Chapter XII (3)

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.

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.

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 hell, 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.

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 shore 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, coarse, and cruel man into a being, nobler, 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 circumstances 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 latitude. 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, succumbed 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 principal 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 manuscript by Abulgasi Bayadur Chan. The original manuscript (?) is in the library at Upsala, to which it was presented in 1722 by Lieutenant-Colonel Schoenstroem. The translation has notes by Bentinck, a Dutchman by birth, who was also taken prisoner in the Swedish service at Pultava. ]

[Footnote 276: Luetke says (Erman's _Archiv_, iii. p. 464) that the peaceful relations with the Chukches begin after the conclusion of a peace which was brought about ten years after the abandonment of Anadyrsk, where for thirty-six years there had been a garrison of 600 men, costing over a million roubles. This peace this formerly so quarrelsome people has kept conscientiously down to our days with the exception of some market brawls, which induced Treskin, Governor-General of Eastern Siberia, to conclude with them, in 1817, a commercial treaty which appears to have been faithfully adhered to, to the satisfaction and advantage of both parties (_Dittmar_, p. 128). ]

[Footnote 277: Mueller has likewise saved from oblivion some other accounts regarding the Chukches, collected soon after at Anadyrsk. When we now read these accounts, we find not only that the Chukches knew the Eskimo on the American side, but also stories regarding the Indians of Western America penetrated to them, and further, through the authorities in Siberia, came to Europe, a circumstance which deserves to be kept in mind in judging of the writings of Herodotus and Marco Polo. ]

[Footnote 278: Sauer, _An Account_, &c., pp. 255 and 319. Sarytschev, _Reise, uebersetzt von Busse_, ii. p. 102. ]

[Footnote 279: _Ueber die Koriaeken und die ihnen sehr nahe verwandten Tschuktschen_ (Bulletin historico-philologique de l'Academie de St. Petersbourg, t. xiii., 1856, p. 126.) ]

[Footnote 280: That the Chukches burn their dead with various ceremonies is stated by Sarytschev on the ground of communications by the interpreter Daurkin, who lived among the reindeer-Chukches from 1787 to 1791, in order to learn their language and customs, and to announce the arrival of Billings' expedition (Sarytschev's _Reise_, ii. p. 108). The statement is thus certainly quite trustworthy. The coast population with whom Hooper came in contact, on the other hand, laid out their dead on special stages, where the corpses were allowed to be eaten up by ravens or to decay (_loc. cit._ p. 88). ]

[Footnote 281: If the runners are not shod with ice in this way the friction between them and the hard snow is very great during severe cold, and the draught accordingly exceedingly heavy. ]

[Footnote 282: Nearly all the travellers from a great distance who passed the _Vega_ had their dogs harnessed in this way. On the other hand, Sarytschev says that at St. Lawrence Bay all the dogs were harnessed abreast, and that this was the practice at Moore's winter quarters at Chukotskojnos is shown by the drawing at p. 71 of Hooper's work, already quoted. We ought to remember that at both these places the population were Eskimos who had adopted the Chukch language. The Greenland Eskimo have their dogs harnessed abreast, the Kamchadales in a long row. Naturally dogs harnessed abreast are unsuitable for wooded regions. The different methods of harnessing dogs mentioned here, therefore, indicate that the Eskimo have lived longer than the Chukches north of the limit of trees. ]

[Footnote 283: An exhaustive treatise on the food-substances which the Chukches gather from the vegetable kingdom, written by Dr. Kjellman, is to be found in _The Scientific Work of the Vega Expedition_. Popov already states that the Chukches eat many berries, roots, and herbs (_Mueller_, iii. p. 59). ]

[Footnote 284: Already, in the beginning of the eighteenth century, all the Siberian tribes, men and women, old and young, smoked passionately (_Hist. Genealog. des Tartares_, p. 66). ]

[Footnote 285: Dr. John Simpson gives good information regarding the American markets in his _Observations on the Western Esquimaux_. He enumerates three market places in America besides that at Behring's Straits. At the markets people are occupied also with dancing and games, which are carried on in such a lively manner that the market people scarcely sleep during the whole time. Matiuschin gives a very lively sketch of the market at Anjui, to which, in 1821, the Chukches still went fully armed with spears, bows, and arrows (Wrangel's _Reise_, i. p. 270), and a visit to it in 1868 is described by C. von Neumann, who took part as Astronomer in von Maydell's expedition to Chukch Land (_Eine Messe im Hochnorden; Das Ausland_ 1880, p. 861). ]

[Footnote 286: I have seen such pins, also oblong stones, sooty at one end, which, after having been dipped in train-oil, have been used as torches, laid by the side of corpses in old Eskimo graves in north-western Greenland. ]

[Footnote 287: In the accounts which were collected regarding the Chukches at Anadyrsk in the beginning of the eighteenth century, it is also stated that they lived without any government On the contrary, in M. von Krusenstern's _Voyage autour du monde, 1803-1806_ (Paris, 1821, ii. p. 151), a report of Governor Koscheleff is given on some negotiations which he had with a "chief of the whole Chukch nation". I take it for granted that the chiefship was of little account, and Koscheleff's whole sketch of his meeting with the supposed chief bears an altogether too lively European romantic stamp to be in any degree true to nature. At the same place it is also said that a brother of Governor Koscheleff, in the winter of 1805-1806, made a journey among the Chukches, on which, after his return, he sent a report, accompanied by a Chukch vocabulary, to von Krusenstern. ]

[Footnote 288: The originals of the drawings reproduced in the woodcuts are made on paper, part with the lead pencil, part with red ochre. The different groups represent _on the first page_--1, a dog-team; 2, 3, whales; 4, hunting the Polar bear and the walrus; 5, bullhead and cod; 6, man fishing; 7, hare-hunting; 8, birds; 9, wood-chopper; 10, man leading a reindeer; 11, walrus hunt--7 and 9 represent Europeans. _On the second page_--1, a reindeer train; 2, a reindeer taken with a lasso by two men; 3, a man throwing a harpoon; 4, seal hunt from boat; 5, bear hunt; 6, the man in the moon; 7, man leading a reindeer; 8, reindeer; 9, Chukch with staff and an archer; 10, reindeer with herd; 11, reindeer; 12, two tents, man riding on a dog sledge, &c. ]