The Voyage Of The Vega Round Asia And Europe Part 48

The drum, or more correctly, tambourine, so common among most of the Polar peoples, European, Asiatic, and American, among the Lapps, the Samoyeds, the Tunguses, and the Eskimo (see drawing on p. 24), is found in every Chukch tent. A certain superst.i.tion is also attached to it. They did not willingly play it in our presence, and they were unwilling to part with it. If time permitted it was concealed on our entrance into the tent. The drum consists of the peritoneum of a seal, stretched over a narrow wooden ring fixed to a short handle.

The drumstick consists of a splinter of whalebone 300 to 400 millimetres long, which towards the end runs into a point so fine and flexible, that it forms a sort of whipcord. When the thicker part of the piece of whalebone is struck against the edge of the drum-skin, the other end whips against the middle, and the skin is thus struck twice at the same time. The drum is commonly played by the man, and the playing is accompanied by a very monotonous song.

We have not seen it accompanied by dancing, twisting of the countenance, or any other Shaman trick.

We did not see among the Chukches we met with any Shamans. They are described by Wrangel, Hooper, and other travellers. Wrangel states (vol. i. p. 284) that the Shamans in the year 1814, when a severe epidemic broke out among the Chukches and their reindeer at Anjui, declared that in order to propitiate the spirits they must sacrifice Kotschen, one of the most highly esteemed men of the tribe. He was so much respected that no one would execute the sentence, but attempts were made to get it altered, first by presents to the prophets, and then by flogging them. But when this did not succeed, as the disease continued to ravage, and no one would execute the doom, Kotschen ordered his own son to do it. He was thus compelled to stab his own father to death and give up the corpse to the Shamans. The whole narrative conflicts absolutely with the disposition and manners of the people with whom we made acquaintance at Behring's Straits sixty-five years after this occurrence, and I would be disposed to dispute entirely the truthfulness of the statement, had not the history of our own part of the world taught us that blood has flowed in streams for dogmatic hair-splittings, which no one now troubles himself about. Perhaps the breath of indifferentism has reached even the ice-deserts of the Polar lands.

The drum has besides also another use, which appears to have little connection with its property of Shaman psychograph or church bell.

When the ladies unravel and comb their long black hair, this is done carefully over the drum, on whose bottom the numerous beings which the comb brings with it from the warm hearth of home out into the cold wide world, are collected and cracked--in case they are not eaten up. They taste well according to the Chukch opinion, and are exceedingly good for the breast. Even _gorm_ (the large, fully developed, fat larva of the reindeer fly, _Oestrus tarandi_) is pressed out of the skin of the reindeer and eaten, as well as the full-grown reindeer fly.

Some more of the superst.i.tious traits which we observed among the Chukches may here be stated. After the good hunting in February we endeavoured without success to induce the Chukches to give us a head or a skull of some of the seals they had killed. Even brandy was unsuccessfully offered for it, and it was only in the greatest secrecy that Notti, one of our best friends from Irgunnuk, dared to give us the foetus of a seal. A raven was once shot in the neighbourhood of the ice-house. The shot then went to the magnetical observatory, but before he entered, laid down the shot bird, the gun, and other articles in the before-mentioned implement chest placed in front of the observatory. A short time after there was great excitement before the tent. Some men, women, and children among the natives crowded round the chest screaming and shouting.

For the Chukches had observed that the raven, having been only stunned by the shot, had begun to scream and flutter in the chest, and they now indicated by word and gesture that a great misfortune was about to happen. Pity is not, as is well known, one of the good qualities of the savage. It was clear that in this case too it was not this feeling, but fear of the evil which the wounded crow could bring about, that caused this scene, and when a sailor immediately after twisted the neck of the bird, the Chukches had no objection to receive and eat it.

