THE TUNGUSI.
Their Relationship to the Mantchou.--Dreadful Condition of the
outcast Nomads.--Character of the Tungusi.--Their Outfit for the
Chase.--Bear-hunting.--Dwellings.--Diet.--A Night’s Halt with
Tungusi in the Forest.--Ochotsk.
Though both belonging to the same stock, the fate of the Tungusi and
Mantchou has been very different; for at the same time when the latter
conquered the vast Chinese Empire, the former, after having spread
over the greatest part of East Siberia, and driven before them the
Jakuts, the Jukahiri, the Tchuktchi, and many other aboriginal tribes,
were in their turn subjugated by the mightier Russians. In the year
1640 the Cossacks first encountered the Tungusi, and in 1644 the first
Mantchou emperor mounted the Chinese throne. The same race which here
imposes its yoke upon millions of subjects, there falls a prey to a
small number of adventurers. However strange the fact, it is, however,
easily explained, for the Chinese were worse armed and less disciplined
than the Mantchou, while the Tungusi had nothing but bows and arrows
to oppose to the Cossack fire-arms; and history (from Alexander the
Great to Sadowa) teaches us that victory constantly sides with the best
weapons.
In their intellectual development we find the same difference as in
their fortunes between the Mantchou and the Siberian Tungusi. Two
hundred and fifty years ago the former were still nomads, like their
northern kinsfolk, and could neither read nor write, and already they
have a rich literature, and their language is spoken at the court of
Peking; while the Tungusi, oppressed and sunk in poverty, are still as
ignorant as when they first encountered the Cossacks.
According to their occupations, and the various domestic animals
employed by them, they are distinguished by the names of Reindeer,
Horse, Dog, Forest, and River Tungusi; but although they are found 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 whole number does not amount to more
than 30,000, and diminishes from year to year, in consequence of the
ravages of the small-pox and other epidemic disorders transmitted
to them by the Russians. Only a few rear horses and cattle, the
reindeer being generally their domestic animal; and the impoverished
Tunguse, who has been deprived of his herd by some contagious disorder
or the ravages of the wolves, lives as a fisherman on the borders
of a river, assisted by his dog, or retires into the forests as a
promyschlenik, or hunter. Of the miseries which here await him,
Wrangell relates a melancholy instance. In a solitary hut in one of
the dreariest wildernesses imaginable, he found a Tunguse and his
daughter. While the father, with his long snow-shoes, was pursuing a
reindeer for several days together, this unfortunate girl remained
alone and helpless in the hut--which even in summer afforded but an
imperfect shelter against the rain and wind--exposed to the cold, and
frequently to hunger, and without the least occupation. No wonder that
the impoverished Tungusi not seldom sink into cannibalism. Neither
the reindeer nor the dogs, nor the wives and children of their more
fortunate countrymen, are secure from the attacks and voracity of
these outcasts, who, in their turn, are treated like wild beasts, and
destroyed without mercy. A bartering trade is, however, carried on with
them, but only at a distance, and by signs; each party depositing its
goods, and following every motion of the other with a suspicious eye.
The Russian Government, anxious to relieve the misery of the
impoverished nomads, has given orders to settle them along the
river-banks, and to provide them with the necessary fishing implements;
but only extreme wretchedness can induce the Tunguse to relinquish
the free life of the forest. His careless temper, his ready wit, and
sprightly manner, distinguish him from the other Siberian tribes--the
gloomy Samoïede, the uncouth Ostiak, the reserved Jakut--but he is
said to be full of deceit and malice. His vanity shows itself in the
quantity of glass beads with which he decorates his dress of reindeer
leather, from his small Tartar cap to the tips of his shoes. When
chasing or travelling on his reindeer through the woods, he of course
lays aside most of his finery, and puts on large water-tight boots,
or sari, well greased with fat, to keep off the wet of the morass.
His hunting apparatus is extremely simple. A small axe, a kettle, a
leathern bag containing some dried fish, a dog, a short gun, or merely
a bow and a sling, is all he requires for his expeditions into the
forest. 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 Tunguse 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 yourt of the sedentary Tunguse 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 Tunguse is by no means dainty. One of his favorite 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 Wiluj and in
the neighborhood of Nertschinsk, likewise consume large quantities of
brick 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.
