Samoyeds

“ Russians, for instance, say that the Samoyeds attribute to their 'bolvans' the same importance which they themselves attach to their sacred pictures, and find in this nothing objectionable. The Samoyeds have songs and sagas, relating among other things to their migrations.
"The Samoyed has one or more wives; even sisters may marry the same man. Marriage is entered upon without any solemnity. ”

“ Samoyed means cannibal—man-eater; but whether the men who roam over these sands and bogs deserve their evil fame is one of the questions open to new lights. They use no fire in cooking food; and perhaps it is because they eat the reindeer raw that they have come to be accused of fondness for human flesh. In chasing the game on which they feed, the Samoyeds crept over the Ural Mountains from their far-off home in the north of Asia, running it down in a tract too cold and bare for any other race of men to dwell on. ”

“ Instead they removed into a tent of reindeer skin. These Samoyeds appear to have been Christians in name, though they must have had strange ideas of their new God. When, for instance, they saw a seal and missed shooting it, they shot at the sun, because they believed that God was angry with them. They lived in a sort of marriage, but if the man became unfriendly to the woman, or tired of her, he could take another ”

“ Salt is now brought from Norway to Mesen, where it costs fifty to sixty copecks per pood. The Samoyeds buy nearly everything from the Russians. There were many inquiries for gunpowder, shot, cheap fowling-pieces, rum, bread, sugar, and culinary vessels (teacups, &c.) . The Samoyed women wear clothes of different colours, chiefly red. In exchange for the goods enumerated above there may be obtained fish, train oil, reindeer skins, walrus tusks, and furs, viz, the skins of the red, white, and brown fox, wolf, Polar bear, and glutton. ”

“ Foxes and lemmings are met with, but whereas animals are few, birds are very numerous; a variety of ducks, waders, &c., frequent the marshes and lakes. The island is visited periodically by a few Samoyeds; they formerly considered it sacred, and some of their sacrificial piles, consisting of drift-wood, deer’s horns and the skulls of bears and deer, have been observed by travellers. In spite of their conversion to Christianity, the Samoyeds still regard these piles with superstition. ”

“ Probably the Samoyeds then, as now, drove their reindeer herds up thither to pasture on the grassy plains along the coast of the Polar Sea, where they were less troubled by the mosquito and the reindeer fly than further to the south, and probably the wild nomads were accompanied then, as now, by merchants from the more civilised races settled in Northern Russia. ”

“ Further north of the forest-line and the Tundra region wander a few Polar tribes called Samoyeds, who, owing to the extremely arid nature of the soil and the rigour of the climate, have never come into contact with European civilization. There are about 20,000 of them, and owing to the unfavourable social and climatic conditions under which they exist, it is not likely that they will increase. ”

“ They are the shortest in stature of all Europeans, and almost the most brachycephalic (see Appendices I. and II.) . One portion only of the Samoyeds inhabits Europe, on the east of the river Mezen and to the north of the polar circle; the rest wander about Siberia between the Arctic Ocean and the lower Obi. Their neighbours on the south, the Ostiaks, extend from the middle Obi to the Ural mountains, over which they pass to occupy several points in Europe. The Ostiaks of both slopes of the Urals bear also the name of Vogules or Manz. ”

“ The Samoyeds were wont to make circles of stones of rude blocks set up, and these are still to be seen in the districts they inhabit; and although these people are nominally Christians, yet they are secretly [Pg 59] addicted to their old paganism. Mr. Jackson, in his Great Frozen Land (London, 1895) , says ”

“ It is that of an all-pervading Deity, who is focussed, so to speak, in the fetish. This deity is called Num. ‘I have heard some Samoyeds declare that the earth, the sea—all nature, in short—are Num.’ ‘Where is Num? asked Castren of a Samoyed, and the man pointed to the blue sea: but an old woman told him that the sun was Num. The Siethas, worshipped by the Lapps, had no certain figure or shape formed by nature or art ”

