The Voyage Of The Vega Round Asia And Europe Part 46

[Ill.u.s.tration: TENT FRAME AT PITLEKAJ. (After a drawing by G. Bove.) ]

"The Chukch graves on the heights south of Pitlekaj and Yinretlen, which were examined by me on the 4th and 7th July, 1879, were nearly fifty in number. Every grave consisted of an oval formed of large lying stones. At one end there was generally a large stone raised on its edge, and from the opposite end there went out one or two pieces of wood lying on the ground. The area within the stone circle was sometimes over-laid with small stones, sometimes free and overgrown with gra.s.s. At all the graves, at a distance of four to seven paces from the stone standing on its edge in the longitudinal axis of the grave or a little to the side of it, there was another smaller circle of stones inclosing a heap of reindeer horns, commonly containing also broken seals' skulls and other fragments of bones. Only in one grave were found pieces of human bones.

The graves were evidently very old, for the bits of wood at the ends were generally much decayed and almost wholly covered with earth, and the stones were completely overgrown with lichens on the upper side. I estimate the age of these graves at about two hundred years."

The Chukches do not dwell in snow huts, nor in wooden houses, because wood for building is not to be found in the country of the coast Chukches, and because wooden houses are unsuitable for the reindeer nomad. They live summer and winter in tents of a peculiar construction, not used by any other race. For in order to afford protection from the cold the tent is double, the outer envelope inclosing an inner tent or sleeping chamber. This has the form of a parallelopiped, about 3.5 metres long, 2.2 metres broad, and 1.8 metre high. It is surrounded by thick, warm, reindeer skins, and is further covered with a layer of gra.s.s. The floor consists of a walrus skin stretched over a foundation of twigs and straw. At night the floor is covered with a carpet of reindeer skins, which is taken away during the day. The rooms at the sides of the inner tent are also shut off by curtains, and serve as pantries. The inner tent is warmed by three train-oil lamps, which together with the heat given off by the numerous human beings packed together in the tent, raise the temperature to such a height that the inhabitants even during the severest winter cold may be completely naked. The work of the women and the cooking are carried on in winter in this tent-chamber, very often also the calls of nature are obeyed in it.

All this conduces to make the atmosphere prevailing there unendurable. There are also, however, cleanlier families, in whose sleeping chamber the air is not so disgusting.

In summer they live during the day, and cook and work, in the outer tent. This consists of seal and walrus skins sewed together, which however are generally so old, hairless, and full of holes, that they appear to have been used by several generations. The skins of the outer tent are stretched over wooden ribs, which are carefully bound together by thongs of skin. The ribs rest partly on posts, partly on tripods of driftwood. The posts are driven into the ground, and the tripods get the necessary steadiness by a heavy stone or a seal-skin sack filled with sand being suspended from the middle of them.

In order further to steady the tent a yet heavier stone is in the same way suspended by a strap from the top of the tent-roof, or the summit of the roof is made fast to the ground by thick thongs.

At one place a tackle from a wrecked vessel was used for this purpose, being tightened with a block between the top of the roof and an iron hook frozen into the ground. The ribs in every tent are besides supported by T-formed cross stays.

The entrance consists of a low door, which, when necessary, may be closed with a reindeer skin. The floor of the outer tent consists of the bare ground. This is kept very clean, and the few household articles are hung up carefully and in an orderly manner along the walls on the inner and outer sides of the tent. Near the tent are some posts, as high as a man, driven into the ground, with cross pieces on which skin boats, oars, javelins, &c., are laid, and from which fishing and seal nets are suspended.

In the neighbourhood of the dwellings the storehouse is placed. It consists of a cellar excavated at some suitable place. The sites of old Onkilon dwellings are often used for this purpose. The descent is commonly covered with pieces of driftwood which are loaded with stones, at one place the door, or rather the hatch, of the cellar consisted of a whale's shoulder-blade. In consequence of the unlimited confidence which otherwise was wont to prevail between the natives and us, we were surprised to find them unwilling to give the _Vega_ men admittance to their storehouses. Possibly the report of our excavations for old implements at the sites of Onkilon dwellings at Irkaipij had spread to Kolyutschin, and been interpreted as attempts at plunder.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHUKCH OAR. One-sixteenth of the natural size. ]

The tents were always situated on the sea sh.o.r.e, generally on the small neck of land which separates the strand lagoons from the sea.

