants compose the flora of the
cheerless tundras. There is greater abundance and more variety in the
neighbouring and better sheltered valleys of the Aniuj; the poplar,
birch, thyme, absinth, and low creeping cedar enliven their slopes; but
even in these places Nature is most niggardly of her gifts. Such is not
the case, however, with the fauna of Arctic Siberia. The forests are
tenanted by numbers of reindeer, elks, bears, foxes, sables, and gray
squirrels; while in the low grounds stone foxes make their burrows.
With the return of spring come immense flights of swans, geese, and
ducks, which build their nests in the most sequestered corners. The
sea-coast is frequented by eagles, owls, and gulls; the brushwood by
the white ptarmigan; the brooks by hundreds of little snipes. Even the
songs of the finch are not wanting in spring, nor is the thrush wholly
silent in autumn.
* * * * *
Summing up the details recorded by Admiral Wrangell, a recent writer
draws an impressive picture of the mode of life of the people of this
desolate waste, and observes: “All denotes that here the limits of the
habitable earth are passed; and one asks with astonishment, What could
induce human beings to take up their abode in so comfortless a region?”
The chief resource of the Sullaheris of the River Aniuj is, he says,
the reindeer chase,--the success of which mainly determines whether
famine or some degree of plenty is to be their lot during the coming
winter. The passage of the reindeer takes place twice a year: in
spring, when the mosquito-swarms drive them to the sea-coast, where
they feed on the moss of the tundra; and in autumn, when the increasing
cold forces them to retire inland. The spring migration, which begins
about the middle of May, is not very profitable; partly because the
animals are then in poor condition, and partly because it is more
difficult to kill them as they dash across the frozen rivers. The chief
hunting takes place in August and September, when the herds, each
numbering several thousand deer, return to the forests. They invariably
cross the river at a particular spot, where a flat sandy bank enables
them to land with comparative ease; and here they close up their ranks,
as it were, under the guidance of the stalwart veterans of the herd.
After a brief pause of hesitation the herd plunge into the waters, and
in a few minutes the surface of the river seems alive with swimming
reindeer. Now is the hunter’s time; and out from his concealment in
the reedy creek he darts in his little boat, wounding as many animals
as he can. While he and his comrades are thus engaged, they run some
risk of being capsized in the turmoil, for the bucks gallantly defend
themselves with horns, and teeth, and hind legs, while the roes usually
attempt to spring with their fore feet upon the gunwale of the boat. If
the hunter should be overset, his sole chance of safety is to cling to
a strong animal, which will carry him securely across the stream. Such
an accident, however, is of rare occurrence. A good hunter will kill a
hundred reindeer, or even more, in half an hour. Meantime, the other
boats seize the slaughtered animals, which become the property of their
crews; while those that are merely wounded and swim ashore belong to
the hunters, who, in the midst of the uproar, when all their strength
is tasked to the uttermost, so aim their strokes as only to wound
severely the larger animals. The noise of the horns striking against
each other, the “incarnadined” waters, the shouts of the hunters, the
cries of pain, rage, and alarm of the struggling animals, all form a
scene which, once seen, is not easily forgotten.
While the men of Kolymsk are thus engaged during the brief summer-time
in hunting, fishing, and haymaking, the women wander over the country,
and climb the sides of the mountains, for the purpose of gathering
edible roots, aromatic herbs, and various kinds of berries--though the
last do not ripen every year. The berry-plucking season at Kolymsk,
like the vintage in France or Italy, is a season of mirth, a holiday
interval in a hard and laborious life. The young women and girls form
large parties, and spend whole days and nights in the open air. When
the berries are collected, cold water is poured over them, and they
are preserved in a frozen state as an addition to the scanty winter
fare. We are told that “social parties” are not unknown at Kolymsk,
and probably afford as much or as little entertainment there as in
more favoured and more civilized communities. The staple luxury is a
deluge of weak tea--very weak, for the aromatic leaves which cheer but
not inebriate are very dear at Kolymsk; and as sugar is also a costly
article, every guest takes a lump of candy in his mouth, lets the tea
which he sips flow by, and then replaces it upon the saucer. It would
be considered a breach of courtesy if he consumed the entire lump,
which thus is made to do duty at more than one soiree. Next to tea, but
not less esteemed, the principal requisite for a Kolymsk entertainment
is brandy.
