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Updated: June 14, 2025
The natives comprising the two tribes of the Kamtschatdales and Koriaks differ principally in their mode of life. They are all of low stature, and not remarkable for their beauty. They are shy, averse to strangers, but honest, and extremely hospitable.
The Buriats of the Angora basin, the Koriaks, and other tribes long held out; but most of the land was peacefully acquired, and permanently secured by the forts erected by the Cossacks at the junction of the rivers, at the entrance of the mountain passes, and other strategic points.
"This is your property," was the response; "we could not keep it in our tents, and it was our duty to bring it to you." The wandering Koriaks estimate property in deer as our Indians count in horses. It is only among the thousands that wealth is eminently respectable. How much he has missed of real life!
It wouldn't be south, anyway. They'd run up against the Russians there." "We've decided that already." "I'm admitting it," said the skipper. "There's the other choice that they've gone up north. It's narrower across to Alaska there, and it's quite likely they might have a notion of looking out for one of the steam whalers. The Koriaks up yonder will have boats of some kind.
Their food is given them under the curtain during that period, and they cannot emerge for any purpose whatever. The bridesmaids then perform a brief but touching ceremonial, and the twain are pronounced one flesh. Northeast of Ghijiga is the country of the Chukchees, a people formerly hostile to the Koriaks.
A few years ago a party of Koriaks crossing the great tundra north of Kamchatka encountered a severe storm. It was of unusual violence, and soon compelled a halt. Dogs and men burrowed into the snow to wait the end of the gale. Unfortunately they halted in a wide hollow that, unperceived by the party, filled with a deep drift.
One old fellow had converted an empty meat can into a hat without removing the printed label "stewed beef." I gave him a pair of dilapidated gloves, which he donned at once. The Koriaks are of two kinds, wandering and settled. The wanderers have great numbers of reindeer, and lead a migratory life in finding pasturage for their herds.
There is a peculiar mushroom in Northeastern Siberia spotted like a leopard and surmounted with a small hood. It grows in other parts of Russia, where it is poisonous, but among the Koriaks it is simply intoxicating. When one finds a mushroom of this kind he can sell it for three or four reindeer. So powerful is this fungus that the fortunate native who eats it remains drunk for several days.
These natives appear below the ordinary stature, and their legs seemed to me very small. Ethnologists are divided concerning the origin of the Koriaks, some assigning them to the Mongol race and others to the Esquimaux. The Koriaks express no opinion on the disputed point, and have none. Both sexes dress alike, and wear ornaments of beads in their ears.
Captain Kennan told me that when he arrived among the Koriaks the peculiar odor made him ill, and he slept out of doors with the thermometer at -35° rather than enter a tent where cooking was in progress. The Koriaks build their summer dwellings of light poles covered with skin, or bark.
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