VIII.] THE NORTHERN MONGOLS. 301 



gradually in the Itelmes, who are better known as Kamchadales, 

 from the Kamchatka river, where they are now chiefly concen- 

 trated. Most of the Itelmes are already Russified in speech and 

 outwardly at least in religion ; but they still secretly immolate 

 a dog now and then, to propitiate the malevolent beings who throw 

 obstacles in the way of their hunting and fishing expeditions. Yet 

 their very existence depends on their canine associates, who are 

 of a stout, almost wolfish breed, inured to hunger and hardships, 

 and excellent for sledge work. 



Somewhat distinct both from all these Hyperboreans and from 

 their neighbours, the Orochons, Golds, Manegrs and 

 other Tungus peoples, are the Gilyaks, formerly 

 wide -spread, but now confined to the Amur delta and the 

 northern parts of Sakhalin. Some observers have connected them 

 with the Ainu and the Korean aborigines, while Dr A. Anuchin 

 detects two types a Mongoloid with sparse beard, high cheek- 

 bones, and flat face, and a Caucasic with bushy beard and more- 

 regular features 1 . The latter traits have been attributed to- 

 Russian mixture, but, as conjectured by H. von Siebold, are 

 more probably due to a fundamental connection with their Ainu 

 neighbours 2 . 



Mentally the Gilyaks take a low position Mr Lansdell 

 thought the lowest of any people he had met in Siberia 3 . 

 Despite the zeal of the Russian missionaries, and the inducements 

 to join the fold, they remain obdurate Shamanists, and even 

 fatalists, so that "if one falls into the water the others will not 

 help him out, on the plea that they would thus be opposing 



a higher power, who wills that he should perish The soul of 



the Gilyak is supposed to pass at death into his favourite dog, 

 which is accordingly fed with choice food ; and when the spirit 

 has been prayed by the shamans out of the dog, the animal 

 is sacrificed on his master's grave. The soul is then represented 

 as passing underground, lighted and guided by its own sun and 



1 Mem. Imp. Soc. Nat. Sc. XX. Supplement, Moscow, 1877. 

 ; " Scheinen grosse Aenlichkeit in Sprache, Gesichtsbildung und Sitten 

 mit den Aino zu haben " (Ueber die Aino, Berlin, 1881, p. 12). 

 s Through Siberia, u. p. 2-27. 



