AMONG THE TUNDRA PEOPLE by HARALD U. SVERDRUP TRANSLATED BY MOLLY SVERDRUP 1939 Copyright @ 1978 by Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, elec- tronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the regents. Distributed by : Scripps Institution of Oceanography A-007 University of California, San Diego La Jolla, California 92093 Library of Congress # 78-60483 ISBN # 0-89626-004-6 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We are indebted to Molly Sverdrup (Mrs. Leif J.) for this translation of Hos Tundra-Folket published by Gyldendal Norsk Forlag, Oslo, 1938. We are also indebted to the late Helen Raitt for recovering the manuscript from the archives of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. The Norwegian Polar Institute loaned negatives from Sverdrup's travels among the Chukchi, for figures 1 through 4. Sverdrup's map of his route in the Chukchi country in 19 19/20 was copied from Hos Tundra-Folket. The map of the Chukchi National Okrug was prepared by Fred Crowe, based on the American Geographic Society's Map of the Arctic Region (1975). The map of Siberia was copied from Terence Armstrong's Russian Settlement in the North (1 965) with permission of the Cambridge University Press. Sam Hinton drew the picture of a reindeer on the cover. Martin W. Johnson identified individuals in some of the photographs. Marston C Sargent Elizabeth N. Shor Kittie C C Kuhns Editors The following individuals, most of whom were closely associated with Sverdrup, out of respect for him and wishing to assure preservation of this unusual account, met part of the cost of publication. Robert S. Arthur William A. Nierenberg Wayne V. Burt Russell W. Raitt Gifford C. Ewing Joseph L. Reid Richard H. Fleming Roger R. Revelle John D. Isaacs Marston C. Sargent Eugene C. LaFond Francis P. Shepard Walter H. Munk Fred N. Spiess George G. and Elizabeth N. Shor FOREWORD Harald Ulrik Sverdrup (1888-1957) was born into a family active in the political, religious, and scientific life of Norway. His cousin Otto Sverdrup was an energetic Arctic explorer and captain of Fridtjof Nansen's ship Fram. Sverdrup enrolled in the University of Oslo in 1908 and three years later became assistant to Professor V. Bjerknes who was applying hydrodynamics to problems in meteo- rology and oceanography. In 19 13 he went with Bjerknes to the University of Leipzig where he completed his doctoral dissertation on the North Atlantic Tradewind. In 19 17 Sverdrup agreed to take charge of the scientific work of Roald Amundsen's North Polar Expedition on Maud. He had already shown great ability as a theoretical geophysicist, and now wanted experience in making obser- vations in the field. His next seven years are summarized in the present volume and in Three Years in the Ice with Maud (in Norwegian) (1926). At the end of these years he had more experience and understanding of Arctic ice and weather than all but a handful of predecessors and contem- poraries among scientists. On his return to Norway in 1925, he succeeded Bjerknes as Professor of Dynamical Oceanography in the University of Bergen. Twice during the next ten years he spent half a year as a guest investigator in the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism in the Carnegie Institution of Washington. In 1934 he spent two months on the high snowfields of Spitz- bergen and later published the first quantitative study of the heat budget of a glacier. In 1936 he accepted appointment, for a limited period, as Director of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. World War 11 intervened and from 194 1 to 1945 he devoted his entire effort to clarifying the effects of oceanic conditions on military operations at sea, and, in particular, developing methods of predicting waves and surf for planning and executing amphibious assaults. Between 1945 and 1948 he reassembled and enlarged the staff and facilities of Scripps, preparing the institution for its role as one of the leaders in the development of oceanography into an indispensable member of the cluster of sciences of One World. In 1948 he returned to Norway to become the first director of the new Norwegian Polar Institute. In this capac- ity he was the prinicipal organizer of the 195 1/52 expedition to Queen Maud Land in Antarctica, which was "in the range and intensity of its scientific work the most productive . expedition to Antarctica5'* before the International Geo- physical Year (1957158). He received many honors from his native country, the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Federal Repu- blic of Germany, and was elected to office in several inter- national learned societies. Sverdrup's enduring influence on oceanography is also partly a result of his work as organizer and senior author with M. W. Johnson and R. H. Fleming of The Oceans (1942), which for more than twenty years was the most comprehensive textbook on the subject. He also originated and taught the first systematic general course in oceanogra- phy, which produced a generation of leaders in this country and Canada and, through his students, around the world. Among the Tundra People embodies the warm and human reflections of a young man, from one of the most civilized countries in the world, near the beginning of a brilliant career as a geophysicist, cast unexpectedly among one of the most primitive societies that had survived into the twentieth century. His attitude toward his hosts and *L. P. Kirwan, Director of the Royal Society, in his History ofpolar Explo- ration. 