Bogoras transcribes songs and describes drumming he had no way to record. 1-350 gives "The Song of the Fox", a dialogue between the fox and the bear sung in two voices — "the fox speaks in a thin treble voice; the bear" in another — and 2-166 reports that in imitative song "the walrus and the bear roar, the reindeer snorts". A page of text cannot carry either.

Two published collections can. Чукотская и эскимосская музыка / Chukchi and Eskimo Music is field recording from both peoples of the book's own coast. Kolyma: chants de nature et d'animaux is Henri Lecomte's Sibérie 3, made in November 1992 in four Kolyma villages, and its middle stretch is the closest thing on record to what 2-166 describes: 27. Tundra birds, 1 and 28. Tundra birds, 2 are grebe, crane and barnacle goose, 29. The partridge a partridge, 30. The Kolyma gull a gull. The long text below is the record's apparatus, singer by singer.

The record

Kolyma: chants de nature et d'animaux / Songs of nature and animals. Buda Musique, Musique du Monde, 92566-2, "Sibérie 3", subtitled Čukč · Even · Jukaghir. Production, recordings, photographs and texts by Henri Lecomte; Collection Dominique Buscail, directed by Gilles Fruchaux. 43 tracks, 1 h 02′ 53″. Recorded in November 1992 in four villages of the lower Kolyma — Kolymskoe, Čerskij, Andrjuškino and Nelemnoe — most of them north of the Arctic Circle.

Three peoples: the Reindeer Chukchi of the Kolyma, the Evens, "once named Lamuts", and the Yukaghir.

Lecomte notes that the villages are mixed, that everyone speaks Yakut and Russian, and that the national languages are in difficulty.

Genres, as the booklet sets them out

Six, of which three matter here. Everyday, ritual, lyrical and personal songs — ike, iken, yakhte. Imitation of bird and animal cries, tied to birdcall hunting. And throat rasping on the breath drawn in and out, the basis of the Even seedie and Yukaghir londol dances: the Chukchi call it pič eynen, the Yukaghir tumun khontol. Round dances, drum music and heroic epic make up the rest.

Chukchi songs are described as slow and lyrical, built on a repeated theme ornamented with tremolo or staccato and broken by an almost imperceptible breath mid-phrase. Even songs use a more natural voice and fall into couplets, which lets a singer recover breath; each singer has their own syllables carried over from shamanic ceremony.

Čukč

Anna Alexandrovna Kaulgina (Kerginan, "light"), born August 1943 in the tundra, reindeer breeder. Kolymskoe, 11 November 1992. — 1. My planes, my racing reindeers, 2. Wordless song (a wordless song), 3. Song of the young sister-in-law.

Nikolaï Andreevič Dečkov (Peneteun), born late summer 1929 in the Khalerča tundra, reindeer breeder. Kolymskoe, 12 November 1992. — 4. When my wife waits for me in the jaranga, 5. You are the only one I have, 6. Čukčs are walking over there, it's obvious.

Innokenti Jakovlevič Goruline (Turkekeu), born in Khalerča, master breeder. Kolymskoe, 12 November 1992. — 7. Days are short. He is Even and sings only in Chukchi, which the booklet offers as its example of what the mixed villages do to a repertoire.

Ivan Ilijč Čymkil, born 1 January 1927 in Kolymskoe, head breeder. Kolymskoe, 12 November 1992. — 8. We can see these people came from another country, improvised on the spot for the recordist and his guide; 9. I am an eagle; 10. My daughter Irina told me.

Slava Egorovič Kemlil (Keul, "born in the tundra"), born 8 August 1963 in the Khalerča tundra, zoo technician. Čerskij, 16 November 1992. — 11. The tundra wakes up in the spring, wordless, over the single-membrane frame drum jarakh; 12. My beloved reindeer has great antlers. His improvisations run in three parts: imitation of animal or bird cries with the drum, recreating the atmosphere of the former shamanic kamlanye; then throat rasping, pič eynen; then the reindeer's cry.

Egor Andreevič Nutendli (Ruthlygin), born 31 December 1933 in the Khalerča tundra, head breeder, and Slava Kemlil's father. Čerskij, 16 November 1992. — 13. The Čukčs' black reindeer; 14. Before collectivization, which the booklet places halfway between singing and speech and which remembers his mother's herds before collectivization.

Even

Nikolaï Petrovič Slepsov (Čeri, "the black man"), born 22 December 1914 between the Aleseya and the Ingiguitka, storyteller. Kolymskoe, 12 November 1992. — 15. In old time life.

