78 
TliE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. 
[chap. 
wives nor children. In the tents the Samoyeds live with their 
families. The Russians are from the village Pustosersk on the 
Petchora river, from which they set out immediately after 
Easter, arriving at Chabarova about the end of May, after 
having traversed a distance of between 600 and 700 versts. 
During their stay at Chabarova they employ themselves in the 
management of reindeer, in catching whales, and in carrying 
on barter with the Samoyeds. They bring with them i'rom 
home all their household articles and commercial wares on 
sledges drawn by reindeer, and as there is a poor ruinous chapel 
there, they bring also pictures of St. Nicholas and otlier saints. 
The holy Nicholas also figures as a shareholder in a company 
for the capture of whales. Part of their reindeer is left during 
summer on Vaygats, and after their arrival at Chabarova they 
still pass over on the ice to that island. Towards the close of 
August, when the cold commences, the reindeer are driven 
across Yugor Schar from Vaygats to the mainland. About the 
1st October, old style, the Russians return with their reindeer 
to Pustosersk. Vaygats Island is considered by them to afford 
exceedingly good pasturage for reindeer; they therefore allow a 
number of them to winter on the island under the care of some 
Samoyed families, and this is considered the more advan¬ 
tageous, as the reindeer there are never stolen. Such thefts, on 
the contrary, are often committed by the Samoyeds on the 
mainland. For thirty years back the Siberian plague has 
raged severely among the reindeer. A Russian informed me 
that he now owned but two hundred, while some years ago he 
had a thousand; and this statement was confirmed by the other 
Russians. Men too are attacked by this disease. Two or three 
days before our arrival a Samoyed and his wife had eaten the 
flesh of a diseased animal, in consequence of which the woman 
died the following day, and the man still lay ill, and, as the 
people on the spot said, would not probably survive. Some of 
* denotes “an individual,” “one who cannot be mistaken for any other,” 
and, as the Samoyeds never were cannibals, Mr. Serebrenikoff gives a 
preference to the latter name, which is used by the Russians at Chabarova, 
and appears to be a literal translation of the name which the Samoyeds 
give themselves. I consider it probable, however, that the old tradition 
of man-eaters (andropkagi) living in the north, which originated with 
Herodotus, and was afterwards universally adojated in the geographical 
literature of the middle ages, reappears in a Russianised form in the name 
“Samoyed.” (Compare what is rpioted further on from Giles Fletcher’s 
narrative). 
