NATIVES OF EASTERNMOST SIBERIA 81 



At the apex a flap lifted to let out the smoke from the 

 fire built in a small circle of little stones, with another 

 small stone in the center. Pots swung on a chain over 

 this. Natural wood crooks were used as hooks for 

 vessels which were not in use and other utensils hung 

 around the walls. A number of parcels wedged between 

 skins and timbers proved, when pulled out, to be hunting 

 or fishing gear or other household articles. Nowhere in 

 this village did I see such repulsive filth as I had been led 

 to expect of people Uving the Eskimo life. The men, 

 women and numerous children looked happy and pros- 

 perous. Probably about two hundred of them called this 

 place home. 



Scattered over the ridge between the lagoon and the 

 ocean low mounds of sodded whales' bones marked the 

 roofs of underground igloos, entered by a burrow. One 

 such was used as an ice house, another pit, covered with 

 planks under a gibbet, was not a hanging trap, but 

 a walrus-meat storehouse which stank abundantly. 

 Nordenskjold described these as the abandoned homes of 

 another tribe, called Onkilon, who were driven away by 

 the present Chukchi. Other authorities consider them as 

 evidence of an unsuccessful attempt by the American 

 Eskimo to colonize Asia. 



The wrestling plot was partly ringed about with 

 stones and the ground was much trodden up as if wrest- 

 ling was a favorite sport. One of the blue wooden cot- 

 tages, when imlocked by the owner, revealed a store 

 stocked with various merchandise: furs of wolverine, 

 reindeer and bear, flour, ammunition, primers for car- 

 tridges, a phonograph, whale guns and other articles. 

 Tacked to the wall, pictures of the Tsar and Tsarina of 

 Russia overlooked benevolently the petty trade of this 



