The Chukchi - today their number is a little over 15 thousand people - inhabit the extreme northeast of Russia, Chukotka. The name of this distant Arctic region means "the land of the Chukchi" in translation. The Russian word "Chukchi" comes from the Chukchi "chauchu" - "rich in deer". The Chukchi have a thousand-year history. Their distant ancestors came to the Arctic from the central regions of Siberia, when on the site of the Bering Strait there was a vast isthmus connecting Asia and America. So part of the inhabitants of Northeast Asia crossed the "Bering Bridge" to Alaska. In the traditional culture, customs and holidays of the Chukchi, there are features that bring them closer to the Indian peoples of North America, and, of course, http://zateyniki-spb.ru/novogodnie-prazdniki/ded-moroz-i-snegurochka-na-dom.html there are few who want it.
Canoes holiday
According to the ancient ideas of the Chukchi, everything that surrounds a person has a soul. There is a soul by the sea, and there is a canoe, a boat covered with walrus skin, on which even today sea Arctic St. John's wort fearlessly go out into the ocean. Until recently, every spring, in order for the sea to accept the canoe, hunters arranged a special holiday. It began with the fact that the boat was solemnly removed from the pillars of the jawbones of the bowhead whale, on which it was stored during the long Chukchi winter. Then they sacrificed to the sea: they threw pieces of boiled meat into the water. The baidara was brought to the yaranga, the traditional dwelling of the Chukchi, and all the participants of the holiday walked around the yaranga. The oldest woman in the family went first, then the owner of the canoes, the helmsman, rowers, and the rest of the participants in the holiday. The next day, the boat was transferred to the shore, again they made a sacrifice to the sea, and only after that the canoe was launched.
whale festival
At the end of the fishing season, in late autumn or early winter, the coastal Chukchi held a whale festival. It was based on a rite of reconciliation between hunters and dead animals. People dressed in festive clothes, including special waterproof raincoats made from walrus intestines, asked for forgiveness from whales, seals, and walruses. “It wasn't the hunters who killed you! The stones rolled down the mountain and killed you!” - sang, referring to the whales, the Chukchi women. Men arranged wrestling matches, performed dances that reproduced scenes of hunting sea animals full of mortal danger.
At the festival of the whale, sacrifices were certainly made to Keretkun, the owner of all sea animals. After all, it was from him, the inhabitants of Chukotka believed, that success in hunting depends. In the yaranga, where the holiday was held, a network of Keretkun woven from deer tendons was hung out, and figurines of animals and birds carved from bone and wood were installed. One of the wooden sculptures depicted the owner of the marine animals himself. The culmination of the holiday was the lowering of whale bones into the sea. In the sea water, the Chukchi believed, the bones would turn into new animals, and next year whales would appear again off the coast of Chukotka.
Young Deer Festival (Kilway)
Just as solemnly as the whale festival among the coastal inhabitants was celebrated in the continental tundra Kilvei - the festival of the young deer. It was arranged in the spring, during calving. The holiday began with the fact that the shepherds drove the herd to the yarangas, and the women laid out the sacred fire. Fire for such a fire was obtained only by friction, as people did many hundreds of years ago. Deer were greeted with loud cries and shots to scare away evil spirits. This purpose was also served by tambourines-yarars, which were alternately played by men and women. Often, along with reindeer herders, residents of coastal villages took part in the holiday. They were invited to Kilway in advance, and the more prosperous the family was, the more guests came to the holiday. In exchange for their gifts, the inhabitants of the coastal villages received deer skins and venison, which was considered a delicacy among them. At the festival of the young deer, they not only had fun on the occasion of the birth of deer, but also performed important work: they separated the female with calves from the main part of the herd in order to graze them on the most abundant pastures. During the holiday, some of the adult deer were slaughtered. This was done in order to prepare meat for the future for women, the elderly and children. The fact is that after Kilvei, the inhabitants of the camp were divided into two groups. Elderly people, women, children stayed at winter camps, where they fished and picked berries in summer. And the men went with deer herds on a long journey, to summer camps. Summer pastures were located north of the winter nomad camps, not far from the coasts of the polar seas. The long journey with the herd was difficult, often dangerous. So the holiday of the young deer is also a farewell before a long separation.
The manuscript of K. G. Merck, dedicated to the Chukchi, was acquired in 1887 by the Imperial Public Library and is still kept in its manuscript department. These notes about the campaign through the Chukotka Peninsula (from St. Lawrence Bay to the Nizhne-Kolyma prison) are a description of the region and the ethnography of the peoples inhabiting it.
The manuscript of K. G. Merck, dedicated to the Chukchi, was acquired in 1887 by the Imperial Public Library and is still kept in its manuscript department. These notes about the campaign through the Chukotka Peninsula (from St. Lawrence Bay to the Nizhne-Kolyma prison) are a description of the region and the ethnography of the peoples inhabiting it.
We bring to your attention only selected excerpts from the researcher's manuscript.
The Chukchi are divided into deer and settled. The reindeer all summer until the autumn live in several families together near the settled camps, and their herds are driven to pastures closer to the sea coast at a distance of several days' journey from their temporary settlements. […] Those of the reindeer Chukchi who settle near the settled ones eat all summer only the meat of sea animals, thereby saving their herds. The Chukchi store meat and fat (blubber) of marine animals for the winter, as well as their skins, whalebone and other things that they need. […] Although the reindeer Chukchi give deer meat to the settled for the supplies received from them, which they slaughter especially for them, however, this, in fact, is not an exchange, but rather some kind of compensation at their discretion. […]
In language, the settled Chukchi also differ from the deer. The language of the latter is close to Koryak and only slightly differs from it. The settled Chukchi, although they understand the Koryak language, have their own language, divided into four dialects and completely different from Koryak. […]
As for God, they believe that a deity lives in the sky, which used to be on earth, to the latter they make sacrifices so that it keeps earthly devils from harming people. But they also make sacrifices for the same purpose to the devils themselves. However, their religious concepts are very incoherent. One can rather fall into error by asking the Chukchi about this than by observing their life with one's own eyes. However, it can be argued that they fear devils more than they trust any higher being. […]
As for sacrifices, the reindeer Chukchi sacrifice deer, and the sedentary Chukchi sacrifice dogs. When stabbed, they take a handful of blood from the wound and throw it towards the sun. Often I met such sacrificial dogs on the seashore, lying with their heads to the water, with the skin left only on the head and legs. This is a gift of the settled Chukchi to the sea for the sake of its appeasement and getting a happy voyage. […]
Their shamans shaman by night, sitting in their reindeer yurts in the dark and without much clothing. These activities must be regarded as a winter pastime during leisure hours, which, by the way, some women indulge in. However, not everyone knows how to shaman, but only some of the reindeer Chukchi and a few more of the settled ones. In this art, they are distinguished by the fact that during their actions they know how to answer or force others to answer in a changed or someone else's muffled voice, by which they deceive those present, portraying as if the devils answered their questions with their own lips. In case of illness or other circumstances, when they are addressed, shamans can direct the imaginary predictions of the spirits in such a way that the latter always demand one of the best deer of the herd as a sacrifice, which becomes their property with skin and meat. The head of such a deer is put on display. It happens that some of the shamans run in a circle in a trance, hitting a tambourine, and then, to show their skill, they cut their tongue or allow themselves to be stabbed in the body, not sparing their blood. […] Among the settled Chukchi, I met with the fact, according to them not so rare, that a male shaman, completely dressed in women's clothes, lived with a man as a good housewife.
