In Search of a Siberian Klondike Part 7

About twenty years ago the Russian Government sent a company of expert Cossack rifle-men into this north country to teach the natives how to shoot. These instructors never got further than Ghijiga, though it had been the plan to distribute them throughout the district. Targets were set up, and the Cossacks did some fancy shooting. The natives looked on stolidly, and when asked to shoot, declined to do so, but called up some of their boys, who easily worsted the Cossacks at their own game.

The natives were always curious about my Colts forty-five caliber six-shooters, as this weapon is not known in that section. In my younger days, I had seen something of Arizona and Texas life, and thought I was a pretty fair shot. One day a native with whom I was stopping asked me to let him have a shot with my revolver. I tore a small piece of paper from my note-book and pinned it on a tree about twenty yards distant. I shot first, and came within an inch or so of the paper--a fairly good shot; but the old Korak took the weapon, and, bringing it slowly into position, let drive, and hit the paper. I could detect no look of exultation on his face, nor on that of any spectator. They took it as a matter of course that their tribesman should out-shoot me with my own weapon, the very first time he ever had one like it in his hand. I have never tried to shoot against a Korak since then. My only consolation was that it might have been an accident, for he refused to shoot again, although I pressed him to do so. For hunting large game, they use a forty-four caliber Winchester, or a forty-five caliber German muzzle-loader.

The feasting at the Russian Christmas-tide lasts fully three days. In the morning the entire population attends church, after which, apparently, a contest ensues as to who shall get drunk first; and the priest generally wins. They hitch up their dog-teams, and go from house to house, feasting and drinking. Etiquette demands that a man use his team, even if calling at a house ten rods away. The women troop about in gay dresses of calico, with bright silk handkerchiefs over their heads, and the men in their best furs, embroidered with silk. One of the most distinctive features of a Christmas celebration is that each person takes a full bath with soap, before the great day is ushered in. At the same time, the hair is combed and done up afresh. The transformation is so great that it is often hard even for bosom friends to recognize one another. All day long bands of boys go about singing carols. They enter one's home, and bow before the icon, and sing their songs, after which it is the proper thing to give each of them a coin or something to eat. In the evening, young men repeat the same performance, except that they bring large illuminated wheels, which they whirl before the icon as they sing the Christmas hymns.

They receive about half a rouble apiece for this service.

The next day I started in to return their calls. It is an insult not to taste every dish on the table of your host, and the result was that I soon reached my utmost capacity. In the evening, I dined with Mrs.

Braggin, and afterward the room was cleared, and the whole village came in for a dance. For music, we had a piano, an accordion, and a violin; the last was played by an old Russian, who knew sixteen bars of a single tune, and repeated it over and over, _ad nauseam_. In this primitive fashion, we made merry till the morning. The dance was a curious kind of quadrille, in which the men did almost all the dancing. The ladies stood at the corners, and the men in the center.

The men danced very energetically, with many steps that resemble the "bucking" and "winging" of the negro in the United States. At the same time, they shouted at the top of their voices. As for the women, they merely moved forward and back, with little mincing steps, and then turned around in their places. All this time the samovar was going full blast, and every one was streaming with perspiration.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Reindeer.]

About midnight, the fun grew fast and furious, and every one started in to kiss and hug his neighbor; for by this time, more than half were intoxicated. The worst feature of such a Russian festive occasion is, that every one grows fearfully affectionate as he begins to feel the effect of the liquor.

When the Christmas festivities were over, I made preparations to carry out a more extensive plan of exploration. It was my purpose to examine the valleys of the rivers running from the Stanovoi range of mountains into Bering Sea; the beaches along the sh.o.r.e of that sea, and then to turn south to Baron Koff Bay, on the eastern coast of Kamchatka, where sulphur deposits were said to have been found; then across the neck of the Kamchatka Peninsula to Cape Memaitch, and around the head of the Okhotsk Sea to Ghijiga, my starting-point. This trip was in the form of a rough circle, and the total distance, including excursions, proved to be upward of twenty-five hundred miles. This distance I had to cover between January 15 and May 15, when the road would no longer be pa.s.sable for sledges.