They are erected and taken down in a few hours. A Chukch family can therefore easily change its place of residence, and does remove very often from one village to another. Sometimes it appears to own the wooden frame of a tent at several places, and in such cases at removal there are taken along only the tent covering, the dogs, and the most necessary skin and household articles. The others are left without inclosure, lock, or watch, at the former dwelling-place, and one is certain to find all untouched on his return. During short stays at a place there are used, even when the temperature of the air is considerably under the freezing-point, exceedingly defective tents or huts made with the skin boats that may happen to be available. Thus a young couple who returned in spring to Pitlekaj lived happy and content in a single thin and ragged tent or conical skin hut which below where it was broadest was only two and a half metres across. An accurate inventory, which I took during the absence of the newly married pair, showed that their whole household furniture consisted of a bad lamp, a good American axe, some reindeer skins, a small piece of mirror, a great many empty preserve tins from the _Vega_, which among other things were used for cooking, a fire-drill, a comb, leather for a pair of mocca.s.sins, some sewing implements, and some very incomplete and defective tools.

The boats are made of walrus skin, sewed together and stretched over a light frame-work of wood and pieces of bone. The different parts of the frame-work are bound together with thongs of skin or strings of whalebone. In form and size the Chukches' large boat, _atkuat_, called by the Russians _baydar_, corresponds completely with the Greenlander's _umiak_ or woman's boat. It is so light that four men can take it upon their shoulders, and yet so roomy that thirty men can be conveyed in it. One seldom sees _anatkuat_, or boats intended for only one man; they are much worse built and uglier than the Greenlander's _kayak_. The large boats are rowed with broad-bladed oars, of which every man or woman manages only one. By means of these oars a sufficient number of rowers can for a little raise the speed of the boat to ten kilometres per hour. Like the Greenlanders, however, they often cease rowing in order to rest, laugh, and chatter, then row furiously for some minutes rest themselves again, row rapidly, and so on. When the sea is covered with thin newly formed ice they put two men in the fore of the boat with one leg over in order to trample the ice in pieces.

During winter the boats are laid up, and instead the dog-sledges are put in order. These are of a different construction from the Greenland sledges, commonly very light and narrow, made of some flexible kind of wood, and shod with plates of whales' jawbones, whales' ribs, or whalebone. In order to improve the running, the runners before the start are carefully covered with a layer of ice from two or three millimetres in thickness by repeatedly pouring water over them.[281] The different parts of the sledge are not fastened together by nails, but are bound together by strips of skin or strings of whalebone. On the low uncomfortable seat there commonly lies a piece of skin, generally of the Polar bear. The number of dogs that are harnessed to each sledge is variable. I have seen a Chukch riding behind two small lean dogs, who however appeared to draw their heavy load over even hard snow without any extraordinary exertion. At other sledges I have seen ten or twelve dogs, and a sledge laden with goods was drawn by a team of twenty-eight. The dogs are generally harnessed one pair before another to a long line common to all,[282] sometimes in the case of short excursions more than two abreast, or so irregularly that their position in relation to the sledge appears to have depended merely on the accidental length of the draught-line and the caprice of the driver. The dogs are guided not by reins but by continual crying and shouting, accompanied by lashes from a long whip. There is, besides, in every properly equipped sledge a short and thick staff mounted with iron, with a number of iron rings attached to the upper end.

When nothing else will do, this staff is thrown at the offending animal. The staff is so heavy that the animal may readily get its death by such a throw. The dogs know this, and in consequence are so afraid of this grim implement that the rattling of the rings is sufficient to induce them to put forth extreme efforts. During rests the team is tied to the staff, which is driven into the snow.

