IX.] STAY AT IRKAIPLT. 339 



With this fresh light thrown upon it, the old Chukch woman's 

 story onght to furnish a valuable hint for future exploratory 

 voyages in the sea north of Behring's Straits, and an important 

 contribution towards forming a judgment of the fate which 

 lias befallen the American Jcannette expedition, of which, while 

 this is being written, accounts are still wanting. ^ 



Between us and the inhabitants of the present Chukch villao'e 

 at Irkaipij there soon arose very friendly relations. A somewhat 

 stout, well-grown, tall and handsome man named Chepurin, we 

 took at first to be chief He was therefore repeatedly entertained 

 in the gunroom, on which occasions small gifts were given him 

 to secure his friendship. Chepurin had clearly a weakness for 

 gentility and grandeur, and could now, by means of the barter 

 he carried on with us and the presents he received, gratify his 

 love of show to a degree of which he probably had never 

 before dreamed. When during the last days of our stay he paid 

 a visit to the Vega he was clad in a red woollen shirt drawn over 

 his "pesk," and from either ear hung a gilt watch-chain, to the 

 lower end of which a perforated ten-ore piece was fastened. 

 Already on our arrival he was better clothed than the others, his 

 tent was larger and provided with two sleeping apartments, one 

 for each of his wives. But notwithstanding all this we soon 

 found that we had made a mistake, when, thinking that a society 

 could not exist without government, we assigned to him so 

 exalted a position. Here, as in all Chukch villages which we 

 afterwards \dsited, absolute anarchy prevailed. 



At the same time the greatest unanimity reigned in the little 

 headless community. Children, healthy and thriving, tenderly 

 cared for by the inhabitants, were found in large numbers. A 

 good word to them was suflScient to pave the way for a friendly 

 reception in the tent. The women were treated as the equals of 

 the men, and the wife was always consulted by the husband when a 

 more important bargain than usual was to be made; many times 

 it was carried through only after the giver of advice had been 

 bribed with a neckerchief or a variegated handkerchief The 

 articles which the man purchased were immediately committed to 

 the wife's keeping. One of the children had round his neck a band 

 of pearls with a Chinese coin having a square hole in the middle, 



^ According to a paper in Deutsche Geografische Blatter, B. IV. p. 54, 

 Captain E. Dallniann, in 1866, as commander of the Havai schooner W. C. 

 Talbot, not only saw but landed on Wrangel Laud. As Captain Dallmann 

 of recent years has been in pretty close contact with a large number of 

 geographers, and communications from him have been previously inserted 

 in geographical journals, it appears strange that he has now for the first 

 time made public this important voyage. At all events, Dallmann's 

 statement that the musk-ox occurs on tlie coast of the Polar Sea and on 

 Wrangel Laud is erroneous. He has here confused the musk-ox with 

 the reindeer. 



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