Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 21.djvu/271

Rh S A M S A M 251 No modern traveller appears to have visited Samothrace till the year 1858, when it was fully explored by Conze, who published an account of it, as well as the larger neighbouring islands, in 1860. The ancient city, of which the ruins are called Paleopoli, was situ- ated on the north side of the island close to the sea ; its site is clearly marked, and considerable remains still exist of the ancient walls, which were built in massive Cyclopean style, but no vestiges are found of temples or other public buildings. The modern vil- lage is on the hill above. The island is at the present day very poor and thinly peopled, and has scarcely any trade ; but a con- siderable sponge fishery is carried on around its coasts by traders from Smyrna (Conze, Reise auf den Inseln des Thrakischen Meeres, Hanover, 1860). The similarity of name naturally led to the supposition that Samothrace was peopled by a colony from Samos in Ionia, and this is stated as an historical fact by some Greek writers, but is rejected by Strabo, Avho considers that in both cases the name was derived from the physical conformation of the islands, Samos being an old word for any lofty height (Strabo, x. 2, p. 457). The same characteristic is found in Cepballenia, which was also called Samos in the time of Homer. SAMOYEDES, a Ural-Altaic stock, scattered in small groups over an immense area, from the Altai Mountains down the basins of the Obi and Yenisei, and along the shores of the Arctic Ocean from the mouth of the latter river to the White Sea. They may be subdivided into two main groups. (A) Those inhabiting the southern parts of the governments of Tomsk and Yeniseisk have been so much under Tartar influence as to be with difficulty separated from the Tartars ; their sub-groups are the Kamasin Tartars, the Kaibals, the Motors, the Beltirs, the Karagasses, and the Samoyedes of the middle Obi. (B) Those inhabiting the subarctic region form three separate sub-groups : (a) the Yuraks in the coast^region from the Yenisei to the White Sea ; (b) the Tavghi Samoyedes, between the Yenisei and the Khatanga; (c) the Ostiak Samoyedes, intermingled with Ostiaks, to the south of the others, in the forest regions of Tobolsk and Yeniseisk. Their whole number may be estimated at from 20,000 to 25,000. The proper place of the Samoyedes among the Ural- Altaians is very difficult to determine. As to their present name, signifying in its present Russian spelling "self-eaters," many ingenious theories have been advanced, but the current one, proposed by Schrenk, who derived the name "Samo-yedes" from "Syroyadtsy, or "raw-eaters, " leaves much to be desired. Perhaps the etymology ought to be sought in quite another direction, namely, in the like- ness to Suomi. The names assumed by the Samoyedes themselves are Hazovo and Nyanya'z. The Ostiaks know them under the names of Orglioy, or Workho, both of which recall the Ugrians ; the name of Hui is also in use among the Ostiaks, and that of Yaron among the Zyrians. The language now spoken by the Samoyedes is, like the Finnish languages, agglutinative, but in both lexicon and grammar it differs so widely from these that Prof. Ahlqvist does not regard the simi- larity as greater than, for instance, that between Swedish and Persian. Much remains to be done for the study of Samoyedic, but it may be regarded as the most remote cousin of the Ugrian. It is a sonorous speech, pleasant to the ear. No fewer than three separate dialects and a dozen sub-dialects are known in it. The conclusions deducible from their anthropological features apart from the general difficulty of arriving at safe conclusions on this ground alone, on account of the variability of the ethnological type under various conditions of life are also rather indefinite. The Samoyedes are recognized as having the face more flattened than undoubtedly Finnish stocks ; their eyes are narrower, their complexion and hair darker. Zuyeff describes them as like the Tunguses, with flattened nose, thick lips, little beard, and black, hard hair. At first sight they may be mistaken for Ostiaks, especially on the Obi ; but they are undoubtedly different. Castren considers them as a mixture of Ugrians with Mongolians, and M. Zograf as brachycephalic Mongolians. Quatrefages classes them, together with the Yoguls, as two families of the Ugrian sub-branch, this last, together with the Sabmis (Laponians), forming part of the Ugrian or Boreal branch of the yellow or Mongolic race. It is certain that formerly the Samoyedes occupied the Altai Mountains, whence they were driven northwards by Turco-Tartars probably at the time of the rise of the empire of the Huns, that is, before the present era. Their further and later migration towards the north may be said to be going on still. Thus, the Kaibals left the Sayan Mountains and took possession of the Abakan steppe (Minusinsk region), abandoned by the Kirghizes, in the earlier years of last century, and in north-eastern Russia the Zyrians are still driving the Samoyedes farther north, towards the Arctic coast. Since the researches of Schrenk it may