The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II

by A. E. Nordenskiöld

Among former travellers on the Chukch peninsula, who visited the encampments of the coast Chukches, besides Behring, Cook, and other seafarers, the following may be mentioned:—

The Cossack, PETER ILIIN SIN POPOV, was sent in 1711 with two interpreters to examine the country of the Chukches, and has left some interesting accounts of his observations there (MÜLLER, Sammlung Russischer Geschichten, iii. p. 56).[277]

BILLINGS, with his companions SAUER, SARYTSCHEV, &c., visited Chukch-land in 1791. Among other things, accompanied by Dr. MERK, two interpreters and eight men, he made a journey from Metschigme Bay over the interior of Chukch-land to Yakutsk. Unfortunately the account we have of this remarkable journey is exceedingly incomplete.[278]

FERDINAND VON WRANGEL during his famous Siberian travels was much in contact with the Chukches, and among his other journeys travelled in the winter of 1823 in dog sledges along the coast of the Polar Sea from the Kolyma to Kolyutschin Island (Wrangel, Reise, ii. pp. 176-231). There are besides many notices of the Chukches at other places in the same work (i. pp. 267-293, ii. pp. 156, 168, &c.).

FRIEDRICH VON LÜTKÉ in the course of his circumnavigation of the globe in 1826-29, came in contact with the population of the Chukch peninsula, whom he described in detail in Erman's Archiv (iii. pp. 446-464). Here it ought to be noted that, while the population on the North coast consists of true Chukches, the coast population of the region which Lütké visited, the stretch between the Anadyr and Cape Deschnev consists of a tribe, Namollo, which differs from the Chukches, and is nearly allied to the Eskimo on the American side of Behring's Straits.

The English Franklin Expedition in the Plover, commanded by Captain MOORE, wintered in 1848-49 at Chukotskojnos, and, both at the winter station and in the course of extensive excursions with dogs along the coast and to the interior of the country, came much into contact with the natives. The observations made during the wintering were published in a work of great importance for a knowledge of the tribes in question by Lieutenant W.H. HOOPER, Ten Months among the Tents of the Tuski, London, 1853.

C VON DITTMAR[279] travelled in 1853 in the north part of Kamchatka, and there came in contact with the reindeer nomads, especially with the Koryäks. The information he gives us about the Chukches (p. 126) he had obtained from the Nischni-Kolymsk merchant, TRIFONOV, who had traded with them for twenty-eight years, and had repeatedly travelled in the interior of the country.

Interesting contributions to a knowledge of the mode of living of the reindeer-Chukches were also collected by Baron G. VON MAYDELL, who, in 1868 and 1869, along with Dr. CARL VON NEUMANN and others, made a journey from Yakutsk by Sredni-Kolymsk and Anjui to Kolyutschin Bay. Unfortunately, with regard to this expedition, I have only had access to some notices in the Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society (vol. 21, London 1877, p. 213), and Das Ausland (1880, p. 861). The proper sketch of the journey is to be found in Isvestija, published by the Siberian division of the Russian Geographical Society, parts 1 and 2.

With reference to the other travellers whose writings are usually quoted as sources for a knowledge of the Chukches, it may be mentioned that STELLER and KRASCHENINNIKOV only touch in passing on the true Chukches, but instead give very instructive and detailed accounts of the Koryäks, who are as nearly allied to the Chukches as the Spaniards to the Portuguese, but yet differ considerably in their mode of life, also that a part of these authors' statements regarding the Chukches do not at all refer to that tribe, but to the Eskimo. It appears indeed that recently, after the former national enmity had ceased, mixed races have arisen among these tribes. But it ought not to be forgotten that they differ widely in origin, although the Chukches as coming at a later date to the coast of the Polar Sea have adopted almost completely the hunting implements and household furniture of the Eskimo; and the Eskimo again, in the districts where they come in contact with the Chukches, have adopted various things from their language.

Like the Lapps and most other European and Asiatic Polar races, the Chukches fall into two divisions speaking the same language and belonging to the same race, but differing considerably in their mode of life. One division consists of reindeer nomads, who, with their often very numerous reindeer herds, wander about between Behring's Straits, and the Indigirka and the Penschina Bays. They live by tending reindeer and by trade, and consider themselves the chief part of the Chukch tribe. The other division of the race are the coast Chukches, who do not own any reindeer, but live in fixed but easily moveable and frequently moved tents along the coast between Chaun Bay and Behring's Status. But beyond East Cape there is found along the coast of Behring's Sea another tribe, nearly allied to the Eskimo. This is Wrangel's Onkilon, Lütké's Namollo. Now, however, Chukches also have settled at several points on this line of coast, and a portion of the Eskimo have adopted the language of the superior Chukch race. Thus the inhabitants at St. Lawrence Bay spoke Chukch, with little mixture of foreign words, and differed in their mode of life and appearance only inconsiderably from the Chukches, whom during the course of the winter we learned to know from nearly all parts of the Chukch peninsula. The same was the case with the natives who came on board the Vega while we sailed past East Cape, and with the two families we visited in Konyam Bay. But the natives in the north-west part of St. Lawrence Island talked an Eskimo dialect, quite different from Chukch. There were, however, many Chukch words incorporated with it. At Port Clarence on the contrary there lived pure Eskimo. Among them we found a Chukch woman who informed us that there were Chukch villages also on the American side of Behring's Strait, north of Prince of Wales Cape. These cannot, however, be very numerous or populous, as they are not mentioned in the accounts of the various English expeditions to those regions, they die not noticed for instance in Dr. JOHN SIMPSON'S instructive memoir on the Eskimo at Behring's Straits.