But few of the Tungusi have been converted to Christianity, the
majority being still addicted to Shamanism. They do not like to bury
their dead, but place them, in their holiday dresses, in large chests,
which they hang up between two trees. The hunting apparatus of the
deceased is buried beneath the chest. No ceremonies are used on the
occasion, except when a Shaman happens to be in the neighborhood,
when a reindeer is sacrificed, on whose flesh the sorcerer and the
relations regale themselves, while the spirits to whom the animal is
supposed to be offered are obliged to content themselves with the smell
of the burnt fat. As among the Samoïedes or the Ostiaks, woman is a
marketable ware among the Tungusi. The father gives his daughter in
marriage for twenty or a hundred reindeer, or the bridegroom is obliged
to earn her hand by a long period of service.
In East Siberia the Tungusi divide with the Jakuts the task of
conveying goods or travellers through the forests, and afford the
stranger frequent opportunities for admiring their agility and
good-humor. On halting after a day’s journey, the reindeer are unpacked
in an instant, the saddles and the goods ranged orderly on the ground,
and the bridles collected and hung on branches of trees. The hungry
animals soon disappear in the thicket, where they are left to provide
for themselves. The men, who meanwhile have been busy with their axes,
drag a larch-tree or two to the place of encampment. The smaller
branches are lopped off and collected to serve as beds or seats upon
the snow, while the resinous wood of the larger trunks is soon kindled
into a lively fire. The kettle, filled with snow, is suspended from
a strong forked branch placed obliquely in the ground over the fire,
and in a few minutes the tea is ready--for the Tungusi proceed every
evening according to the same method, and are consequently as expert as
long and invariable practice can make them. Comfortably seated on his
reindeer saddle, the traveller may now amuse himself with the dances,
which the Tungusi accompany with an agreeable song; or if he choose to
witness their agility in athletic exercises, it only costs him a word
of encouragement, and a small donation of brandy. Two of the Tungusi
hold a rope, and swing it with all their might, so that it does not
touch the ground. Meanwhile a third Tunguse skips over the rope, picks
up a bow and arrow, spans the bow and shoots the arrow, without once
touching the rope. Some particularly bold and expert Tungusi will dance
over a sword which a person lying on his back on the ground is swinging
about with the greatest rapidity. Should our traveller be a friend of
chess, the Tungusi are equally at his service, as they are passionately
fond of this noblest of games, especially in the Kolymsk district. Like
all other Siberian nomads, they visit at least once a year the various
fairs which are held in the small towns scattered here and there
over their immense territory--such as Kirensk, Olekminsk, Bargusin,
Tschita, and Ochotsk, which, before the opening of the Amoor to trade,
was the chief port of East Siberia.
Ochotsk is one of the dreariest places imaginable; at least no
traveller who ever visited it has a word to say in its favor. Not a
single tree grows for miles and miles around, and the wretched huts of
which the town is composed lie in the midst of a swamp, which in summer
is a fruitful source of malaria and pestilence. The River Ochota, at
whose mouth Ochotsk is situated, does not break up before the end of
May, and the ice-masses continue to pass the town till the 15th or 20th
of June. Soon after begins the most unpleasant time of all the year,
or “buss” of the Siberians, characterized by thick fog and a perpetual
drizzling rain. The weather clears up in July, but as early as August
the night-frosts cover the earth with rime. Salmon, of which no less
than fourteen different species live in the Sea of Ochotsk, are the
only food which the neighborhood affords; all other necessaries of life
come from Jakutsk, and are of course enormously dear. Meat appears only
from time to time on the tables of the wealthier merchants, and bread
is an article of luxury. No wonder that the scurvy ravages every winter
a place so ill-provisioned, and that at the time when the first caravan
of pack-horses is expected to cross the Aldan Mountains, the people of
Ochotsk, unable to restrain their impatience, go out a long way to meet
it. As the former trade of the place has now no doubt been transferred
to the settlements on the Amoor, it may well be supposed that Ochotsk
has lost most of its former inhabitants, who can only be congratulated
on their change of residence.
[Illustration: 89. BERING’S MONUMENT AT PETROPAULOVSK.]