Their dwellings are called yarangas. When the Chukchi stay longer in one place in summer and winter, the yarangas have a larger volume and correspond to the number of canopies that fit in them, which depends on the number of relatives living together. During migrations, the Chukchi divide the yaranga into several smaller parts to make it easier to install. […] For their warm canopies, the Chukchi use six or eight, and the wealthy up to 15 deer skins. The canopies are an uneven quadrilateral. To enter, lift the front part and crawl into the canopy. Inside you can kneel or bend over, why they only sit or lie in it. […] It cannot be denied that even in simple canopies, in the most extreme cold, you can sit naked, warming yourself from the heat of a lamp and from the vapors of people. […]
In contrast to the yarangas of the reindeer Chukchi, the yarangas of the settled Chukchi are covered with walrus skins. The warm curtains of the settled Chukchi are bad, and there are always insects in them, since the Chukchi cannot often renew the curtains, and sometimes they are forced to use already abandoned ones.
Chukchi men wear short hair. They wet them with urine and cut them with a knife, both in order to get rid of the lice and so that the hair does not interfere with the fight.
As for the clothes of men, they fit snugly to the body and are warm. The Chukchi renew it for the most part by winter. […] The Chukchi usually wear trousers made of seal skins, less often of processed deer skin, with under trousers, mostly from the skins of young deer. They also wear pants sewn from pieces of skin from wolf paws, on which even claws remain. Chukchi short stockings are made of seal skins and the Chukchi wear them with the wool inside until it's cold. In winter, they wear long-haired kamus stockings. In summer, they wear short boots made of seal skins with hair inside, and against dampness - from deer skins. In winter, they mostly wear short boots made of skins. […] As insoles in boots, the Chukchi use dry soft grass, as well as shavings from a whalebone; Without such insoles, boots do not give any warmth. The Chukchi wear two fur kukhlyankas, the lower one remains with them for the whole winter. […] The head of the Chukchi is often left uncovered all summer, autumn and spring, if the weather permits. If they want to cover their heads, they wear a bandage that goes down to the forehead with a fringe of wolf fur. The Chukchi also protect their heads with Malachai. […] over the malachai they put on, especially in winter, a hood that lies rounded over the shoulders. However, they are worn by younger and wealthier men to give themselves a more beautiful look. […] Some Chukchi also wear on their heads, instead of malachai, a skin torn from the head of a wolf with a muzzle, ears and eye sockets.
In rainy weather and damp fog, which they experience most of the summer, the Chukchi wear raincoats with hoods over their clothes. These raincoats are quadrangular pieces of thin skin from the intestines of whales sewn across and look like a pleated bag. […] In winter, the Chukchi are forced to knock out their clothes every evening with a mallet carved from horns before entering the yurt in order to clear it of snow. They carry the beater with them in the sled. In their tight-fitting and well-covering clothes, the Chukchi are not afraid of any cold, although due to the severe frosts they have, especially with the wind, they freeze their faces. […]
The occupations of men among the reindeer Chukchi are very limited: to watch their herd, protect animals night and day, drive the herd behind the train during migrations, separate draft deer, catch the last ones from the circle, harness deer, drive deer into corals, smoke tobacco, make a weak fire , choose a convenient place for migration. […]
The one-year-old deer, which the Chukchi destined for the team, they castrate in various rather primitive ways. When suckers are slaughtered in autumn, females have a little milk for another three to four days. Chukchi milk was brought to us in a tied intestine. They milk the females by sucking, since they do not know any other method of milking, and this method reduces the taste of milk. […]
The Chukchi also teach their riding deer to urine, like the Koryaks. Deer are very fond of this drink, they allow themselves to be lured by it and by this they are taught to recognize their master by voice. They say that if you moderately water the deer with urine, then they become more enduring during migrations and get less tired, which is why the Chukchi carry a large basin made of leather with them to urinate into it. In summer, deer do not drink urine, as they do not have a desire for it. In winter, however, the deer are so eager to drink urine that they must be restrained from consuming it in large quantities at a time when women pour or expose vessels of urine early in the morning from their yarangas. I saw two deer that had drunk too much urine in such intoxication that one of them looked like a dead one, .. and the second, which was very swollen and could not stand on its feet, was first dragged by the Chukchi to the fire so that the smoke unclenched its nostrils, then they tied it straps, buried up to his head in the snow, scratched his nose until it bled, but since all this did not help at all, they stabbed him.
Among the Chukchi, herds of deer are not as numerous as among the Koryaks. […] The Koryaks are also better at hunting wild deer and elk. As for arrows and bows, the Chukchi always have them with them, but they do not possess the dexterity of hitting, since they almost never practice this, but are content with how it comes out. […]
The occupations of the settled Chukchi are mainly hunting for marine animals. At the end of September, the Chukchi go hunting for walruses. They kill so many of them that even polar bears are not able to devour them all during the winter. […] On the walruses, the Chukchi go together by several people, run at them with a shout, throw a harpoon with the help of a thrower, while others pull a belt five fathoms long attached to the harpoon. If a wounded animal manages to go under water, the Chukchi overtake him and finish him in the chest with iron spears. […] If the Chukchi slaughter an animal on the water, or if a wounded animal rushes into the water and dies there, then they take only its meat, and the skeleton remains for the most part with fangs and sinks into the water. Meanwhile, it would be possible to pull out the skeleton with fangs and exchange it for tobacco, if the Chukchi did not spare labor for this. […]
They hunt bears with spears and claim that polar bears hunted on the water are easier to kill than brown ones, which are much more agile. […]
About their military campaigns. The Chukchi direct their raids mainly against the Koryaks, with whom they still cannot forget the enmity, and in former times they opposed the Yukaghirs, who with their help were almost destroyed. Their goal is to rob deer. Attacks on enemy yarangas always begin at dawn. Some rush with lassoes at the yarangas and try to destroy them, pulling out the racks, others at this time pierce the canopy of the yaranga with spears, and still others, quickly driving up to the herd on their light sleds, divide it into parts and steal it. […] For the same purpose, that is, robbery, settled Chukchi move to America on their canoes, attack camps, kill men and take women and children as prisoners; as a result of the attack on the Americans, they also receive part of the furs that they exchange with the Russians. Through the sale of American women to the Reindeer Chukchi and other trade deals, the settled Chukchi become Reindeer and may sometimes roam with the Reindeer, although they are never respected by the Reindeer.