The winter of 1878-1879 appears to have been uncommonly severe, and hunting less productive than usual. This was ascribed to our presence. The Chukches asked us anxiously several times, whether we intended to raise the water so high that the sea would reach their tents. When on the 11th February, after the hunting had failed for a long time, they succeeded at last in catching a number of seals, they threw water in their mouths before they were carried into the tents. This was done, they said, in order that the open "leads" in the ice should not close too soon.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS.

1. Whistle-pipe, natural size.

2. Whistle-instrument, one-eighth of natural size; _a._ mouth-hole. ]

Besides the drum the Chukches also use as a musical instrument a piece of wood, cloven into two halves, and again united after the crack has been somewhat widened in the middle, with a piece of whalebone inserted between the two halves. They also during the course of the winter made several attempts to make violins after patterns seen on board, and actually succeeded in making a better sounding-box than could have been expected beforehand. On the draught-strap of the dog sledge there was often a small bell bought from the Russians, and the reindeer-Chukches are said sometimes to wear bells in the belt.

The dance I saw consisted in two women or children taking each other by the shoulders, and then hopping now on the one foot now on the other. When many took part in the dance, they placed themselves in rows, sang a monotonous, meaningless song, hopped in time, turned the eyes out and in, and threw themselves with spasmodic movements, clearly denoting pleasure and pain, now to the right, now to the left "La saison" for dance and song, the time of slaughtering reindeer, however, did not happen during our stay, on which account our experience of the Chukches' abilities in this way is exceedingly limited.

All sport they entered into with special delight, for instance, some trial shooting which Palander set on foot on New Year's Day afternoon, with a small rifled cannon on the _Vega_. At first the women sat aft with the children, far from the dreadful shooting weapon, and indicated their feelings by almost the same gestures as on such occasions are wont to distinguish the weaker and fairer s.e.x of European race. But soon curiosity took the upper hand. They pressed forward where they could see best, and broke out in a loud "Ho, ho, ho!" when the shot was fired and the sh.e.l.ls exploded in the air.

Of what sort is the art-sense of the Chukches? As they still almost belong to the Stone Age, and as their contact with Europeans has been so limited that it has not perhaps conduced to alter their taste and skill in art, this question appears to me to have a great interest both for the historian of art, who here obtains information as to the nature of the seed from which at last the skill of the master has been developed in the course of ages and millenniums, and for the archaeologist, who finds here a starting point for forming a judgment both of the Scandinavian rock-etchings and the palaeolithic drawings, which in recent times have played so great a part in enabling us to understand the oldest history of the human race. We have therefore zealously collected all that we could of Chukch carvings, drawings, and patterns. The most remarkable of these in one respect or another are to be found delineated in the woodcuts on the preceding pages.[288]

[Ill.u.s.tration: DRAWINGS MADE BY CHUKCHES. ]

[Ill.u.s.tration: DRAWINGS MADE BY CHUKCHES. ]

Many of the ivory carvings are old and worn, showing that they have been long in use, probably as amulets. Various of the animal images are the fruit of the imagination, and as such may be instructive. In general the carvings are clumsy, though showing a distinctive style.

If we compare them with the Samoyed images we brought home with us, it appears that the genius of the Chukches for art has reached an incomparably higher development than that of the Polar race which inhabits the western portion of the north coast of Asia, on the other hand, they are in this respect evidently inferior to the Eskimo at Port Clarence. The Chukch drawings too are roughly and clumsily executed, but many of them exhibit a certain power of hitting off the object. These figures appear to me to show that the objections which have been raised to the genuineness of various palaeolithic etchings, just on the ground of the artist's comparatively sure hand, are not justified. Even patterns and ivory buckles show a certain taste. Embroidery is done commonly on red-coloured strips of skin partly with white reindeer hair, partly with red and black wool, obtained in small quant.i.ty by barter from Behring's Straits. The supply of colouring material is not particularly abundant. It is obtained partly from the mineral kingdom (limonite of different colours, and graphite), partly from the vegetable kingdom (bark of various trees). The mineral colours are ground with water between flat stones. Bark is probably treated with urine. Red is the Chukches' favourite colour.

