Since the early times, aboriginal Siberian hunters have been brave and lucky providers able to sneak right up to a beast. Like for other Northern peoples, hunting is one of the main activities for the Forest NEnets. It provides food for the family and pelts for clothes which must be especially warm in the severe climate.

In the recent past, the Forest NEnets used available natural materials to craft hunting tools. They made bows, arrows and traps of wood. Another type of tools spread among the NEnets only after Siberia was annexed by the Russian Empire. It was then when flintlocks and percussion rifles became popular among the Northerners. Items for loading were attached to every hunter’s belt, there was a special bag for buckshot made of rovduga (reindeer suede) or leather and a wooden box for gunpowder. This box was tied up to a belt with leather laces.

A bag for buckshot was small and thick, made of reindeer suede with thin rovduga laces inserted at the sides. Upper outer part of this bag was covered with carving and decorated with traditional Nenets ornaments. The neck of this bag was usually an empty part of a reindeer antler.

The buckshot bag in Gubkinsky Museum of the Development of the North exposition was provided by Konstantin Vello, a resident of Tarko-Sale town in Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug. It is not that big, only seven by twelve centimeters. It is a leather oval asymmetrical vessel-bag, narrow at the top. It consists of two parts seamed together with a thin rovduga lace. A fine ornament is carved on the upper part, possibly a “taking-off duck” type. At the neck there is a lace to attach the bag to a belt. This item was made in 1970s and used by its owner for hunting for many years.