There are also Koryaks and individual Yukaghirs among the Chukchi as workers. The Chukchi marry them to their poor women; and the settled also often take captive American women as wives. […]
The woman's hair is braided on the sides in two braids, which they mostly tie at the ends at the back. As for their tattoos, women tattoo with iron, partly triangular needles. Elongated pieces of iron are pierced above the lamp and given the shape of a needle, lowering the point into the moss from the lamps boiled and mixed with fat, then into graphite rubbed with urine. Graphite, with which the Chukchi rub the threads from the veins when tattooing, they find in abundance in pieces and on the river near their camp Puukhta. Tattooed with a needle with a dyed thread, as a result of which blackness remains under the skin. Slightly swollen place smeared with fat.
Even before the age of ten, they tattoo girls first in two lines - along the forehead and along the nose, then a tattoo follows on the chin, then on the cheeks, and when the girls get married (or about 17 years old), they tattoo the outside of the forearm to the neck with various linear figures. Less often denote a tattoo in women on the shoulder blades or on the pubis. […]
Women's clothing fits the body, falls below the knees, where it is tied, forming, as it were, pants. They put it on over the head. Her sleeves do not taper, but remain free. They, like the neckline, are trimmed with dog fur. This garment is worn double. […] Over the mentioned clothes, the Chukchi wear a wide fur shirt with a hood, reaching to the knees. They put it on on holidays, when visiting, and also during migrations. They put it on with the wool on the inside, and the more prosperous also wear the second one with the wool on the outside. […]
Women's occupations: taking care of food supplies, processing skins, sewing clothes.
Their food is from deer, which they slaughter in late autumn, while these animals are still fat. The Chukchi keep deer meat in pieces in reserve. While they live in one place, they smoke meat over the smoke in their yarangas, eat meat and ice cream, breaking it into small pieces on a stone with a stone hammer. […] Marrow fresh and frozen, fat and tongue they consider the most delicious. The Chukchi also use the contents of the stomach of a deer and its blood. […] Of the vegetation, the Chukchi use willows, of which there are two types here. […] In willows of both species, they rip off the bark of the roots, less often the bark of the trunks. They eat the bark with blood, whale oil, and wild meat. Boiled willow leaves are kept in sealsacks and eaten with bacon in winter. […] To dig up various roots, women use a walrus tusk hoe or a piece of deer antlers. The Chukchi also collect seaweed, which is eaten boiled with sour fat, blood and stomach contents of deer.
Marriage among the Chukchi. If the wooer has received the consent of the parents, then he sleeps with his daughter in the same canopy; if he manages to take possession of her, then the marriage is concluded. If the girl does not have a disposition towards him, then she invites several of her girlfriends to her that night, who fight with the guest with female weapons - arms and legs.
Koryachka sometimes makes her boyfriend suffer for a long time. The groom has been trying in vain for several years to achieve his goal, although he remains in the yaranga, carries firewood, guards the herd and does not refuse any work, and others, in order to test the groom, tease him, even beat him, which he patiently endures until the moment female weakness does not reward him.
Sometimes the Chukchi allow sexual relations between children who grow up with parents or relatives for further marriage.
The Chukchi do not seem to take more than four wives, more often two or three, while the less prosperous are satisfied with one. If the wife dies, the husband takes her sister. Younger brothers marry the widows of older brothers, but it is contrary to their customs to take the widow of the younger brother to the elder. The barren wife of the Chukchi is soon expelled without any claims from her relatives, and you often meet young women who are already getting the fourth husband in this way. […]
During childbirth, Chukchi women do not have any help, and, they say, often die during this. During menstruation, women are considered unclean; men refrain from communicating with them, believing that this results in back pain.
Wife Exchange. If the husbands agree in this way to seal their friendship, then they ask the consent of the wives, who do not refuse their request. When both sides have agreed in this way, the men sleep without asking, interspersed with other people's wives, if they live close to each other, or when they come to visit each other. The Chukchi exchange their wives for the most part with one or two, but there are examples when they receive such a relationship simultaneously with ten, since their wives, apparently, do not consider such an exchange undesirable. But women, especially among the reindeer Chukchi, are less likely to be prone to treason. They usually do not tolerate other people's jokes about this, take everything seriously and spit in the face or give free rein to their hands.
The Koryaks do not know of such an exchange of wives; they are jealous and betrayal of her husband was once punished by death, now - only by exile.
The children of the Chukchi, with this custom, obey other people's fathers. As for the mutual drinking of urine during the exchange of wives, this is a fiction, the reason for which could be the washing of the face and hands with urine. During the meager autumn migrations, such a guest often came to our hostess, and her husband then went to the wife of the latter or slept in another canopy. Both of them showed little ceremony, and if they wanted to satisfy their passions, they would escort us out of the canopy.
The settled Chukchi also exchange wives among themselves, but the deer do not exchange wives with the settled, and the deer do not marry the daughters of the settled, considering them unworthy of themselves. The wives of the deer would never agree to an exchange with the settled. However, this does not prevent the Reindeer Chukchi from sleeping with the wives of the settled, which their own wives do not look askance at, but the Reindeer Chukchi do not allow the settled to do the same. The settled Chukchi also provide their wives to strangers, but this is not proof of their friendship for them and not out of a desire to receive offspring from strangers. This is done out of self-interest: the husband gets a pack of tobacco, the wife gets a string of beads around her neck, a few strings of beads on her hand, and if they want to be luxurious, they also get earrings, and then the deal is made. […]
If Chukchi men feel the approach of death, they often order themselves to be stabbed to death - the duty of a friend; both brothers and sons are not upset by his death, but rather rejoice that he has found in himself enough courage not to expect a woman's death, as they say, but managed to escape from the torment of devils.
