River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1884-11-06
IN 4 DEER SLED.
A Journey Among this xakuts Of Northern
Siberia.

new Aulh 1SicS
Ihad thousand miles to go before ]
should reach the Arctic ocean. Ifound
some difficulty in first examining my
self Into my deer sled, and in few
hours afterward quite as great in get
ting out oft. The deer sled is a long,
narrow affair. placed on high, wooden
runners; it is made extremely light, Of
framework Of slender birch, and is
covered with a hood IN order to protect
the head and face OF the occupant from
the biting blasts. 1t is in fact, in APP
paarance lengthened-out cradle and
think about as comfortable.
At night one sleeps in it very
comfortable / remember the first
night we were in the forest, the moon
shone brightly, the road was good, and
Yakut horses are trained to follow one
another faithfully, and only the leading
driver has any serious work to do.
When was awake, however, / found
the journey strangely weird and inter
esting. You see before you nothing but
mass of trees and slender underwood
no opening in which you can imagine
that road exists. But the leader en-
tiers the gloom Of the forest fearlessly;
he darts on first to the right and then
to the left, between trunks of trees
I L., 4 ,oekl
than is needed through which yonr sled
is to pass. Now and then you lose
sight of the sled in advance of you, but
your horse knows the road, if you do
not attempt to drive, and he fol-
Lows. Strange forms then the sleds
| take on in the whitened gloom.
Yakuts do not put sleigh bells on the
harness, and you pass on so silently,
aud the fitting things in front of you,
of which You catch glinpses occasion.
ally, seem to form part of some strange,
weired and ghostly procession. Soyou
pass on for hours through the forest.
Then q white bleak space opens III front
of you, over which you pass in the
moonlight. 1t is the frozen surface of
lake, of which there are scores among
the forests. Suddenly, when you have
passed the crest of hill you look
down toward the valley that seems
mile away. You imagine that rockets
are being fired into the air by some UNI
known friends. They seem to be shot
up one after the other with great regri-
larity, and You can imagine for the mo-
ment that company of Cossacks has
been sent in advance to point out your
resting or camping place. But this is
an illusion. The valley is not hum
dred yards away, and the rockets are
notl ing more than The sparks from the
blazing hearth of Yakut yourte.
Outside the Yakut yourte looks a
very insignificant affair. 1t is very low
covered with layer of mud, and in
winter of snow, and has slabs of ice
propped up from the outside for win
dows, and doorway only just large
enough for COW to squeeze through,
and much too low for man. Enter
the hut and you feel The grateful warmth
of the blazings piled upon the raised
hearth, and feel at once we'll disposed
towards the inhabitants whoever they
may be. Once inside and you see that
the yourte is built Of stems of large
trees. the sides sloping upwards to-
ward the roof, which is also made of
large stems laid side by side and sup
ported by pillars rising from the floor.
In the centre of the yourte is the huge
raised hearth, slender stems of
trees plastered with mud forming
the smoke conductor, or chimney.
The logs are thrown in an upright po-
sition, so that they burn quickly and
throw out comfortable warmth around
the room, which may be from fifteen to
twenty yards square. Close beneath
/ the sloping sides are built rude benches,
divided off into compartments, each
about six feet long. There are the
sleeping hunks, privacy being only pos
ible when you have a shawl or rug to
hang before your division. On these
benches you all sleep, Yakuts and
travellers, the yemsohicks taking the
floor, and You sleep comfortably enough
in the blaze and warmth of the fire.
There is an inner apartment of the
yourte, kind of annex or dependence.
This is net given up to the family, or
/ even to the ladies of the house, but is
/ the unrestricted domain of the cows,
which. however, have to pass through
the living department to get to their
/ own.
Then there are the bellies of the family.
These are nothing Il not ugly. In one
yourte there were three Gakut damsels,
their ages ranging from II to 20. They
possessed but single pipe, which they
passed around from one to the other.
If their brothers, the yemschiks, are
Just going out on a Journey, they allow
each to take few energetic whiffs be-
| fore their departure, and then go at
work themselves again, chatting and
looking after the boiling of the sour
milk at the same time. The pipe is
keot going almost necessarily from
morning i'll night, The girls are not,
as said before, handsome. Their faces
have too much cheek bone, their noses
are too fiat, their eyes too straight slit,
and their habits in general too peculiar
for appreciation Such Yakut
maiden is not long fancy free.
very early age, say or 7, when all the
contracts for her future life are settled
and sealed. Ten or dozen years later
the betrothed pair pilgrimage together
| to the nearest Greek church, which
NAV be fifty on 100 miles away, and are
married In the Yakut yourtes there
1 are also q curious kind of cradle that
\ attracted my attention, filled with hay,
cotton, wool and little baby. 1t was
long little box, made of wood, mar
row down toward the place where the
| feet should come, and provided with
various openings whose utility | could
not grasp until | learned that when
once young Yakut was properly fixed
in his place he is kept there for week
or two, or perhaps longer.
All these Yakuts are Christians,
though ] should not like to assert that
they understood very well the myster-
les of faith to which they were intro
duced in such summary fashion. L
| noticed when we started on our jour
neys that the mounted yemschik in front
/ of my sled invaribly took off his fur cap
immediately after starting out, and with
! a long series of crosses commended him
self and the party intrusted to his care
/ and guidance to the God of the
/ Greek church. But all along the
/ road, on the trees, we're tufts of horse
/ hair and bits of rags, and these | learn
have been placed there by the Yakut
| vemschiks in order to propitiate their
| old divinity, Shamai, and induce him
to give them good weather and good
raado R11t neither hoTsahair nor rags