My first work was to select and buy the best sledge-dogs to be found in the town. By this time, I had become fairly adept at driving a dog-team. Old Chrisoffsky did not care to undertake such a long trip, and so I selected as my head driver a half-caste named Metrofon Snevaydoff. Two villagers also contracted to go as far as the village of Kaminaw, which lies three hundred miles to the northeast of Ghijiga. They would not go further, because the country beyond this was unknown to them. But the magistrate gave me a letter to two Cossacks stationed at Kaminaw, requesting them to furnish native dog-teams to take me on east from that point. I took but little dog-food, as the territory through which I was going abounds in reindeer, and we could get all the meat we needed. Provisions were beginning to run low in Ghijiga, and all I could buy was tea, sugar, tobacco, and a little dried fruit.

It was the middle of January when we started out, all in good health and spirits. The thermometer stood at forty-six below zero. The dogs were fat, and their feet were in good condition. We whirled out of the village at breakneck speed, followed by friendly cries of "Dai Bog chust leewee budet!" ("G.o.d give you good luck!")

I had all I could do to manage my team. The road was worn perfectly smooth, and the sledge would slew about from side to side in constant danger of striking some obstruction and going over. I had to pull off my koklanka and work in my sweater, and yet even in that biting air the exercise kept me quite warm. In two hours the dogs settled down to a steady six-mile gait, and, leaving old Chrisoffsky's house on the left, I laid a direct course over the tundra for the mountains now visible far to the northeast. By five o'clock, we saw signs of deer, which showed us that we were nearing the encampment that was to be our lodging-place for the night. Mounting a rise of land, we beheld, scattered over the face of the landscape, thousands of reindeer which belonged to the denizens of half a dozen skin yourtas, sheltered from the wind in the valley below.

Snevaydoff's team, which was in the lead, caught the scent of the deer, and dashed down the hill, and I after him, though I jammed my polka down and braked with all my might. It had no effect on my speed, and I saw that I was simply being run away with. On the left, near a yourta, a bunch of deer were standing, and, in spite of all my efforts, my dogs left the road and bolted straight for them. The deer bounded away in mad flight. Snevaydoff had already turned his sledge over and brought his team to a halt, but I was enjoying a new sensation. I pulled out my polka and "let her slide," literally. I was minded to save the Koraks the trouble of slaughtering a few of their deer by doing it myself. Just as "Old Red" got a good mouthful of hair, our flight suddenly came to an end with the sledge turning upside down. The natives hurried up and caught the dogs, and, bringing them down to the yourtas, fastened them securely.

I have coursed antelope in Texas, and in Arizona have picked wild turkeys from the ground while on horseback, but for good exhilarating sport give me fourteen wild sledge-dogs, the open tundra, and a bunch of deer ahead.

I found, to my surprise and pleasure, that the old Korak in charge of the village was the one who had helped me the summer before when I was trying to find my way back to Ghijiga. I was now better able to talk with him than I had been at that time, especially as I had Snevaydoff for interpreter. After tea, I went outside to see how things were getting on. Four men were out among the herd, la.s.soing those intended for slaughter. They did it much after the fashion of cow-boys at home.

Having secured an animal, two men held it while a third drew out a long, keen knife and plunged it into the animal's heart. The poor beast would give one or two wild leaps, and then fall dead. The Koraks do not bleed their animals when they butcher them. This scene was enacted three times, each deer being intended as food for a single team of dogs. It took place in plain sight of the dogs, who leaped in their collars, and yelled applause at every stroke of the knife.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Herd of Reindeer.]

The men's work ended with killing the deer, and the women and children followed, the former with sharp knives, and the latter with bowls. It was their part of the work to skin and cut up the dead deer. With a deft stroke, they ripped up the belly and drew out the entrails, being very careful to leave all the coagulated blood in the abdominal cavity. When the viscera had all been removed, the carca.s.s was tipped up, and the blood was caught in the bowls, and carried to the dogs.

The tongue and the leg-bones were removed and laid aside for home use, and all the rest of the carca.s.s went to the dogs.

As the women were skinning the deer, I noticed that every few moments they would lean down and tear off, with their teeth, little round protuberances which grew on the under side of the skin. These were an inch long by a quarter of an inch thick, and were bedded in the skin, and surrounded with fat. They proved to be bots, formed by a fly that is the special torment of the deer in summer. On one skin I counted more than four hundred of them. A little child came up and offered me a handful. I found that they are considered a delicacy by the natives.

The flies deposit minute eggs in the skin in mid-summer, and the larva lies under the skin, imbedded in fat. The following spring the deer is tormented with itching, and rubs against anything it can find, and so liberates the larva, which comes forth in the shape of a fly, an inch in length, only to repeat the same operation. It is a marvelous provision of nature that teaches the fly to seek the only place where its larvae can be kept warm and safe during the terrible cold of winter.