The corpse of the Chukchi is dressed in clothes made of white or spotted deer fur. 24 hours the corpse remains in the yaranga, and before it is taken out of there, they try several times the head, raising it until they find it light; and while the head is heavy, it seems to them that the deceased has forgotten something on the ground and does not want to leave it, which is why they put some food, needles and the like in front of the deceased. They take out the corpse not through the door, but next to it, raising the edge of the yaranga. When the deceased is carried out, one goes and pours the remaining fat from the lamp, which burned for 24 hours near the corpse, onto the road, as well as paint from alder bark.
For burning, the corpse is taken several miles from the yaranga to a hill, before burning it is opened in such a way that the insides fall out. This is done to facilitate combustion.
In memory of the deceased, they surround the place where the corpse was burned, in the form of an oval with stones, which should resemble the figure of a person, they put a larger stone at the head and at the feet, of which the upper one lies to the south and should represent the head. […] The reindeer, on which the deceased was taken, is immediately slaughtered on the spot, their meat is eaten, the head stone is smeared from below with bone marrow or fat, and the antlers are left in the same heap. Every year the Chukchi remember their dead; if the Chukchi are nearby at this time, then they slaughter deer at this place, and if they are far away, from five to ten sleds of relatives and acquaintances go annually to this place, make fire, throw bone marrow into the fire, and say: “Eat this” , help themselves, smoke tobacco and put peeled horns on a pile.
Chukchi mourn for their dead children. In our yaranga, a girl died shortly before our arrival; her mother mourned her every morning before the yaranga, and the howling replaced the singing. […]
To add something more about these natives, let us say that the Chukchi are more often of medium height, but it is not so rare to find Chukchi whose height reaches six feet; they are slender, strong, hardy and live to a ripe old age. The settled in this respect are not much inferior to the deer. The harsh climate, the severe frosts to which they are constantly exposed, their partly raw, partly slightly cooked food, which they almost always have in abundance, and physical exercise, from which they do not shy away from almost an evening, as long as the weather permits, their few occupations give them the advantage of strength, health and stamina. Among them you will not find a fat belly, like the Yakuts. […]
These men are brave when opposed by the masses, less afraid of death than cowardice. […] In general, the Chukchi are free, they exchange, not thinking about politeness; if they don't like something or what is offered in exchange seems too insignificant, then they easily spit on it. In theft, they have achieved great dexterity, especially settled ones. Being forced to live among them is a real school of patience. […]
The Chukchi seem amiable and helpful and demand in return everything they see and want; they do not know what is called disgusting; they send their need in their canopies, and what is most unpleasant about this is that they also force strangers, often even with a push, to pour urine into a cup; they crush lice with their teeth in a race with their wives - men from trousers, and women from hair.
A little more about the Chukchi beauties. Reindeer Chukchi women are chaste by habit; women of the sedentary represent them in this the complete opposite, but nature has provided the latter with more beautiful features. Both those and others are not very shy, although they do not understand this. In conclusion, another addition about the Koryaks. These natives are unattractive, small, and even on their faces their secret machinations are displayed; they forget every gift immediately upon receipt - they insult with death, like the Chukchi, and in general this seems more characteristic of Asia. One must always conform to their mood, so as not to make them enemies; you will not get anything from them by orders and cruelty; if they are sometimes punished with beatings, then you will not hear from them either cries or requests. Reindeer Koryaks consider a blow worse than death; taking their own life is like going to bed for them. […] These natives are cowardly; they not only left the Cossacks of local prisons to the mercy of fate, who got into trouble when the latter were more than once forced to act because of the Koryaks against the Chukchi, but even in those cases when the Cossacks had to flee with them, the Koryaks chopped off their fingers, so that the Cossacks could not hold on to the sledges. According to written evidence, in general, the Koryaks killed many more Cossacks sleeping than the Chukchi during the day with their arrows and spears.
However, is it not the reason for their behavior that the Cossacks of these remote regions consider them more as slaves created for them than as subjects under the scepter of the greatest monarchy, and treat them accordingly. Thoughtful bosses would have to prevent this if they did not think it easier to satisfy their own interests.
Their women apparently never comb their hair. The soiledness of their clothes should seem to serve as a guarantee of their chastity for jealous husbands, although their face, which can rarely lay claim to even a shadow of charm, never smiles when looking at a stranger.
K. G. Merck translated from German by Z. Titova
Every nation living far from civilization has traditions and customs that seem at least strange to uninitiated people. Now, in the era of globalization, the identity of small peoples is rapidly eroding, but some centuries-old foundations still remain. For example, the Chukchi have a very extravagant system of marriage and family relations.
The Chukchi - the indigenous people of the Far North - live according to the laws of the levirate. This is a marriage custom that does not allow families that have lost their breadwinner to be left without support and livelihood. The brother or other close relative of the deceased man has the obligation to marry the widow and adopt her children. 
Obviously, the effect of levirate explains the popularity of the tradition of group marriage. Married men agree to unite families in order to provide each other with labor and material support. Of course, the poor Chukchi seek to conclude such an alliance with rich friends and neighbors. 
The ethnographer Vladimir Bogoraz wrote: “When entering into a group marriage, men sleep, without asking, mixed with other people's wives. The exchange of Chukchi wives is usually limited to only one or two friends, however, examples are not uncommon when this kind of close relationship is maintained with many. 
Children born in families in a group marriage relationship are considered siblings. And all members of a large family take care of them. So group marriage is a real salvation for childless couples: a barren man will always be helped to have children by his friend. And the birth of a baby for the Chukchi is always a very joyful event, regardless of who his biological father is.
The manuscript of K. G. Merck, dedicated to the Chukchi, was acquired in 1887 by the Imperial Public Library and is still kept in its manuscript department. These notes about the campaign through the Chukotka Peninsula (from St. Lawrence Bay to the Nizhne-Kolyma prison) are a description of the region and the ethnography of the peoples inhabiting it.
The manuscript of K. G. Merck, dedicated to the Chukchi, was acquired in 1887 by the Imperial Public Library and is still kept in its manuscript department. These notes about the campaign through the Chukotka Peninsula (from St. Lawrence Bay to the Nizhne-Kolyma prison) are a description of the region and the ethnography of the peoples inhabiting it.
