The Voyage Of The Vega Round Asia And Europe Part 47

The rough seal is taken with nets, made of strong seal-skin thongs.

The nets are set in summer among the ground-ices along the sh.o.r.e.

The animal gets entangled in the net and is suffocated, as it can no longer come to the surface to breathe. In winter the seal is taken partly with nets in "leads" among the ice, partly with the harpoon when it crawls out of its hole, it is also taken by means of a noose of thongs placed over its hole. In order to avoid the loss of the valuable seal-blood, which is considered an extraordinary delicacy by the Chukches, the animal is never killed by an edged tool, if that can be avoided, but by repeated blows on the head. The bear is killed by the lance or knife, the latter, according to the statement of a Chukch, being the surest weapon, the walrus and the largest kind of seals with the harpoon (fig. 1, p. 105), or a lance resembling the Greenlander's. Even the whale is harpooned, but with a harpoon considerably larger than the common, and to which as many as six inflated seal-skins are fastened. In order to kill a whale a great many such harpoons must be struck into it. Birds are taken in snares, or killed with bird-javelins, arrows, and slings. The last mentioned (fig. 3, p. 105) consist of a number of round b.a.l.l.s of bone fastened to leather thongs, which are knotted together. Some feathers are often fixed to the knot in order to increase the resistance of the air to this part of the sling. When the sling is thrown the bone b.a.l.l.s are thereby scattered in all directions, and the probability of hitting becomes greater. Every man and boy in summer carries with him such a sling, often bound round his head, and is immediately prepared to cast it at flocks of birds flying past. Common slings are also used, consisting of two thongs and a piece of skin fastened to them. The bird-dart (fig. 5, p. 105) completely resembles that used by the Eskimo. A kind of snare was used by the boys at Yinretlen to catch small birds for our zoologist. They were made of whalebone fibres.

Fish are caught partly with nets, partly with the hook or with a sort of leister (fig. 6, p. 105). The nets are made of sinew-thread.

I procured several of these, and was surprised at the small value which the natives set upon them, notwithstanding the hard labour which must have been required for preparing the thread and making the net. The nets are also sometimes used as drift-nets. The fis.h.i.+ng-rod consists of a shaft only thirty centimetres long, to which is fixed a short line made of sinews. The extreme end of the line pa.s.ses through a large sinker of ivory, to which are attached two or three tufts each with its hook of bone only, or of bone and copper, or bone and iron. The hook has three or four points projecting in different directions. I have before described how the hook is used in autumn in fis.h.i.+ng for roach, also how the productive fis.h.i.+ng goes on in the neighbourhood of Tj.a.pka.

Even for the coast Chukch reindeer flesh appears to form an important article of food. He probably purchases his stock of it from the reindeer-Chukches for train-oil, skin straps, walrus tusks, and perhaps fish. I suppose that part of the frozen reindeer blood, which the inhabitants of the villages at our winter station used for soup, had been obtained in the same way. Wild reindeer, or reindeer that had run wild, were hunted with the la.s.so. Such animals, however, do not appear now to be found in any large numbers on the Chukch peninsula.

Besides fish and flesh the Chukches consume immense quant.i.ties of herbs and other substances from the vegetable kingdom.[283] The most important of these are the leaves and young branches of a great many different plants (for instance Salix, Rhodiola, &c.) which are collected and after being cleaned are preserved in seal-skin sacks.

Intentionally or unintentionally the contents of the sacks sour during the course of the summer. In autumn they freeze together to a lump of the form of the stretched seal-skin. The frozen ma.s.s is cut in pieces and used with flesh, much in the same way as we eat bread.

Occasionally a vegetable soup is made from the pieces along with water, and is eaten warm. In the same way the contents of the reindeer stomach is used. Algae and different kinds of roots are also eaten, among the latter a kind of wrinkled tubers, which, as already stated (Vol. I., p. 450) have a very agreeable taste.

In summer the Chukches eat cloud-berries, red bilberries, and other berries, which are said to be found in great abundance in the interior of the country. The quant.i.ty of vegetable matter which is collected for food at that season of the year is very considerable, and the natives do not appear to be very particular in their choice, if the leaves are only green, juicy, and free from any bitter taste.

