North Eastern Europe - The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques And Discoveries Of The English Nation - Volume 3 - Collected By Richard Hakluyt
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[Footnote: The Accompanying _Fac-Simile_ Of A Quaint Old Engraving
Of A Samoyed Sleigh And Idols Gives An Excellent Idea
Of both.] I saw much
of the footing of the sayd Samoeds, and of the sleds that they ride in.
There was one of their sleds broken, and lay by the heape of idols, and
there I saw a deers skinne which the foules had spoyled: and before
certaine of their idols blocks were made as high as their mouthes, being
all bloody, I thought that to be the table whereon they offered their
sacrifice: I saw also the instruments, whereupon they had roasted flesh,
and as farre as I could perceiue, they make their fire directly under the
spit.
Loshak being there present tolde me that these Samoeds were not so hurtful
as they of Ob are, and that they haue no houses, as indeede I saw none, but
onely tents made of Deers skins, which they vnderproppe with stakes and
poles: their boates are made of Deers skins, and when they come on shoare
they cary their boates with them upon their backes: for their cariages they
haue no other beastes to serue them, but Deere onely. As for bread and
corne they haue none, except the Russes bring it to them: their knowledge
is very base, for they know no letter. [Footnote: This is one of the oldest
accounts of the Samoyeds we possess. Giles Fletcher, who in 1588 was Queen
Elizabeth's Ambassador to the Czar, writes, in his accounts of Russia, of
the Samoyeds in the following way:
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