We bring to your attention only selected excerpts from the researcher's manuscript.
The Chukchi are divided into deer and settled. The reindeer all summer until the autumn live in several families together near the settled camps, and their herds are driven to pastures closer to the sea coast at a distance of several days' journey from their temporary settlements. […] Those of the reindeer Chukchi who settle near the settled ones eat all summer only the meat of sea animals, thereby saving their herds. The Chukchi store meat and fat (blubber) of marine animals for the winter, as well as their skins, whalebone and other things that they need. […] Although the reindeer Chukchi give deer meat to the settled for the supplies received from them, which they slaughter especially for them, however, this, in fact, is not an exchange, but rather some kind of compensation at their discretion. […]
In language, the settled Chukchi also differ from the deer. The language of the latter is close to Koryak and only slightly differs from it. The settled Chukchi, although they understand the Koryak language, have their own language, divided into four dialects and completely different from Koryak. […]
As for God, they believe that a deity lives in the sky, which used to be on earth, to the latter they make sacrifices so that it keeps earthly devils from harming people. But they also make sacrifices for the same purpose to the devils themselves. However, their religious concepts are very incoherent. One can rather fall into error by asking the Chukchi about this than by observing their life with one's own eyes. However, it can be argued that they fear devils more than they trust any higher being. […]
As for sacrifices, the reindeer Chukchi sacrifice deer, and the sedentary Chukchi sacrifice dogs. When stabbed, they take a handful of blood from the wound and throw it towards the sun. Often I met such sacrificial dogs on the seashore, lying with their heads to the water, with the skin left only on the head and legs. This is a gift of the settled Chukchi to the sea for the sake of its appeasement and getting a happy voyage. […]
Their shamans shaman by night, sitting in their reindeer yurts in the dark and without much clothing. These activities must be regarded as a winter pastime during leisure hours, which, by the way, some women indulge in. However, not everyone knows how to shaman, but only some of the reindeer Chukchi and a few more of the settled ones. In this art, they are distinguished by the fact that during their actions they know how to answer or force others to answer in a changed or someone else's muffled voice, by which they deceive those present, portraying as if the devils answered their questions with their own lips. In case of illness or other circumstances, when they are addressed, shamans can direct the imaginary predictions of the spirits in such a way that the latter always demand one of the best deer of the herd as a sacrifice, which becomes their property with skin and meat. The head of such a deer is put on display. It happens that some of the shamans run in a circle in a trance, hitting a tambourine, and then, to show their skill, they cut their tongue or allow themselves to be stabbed in the body, not sparing their blood. […] Among the settled Chukchi, I met with the fact, according to them not so rare, that a male shaman, completely dressed in women's clothes, lived with a man as a good housewife.
Their dwellings are called yarangas. When the Chukchi stay longer in one place in summer and winter, the yarangas have a larger volume and correspond to the number of canopies that fit in them, which depends on the number of relatives living together. During migrations, the Chukchi divide the yaranga into several smaller parts to make it easier to install. […] For their warm canopies, the Chukchi use six or eight, and the wealthy up to 15 deer skins. The canopies are an uneven quadrilateral. To enter, lift the front part and crawl into the canopy. Inside you can kneel or bend over, why they only sit or lie in it. […] It cannot be denied that even in simple canopies, in the most extreme cold, you can sit naked, warming yourself from the heat of a lamp and from the vapors of people. […]
In contrast to the yarangas of the reindeer Chukchi, the yarangas of the settled Chukchi are covered with walrus skins. The warm curtains of the settled Chukchi are bad, and there are always insects in them, since the Chukchi cannot often renew the curtains, and sometimes they are forced to use already abandoned ones.
Chukchi men wear short hair. They wet them with urine and cut them with a knife, both in order to get rid of the lice and so that the hair does not interfere with the fight.
As for the clothes of men, they fit snugly to the body and are warm. The Chukchi renew it for the most part by winter. […] The Chukchi usually wear trousers made of seal skins, less often of processed deer skin, with under trousers, mostly from the skins of young deer. They also wear pants sewn from pieces of skin from wolf paws, on which even claws remain. Chukchi short stockings are made of seal skins and the Chukchi wear them with the wool inside until it's cold. In winter, they wear long-haired kamus stockings. In summer, they wear short boots made of seal skins with hair inside, and against dampness - from deer skins. In winter, they mostly wear short boots made of skins. […] As insoles in boots, the Chukchi use dry soft grass, as well as shavings from a whalebone; Without such insoles, boots do not give any warmth. The Chukchi wear two fur kukhlyankas, the lower one remains with them for the whole winter. […] The head of the Chukchi is often left uncovered all summer, autumn and spring, if the weather permits. If they want to cover their heads, they wear a bandage that goes down to the forehead with a fringe of wolf fur. The Chukchi also protect their heads with Malachai. […] over the malachai they put on, especially in winter, a hood that lies rounded over the shoulders. However, they are worn by younger and wealthier men to give themselves a more beautiful look. […] Some Chukchi also wear on their heads, instead of malachai, a skin torn from the head of a wolf with a muzzle, ears and eye sockets.
In rainy weather and damp fog, which they experience most of the summer, the Chukchi wear raincoats with hoods over their clothes. These raincoats are quadrangular pieces of thin skin from the intestines of whales sewn across and look like a pleated bag. […] In winter, the Chukchi are forced to knock out their clothes every evening with a mallet carved from horns before entering the yurt in order to clear it of snow. They carry the beater with them in the sled. In their tight-fitting and well-covering clothes, the Chukchi are not afraid of any cold, although due to the severe frosts they have, especially with the wind, they freeze their faces. […]
The occupations of men among the reindeer Chukchi are very limited: to watch their herd, protect animals night and day, drive the herd behind the train during migrations, separate draft deer, catch the last ones from the circle, harness deer, drive deer into corals, smoke tobacco, make a weak fire , choose a convenient place for migration. […]
The one-year-old deer, which the Chukchi destined for the team, they castrate in various rather primitive ways. When suckers are slaughtered in autumn, females have a little milk for another three to four days. Chukchi milk was brought to us in a tied intestine. They milk the females by sucking, since they do not know any other method of milking, and this method reduces the taste of milk. […]
The Chukchi also teach their riding deer to urine, like the Koryaks. Deer are very fond of this drink, they allow themselves to be lured by it and by this they are taught to recognize their master by voice. They say that if you moderately water the deer with urine, then they become more enduring during migrations and get less tired, which is why the Chukchi carry a large basin made of leather with them to urinate into it. In summer, deer do not drink urine, as they do not have a desire for it. In winter, however, the deer are so eager to drink urine that they must be restrained from consuming it in large quantities at a time when women pour or expose vessels of urine early in the morning from their yarangas. I saw two deer that had drunk too much urine in such intoxication that one of them looked like a dead one, .. and the second, which was very swollen and could not stand on its feet, was first dragged by the Chukchi to the fire so that the smoke unclenched its nostrils, then they tied it straps, buried up to his head in the snow, scratched his nose until it bled, but since all this did not help at all, they stabbed him.
