500 THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. [chap. 



drawings, and patterns. The most remarkable of these in one 

 respect or another are to be found deHneated in the woodcuts on 

 the preceding pages.^ 



Many of the ivory carvings are old and worn, showing that 

 they have been long in use, probably as amulets. Various 

 of the animal images are the fruit of the imagination, and as 

 such may be instructive. In general the carvings are clumsy, 

 though showing a distinctive style. If we compare them with 

 the Samoyed images we brought home with us, it appears that 

 the genius of the Chukches fur art has reached an incomparably 

 higher development than that of the Polar race which inhabits 

 the western portion of the north coast of Asia ; on the other hand, 

 they are in this respect evidently inferior to the Eskimo at Port 

 Clarence. The Chukch drawings too are roughly and clumsily 

 executed, but many of them exhibit a certain ppwer of hitting 

 off the object. These figures appear to me to show that the 

 objections which have been raised to the genuineness of various 

 palaeolithic etchings, just on the ground of the artist's com- 

 paratively sure hand, are not justified. Even patterns and ivory 

 buckles show a certain taste. Embroidery is done commonly on 

 red-coloured strips of skin partly with white reindeer hair, partly 

 with red and black wool, obtained in small quantity by barter 

 from Behring's Straits. The supply of colouring material is not 

 particularly abundant. It is obtained partly from the mineral 

 kingdom (limonite of different colours, and graphite), partly from 

 the vegetable kingdom (bark of various trees). The mineral 

 colours are ground with water between flat stones. Bark is 

 probably treated with urine. Red is the Chukches' favourite 

 colour. 



In order to make a contribution towards an answer to -the 

 disjxited question, in what degree is the colour-sense developed 

 among savages. Dr. Almquist during the course of the winter 

 instituted comprehensive researches according to the method 

 worked out by Professor Fr. Holmgren, A detailed account 

 of these is to be found in The Scientific Work of the Vega 

 Expedition, and in various scientific journals. Here I shall only 

 state that Dr. Almquist gives the following as the final result 



^ The originals of the drawings reproduced in tlie woodcuts are made on 

 paper, part with the lead pencil, part with red ochre. The different groups 

 representor the first page — 1, a dog-team ; 2, 3, whales; 4, hunting the 

 Polar bear and the walrus ; 5, bullhead and cod ; 6, man fishing ; 7, hare- 

 hunting; 8, birds; 9, wood-chopper; 10, man leading a reindeer; 11, 

 walrus lumt — 7 and 9 represent Europeans. On the second ■page — 1, a rein- 

 deer train ; 2, a reindeer taken with a lasso by two men ; 3, a man throw- 

 ing a harpoon ; 4, seal hunt from boat ; 5, bear hunt ; 6, the man in the 

 moon; 7, man leading a reindeer; 8, reindeer; 9, Chukch with staff and 

 an archer; 10, reindeer with herd; 11, reindeer; 12, two tents, man riding 

 on a dos' sledire, &c. 



