The Hattiesburg news. (Hattiesburg, Miss.) 1908-1917, 1915-08-06
THESE FOLKS DON'T
KNOW WARS over
sAMoYEDs, A MoNGoLIAN PEG.
PIE, THINK THEY'RE STILL
FIGHTING IN CRIMEA.


yond the northern limits of the scrub
pine and shaggy, stunted fir, there is
Russian people, the Samoyeds, who.
in all likelihood, have not yet learned
that the Crimean war is ended, and
who have no idea of the difficulties that
the Tsar, the Little Father who adopt
ed them, is facing in present world
war. So vast is the Muscovite realm
that rumors of the greatest war in
history cannot have penetrated to its
outskirts, to the wastes fringing the
Arctic, to the mountain tangles just
beyond Mongolia, or to the evergreen
forests of KamSchatka. Russia har-
bors many strange peoples and all of
the languages of the northern hemi
sphere within her boundaries, and it
will be long before the news of the
present war, told in friend pidgin,
will arrest the attention of her SUBJ
ject tribes" So begins a bulletin is
sued by the National Geographic So
ciety, which tells about the fragments
of race into the bleak north by the
Tartars, a race which lost it's foot
hold in the more fruitful, generous
south, and which now is paying the
penalty of being pushed to the wall
by forgetting most OF it's former civil
ization and by dying out. Under the
protection of the Tsar, these people
are assured of a peaceful oblivion be-
hind the white veil of the north. The
bulletin continues:
THE samOyeds are Monaghan peO-
pie, who live in the wide sweep Of
tundra country that reaches from the
mouth of the White Sea across Eu-
rope, in places a belt more than 500
miles in depth, from the Arctic Sea
to the northern line where the forests
vanish. They are reindeer herders,
fishermen and hunters of seal. 1t is
through their surpluses in these
things that they come into contact
with the Russian trader, who visits
them in their far northern centers, or
whom they make long journeys to
visit the city of Archangel. Reindeer
skins, seal skins, furs, fish and rein,
deer meat are sold by the Samoyeds
to their Russian neighbors, for the
Russian official and the Russian trad
or is established in widely scattered
0utDosts in the north country, isolat-
| ed from the world, many hundreds of
miles from railroads, telephones and
| telegraphs, and beyond the reach OF
the press.
"The Yurak Samoyeds, that branch
which dwells in European Russia, ii
is estimated, counts in all only abou.
5000. Of these, 5000 live in the Eu-
ropean tundra. In build they are
short and stocky, with faces much
more f1attened than the Firms, with
thick lips, black hair flat noses, and
dark compilations. They are said tC
be a fearless and warlike people
though it is generations since they
have given any evidence of aggressive
temperament. In their dealings witt
the stranger they are described as
mild and scrupulOusly honest.
Mighty rivers, like the Pschora
drain through their lands into the Arc
tic Sea. In the brief summer anC
spring times, these streams, thawine
much sooner in their southern sources
sweep in turbulent floods over the
fiat lands bordering their lower
reaches. OF roads through the tun
dra, there are almost none, and sucl
as exist are possible only for tn,
hardy reindeer and the all-endurin;
little horses of the north. Small vii
lagos and human habitations are hun
dreds of miles apart, and, then, often
are merely post stages, which the Rus
sian government has established TO
the transportation of mails and rar,
passengers beyond the confines of civ
ilization to such far places as the vii
lage Aschino.
"The Samoyeds are a poor people
mostly, and very thrifty. They elk
out a precarious existence in thei
inhospitable country, and have learn
:" trough necessity to eat anythin,
which ;-~0ws there. They eat ever
the wolve9 that menace the safety O
their reind cr and of themselves upol
their seal and fur hunting trips. Be
sides meat and fish, the Samoyed
have a plan, hard, black bread a.
staple, an another bread, which i
baked of ,Itrid 6cb opd rvo ,,oo1u