When the last deer had been skinned, the men brought axes and chopped the carca.s.ses into equal portions, each dog receiving a good ten pounds. When I went back to the yourta I left them snarling and growling over their meal, like so many wolves.

The yourtas of these natives are covered with deerhides. The hair is cut down to a quarter of an inch in length, and is put on the outside. The construction of the frame-work of the yourta is very ingenious, and is the result of centuries of experimenting. They require no guy-ropes to keep them erect, but the frame-work of poles is so constructed and so braced on the inside that they resist the most violent wind. After the poles are lashed in place by the women the deerhides are fastened over them separately, not sewed together; for this would make it difficult to move readily. At the top there is, of course, the usual exit for the smoke.

The yourta that I entered was about thirty-five feet in diameter and fourteen feet high, and divided, by means of skin curtains, into eight little booths or apartments, each of which could be entirely closed, to secure privacy. These little booths are arranged around the side of the yourta, and each one is occupied by an entire family. The booths are eight feet long, five feet high, and six feet wide, and are heated only by lamps. The great fire in the center of the yourta is not primarily for heat, but for cooking purposes, all the families using it in common. The various kettles are hung over the fire by means of wooden hooks. The food is either boiled or eaten raw. They do not seem to know the use of the frying-pan.

The main door of the yourta is formed by two flaps of deer skin, an inner and an outer one, which gives the effect of a storm-door. The dogs generally huddle between the two, and occasionally one of them sneaks into the yourta itself, only to be promptly kicked out.

Our dinner consisted of boiled deer ribs, sticks of frozen marrow, and half-digested moss, taken from the stomach of the deer. This last was cooked in seal oil, and looked much like spinach. I found some difficulty in bringing myself to eat it, but I craved vegetable food so keenly that at last I was able to overcome my repulsion, and found it not so bad after all. The reindeer, therefore, furnishes the Korak with meat, clothing, shelter, and vegetable food. The dinner was served on wooden plates, and conveyed to the mouth with fingers, except that for the "spinach" they had spoons carved from the horn of the mountain-sheep. The host persisted in offering me the daintiest lumps of fat in his fingers; and I accepted them. In that far northern lat.i.tude, we all craved fat or any kind of oil. The women did not eat with us. The host and I sat in one of the little booths, while the women remained outside by the fire. The children, however, could not resist the temptation to "peek," and they lay on the ground, looking up from below the edge of the skin part.i.tions, like a row of detached heads, with the eyes blinking solemnly at me.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Reindeer, Herders in background.]

After we had eaten, I made them all happy by sending Snevaydoff out to the sledge for some tea, and some broken bits of sugar. The host brought out the family treasures, the gaudy cups which I have heretofore mentioned. The women licked the saucers, and wiped them with moss, after which tea was served.

Strange is the effect of environment; a year previous, no inducement could have made me use those cups after seeing them cleansed in that fashion. Was I, after all, a savage, and civilization but a thin veneer? I found myself at times looking at life from the standpoint of these people. I was thinking, dreaming, and talking in my sleep in my polyglot language. At times I would talk to myself in English, just to enjoy the sound of it. I had with me no books, except a Bible, which was in my valise, but the print was too fine to read, except with a good light. Action was my only salvation. Had I been compelled to stay in one place I should have feared for my reason.

After two or three cups, every one perspired freely, and off came one garment after another, until the men were entirely naked, and the women were naked to the waist. When we had imbibed ten or a dozen cups, the kettle was replenished with hot water, and handed out to those in the main part of the yourta. I gave each one a lump of sugar to make him happy, and then, leaning back among the skins, lighted my pipe, and had a long talk with my host, during the course of which I elicited much curious information.

At bedtime, two of the smaller children were put in tiny cradles, swung from the top of the yourta. The compartment in which I slept held eight people that night. The lamp was left burning all night, for the sake of its warmth. As far as I could discover, there was an utter lack of ventilation.