* * * * *
Another important Siberian people are the Tungusi, who spread from
the basins of the Upper, Middle, and Lower Tunguska to the western
shores of the Sea of Ochotsk, and from the Chinese frontiers and
the Baikal to the Polar Ocean. Their number does not exceed thirty
thousand. According to their avocations, and the domestic animals which
constitute their wealth, they are known as the Reindeer, Horse, Dog,
Forest, and River Tungusi. Those who keep or rear horses and cattle
are but a few; the majority depend on the reindeer. The condition of
all is deplorably wretched. The Tungusi has no resource but fishing
or hunting. When the rivers are frozen, he withdraws into the forest.
Here his misery is so great and his need so extreme that he frequently
becomes a cannibal, and attacks the wives and children of his more
fortunate countrymen. In happier circumstances he is remarkable for the
readiness of his wit, the vivacity of his manner, and the blithesome
carelessness of his disposition. It is asserted, however, that he is
both malignant and deceitful. He is vain; and loves to decorate his
person with strings and ornaments of glass beads, from his small Tartar
cap to the tips of his shoes. When hunting the reindeer, or travelling
through the forests, however, he puts on large water-tight boots, or
_sari_, well greased with fat; and he carries, on these occasions,
a small axe, a kettle, a leathern wallet containing some dried fish,
and a short gun, or a bow and a sling. He is always accompanied by his
faithful dog.
“With the assistance of his long and narrow snow-shoes, he flies over
the dazzling plain; and protects his eyes, like the Jakut, with a
net made of black horse-hair. He never hesitates to attack the bear
single-handed, and generally masters him. The nomad Tungusi naturally
requires a movable dwelling. His tent is covered with leather, or large
pieces of pliable bark, which are easily rolled up, and transported
from place to place. The _jart_ of the sedentary Tungusi resembles
that of the Jakut, and is so small that it can be very quickly and
thoroughly warmed by a fire kindled on the stone hearth in the centre.
In his food the Tungusi is by no means dainty. One of his favourite
dishes consists of the contents of a reindeer’s stomach mixed with wild
berries, and spread out in thin cakes on the rind of trees, to be dried
in the air or in the sun. Those who have settled on the Wilnj and in
the neighbourhood of Nertschinsk likewise consume large quantities of
birch tea, which they boil with fat and berries into a thick porridge;
and this unwholesome food adds, no doubt, to the yellowness of their
complexion.”
* * * * *
We shall now, and lastly, take a glance at the Tchuktche (or Tuski),
who inhabit the north-eastern point of Asia, with the ice-covered
waters of the Polar Sea on one side, and those of Behring Sea on
the other. Their land is but seldom visited; all, however, who have
ventured thither agree in describing it as one of the most melancholy
regions of the earth. The soil is barren, and half-frozen, yielding
no other vegetation than mosses and lichens, the vaccinium, and the
dwarf birch and willow,--except in the low grounds, where the reedy
marshes are frequented in the summer by geese, and swans, and ducks,
and wading-birds. The climate is so rigorous that one wonders man can
make up his mind to endure it. There is no summer earlier than the 20th
of July; and on the 20th of August the shadow of winter comes upon the
earth. Animal life, however, if not very varied, is abundant: walruses,
sea-lions, and seals inhabit the coasts; and the reindeer, the wolf,
the argali, and the Arctic fox are found in the interior.
The Tchuktche are an enterprising people, and fond of independence.
Unlike their neighbours, the Koriaks, they have always maintained
their freedom against the encroachments of Russia. They are active and
spirited traders. In skin-covered boats they cross Behring Straits,
and barter furs and walrus-teeth with the natives of America. In
long caravans, their sledges drawn by reindeer, they repair to the
great fair of Ostrownoje, and carry on a vigorous commerce with the
Russian merchants. In their train follow sledges laden with supplies
of lichen and moss for the reindeer, as in their wanderings, however
circuitous these may be, they are compelled to traverse broad spaces
of stony desert, where even these abstemious animals can obtain no
food. As their movements are regulated by the necessities of their
herds, they occupy five or six months in a journey which, in a straight
line, would not exceed a thousand versts in length; they are almost
always migrating from place to place, yet, as they invariably carry
their dwellings with them, they never leave home. A caravan generally
consists of fifty or sixty families; and as soon as one fair is at an
end, they depart to make their preparations for the next.
