CHAPTER XXIV.
THE TCHUKTCHI.
The Land of the Tchuktchi.—Their independent Spirit and commercial Enterprise.—Perpetual Migrations.—The Fair of Ostrownoje.—Visit in a Tchuktch Polog.—Races.—Tchuktch Bayaderes.—The Tennygk, or Reindeer Tchuktchi.—The Onkilon, or Sedentary Tchuktchi.—Their Mode of Life.
At the extreme north-eastern point of Asia, bounded by the Polar Ocean on one side and the Sea of Bering on the other, lies the land of the Tchuktchi. The few travellers who have ever visited that bleak promontory describe it as one of the dreariest regions of the earth. The climate is dreadfully cold, as may be expected in a country confined between icy seas. Before July 20th there is no appearance of summer, and winter already sets in about August 20th. The lower grounds shelving to the north are intersected with numerous streams, which, however, enjoy their liberty but a short time of the year; the valleys are mostly swampy and filled with small lakes or ponds; while on the bleak hill-slopes the Vaccinium and the dwarf birch or willow sparingly vegetate under a carpet of mosses and lichens. The eastern, north-eastern, and partly also the southern coasts abound with walruses, sea-lions, and seals, while the reindeer, the argali, the wolf, and the Arctic fox occupy the land. During the short summer, geese, swans, ducks, and wading-birds frequent the marshy grounds; but in winter the snow-owl and the raven alone remain, and constantly follow the path of the nomadic inhabitants. In this desolate nook of the Old World lives the only aboriginal people of North Asia which has known how to maintain its liberty to the present day, and which, proud of its independence, looks down with sovereign contempt upon its relations, the Korjaks, who, without offering any resistance, have yielded to the authority of Russia.
The rulers of Siberia have indeed confined the Tchuktchi within narrow limits, but here at least they obey no foreign ruler, and wander, unmolested by the stranger, with their numerous reindeer herds, over the naked tundras. A natural distrust of their powerful neighbors has rendered them long unwilling to enter into any commercial intercourse with the Russians, and to meet them at the fair of Ostrownoje, a small town, situated not far from their frontiers, on a small island of the Aniuj, in 68° N. lat.
96. TCHUKTCHI CANOE.
This remotest trading-place of the Old World is not so unimportant as might be supposed, from the sterile nature of the country, for the Tchuktchi are not satisfied, like the indolent Lapps or Samoïedes, with the produce of their reindeer herds, but strive to increase their enjoyments or their property by an active trade. From the East Cape of Asia, where, crossing Bering’s Straits in boats covered with skins, they barter furs and walrus-teeth from the natives of America, the Tchuktchi come with their goods and tents drawn on sledges to the fair of Ostrownoje. Other sledges laden with lichens, the food of the reindeer, follow in their train, as in their wanderings, however circuitous, they not seldom pass through regions so stony and desert as not even to afford these frugal animals the slightest repast. Thus regulating their movements by the wants of their herds, they require five or six months for a journey which, in a direct line, would not be much longer than a thousand versts, and are almost constantly wandering from place to place, though, as they always carry their dwellings along with them, they at the same time never leave home. One of these snail-like caravans generally consists of fifty or sixty families, and one fair is scarcely at an end when they set off to make their arrangements for the next.
Tobacco is the primum mobile of the trade which centres in Ostrownoje. Their pipes are of a peculiar character, larger at the stem than the bowl, which holds a very small quantity of tobacco. In smoking, they swallow the fumes of the tobacco, and often, after six or eight whiffs, fall back completely intoxicated for the time. The desire to procure a few of its narcotic leaves induces the American Esquimaux, from the Icy Cape to Bristol Bay, to send their produce from hand to hand as far as the Gwosdew Islands in Bering’s Straits, where it is bartered for the tobacco of the Tchuktchi, and these again principally resort to the fair of Ostrownoje to purchase tobacco from the Russians. Generally the Tchuktchi receive from the Americans as many skins for half a poud, or eighteen pounds, of tobacco-leaves as they afterwards sell to the Russians for two pouds of tobacco of the same quality. These cost the Russian merchant about 160 roubles at the very utmost, while the skins which he obtains in barter are worth at least 260 at Jakutsk, and are more than double that sum at St. Petersburg.
97. TCHUKTCHI PIPE.