They spend the whole summer in fishing, and preparing their stock of winter provisions. If we may judge from the food that we saw them dress and eat, this part of the country does not much abound with fish. Their aliment during our residence among them consisted only in the flesh and fat of the whale, the bark of trees in its natural state, and in buds steeped in the oil of the whale, or the sea wolf, or in the fat of any other animal. They informed us that they frequently caught small cod in the open sea; I know not whether they had any concealed store of this article, but we had searched so thoroughly, and we saw them fare so wretchedly, that we believed them to be really as poor as they appeared to be.
Their mode of catching rein deer, which are very plentiful in these cantons, is equally sure and easy. They surround a certain extent of land with palisades, leaving here and there an opening, where they spread their nets or snares. They then disperse, in order to drive the deer into them. These animals, by attempting to save themselves, run through the openings, and are caught either by the neck or their horns. A considerable number always escape by tearing the nets or leaping the palisades; meanwhile twenty or thirty men will frequently take at a time upwards of sixty deer.
Independently of their domestic occupations, the women are employed in preparing, staining, and sewing the skins of various animals, particularly deer skins. They first scrape them with a sharp stone fixed in a stick. Having taken off the fat, they still continue to scrape them to make them thinner and more supple. The only colour they stain them is a deep red, which is extracted from the bark of a tree called in Russia olkhovaïa-dereva, and known to us by the name of alder. They boil the bark, and then rub the skin with it till it has imbibed the die. The knives which they afterwards make use of to cut these skins, are crooked, and the invention probably of the country.
The sinews of the rein deer stripped very slender, and prepared in like manner by the women, serves them instead of thread, They sew perfectly well. Their needles, which have nothing singular, are brought from Okotsk, and their thimbles are like those used by our tailors, and are always worn upon the fore-finger.
I have already given an account of their manner of smoking, but I must resume the subject in order to relate the fatal consequences that attend it. Their pipes[84] will scarcely contain more than a pinch of tobacco, which they renew till they have satiated themselves; and this is effected in the following manner. By swallowing the smoak, instead of blowing it out, they gradually become so intoxicated that they would, if they were near it, fall into the fire. Experience has happily taught them to attend to the progress of this species of trance, and they have the precaution to sit down or to lay hold of the first object within their reach. The fit lasts them at least for a quarter of an hour, during which time their situation is the most painful that can be conceived. Their bodies are covered with a cold perspiration, the saliva distils from their lips, their breathing is short, and attended with a constant inclination to cough. It is only when they have brought themselves into this situation, that they conceive themselves to have enjoyed the true pleasure of smoking.
Neither the men nor the women wear chemises[85]; their common garment has nearly the same form, but it is shorter, and made of deer skin. When they go out, they put on a warmer one over it. In winter the women wear fur breeches instead of petticoats.