The great staple of the trade at Ostrownoje is tobacco. To secure a
small supply of the narcotic which forms the sole luxury of their
dreary lives, the Eskimos of North America, extending from the Icy Cape
to Bristol Bay, send their articles of barter from hand to hand as far
as the Gwosdus Islands in Behring Strait, where the Tchuktche purchase
them with tobacco bought at Ostrownoje. Thus, in the icy regions of
the extreme north, tobacco is the source and support of considerable
commerce; and the narcotic weed which Raleigh and his contemporaries
introduced from America into Europe, and which from Europe made its way
into Asia, is exported from Asia for the use of American tribes.
The balance of trade, however, seems entirely against the latter.
We are told that the skins which a Tchuktche purchases of an Eskimo
for half a pood (eighteen pounds) of tobaccoleaves, he sells to the
Russian for two poods (seventy-two pounds); and these skins, costing
the Russian about one hundred and sixty roubles, the latter sells at
Jakutsk for two hundred and sixty, and at St. Petersburg for upwards of
five hundred roubles.
The furs sold at Ostrownoje are chiefly those of stone foxes, black
and silver-gray foxes, gluttons, lynxes, otters, beavers, and martens.
Other products brought thither by the Tchuktche are bear-skins,
walrus-teeth, and thongs, sledge-runners (made of whale ribs), and
dresses of reindeer-skin. The Russians, besides tobacco, dispose of
kettles, axes, knives, guns, tea, and sugar.
* * * * *
A visit to the family of a Tchuktche chief is thus described by one of
Admiral Wrangell’s companions:--
We entered the outer tent, or _namet_, consisting of tanned
reindeer-skins outstretched on a slender framework. An opening at the
top to give egress to the smoke, and a kettle on the hearth in the
centre, showed that antechamber and kitchen were here harmoniously
blended into one. But where might be the inmates? Most probably in that
large sack made of the finest skins of reindeer calves, which occupied,
near the kettle, the centre of the _namet_. To penetrate into this
“sanctum sanctorum” of the Tchuktch household, we raised the loose
flap which served as a door, crept on all fours through the opening,
cautiously refastened the flap by tucking it under the floor-skin,
and found ourselves in the _polog_--that is, the reception or
withdrawing-room. A snug box, no doubt, for a cold climate, but rather
low, as we were unable to stand upright in it; nor was it quite so
well ventilated as a sanitary commissioner would require, as it had
positively no opening for light or air. A suffocating smoke met us
on entering: we rubbed our eyes; and when they had at length got
accustomed to the pungent atmosphere, we perceived, by the gloomy light
of a train-oil lamp, the worthy family sitting on the floor in a state
of almost complete nudity. Without being in the least embarrassed,
Madame Leütt and her daughter received us in their primitive costume;
but to show us that the Tchuktche knew how to receive company, and to
do honour to their guests, they immediately inserted strings of glass
beads in their hair.
Their hospitality equalled their politeness; for, instead of a cold
reception, a hot dish of boiled reindeer flesh, copiously irrigated
with rancid train-oil by the experienced hand of the mistress of the
household, was soon after smoking before them. The culinary taste of
the Russians, however, could not appreciate this work of art, and the
Leütt family were left to do justice to it unaided.
The Tchuktche are polygamous. Their women are regarded as slaves, but
are not badly treated. Most of the Tchuktche have been baptized, but
they cling in secret to their heathen creed, and own the power of the
shamans, or necromancers. They form two great divisions: the reindeer,
or wandering Tchuktche, who call themselves Tennygk; and the stationary
Tchuktche, or Oukilon, who exhibit affinities with the Eskimos, and
subsist by hunting the whale, the walrus, and the seal. The Oukilon are
supposed to number 10,000, and the Tennygk about 20,000.