* 
A. &. Bickmore on the Ainos of Saghalien. 365 
The number of this people on Saghalien was very carefully 
ascertained in the year 1857 by Lieut. Rudanovsky, who was 
sent here by the Russian government for that special purpose. 
The locations of the villages and the number of houses or 
“yurts,” and the population they contained, are given as fol- 
lows in a newspaper published at Nicholaifsk at that time :— 
On Aniwa Bay, east shore, in 25 villages, 91 yurts, and 535 persons. 
oe 3 west “ “10 6 ee nee - 
‘“ oe 
“ the Ohkotsk shore, 22 64 Mey 
“coast of the Gulf of Tartary, ‘‘ 35 ee eee ogs - 
Tn the middle of the island along a 
river, tog “ 10 ‘“ (33 60 te 
Total on Saghalien, 95 villages, 350 yurts, and 2,479 persons. 
As these people subsist almost solely by fishing, I judge that 
there are not more than three or four times this number on 
Yesso and the Kurile Islands. This would make their total 
Saghalien is very interesting, because it indicates at once, that 
the Ainos were the aboriginal inhabitants of the island, and 
that the Orochi and the Gilyaks have come over from the con- 
tinent at a later period, across ‘the Liman” or narrow strait 
between 52° and 53° 30’ north, : 
A line drawn along the high land from Cape Patience on 
the east coast around the head of the gulf of that name, and 
thence northwest to the village of Pilyavo on the Gulf of Tar- 
tary in about 50° 10’ N., would be the northern limit of the 
area these people usually occupy in the southern part of Sag- 
halien. Occasionally, however, they go northward on trading 
If the father does not fancy the proposer, he is dis and gets no recom- 
pense for his long, tedious toil. When he receives his wife, one more Aa aghesta 
1s made in the yurt, and his future parents and rs beat him | sticks. 
If he endures this manfully, he proves his ability “to bear up against all the ills 
of life,” and is then conducted without farther ceremony to the apartment of his 
betrothed all of the foregoing formalities are not ob- 
= gf ote 
like that of the present. : 
hi i but do not the kalym (a price for the 
Se asap apeaeig ee malry, : , he a to the coe and gets his 
the young lady consents. ih 
fe ang and often without paying a kalym. lady chosen 
Divorce is frequent, on account of disputes between the hus- 
between the wife and ther-in-law. : 