When the inhabitants, in consequence of scarcity of food, removed in the beginning of February from Pitlekaj, they carried with them several sacks of frozen vegetables, and there were still some left in the cellars to be taken away as required. In the tents at St.

Lawrence Bay there lay heaps of leaf-clad willow-twigs and sacks filled with leaves and stalks of Rhodiola. The writers who quote the Chukches as an example of a race living exclusively on substances derived from the animal kingdom thus commit a complete mistake. On the contrary, they appear at certain seasons of the year to be more "graminivorous" than any other people I know, and with respect to this their taste appears to me to give the anthropologist a hint of certain traits of the mode of life of the people of the Stone Age which have been completely overlooked. To judge from the Chukches our primitive ancestors by no means so much resembled beasts of prey as they are commonly imagined to have done, and it may, perhaps, have been the case that "bellum omnium inter omnes" was first brought in with the higher culture of the Bronze or Iron Age.

The cooking of the Chukches, like that of most wild races, is very simple. After a successful catch all the dwellers in the tent gormandise on the killed animal, and appear to find a special pleasure in making their faces and hands as b.l.o.o.d.y as possible.

Alternately with the raw flesh are eaten pieces of blubber and marrow, and bits of the intestines which have been freed from their contents merely by pressing between the fingers. Fish is eaten not only in a raw state, but also frozen so hard that it can be broken in pieces. When opportunity offers the Chukches do not, however, neglect to boil their food, or to roast pieces of flesh over the train-oil lamp--the word _roast_ ought however in this case to be exchanged for _soot_. At a visit which Lieutenant Hovgaard made at Najtskaj, the natives in the tent where he was a guest ate for supper first seal-flesh soup, then boiled fish, and lastly, boiled seal-flesh. They thus observed completely the order of eating approved in Europe. The Chukches are unacquainted with other forks than their fingers, and even the use of the spoon is not common.

Many carry about with them a spoon of copper, tinned iron, or bone (fig. 8, p. 117). The soup is often drunk directly out of the cooking vessel, or sucked up through hollow bones (see the figure on p. 104). Those are used as dunking cups, and like the spoons are worn in the belt. As examples of Chukch dishes I may further mention, vegetable soup, boiled seal-flesh, boiled fish, blood soup, soup of seal-blood and blubber. To these we may add soup from finely crushed bones, or from seal-flesh, blubber, and bones. For crus.h.i.+ng the bones there is in every tent a hammer, consisting of an oval stone with a hollow round it for a skin thong, with which the stone is fastened to the short shaft of wood or bone. The bones which are used for food are finely crushed with this implement against a stone anvil or a whale's vertebra, and then boiled with water and blood, before being eaten. At first we believed that this dish was intended for the dogs, but afterwards I had an opportunity of convincing myself that the natives themselves ate it, and that long before the time when they suffered from scarcity of provisions. The hammer is further of interest as forming one of the stone implements which are most frequently found in graves from the Stone Age. That the hammer was mainly intended for kitchen purposes appears from the circ.u.mstance that the women alone had it at their disposal, and were consulted when it was parted with. Along with such hammers there was to be found in every tent an anvil, consisting of a whale's vertebra or a large round stone with a bowl-formed depression worn or cut out in the middle of it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: STONE HAMMERS AND ANVIL FOR CRUs.h.i.+NG BONES.

(One-sixth of the natural size.) ]

During winter a great portion of the inhabitants of Yinretlen, Pitlekaj, and as far as from Irgunnuk, came daily on board to beg or buy themselves provisions, and during this period they were fed mainly by us. They soon accustomed themselves to our food. They appeared specially fond of pea-soup and porridge. The latter they generally laid out on a snow-drift to freeze, and then took it in the frozen form to the tents. Coffee they did not care for unless it was well sugared. Salt they did not use, but with sugar they were all highly delighted. They also drank tea with pleasure. Otherwise water forms their princ.i.p.al drink. They were, however, often compelled in winter, in consequence of the difficulty of melting over the train-oil lamps a sufficient quant.i.ty of snow, to quench their thirst with snow. On board they often asked for water, and drank at once large quant.i.ties of it.