The dog harness is made of inch-wide straps of skin, forming a neck or shoulder band, united on both sides by a strap to a girth, to one side of which the draught strap is fastened. Thanks to the excellent protection against the harness galling which the bushy coat of the dogs affords, little attention is needed for the harness, and I have never seen a single dog that was idle in consequence of sores from the harness. On the other hand, their feet are often hurt by the sharp snow. On this account the equipment of every sledge embraces a number of dog shoes of the appearance shown in the accompanying woodcut. They are used only in case of need.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DOG SHOE. One-third of natural size. ]

The Chukch dogs are of the same breed, but smaller, than the Eskimo dogs in Danish Greenland. They resemble wolves, are long-legged, long-haired, and s.h.a.ggy. The ears are short, commonly upright, their colour very variable, from black or white, and black or white spotted, to grey or yellowish-brown. For innumerable generations they have been used as draught animals, while as watch dogs they have not been required in a country where theft or robbery appears never to take place. The power of barking they have therefore completely lost, or perhaps they never possessed it. Even a European may come into the outer tent without any of the dogs there informing their owners sleeping in the inner tent by a sound of the foreigner's arrival.

On the other hand, they are good though slow draught animals, being capable of long-continued exertion. They are as dirty and as peaceable as their owners. There are no fights made between dog-teams belonging to different tents, and they are rare between the dogs of an encampment and those of strangers. In Europe dogs are the friends of their masters and the enemies of each other, here they are the friends of each other and the slaves of their masters.

In winter they appear in case of necessity to get along with very little food, they are then exceedingly lean, and for the most part are motionless in some snow-drift. They seldom leave the neighbourhood of the tent alone, not even to search for food or hunt at their own hand and for their own account. This appears to me so much the more remarkable, as they are often several days, I am inclined to say weeks, in succession without getting any food from their masters. A piece of a whale, with the skin and part of the flesh adhering, washed out of frozen sandy strata thus lay untouched some thousand paces from Pitlekaj, and the neighbourhood of the tents, where the hungry dogs were constantly wandering about, formed, as has been already stated, a favourite haunt for ptarmigan and hares during winter. Young dogs some months old are already harnessed along with the team in order that they may in time become accustomed to the draught tackle. During the cold season the dogs are permitted to live in the outer tent, the females with their young even in the inner. We had two Scotch collies with us on the _Vega_. They at first frightened the natives very much with their bark. To the dogs of Chukches they soon took the same superior standing as the European claims for himself in relation to the savage. The dog was distinctly preferred by the female Chukch canine population, and that too without the fights to which such favour on the part of the fair commonly gives rise. A numerous canine progeny of mixed Scotch-Chukch breed has thus arisen at Pitlekaj. The young dogs had a complete resemblance to their father, and the natives were quite charmed with them.

When a dog is to be killed the Chukch stabs it with his spear, and then lets it bleed to death. Even when the scarcity was so great that the natives at Pitlekaj and Yinretlen lived mainly on the food we gave them, they did not eat the dogs they killed. On the other hand they had no objection to eating a shot crow.

When the Chukch goes out on the ice to hunt seals he takes his dogs with him, and it is these which take home the catch, commonly with the draught-line fastened directly to the head of the killed seal, which is then turned on its back and dragged over the ice without anything under it. One of the inhabitants of Yinretlen returned from the open water off the coast after a successful hunting expedition with five seals, of which the smallest was laid on the sledge, the others being fastened one behind the other in a long row. After the last was drawn a long pole, which was used in setting the net.

