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The Chukchi Peninsula is a part of the Northwest
Passage sea route sought by explorers for centuries as
a possible trade route. It is much in the news now as it,
and the oil reserves that lay beneath it, are becoming
more and more accessible as the Polar ice caps melt.
In 1845 an expedition to find a Northwest Passage led
by Captain John Franklin disappeared – the fate of
Franklin and his men was big news and ships were
sent to track them down. In 1853 a man called Hooper,
on the ship HMS Plover sent to find Franklin, recorded
an account of a Chukchi shaman and his wife praying
to the
“directions”
when the ship became lost in a
blizzard. The moon rises and sets, the sun rises and
sets. Time and directions become sacred things. The
Chukchi were rather pleased to have met the men of
HMS Plover for they gave them matches – a revolution
for a people living in such cold climes! Indeed the
crew of HMS Plover and the Chukchi got on so well
that when the crew returned to London the captain was
court marshalled for spending more time with his
Chukchi mistress than he did looking for Franklin. And
that explains why you’ll find many English names like
Elizabeth and Robert among the Eskimo-like Chukchi
of North East Siberia. If you are visiting Greenwich
there’s an obelisk shaped memorial on the river near
the Cutty Sark to a chap named Bellot, who died
during another unsuccessful search for John Franklin.
The mystery wasn’t solved until the 1980s. It turns out
those who didn’t simply die of the cold, scurvy or TB
were seen off by lead poisoning! An early experiment
in tinned food that went horribly wrong.
Some schools of thought suggest that religious or
spiritual beliefs, no matter where in the world or
when, all began with the moon. In Mecca, Islam’s
most holy site, the great black stone or Kaaba, that
was probably sacred to an earlier religion, has
embedded in its eastern corner a piece of moon stone
and at the centre of Christian belief Christ is killed
and his body disappears from the tomb for three
worrying nights until he returns and all is well with
the world - rather as the moon disappears from the
night sky for three days in each lunar cycle
.
The Lady Who Was The Lamp
The creation myths still told by aboriginal people
also support the idea that time came from the moon.
The Chukchi are indigenous to the Siberia’s Chukchi
Peninsula high up in the Arctic Circle. Similar to,
but not the same people as the Eskimos or Inuit. on
the coast are the maritime Chukchi and inland live
the reindeer Chukchi. In a reindeer Chukchi story
the Moon planned to abduct a girl but a magical
reindeer disguised the girl as a lamp by the hearth
of the tent. The Moon searched for the girl and just
as he was giving up the girl changed back to taunt
him before changing back into a lamp. Gradually
the lady
who was
the lamp tired the moon and was
able to capture him. The Moon begged for his life.
"I shall be a light for your people if you let me go.
I shall indicate the seasons. I shall turn night into
day. I shall measure out the year.”
So she let the
Moon go, and since then he has served man as a
timekeeper.
Chuckchi at the North-West Passage 1919