mss142-vasilevShishmarev-i6-003
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or tattoo their faces, but the women tattoo lines on the
chin and on the forehead and nose, and on their cheeks they
depict oval shapes such as we subsequently saw on the Chukchi.
Both men and women wear glass beads in their ears. Clothing
consists of parkas, trousers, and boots. Parkas are made
mostly from bird [skins]; yet some are from deer, but only a
few worn-out [ones], which they do not trade for anything.
That is why I think they buy them from the Chukchi. The breeches
are of sealskin, the women's always wider. They traded kamlei [gutskin parkas]
for very little. The baidars are exactly the same as those
of other peoples of this sea. Weapons--spears and bows and
arrows--are the same as the Chukchi's, only more roughly executed.
"We noticed that the local inhabitants understood the
Aleut, who was with us as interpreter and who talked to them
in the Kadiak and Ugalakhmut — languages,
better than the other interpreter who talked to them in the
Koryak language. From this, one must conclude that their
language is different from the Chukchi.
"We had no sooner dropped anchor (in St. Lawrence Bay,
July 11th, 1821), when the Chukchi approached us, and at the
first invitation started to climb aboard one after the other.
During their trading of handiwork and weapons, they valued the
furs very high, and most of all asked for knives, looking
little at tobacco and other trifles. Knowing their propensity
for stealing, we placed guards everywhere, and caught one
thief who wanted to carry away a cannon cover of lead. Scold-
ing this Chukchi, we chased him off the sloop, and I tried to
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