Chukchi people

“ They have very strong fishing-nets, made of thin strips of walrus hide.
TCHUKTCHI INDIANS BUILDING A HUT. [pg 158] The Tchuktchis are a strongly-built race, although the inhabitants of this particular village, from intercourse with whaling vessels, have been much demoralised. One of these natives was seen carrying the awkward burden of a carpenter’s chest weighing two hundred pounds without apparently considering it a great exertion. They are a good-humoured people, and not greedier than the average of natives; they are very generally honest. ”

“ I was puzzled, for I did not know of anything done by the government that might have provoked such a question. So I looked inquiringly at the agent, who whispered: “I do not know what he can mean. These Indians have very strange notions sometimes.”
I then turned to White Thunder and said: “Why do you say that the Great Father does not trust you? Here I am. Your people are many thousands. I have come among you, not with an army, but alone, accompanied only by a few friends. Is not this proof enough that I have confidence in you? What stronger proof would you have?” ”

“ Through this refracting medium the people of India see their rulers. The chuprassie paints his master in colours drawn from his own black heart. Every lie he tells, every insinuation he throws out, every demand he makes, is endorsed with his master's name. He is the arch-slanderer of our name in India.
There is no city in India, no mofussil-station, no little settlement of officials far-up country, in which the chuprassie does not find sworn brothers and confederates. The cut-cherry clerks and the police are with him everywhere; higher native officials are often on his side. ”

“ Their villages are sometimes close to those of the Namollos, or Sedentary Chukchis, they intermarry, and have a jargon sufficient for their mutual purposes; but it is an error, though a prevailing one, to suppose that they are the same people. The Chukchis never entered [65] America, and the Innuits, as a people, never crossed from Asia, or originated there. ”

“ We have a surer way, aye, and a quicker one. Struggle not to-night, sahib, when I tie you to the ring in the wall. Bound you must be, for the Black One has spoken; and it is her pleasure that I shall lift my will from you, even as I did by mischance yesterday. India has suffered through this white woman; my people have been tormented by her, and Kali, the Black One, has commanded that the sufferings of the land shall be wiped out in the white woman's blood, and the torments of the people in your torments."
It has been said that Jan Cuxson was plodding to a degree akin to slowness. ”

“ Society, though small and old-fashioned, unfriendly to new ideas and tinged with ecclesiasticism, is simple mannered and kindly. No people can be more polite and agreeable than the Peruvians, whether of pure Spanish extraction, or mixed, as the great majority here are, with Indian blood. Though Cuzco is deemed, not less than Arequipa, a stronghold of conservatism and clericalism, modern tendencies can make themselves felt. ”

“ The spirit of dependence on the strong is too deeply implanted in the hearts of the Tibetan people to be superseded now by the spirit of self-assertion and independence. During the long period of more than a thousand years, the Tibetan people has always maintained the idea of relying upon one or another great power, placing itself under the protection of one suzerain State or another, first India and then China. ”

“ Those who know the Choktah, will firmly agree in opinion with the French, concerning them, that they are in the highest degree, of a base, ungrateful, and thievish disposition—fickle, and treacherous—ready-witted, and endued with a surprizing flow of smooth artful language on every subject, within the reach of their ideas; in each of these qualities, they far exceed any society of people I ever saw. They are such great proficients in the art of stealing, that in our store-houses, they often thieve while they are speaking to, and looking the owner in the face. ”

“ In Sikkim there are many immigrants both from Tibet and Bhūṭān, but they mostly use the broken Tibetan language and can be distinguished from the Labches, who differ from them not only in language, but in appearance, customs, manners and everything. The Labches believe in Buḍḍhism, but of a very simple kind. I think they are a people of the greatest ethnological interest. If polygenists find here original man, it would be of no small interest to investigate how his lines of descent have branched off. ”

“ If the sovereign practises the virtues above described in his own person, the people will naturally imitate his example, and good government will be the result. But the necessity of dealing out justly rewards and punishments, of encouraging sages to lead the people in the right way, and of purity in making appointments, is not lost sight of.
The Japanese have added little or nothing to Chu-Hi's philosophy. It is in its application that the national genius reveals itself, and more especially in the relative importance attached by them to the various moral obligations incumbent on man. ”

“ The Choktah are the craftiest, and most ready-witted, of any of the red nations I am acquainted with. It is surprising to hear the wily turns they use, in persuading a person to grant them the favour they have in view. Other nations generally behave with modesty and civility, without ever lessening themselves by asking any mean favours. But the Choktah, at every season, are on the begging lay. I several times told their leading men, they were greater beggars, and of a much meaner spirit, than the white-haired Chikkasah women, who often were real objects of pity. ”

“ The Tchuktchi are among the wildest of the Siberians. They consider it wrong and disgraceful to rob or murder one of their own tribe; but such actions are regarded as honorable, and even glorious, when committed upon the members of any other tribe. This is a good commentary on Christian and enlightened nations, who consider it a great sin to make slaves of their own people, but regard the self-same action as perfectly justifiable toward persons of different complexion. ”

“ The Tibetans, though they have their reputation for seclusiveness, are not by nature unsociable. We found them quite the reverse, and Kawaguchi says that they were “originally a people highly hospitable to strangers.” This more natural sentiment was, he says, superseded by one of fear and even of antipathy, as the result of an insidious piece of advice which, probably prompted by some policy of its own, the Government of China gave to Tibet, and which was to the effect that if the Tibetans allowed the free entrance of foreigners Buddhism would be destroyed and replaced by Christianity. ”