Among the Chukchi, herds of deer are not as numerous as among the Koryaks. […] The Koryaks are also better at hunting wild deer and elk. As for arrows and bows, the Chukchi always have them with them, but they do not possess the dexterity of hitting, since they almost never practice this, but are content with how it comes out. […]
The occupations of the settled Chukchi are mainly hunting for marine animals. At the end of September, the Chukchi go hunting for walruses. They kill so many of them that even polar bears are not able to devour them all during the winter. […] On the walruses, the Chukchi go together by several people, run at them with a shout, throw a harpoon with the help of a thrower, while others pull a belt five fathoms long attached to the harpoon. If a wounded animal manages to go under water, the Chukchi overtake him and finish him in the chest with iron spears. […] If the Chukchi slaughter an animal on the water, or if a wounded animal rushes into the water and dies there, then they take only its meat, and the skeleton remains for the most part with fangs and sinks into the water. Meanwhile, it would be possible to pull out the skeleton with fangs and exchange it for tobacco, if the Chukchi did not spare labor for this. […]
They hunt bears with spears and claim that polar bears hunted on the water are easier to kill than brown ones, which are much more agile. […]
About their military campaigns. The Chukchi direct their raids mainly against the Koryaks, with whom they still cannot forget the enmity, and in former times they opposed the Yukaghirs, who with their help were almost destroyed. Their goal is to rob deer. Attacks on enemy yarangas always begin at dawn. Some rush with lassoes at the yarangas and try to destroy them, pulling out the racks, others at this time pierce the canopy of the yaranga with spears, and still others, quickly driving up to the herd on their light sleds, divide it into parts and steal it. […] For the same purpose, that is, robbery, settled Chukchi move to America on their canoes, attack camps, kill men and take women and children as prisoners; as a result of the attack on the Americans, they also receive part of the furs that they exchange with the Russians. Through the sale of American women to the Reindeer Chukchi and other trade deals, the settled Chukchi become Reindeer and may sometimes roam with the Reindeer, although they are never respected by the Reindeer.
There are also Koryaks and individual Yukaghirs among the Chukchi as workers. The Chukchi marry them to their poor women; and the settled also often take captive American women as wives. […]
The woman's hair is braided on the sides in two braids, which they mostly tie at the ends at the back. As for their tattoos, women tattoo with iron, partly triangular needles. Elongated pieces of iron are pierced above the lamp and given the shape of a needle, lowering the point into the moss from the lamps boiled and mixed with fat, then into graphite rubbed with urine. Graphite, with which the Chukchi rub the threads from the veins when tattooing, they find in abundance in pieces and on the river near their camp Puukhta. Tattooed with a needle with a dyed thread, as a result of which blackness remains under the skin. Slightly swollen place smeared with fat.
Even before the age of ten, they tattoo girls first in two lines - along the forehead and along the nose, then a tattoo follows on the chin, then on the cheeks, and when the girls get married (or about 17 years old), they tattoo the outside of the forearm to the neck with various linear figures. Less often denote a tattoo in women on the shoulder blades or on the pubis. […]
Women's clothing fits the body, falls below the knees, where it is tied, forming, as it were, pants. They put it on over the head. Her sleeves do not taper, but remain free. They, like the neckline, are trimmed with dog fur. This garment is worn double. […] Over the mentioned clothes, the Chukchi wear a wide fur shirt with a hood, reaching to the knees. They put it on on holidays, when visiting, and also during migrations. They put it on with the wool on the inside, and the more prosperous also wear the second one with the wool on the outside. […]
Women's occupations: taking care of food supplies, processing skins, sewing clothes.
Their food is from deer, which they slaughter in late autumn, while these animals are still fat. The Chukchi keep deer meat in pieces in reserve. While they live in one place, they smoke meat over the smoke in their yarangas, eat meat and ice cream, breaking it into small pieces on a stone with a stone hammer. […] Marrow fresh and frozen, fat and tongue they consider the most delicious. The Chukchi also use the contents of the stomach of a deer and its blood. […] Of the vegetation, the Chukchi use willows, of which there are two types here. […] In willows of both species, they rip off the bark of the roots, less often the bark of the trunks. They eat the bark with blood, whale oil, and wild meat. Boiled willow leaves are kept in sealsacks and eaten with bacon in winter. […] To dig up various roots, women use a walrus tusk hoe or a piece of deer antlers. The Chukchi also collect seaweed, which is eaten boiled with sour fat, blood and stomach contents of deer.
Marriage among the Chukchi. If the wooer has received the consent of the parents, then he sleeps with his daughter in the same canopy; if he manages to take possession of her, then the marriage is concluded. If the girl does not have a disposition towards him, then she invites several of her girlfriends to her that night, who fight with the guest with female weapons - arms and legs.
Koryachka sometimes makes her boyfriend suffer for a long time. The groom has been trying in vain for several years to achieve his goal, although he remains in the yaranga, carries firewood, guards the herd and does not refuse any work, and others, in order to test the groom, tease him, even beat him, which he patiently endures until the moment female weakness does not reward him.
Sometimes the Chukchi allow sexual relations between children who grow up with parents or relatives for further marriage.
The Chukchi do not seem to take more than four wives, more often two or three, while the less prosperous are satisfied with one. If the wife dies, the husband takes her sister. Younger brothers marry the widows of older brothers, but it is contrary to their customs to take the widow of the younger brother to the elder. The barren wife of the Chukchi is soon expelled without any claims from her relatives, and you often meet young women who are already getting the fourth husband in this way. […]
During childbirth, Chukchi women do not have any help, and, they say, often die during this. During menstruation, women are considered unclean; men refrain from communicating with them, believing that this results in back pain.