When I crawled out of that noisome hole the next morning, I found that the dogs were very uneasy; they scratched the snow continually with their hind feet. This was a sure sign that one of the dreaded storms--a porgo--was coming. As I had experienced one of them, I had no wish to be caught out in another, so I determined to wait where I was till it blew over. By ten o'clock it was raging, and for three mortal days there was no stirring from that village. Just before the storm came on I secured some photographs of the reindeer. They were very tame indeed, and would come up to me and smell of my garments, and would even lick them, hoping to get some salt. I had to carry a short stick to keep them from pressing too close upon me. I walked in among the herd, which numbered about ten thousand, and watched them eat. They would paw away the snow until they reached the moss, which lay about ten inches below the surface, and then, kneeling down, would dig it out with their teeth. The moss is about ten inches thick, and is a loose, spongy ma.s.s of vegetation. It will not bear the weight of a man, the foot sinking through it. It forms a most excellent food for deer, but horses will not eat it. The Tunguse deer, which is larger than the Korak, eats only moss, but the Korak deer will eat either moss or gra.s.s.

These nomads have regular roads to and from the coast, and generation after generation they follow the same old beaten tracks. In December, they are farthest from the sea. Once in two, three, or four weeks, according to the supply of moss and the size of the herd, they break camp and move off on the trail. Late in December they turn, and gradually work their way back, so that by the time that June and the mosquitos have arrived they are near the sea. The deer eagerly lick the salt from the rocks, and even drink the sea water. They stay on the coast until late in August, when the frosts kill off the mosquitos, and then they move off inland for another winter. In summer, the deer grow very poor and weak, for they find little moss near the coast. All along the sh.o.r.es of Bering Sea thousands of deer can be counted every summer. A few years ago, when the United States Government wished to secure some reindeer herds for Alaska, they sent all the way to Lapland, and imported the deer at enormous expense, took them across the American continent by rail, and shipped them by steamer to Alaska. By the time they arrived, those that had not died must have cost an enormous sum. If the government had sent a steamer a single day's run across Bering Sea, it could have purchased fifty thousand reindeer right on the coast at a cost of one rouble, or fifty cents, apiece. Coin cannot be used in purchasing these animals, for the natives do not understand nor use our coinage, but they can be obtained by barter at the rate of one rouble's worth of tobacco a head. Some rich natives might accept a few silver coins to hammer up into b.u.t.tons for their children's clothes, but not as a medium of exchange.

The rutting season is in July, and fights between the male deer are not uncommon. But most of the male deer are gelded, only enough being left for breeding purposes. The natives watch their herds carefully, both night and day, but without the use of dogs. The princ.i.p.al enemy of the deer is the great gray Siberian wolf, which stands as high as a Saint Bernard dog. One of these wily fellows will dash into a herd, "cut out" three or four deer, and run them off into the wilderness. When a deer grows tired the wolf runs alongside, and, seizing it by the nose, brings it to the ground and despatches it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Reindeer--Summer.]

The Koraks eat the hoofs after burning them on the fire and thus setting free the gelatin. The weapons used by the Koraks, and the Tunguses as well, are the modern rifles, or in default of these the regular old-fashioned muzzle-loader. They do a little trapping, but only for sport. The little boys take out the knuckle-bones from wolves' feet and set them up like ninepins, and pitch stones at them.

Even the grown men sometimes indulge in this sport. It is not their custom to use the reindeer under the saddle. They do not even carry a pack, as among the Tunguses. Even in summer the Korak prefers to carry his goods on a sledge, as many as eight deer sometimes being required to draw the load.

There is one physical feature which helps to determine the geographical division between the "dog" people and the "deer" people; and this is the depth of the snowfall. For instance, on the peninsula of Kamchatka there are many places where the snow is so deep that the deer could not dig down to the moss in winter. All through the northwestern portion of the peninsula, however, where the land is occupied mostly by Koraks, the snow is not so deep, and the keeping of deer is possible.

CHAPTER XIII

HABITS AND CUSTOMS OF THE KORAKS

The hour-gla.s.s houses--Their curious construction--The natives prove to be both hospitable and filthy--Dialects of Dog Koraks and Deer Koraks--Some unpleasant habits--How they reckon time--Making liquor out of mushrooms--Curious marriage customs--Clothes of the natives--Queer notions of a deity--Jealousy of the wandering Koraks--Thieving a virtue and childbirth a social function.

