MUIRHEAD`S MYSTERIES: LIVING MAMMOTHS IN MID 18TH CENTURY CENTRAL RUSSIA

Hello again – Muirhead`s Mysteries is out of the deep freeze, if only briefly, for a look at sightings of the mammoth in central Russia in the mid eighteenth century. I found the following report in the Annual Register for December 1767.:

“ Some accounts of the horns, called mammon`s * horns; and the strange opinions the Tartars hold of the kind of animal to which they imagine they belonged.

In the banks of the Oby, about this place,are found great quantities of that kind of ivory called, in this country, mammon`s horn. Some of it also is found on the banks of the Volga.Mammon`s horn, resembles in shape and size, the teeth of a large elephant. The vulgar really imagine mammon to be a creature living in marshes and underground; [as did the Chinese-R] and entertain many strange notions concerning it. The Tartars tell many fables of its having been seen alive.But to me it appears that this horn is the tooth of a large elephant. When, indeed,or how, these teeth came so far to the northward, where no elephants can,at present, subsist during the winter-season, is what I am unable to determine. They are commonly found in the banks of rivers which have been washed by floods. The commandant of this place had his entry ornamented with several very large ones, and made me a present of one of them.

I have been told by Tartars in the Baraba, that they have seen this creature, called mammon,at the dawn of day,near lakes and rivers;but, that on discovering them, the mammon immediately tumbles into the water, and never appears in day-time; they say it is about the size of a large elephant, with a monstrous large head and horns, with which he makes his way in marshy places, and under ground, where he conceals himself at night. I only mention these things as the reports of superstitious and ignorant people.

I have observed, in most of the towns we passed, between Tobolsky and Yenesiesky, many of these mammons horns, so called by the natives; some of them very entire and fresh, like the best ivory, in every circumstance, excepting only the colour, which was of a yellowish hue; others of them mouldered away at the ends; and, when sawn asunder, prettily clouded. The people make snuff boxes, combs, and divers sorts of turnery ware of them.

They are found in the banks of all the great rivers in Siberia, westward of Iencousky, when the floods have washed down the banks, by the melting of the snow, in the spring. I have seen of them weighing above one hundred pounds English. ( I brought a large tooth, or mammon`s horn, with me to England, and presented it to my worthy friend Sir Hans Sloane, who gave it a place in his celebrated Museum; and was of the opinion, also,that it was the tooth of an elephant. This tooth was found in the river Oby, at a place called Surgute. (1)

* sic.


1. Anon. Some account….Annual Register vol. 10. Dec. 1767 pp 85-86


SALLY CINNAMON THE STONE ROSES


Until Sally I was never happy
I needed so much more
Rain clouds oh they used to chase me
Down they would pour
Join my tears
Allay my fears
Sent to me from heaven
Sally Cinnamon
You are my world