Capt. Shishmarev's information about the Chukchi

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offerings, just like those in St. Lawrence Bay. The inhabitants are Deer Chukchi, the same as in St. Lawrence Bay, but the local ones seem richer, and their weapons are finished more neatly. The language is the same, and they, too, call themselves Chauchu. They willingly invited us into their yurts and bade us sit on their skins. In a word, they treated us in a friendly manner.

"The chief, Telmuurgin, showed us Chukotski dances in his yurt. The women make gestures with their hands, twisting their faces and the whole body at the same time, and the men, in addition, jump up a little in time to the singing, resembling Aleut songs. Their music consists also of tambourines, which they strike with a small stick from whalebone or a wooden stick against the rim of the tambourine.

"Afterward, we saw the games of boys and girls. A few of the performers spread out and hold in their hands a walrus skin, in the middle of which they place a boy or girl. The ones holding the sides sing, and the one standing on the rug dances. Afterward, stretching the skin, they throw the dancer up about three sazhens (!). The one thrown up, balancing his legs in the air, falls again on the skin, and is thrown up again, continuing to do so until she gets tired and then is substituted by another one.

"I tried to explain to the chief that the following day I wanted to bury in their land / a dead person, and I would put a cross on that place, warning that they should not touch it, because another ship would come and ask about it. The

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chief agreed and assured me that no one would touch it. Concerning the deer, he promised to bring them the next day at dawn.

"In the morning (the 13th), we buried the body of the deceased on the nearest shore, a mile and a half from the sloop.

"The Chukchi visited us with their above-mentioned chief, Lei-chai-gu, whom I immediately began to ask about deer, and he promised to deliver ten of them in two days without any excuses. I willingly agreed to this time, saying, however, that Telmuurgin had already deceived me and did he intend to do likewise? But Lei-chai-gu promised as a pledge of loyalty to remain hostage on the ship until they brought the deer, and in the meantime, asked to be shown the things which I intended to pay him.

"On the next day (the 14th), early in the morning, were brought six deer which weighed about eleven poods [385 pounds], and Lei-chai-gu spent the night with us again.

"Among the Chukchi who visited us we noticed some dressed extremely poorly and talking in a different language, but otherwise not differing from the others. I asked Lei-chai-gu about it and recieved the answer that along the shore of the sea from Mechigmenskaia Bay lived peoples named: Emnunka, Kaliaingyr, Rliarliaiut, and Unyven, speaking different languages distinct from the Chukotski as well as from each other, and that they are satisfied with food only from the sea, on which they always live, not changing abodes. They do not have their own deer and are very poor.

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"The people who inhabit the shores of the Arctic Ocean farther north, who just like the Americans, pierce their lips and in the opening insert a bone like buttons, are called Egliunok. This people also differs in language.

"In Mechigmenskaia/Bay, many Deer Chukchi came to us showing certificates that they were baptized by the same preacher, Trifonov.

"I gave a silver medal to Lei-chai-gu and to the other chief, a copper one."

On August 18th, Mr. Shishmarev surveyed the north side of St. Lawrence Island, also had dealings with the inhabitants, and made exactly the same kind of remarks about them as he made at the beginning on the western side of this island. It is very remarkable, that now, at the end of the expedition, on this very same day, August 18th, the Aleut, Antip Shashkida⁴ who was interpreter on the sloop, having lost his mind from despair because he could not be understood by the Chukchi for the communication with whom he was hired, plunged into the water and drowned.