be con- sidered as settled that in historical times the Samoyedes were inhabitants of the so-called Ugria in the Northern Urals, while it would result from M. RadlofTs extensive researches that the numberless graves containing remains of the Bronze Period which are scattered throughout West Siberia, on the Altai, and on the Yenisei in the Minusinsk region, are relics of a nation which he considers as Ugro-Samoyedes. This nation, very numerous at that epoch, which preceded the Iron-Period civilization of the Turco- Tartars, were pretty well acquainted with mining ; the remains of their mines, sometimes 50 feet deep, and of the furnaces where they melted copper, tin, and gold, are very numerous ; their weapons of a hard bronze, their pots (one of which weighs 75 Ib), and their melted and polished bronze and golden decorations testify to a high development of artistic feeling and industrial skill, strangely contrasting with the low level reached by their earthen- ware. They were not nomads, but husbandmen, and their irriga- tion canals are still to be seen. They kept horses (though in small numbers), sheep, and goats, but no traces of their rearing horned cattle have yet been found. The Turkish invasion of southern Siberia by the Tukus, Khagases, and Uigurs, which took place in the 5th century, drove them farther north and probably reduced most of them to slavery, these slaves seeming to have taught mining to their masters. At present they are disappearing, and have almost entirely lost their earlier civilization. M. Polyakoff quite rightly observes that the Samoyedes, who now maintain themselves by hunting and fishing on the lower Obi, partly mixed in the south with Ostiaks, recall the condition of the inhabitants of France and Germany at the epoch of the reindeer. Clothed in skins, like the troglodytes of the Weser, they make use of the same implements in bone and stone, eat carnivorous animals the wolf included and cherish the same superstitions (of which those regarding the teeth of the bear are perhaps the most characteristic) as were current among the Stone-Period inhabitants of western Europe. Their heaps of reindeer horns and skulls memorials of religious ceremonies are exactly similar to those dating from the similar period of civiliza- tion in northern Germany. Their huts often resemble the well- known stone huts of the Esquimaux ; their graves are mere boxes leffrin the tundra. The religion is fetichism mixed with Shamanism, the shaman (tadji-bei) being a representative of the great divinity, the Num. The Yalmal peninsula, where they find so great facilities for hunting, is especially venerated by the Obi Ostiak Samoyedes, and there they have one of their chief idols, Khese. They are more independent than the Ostiaks, less yielding in character, although as hospitable as their neighbours. Reduced almost to slavery by Russian merchants, and brought to the extreme of misery by the use of ardent spirits, they are disappearing rapidly, small-pox complet- ing the work of destruction. They still maintain the high standard of honesty mentioned by historical documents ; and, while the Russians plunder even the stores of their shamans, the Samoyedes never will take anything left in the tundra or about the houses by their " civilized " neighbours. The Yurak Samoyedes are courag- eous and warlike ; they offered armed resistance to the Russian invaders, and it is only since the beginning of the century that they have paid tribute. The exact number of the Ostiak Samoyedes is not known ; the Tavghi Samoyedes may number about 1000, and the Yuraks, mixed with the former, are estimated at 6000 in Obdorsk (about 150 settled), 5000 in European Russia in the tundras of the Mezen, and about 350 in Yeniseisk. Of the southern Samoyedes, who are completely Tartarized, the Beltirs (3070 in 1859) live by agriculture and cattle-breeding in the Abakan steppe. They profess Christianity, and speak a language closely resembling that of the Sagai Tartars. The Kaibals, or Koibals, can hardly be distinguished from the Minusinsk Tartars, and support themselves by rearing cattle. Castren considers that three of their stems are of Ostiak origin, the remainder being Samoyedic. The Kamasins, in the Kansk district of Yeniseisk, are either herdsmen or agriculturists. They speak the Samoyede language, with an admixture of Tartar words, and some of their stems contain a large Tartar element. The very interesting nomadic tribe of Karagasses, in the Sayan Mountains, is quite dis- appearing ; the few representatives of this formerly much more numerous stem are rapidly losing their anthropological features, their Turkish language, and their distinctive dress. The Motors are now little more than a memory. One portion of the tribe emi- grated to China and was there exterminated ; the remainder have disappeared among the Tuba Tartars and the Soyotes. Samoyedes on the Obi in Tomsk may number about 7000 ; they have adopted the Russian manner of life, but have difficulty m carrying on agriculture, and are a poverty-stricken population with little prospect of holding their own. SAMPIERDARENA (population in 1881, 19,501). See GENOA, vol. x. p. 157.