Documentation from the Nenets Ethnographic Museum in Naryan-Mar on the scoop

Ngano – a ladle for scooping water from a boat

One of the traditional economic activities of the Indigenous peoples of the North is fishing and the fur trade. From early childhood, boys learn from older men the skills of choosing the right fishing spots, making and repairing equipment, and building boats. They also learn how to handle them properly.

The Nenets had two types of boats: Ngano boats made of planks, and chelnoki, which were carved from whole tree trunks. These boats were usually small in size. When a boat was out on the water, water often seeped in from the sides and had to be removed so it wouldn’t accumulate inside. Two types of scoops were used for bailing out the water. A plica was a wooden vessel with a rectangular bottom, upright sides, and a handle carved from a single piece of wood. It was typically used when there was a large amount of water in the boat. When there was only a small amount, a smaller scoop was used instead. This small ladle – cherpak – was about 35 cm long and 15 cm wide. It was flat and had a long handle. Unfortunately, our museum only possesses small fragments of such scoops. They were found during archaeological expeditions in the second half of the 20th century in the settlement of Pustozersk.

Created by Larisa Prokopevna Latysheva and Elena Gennadievna Menshakova, Naryan-Mar, 2024.