14 NOTIONS OF A FUTURE STATE. 



names as they can call to mind, and then tram- 

 ple it under foot. Two wooden household dei- 

 ties, Aschuschok and Hontai, were held in par- 

 ticular estimation. The former, in the figure 

 of a man, officiated in scaring away the forest 

 spirits from the house ; for which service he 

 was remunerated in food, his head being daily 

 anointed with fish-soup. Hontai was half man, 

 half fish, and on every anniversary of the puri- 

 fication from sin, a new one was introduced and 

 placed beside his predecessors, so that the ac- 

 cumulated number of Hontais showed how 

 many years the inhabitants had occupied their 

 house. 



The Kamtschatkans believed in their own 

 immortality, and in that of the brute creation ; 

 but they expected in a future state to depend 

 upon their labour for subsistence, as in the pre- 

 sent life ; they only hoped that the toil would 

 be lightened, and its reward more abundant, 

 that they might never suffer hunger. This idea 

 of itself sufficiently proves, that the fisheries 

 sometimes fail in their produce. 



The several races of Kamtschatkans fre- 

 quently waged war with each other; caused 