In order to make a contribution towards an answer to the disputed question, in what degree is the colour-sense developed among savages, Dr. Almquist during the course of the winter inst.i.tuted comprehensive researches according to the method worked out by Professor FR. HOLMGREN. A detailed account of these is to be found in _The Scientific Work of the Vega Expedition_, and in various scientific journals. Here I shall only state that Dr. Almquist gives the following as the final result of his investigation. "That the Chukches in general possess as good an organ for distinguishing colours as we Swedes. On the other hand, they appear not to be accustomed to observe colours, and to distinguish sharply any other colour than red. They bring together all reds as something special, but consider that green of a moderate brightness corresponds less with a green of less brightness than with a blue of the same brightness. In order to bring all greens together the Chukches thus require to learn a new abstraction". Of 300 persons who were examined, 273 had a fully developed colour-sense, nine were completely colour-blind, and eighteen incompletely colour-blind, or gave uncertain indications.

From what has been stated above it appears that the coast Chukches are without noteworthy religion, social organisation, or government.

Had not experience from the Polar races of America taught us differently we should have believed that with such a literally anarchic and G.o.dless crew there would be no security for life and property, immorality would be boundless, and the weaker without any protection from the violence of the stronger s.e.x. This, however, is so far from being the case that criminal statistics have been rendered impossible for want of crimes, if we except acts of violence committed under the influence of liquor.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHUKCH BUCKLES AND HOOKS OF IVORY. Half the natural size. ]

During the winter the _Vega_ was visited daily, as has been stated in the account of the wintering, by the people from the neighbouring villages, while our vessel at the same time formed a resting-place for all the equipages which travelled from the western tent-villages to the islands in Behring's Straits, and _vice versa_. Not only our neighbours, but people from a distance whom we had never seen before, and probably would not see again, came and went without hindrance among a great number of objects which in their hands would have been precious indeed. We had never any cause to regret the confidence we placed in them. Even during the very hard time, when hunting completely failed, and when most of them lived on the food which was served out on board, the large _depot_ of provisions, which we had placed on land without special watch, in case any misfortune should befall our vessel, was untouched. On the other hand, there were two instances in which they secretly repossessed themselves of fish they had already sold, and which were kept in a place on deck accessible to them. And with the most innocent countenance in the world they then sold them over again. This sort of dishonesty they evidently did not regard as theft but as a permissible commercial trick.

This was not the only proof that the Chukches consider deception in trade not only quite justifiable, but almost creditable. While their own things were always made with the greatest care, all that they did specially for us was done with extreme carelessness, and they were seldom pleased with the price that was offered, until they became convinced that they could not get more. When they saw that we were anxious to get ptarmigan, they offered us from their winter stock under this name the young of _Larus eburneus_, which is marked in the same way, but of little use as food. When I with delight purchased this bird, which in its youthful dress is rare, and therefore valuable to the ornithologist, a self-satisfied smile pa.s.sed over the countenance of the seller. He was evidently proud of his successful trick. Some prejudice, as has been already stated, prevented the Chukches from parting with the heads of the seal, though, in order to ascertain the species existing here, we offered a high price for them "Irgatti" (to-morrow), or "Isgatti," if the promise was given by a woman, was the usual answer. But the promise was never kept. At last a boy came and gave us a skull, which he said belonged to a seal. On a more minute examination, however, it was found not to have belonged to a seal, but to an old dog, whose head it was evidently thought might, without any damage to the hunting, be handed over to the white magicians. This time it went worse with the counterfeitor than in the case of the ptarmigan bargain. For a couple of my comrades undertook to make the boy ashamed in the presence of the other Chukches, saying with a laugh "that he, a Chukch, must have been very stupid to commit such a mistake," and it actually appeared as if the scoff had in this case fallen into good ground. Another time, while I was in my watch in the ice-house, there came a native to me and informed me that he had driven a man from Irgunnuk to the vessel, but that the man had not paid him, and asked me on that account to give him a box of matches.

