MECHANIZED    NOMADS
varieties of men that exist in the world within our own
country^5, a worker boasted to me at Igarka, when I discussed
this question with him. And he had an almost snobbish
liking for the negro stokers on the British ships that called
at the port. There are no blacks in Russia^3, I teased him.
'But they would like to live here^5, he replied. 'A black
comrade from New York said so only the other day when he
was interviewed before the microphone in Moscow.'
The main principle applied in the campaign to 'raise
the Arctic natives' is to get it done as far as possible by
the natives themselves. They are asked to form nomadic
Soviets, a form of government which is presented to them
as only a short step away from their own tribal councils.
Nor is the revolution halting at the fringe of the Arctic.
The tribes are encouraged by Red missionaries to collectivize
their reindeer herds, and the resistance of the shamans, their
medicine men, is broken by young Communists who expose
them to ridicule. They do it by giving them a taste of their
own medicine. As soon as the tribes find out that doctors
and veterinary surgeons can drive away just as effectively
as the shaman the evil spirits that have crept into the bodies
of men and reindeer, they give their confidence to the new
doctors. And soon they believe what their new friends tell
them: that the shaman is a parasite who tries to live on their
ignorance and superstition.
My little progressive Dolgan hostess No. 2 on the Khatanga
river told me how she herself was convinced that the young
Comsomol girl who visited her was right and not the
shaman. 'He said that the aeroplanes were flying devils,
with whom the Russians had made a pact to destroy us.
But last year I saw one and touched it myself. Then I saw
that it was really made of the same material as my tea-pot.
And when the pilot invited us to fly with him, my grand-
father decided that, being the oldest, he would risk least if he
exposed himself to the danger. When he came back he
reported that he had been in heaven and seen no gods
"5