“The dance and custom you describe as existing among the Siberians I know nothing of. I neither saw nor heard of it. I do not think there is any of the mushroom species in the Tchuktchi country. The land is absolutely barren. I lived in the tents of that people for seven or eight months, and they never paid any attention to me as a stranger, in the way of hiding their customs from me. They would have their drumming and medicine performances before me, just as though I was one of them. The custom you allude to may prevail among the Yakouts and Tchuktchi, nevertheless, but I think it more probable that it exists with the Northwest tribes, such as the Samoyeds or Osjaks.”—(Personal letter from the Arctic explorer, W. H. Gilder, author of “Schwatka’s Search,” etc., dated New York, Oct. 15, 1889.)
“Captain Healey, of the revenue cutter ‘Bear,’ brought to this place, last autumn, a shipwrecked seaman, who had been rescued by the Siberian Tchuktchis, with whom he remained some two years. He described their mode of making an intoxicating liquor thus: in the summer, mushrooms or fungi were collected in large quantity, and eaten by a man who, like our Indians, prepared himself by fasting for the feast. After eating enormous quantities of the fungi, he vomited into a receptacle, and again loaded up, time and again, and disgorged the stuff in a semi-fermented or half-digested condition. It was swallowed by those who were waiting for the drink; and his urine was also imbibed, to aid in producing a debauch, resulting in frenzied intoxication.”—(Personal letter from Surgeon B. J. D. Irwin, U. S. army, dated San Francisco, Cal., April 28, 1888.)
“The seaman, J. B. Vincent, whom I found with the Tchuktchi last summer, says that they collect in their tents a species of fungi, and during their carnival season, corresponding to about our Christmas holidays, one man is selected, who masticates a quantity of it, and drinks an enormous supply of water; he then gets into his deer’s team, and is driven from camp to camp, repeating the mastication and drinking at each camp, where his urine is drunk by the people with an effect of intoxication. The arrival of this man is hailed with much pomp and ceremony by the people. The seaman, Vincent, witnessed several of these ceremonies, and was pressed to join in the orgies, being called ‘a boy,’ when he declined to sustain his part.”—(Personal letter from Capt. M. A. Healey, U. S. R. M. Steamer “Bear,” dated San Francisco, Cal., May 19, 1888.)