Spirits, to which they are exceedingly addicted, they call, as has been already stated, in conversation with Europeans, "ram," the p.r.o.nouncing of the word being often accompanied by a hawking noise, a happy expression, and a distinctive gesture, which consisted in carrying the open right hand from the mouth to the waist, or in counterfeiting the unintelligible talk of a drunken man. Among themselves they call it fire-water (_akmimil_). The promise of it was the most efficient means of getting an obstinate Chukch to comply with one's wishes. In case they undertook to drive us with their dog-teams, they were never desirous of finding out whether any stock of provisions was taken along, but warned by our parsimony in dealing out spirituous liquor, they were unwilling to start until they had examined the stock of "ram." That drunkenness, not the satisfying of the taste, was in this case the main object, is shown by the circ.u.mstance that they often fixed, as price for the articles they saw we were anxious to have, such a quant.i.ty of brandy as would make them completely intoxicated. When on one occasion I appeared very desirous of purchasing a fire-drill, which was found in a tent inhabited by a newly-wedded pair, the young and very pretty housewife undertook the negotiation, and immediately began by declaring that her husband could not part with the fire-producing implement unless I gave him the means of getting quite drunk, for which, according to her statement, which was ill.u.s.trated by lively gesticulations representing the different degrees of intoxication, eight gla.s.ses were required. Not until the man had got so many would he be content, that is, dead drunk. I have myself observed, however, on several occasions that two small gla.s.ses are sufficient to make them unsteady on the legs. Under the influence of liquor they are cheerful, merry, and friendly, but troublesome by their excessive caressing. When in the company of intoxicated natives, one must take good care that he does not unexpectedly get a kiss from some old greasy seal-hunter. Even the women readily took a gla.s.s, though evidently less addicted to intoxicants than the men. They however got their share, as did even the youngest of the children. When, as happened twice in the course of the winter, an encampment was fortunate enough to get a large stock of brandy sent it from Behring's Straits, the intoxication was general, and, as I have already stated, the bluish-yellow eyes the next day showed that quarrelsomeness had been called forth even among this peace-loving people by their dear _akmimil_. During our stay at the villages nearer Behring's Straits two murders even took place, of which one at least was committed by an intoxicated man.

However slight the contact the Chukches have with the world that has reached the standpoint of the brandy industry is, this means of enjoyment, however, appears to be the object of regular barter. Many of the Chukches who travelled past us were intoxicated, and shook with pride a not quite empty keg or seal-skin sack, to let us hear by the das.h.i.+ng that it contained liquid. One of the crew, whom I asked to ascertain what sort of spirit it was, made friends with the owner, and induced him at last to part with about a thimbleful of it, more could not be given. According to the sailor's statement it was without colour and flavour, clear as crystal, but weak. It was thus probably Russian corn brandy, not gin.

During a visit which Lieutenants Hovgaard and Nordquist made in the autumn of 1878 to the reindeer-Chukches in the interior of the country, much diluted American gin was on the contrary presented, and the tent-owner showed his guests a tin drinking-cup with the inscription, "Capt. Ravens, Brig _Timandra_, 1878". Some of the natives stated distinctly that they could purchase brandy at Behring's Straits all the year round. All the men in the tent village, and most of the women, but not the children, had at the time got completely intoxicated in order to celebrate the arrival of the foreigners, or perhaps rather that of the stock of brandy. As there are no Europeans settled at Behring's Straits, at least on the Asiatic side, we learn from the traffic in brandy that there are actually natives abstemious enough to be able to deal in it.

Tobacco is in common use, both for smoking and chewing.[284] Every native carries with him a pipe resembling that of the Tunguse, and a tobacco-pouch (fig 7, p. 117). The tobacco is of many kinds, both Russian and American, and when the stock of it is finished native subst.i.tutes are used. Preference is given to the sweet, strong chewing tobacco, which sailors generally use. In order to make the tobacco sweet which has not before been drenched with mola.s.ses, the men are accustomed, when they get a piece of sugar, to break it down and place it in the tobacco-pouch. The tobacco is often first chewed, then dried behind the ear, and kept in a separate pouch suspended from the neck, to be afterwards smoked. The pipes are so small that, like those of the j.a.panese, they may be smoked out with a few strong whiffs. The smoke is swallowed. Even the women and children smoke and chew, and they begin to do so at so tender an age that we have seen a child, who could indeed walk, but still sucked his mother, both chew tobacco, smoke, and take a "ram".

