Homer B. Hulbert

I celebrate Christmas day with the over-kind assistance of two hundred natives—Koraks as sharp-shooters—Comic features of a Russian dance—Off for Kaminaw—Another runaway—Slaughtering deer—A curious provision of nature—Eight families in one yourta—Korak method of washing dishes—A herd of ten thousand deer.

When I reached town the Russians desired to know what I had accomplished, and I was obliged to tell them that I had discovered no considerable deposits of gold on the head waters of the Ghijiga.

Some time before this I had caused it to become known that I would pay liberally in tea or other commodities for bags of rock picked up in the beds of streams and delivered in Ghijiga. I now found upward of a ton of such specimens awaiting my inspection. This was my information bureau. I had found the natives trustworthy, and I knew they would not pick up specimens near by and claim they had been brought from a distance. Some that I thus examined had been brought seven hundred miles. By a careful examination and classification of these specimens I was able to determine the various geological formations of the district, and the next three weeks were spent in this important work. I wanted to be off again promptly, but as Christmas was at hand, it was impossible to secure dog-teams; so I was obliged to rest.

As I sat in my cabin on Christmas eve, thinking over old times, and feeling, perhaps, a trifle blue, I determined to usher in the great day with some Éclat. So I loaded up every firearm that I had, and when midnight came I stepped outside and "let loose" with revolvers, rifles, and shotguns. The first effect was to wake up four hundred dogs, who responded with howls and barks, which they kept up till morning. At seven o'clock, my Russian friends came flocking over to find out what I was celebrating. I told them that it was our Christmas day. Their Christmas comes twelve days later than ours. When they found out the cause of my exhilaration they slipped away, but within three hours the women and children began to appear, each loaded with a steaming dish. There were meats, fowls, berries, pasties, fish, blubber, stuffed ptarmigan, deer tongues, and other things—enough to feed a hundred men. When the table was so full that it could hold no more, they put the dishes on the floor. I knew well that they had brought much more than I could handle, and I was somewhat embarrassed by their excessive generosity. But my fears were ill-founded, for soon the whole village began to arrive. The priests and magistrates came first, and then the rest in descending scale, and by the time they were done, all the good things that they had brought had been consumed, as well as all that I could obtain from Mrs. Braggin. Two hundred were fed, and by night I was entirely cleaned out—cupboard, shelf, and cellar. What the small children could not eat they put in their pockets. The Russian storekeepers sent me a bag of coppers, telling me that it was the custom to give each child a coin on such occasions. When I went to bed at night, I determined that I would never again disturb the peace of Christmas night with firearms.

On New Year's eve, fearing that the ceremony might be repeated, I stole away on my snow-shoes and spent the day hunting ptarmigan. I had good luck, and bagged all I could carry. These beautiful little birds are about the size of a pigeon, but of heavier build. In summer their color is brown, but in winter it is pure white, and they sit motionless in the snow, so that it is almost impossible to discover them. The native boys kill them with bows and arrows. Almost all the natives of the far north are good shots, being trained to it from boyhood. In order to catch ermine and belk (arctic squirrel) they must be marksmen of the first order; for these animals are small, and must be shot in the head, or the skin is worthless. For this purpose, twenty-two caliber rifles of German manufacture are used. They are muzzle-loaders, and can be purchased in Vladivostok for four roubles. The natives rig them up with a forked rest, and an ermine at seventy-five yards stands no chance of escape.

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.

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 shore 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 passable 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!" ("God 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, lassoing 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.

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 carcass 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 carcass 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 larvÆ 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 carcasses 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 latitude, 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 partitions, like a row of detached heads, with the eyes blinking solemnly at me.

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 mass 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 grass.

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 shores 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 buttons 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 principal 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.

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.