Encyclopaedia Britannica > Volume 21, ROT-Siam

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Ko 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 ThraJcischen 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, who 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 Cephallenia, 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
clown 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 TTral-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 Nyanyaz. The Ostiaks know them under the
names of Orghoy, 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 difi'ers
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. Ho 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 Voguls, 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,
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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. Radloff’s 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 lb),
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
left in the tundra. The religion is fetichism mixed with Shamanism,
the shaman {tadji-bei) being a representative of the great divinity,
the Hum. 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. The
Samoyedes on the Obi in Tomsk may number about 7000; they
have adopted the Russian manner of life, but have difficulty in
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.