Some bundles of Ukraine tobacco, which I took with me for barter with the natives, put it into my power to procure a large number of contributions to the ethnological collection, which in the absence of other wares for barter I would otherwise have been unable to obtain. For the Chukches do not understand money. This is so much the more remarkable as they carry on a very extensive trade, and evidently are good mercantile men. According to von Dittmar (_loc.

cit._ p. 129) there exists, or still existed in 1856, a steady, slow, but regular transport of goods along the whole north coast of Asia and America, by which Russian goods were conveyed to the innermost parts of Polar America, and furs instead found their way to the bazaars of Moscow and St. Petersburg. This traffic is carried on at five market places, of which three are situated in America, one on the islands at Behring's Straits, and one at Anjui near Kolyma The last-mentioned is called by the Chukches "the fifth beaver market."[285]

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHUKCH IMPLEMENTS.

1. Sc.r.a.per for currying (one-seventh of the natural size).

2. Awls (one-half).

3. Ice-sc.r.a.per intended for decoying the seal from its hole, with bone amulet affixed (one-half).

4. Bone knife (one-half).

5., 6. Amulets of bone (natural size).

7. Pipe and tobacco pouch (one-third).

8. Metal spoons (one-third). ]

The Chukches' princ.i.p.al articles of commerce consist of seal-skin, train-oil, fox-skins and other furs, walrus tusks, whalebone, &c.

Instead they purchase tobacco, articles of iron, reindeer skin and reindeer flesh, and, when it can be had, spirit. A bargain is concluded very cautiously after long-continued consultation in a whispering tone between those present. I employed spirit as an article for barter only in the last necessity, but they soon observed that the desire to become owner of an uncommon article of art or antiquity overcame my determination, and they soon learned to avail themselves of this, especially as in all cases I made full payment for the article and gave the fire-water into the bargain.

The lamp (see the figures at pp. 22, 23), with which light is maintained in the tent, consists of a flat trough of wood, bone of the whale, soap-stone or burned clay, broader behind than before, and divided by an isolated toothed comb into two divisions. In the front division wicks of moss (Sphagnum sp.) are laid in a long thin row along the whole edge. Under the lamp there is always another vessel intended to receive the train-oil which may possibly be spilled.

In summer the natives also cook with wood in the open air or in the outer tent, in winter only in the greatest necessity in the latter.

For they find the smoke, which the wood gives off in the close tent, unendurable. Although driftwood is to be found in great abundance on the beach, scarcity of train-oil was evidently considered by the natives as great a misfortune as scarcity of food. _Uinqa eek_, no fuel (properly, no fire), was the constant cry even of those who drew loads of driftwood on board to earn bread for themselves. The circ.u.mstance that their fuel does not give off any smoke has the advantage that the eyes of the Chukches are not usually nearly so much attacked as those of the Lapps.

In the tent the women have always a watchful eye over the tr.i.m.m.i.n.g of the lamp and the keeping up of the fire. The wooden pins she uses to trim the wick, and which naturally are drenched with train-oil, are used when required as a light or torch in the outer tent, to light pipes, &c. In the same way other pins dipped in train-oil are used.[286] Clay lamps are made by the Chukches themselves, the clay being well kneaded and moistened with urine. The burning is incomplete, and is indeed often wholly omitted.

Train-oil and other liquid wares are often kept in sacks of seal-skin, consisting of whole hides, out of which the body has been taken through the opening made by cutting off the head, and in which all holes, either natural or caused by the killing of the animal, have been firmly closed. In one of the forepaws there is then inserted with great skill a wooden air- and water-tight c.o.c.k with spigot and faucet. In sacks intended for dry wares the paws are also cut off, and the opening through which the contents are put in and taken out is made right across the breast immediately below the forepaws.

Fire is lighted partly in the way common in Sweden some decades ago by means of flint and steel, partly by means of a drill implement.