The dress of the Chukches is made of reindeer or seal-skin. The former, because it is warmer, is preferred as material for the winter dress. The men in winter are clad in two _pesks_, that which is worn next the body is of thin skin with the hair inwards, the outer is of thick skin with the hair outwards. Besides, they wear, when it rains or wet snow falls, a great coat of gut or of cotton cloth, which they call _calico_. On one occasion I saw such an overcoat made of a kind of reindeer-chamois leather, which was of excellent quality and evidently of home manufacture. It had been originally white, but was ornamented with broad brown painted borders. Some red and blue woollen shirts which we gave them were also worn above the skin clothes, and by then showy colours awakened great satisfaction in the owners. The Chukch _pesk_ is shorter than the Lapp one. It does not reach quite to the knees, and is confined at the waist with a belt. Under the _pesk_ are worn two pairs of trousers, the inner pair with the hair inwards, and the outer with the hair outwards. The trousers are well made, close fitting, and terminate above the foot. The foot-covering consists of reindeer or seal-skin moccasins, which above the foot are fastened to the trousers in the way common among the Lapps. The soles are of walrus-skin or bear-skin, and have the hair side inwards. On the other parts of the moccasin the hair is outwards. Within the shoes are seal-skin stockings and hay. The head covering consists of a hood embroidered with beads, over which in severe cold is drawn an outer hood bordered with dog-skin. The outer hood is often quite close under the chin, and extends in a very well-fitting way over the shoulders. To a complete dress there also belong a skin neckerchief or boa, and a neck covering of multiple reindeer-skins, or of different kinds of skins sewn together in chess-board-like squares. In summer and far into the autumn the men go bareheaded, although they clip the hair on the crown of the head close to the root.

During the warm season of the year a number of the winter wraps are laid off in proportion to the increase of the heat, so that the dress finally consists merely of a _pesk_, an overcoat, and a pair of trousers. The summer mocca.s.sins are often as long in the leg as our sea-boots. In the tent the men wear only short trousers reaching to the hip, together with leather belts (health-belts) at the waist and on the arms. The man's dress is not much ornamented. On the other hand the men often wear strings of beads in the ears, or a skin band set with large, tastefully arranged beads or a leather band with some large beads on the brow. The leather band they will not willingly part with, and a woman told us that the beads in it indicate the number of enemies the wearer has killed. I am, however, quite certain that this was only an empty boast. Probably our informant referred to a tradition handed down from former warlike periods to the present time, and thus we have here only a Chukch form of the boasting about martial feats common even among civilised nations.

To the dress of the men there belongs further a screen for the eyes, which is often beautifully ornamented with beads and silver mounting.

This screen is worn especially in spring as a protection from the strong sunlight reflected from the snow-plains. At this season of the year snow-blindness is very common, but notwithstanding this snow-spectacles of the kind which the Eskimo and even the Samoyeds use are unknown here.

The men are not tattooed, but have sometimes a black or red cross painted on the cheek. They wear the hair cut close to the root, with the exception of a short tuft right on the crown of the head and a short fringe above the brow. The women have long hair, parted right in the middle, and plaited along with strings of beads into plaits which hang down by the ears. They are generally tattooed on the face, sometimes also on the arms or other parts of the body. The tattooing is done by degrees, possibly certain lines are first made at marriage.

The dress of the women, like that of the men, is double during winter.

The outer _pesk_, which is longer and wider than the man's, pa.s.ses downwards into a sort of very wide trousers. The sleeves too are exceedingly wide, so that the arm may easily be drawn in and stuck out.

Under the outer _pesk_ there is an inner _pesk_, or skin-shirt, and under them a pair of very short trousers is worn. Where the outer _pesk_ ends the _mocca.s.sins_ begin. At the neck the _pesk_ is much cut away, so that a part of the back is bare. I have seen girls go with the upper part of the back exposed in this way even in a cold of -30 or -40. The stockings have the hair inwards, they are bordered with dog-skin, and go to the knees. The moccasins, chin-covers, hoods, and neckerchiefs differ little from the corresponding articles of men's dress The woman's dress is in general more ornamented than the man's, and the skins used for it appear to be more carefully chosen and prepared. In the inner tent the women go nearly naked, only with quite short under-trousers of skin or _calico_ or a narrow _cingulum pudicitiae_ On the naked body there are worn besides one or two leather bands on one arm, a leather band on the throat, another round the waist, and some bracelets of iron or less frequently of copper on the wrists. The younger women however do not like to show themselves in this dress to foreigners, and they therefore hasten at their entrance to cover the lower part of the body with the _pesk_, or some other piece of dress that may be at hand.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHUKCH FACE TATTOOING. (After a drawing by A.

