1. Scraper for currying (one-seventh of the natural size). 2. Awls (one-half). 3. Ice-scraper intended for decoying the seal from its hole, with bone amulet affixed(one-half). 4. Bone knife (one-half). 5, 6. Amulets of bone (natural size). 7. Pipe and tobacco pouch (one-third). 8. Metal spoons (one-third).
a very extensive trade, and evidently are good mercantile men. According to von Dittmar (loc. cit. p. 129) there exists, or still existed in 1856, a steady, slow, but regular transport of goods along the whole north coast of Asia and America, by which Russian goods were conveyed to the innermost parts of Polar America, and furs instead found their way to the bazaars of Moscow and St. Petersburg. This traffic is carried on at five market places, of which three are situated in America, one on the islands at Behring's Straits, and one at Anjui near Kolyma The last-mentioned is called by the Chukches "the fifth beaver market."[285]
The Chukches' principal articles of commerce consist of seal-skin, train-oil, fox-skins and other furs, walrus tusks, whalebone, &c. Instead they purchase tobacco, articles of iron, reindeer skin and reindeer flesh, and, when it can be had, spirit. A bargain is concluded very cautiously after long-continued consultation in a whispering tone between those present. I employed spirit as an article for barter only in the last necessity, but they soon observed that the desire to become owner of an uncommon article of art or antiquity overcame my determination, and they soon learned to avail themselves of this, especially as in all cases I made full payment for the article and gave the fire-water into the bargain.
The lamp (see the figures at pp. 22, 23), with which light is maintained in the tent, consists of a flat trough of wood, bone of the whale, soap-stone or burned clay, broader behind than before, and divided by an isolated toothed comb into two divisions. In the front division wicks of moss (Sphagnum sp.) are laid in a long thin row along the whole edge. Under the lamp there is always another vessel intended to receive the train-oil which may possibly be spilled.
In summer the natives also cook with wood in the open air or in the outer tent, in winter only in the greatest necessity in the latter. For they find the smoke, which the wood gives off in the close tent, unendurable. Although driftwood is to be found in great abundance on the beach, scarcity of train-oil was evidently considered by the natives as great a misfortune as scarcity of food. Uinqa eek, no fuel (properly, no fire), was the constant cry even of those who drew loads of driftwood on board to earn bread for themselves. The circumstance that their fuel does not give off any smoke has the advantage that the eyes of the Chukches are not usually nearly so much attacked as those of the Lapps.
In the tent the women have always a watchful eye over the trimming of the lamp and the keeping up of the fire. The wooden pins she uses to trim the wick, and which naturally are drenched with train-oil, are used when required as a light or torch in the outer tent, to light pipes, &c. In the same way other pins dipped in train-oil are used.[286] Clay lamps are made by the Chukches themselves, the clay being well kneaded and moistened with urine. The burning is incomplete, and is indeed often wholly omitted.
Train-oil and other liquid wares are often kept in sacks of seal-skin, consisting of whole hides, out of which the body has been taken through the opening made by cutting off the head, and in which all holes, either natural or caused by the killing of the animal, have been firmly closed. In one of the forepaws there is then inserted with great skill a wooden air- and water-tight cock with spigot and faucet. In sacks intended for dry wares the paws are also cut off, and the opening through which the contents are put in and taken out is made right across the breast immediately below the forepaws.
Fire is lighted partly in the way common in Sweden some decades ago by means of flint and steel, partly by means of a drill implement. In the former case the steel generally consists of a piece of a file or some other old steel tool, or of pieces of iron or steel which have been specially forged for the purpose. Commonly the form of this tool indicates a European or Russian-Siberian origin, but I also acquired clumsily hammered pieces of iron, which appeared to form specimens of native skill in forging. A Chukch showed me a large fire-steel of the last mentioned kind, provided with a special handle of copper beautifully polished by long-continued use. He evidently regarded it as a very precious thing, and I could not persuade him to part with it. On the supposition that the metal of the clumsily hammered pieces of iron might possibly be of meteoric origin I purchased as many of them as I could. But the examination, to which they were subjected after our return, showed that they contain no traces of nickel. The iron was thus not meteoric.
The flint consists of a beautiful chalcedony or agate, which has been formed in cavities in the volcanic rocks which occur so abundantly in north-eastern Asia, and which probably are also found here and there as pebbles in the beds of the tundra rivers. As tinder, are used partly the woolly hair of various animals, partly dry fragments of different kinds of plants. The steel and a large number of pieces of flint are kept in a skin pouch suspended from the neck. Within this pouch there is a smaller one, containing the tinder. It is thus kept warm by the heat of the body, and protected from wet by its double envelope. Along with it the men often carry on their persons a sort of match of white, well-dried, and crushed willows, which are plaited together and placed in even rolls. This match burns slowly, evenly, and well.
