IX.] 
THE HISTORY OF THE ONKILON RACE. 
447 
relates that upwards of two hundred years ago these Onkilon 
occupied the whole of the Chukch coast, from Cape Chelagskoj 
to Behring’s Straits, and indeed we still find along the whole of 
this stretch remains of their earth huts, which must have been very 
unlike the present dwellings of the Chukches; they have the 
form of small mounds, are half sunk in the ground and closed 
above with whale ribs, which are covered with a thick layer of 
earth. A violent quarrel between Kriichoj, the chief of these 
North-Asiatic Eskimo, and an errim or chief of the reindeer 
Chukches, broke out into open feud. Krachoj drew the shorter 
straw, and found himself compelled to fly, and leave the country 
with his people; since then the whole coast has been desolate 
and uninhabited. Of the emigration of these Onkilon, the 
inhabitants of the village Irkaipij, where Krachoj appears to 
have lived, narrated the following story. He had killed a Chukch 
errim, and was therefore eagerly pursued by the son of the 
murdered man, whose pursuit he for a considerable time escaped. 
Finally Krachoj believed that he had found a secure asylum 
on the rock at Irkaipij, where he fortified himself behind a sort 
of natural wall, which can still be seen. But the young Chukch 
errim, driven by desire to avenge his father’s death, finds means 
to make his way within the fortification and kills Krachoj’s son. 
Although the blood-revenge was now probably complete according 
to the prevailing ideas, Krachoj must have feared a further 
pursuit by his unrelenting enemy, for during night he lowers 
himself with thongs from his lofty asylum, nearly overhanging 
the sea, enters a boat, which waits for him at the foot of the cliff, 
and, in order to lead his pursuers astray, steers first towards the 
east, but at nightfall turns to the west, reaches Schalaurov 
Island, and there fortifies himself in an earth hut, whose remains 
we (Wrangel’s expedition) have still seen. Here he then collected 
all the members of his tribe, and fled with them in 15 “ baydars” 
to the land whose mountains the Chukches assure themselves 
they can in clear sunshine see from Cape Yakan. During the 
following winter a Chukch related to Krachoj disappeared in 
addition with his family and reindeer, and it is supposed that he 
too betook himself to the land beyond the sea. With this 
another tradition agrees, which was communicated to us by the 
inhabitants of Kolyutschin Island. For an old man informed 
me (Wrangel) that during his grandfather’s lifetime a “ baydar” 
with seven Chukches, among them a woman, had ventured too 
far out to sea. After they had long been driven hither and 
thither by the wind, they stranded on a country unknown to 
them, whose inhabitants struck the Chukches themselves as 