In the former case the steel generally consists of a piece of a file or some other old steel tool, or of pieces of iron or steel which have been specially forged for the purpose. Commonly the form of this tool indicates a European or Russian-Siberian origin, but I also acquired clumsily hammered pieces of iron, which appeared to form specimens of native skill in forging. A Chukch showed me a large fire-steel of the last mentioned kind, provided with a special handle of copper beautifully polished by long-continued use. He evidently regarded it as a very precious thing, and I could not persuade him to part with it. On the supposition that the metal of the clumsily hammered pieces of iron might possibly be of meteoric origin I purchased as many of them as I could. But the examination, to which they were subjected after our return, showed that they contain no traces of nickel. The iron was thus not meteoric.

The flint consists of a beautiful chalcedony or agate, which has been formed in cavities in the volcanic rocks which occur so abundantly in north-eastern Asia, and which probably are also found here and there as pebbles in the beds of the _tundra_ rivers. As tinder, are used partly the woolly hair of various animals, partly dry fragments of different kinds of plants. The steel and a large number of pieces of flint are kept in a skin pouch suspended from the neck. Within this pouch there is a smaller one, containing the tinder. It is thus kept warm by the heat of the body, and protected from wet by its double envelope. Along with it the men often carry on their persons a sort of match of white, well-dried, and crushed willows, which are plaited together and placed in even rolls. This match burns slowly, evenly, and well.

The other sort of fire-implement consists of a dry wooden pin, which by a common bow-drill is made to rub against a block of dry half-blackened wood. The upper part of this pin runs in a drill block of wood or bone. In one of the tools which I purchased, the astragalus of a reindeer was used for this purpose. In the light-stock holes have been made to give support to the pin, and perhaps to facilitate the formation of the half-carbonised wood-meal which the drilling loosens from the light-stock and in which the red heat arises. When fire is to be lighted by means of this implement, the lower part of the drill pin is daubed over with a little train-oil, one foot holds the light-stock firm against the ground, the bowstring is put round the drill pin, the left hand presses the pin with the drill block against the light-stock, and the bow is carried backwards and forwards, not very rapidly, but evenly, steadily, and uninterruptedly, until fire appears. A couple of minutes are generally required to complete the process The women appear to be more accustomed than the men to the use of this implement. An improved form of it consisted of a wooden pin on whose lower part a lense-formed and perforated block of wood was fixed.

This block served as fly-wheel and weight. Across the wooden pin ran a perforated cross-bar which was fastened with two sinews to its upper end. By carrying this cross-bar backwards and forwards the pin could be turned round with great rapidity. The implement appears to me the more remarkable as it shows a new way of using the stone or brick lenses, which are often found in graves or old house-sites from the Stone Age.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIRE DRILL. One-eighth of the natural size. ]

Among the Chukches, as among many other wild races, lucifer matches have obtained the honour of being the first of the inventions of the civilised races that have been recognised as indisputably superior to their own. A request for lucifer matches was therefore one of the most common of those with which our friends at Behring's Straits tormented us during winter, and they were willing for a single box to offer things that in comparison were very valuable. Unfortunately we had no superfluous supply of this necessary article, or perhaps I ought to say fortunately, for if the Chukches for some years were able to get a couple of boxes of matches for a walrus tusk, I believe that with their usual carelessness they would soon completely forget the use of their own fire-implements.

Among household articles I may further mention the following:--

The _hide-sc.r.a.per_ (fig. 1, p. 117) is of stone or iron and fastened to a wooden handle. With this tool the moistened hide is cleaned very particularly, and is then rubbed, stretched, and kneaded so carefully that several days go to the preparation of a single reindeer skin. That this is hard work is also shown by the woman who is employed at it in the tent dripping with perspiration. While thus employed she sits on a part of the skin and stretches out the other part with the united help of the hands and the bare feet. When the skin has been sufficiently worked, she fills a vessel with her own urine, mixes this with comminuted willow bark, which has been dried over the lamp, and rubs the blood-warm liquid into the reindeer skin. In order to give this a red colour on one side, the bark of a species of Pinus (?) is mixed with the tanning liquid. The skins are made very soft by this process, and on the inner side almost resemble chamois leather. Sometimes too the reindeer skin is tanned to real chamois of very excellent quality.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ICE MATTOCKS. One-ninth of the natural size. ]

Two sorts of _ice mattocks_, the shaft is of wood, the blade of the spade-formed one of whalebone, of the others of a walrus tusk, it is fixed to the shaft by skin thongs with great skill.

