"The doomed one," writes Harry de Windt, "takes a lively interest in the proceedings, and often assists in the preparation for his own death. The execution is always preceded by a feast, where seal and walrus meat are greedily devoured, and whisky consumed till all are intoxicated. A spontaneous burst of singing and the muffled roll of walrus-hide drums then herald the fatal moment. At a given signal a ring is formed by the relations and friends, the entire settlement looking on from the background. The executioner (usually the victim's son or brother) then steps forward, and placing his right foot behind the back of the condemned, slowly strangles him to death with a walrus-thong. A kamitok took place during the latter part of our stay[640]." This custom of "voluntary death" is sometimes due to sorrow at the death of a near relative, a quarrel at home, or merely weariness of life, and Bogoras thinks that the custom of killing old people does not exist as such, but is voluntarily chosen in preference to the hard life of an invalid[641]. Most recent observers have come to look upon the Chukchi and _Koryaks_ as essentially one and the same people, the chief difference being that the latter are if possible even more degraded than their northern neighbours[642]. Like them they are classed as sedentary fisherfolk or nomad reindeer-owners, the latter, who call themselves Tumugulu, "Wanderers," roaming chiefly between Ghiyiginsk Bay and the Anadyr river. Through them the Chukchi merge gradually in the _Itelmes_, who are better known as Kamchadales, from the Kamchatka river, where they are now chiefly concentrated. Most of the Itelmes are already Russified in speech and--outwardly at least--in religion; but they still secretly immolate a dog now and then, to propitiate the malevolent beings who throw obstacles in the way of their hunting and fishing expeditions. Yet their very existence depends on their canine associates, who are of a stout, almost wolfish breed, inured to hunger and hardships, and excellent for sledge work. Somewhat distinct both from all these Hyperboreans and from their neighbours, the Orochons, Golds, Manegrs and other Tungus peoples, are the _Gilyaks_, formerly widespread, but now confined to the Amur delta and the northern parts of Sakhalin[643]. Some observers have connected them with the Ainu and the Korean aborigines, while A. Anuchin detects two types--a Mongoloid with sparse beard, high cheek-bones, and flat face, and a Caucasic with bushy beard and more regular features[644]. The latter traits have been attributed to Russian mixture, but, as conjectured by H. von Siebold, are more probably due to a fundamental connection with their Ainu neighbours[645].