In ancient times, the Chukchi had a cruel custom. In order to develop the habit of a child to react with lightning speed to any threat and to anticipate the appearance of danger, adults from time to time imperceptibly approached children 3-4 years old with a red-hot object in their hands and burned them. Children received wounds until they got used to sensitively listening to any rustle or unusual movement. Then the already grown-up boy was sent to the tundra with some errand, and the father sneaked behind him and, seizing the moment, shot the child in the back with an arrow. The essence of the test was that the boy had to jump aside in time, anticipating danger. If this did not happen … there was one less potential hunter in the camp.
Mammoth hunters
The people, later divided into Chukchi and Koryak, came to the coast of the Bering Sea about four thousand years ago from the shores of Lake Baikal. In the first millennium, the Chukchi, without losing their ethnic community, were divided into two groups - the Pomor ("ankalyn" - from "anka", sea) and plain reindeer herders, who, in fact, called themselves "chauchu", which means "rich deer. " But the word "Chukchi" appeared only in the 17th century after a clash of reindeer herders with Russian hunters, the Chukchi themselves proudly called themselves "luoravetlyans", that is, "real, true people" …
Throughout their history, from time immemorial and up to the 20s of the last century, the Chukchi, who considered themselves "true people" and the masters of these places, by right of the mighty administered judgment and punishment, completely disregarding the opinions of others. The memory of the devastating raids and shed blood has long been preserved in the legends of the neighbors of the warlike people throughout Siberia and even in Alaska. The Chukchi did not manage to cope with only one of their neighbors …
Singing Dogs Children
There is a legend: once a girl named Gynkyneut watched how dogs gathered in the yaranga and turned into tall people with a mustache like a walrus and round iron eyes, the skins of the dogs turned into fur coats embroidered with iron, the dogs sat down and began to sing. The girl got scared and called people. People killed some of the dogs, but the rest fled to the western side, where they became the Russian people and started the war.
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For the first time the Chukchi met the “descendants of the singing dogs” in 1644, when they encountered the Siberian pioneer Mikhail Stadukhin. The Chukchi fired at the Russian koch (sailboat) with bone arrows from the shore, but they could not cause much harm, and Stadukhin safely brought a load of sable skins to Yakutsk. This meeting was the prologue of the upcoming confrontation, the main character of which was the famous Semyon Dezhnev.
In the Nizhnekolymsk prison founded by Stadukhin, yasak (tax on skins of fur animals) was collected from all the surrounding lands, but attempts to get taxes from the Chukchi ended in failure. The Cossack Zyryan Yarilo, sent for the tribute, met several dozen Chukchi on the Algazeya River and barely left them alive, so already in 1648, after several unsuccessful attempts, a powerful expedition was organized - seven kochi, 30 people each, led by Semyon Dezhnev, Fedot Popov and Gerasim Ankudinov went on exploration and extraction of the "fish tooth".
With great difficulty, the Dezhnevites who passed the Chukotka Nose ended up at the camp of one of the Chukotka leaders Ermachin, who received the Cossacks favorably. The Russians received a walrus bone, leaving iron knives, cuts of fabric, vodka for the Chukchi in its place, and left for their home. But a few days later, Ankudinov returned to the Ermachin camp, killed the unsuspecting aborigines and took away the rich booty. Returning from the hunt, the leader rushed in pursuit, but he did not overtake Ankudinov himself.
The harsh northern gods had punished the robber earlier: his koch fell into a storm and crashed on the rocks. But instead of Ankudinov, the rest of the Cossacks fell under the hail of bone arrows, who, unfortunately, decided to wait out the bad weather on the shore. Many Russians died on the spot, and Dezhnev only miraculously escaped: by a stormy sea, together with his comrades, he was thrown ashore beyond the mouth of the Anadyr near Olyutorsky Bay.
For ten weeks Dezhnev and the remaining 25 people walked to the mouth of the Anadyr River, constantly fearing an attack by vengeful Chukchi. Having withstood a harsh winter, Dezhnev founded the Anadyr prison on the middle reaches of the river, a place around which, after 1650, the main confrontation with the militant Luoravetlyans unfolded. The Chukchi, with a unanimity rare for them, declared war on the Russian Tsar, which did not stop for a day.
Winged death
The crow Kurkyl was one of the main characters in the Chukchi pantheon since ancient times. He performs many feats, helps people with advice and even marries Chukchi women. It is no coincidence that, therefore, probably one of the most impressive parts of the military ammunition of the Chukchi was the wings. These “wings” complemented traditional armor, which itself consisted of bone plates or strips of thick walrus hide.
"Wings" were sewn on top of the warrior's shoulders and should have allowed him to cover his neck, face and chest from enemy arrows in a split second. This adaptation was all the more important for the Chukchi, since they traditionally did not recognize helmets. In battle, the Chukchi warrior used a complex two-piece bow made of polar birch and larch, possessing a long range and fighting power, as well as darts, slings and knives. But the main weapon of the hunter has always been the spear.