Evdokia Petrovna Agaphonnikova, born autumn 1922 in the tundra near the Aleseya, seamstress; her own compositions. Andrjuškino, 10 November 1992. — 16. My native sea, 17. Children, let us go outside.

Ivan Stepanovič Tataev, born spring 1924 in the tundra, reindeer breeder (mother Even, father Even-Yukaghir). Andrjuškino, 11 November 1992. — 18. My swift reindeer, which he sang carrying goods between Čerskij and Andrjuškino.

Anna Ivanovna Kilipčina (Nablo), born 10 August 1932 in Andrjuškino, breeder. Andrjuškino, 11 November 1992. — 19. I had an aunt who was Čukč.

Evdekia Mikhaïlovna Kilipčina, born 1938, breeder. Andrjuškino, 11 November 1992. — 20. The strong reindeer, 21. When I came back from the Kolyma.

Maria Petrovna Tataeva, born May 1928 in the tundra near the Sovinru, breeder. Andrjuškino, 11 November 1992. — 22. When I was already getting old, 23. When winter comes.

Anna Dimitrievna Neostroeva, born May 1935 in the Khalerča tundra near the Učakhate, seamstress. Kolymskoe, 11 November 1992. — 24. In my Khalerča, 25. Kolyma, when you have great waves; 26. Throat song, where she uses the Chukchi pič eynen technique; then the animal sequence — 27. Tundra birds, 1 and 28. Tundra birds, 2, grebe, crane and barnacle goose; 29. The partridge; 30. The Kolyma gull; and 31. My grey reindeer.

Jukaghir

Songs of the Oduls, the Yukaghir of the High Kolyma, gathered in the village of Andrjuškino — a people once of twelve tribes, and 400 souls at the 1979 census. The booklet describes the voice as natural and close to the Even manner.

Matriona Nikolaevna Toxtossa, born Kourilova (Eguedie), born 12 March 1941 at Toustakh-Seign, seamstress. Andrjuškino, 10 November 1992. — 32. On the river banks, the gulls' song, whose refrain is ij je juo; 33. I am standing here, a welcome to guests, on the deretii model of the Sakha tojuk.

Varvara Andreevna Slepsova, born 10 December 1928 near the Olera, reindeer breeder (father Yukaghir, mother Even). Andrjuškino, 11 November 1992. — 34. When I was a reindeer breeder.

Ekaterina Ivanova Tymkil (Mokoe, "the small one"), born 15 May 1921 near the Olera, seamstress. Kolymskoe, 12 November 1992. — 35. Long ago, while they were working, 36. I remember well the old olonkho's music (on the old olonkho, the Sakha epic), 37. When I was a little girl, 38. In spring geese come from far away, and 39. Let us dance and sing a little, where she is the only Yukaghir singer on the record to use tumun khontol throat clearing to imitate the reindeer's cry, in the seedi dance. Besides Yukaghir she speaks Even, Chukchi, Sakha and Russian.

Nikolaï Nikolaïevič Deškof (Tokhuian), born 7 November 1912 in the Prorva region, hunter. Nelemnoe, 19 November 1992. — 40. My land, winter here is very cold, 41. When I die, 42. I remember my youth. He and the singer after him sing in wadul, the southern Yukaghir dialect.

Akulina Vassilevna Slepsova, born 26 June 1930 in the taiga near the Nugundannoe, seamstress. Nelemnoe, 19 November 1992. — 43. There are no young maids going by.

What it is worth to this book

The animal imitations are the direct match. 2-166 says the walrus and the bear roar and the reindeer snorts; Bogoras describes imitative singing repeatedly and could record none of it. 27. Tundra birds, 1 to 31. My grey reindeer are that genre, from the same tundra, ninety years later.

The drum is the second. 1-350 has the two-voice fox-and-bear dialogue, and the chapter on games and songs describes drumming throughout; 11. The tundra wakes up in the spring is a wordless song over the jarakh, and Kemlil's three-part improvisation is said outright to recreate the atmosphere of the shamanic kamlanye that part 2 is largely about.

The third is not a match but a measure. 14. Before collectivization remembers herds seized at collectivization, thirty years after Bogoras counted them; 19. I had an aunt who was Čukč is an Even woman remembering a Chukchi aunt; 7. Days are short is an Even man who sings only in Chukchi. The book treats these peoples as distinct, and the recordings are what the same country sounded like after a century of mixing and Soviet settlement had gone through it.