ST.PETERSBURG THE SHORTEST WAY TO THE ARCTIC

Saving Original Art As a Part of World Culture

Chuner Taksami,
Director of the Peter the Great
Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography

      CT -- Huge old closets are filled with shamans' tambourines of different shapes and sizes with ritual small bone figures and unique, large masks of ghosts which shamans used when communicating with them. Only five such masks exist. They were found in Taimyr. Two of them are preserved in St Petersburg, with the other three in Dudinka, in the local folklore museum. Alongside are shelves containing finely-carved wooden vessels, various kinds of bark baskets stitched with horse hair, leather flasks and other exotic items such as Yakut vessels for kumys called choron and kapala - a ritual cup made from the back part of the human skull and intended for Lamaist rituals--from the Buryat region. Along the next wall there is a collection of skiing crooks, the lower part of which is not different from a regular wooden ski pole. However, the original upper part of the crook renders it multi-functional, either as an oar, a bow, a snow scraper or a scoop to remove ice from a socket It is a convenient and utilitarian tool.
      These fascinating artifacts are housed in St Petersburg in an old building on the Neva River in the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography named after Peter the Great known as the Chamber of Curiosities. Over 30,000 such items are maintained by the museum, things that for centuries were created in the Far North. Harsh conditions stimulated the imagination to fashion objects from materials at hand. Therefore, on view here are a deer horn snow beater, a whalebone snuff box and a bird's foot purse. There's also a clothing collection to rival any super-fashionable couturier, with wood-fiber robes ornamented in bright blue, deer and other fine Siberian fur parkas (coats without buttons), fish-skin parkas and even raven and condor feathers. Here there are robes of wood fiber with bright blue ornamentation, parkas (fur coats without buttons) of deer fur and other expensive Siberian furs, parkas of fish skin and even raven and condor feathers. These are unique examples with no correspondents anywhere in the world.

       OB -- How did all that get from the North to the banks of the Neva? How were these priceless collections--ethnographical, anthropological and archeological--put together? I put these questions to the Director of the museum, Chuner Mikhailovich Taksami, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Chairman of the Expert Council of the Committee on the Problems of the North and Far East of the State Duma of the Russian Federation, Vice-President of the Association of Minor Peoples of the North, Siberia and the Far East and expert of the Northern Countries Council. This is what the scientist had to say.

       CT -- These collections were gathered for almost three centuries, beginning with the orders of Peter I, who constantly exhorted, "Any curious things found in Siberia are to be bought by the Governor of Siberia, or whoever is in charge, for a real price and relayed to His Majesty." The exhibits on view found their way to the Chamber of Curiosities via state officials and common people, but Russian expeditions with participation of the best scientists of the time were the main source from which the museum received not only single items, but whole collections. Beginning in 1718, the new Academy of Sciences assigned Doctor Daniel Messerschmidt to research a number of areas in Siberia and Dauria. With German thoroughness, he collected everything from herbs and minerals to birds. Also, he made maps and described peoples. His was the museum's richest collection, chronicling the ethnography of the peoples of Siberia and their art. Further, the scientist designed a whole set of instructions, which became a manual on the scientific collection of minerals. Sadly, none of the exhibits from the original collection have survived. Everything was destroyed in the fire of 1747.

       OB -- Obviously, the collections have also been replenished thanks to the discovery and development of new northern areas?

       CT -- Undoubtedly. There was great interest in studying the culture of the peoples inhabiting the North, Kamchatka, Kuril and the Aleutian Isles. Materials were donated and sold to the museum by people of varying professions-scientists, craftsmen, engineers, merchants, missionaries, bureaucrats, soldiers, sailors and travelers. Thanks to the famous collector Ivan Voznesensky the Chamber of Curiosities today has the largest ethnographical collection, not only of the peoples of Siberia and the North, but also of the native tribes of the Northwest American continent.
       In his youth, Finnish traveler and ethnographer Matias Kastren became interested in the languages and ethnographic similarities among Finno-Ugrian-Samoed peoples. In the mid-19th century, he put together a magnificent collection of Eastern Samoed and North Enisey Tunguse clothes and weapons. And owing to the dedicated, thorough work of generations of scientists, researchers and travelers, the museum's collection expanded. Notable among them was Vladimir Klavdievich Arseniev, who for a long time was connected with the Chamber of Curiosities. The two shaman pillars obtained by him still decorate our museum.

       OB -- Chuner Mikhailivich, are interesting artifacts still being found in the North?

       CT -- The tragedy of the North is its shortage of indigenous people who preserve and value their ethnicity. The people have lost not only their material culture. They have forgotten the ethics of their nationality with respect to the land. The museum contains many ritual objects. In earlier times, these things were kept in every family. They symbolized ghosts of home or of the place where they lived.
       I was born and grew up in a Nivkh village, in the lower reaches of the Amur. After graduation from Leningrad University, I enrolled in graduate school and began working in the Siberian department of our museum. During my visits home, I convinced my relatives to give me the things that they still had. I remember my mother saying goodbye to her ritual masks when she gave them to me the night before my departure. She talked to them, fed them, brushed their lips with berry juice.
       Our collection is unique in world museums. Moreover, many of our exhibits are no longer to be found among the people who once used them. These things are of great cultural and scientific value. Such objects as traditional hunting and fishing tools, shamans' objects, children's toys, smoking pipes, household utensils, clothes and many others, tell us about the lives of Eskimos, Aleutians, Chukches, Koryaks, Yakuts, Evenks, Nenets, Nivkhes, Nganasan and Dolgan and help us to come closer to understanding the Arctic peoples' traditional philosophy of life.
       Our museum is Russia's leading academic museum. Outstanding scientists have worked here. It was here that fundamental works about Northern aborigines were written, such as the historic and ethnographic essay, Siberian Peoples and the atlas, Siberian Peoples. These two collective works comprise a whole epoch in scientific study, not to mention the monographs dedicated to each people separately. It was here in 1932 that the written languages of all the 26 peoples of the North and Siberia were created. Textbooks and other books in those languages were first published here. As a result, our city became a recognized center for the science of the North.

       OB -- Many people imagine the North and the Arctic as an ice desert enveloped in cold darkness and unsuitable for human habitation. Do your collections on these different countries confirm or disprove this?
       CT-Recently, we've been trying to organize as many exhibitions as possible in St Petersburg, the Leningrad Region and abroad. We are attempting to show our visitors who these peoples are, who from time immemorial have lived in ice silence, become one with the area and learned to value and use everything that the original, rich northern environment and Arctic civilization had to offer. In particular, visitors admire the art of bone carving, the traditions of which were preserved and developed for thousands of years. Objects from walrus fangs, deer horns and excavated mammoth bone impress not only with their fine shapes, but with the innate esthetic intuition of the craftsman. They reflect all the household occupations of Arctic aborigines, their daily life and spiritual culture.
       Currently, the culture of the Russian North is of great interest abroad. The following exhibitions have garnered great success: "The Culture and Everyday Life of the Peoples of the North" and "Arctic Shamans" in Finland, and "Wonderful Arctic World", "Siberian Hunters" and "Arctic Masterpieces" in Germany. Presently, we are preparing an exhibition to be called "Arctic Civilizations", which will be held in Tampere, Finland.
       Our task is to preserve this original art as part of world culture. But this is possible only if the native peoples of the North continue to exist. We hope to encourage understanding of that and of the need to provide conditions in which these people can realize their creative potential.