“ The clothing of these people of the extreme north, is made of the skin of the reindeer, ornamented with little bits of cloth, generally of bright red. I have248 seen several of them clad in seal skins, and skins of other amphibious animals: but these it seems, are the poorest, for this kind of fur is cheap and not warm.
SAMOYED PEASANTS.
There is no race more degraded in the characteristic of regarding the women as inferior beings, and among no other, are they treated so harshly as among the Samoyeds. “They are annoyed and oppressed,” says Pallas, “even in their own tents. ”

“ THE SAMOJEDES AND OTHER TRIBES OF ARCTIC ASIA.
The Samojedes are the immediate neighbours of the Lapps. Like them, they are nomads; but they are even less civilized, and have profited less by the arduous and enthusiastic labours of the Christian missionaries. They range over the forests and stony tundras of Northern Russia and Western Siberia; driving their reindeer herds from the banks of the Chatanga to the icy shores of the White Sea, or hunting the wild beasts in the dense woods which extend between the Obi and the Yenisei. ”

“ The Samoiedes are a wandering race, spread over both sides of the great Siberian promontory ending in Cape North. Some of their tribes are also to be met with pretty far to the west, to the east, and to the south of this region. They support themselves by hunting and fishing on the borders of the Frozen Ocean. They bear much resemblance to the Tunguses of whom we shall speak later. Their face is flat, round and broad, their lips are thick and turned up, and their nose is wide and open at the nostrils. Their hair is black and coarse, and they have but little on their face. ”

“ The senses and faculties of the Samoïedes correspond to their mode of life as nomads and hunters. They have a piercing eye, delicate hearing, and a steady hand: they shoot an arrow with great accuracy, and are swift runners. On the other hand, they have a gross taste, generally consuming their fish or their reindeer flesh raw; and their smell is so weak that they appear quite insensible to the putrefying odors arising from the scrapings of skins, stinking fish, and other offal which is allowed to accumulate in and about their huts. ”

“ In stature they are somewhat taller than the Lapps, and their colour is more of a tawny. The marked features of their countenance recall the Hindu type. The forehead is high, the hair black, the nose long, the mouth well-formed; but the sunken eye, veiled by a heavy lid, expresses a cruel and perfidious nature. The manners of the Samoiedes are brutal. In character they are wily, fierce, and cunning. They are shepherds, hunters, traders, and, when opportunity serves, robbers. They clothe themselves in reindeer-skins, like the other Hyperboreans of the old continent. ”

“ Tell him to come quickly, and deliver the great Sagamore of the Pequots, and his sister, and the young man with eyes like the sky."
"The feet of the blue eyes are free," said Samoset. "I saw him only a little while ago."
"Good!" said the chief. "Then seek first my young friend, for he loves Sassacus, and tell him, and do what he says. But if they cannot help, fly, like the swallow over the hills and streams, to the hunting grounds of my tribe, and say to my people that their Sachem is a wolf in a trap, and Neebin a slave to Owanux." ”

“ The entire number of the European and Asiatic Samoïedes is estimated at no more than about 10,000, and this number, small as it is when compared to the vast territory over which they roam, is still decreasing from year to year. Before their subjugation by the Russians, the Samoïedes were frequently at war with their neighbors, the Ostiaks, the Woguls, and the Tartars, and the rude poems which celebrate the deeds of the heroes of old are still sung in the tents of their peaceful descendants. ”

“ The Samoïede is good-natured, melancholy, and phlegmatic. He has, indeed, but indistinct notions of right and wrong, of good and evil; but he possesses a grateful heart, and is ready to divide his last morsel with his friend. Cruelty, revenge, the darker crimes that pollute so many of the savage tribes of the tropical zone, are foreign to his character. Constantly at war with a dreadful climate, a prey to ignorance and poverty, he regards most of the things of this life with supreme indifference. ”

“ He practically became a Samoyed; he adapted himself to the tribal laws with good-natured tact, helping out the native commissariat by shooting white partridges, wild geese, and Arctic bear. He studied reindeer breeding; he took native baths in steam-tents and ice-water; 412 he attended weddings, funerals, and pagan rites. Wherever the tribe traveled, he followed; and everywhere he painted.
The movements of the Samoyed depend largely on the habits of the reindeer. “In autumn the reindeer seeks the wooded zone,” says Borissoff. “He cannot stand the tremendous snowstorms that whirl in the tundra ”

