Mäetagused (Jan 2000)
Tshuktshid IV
Abstract
On May 26 the ice on the river began to break. In the next few days the water level was so high that the river rose over shores and flooded the village of Vaeg.At places water reached as high as first-floor windows. People carried all their things to attics and roof and went to live in tents. And though alcohol was usually sold in native Chukchi villages only at national holidays, on this occasion people were permitted to buy one bottle of brandy per person every day.People gathered to sing, talk and drink alcohol. My friend and me found us in the company of Moshalski, the local school principle, and two other men. Our conversation began on the subject of the local flood, then turned to the universal Flood and Jesus Christ.Moshalski had been working as a school teacher in Kamchatka and told a legend of a local deity Kutka, who resided in heaven and every once in a while visited women on earth. Kutka had children with many women. Having heard that gods wished to destroy all people on earth, he built a large ship to save his descendants. Before the beginning of the flood he gathered all his relatives, birds and animals on board the ship.Then the flood began and lasted for forty days. Mammoths came too late and were all killed in the flood. When the water began to sink Kutka landed his ship on a mountain peak in Kamtchatka. Thus he became the forefather of all local tribes.One of the local construction workers then told a version of a story of Jesus Christ as the son of Herod's twin brother. On the following day of the flood in Vaeg, local girls told me story of a Chukchi hunter, who had lost his way in the tundra. Having been missing for six months he could not remember where he had been. After having sought help from the local shaman, he learned that he had been in an underground cave with mammoths, who fed on the frozen grass of permafrost. One of the mammoths had taken pity in him and had helped the man out. The article concludes with descriptions of the universal Flood written on fragmentary Sumerian clay tablets.
