XII. 
MUSIC, DANCING, AND ART. 
131 
make violins after patterns seen on board, and actually 
succeeded in making a better sounding-box than could have 
been expected beforehand. On the draught-strap of the dog 
sledge there was often a small bell bought from the Russians, 
and the reindeer-Chukches are said sometimes to wear bells in 
the belt. 
The dance I saw consisted in two women or children taking 
each other by the shoulders, and then hopping now on the one 
foot now on the other. When many took part in the dance, they 
placed themselves in rows, sang a monotonous, meaningless song, 
hopped in time, turned the eyes out and in, and threw them¬ 
selves with spasmodic movements, clearly denoting pleasure 
and pain, now to the right, now to the left. “ La saison ” for 
dance and song, the time of slaughtering reindeer, however, did 
not happen during our stay, on which account our experience of 
the Chukches’ abilities in this way is exceedingly limited. 
All sport they entered into with special delight; for instance, 
some trial shooting which Palander set on foot on New Year s Day 
afternoon, with a small rifled cannon on the Vega. At first the 
women sat aft with the children, far from the dreadful shooting 
weapon, and indicated their feelings by almost the same gestures 
as on such occasions are wont to distinguish the weaker and 
fairer sex of European race. But soon curiosity took the upper 
hand. They pressed forward where they could see best, and 
broke out in a loud “ Ho, ho, ho ! ” when the shot was fired and 
the shells exploded in the air. 
Of what sort is the art-sense of the Chukches ? As they 
still almost belong to the Stone Age, and as their contact with 
Europeans has been so limited that it has not perhaps conduced to 
alter their taste and skill in art, this question appears to me to 
have a great interest both for the historian of art, who here 
obtains information as to the nature of the seed from which at last 
the skill of the master has been developed in the course of ages and 
millenniums, and for the archaeologist, who finds here a starting 
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