Stuxberg.) ]

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHUKCH CHILDREN.

_a._ Girl from Irgunnuk. (After a photograph by L. Palander.) _b._ Boy from Pitlekaj, with his mother's hood on.

(After a drawing by the seaman Hansson.) ]

When the children are some years old they get the same dress as their parents, different for boys and girls. While small they are put into a wide skin covering with the legs and arms sewed together downwards. Behind there is a four-cornered opening through which moss (the white, dead part of Sphagnum), intended to absorb the excreta, is put in and changed. At the ends of the arms two loops are fastened, through which the child's legs are pa.s.sed when the mother wishes to put it away in some corner of the tent. The dress itself appears not to be changed until it has become too small. In the inner tent the children go completely naked.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SNOW SHOES.

_a._ The common kind.

_b._ Intended to be used in the way shown in the drawing on the opposite page. (One-thirteenth of the natural size.) ]

Both men and women use snow-shoes during winter. Without them they will not willingly undertake any long walk in loose snow. They consider such a walk so tiresome, that they loudly commiserated one of my crew, who had to walk without snow-shoes after drifting weather from the village Yinretlen to the vessel, about three kilometres distant. Finally a woman's compa.s.sion went so far that she presented him with a pair, an instance of generosity on the part of our Chukch friends which otherwise was exceedingly rare. The frame of the snow-shoes is made of wood, the cross-pieces are of strong and well-stretched thongs. This snow-shoe corresponds completely with that of the Indians, and is exceedingly serviceable and easy to get accustomed to. Another implement for travelling over snow was offered by a Chukch who drove past the vessel in the beginning of February. It consisted of a pair of immensely wide skates of thin wood, covered with seal-skin, and raised at both sides. I had difficulty in understanding how these broad shapeless articles could be used with advantage until I learned from the accompanying drawing that they may be employed as a sort of sledges.

The drawing is taken from a j.a.panese work, whose t.i.tle when translated runs thus: A Journey to the north part of j.a.pan (Yezo), 1804 (No. 565 of the j.a.panese library I brought home with me).

[Ill.u.s.tration: AN AINO MAN SKATING AFTER A REINDEER. (j.a.panese drawing.) ]

In consequence of the difficulty which the Chukch has during winter in procuring water by melting snow over the train-oil lamp, there can be no washing of the body at that season of the year. Faces are however whipped clean by the drifting snow, but at the same time are generally swollen or sore from frostbite. On the whole, the disposition of the Chukches to cleanliness is slight, and above all, their ideas of what is clean or unclean differs considerably from ours. Thus the women use urine as a wash for the face. At a common meal the hand is often used as a spoon, and after it is finished, a bowl filled with newly-pa.s.sed urine instead of water is handed round the company for washing the hands. Change of clothes takes place seldom, and even when the outer dress is clean, new and well cut, of carefully-chosen beautiful skins, the under-dress is very dirty, and vermin numerous enough, though less so than might have been expected. Food is often eaten in a way which we consider disgusting, a t.i.tbit, for instance, is pa.s.sed from mouth to mouth. The vessels in which food is served are used in many ways and seldom cleaned. On the other hand it may be stated that, in order not to make a stay in the confined tent-chamber too uncomfortable, certain rules are strictly observed. Thus, for instance, it is not permitted in the interior of the tent to spit on the floor, but this must be done into a vessel which in case of necessity is used as a night-utensil.

In every outer tent there lies a specially carved reindeer horn, with which snow is removed from the clothes, the outer _pesk_ is usually put off before one goes into the inner tent and the shoes are carefully freed from snow. The carpet of walrus-skin, which covers the floor of the inner tent, is accordingly dry and clean.

