XII.] THE FOOD OF THE CHURCHES. 481 



thread. I procured several of these, and was surprised at the 

 suiall vahie which the natives set upon them, notwithstanding 

 the hard labour which must have been required for preparing 

 the thread and making the net. The nets are also sometimes 

 used as drift-nets. The fishing-rod consists of a shaft only 

 thirty centimetres long, to which is fixed a short line made of 

 sinews. The extreme end of the line passes through a large 

 sinker of ivory, to which are attached two or three tufts each 

 with its hook of bone only, or of bone and copper, or bone and 

 iron. The hook has three or four points projecting in different 

 directions. I have before described how the hook is used in 

 autumn in fishing for roach, also how the productive fishing 

 goes on in the neighbourhood of Tjapka. 



Even for the coast Chukch reindeer flesh appears to form an 

 important article of f jod. He probably purchases his stock of 

 it from the reindeer-Chukches for train-oil, skin straps, walrus 

 tusks, and perhaps fish. I suppose that part of the frozen 

 reindeer blood, which the inhabitants of the villages at our 

 winter station used for soup, had been obtained in the same 

 way. Wild reindeer, or reindeer that had run wild, were 

 hunted with the lasso. Such animals, however, do not appear 

 now to be found in any large numbers on the Chukch peninsula. 



Besides fish and flesh the Chukches consume immense quanti- 

 ties of herbs and other substances from the vegetable kingdom.^ 

 The most important of these are the leaves and young branches 

 of a great many different plants (for instance Salix, Rhodiola, 

 &c.) which are collected and after being cleaned are preserved 

 in seal-skin sacks. Intentionally or unintentionally the contents 

 of the sacks sour during the course of the summer. In autumn 

 they freeze together to a lump of the form of the stretched 

 seal-skin. The frozen mass is cut in pieces and used with flesh, 

 much in the same way as we eat bread. Occasionally a vegetable 

 soup is made from the pieces along with water, and is eaten 

 warm. In the same way the contents of the reindeer stomach 

 is used. Algse and different kinds of roots are also eaten, among 

 the latter a kind of wrinkled tubers, which, as already stated 

 at p. 840, have a very agreeable taste. 



In summer the Chukches eat cloud-berries, red bilberries, and 

 other berries, which are said to be found in great abundance in 

 the interior of the country. The quantity of vegetable matter 

 which is collected for food at that season of the year is very 

 considerable, and the natives do not appear to be very particular 

 in their choice, if the leaves are only green, juicy, and free from 



^ An exhaustive treatise on tlie food-substances which tlie Chukches 

 gather from the vegetable kingdom, written by Dr. Kjellm;in, is to be 

 I'ouud in The Scientific Work of the Vega Ej-pedltion. Popov already states 

 that the Chukches eat many berries, roots, and herbs (Jliiller, iii. p. 59). 



I I 



