In nearly the same way the Samoyeds are described by G. De Veer, in his account of Barents's Second Voyage in 1595.
Serebrenikoff, according to Nordensköld, maintains that Samodin should be written instead of Samoyed. For Samoyed means "self eater," while Samodin denotes an "individual," "one who cannot be mistaken for another," and, as the Samoyeds were never cannibals, Serebrenikoff gives a preference to the latter name, which is used by the Russians at Chabarova, and appears to be a literal translation of the name which the Samoyeds give themselves. Nordenskiöld, however, considers it probable that the old tradition of man-eaters (androphagi), living in the north, which onginated with Herodotus, and was afterwards universally adopted in the geographical literature of the Middle Ages, reappears in Russianised form in the name Samoyed. With all due respect for Nordenskiöld, I am inclined to agree with Serebrenikoff. In the account of the journey which the Italian minorite, Joannes de Piano Carpini, undertook in High Asia in 1245-47, an extraordinary account of the Samoyeds and neighbouring tribes is given. (See Vol. II. of these Collections, pp. 28 and 95).—I give a very curious engraving of Samoyeds from Schleissing.—Nordenskiöld inserts, in his Voyage of the Vega, the following interesting communication from Professor Ahlquist, of Helsingfors:—.
"The Samoyeds are reckoned, along with the Tungoose, the Mongolian, the Turkish and the Finnish-Ugrian races, to belong to the so-called Altaic or Ural-Altaic stem. What is mainly characteristic of this stem, is that all the languages occurring within it belong to the so-called agglutinating type. For in these languages the relations of ideas are expressed exclusively by terminations or suffixes—inflections, prefixes and prepositions, as expressive of relations, being completely unknown to them. Other peculiarities characteristic of the Altaic languages are the vocal harmony occurring in many of them, the inability to have more than one consonant in the beginning of a word, and the expression of the plural by a peculiar affix, the case terminations being the same in the plural as in the singular. The affinity between the different branches of the Altaic stem is thus founded mainly on analogy or resemblance in the construction of the languages, while the different tongues in the material of language (both in the words themselves and in the expression of relations) show a very limited affinity or none at all. The circumstance that the Samoyeds for the present have as their nearest neighbours several Finnish-Ugrian races (Lapps, Syrjaeni, Ostjaks, and Voguls), and that these to a great extent carry on the same modes of life as themselves, has led some authors to assume a close affinity between the Samoyeds and the Fins and the Finnish races in general. The speech of the two neighbouring tribes, however, affords no ground for such a supposition. Even the language of the Ostjak, which is the most closely related to that of the Samoyeds, is separated heaven-wide from it and has nothing in common with it, except a small number of borrowed words (chiefly names of articles from the Polar nomad's life), which the Ostjak has taken from the language of his northern neighbour. With respect to their language, however, the Samoyeds are said to stand at a like distance from the other branches of the stem in question. To what extent craniology or modern anthropology can more accurately determine the affinity-relationship of the Samoyed to other tribes, is still a question of the future."
At the present day, the Samoyeds dwell in skin tents. They dress principally in reindeer-skins, and the women's holiday-dress is particularly showy. Their boots, also of reindeer-skin, are beautifully and tastefully embroidered. In summer, the men go bare-headed: the women divide their hair into tresses, and use artificial plaits, ornamented with pearls, buttons, &c. Like the man, the woman is small, with coarse black hair, face of a yellow colour, small and sunken eyes, a flat nose, broad cheek-bones, slender legs, and small feet and hands. She competes with the man in dirt. Nordenskiöld places the Samoyeds in the lowest rank of all the Polar races. The women have perfectly equal rights with the men.]
Tuesday (4) we turned for the harborough where Loshaks barke lay, whereas before we road vnder an Island. And there he came aboord of vs and said vnto me: if God sende winde and weather to serue, I will goe to the Ob with you, because the Morses were scant at these Islands of Vaigats, but if he could not get to the riuer of Ob, then he sayd hee would goe to the riuer of Naramzay, where the people were not altogether so sauage as the Samoyds of the Ob are: hee shewed me that they will shoot at all men to the vttermost of their power, that cannot speake their speech.
Wednesday (5) we saw a terrible heape of ice approach neere vnto vs, and therefore wee thought good with al speed possible to depart from thence, and so I returned to the Westwards againe, to the Island where we were the 31. of Iuly.
[Illustration: SAMOYED ARCHERS. After Unschoten.]
[Illustration: SAMOYEDS. From Schleissing's Nou-entdecktes Sieweria, worinnen die Zobeln gefangen werden. Zittan 1693.]
Thursday (6) I went a shoare, and tooke the latitude, which was 70 degrees 25 minutes: and the variation of the compasse was 8 degrees from the North to the West.
Loshak and the two small Lodias of Pechora departed from this Island, while I was on shoare taking the latitude, and went to the Southwards: I maruailed why he departed so suddenly, and went ouer the shoales amongst the Islands where it was impossible for vs to follow them. But after I perceiued them to be weatherwise.