“ Even those in the lowest rank are content with the status quo.” Monopolizing the spiritual and cultural life of the Tibetan people, the three major estate-holders attacked as heresy any idea or culture that ran contrary to their interests. The Tibetan scholar Gedun Chophel, who exposed the corruption and degeneracy of monks and advocated reform in Tibetan Buddhism, was imprisoned and persecuted by the Kashag government. ”

“ Schurz justly holds that the alternative for the Indian is extermination or civilization. It is impossible to allot hundreds of thousands of square miles for his hunting grounds, and if it were attempted it would lead to endless wars. The Indians must be civilized, and gradually absorbed in the body of the people, and finally they must become citizens. In the mean while they must be taught to work, to hold lands in severalty and not as tribes, and the youth must be educated. ”

“ The Russians, however, had made a much earlier acquaintance with the Chukches; for during their conquest of Siberia they came in contact with this race before the middle of the seventeenth century. A company of hunters in 1646 sailed down the [ pg 73 ] Kolyma river to the Polar Sea. East of the Kolyma they fell in with the Chukches, with whom they dealt in this way they laid down their goods on the beach and then retired, on which the Chukches came thither, took the goods, and laid furs, walrus tusks, or carvings in walrus ivory, in their place. ”

“ Had I acted upon his suggestions, and given him the money he asked for to take me round by the secret path, his suspicions as to the shadiness of my character would have been confirmed, and he would only have waited for me to fall asleep to steal my luggage. It is impossible to trust oneself entirely [615] to Tibetans, for honesty is observed only among people who are well-known to one another, and only so long as actions are done before the public gaze. Social restraints are no sooner removed than the Tibetan is ready for any crime or enormity. ”

“ In the Native States the chuprassie flourishes rampantly. He receives a regular salary, through their representatives or vakils at the agencies, from all the native chiefs round about, and on all occasions of visits or return visits, durbars, religious festivals, or public ceremonials, he claims and receives preposterous fees. The Rajas, whose dignity is always exceedingly delicate, stand in great fear of the chuprassies. They believe that on public occasions the chuprassies have sometimes the power of sicklying them o'er with the pale cast of neglect. ”

“ I never know, when I am speaking to an American or Cuban Chinese, if he is not a slave of Chuk’s, remitting to his old father in Kwangtung province, who will in turn remit to Chuk or Chuk’s heirs, to pay off that $1,000 and usurious interest added. Chuk is a Cantonese example of the power which may come to a money lord who has decapitalized labor, which will never catch up with the principal. ”

“ I know that many honest and sincere philanthropic men and women have taken a warm interest in the fate of that poor tribe, and have endeavored to do the best they knew to procure the redress of the hardships it had suffered, and for this I sincerely honor them. But it is also true, and a very large portion of the American people, witnessing this agitation, are now becoming aware of it, that agitators of a different class have endeavored to turn the movement for the benefit of Indians into one for the blackening of the character of one they choose to represent as a tyrannical oppressor. ”

“ It was most pleasant to hear with what comprehension and sympathy the officers of the East Africa Protectorate speak about their work; and how they regard themselves as the guardians of native interests and native rights against those who only care about exploiting the country and its people. No one can travel even for a little while among the Kikuyu tribes without acquiring a liking for these light-hearted, tractable, if brutish 38 children, or without feeling that they are capable of being instructed and raised from their present degradation. ”

“ In the midst of my trouble there came along a horseman, to whom I gave a little money to carry me on horseback. About two miles and a half further on we came to a town called Chu-shur, a rather bustling place, situated in the delta formed by the rivers Kichu and Brahmapuṭra, the former running from the north-east and the latter from the north-west.
I hardly know any town on the way to Lhasa worse and more wicked than this. The people of the town are indifferent, even unkind, to strangers, and are much skilled in robbing them of their luggage. ”

“ White and I were anxious that no retirement should take place from one direction till we were actually advancing in another, for any symptom of withdrawal before such people as the Tibetans is apt to be misconstrued into fear, and to encourage them into hostile action. So it was arranged that until we advanced into Chumbi the Mission would remain at Khamba Jong, and then retire into Sikkim and join General Macdonald and myself in Chumbi. ”

“ He slowly removed the stopper, closely watching it as if he expected it to explode, and took a big sniff at the bottle, gave a grunt of satisfaction, handed the clerk some money and led his band of braves out of the store, to the delight of the frightened clerk, who had not been in the practice of waiting on real Indians.
TRUTH OF THE CHOCTAWS.
WHEN THEY GIVE THEIR WORD THEY KEEP IT.
Probably there is no other class of people in the world so faithful as the Choctaws. They believe in each other as a child believes in its mother. ”

“ As there were many different tribes and lineages of men, it was necessary to guard against risings or other troubles which would be contrary to the wishes of the king. To this day there are in Cuzco men of Chachapoyas and Cañaris, and people from other parts, descended from the settlers who had been placed there.
It is held as certain, that these systems of colonisation have been in use since the days of Inca Yupanqui, the same who established the posts, and the first who planned the enrichment of the temple of Curicancha, as will be recounted in its place. ”

“ Every individual family of the Chukchee belongs in practice to some sex community. Should a family keep to themselves, it would indicate that they had no friends and no protectors in time of need. The children of members of a sex community are reckoned as near blood relations, and may not marry one another.
It is quite different among the Koryaks, the neighbours of the Chukchee. They demand abstinence from the girls before marriage, and there is rarely any transgression against this law. ”