Relief from torment
Oddly enough, the Chukchi were always afraid of water. In their opinion, the sea and rivers were the habitat of creatures hostile to man - kele, therefore the Chukchi did not like to swim, let alone swim. But this fear did not prevent them from making sea raids on neighboring islands and even on Alaska. Each summer, loaded with a landing party, the canoes went to the other shore for booty and prisoners. The fate of the latter was unenviable. Often the Aleuts and Eskimos preferred death to humiliating captivity, in which slavery awaited them. However, the Chukchi often showed the captives a special "favor" and killed the brave warriors so that they could get into the "upper world", and also "relieve the torment" of the elderly and children who were left without breadwinners. Chukchi women most often took with them, especially since polygamy and even collective marriage were not at all alien to them.
How easily the Chukchi shed blood is evidenced by the custom that they had developed over the centuries to conduct an exchange trade with neighboring camps. At first, the elders of different clans met and decided among themselves in advance where and when the battle could take place as a result of some kind of skirmish or misunderstanding during the exchange, as well as which of the strongest warriors of the community would start the battle. Coming together in the marketplace, the Chukchi silently put goods intended for exchange on the ground and retreated to a safe distance. The other side only after that approached the things offered for sale, and those that were intended in return were laid out next to the necessary goods. These approaches continued until everyone agreed to a deal or until someone's nerves could not stand it …
Punched skull
In the 19th century, ethnographer Vladimir Germanovich Tan-Bogoraz recorded many Chukchi legends, one of which very clearly characterizes the harsh customs that reigned at Cape Chukotka. This legend tells about two Chukchi, whom the storm brought to the island of Lawrence to the Eskimos. The Eskimos killed one of them by drilling his head, and the second, a shaman, escaped with the help of the spirits and the next summer gathered soldiers from all Chukchi villages to take revenge on the Eskimos. Further events turned into a series of bloody clashes. Either the islanders or the Chukchi visited each other alternately to slaughter people and steal cattle. It all ended in reconciliation, but the legend itself very vividly depicts the essence of the relationship of the Chukchi with the peoples around them.
Form style
In the 15th-16th centuries, the Chukchi were ousted from their acquired places far to the east by the Yukaghirs, which served as the beginning of irreconcilable enmity between the two peoples. Moving to the east, the Chukchi on the way cut out the Eskimos living in Chukotka, of whom only geographical names remained there. Relatives of these Eskimos from the other side of the Bering Strait encountered the Chukchi a little later, but they suffered no less from them. Throughout the 18th and most of the 19th century, the Chukchi constantly raided the territory of Alaska, sometimes reaching Canada, and the black women were considered the most valuable prisoners brought from such distant expeditions. But from about the middle of the 18th century, the Chukchi began not only to fight, but also to trade; over time, such a unique combination of robbery and trade became the "corporate style" of the inhabitants of Chukotka.
Crafty Eskimos
In 1793, the Senate discussed the report of the polar explorer Captain Billings that "the northeastern Americans … are asking for protection from the attack and plunder of the Chukchi"; there, in particular, it was indicated that the Chukchi "almost every year on kayaks coming to their land, they are exterminated by murder, their property is robbed, and their wives and children are taken prisoner." I must say that the Eskimos were a little cunning. In response to the attack of the Chukchi, they made oncoming raids, and the Chukchi who were captured were killed in a terrible way, which the legend told above truthfully: the Chukchi's head was squeezed with boards, like a vice, and drilled through with a stone drill. Few warriors managed to survive in captivity, and then only in order to suffer longer. The military leaders who fell into slavery suffered the most. For them, death was a deliverance …
Deserted Yarangas
In 1730-1750, there were continuous wars in Chukotka. The Russians stormed the Chukchi fortresses (“umky”), the Chukchi laid siege to the Russian forts, the enemies slaughtered each other without mercy. But everything changed with the advent of the British and Americans off the coast of Chukotka. In 1776, Catherine II, frightened by this, indicated "to make every effort to accept the Chukchi as citizenship." Acting not by military force, but by promises, the Russians were unexpectedly quick to succeed. Already two years later, some Chukchi foremen accepted an agreement on the transfer to Russian citizenship. Under Russian rule, conflicts between neighbors - Chukchi, Koryak, Eskimo and Yukaghir gradually subsided. Civilization came to Beringia. Some Chukchi began to be hired as sailors in the Volunteer Navy, even to the Americans, leaving the yarangas forever.
When Soviet power came to Chukotka in the 1920s and the reindeer herds began to be taken to collective farms, the last foundations of the system that had been in place since the Stone Age collapsed. The Chukchi began to live in cities, study in schools and serve in the army. Many of them refuse to speak their native language. And the neighbors no longer have to anxiously listen to the voice of the blizzard on a long polar night - whether it will bring a wolf howl, which the Chukchi warriors echo in their next bloody raid.
Victor Arshansky