“ To the north of the Ostiacks are the Samoides, who live along the shore of the Arctic Ocean the whole extent of Siberia. They are few in number, for the country is so cold and barren, that it is impossible they should greatly increase. They are very short, and I believe are the smallest people in the world. They eat a great deal of fish, and, what is very odd, they seem to like it best when it is a little tainted. They have many reindeer, and in the autumn hunt white foxes, with the skins of which they buy brandy. ”

“ Below the country of the Samojedes lies that of the Ostiaks, along the river Oby. These people have no resemblance in any respect with the Samojedes, save that like them and all the first race of men, they are hunters, fishermen, and shepherds; some of them have no religion, not being formed into any society, and the others who live together in herds or clans, have a kind of worship, and pray to the principal object of their wants; they adore the skin of a sheep, because this creature is of all others the most serviceable to them ”

“ Samothrace, a mountainous, bleak island in the Ægean Sea, NW. of the mouth of the Dardanelles; has only one village of 2000 inhabitants; was in ancient times place of Cabiri worship (q. v.) .
Samoyedes, a people of the Mongolian race, occupying the N. shores of Russia and Siberia from the White Sea to the Yenisei; live by hunting and fishing, and are idol-worshippers; they are fast disappearing.
Sampson, Dominie, a character in Scott's "Guy Mannering."
Samson, ranked as judge of Israel, but the story of his life is as of a Jewish hero, distinguished for his feats of strength ”

“ The wealth of the Samoïedes consists in the possession of herds of reindeer,184 and P. von Krusenstern, in 1845, calculated the number owned by the Samoïedes of the Lower Petschora, near Pustosersk, at 40,000 head—a much smaller number than what they formerly had, owing to a succession of misfortunes. The Russian settlers along that immense stream and its tributaries gradually obtain possession of their best pasture-grounds, and force them to recede within narrower and narrower limits. ”

“ A wife is bought for a few reindeer, but not even the simple and universal ceremony of a feast takes place in commemoration of the event.
The Samoyedes have such squat figures, large heads, small eyes, flat noses, and wide mouths, that some old travellers described them as human beings with dogs’ heads. The women are said to be somewhat less ugly than the men. A Samoyede has as many wives as he can furnish reindeer to pay for ”

“ In Asia, the Samoyed’s little spirits that are bound to his little fetishes, and the little elves of wood and stream, have greater beings above them, the Forest-Spirit, the River-Spirit, the Sun and Moon, the Evil Spirit and the Good Spirit above all. [599] The countless host of the local gods of the Khonds pervade the world, rule the functions of nature, and control the life of men, and these have their chiefs; above them rank the deified souls of men who have become tutelary gods of tribes ”

“ Nature-worshippers in the extreme sense, these rude tribes conceived their ghosts and elves and demons and great powers of the earth and air to be, like men themselves, within the domain of the divine Heaven, almighty and all-encompassing. To trace the Samoyed’s thought of Num the personal Sky passing into vague conceptions of pervading deity; to see with the Tunguz how Boa the Heaven-god, unseen but all-knowing, kindly but indifferent, has divided the business of his world among such lesser powers as sun and moon, earth and fire ”

“ Here, in Samoa, there were very few idols, and no blood-stained maraes, altars, or temples; human sacrifice, or indeed any sort of sacrifice, was not required; hence the expression, "Godless as a Samoan," by which the men of other groups described any one who neglected the service of the temples. The Samoans, however, were diligent in the worship of their own ancestors, and, moreover, supposed that the spirit of their gods animated divers birds, fishes, or reptiles. ”

“ Each primitive people has selected one set of human gifts, one set of human values, and fashioned for themselves an art, a social organisation, a religion, which is their unique contribution to the history of the human spirit.
Samoa is only one of these diverse and gracious patterns, but as the traveller who has been once from home is wiser than he who has never left his own door step, so a knowledge of one other culture should sharpen our ability to scrutinise more steadily, to appreciate more lovingly, our own. ”