Even the outer tent is swept clean and free from loose snow, and the snow is daily shovelled away from the tent doors with a spade of whalebone. Every article both in the outer and inner tent is laid in its proper place, and so on.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _a._ HUNTING CUP (sucking tube) (One-fourth of the natural size.) _b._ SNOW Sc.r.a.pER. (One-eighth of the natural size.) ]

As ornaments gla.s.s beads are princ.i.p.ally used, some of them being suspended from the neck and ears, others sewed upon the hood and other articles of dress, or plaited into the hair embroidery of very pleasing patterns is also employed. In order to embellish the _pesks_ strips of skin or marmots' and squirrels' tails, &c., are sewed upon them. Often a variegated artificial tail of different skins is fixed to the hood behind, or the skin of the hood is so chosen that the ears of the animal project on both sides of the head. Along with the beads are fixed amulets, wooden tongs, small bone heads or bone figures, pieces of metal, coins, &c. One child had suspended from its neck an old Chinese coin with a square hole in the middle, together with a new American five-cent piece.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHUKCH WEAPONS AND HUNTING IMPLEMENTS.

1. Harpoon (one-fifteenth of the natural size).

2. Spear found at a grave (one-fourth).

3. Bird sling (one-eighth).

4. Darts with whipsling for casting them (one-seventh).

5. Bird Dart with wooden handle for throwing (one-twelfth).

6. Leister of bone (one-fourth).

7. Ivory coat of mail (one-ninth). ]

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHUKCH BOW AND QUIVER.

(One-eighth of the natural size.) ]

In former times beautiful and good weapons were probably highly prized by so warlike a people as the Chukches, but now weapons are properly scarce antiquities, which, however, are still regarded with a certain respect, and therefore are not readily parted with. The lance which was found beside the corpse (fig. 2 on p. 105) shows by its still partially preserved gold decorations that it had been forged by the hand of an artist. Probably it has formed part of the booty won long ago in the fights with the Cossacks. I procured by barter an ivory coat of mail (fig. 7 on p. 105), and remains of another. The ivory plates of the coat of mail are twelve centimetres in length, four in breadth, and nearly one in thickness, holes being bored at their edges for the leather thongs by which the plates are bound together. This binding has been so arranged that the whole coat of mail, when not in use, may be rolled together.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHUKCH ARROWS. (One-ninth of the natural size.) _a._ An arrowhead (one-half the natural size.) ]

Along with the spear and the coat of mail the old Chukches used the bow for martial purposes. Now this weapon is employed only for hunting, but it appears as if even for this purpose it would soon go out of use. Some of the natives, however, use the bow with great accuracy of aim. The bows which I procured commonly consisted of a badly worked, slightly bent, elastic piece of wood, with the ends drawn together by a skin thong. Only some old bows had a finer form.

They were larger, and made with care, for instance, they were covered with birch-bark, and strengthened by an artistic plaiting of sinews on the outer side. The arrows are of many kinds, partly with bone or wooden, and partly with iron, points. Feathers are generally wanting. The shaft is a clumsily worked piece of wood. Crossbows are occasionally used. We have even seen bows for playthings, with carefully made, non-pointed arrows. At the encampments near the winter station we found a couple of percussion-lock guns, with caps, powder and lead. They were evidently little used, and my attempt to induce the Chukches to undertake long journeys by promises of a gun with the necessary supply of powder and lead completely failed. When the Chukch, who carried our letters to Nischni Kolymsk, was after his return rewarded with a red shirt, a gun, caps, powder and ball, he wished to exchange the gun and ammunition for an axe.

The princ.i.p.al livelihood of the Chukches is derived from hunting and fishing. Both are very abundant at certain seasons of the year, but are less productive during the cold season, in which case, in consequence of the little forethought of the savage, there arises great scarcity both of food and fuel and the means of melting snow.

Of their hunting and fishing implements I cannot give so complete accounts as I should wish, because they very carefully avoided taking any of the _Vega's_ hunters with them on their hunting excursions.