30O MAN : PAST AND PRESENT. [CHAP. 



spirits of the rivers and mountains, and also to practise Shamanist 

 rites. They believe in an after life, but only for those who die a 

 violent death. Hence the resignation and even alacrity with 

 which the hopelessly infirm and the aged submit, when the time 

 comes, to be despatched by their kinsfolk, in accordance with the 

 tribal custom of kamitok, which still survives in full vigour amongst 

 the Chukchi, as amongst the Sumatran Battas, and formerly pre- 

 vailed even amongst our Aryan forefathers. 



"The doomed one," writes Mr Harry de Windt, "takes a 

 lively interest in the proceedings, and often assists in the prepara- 

 tion for his own death. The execution is always preceded by a 

 feast, where seal and walrus meat are greedily devoured, and 

 whisky consumed till all are intoxicated. A spontaneous burst 

 of singing and the muffled roll of walrus-hide drums then herald 

 the fatal moment. At a given signal a ring is formed by the 

 relations and friends, the entire settlement looking on from the 

 background. The executioner (usually the victim's son or brother) 

 then steps forward, and placing his right foot behind the back of 

 the condemned, slowly strangles him to death with a walrus- 

 thong. A kamitok took place during the latter part of our 

 stay 1 ." 



This traveller also fully confirms previous accounts of the 

 indescribable moral and bodily filth in which these debased 

 aborigines are content to welter through their lives. But those 

 who care for such nauseous details must be referred to the work 

 just quoted. 



Most recent observers have come to look upon the Chukchi 

 and Koryaks as essentially one and the same 

 Kfmchadaies d peop le j tne cmef difference being that the latter are 

 if possible even more degraded than their northern 

 neighbours 2 . Like them they are classed as sedentary fisher- 

 folk or nomad reindeer-owners, the latter, who call themselves 

 Tumugulu, " Wanderers," roaming chiefly between Ghiyiginsk 

 Bay and the Anadyr river. Through them the Chukchi merge 



1 Through the Gold Fields of Alaska to Bering Strait, 1898. 



2 This, however, applies only to the fishing Koryaks, for Mr Kennan 

 speaks highly of the domestic virtues, hospitality, and other good qualities of 

 the nomad groups (Tent Life in Siberia, 1871). 



