MOSCOW, February 22. /TASS/. Who actually has invented diapers (could those be peoples of the Far North, and could it have been in the ancient times)? What games do children living on the permafrost prefer? What does an Arctic limousine look like? How many calories does a person need to survive north of the Arctic Circle without getting overweight? "The Arctic - Inhabited Land" exhibition gives answers to these questions. The exhibition is a key exposition of the Russian Ethnographic Museum, which celebrates the 120th anniversary in 2022.
The collection, which originates from the Russian Museum’s ethnography department (St. Petersburg), has more than 700,000 artefacts - the cultural heritage of Eurasia’s 158 peoples.
The collection of dozens of thousands of objects, devoted to the Arctic region, is a true depositary of the Far North’s peoples.
People of one fire
The museum’s collections of about 30,000 objects continue to grow. "The Arctic - Inhabited Land permanent exhibition, which we opened in 2016 to the International cultural forum and which will continue at least to 2023, features objects representing 16 Arctic peoples of the Siberian region, as well as local Russians (Pomors), Komi, Karels, Saami," that is the Russian Arctic zone’s peoples, the museum’s representative, Head of the Siberia and Far East peoples’ ethnography Valentina Gorbacheva said.
"We can see here so many wonderful objects, or rather ideas that can stir and perplex anyone, and some of them are new even to specialists," guide Elena Fedorova said. She has been touring visitors for about fifteen years. Elena explains to guests what every object is about or how it is used.
The oldest exhibits are more than 2,000 years old. To very many objects quite applicable would be words "archaic" and "till now." Some objects, which have not really changed, are used in today’s everyday life.
"All guides like this area," Elena said pointing to a huge photo. A small boy wears a fur overcoat, his parents are by the fireside with a pot. They look with cautious interest. A designer has made a collage of two pictures - an old one (the woman and the fire) and a modern one (a kid wearing the fur coat in Chukchi’s yaranga (tent). "The picture stirs a very strong wave of feelings," the guide said. "We can feel that those traditions - at least the main ones - have been preserved to date."
From the old times, the Northern families have been called as "people of one fire." Over centuries, the Far North’s various peoples share a special attitude to fire as the most important attribute of human lives. From one generation to another they tell the legend about the Fire Witch, or the Owner of Fire.
"Once upon a time there lived a young woman," Elena told us looking at the picture. "She was in the chum, boiling something in a pot above the fire - it was food for the son. The fire was hot. Suddenly one spark flew up and then fell on the boy. The boy started crying of the burning pain. The woman got mad and threw around all the firebrands."
The fire stopped, and it became cold and dark inside the tent. The woman could not continue cooking. No matter how hard she tried, but the fire wouldn’t start again.
"The woman had to run to her neighbors: the moment she entered their tent, the fire there went out. The horrified woman rushed to her old granny, who lived in the outskirts. The granny said: "What’ve you done! You’ve hurt the Fire Witch! Come, let’s see what you’ve done." They came to the tent, the granny looked at the fireplace and saw a small hag: her eyes were burning like fire, and her look was filled with evil. The granny pleaded her to return fire to people, but the hag wouldn’t listen. However, by the evening, she said: "I can return the fire in exchange for the boy - from his heart I’ll make fire." The woman had to agree, or all other people would’ve died. The moment she agreed, the fire burst up, but the boy disappeared to be never seen again."
The purpose of some objects, which people still use, may be not evident without prompts: a chair made from a whale vertebra, a spoon made from the frontal bone of a deer, a dish from a mammoth tusk for serving meat. "Nowadays, household items are different, though quite often such objects are still in use," the guide told us.
Brutal toys and extraordinary skills
Among the exhibits, which tell about babies and children in the Arctic, a cradle, made of reindeer fur and decorated with red fabric, beads, and rows of metal buttons, seems the most apparent in terms of the function.
"This is a cradle of the Evenks, the late 19th century," Elena continued. "It belonged to the family of a local prince and was used by a few generations." The bright red cloth is a symbol of vital energy and protection from evil spirits, which, the Evenks believed, could not stand anything bright, shiny, noisy - as their world has nothing of the kind. "When those spirits come to the human world and face such objects, they get afraid of them and do not harm people, because the objects act as amulets."
Beads have been the most popular decoration for women’s and children’s clothes. People living in Siberia’s North usually bought them at fairs. The cradle is decorated with numerous buttons with anchors, which resemble coins.
"Metal buttons are still very popular in the Arctic. They, probably, have lost the meaning, they are rather valuable than magic. Almost a currency, which could be exchanged for food or clothes," the guide said.
We come to a rattle. "It is modern, made of the hooves of fawns," Elena said. "Imagine, a baby in a cradle is playing with such a brutal toy?" Next to the rattle we can see accurately arranged objects: those are either plugs or teeth of a giant animal.