When I replied that he must have been already well paid on the vessel for his drive, he said in a whining tone, "only a very little piece of bread." He was not the least embarra.s.sed when I only laughed at the, as I well knew, untruthful statement, and did not give him what he asked.

The Chukches commonly live in monogamy; it is only exceptionally that they have two wives, as was the case with Chepurin, who has been already mentioned. It appeared as if the wives were faithful to their husbands. It was only seldom that cases occurred in which women, either in jest or earnest, gave out that they wished a white man as a lover. A woman not exactly eminent for beauty or cleanliness said, for instance, on one occasion, that she had had two children by Chukches, and now she wished to have a third by one of the ship's folk. The young women were modest, often very pretty, and evidently felt the same necessity of attracting attention by small coquettish artifices as Eve's daughters of European race. We may also understand their peculiar p.r.o.nunciation of the language as an expression of feminine coquetry. For when they wish to be attractive they replace the man's _r_-sound with a soft _s_; thus, _korang_ (reindeer) is p.r.o.nounced by the women _kosang_, _tirkir_ (the sun) _tiskis_, and so on.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHUKCH BONE CARVINGS.

1. Dog, natural size.

2., 3. Hares, natural size.

4. Woman carrying her child on her shoulders, two-thirds.

5. Mollusc from the inland lakes (Branchypus?) natural size.

6. Monster, natural size.

7. Fox, natural size.

8. Animal with three heads, two-thirds.

9. Asterid, natural size, 10. Fish, natural size. ]

The women work very hard. Not only the management of the children, the cooking, the melting of the ice, the putting the tent in order, the sewing, and other "woman's work," lie to their hand, but they receive the catch, in winter in the tent, in summer at the beach, cut it in pieces, help with the fishing, at least when it is in the neighbourhood of the tent, and carry out the exceedingly laborious tanning of the hides, and prepare thread from sinews. In summer they collect green plants in the meadows and hill-slopes in the neighbourhood of the tents. They are therefore generally at home, and always busy. The men have it for their share to procure for their family food from the animal kingdom by hunting and fishing.

With this purpose in view they are often out on long excursions. In the tent the man is for the most part without occupation, sleeps, eats, gossips, chats with his children, and so on, if he does not pa.s.s the time in putting his hunting implements in order in a quite leisurely manner.

Within the family the most remarkable unanimity prevails, so that we never heard a hard word exchanged, either between man and wife, parents and children, or between the married pair who own the tent and the unmarried who occasionally live in it. The power of the woman appears to be very great. In making the more important bargains, even about weapons and hunting implements, she is, as a rule, consulted, and her advice is taken. A number of things which form women's tools she can barter away on her own responsibility, or in any other way employ as she pleases. When the man has by barter procured a piece of cloth, tobacco, sugar, or such like, he generally hands it over to his wife to keep.

The children are neither chastised nor scolded, they are, however, the best behaved I have ever seen. Their behaviour in the tent is equal to that of the best-brought-up European children in the parlour. They are not, perhaps, so wild as ours, but are addicted to games which closely resemble those common among us in the country.

Playthings are also in use, for instance, dolls, bows, windmills with two sails, &c. If the parents get any delicacy they always give each of their children a bit, and there is never any quarrel as to the size of each child's portion. If a piece of sugar is given to one of the children in a crowd it goes from mouth to mouth round the whole company. In the same way the child offers its father and mother a taste of the bit of sugar or piece of bread it has got.

