Subject: Re: baidarka Leaf-shaped and single Paddles - More musings
From: Ranald Gault (gaultr@cadvision.com)
Date: Sun Mar 05 2000 - 16:33:05 EST
> Bill Samson wrote
>
> PS - Does anybody know why, in the earliest images, most baidarka paddlers
> seem to be holding a feather duster?
>
The illustration on page 11 of George's book, by a member of
Bering's expedition in 1741, seems to be the source after
which the other two on pages 14 an 15 were drawn. In
Steller's account of a first contact during that expedition,
there is mention of a series of communicative gestures made
by an Aleut to the the Russian party on Bering's ship. One
of these goes: "After this the native became more confident,
came nearer to the ship, although with a certain caution,
tied a complete skin of a hawk to another stick and gave it
to our Koryak interpreter." The next day, the gesture was
repeated; Jochelson, quotes Muller (a contemporary of
Steller who also wrote an account of Bering's voyages):
"Their [the Aleut's] token of peace consisted of a staff 5
feet long, to the upper end of which were attached different
feathers without any order." Jochelson comments:
"Concerning the stick with feathers, presented by the
'American,' Muller refers to calumet." Then, apparently
making reference to Hennepin [source uncertain]: "Calumet
was used at different ceremonies; at the conclusion of peace
and making of treaties, at the solicitation of rain or fair
weather, at the driving out of pernicious elements and the
calling for of benevolent agencies, etc.(1)" Jochelon's
view of the Aleut gesture was that they "without any doubt
have taken the Russians for unearthly beings to whom they
rendered divine homage. The hawk's skin was presented as an
offering and not as a token of peace and friendship."
(1) Jochelson, Waldemar, 1931 (1933). History, Ethnology,
and Anthropolgy of the Aleut. Publication No. 432 of the
Carnegie Institute, 1966, reprinted after the edition of
1933, pp 14-16,26.
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