Pullman herald. [volume] (Pullman, W.T. [Wash.]) 1888-1989, 1889-12-14
REARING REINDEER.
Profitable Industry Carried On by tn
Thrifty Samoyedes


Rearing and tending reindeer is par
excellence the profession of Sa-
mOyede. If not rich enough to pos
sess 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 a 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 few
years service set up on his own &C
count. 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 rinderpest in
cattle, and which in a day or two will
kill off herd of six or seven hundred
deer. If this happens in the middle of
the Tundra, the local name for these
great, bare arctic steppes, it probably
means death to the owner anG
his entire family, as they are
left possibly hundreds of versts
from any human help, without food
and without means of locomotion. In
my subsequent journey Icame upon the
scene of one of these not uncommon
tragedies, and have rarely witnessed
a more pathetic sight than the half
standing chooms surrounded by a few
sledges and the other poor possessions
of the Inflated owners and scattered
all around the bones and horns of the
pest-stricken herd. The owners them
selves had been subsequently buried
by some native passing by, as we
found their wooden box-like 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 a good
instance of this at Ohdorsk, where |
came across a Samoyede, at one time
the owner of a herd of 1000 deer, rep
resenting roughly capital of 93, 500,
content to work as a laborer for 40
copecks a week. When successful, on
the other hand, the rearing of reindeer
is most profitable occupation. 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 pc
cuniary means for obtaining such LUX
uries as are within his reach. Their
hides provide him with clothing and
shelter in the shape of his Undiscovered
choom; their meat forms the staple of
his food. The skin Of a calf in raw
condition yields about three rubles:
when very young and dark, us much as
five. The skins of the older deer
fetch about two. With this circulating
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 50 highly prizes.
But over and above all these gifts which
the mild reindeer presents to his lord
is the one to which the nOmad dOmi-
mates and determines all the rest-that
of locomOtion. This industry, if so it
may be termed, necessarily implies the
nomad life pure and simple, the Samo-
yedes pitching their tents wherever
reindeer moss is abundant, and moving
off as soon as their herds have cropped
the surrounding district bare. In win
ter 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 thew
trap the white fox and ptarmigan, tho
wings of which have great sale. In
summer they drive their herds into
the Tundra, over which large portion
of my journey lay, and which | may
here take the opportunity to describe.
The Tundra is messy marsh, slightly
accentuated here and there with low
shallow lakes not connected with each
other. For miles and miles the ground
is so marshy that one runs the risk OF
sinking up to ones middle if one at
tempts 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 clamp of low willow
brushwood. These spots the native
makes for when, after his days journey,
he wishes to pitch his choom, as the
moss here grows thick and rich and
the brushwood affords the little fuel he
requires. Not tree, not rock, breaks
the monotony of the scene, and the
greenish-brown color of the Tundra,
losing itself in dull, gray sky. is as
dreary picture as the human eye can
we'll rest upon.-Murray's Magazine.