By this channel, previous to the formation of the Russian Fur Company, wares brought from Asia were distributed over seventeen hundred miles of American coast.

The Rein-deer Tchukche practise shamanism; and though they occasionally beat their shamans to compel them to bring about some event which they desire, this treatment may be considered as evincing a belief in the powers of the sorcerer, and in times of general fear and calamity the shamans have put forth their pretensions with great effect. In 1814, an epidemic having carried off many of the Tchukche assembled at the fair of Ostrownoie, the shamans held a consultation, and decided that Kotchen, the most respected of their chiefs, must be sacrificed to appease the wrath of the spirits. Neither presents nor severe treatment could prevail on the shamans to alter their decision, and Kotchen, like another Curtius, devoted himself to the infernal gods. The love of his people, however, was such, that none could be prevailed upon to execute the sentence, until his own son, incited by the exhortations of his father, and terrified by his threatened curse, plunged a knife into his heart, and gave the body to the shamans.*

The tents of the Tchukche, called namet, have a fire in the centre with an opening for the smoke

* Wrangell's Polar Sea, translated by Mrs. Sabine, p. 119.

to escape, and enclose several apartments named pologs, or square closets of skins, stretched over laths, and so low that the inmates must remain in a crouching position. The polog is heated by a lamp, and its temperature is so high, and the air so close, as to be scarcely endurable by a person unaccustomed to breathe so impure an atmosphere.

Dr. Latham considers the Tchukche as the northern branch of the Koriaks, the southern branch being named Koraki, which is said to be an indigenous appellation*; and he reckons the Koriaks as a division of the Peninsular Mongolidæ. It is probable that on further investigation the Rein-deer Tchukche will be found to be the connecting link between the Asiatic and American Mongolidæ. In their attachment to commercial pursuits, fondness for beads, and in their bold independent character, they have a resemblance to the Kutchin, described in the following chapter. The similarity of the pellation Tchukche, derived from Tchekto, "people," to Tchutski or Ta-kutski, "water-people," tribes of the Kutchin, is, however, in Dr. Latham's opinion, merely an indirect glossarial affinity. The great variety of dialects which prevail in the Aleutian Archipelago and neighbourhood of Beering's Straits is most probably the result of the active commerce there carried on, having brought several nations into contact with each other.

* Kora, " a rein-deer."

ap

·OCCUPATIONS.—TRAFFIC.—BEADS AND SHELLS.—

MANISM.

VAPOUR BATHS.

TALKATIVENESS.-DANCES.- MANBOTE OR BLOOD-MONEY.

CEREMONIES ON MEETING OTHER PEOPLE.—POPULATION OF THE VALLEY OF THE YUKON. -SAME PEOPLE WITH CERTAIN

SCENDED FROM A RAVEN. - - COURTSHIP. -WIVES. -REVENGE. -MURDER. -BURN THE DEAD.—MOURNING.-DO NOT NAME THE DECEASED.-CUSTOM CONNECTED THEREWITH.-WINTER HABITATIONS. — JOURNEYS OF THE KENAIYER INLAND.

-POR

FROM Churchill River in Hudson's Bay round northwards to the estuary of the Mackenzie, the only nation that the Eskimos come in contact with is that of the 'Tinnè or Chepewyans, and even with them they have no friendly intercourse, nor do they meet except at the trading post of Churchill, and within its influence. To the west of the Mackenzie, however, another people interpose between them