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Updated: June 12, 2025
The day after leaving Sofyesk I observed a native propelling a boat by pulling both oars together. On my expressing surprise my companion said: "We have passed the country of the Gilyaks who pull their oars alternately, and entered that of the Mangoons and Goldees. The manner of rowing distinguishes the Gilyaks from all others."
From his detailed report of the ceremony we may gather some particulars which are not noticed in the briefer accounts which I have just summarised. The bear, he tells us, plays a great part in the life of all the peoples inhabiting the region of the Amoor and Siberia as far as Kamtchatka, but among none of them is his importance greater than among the Gilyaks.
The price was sometimes a hundred roubles for a single mouser, and by curtailing the supply the Manjours kept the market good. The Gilyaks, like nearly all the natives of Northern Asia, are addicted to Shamanism. The shaman combines the double function of priest and doctor, ministering to the physical and spiritual being at the same time.
I do not think that this class numbers all together more than six or eight thousand souls, although the estimates of the Russians are much larger. The second class comprises all the natives in eastern Siberia who are evidently and unmistakably of Mongolian origin, including the Tunguses, the Lamutkis, the Manchus, and the Gilyaks of the Amur River.
This punishment is supposed to occur in a locality specially devoted to bad shamans. A good shaman who has performed wonderful cures receives after death a magnificent tomb to his memory. The Russians think that with educated Gilyaks they can succeed in winning the natives to Christianity, especially when the missionaries are skilled in the useful arts of civilized life.
Indeed we are expressly told that the Aino of Saghalien do not consider the bear to be a god but only a messenger to the gods, and the message with which they charge the animal at its death bears out the statement. Apparently the Gilyaks also look on the bear in the light of an envoy despatched with presents to the Lord of the Mountain, on whom the welfare of the people depends.
The Chinese are more civilized than the Manjours, and call the latter 'dogs. The Manjours take revenge by applying the epithet to the Goldees, and these transfer it to Mangoons and Gilyaks. The Mangoons are not in large numbers, and live along the river between the Gilyaks and Goldees.
Among the Gilyaks a similar festival is found, but here it takes the form of a celebration in honour of a recently dead kinsman, to whom the spirit of the bear is sent. Whether this feature or a cult of the hunting type was the primary form, is so far an open question.
M. De la Bruniere when traveling to the country of the Gilyaks in 1845, crossed this valley, and found a dense population along the river, but a smaller one farther inland. The principal cities are Kirin and Sansin on the main stream, and Sit-si-gar on the Nonni, one of its tributaries.
I passed an hour with the post commander, who had just received a pile of papers only two months from St. Petersburg, the mail having arrived the day before. The steamer Telegraph lay at the landing when we arrived; among her passengers was a Manjour merchant, who possessed an intelligent face, quite in contrast with the sleepy Gilyaks.
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