mages are found in
large numbers in the lumber-room of the tent, where pieces of ivory,
bits of agate and scrap iron, are preserved. A selection from the
large collection of such images which I made is here reproduced in
woodcuts. If, also, these carvings may, in fact, be considered as
representations of higher beings, the religious ideas which are
connected with them, even judged from the Shaman standpoint, are
exceedingly indistinct, less a consciousness, which still lives
among the people, than a reminiscence from former times. Most of the
figures bear an evident stamp of the present dress and mode of life
of the people. It appears to me to be remarkable, that in all the
bone or wood carvings I have met with, the face has been cut flatter
than it is in reality in this race of men. Some of the carvings
appear to remind me of an ancient Buddhist image.

[Illustration: HUMAN FIGURES.
Nos. 1, 3 and 5, represent women with tattooed faces.
No. 4 is of wood.
No. 6 of wood with eyes of tin; the rest are of ivory. ]

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 drumstick consists of a splinter of whalebone 300 to 400
millimetres long, which towards 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 mus