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

by A. E. Nordenskiöld

During our stay off the considerable encampment, Irkaipij, we believed, as I have already stated, that we had found a chief in a native named Chepurin, who, to judge by his dress, appeared to be somewhat better off than the others, had two wives and a stately exterior. He was accordingly entertained in the gunroom, got the finest presents, and was in many ways the object of special attention. Chepurin took his elevation easily, and showed himself worthy of it by a grave and serious, perhaps somewhat condescending behaviour, which further confirmed our supposition and naturally increased the number of our presents. Afterwards, however, we were quite convinced that we had in this case committed a complete mistake, and that now there are to be found among the Chukches living at the coast neither any recognised chiefs nor any trace of social organisation. During the former martial period of the history of the race the state of things here was perhaps different, but now the most complete anarchy prevails here, if by that word we may denote a state of society in which disputes, crimes, and punishments are unknown, or at least exceedingly rare. [287] A sort of chieftainship appears, at all events, to be found among the reindeer-Chukches living in the interior of the country. At least there are among them men who can show commmissions from the Russian authorities. Such a man was the starost Menka, of whose visit I have already given an account. Everything, however, indicated that his influence was exceedingly small. He could neither read, write, nor speak Russian, and he had no idea of the existence of a Russian Czar. All the tribute he had delivered for several years, according to receipts which he showed to us, consisted of some few fox-skins, which he had probably received as market-tolls at Anjui and Markova. Menka was attended on his visit to the vessel by two ill-clad men with a type of face differing considerably from that common among the Chukches. Their standing appeared to be so inferior that we took them for slaves, although mistakenly, at least with respect to one of them — Yettugin. He afterwards boasted that he owned a much larger reindeer-herd than Menka's, and talked readily, with a certain scorn, of Menka's chieftain pretensions. According to Russian authors there are actual slaves, probably the descendants of former prisoners of war, among the Chukches in the interior of the country. Among the dwellers on the coast, on the contrary, there is the most complete equality. We could never discover the smallest trace of any man exercising the least authority beyond his own family or his own tent.

The coast Chukches are not only heathens, but are also, so far as we could observe, devoid of every conception of higher beings. There are, however, superstitions. Thus most of them wear round the neck leather straps, to which small wooden tongs, of wooden carvings, are fixed. These are not parted with, and are not readily shown to foreigners. A boy had a band of beads sewed to his hood, and in front there was fastened an ivory carving, probably intended to represent a bear's head (fig. 6, on p. 117). It was so small, and so inartistically cut, that a man could undoubtedly make a dozen of them in a day. I, however, offered the father unsuccessfully a clasp-knife and tobacco for it, but the boy himself, having heard our bargaining, exchanged it soon after for a piece of sugar. When the father knew this he laughed good-naturedly, without making any attempt to get the bargain undone.

To certain tools small wooden images are affixed, as to the scraper figured above ([fig. 3, p. 117]), and similar images are found in large numbers in the lumber-room of the tent, where pieces of ivory, bits of agate and scrap iron, are preserved. A selection from the large collection of such images which I made is here reproduced in woodcuts. If, also, these carvings may, in fact, be considered as representations of higher beings, the religious ideas which are connected with them, even judged from the Shaman standpoint, are exceedingly indistinct, less a consciousness, which still lives among the people, than a reminiscence from former times. Most of the figures bear an evident stamp of the present dress and mode of life of the people. It appears to me to be remarkable, that in all the bone or wood carvings I have met with, the face has been cut flatter than it is in reality in this race of men. Some of the carvings appear to remind me of an ancient Buddhist image.

The drum, or more correctly, tambourine, so common among most of the Polar peoples, European, Asiatic, and American, among the Lapps, the Samoyeds, the Tunguses, and the Eskimo ([see drawing on p. 24]), is found in every Chukch tent. A certain superstition is also attached to it. They did not willingly play it in our presence, and they were unwilling to part with it. If time permitted it was concealed on our entrance into the tent. The drum consists of the peritoneum of a seal, stretched over a narrow wooden ring fixed to a short handle. The drumstick consists of a splinter of whalebone 300 to 400 millimetres long, which towards the end runs into a point so fine and flexible, that it forms a sort of whipcord. When the thicker part of the piece of whalebone is struck against the edge of the drum-skin, the other end whips against the middle, and the skin is thus struck twice at the same time. The drum is commonly played by the man, and the playing is accompanied by a very monotonous song. We have not seen it accompanied by dancing, twisting of the countenance, or any other Shaman trick.

We did not see among the Chukches we met with any Shamans. They are described by Wrangel, Hooper, and other travellers. Wrangel states (vol. i. p. 284) that the Shamans in the year 1814, when a severe epidemic broke out among the Chukches and their reindeer at Anjui, declared that in order to propitiate the spirits they must sacrifice Kotschen, one of the most highly esteemed men of the tribe. He was so much respected that no one would execute the sentence, but attempts were made to get it altered, first by presents to the prophets, and then by flogging them. But when this did not succeed, as the disease continued to ravage, and no one would execute the doom, Kotschen ordered his own son to do it. He was thus compelled to stab his own father to death and give up the corpse to the Shamans. The whole narrative conflicts absolutely with the disposition and manners of the people with whom we made acquaintance at Behring's Straits sixty-five years after this occurrence, and I would be disposed to dispute entirely the truthfulness of the statement, had not the history of our own part of the world taught us that blood has flowed in streams for dogmatic hair-splittings, which no one now troubles himself about. Perhaps the breath of indifferentism has reached even the ice-deserts of the Polar lands.

The drum has besides also another use, which appears to have little connection with its property of Shaman psychograph or church bell. When the ladies unravel and comb their long black hair, this is done carefully over the drum, on whose bottom the numerous beings which the comb brings with it from the warm hearth of home out into the cold wide world, are collected and cracked—in case they are not eaten up. They taste well according to the Chukch opinion, and are exceedingly good for the breast. Even gorm (the large, fully developed, fat larva of the reindeer fly, Oestrus tarandi) is pressed out of the skin of the reindeer and eaten, as well as the full-grown reindeer fly.

Some more of the superstitious traits which we observed among the Chukches may here be stated. After the good hunting in February we endeavoured without success to induce the Chukches to give us a head or a skull of some of the seals they had killed. Even brandy was unsuccessfully offered for it, and it was only in the greatest secrecy that Notti, one of our best friends from Irgunnuk, dared to give us the foetus of a seal. A raven was once shot in the neighbourhood of the ice-house. The shot then went to the magnetical observatory, but before he entered, laid down the shot bird, the gun, and other articles in the before-mentioned implement chest placed in front of the observatory. A short time after there was great excitement before the tent. Some men, women, and children among the natives crowded round the chest screaming and shouting. For the Chukches had observed that the raven, having been only stunned by the shot, had begun to scream and flutter in the chest, and they now indicated by word and gesture that a great misfortune was about to happen. Pity is not, as is well known, one of the good qualities of the savage. It was clear that in this case too it was not this feeling, but fear of the evil which the wounded crow could bring about, that caused this scene, and when a sailor immediately after twisted the neck of the bird, the Chukches had no objection to receive and eat it.

The winter of 1878-1879 appears to have been uncommonly severe, and hunting less productive than usual. This was ascribed to our presence. The Chukches asked us anxiously several times, whether we intended to raise the water so high that the sea would reach their tents. When on the 11th February, after the hunting had failed for a long time, they succeeded at last in catching a number of seals, they threw water in their mouths before they were carried into the tents. This was done, they said, in order that the open "leads" in the ice should not close too soon.