1954. neighbors was sympathetic understanding. The result is a picture of the inhabitants of this little nomadic village not as case histories but as people. CONTENTS Chapter Page Acknowledgments Foreword Six Years in the Arctic ...........................1 The Chukchi and Their Country ...................13 Traveling with Reindeer .........................37 Winter Life ...................................57 Games and Story Telling ........................83 Trade. Law. and Love ..........................103 Ceremonies and Traditions ......................135 Notes on the Lamut ...........................175 Departure ...................................199 Reflections on the Lives of the Chukchi ............ 203 History of the Chukchi. by Marston C . Sargent ...... 213 Reading List .................................225 Illustrations 1 . Sverdrup and his new friends ..................35 2 . Gregory and Kaankalj ........................59 3 . Coastal Chukchi ............................ 85 4 . Coastal Chukchi village ......................107 Maps 1 . Siberia and adjacent Arctic ............. endpapers* 2 . Sverdrup's map of his route ...................23 3 . Modern map of the Chukchi National Okrug ..... 212 *in hardbound copies; in paperback books. last double page spread in text . Cover design Reindeer by Sam Hinton SIX YEARS IN THE ARCTIC In July, 1918, when I left Norway on board Roald Amundsen's ship, Maud, it did not for a moment occur to me that in a little more than a year I should find myself clad in reindeer skins, one suit with the hairy side out and one suit with the hairy side in, or that I should have nothing to eat but reindeer meat morning, noon, and night. I did not dream that I should live a winter among the Reindeer Chukchi, one of the least known tribes of eastern Siberia, be treated as one of their own, be allowed to participate in all their ceremonies, listen to the weird music of the medi- cine men, or become acquainted with their marriage rituals and their primitive burial customs. Roald Amundsen had no intention of letting anyone in his party study Siberian natives; his plan was to let his ship drift with the ice across the Polar Sea. From 1903 to 1906 Amundsen had sailed through the Northwest Passage in the small ship Gjoa," which stands now in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, and is the first vessel to have sailed from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean north of the American continent. On December 14, 19 1 1, *Gjoa was returned to Norway in 1971. Among the Tundra People Amundsen had added to his fame by planting the Norwegian flag on the South Pole. However, he was not satisfied with his achievements and wished to repeat Fridtjof Nansen's drift across the Polar Sea, and perhaps make a dash for the North Pole. Although Fvam, Fridtjof Nansen's vessel, * which he had used on the journey to the Antarctic, had never been damaged by ice, she had not been able to stand up against the climate of the tropics. The hull had been weakened by dry rot and the ship could no longer be used in the Arctic. During World War I, Amundsen had a new ship built and named her Maud after the Queen of Norway. Amundsen planned to sail east along the northern coast of Siberia to the vicinity of Bering Strait, penetrate to the north from this region, and then allow Maud to be closed in by the ice in the hope that the drifting ice would carry her across the Polar Sea to the region north of Spitsbergen. I was to be in charge of the scientific work of the expedi- tion. I wanted to repeat Nansen's observations from the deep Polar Sea, and in my ambitious moments I dreamed that, by means of improved instruments and accurate methods, I would make the Polar Sea the best explored sea of the world. When we left Norway we hoped to begin the drift in the ice that year, and to return after three or four years, but we had tough luck. Proceeding along the Arctic coast of Siberia we met unfavorable ice conditions and on September 13, 19 18, all advance was stopped. We had to establish winter quarters near Cape Chelyuskin, the northern cape of the Asiatic continent.