Domestic and foreign ethnographers and ordinary travelers, who for the first time encountered the life and customs of the Chukchi, were often shocked by some manifestations of their originality. Many features of the Chukchi way of life are characteristic only of this people.
The first "swingers"
This is one of the strangest customs among the Chukchi, noticed back in the 18th century by a Russian scientist with German roots Karl Heinrich Merck. Merck explored the northeastern shores of Russia, studied the customs and way of life of many northern peoples and left memoirs about this, published only in the 19th century.
The relationship of the sexes, according to Merck's recollections, among the Chukchi was very peculiar - to consolidate comradely (business, partner) contacts, it was not forbidden to exchange wives. This ritual was called "ngevtumgyn" (which means "wife's friendship"), and the narrow-eyed "swinger" was called "ngevtumgyt". A jealous Chukchi is like a Jewish reindeer herder: for the representatives of this people, it was more insulting not to give their wife to the "korefan" than not to pay off their debts. This interchange most often arose from purely practical considerations that simplified the life of this people in the difficult conditions of the Far North.
As the modern ethnographer and researcher of the Far North, Professor Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences Sergei Aleksandrovich Arutyunov says, this practice existed before the Chukchi civilization touched, today such "free love" does not occur.
Karl Merka was still surprised by the custom of dressing the Chukchi shaman in women's clothes and his subsequent cohabitation (in everyday life) with the owner of the yaranga in the role of the second married half - as the spirits allegedly ordered. The Chukchi also practiced levirate - the younger brother of the deceased older brother was obliged to marry his widow and raise all the children of the deceased as his own.
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Didn't save the drowning
This rule, strictly observed by the Chukchi, really took place, and even in the twentieth century, confirms S. A. Arutyunov. Sergei Alexandrovich says that among this people the reservoir was considered the border between the earthly and the other worlds - if a person is taken by the spirits of water, it is unacceptable to interfere with this. When the Chukchi boats turned over and their comrades found themselves in their rather heavy clothes in the water, none of the tribesmen was in a hurry to help.
But the Eskimos, adds Arutyunov, did not have such a cruel custom - it happened that they saved the drowning Chukchi, despite the fact that these peoples, to put it mildly, were not friends with each other.
Only they had such "diapers"
Karl Merck told in his notes about the unusual method of swaddling newborns among the Chukchi, which in its essence is a primitive prototype of the modern diaper: moss and deer wool served as an absorbent material. The baby dressed in a kind of overalls with such a "lining", which changes repeatedly during the day.
It is noteworthy that this is not the only Chukchi invention from the list of those that were subsequently modernized. For example, the role of a sun visor (like in a baseball cap) among the Chukchi was played by a piece of whalebone attached to the hat - it protected from the bright and evil northern sun and blinding snow. Russian ethnographers have noticed that the Chukchi use a kind of "sunglasses" - an eye patch made of tanned reindeer skin with narrow slits for viewing. "Cocktail tubes" also appeared among the Chukchi long before the emergence of mixed drinks - this people drank liquids through the hollow bones of animals: as you know, in the cold, if you touch a metal surface with your lips, you can "stick".
Nikolay Syromyatnikov