Even in childhood the Chukches are exceedingly patient. A girl who fell down from the ship's stair, head foremost, and thus got so violent a blow that she was almost deprived of hearing, scarcely uttered a cry. A boy, three or four years of age, much rolled up in furs, who fell down into a ditch cut in the ice on the ship's deck, and in consequence of his inconvenient dress could not get up, lay quietly still until he was observed and helped up by one of the crew.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHUKCH DOLL. One-eighth of the natural size. ]

The Chukches' most troublesome fault is a disposition to begging that is limited by no feeling of self-respect. This is probably counterbalanced by their unbounded hospitality and great kindness to each other, and is, perhaps, often caused by actual necessity. But they thus became veritable torments, putting to a hard test the patience, not only of the scientific men and officers, but also of the crew. The good nature with which our sailors met their demands was above all praise.

There was never any trace of disagreement between the natives and us, and I have every reason to suppose that our wintering will long be held in grateful remembrance by them, especially as, in order not to spoil their seal-hunting, I strictly forbade all unnecessary interference with it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHUKCH BONE CARVINGS. Seals, walrusses, a sea-bear (the lowest figure to the left). The four lowest are of the natural size, the others two-thirds of the natural size. ]

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHUKCH BONE CARVINGS. Fishes, larvae of flies (_gorm_), molluscs and whales. Nos. 1 to 9 and 14, natural size. Nos. 10 to 13, two-thirds of the natural size. ]

It is probably impossible for a Chukch to take the place of a European workman. It has, however, happened that Chukches have gone with whalers to the Sandwich Islands, and have become serviceable seamen. During our wintering two young men got accustomed to come on board and there to take a hand, in quite a leisurely way, at work of various kinds, as sawing wood, shovelling snow, getting ice on board, &c. In return they got food that had been left over, and thus, for the most part, maintained not only themselves, but also their families, during the time we remained in their neighbourhood.

If what I have here stated be compared with Sir EDWARD PARRY'S masterly sketches of the Eskimo at Winter Island and Iglolik, and Dr. SIMPSON'S of the Eskimo in North-western America, or with the numerous accounts we possess of the Eskimo in Danish Greenland, a great resemblance will be found to exist between the natural disposition, mode of life, failings and good qualities of the Chukches, the savage Eskimo, and the Greenlanders. This resemblance is so much more striking, as the Chukch and the Eskimo belong to different races, and speak quite different languages, and, as the former, to judge by old accounts of this people, did not, until the most recent generations, sink to the unwarlike, peace-loving, harmless, anarchic, and non-religious standpoint which they have now reached. It ought to be observed, however, that in the Eskimo of Danish Greenland no considerable alteration has been brought about by them all having learned to read and write and profess the Christian religion--although with an indifference to the consequences of original sin, the mysteries of redemption, and the punishments of h.e.l.l, which all imaginable missionary zeal has not succeeded in overcoming. Their innocent natural state has not been altered in any considerable degree by being subjected to these conditions of culture. It is certain besides, that the blood which flows in the veins of the Greenlander is not pure Eskimo blood, but is mingled with the blood of some of the proudest martial races in the world. When we consider how rapidly, even now, when Greenland is in constant communication with the European mother-country, all descendants of mixed blood become complete Eskimo in language and mode of life, how difficult it often is, even for parents of pure European descent, to get their children to speak any other language than that of the natives, and how they, on their part, seldom borrow a word from the Europeans, how common mixed marriages and natives of mixed blood are even now--in view of all this it appears to me much more probable that Erik the Red's colonists were quietly and peacefully converted into Eskimo, than that they were killed by the Eskimo. A single century's complete separation from Europe would be sufficient to carry out thoroughly this alteration of the present European population of Greenland, and by the end of that period the traditions of Danish rule would be very obscure in that land.

