384 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV 
it is true that Alexander’s explanation was different. He said it meant 
that the man was now ‘like a broken sleigh.’ 
On the mainland, if, as I believe, I am credibly informed, it is the 
custom for a Samoyed to take a girl as his wife on trial for a year. If 
at the end of that period he is satisfied with her, the compact is ratified, 
either by marriage by a priest or according to native uses. If not, then 
the two persons are free to marry again; and if a child has meantime 
been born the father is bound to maintain it. On Kolguev there is no 
priest, and I do not think that this practice of a trial association obtains. 
I believe that when a couple are once betrothed they remain constant 
to one another. 
One not infrequently sees half-breeds on the mainland, but of the 
conditions of Samoyed moral relationships there zzfer se I know nothing. 
But in the case of so small a community as that on Kolguev it is 
obvious that, in this respect, it must strictly protect itself. And this it 
does. 
The Samoyeds are prisoners on their island. They have no boats 
which could venture across that fifty miles of open sea. In the old 
days, when there was traffic with Mezen and Indiga, they may have 
passed more frequently; now it is only occasionally that one is taken 
across. Last year but one returned, and he had only crossed with 
Alexander the Russian the summer before. 
The Samoyeds of Kolguev suffer from none of those complaints 
which, introduced by the young Russian soldiers, sometimes disfigure 
their people on the mainland. Every individual on the island appeared 
to be sound and healthy, with the single exception of young Mekolka, 
who had some lung trouble. 
I was very much struck by the fact that the Samoyeds appear to be 
able to live entirely without vegetable food, if we except the summer 
berries (which they do not, however, preserve). I understand that the 
Eskimo commonly eat the contents of the deer’s paunches. Our 
Samoyed never did this ; they always threw it away. 
Family affection among the Samoyeds is very strongly developed. It 
would be impossible to find greater evidence of this among any people. 
Another extremely marked character among them is family order. All 
every-day offices and occupations are carried out by a well-defined 
