They live, however, principally on fish, which they cook in diverse ways. The most common consists in cutting several salmon in six parts. They put the heads into a pit to decompose, dry the back and belly with smoke, and the tail and flanks in the air. They then pound the whole together, and afterwards dry this paste, which serves them almost daily for their food. Ducks and geese and eggs preserved in fish fat form also, it is said, a portion of their subsistence.
These people formerly had no other drink than water; and to make themselves a little lively, they used to drink an infusion of mushrooms. Since the Russian conquest they have become acquainted with brandy, and now imbibe a large quantity of it.
The Kamtchatdales have a great passion for dress. The costume of a rich man was formerly made of the skins of the reindeer, the fox, the dog, the marmot, the wild ram, bears’ and wolves’ feet, many seals and feathers. It required twenty animals, at least, to clothe a Kamtchatdale. Commerce was carried on exclusively by barter. A complete costume was worth about a hundred martens or a hundred foxes.[23]
[23] Müller.
But now this singular people have borrowed from the Russians the taste for the clothing material of civilized life, and in a slight degree for the form also. The women have odd whims; they stain their faces with red and white. They are very particular in not showing themselves to a stranger before having undergone a special ablution, and then having been well reddened and tricked out.
In order to obtain fire they use the fire drill, and it is produced by twirling rapidly between the hands a round dry stick passed through a hole in a plank. A bit of bruised dry grass serves as tinder.
The manners of the Kamtchatdales are so very gross, that they resemble the instincts of animals rather than the habits of man. They have no idea of the spirituality of the soul.[24] Moreover, they have no religion. A single fête, called Purifications, fully described by Krachenninikov, consists so much more in dancing and revelling than in prayers and sacrifices, that it would be evidently wrong, I think, to consider it as forming part of any religious system.
[24] Steller.
The Kuriles inhabit the islands of the same name which stretch, one after the other, between the extremity of Kamtchatka and Japan. These people feel the influence of the civilized nation so near them; still they approach much nearer the inhabitants of Kamtchatka than those of Japan. They dwell in tents, like their neighbours on the north, and live on fish.
The Kamtchatdales and the Kuriles differ, however, on many points. A Kurile wife, when unfaithful to her husband, dishonours him. He then challenges his adversary, and they have a duel with clubs. He who challenges is the first to receive, on his back, three blows with a club of the thickness of a man’s arm. And then he returns as many to his enemy; the combat continues in this way, till one of them demands pardon or succumbs to the number and violence of the blows.