128 
THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. 
[chap. 
The drum, or more correctly, tambourine, so common among 
most of the Polar peoples, European, Asiatic, and American; 
among the Lapps, the Samoyeds, the Tunguses, and the Eskimo 
(see drawing on p. 24), is found in every Chukch tent. A 
certain superstition is also attached to it. They did not willingly 
play it in our presence, and they were unwilling to part with it. 
If time permitted it was concealed on our entrance into the 
tent. The drum consists of the peritoneum of a seal, stretched 
over a narrow wooden ring fixed to a short handle. The drum¬ 
stick consists of a splinter of whalebone 300 to 400 millimetres 
long, which tow'ards the end runs into a point so fine and flexible, 
that it forms a sort of whipcord. When the thicker part of the 
piece of whalebone is struck against the edge of the drum-skin, 
the other end whips against the middle, and the skin is thus struck 
twice at the same time. The drum is commonly played by the 
man, and the playing is accompanied by a very monotonous 
song. We have not seen it accompanied by dancing, twisting of 
the countenance, or any other Shaman trick. 
We did not see among the Chukches we met with any 
Shamans. They are described by Wrangel, Hooper, and other 
travellers. Wrangel states (vol. i. p. 284) that the Shamans in 
the year 1814, when a severe epidemic broke out among the 
Chukches and their reindeer at Anjui, declared that in order to 
propitiate the spirits they must sacrifice Kotschen, one of the 
most highly esteemed men of the tribe. He was so much 
respected that no one would execute the sentence, but attempts 
were made to get it altered, first by presents to the prophets, 
and then by flogging them. But when this did not succeed, 
as the disease continued to ravage, and no one would execute the 
doom, Kotschen ordered his own son to do it. He was thus 
compelled to stab his own father to death and give up the corpse 
to the Shamans. The whole narrative conflicts absolutely with 
the disposition and manners of the people with whom we 
made acquaintance at Behring’s Straits sixty-five years after 