Wife Exchange. If the husbands agree in this way to seal their friendship, then they ask the consent of the wives, who do not refuse their request. When both sides have agreed in this way, the men sleep without asking, interspersed with other people's wives, if they live close to each other, or when they come to visit each other. The Chukchi exchange their wives for the most part with one or two, but there are examples when they receive such a relationship simultaneously with ten, since their wives, apparently, do not consider such an exchange undesirable. But women, especially among the reindeer Chukchi, are less likely to be prone to treason. They usually do not tolerate other people's jokes about this, take everything seriously and spit in the face or give free rein to their hands.
The Koryaks do not know of such an exchange of wives; they are jealous and betrayal of her husband was once punished by death, now - only by exile.
The children of the Chukchi, with this custom, obey other people's fathers. As for the mutual drinking of urine during the exchange of wives, this is a fiction, the reason for which could be the washing of the face and hands with urine. During the meager autumn migrations, such a guest often came to our hostess, and her husband then went to the wife of the latter or slept in another canopy. Both of them showed little ceremony, and if they wanted to satisfy their passions, they would escort us out of the canopy.
The settled Chukchi also exchange wives among themselves, but the deer do not exchange wives with the settled, and the deer do not marry the daughters of the settled, considering them unworthy of themselves. The wives of the deer would never agree to an exchange with the settled. However, this does not prevent the Reindeer Chukchi from sleeping with the wives of the settled, which their own wives do not look askance at, but the Reindeer Chukchi do not allow the settled to do the same. The settled Chukchi also provide their wives to strangers, but this is not proof of their friendship for them and not out of a desire to receive offspring from strangers. This is done out of self-interest: the husband gets a pack of tobacco, the wife gets a string of beads around her neck, a few strings of beads on her hand, and if they want to be luxurious, they also get earrings, and then the deal is made. […]
If Chukchi men feel the approach of death, they often order themselves to be stabbed to death - the duty of a friend; both brothers and sons are not upset by his death, but rather rejoice that he has found in himself enough courage not to expect a woman's death, as they say, but managed to escape from the torment of devils.
The corpse of the Chukchi is dressed in clothes made of white or spotted deer fur. 24 hours the corpse remains in the yaranga, and before it is taken out of there, they try several times the head, raising it until they find it light; and while the head is heavy, it seems to them that the deceased has forgotten something on the ground and does not want to leave it, which is why they put some food, needles and the like in front of the deceased. They take out the corpse not through the door, but next to it, raising the edge of the yaranga. When the deceased is carried out, one goes and pours the remaining fat from the lamp, which burned for 24 hours near the corpse, onto the road, as well as paint from alder bark.
For burning, the corpse is taken several miles from the yaranga to a hill, before burning it is opened in such a way that the insides fall out. This is done to facilitate combustion.
In memory of the deceased, they surround the place where the corpse was burned, in the form of an oval with stones, which should resemble the figure of a person, they put a larger stone at the head and at the feet, of which the upper one lies to the south and should represent the head. […] The reindeer, on which the deceased was taken, is immediately slaughtered on the spot, their meat is eaten, the head stone is smeared from below with bone marrow or fat, and the antlers are left in the same heap. Every year the Chukchi remember their dead; if the Chukchi are nearby at this time, then they slaughter deer at this place, and if they are far away, from five to ten sleds of relatives and acquaintances go annually to this place, make fire, throw bone marrow into the fire, and say: “Eat this” , help themselves, smoke tobacco and put peeled horns on a pile.
Chukchi mourn for their dead children. In our yaranga, a girl died shortly before our arrival; her mother mourned her every morning before the yaranga, and the howling replaced the singing. […]
To add something more about these natives, let us say that the Chukchi are more often of medium height, but it is not so rare to find Chukchi whose height reaches six feet; they are slender, strong, hardy and live to a ripe old age. The settled in this respect are not much inferior to the deer. The harsh climate, the severe frosts to which they are constantly exposed, their partly raw, partly slightly cooked food, which they almost always have in abundance, and physical exercise, from which they do not shy away from almost an evening, as long as the weather permits, their few occupations give them the advantage of strength, health and stamina. Among them you will not find a fat belly, like the Yakuts. […]
These men are brave when opposed by the masses, less afraid of death than cowardice. […] In general, the Chukchi are free, they exchange, not thinking about politeness; if they don't like something or what is offered in exchange seems too insignificant, then they easily spit on it. In theft, they have achieved great dexterity, especially settled ones. Being forced to live among them is a real school of patience. […]
The Chukchi seem amiable and helpful and demand in return everything they see and want; they do not know what is called disgusting; they send their need in their canopies, and what is most unpleasant about this is that they also force strangers, often even with a push, to pour urine into a cup; they crush lice with their teeth in a race with their wives - men from trousers, and women from hair.
A little more about the Chukchi beauties. Reindeer Chukchi women are chaste by habit; women of the sedentary represent them in this the complete opposite, but nature has provided the latter with more beautiful features. Both those and others are not very shy, although they do not understand this. In conclusion, another addition about the Koryaks. These natives are unattractive, small, and even on their faces their secret machinations are displayed; they forget every gift immediately upon receipt - they insult with death, like the Chukchi, and in general this seems more characteristic of Asia. One must always conform to their mood, so as not to make them enemies; you will not get anything from them by orders and cruelty; if they are sometimes punished with beatings, then you will not hear from them either cries or requests. Reindeer Koryaks consider a blow worse than death; taking their own life is like going to bed for them. […] These natives are cowardly; they not only left the Cossacks of local prisons to the mercy of fate, who got into trouble when the latter were more than once forced to act because of the Koryaks against the Chukchi, but even in those cases when the Cossacks had to flee with them, the Koryaks chopped off their fingers, so that the Cossacks could not hold on to the sledges. According to written evidence, in general, the Koryaks killed many more Cossacks sleeping than the Chukchi during the day with their arrows and spears.
However, is it not the reason for their behavior that the Cossacks of these remote regions consider them more as slaves created for them than as subjects under the scepter of the greatest monarchy, and treat them accordingly. Thoughtful bosses would have to prevent this if they did not think it easier to satisfy their own interests.
Their women apparently never comb their hair. The soiledness of their clothes should seem to serve as a guarantee of their chastity for jealous husbands, although their face, which can rarely lay claim to even a shadow of charm, never smiles when looking at a stranger.
K. G. Merck translated from German by Z. Titova
Chukchi (self-name - lygyo ravetlan) - a distorted Chukchi word "chavchu" (rich in deer), which the Russians and Lamuts call the people living in the extreme north-east of Russia. The Chukchi were subdivided into deer - tundra nomadic reindeer herders (self-name chauchu - "deer man") and seaside - sedentary hunters of sea animals (self-name ankalyn - "coastal"), living together with the Eskimos.
