As it may be of interest to ascertain to what extent the Samoyeds have undergone any considerable changes in their mode of life since they first became known to West-Europeans, I shall here quote some of the sketches of them which we find in the accounts of the voyages of the English and Dutch travellers to the North-East.
That changes have taken place in their weapons, in other words, that the Samoyeds have made progress in the art of war or the chase, is shown by the old drawings, some of which are here reproduced. For in these they are nearly always delineated with bows and arrows. Now the bow appears to have almost completely gone out of use, for we saw not a single Samoyed archer. They had, on the other hand, the wretched old flint firelocks, in which lost pieces of the lock were often replaced in a very ingenious way with pieces of bone and thongs. They also inquired eagerly for percussion guns, but breechloaders were still unknown to them. In this respect they had not kept abreast of the times so well as the Eskimo at Port Clarence.
One of the oldest accounts of the Samoyeds which I know is that of Stephen Burrough from 1556. It is given in Hakluyt (1st edition, page 318). In the narrative of the voyage of the Searchthrift we read:—
"On Saturday the 1st August 1556 I went ashore,[56] and there saw three morses that they (Russian hunters) had killed: they held one tooth of a morse, which was not great, at a roble, and one white beare skin at three robles and two robles: they further told me, that there were people called Samoeds on the great Island, and that they would not abide them nor us, who have no houses, but only coverings made of Deerskins, set ouer them with stakes: they are men expert in shooting, and have great plenty of Deere. On Monday the 3rd we weyed and went roome with another Island, which was five leagues (15') East-north-east from us: and there I met againe with Loshak,[57] and went on shore with him, and he brought me to a heap of Samoeds idols, which were in number above 300, the worst and the most unartificiall worke that ever I saw: the eyes and mouthes of sundrie of them were bloodie, they had the shape of men, women, and children, very grosly wrought, and that which they had made for other parts, was also sprinkled with blood. Some of their idols were an olde sticke with two or three notches, made with a knife in it. There was one of their sleds broken and lay by the heape of idols, and there I saw a deers skinne which the foules had spoyled: and before certaine of their idols blocks were made as high as their mouthes, being all bloody, I thought that to be the table whereon they offered their sacrifice: I saw also the instruments whereupon they had roasted flesh, and as farre as I could perceiue, they make the fire directly under the spit. Their boates are made of Deers skins, and when they come on shoare they cary their boates with them upon their backs: for their cariages they haue no other beastes to serve them but Deere only. As for bread and corne they have none, except the Russes bring it to them: their knowledge is very base for they know no letter."
Giles Fletcher, who in 1588 was Queen Elizabeth's ambassador to the Czar, writes in his account of Russia of the Samoyeds in the following way:—[58]
"The Samoyt hath his name (as the Russe saith) of eating himselfe: as if in times past they lived as the Cannibals, eating one another. Which they make more probable, because at this time they eate all kind of raw flesh, whatsoeuer it bee, euen the very carrion that lyeth in the ditch. But as the Samoits themselves will say, they were called Samoie, that is, of themselves, as though they were Indigenæ, or people bred upon that very soyle that never changed their seate from one place to another, as most Nations have done. They are clad in Seale-skinnes, with the hayrie side outwards downe as low as the knees, with their Breeches and Netherstocks of the same, both men and women. They are all Blacke hayred, naturally beardless. And therefore the Men are hardly discerned from the Women by their lookes: saue that the Women weare a locke of hayre down along both their eares."
In nearly the same way the Samoyeds are described by G. DE VEER in his account of Barents' second voyage in 1595. Barents got good information from the Samoyeds as to the navigable water to the eastward, and always stood on a good footing with them, excepting on one occasion when the Samoyeds went down to the Dutchmen's boats and took back an idol which had been carried off from a large sacrificial mound.
The Samoyeds have since formed the subject of a very extensive literature, of which however it is impossible for me to give any account here. Among other points their