"This is a game for elder kids. These are deer bones: phalanges and hoofed bones. The bones are arranged in the form of an argish - a deer caravan. Visitors surely imagine a scene of migration: a herd of deer in front, people in sleigh follow the animals," she said, adding that game was popular not only "in days of yore." Children in families of reindeer herders still play these objects to learn how the adults live.
Traditional games of children in the North in many aspects prove their extraordinary abilities. Can a kid of seven grab a rope, catch a deer with it and put the animal in the sled?
"There, boys train to do it since the age of two: at first they throw rope onto sticks in the ground or snow, then on the antlers of a deer lying on the ground or - again - on the antlers stuck into the snow, then on the deer itself - a running deer," Elena said.
Another traditional obligation of kids is to help the adults rescue deer from the biggest summer trouble. The bloodsucking insects, which make people and animals migrate across the tundra.
"Forehead pads with tassels protect the deer eyes from those insects, which bite mercilessly," Elena continued. "Horseflies and gadflies lay eggs under the skin, making deer suffer greatly. Adult reindeer herders or parents collect horsefly larvae, spread them on a deer skin and ask the kids to crush them with a knife."
Fur, cards and calories
"Oh, our herder’s got a new belt," Elena said, pointing to a figure in a bright blue shirt over a malitsa (fur jacket) with a red ornament and a leather belt. "This is a status outfit, expensive. In the North, cloth is an expensive material, and only a wealthy person could afford such clothes. Here we can see a [traditional] belt as a key element, but formerly it used to be very funny - with bone overlays, with carved card suits: diamonds, clubs, hearts, spades." This belt decoration demonstrated one of the most popular entertainments in the tundra. "They are herding deer and - what else can they be doing? Two regular occupations - playing cards and playing chess. There is no Internet there, of course, and nobody kills time staring at tablets or phones. In terms of chess skills they can definitely beat grandmasters of the world," Elena said, remembering: "That belt was also painted with pink female nail polish - for greater beauty. A very spectacular thing it was."
The Northerners wore in summer the clothes from the cloth, which they had bought from Russian sellers. In winter - always harsh and long - their outfits were made of animal skins. The Nganasans and Evenks, who hunted wild deer wore soviks - the hooded overcoats, where only the face remained open. At times, Russian travelers exploring Siberia were shocked by their figures in the distance. The travelers wrote in diaries about headless creatures.
Women, the Nenets, Khants, Ngasans and Ents, traditionally wore the outfit, which could be opened - so that women could do what they were to do - to deliver a baby and to feed it with milk. A fur coat could be both an overcoat and an underwear.
"Siberian aborigines, those who live in the Arctic, have a different heat exchange," Elena told us. "They concentrate thermal energy and tolerate low temperatures very well. At the same time they eat food rich in calories, with a lot of fat. Their traditional diet could be about 11,000 calories to produce energy and keep them warm. They practically never accumulate excess weight. Have you ever seen an overweight Chukchi or Koryak? There is no such thing."
A traditional outfit for children - with cuts for arms, with a big hood - looks very modern and practical.
"This jumpsuit is traditional. Made of fawn skin," Elena said. "We think about the magic, very archaic relations between deer and people. Even the deer ears are on the hood. The buttons look like deer eyes."
Another structural detail - a pocket in the jumpsuit’s bottom. "It was used to stretch a special sack, like modern diapers. It was filled with hydroscopic stuff - moss or a dry wood powder," she said.
Magic horn
The Russian people normally traveled to the cold North for valuable materials - fur and mammoth tusks. In exchange, they offered tobacco, alcohol, guns, pressed tea leafs.
"The Chukchi paid a lot for a bar of tea - two fat male deer," the guide continued. "They sliced the tea bar to make a very strong drink."
Mammoth tusks have been hunted in the Arctic for centuries (nowadays this occupation is outlawed). The permafrost has preserved the tusks perfectly. Very often the tusks are seen along rivers, when water retreats opening the bones. An average tusk is about 100 kilos. Since the animals, which have surrounded people in the North, never had that big bones, the local legends have many stories about tusks. The people believed that was an elephant-like animal with enormous tusks, it lived inside the ground and dug tunnels down there.
"As time went by, the Russian Pomors began selling the tusks as unicorn horns - claiming they help from male infirmity, from fever, and from what not. The price was high," she said.
Offline objects
The Pomors’ old ship - karbas, or Arctic limousine, the Chukchi’s narts (sleds), the Nenets sanctuary made of animal bones and skulls, or hunters’ boots made of seal skin - these and many other artifacts at the exhibition clearly demonstrate the survived archaic traditions. All the exhibits have been brought from their original places.
"The visitors to this museum can see quite closely these genuine objects," Elena Fedorova said. "It is a wonderfully unique moment, when a visitor looks at them not on the screen but right in reality, offline."