The Russian Chukchi encountered for the first time back in the 17th century. In 1644, the Cossack Stadukhin, who was the first to bring news of them to Yakutsk, founded the Nizhnekolymsky prison. The Chukchi, who at that time roamed both east and west of the Kolyma River, after a stubborn, bloody struggle, finally left the left bank of the Kolyma, pushing the Mamalla tribe from the coast of the Arctic Ocean to.
Since then, for more than a hundred years, bloody clashes between the Russians and the Chukchi, whose territory bordered on the Kolyma River in the west and Anadyr in the south, from the Amur Territory, did not stop. In 1770, after the unsuccessful campaign of Shestakov, the Anadyr prison, which served as the center of the struggle between the Russians and the Chukchi, was destroyed and his team was transferred to Nizhne-Kolymsk, after which the Chukchi became less hostile to the Russians and gradually began to enter into trade relations with them.
In 1775, the Angarskaya fortress was built on the Angarka River, where, under the protection of the Cossacks, an annual fair for barter with the Chukchi took place. Since 1848, the fair has been moved to the Anyui fortress (250 versts from Nizhne-Kolymsk, on the banks of the Small Anyui). The Chukchi brought here not only the ordinary products of their own production (clothing made of deer furs, deer skins, live deer, seal skins, whalebone, polar bear skins), but also the most expensive furs (beavers, martens, black foxes, blue foxes), which the so-called nasal Chukchi exchanged for tobacco among the inhabitants of the shores of the Bering Sea and the northwestern coast of America.
By the end of the 18th century, the territory of the Chukchi stretched from Omolon, Bolshoi and Maly Anyuev in the west to the Penzhin and Olyutor camps in the southeast. Gradually, it increased, which was accompanied by the allocation of territorial groups: Kolyma, Anyui, or Maloanyui, Chaun, Omolon, Amguem, or Amguemo-Vonkarem, Kolyuchi-Mechigmen, Onmylen, Tuman, or Vilyunei, Olyutor, Bering Sea and others. In 1897, the number of Chukchi was approximately 11 thousand people. In 1930, the Chukotka National Okrug was formed, and since 1977 it has been an autonomous okrug. According to the 2002 census, the number of Chukchi was 16 people.
The main occupation of the tundra Chukchi is nomadic reindeer herding. Deer give the Chukchi almost everything they need: meat for cooking, skins for clothing and housing, and are also used as draft animals.
The main occupation of the coastal Chukchi is hunting for sea animals: in winter and spring - for seals and seals, in summer and autumn - for walrus and whale. At first, traditional hunting weapons were used for hunting - a harpoon with a float, a spear, a belt net, but in the 19th century, the Chukchi began to use firearms more often. So far, only hunting for birds with the help of the "bol" has been preserved. Fishing is developed only among some Chukchi. Women and children also collect edible plants.
Traditional Chukchi dishes are mainly made from venison and fish.
The main dwelling of the Chukchi is a collapsible cylindrical-conical yaranga tent made of deer skins among the tundra and walrus - among the coastal Chukchi. The arch rests on three poles located in the center. The dwelling was heated with a stone, clay or wooden fat lamp, on which food was also cooked. The Yaranga of the coastal Chukchi differed from the dwellings of reindeer herders by the absence of a smoke hole.
The type of Chukchi is mixed, generally Mongoloid, but with some differences. Eyes with an oblique incision are less common than those with a horizontal incision; the width of the cheekbones is less than that of the Tungus and Yakuts, and more often than that of the latter; there are individuals with thick hair on the face and wavy, almost curly hair on the head; complexion with a bronze tint.
Among women, the type is more common, with wide cheekbones, a swollen nose and twisted nostrils. The mixed type (Asian-American) is confirmed by some legends, myths and differences in the life of the deer and coastal Chukchi.
Chukchi winter clothes are of the usual polar type. It is sewn from the fur of fawns (grown up autumn calf) and for men it consists of a double fur shirt (the lower fur to the body and the upper fur out), the same double trousers, short fur stockings with the same boots and a hat in the form of a female bonnet. Women's clothing is quite original, also double, consisting of one-piece sewn trousers along with a low-cut bodice, pulled together at the waist, with a slit at the chest and extremely wide sleeves, thanks to which the Chukchi easily free their hands during work.
Summer outerwear is robes made of reindeer suede or colorful purchased fabrics, as well as kamlikas made of fine-haired deer skin with various ritual stripes. Most of the Chukchi jewelry - pendants, bandages, necklaces (in the form of straps with beads and figurines) - have a religious significance, but there are also real jewelry in the form of metal bracelets and earrings.
The original pattern on the clothes of the Primorsky Chukchi is of Eskimo origin; from the Chukchi, he passed to many polar peoples of Asia. Hair dressing is different for men and women. The latter braid two braids on both sides of the head, decorating them with beads and buttons, sometimes releasing the front strands on the forehead (married women). Men cut their hair very smoothly, leaving a wide fringe in front and two tufts of hair in the form of animal ears on the crown of the head.
According to their beliefs, the Chukchi are animists; they personify and deify certain areas and phenomena of nature (masters of the forest, water, fire, sun, deer), many animals (bear, crow), stars, sun and moon, they believe in hosts of evil spirits that cause all earthly disasters, including diseases and death, have a number of regular holidays (autumn holiday of slaughtering deer, spring holiday of horns, winter sacrifice to the star Altair) and many non-regular ones (feeding the fire, sacrifices after each hunt, commemoration of the dead, votive services).
Folklore and mythology of the Chukchi are very rich and have much in common with those of the American peoples and Paleo-Asians. The Chukchi language is very rich in both words and forms; the harmony of sounds is quite strictly carried out in it. Phonetics is very difficult for the European ear.
The main mental traits of the Chukchi are extremely easy excitability, reaching a frenzy, a tendency to kill and commit suicide at the slightest pretext, love for independence, perseverance in the fight; along with this, the Chukchi are hospitable, usually good-natured and willingly come to the aid of their neighbors, even Russians, during hunger strikes. The Chukchi, especially the coastal ones, became famous for their sculptures and carvings from mammoth bone, striking in their fidelity to nature and bold poses and strokes and reminiscent of the wonderful bone images of the Paleolithic period. Traditional musical instruments are vargan (khomus), tambourine (yarar). In addition to ritual dances, impromptu entertaining pantomime dances were also common.