When the storm was over, we harnessed the dogs and continued our journey. Seven days of ideal sledging brought us to Kaminaw, a Korak village at the extreme northern point of the northeastern arm of the Okhotsk Sea, where I was to discharge my Russian dog-teams, and secure others from the natives. My first view of the village was from the summit of a hill half a mile away. I saw what resembled fifty huge hour-gla.s.ses set on the plain, which, on a nearer approach, turned out to be ten or twelve feet high. As we drew near, the village came swarming out with a pack of mongrel curs at their heels; and over the edge of each hour-gla.s.s house appeared the heads of the women and children, all eager to get a glimpse of such a novel sight as a foreign face. Over each house was suspended a frozen dog. These were impaled under the chin on the sharp end of a pole, and lifted high in the air. I learned later that this was a form of sacrifice to the Fish G.o.d, and was intended to insure a good run of fish the next season.

As I tumbled out of my sledge, I was surrounded by the filthiest lot of natives I had yet seen. Their furs were old and mangy, and the hair was worn off in spots. The people were kind and pleasant, and seemed bent on shaking hands with me. I was pressed on all sides with invitations to enter one and another of the curious houses. As I stood there, debating what I should do, the chief of the village elbowed his way through the crowd, took me by the hand, and led me to the largest of the huts. In order to enter we had to go up a ladder to the height of ten feet or more. This ladder was a log of driftwood, split down the center, and provided with little holes in which to put the toes in ascending. These natives have very small feet, and I found the holes in the ladder too small to insert my toes, but I managed to scramble to the top. I was now standing on the edge of an inverted octagonal cone, made of logs lashed together, the inside or crater of the affair, which was eighteen feet across, sloping down at an angle of about fifteen degrees to the center. At that point there was a hole leading down to the interior of the house. The hole also sufficed for a chimney, and to enter the house one had to go down a ladder through the smoke. Santa Claus is said to come from the north, and it is evidently among this people that he originated, for here everybody enters his house by way of the chimney.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Upper View of Underground Hut--Home of the Dog Korak.]

This flaring line of logs protects the opening of the house from being covered up with drifting snow. This is the main reason for building in this fashion. Moreover, the high scaffolding thus provided is an excellent storehouse, upon which all sorts of things can be placed without fear of molestation from wild animals. I saw here a miscellaneous collection of implements, dog-harness, oars, fishing-tackle, and firewood. I followed the chief down the ladder through the smoke. The hole was two feet wide and three feet long. I found myself in a semi-subterranean apartment, thirty feet in diameter and fifteen feet high. As we stood on the floor, our heads were about level with the general surface of the ground. The frame was strongly built of timbers, evidently driftwood; but everything was black with age and smoke. I found it so warm that I had to remove my furs. The room was very dimly illuminated with what little light filtered through the hole in the roof; and even this was partially obscured by the smoke that was always pa.s.sing up and out.

As soon as my eyes became accustomed to the perpetual twilight of the place, I perceived that around the apartment ran a raised wooden platform, one foot high and six broad, on which lay piles of deerskins. The women were busy clearing off a place for me, shaking out the skins and choosing the best ones for my accommodation. With native courtesy, which had no stiffness about it, the old gentleman led me to my place, sat down beside me, and began to talk. I pointed to my ears to show that I did not understand him.

There seemed to be little difference between the dress of the men and the women, excepting that the wide "bloomers" of the women were made of alternate strips of black and white deerskin. Their clothes were indescribably old and shabby and dirty, and their faces were anything but clean; but for all that, there were some very comely people among them. The women wore their hair in two braids, wound about the head, and fastened at the top in front.

In these rooms one would naturally expect the worst in the matter of ventilation, and I was surprised to find that it was exceptionally good. They are enabled to arrange an air-shaft so that it enters the room, near the floor, on one side. The draft, made by the heat of the fire rising through the smoke-hole, causes pure air to be drawn through this ventilating shaft. In fact, there seemed to be no reason why these dwellings should not be made perfectly comfortable and sanitary.

The women appeared to be very busy, and even the children were industriously making thread from the sinews that lie near the backbone of the deer.

In this house I found an explosive harpoon that the natives had taken from the body of a whale. It had been fired from the deck of some whaling-vessel, and had been deeply embedded in the flesh of the animal. It bore no name.

The Koraks have two dialects, one of which is spoken by the Dog Koraks, and the other spoken by the Deer Koraks, but the slight variations are not marked enough to const.i.tute a serious barrier to communication between them. All these tribes, without doubt, belong to the great Turanian family, and are allied to the Mongols, Ostiaks, Samoyeds, and other tribes of northern Asia. The evidence for this is both physiological and philological.