Perhaps some trifling quarrel between a ruler of the colony and a native would take the foremost place among the surviving traditions, and be interpreted as a reminiscence from a war of extermination.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHUKCH BONE CARVINGS OF BIRDS. Size of the originals. ]

Even the present Chukches form, without doubt, a mixture of several races, formerly savage and warlike, who have been driven by foreign invaders from south to north, where they have adopted a common language, and on whom the food-conditions of the sh.o.r.e of the Polar Sea, the cold, snow, and darkness of the Arctic night, the pure, light atmosphere of the Polar summer, have impressed their ineffaceable stamp, a stamp which meets us with little variation, not only among the people now in question, but also--with the necessary allowance for the changes, not always favourable, caused by constant intercourse with Europeans--among the Lapps of Scandinavia and the Samoyeds of Russia.

It would be of great psychological interest to ascertain whether the change which has taken place in a peaceful direction is progress or decadence. Notwithstanding all the interest which the honesty, peaceableness, and innocent friendliness of the Polar tribes have for us, it is my belief that the answer must be--_decadence_. For it strikes us as if we witness here the conversion of a savage, coa.r.s.e, and cruel man into a being, n.o.bler, indeed, but one in whom just those qualities which distinguish man from the animals, and to which at once the great deeds and the crimes of humanity have been due, have been more and more effaced, and who, if special protection or specially favourable circ.u.mstances be absent, will not be able to maintain the struggle for existence with new races that may seek to force their way into the country.

[Footnote 271: The north coast of America still forms the haunt of a not inconsiderable Eskimo population which, for a couple of centuries, has extended to the 80th degree of lat.i.tude. As the climate in the north part of the Old World differs little from that which prevails in corresponding regions of the New, as at both places there is an abundant supply of fish, and as the seal and walrus hunting--at least between the Yenisej and the Chatanga--ought to be as productive as on the north coast of America, this difference, which has arisen only recently, is very striking. It appears to me to be capable of explanation in the following way.

Down to our days a large number of small savage tribes in America have carried on war with each other, the weaker, to escape extermination by the more powerful races, being compelled to flee to the ice deserts of the north, deeming themselves fortunate if they could there, in peace from their enemies, earn a living by adopting the mode of life of the Polar races, suitable as it is to the climate and resources of the land. The case was once the same in Siberia, and there are many indications that fragments of conquered tribes have been in former times driven up from the south, not only to the north coast of the mainland, but also beyond it to the islands lying off it. In Siberia, however, for the last 250 years, the case has been completely changed by the Russian conquest of the country. The pressure of the new government has, notwithstanding many single acts of violence, been on the whole less destructive to the original population than the influence which the Europeans have exerted in America. The Russian power has at least held a wholly beneficial influence, inasmuch as it has prevented the continual feuds between the native races. The tribes driven to the inhospitable North have been enabled to return to milder regions, and where this has not taken place they have, in the absence of new migrations from the South, succ.u.mbed in the fight with cold, hunger, and small-pox, or other diseases introduced by their new masters. ]

[Footnote 272: Cornelis de Bruin, _Reizen over Moskovie, door Persie en Indie_, &c., Amsterdam, 1711, p. 12. The author's name is also written De Bruyn and Le Brun. ]

[Footnote 273: Herodotus already states in book iv. chapter 196, that the Carthagenians bartered goods in the same way with a tribe living on the coast of Africa beyond the Gates of Hercules. The same mode of barter was still in use nearly two thousand years later, when the west coast of Africa was visited by the Venetian Cadamosto, in 1454 (_Ramusio_, i., 1588, leaf 100). ]

[Footnote 274: As security for the subjection of the conquered races, the Russians were accustomed to take a number of men and women from their princ.i.p.al families as hostages. These persons were called _amanates_, and were kept in a sort of slavery at the fixed winter dwellings of the Russians. ]

[Footnote 275: The work is a translation made at Tobolsk by Swedish officers, prisoners of war from the battle of Pultava, from a Tartan ma.n.u.script by Abulgasi Bayadur Chan. The original ma.n.u.script (?) is in the library at Upsala, to which it was presented in 1722 by Lieutenant-Colonel Schonstrom. The translation has notes by Bentinck, a Dutchman by birth, who was also taken prisoner in the Swedish service at Pultava. ]