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The wooden bowls, platters, and spoons out of which the Gilyaks eat the broth and flesh of the bears on these occasions are always made specially for the purpose at the festival and only then; they are elaborately ornamented with carved figures of bears and other devices that refer to the animal or the festival, and the people have a strong superstitious scruple against parting with them.
The Egyptian and the Aino Types of Sacrament WE are now perhaps in a position to understand the ambiguous behaviour of the Aino and Gilyaks towards the bear. It has been shown that the sharp line of demarcation which we draw between mankind and the lower animals does not exist for the savage.
But it was not to give him up to the gods that they killed him, not to 'sacrifice' him in our sense, but to have him, keep him, eat him, live BY him and through him, by his grace." Home University Library, p. 87. Among the Ainos in the North of Japan, as also among the Gilyaks in Eastern Siberia, the Bear is the great food-animal, and is worshipped as the supreme giver of health and strength.
The boat was built very high at bow and stern, and its bottom was a single plank, greatly curved. It was propelled by a woman manipulating a pair of oars with blades shaped like spoon-bowls, beaten flat, which she pulled alternately with a kind of 'hand-over-hand' process. This mode of rowing is universal among the Gilyaks, but does not prevail with other natives along the Amoor.
The place of sacrifice or execution was marked as holy by being surrounded with whittled sticks, from the tops of which shavings hung in curls. Such sticks are with the Gilyaks, as with the Aino, the regular symbols that accompany all religious ceremonies.
The Gilyaks of the lower Amoor are pagans, and the attempts to Christianize them have not been very successful thus far. Their religion consists in the worship of idols and animals, and their priests or shamans correspond to the 'medicine man' of the American Indians. Among animals they revere the tiger, and I was told no instance was known of their killing one.
The salmon were in piles along the shore or lying in the native boats. Fishing was not a monopoly of the Gilyaks, as I saw several Russians engaged in the business. They appeared on the best terms with their aboriginal neighbors. Salmon are abundant in the Amoor and as much a necessity of life as in Northern Siberia.
It was no unusual occurrence for a native to be tied up and whipped to compel him to bring out all his treasures. The Goldees call the Manjours 'rats, in consequence of their greediness and destructive powers. The Goldees are superior to the Gilyaks in numbers and intelligence, and the Manjours of Igoon and vicinity are in turn superior to the Goldees.
Meantime it is not unimportant to observe that the solemn festivals at which the Aino, the Gilyaks, and other tribes slaughter the tame caged bears with demonstrations of respect and sorrow, are probably nothing but an extension or glorification of similar rites which the hunter performs over any wild bear which he chances to kill in the forest.
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