"Neither the Russians nor the Samoyeds carry on any agriculture. The former buy meal for bread from Irbit. The price of meal varies; this season it costs one rouble ten copecks per pood in Pustosersk. Salt is now brought from Norway to Mesen, where it costs fifty to sixty copecks per pood. The Samoyeds buy nearly everything from the Russians. There were many inquiries for gunpowder, shot, cheap fowling-pieces, rum, bread, sugar, and culinary vessels (teacups, &c.). The Samoyed women wear clothes of different colours, chiefly red. In exchange for the goods enumerated above there may be obtained fish, train oil, reindeer skins, walrus tusks, and furs, viz, the skins of the red, white, and brown fox, wolf, Polar bear, and glutton.
"The Russians in question are 'Old Believers,' but the difference between them and the orthodox consists merely in their not smoking tobacco, and in their making the sign of the cross with the thumb, the ring finger, and the little finger, while the orthodox Russians, on the other hand, make it with the thumb, the forefinger, and the middle finger. All Samoyeds are baptised into the orthodox faith, but they worship their old idols at the same time. They travel over a thousand versts as pilgrims to their sacrificial places. There are several such places on Vaygats, where their idols are to be found. The Russians call these idols 'bolvany.'[55] Both the Russians and Samoyeds are very tolerant in regard to matters of faith. The Russians, for instance, say that the Samoyeds attribute to their 'bolvans' the same importance which they themselves attach to their sacred pictures, and find in this nothing objectionable. The Samoyeds have songs and sagas, relating among other things to their migrations.
"The Samoyed has one or more wives; even sisters may marry the same man. Marriage is entered upon without any solemnity. The wives are considered by the men as having equal rights with themselves, and are treated accordingly, which is very remarkable, as the Russians, like other Christian nations, consider the woman as in certain respects inferior to the man."
I visited the place for the first time in the beginning of August, 1875. It was a Russian holiday, and, while still a long way off at sea, we could see a large number of Russians and Samoyeds standing in groups on the beach. Coming nearer we found them engaged in playing various different games, and though it was the first time in the memory of man that European gentlemen had visited their "town," they scarcely allowed themselves to be more disturbed in their occupation than if some stranger Samoyeds had suddenly joined their company. Some stood in a circle and by turns threw a piece of iron, shaped somewhat like a marlinspike, to the ground; the art consisting in getting the sharp end to strike it just in front of rings placed on the ground, in such a way that the piece of iron remained standing. Others were engaged in playing a game resembling our nine-pins; others, again, in wrestling, &c. The Russians and Samoyeds played with each other without distinction. The Samoyeds, small of stature, dirty, with matted, unkempt hair, were clad in dirty summer clothes of skin, sometimes with a showy-coloured cotton shirt drawn over them; the Russians (probably originally of the Finnish race and descendants of the old Beormas) tall, well-grown, with long hair shining with oil, ornamentally parted, combed, and frizzled, and held together by a head band, or covered with a cap resembling that shown in the accompanying woodcut, were clad in long variegated blouses, or "mekkor," fastened at the waist with a belt. Notwithstanding the feigned indifference shown at first, which was evidently considered good manners, we were received in a friendly way. We were first invited to try our luck and skill in the game in turn with the rest, when it soon appeared, to the no small gratification of our hosts, that we were quite incapable of entering into competition either with Russian or Samoyed. Thereupon one of the Russians invited us to enter his cabin, where we were entertained with tea, Russian wheaten cakes of unfermented dough, and brandy. Some small presents were given us with a naïve notification of what would be welcome in their stead, a notification which I with pleasure complied with as far as my resources permitted. A complete unanimity at first prevailed between our Russian and Samoyed hosts, but on the following day a sharp dispute was like to arise because the former invited one of us to drive with a reindeer team standing in the neighbourhood of a Russian hut. The Samoyeds were much displeased on this account, but declared at the same time, as well as they could by signs, that they themselves were willing to drive us, if we so desired, and they showed that they were serious in their declaration by there and then breaking off the quarrel in order to take a short turn with their reindeer teams at a rapid rate among the tents.
The Samoyed sleigh is intended both for winter travelling on the snow, and for summer travelling on the mosses and water-drenched bogs of the tundra. They are, therefore, constructed quite differently from the "akja" of the Lapp. As the woodcut below shows, it completely resembles a high sledge, the carriage consisting of a low and short box, which, in convenience, style, and warmth, cannot be compared to the well-known equipage of the Lapps. We have here two quite different types of sleighs. The Lapp "akja" appears from time immemorial to have been peculiar to the Scandinavian north; the high sleigh, on the contrary, to northern Russia. Thus we find "akjas" of the kind still in common use, delineated in Olaus Magnus (Rome edition, 1555, page 598); Samoyed sleighs, again, in the first works we have on those regions, for instance, in HUYGHEN VAN LINSCHOTEN'S Schip-vaert van by Noorden, &c., Amsterdam, 1601, as a side drawing on the principal map. Such high sleighs are also used on the Kanin peninsula, on Yalmal, and in Western Siberia.
The sleighs of the Chukchis, on the other hand as will be seen by a drawing given farther on, are lower, and thus more resemble our "kaelkar," or work-sledges.
