At times during the later days of the colony the Kolosh were employed as seamen and as workers in the ice trade by the Russians and thus they occupied a place in the industrial life. Etolin was the most successful in conciliating them of any of the chief managers, and he at one time held a fur fair at Sitka to which peltry was brought from far and near, modeled somewhat upon the idea of the great fur mart of Nizhni Novgorod. Most of them, however, hunted and fished, lived in their tribal houses, carved their canoes, wove their baskets, and practiced their witchcraft, while their civilized neighbors gathered the furs and built ships. Under the walls of the fort, in the old tribal houses of the Kolosh which had not been destroyed, lived the Aleuts. Properly speaking the name belongs to the natives of the Aleutian Islands, but the term was also applied to the natives of Kodiak Island and the surrounding islets. These speak a different language from the true Aleuts, but otherwise resemble them closely. During the hunting season they scoured the seas in their skin bidarkas, in the pursuit of fur animals. In winter many of them remained at Sitka instead of returning to their homes. Their time was spent in idleness, spending the summer's earnings in the pleasures and vices of the white man. One who saw them in their kazhims, as their dwellings were often called, describes them: "Morally, the Aleut is not bloodthirsty. He delights in simple rejoicings and will play you a game of chess with walrus ivory pieces--a duck for a pawn and a penguin for a king--with the greatest of good humor. Even when squabbles arrive the argument is carried on in poetry to the accompaniment of dancing, and one would be inclined to prefer the Aleut angry to the Aleut amiable, did he not know he also dances when festive and when religious. "Among them the social duty of visiting has its drawbacks. Several families live together in the kazhims, and during one's visit they all lie around in every conceivable posture, jolly and genial, naked and unashamed. The fumes of the blubber oil lamps and stoves, the stores of raw meat, the many naked bodies, well smeared with grease and scented with primitive unguents, combine to make an atmosphere difficult to tolerate and not easy to describe. Yet, if you will, you may enjoy the warmest hospitality, and have heaped upon you the most assiduous attentions." CHAPTER V CHURCHES AND SCHOOLS