Sometimes both the shaft and blade are of bone, fastened together in a somewhat different way.

_Hones_ of native clay-slate. These are often perforated at one end and carried along with the knife, the spoon, and the sucking-tube, fastened with an ivory tongs in the belt.

Home-made _vessels of wood, bone of the whale, whalebone, and skin_ of different kinds.

_Knives, boring tools, axes and pots_ of European, American, or Siberian origin, and in addition casks, pieces of cable, iron sc.r.a.p, preserved-meat tins, gla.s.ses, bottles, &c., obtained from s.h.i.+ps which have anch.o.r.ed along the coast. Vessels have regularly visited the sea north of Behring's Straits only during the latest decades, and the contact between the sailors and the Chukches has not yet exerted any considerable influence on the mode of life of the latter. The natives, however, complain that the whalers destroy the walrus-hunting, while on the other hand they see with pleasure trading vessels occasionally visiting their coasts.

During our stay off the considerable encampment, Irkaipij, we believed, as I have already stated, that we had found a chief in a native named Chepurin, who, to judge by his dress, appeared to be somewhat better off than the others, had two wives and a stately exterior. He was accordingly entertained in the gunroom, got the finest presents, and was in many ways the object of special attention. Chepurin took his elevation easily, and showed himself worthy of it by a grave and serious, perhaps somewhat condescending behaviour, which further confirmed our supposition and naturally increased the number of our presents. Afterwards, however, we were quite convinced that we had in this case committed a complete mistake, and that now there are to be found among the Chukches living at the coast neither any recognised chiefs nor any trace of social organisation. During the former martial period of the history of the race the state of things here was perhaps different, but now the most complete anarchy prevails here, if by that word we may denote a state of society in which disputes, crimes, and punishments are unknown, or at least exceedingly rare. [287] A sort of chieftains.h.i.+p appears, at all events, to be found among the reindeer-Chukches living in the interior of the country. At least there are among them men who can show commmissions from the Russian authorities. Such a man was the starost Menka, of whose visit I have already given an account. Everything, however, indicated that his influence was exceedingly small. He could neither read, write, nor speak Russian, and he had no idea of the existence of a Russian Czar. All the tribute he had delivered for several years, according to receipts which he showed to us, consisted of some few fox-skins, which he had probably received as market-tolls at Anjui and Markova.

Menka was attended on his visit to the vessel by two ill-clad men with a type of face differing considerably from that common among the Chukches. Their standing appeared to be so inferior that we took them for slaves, although mistakenly, at least with respect to one of them--Yettugin. He afterwards boasted that he owned a much larger reindeer-herd than Menka's, and talked readily, with a certain scorn, of Menka's chieftain pretensions. According to Russian authors there are actual slaves, probably the descendants of former prisoners of war, among the Chukches in the interior of the country. Among the dwellers on the coast, on the contrary, there is the most complete equality. We could never discover the smallest trace of any man exercising the least authority beyond his own family or his own tent.

The coast Chukches are not only heathens, but are also, so far as we could observe, devoid of every conception of higher beings. There are, however, superst.i.tions. Thus most of them wear round the neck leather straps, to which small wooden tongs, of wooden carvings, are fixed. These are not parted with, and are not readily shown to foreigners. A boy had a band of beads sewed to his hood, and in front there was fastened an ivory carving, probably intended to represent a bear's head (fig. 6, on p. 117). It was so small, and so inartistically cut, that a man could undoubtedly make a dozen of them in a day. I, however, offered the father unsuccessfully a clasp-knife and tobacco for it, but the boy himself, having heard our bargaining, exchanged it soon after for a piece of sugar. When the father knew this he laughed good-naturedly, without making any attempt to get the bargain undone.

To certain tools small wooden images are affixed, as to the sc.r.a.per figured above (fig. 3, p. 117), and similar images are found in large numbers in the lumber-room of the tent, where pieces of ivory, bits of agate and sc.r.a.p 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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. ]