Account of the Inhabitants of the Fox Islands.
The inhabitants of Alaxa, Umnak, Unalaksha, and the neighbouring islands, are of a middle stature, tawny brown colour, and black hair. In summer they wear coats (parki[127]) made of bird skins, over which, in bad weather, and in their boats, they throw cloaks, called kamli, made of thin whale guts. On their heads they wear wooden caps, ornamented with duck's feathers, and the ears of the sea-animal, called Scivutcha or sea-lion; they also adorn these caps with beads of different colours, and with little figures of bone or stone. In the partition of the nostrils they place a pin, about four inches long, made of the bone, or of the stalk of a certain black plant; from the ends of this pin or bodkin they hang, in fine weather and on festivals, rows of beads, one below the other. They thrust beads, and bits of pebble cut like teeth, into holes made in the under-lips. They also wear strings of beads in their ears, with bits of amber, which the inhabitants of the other islands procure from Alaxa, in exchange for arrows and kamli.
They cut their hair before just above the eyes, and some shave the top of their heads like monks. Behind the hair is loose. The dress of the women hardly differs from that of the men, excepting that it is made of fish-skins. They sew with bone needles, and thread made of fish guts, fastening their work to the ground before them with bodkins. They go with the head uncovered, and the hair cut like that of the men before, but tied up behind in a high knot. They paint their cheeks with strokes of blue and red, and wear nose-pins, beads, and ear-rings like the men; they hang beads round their neck, and checkered strings round their arms and legs.
Manners and Customs.
In their persons we should reckon them extremely nasty. They eat the vermin with which their bodies are covered, and swallow the mucus from the nose. Having washed themselves, according to custom, first with urine, and then with water, they suck their hands dry. When they are sick, they lie three or four days without food; and if bleeding is necessary, they open a vein with lancets made of flint, and suck the blood.
Their principal nourishment is fish and whale fat, which they commonly eat raw. They also feed upon sea-wrack and roots, particularly the saran, a species of lily; they eat a herb, called kutage, on account of its bitterness, only with fish or fat. They sometimes kindle fire by catching a spark among dry leaves and powder of sulphur: but the most common method is by rubbing two pieces of wood together, in the manner practised at Kamtchatka[128], and which Vaksel, Beering's lieutenant, found to be in use in that part of North America which he saw in 1741. They are very fond of Russian oil and butter, but not of bread. They could not be prevailed upon to taste any sugar until the commander shewed the example; finding it sweet, they put it up to carry it home to their wives.
The houses of these islanders are huts built precisely in the manner of those in Kamtchatka, with the entry through a hole in the middle of the roof. In one of these huts live several families, to the amount of thirty or forty persons. They keep themselves warm by means of whale fat burnt in shells, which they place between their legs. The women set apart from the men.
Six or seven of these huts or yourts make a village, of which there are sixteen in Unalashka. The islands seem in general to be well inhabited, as may be conjectured from the great number of boats which are seen continually plying along the shore. There are upwards of a thousand inhabitants on Unalashka, and they say that it was formerly much more populous. They have suffered greatly by their disputes with the Russians, and by a famine in the year 1762; but most of all from a change in their way of life. No longer contented with their original simplicity, they long for Russian luxuries: in order therefore to obtain a few delicacies, which are presently consumed, they dedicate the greatest part of their time to hunting, for the purpose of procuring furs for the Russians: by these means, they neglect to lay up a provision of fish and roots; and suffer their children frequently to die of hunger.
Their principal food is fish, which they catch with bone hooks. Their boats, in which they row to a great distance from land, are made, like those of the Innuet or Esquimaux, of thin slips of wood and skins: these skins cover the top as well as the sides of the boat, and are drawn tight round the waist of the rower. The oar is a paddle, broad at both ends. Some of their boats hold two persons; one of whom rows, and the other fishes: but these kind of boats seem appropriated to their chiefs. They have also large boats capable of holding forty men. They kill birds and beasts with darts made of bone, or of wood tipped with sharpened stone: they use these kind of darts in war, which break with the blow given by them, and leave the point in the wound.