_Locality._--The southern half (or third) of the Peninsula of Kamskatka, with the exception of the extreme point of the peninsula; which is inhabited by the Aino. _Native name._--Itülmen. _Dialects._--Four. That of Tigil, so much mixed with Koriak, as to be sometimes quoted as the Koriak of Tigil. _Physical appearance._--Undersized Mongols, with little beard, sunken eyes and depressed noses. The true Kamskadales are a nearly extinct race. Amongst the causes of their rapid diminution a kind of death, rare amongst savage nations, is enumerated--suicide. "According to Steller, the Kamtschatkans have no idea of a Supreme Being, but this must have been true only in some peculiar sense of the expression, for he adds an account of their mythology, which in part contradicts the above statement. They believe, as he says, in the immortality of souls. All creatures, even to the smallest fly, are destined, as they believe, to another eternal life under the earth, where they are to meet with similar adventures to those of their present state of existence, but never to suffer hunger. In that world there is no punishment of crimes, which, in the opinion of the Kamskadales, meet their chastisement in the present life, but the rich are destined to become poor and the poor here are to be enriched. The sky and stars existed before the earth, which was made by Katchu, or, as others say, brought by Katchu and his sister Katligith with them from heaven and fastened upon the sea. After Katchu had made the earth he left heaven and came to dwell in Kamtschatka. He had a son, Tigil, and a daughter, Sidanka, who married and became parents of offspring: the latter clothed themselves with the leaves of trees and fed upon the bark, for beasts were not yet made, and the gods knew not how to catch fish. When Katchu went to drink, the hills and valleys were formed under his feet, for the earth had till then been a flat surface. Tigil finding his family increase invented nets and betook himself to fishing. The Kamtschatkans have, like other pagans, images of their gods."[102] Now _Tigil_ is the name of the chief river of Kamskatka; the one which divides the Kamskadales from the Korki; so that, in Tigil the god, we have the _eponymus_ of what in the Bodo, as in many other countries besides, is a common object of reverence.[103] FOOTNOTES: [88] Prichard, vol. iv. p. 522-3. [89] Prichard, vol. iv. p. 497. [90] Prichard, vol. iv. p. 526. [91] Prichard, vol. iv. p. 521-2. [92] Prichard, vol. iv. p. 527-8. [93] Id. vol. iv. p. 528. [94] See pp. 55-60. [95] Prichard, vol. iv. p. 496. [96] Captain Hall's Voyage to the Great Loo-choo Island, p. 71.--Prichard, vol. iv. [97] Prichard, vol. iv. p. 451. [98] Transactions of the British Association for the Advancement of Science for 1846. [99] _Kami_=_God_ in Japanese. [100] Prichard, vol. iv. p. 455-6. [101] Von Matiushkin. [102] Prichard, vol. iv. p. 449-50.