Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1889-10-11
RAISING REINDEER.


A Calling That Presents Chances for Sudden
Wealth or Complete Ruin.
Rearing OF tending reindeer is par excel
lence the profession of Samoyede. If not
rich enough to possess a herd of his own he
enters the service of the owner of large
herd who keeps him and his family in food
and clothes and gives him certain number
of reindeer calves per annum in return for
his services. The servant thus lays the
foundation of herd Of his own, and, if
lucky, can, after a few years service, set up
on his own account.
Luck, however, plays a great part in this
means of livelihood, for ''reindeering" is a
great lottery. The animals are very liable
to a disease which corresponds to the rinder-
pest in cattle, and which in day or two will
kill off a herd of 600 or 700 deer. If this hap
pens in the middle of the Tundra, the local
name for these great, bare arctic steppes, 1t
probably means death to the owner and his
entire family, as they are left possibly hun
dreds of VERSE; from any human help, with
out food and without means of locomotion.
In my subsequent journey | came upon the
scene of one of these not uncommon TRACE
dies, and | have rarely witnessed a more
pathetic sight than the half standing choonls
surrounded by few sledges and the other
poor possessions of the i'll fated owners and
scattered all around the bones and horns of
the pest stricken herd. The owners them
selves had been subsequently buried by some
natives passing by, as we found their wooden
boxlike graves on hill short way off.
Though the loss of the herd does not often
prove as fatal as this, to the owner it always
means material ruin, and | saw good in
stance of this at Obdorsk, where l came
across Samoyede, at one time the owner of
a herd of 1000 deer, representing roughly a
capital of e3, 800 content to work as a la
borer for 40 copecks week
When successful on the other hand, the
rearing of reindeer is a most profitable oc-
cupation When clear Of disease the herd is
almost sure to double in number year by
year. Their cost of maintenance is nil, while
they supply their owner with all his essential
wants, and with the pecuniary means for OBJ
tanning such luxuries as are within his reach.
Their hides provide him with clothing and
shelter in the shape Of his hide covered
choom; their meat forms the staple of his
food The skin of calf in raw condition
Yields about three rubles; when very young
and dark, as much as five. The skins of the
older deer fetch about tvs. With this cir
culating medium in his pouch, the Samoyede
buys the vodka and other creature comforts
his soul delights in, or adorns his wife with
the spangles and strips Of colored cloth she
so highly prizes. But over and above all
these gifts which the mild reindeer presents
to his lord is the one which to the nomad
dominates and determines all the rest-that
of locomotion.
This industry, if SO it may be termed ne
cessarily implies the nomad life pure and
simple, the Samoyedes pitching their tents
wherever reindeer moss is abundant, and
moving off as soon as their herds have cropped
the surrounding district bare In winter the
Samoyedes prefer to be in the vicinity of
forests, partly for the sake of the wood which
they need for fuel and for making new and
tinkering up old sledges, partly because the
snow here is not so deep as in the open Tun-
dra, and the deer can thus get more easily at
the moss. Here also they trap the white fox
and ptarmigan, the wings of which have a
great sale. In summer they drive their herds
into the Tundra, over which large portion
of my journey lay, and which l may here
take the opportunity to describe. The Tun-
dra is messy marsh slightly accumulated here
and there with low hills, and sprinkled with
numberless shallow lakes not connected with
each other. For miles and miles the ground
is so marsh that one runs the risk Of sinking
up to ones middle if one attempts to walk
over it. Now and again one comes upon a
spot where the ground resembles a Scotch
moor minus the heather, very springy moss
with an occasional clump of low willow brush
wood. These spots the native makes for
when, after his days journey, he wishes to
mitch biS ohn0O1 aS the here thick
and rich and the brushwood affords the little
fuel he requires. Not 8 tree, not a rock
breaks the monotony Of the scene, and the
greenish brown color of the Tundra, losing
itself in a dull, gray sky, is as dreary pic
ture as the human eye can well rest upon
Murray's Magazine.