The natives of the Fox Islands have very obscure ideas of religion : they believe in kugahs or demons, whose evil offices they seem desirous of averting ; and ever since be ing subjected to great inconvenience and distress by the ty of their Russian visitors, consider those of the latter more powerful than their own. Apparently they worship idols ; and they were accustomed, at an annual dance or fes tival, to wear masks neatly and fancifully ornamented, which arc now reported to be laid aside. Many have been bap tized after the ceremonies of the Greek church, professed in Russia.
Marriage, in the proper acceptation of the term, does not exist here ; a man takes as many wives as he can main tain, and these are purchased from their parents. Should the purchaser repent of his bargain, the wife may be re turned, when he must restore part of the value received with her ; or should his prosperity decline, he may part with the whole of them successively, and they are at liber ty then to seek other husbands. Instances occur where the same woman has two husbands at once, who adjust the terms on which they are mutually or respectively to share her society ; and it is even not uncommon for men to make an exchange of their wives. Whatever virtues these people may possess, they are grossly deficient in that great principle of morality, which binds the affection of the two sexes to each other. Handsome boys are brought up like girls, dressed and tattooed in the same manner, and in structed in all the arts practised by women for the gratifi cation of men. These miserable and degraded wretches are denominated schopans, and what is singular, no means have ever been taken to diminish their numbers.
Among the barbarous customs formerly practised by the Aleutians, was slaughtering slaves of both sexes, at the funeral of their deceased chiefs. This is now totally dis continued. Men and women are differently treated ; some times the bodies of the former are partially embalmed with dried moss and grass, and interred in their best attire, along with their arms and other implements, while the tomb is adorned with coloured mats, embroidery, or painting ; but the latter are treated with no such formalities. A mother will keep her deceased child embalmed in her hut during several months, always wiping it dry, and consenting to its inhumation only on the commencement of putrescence, or when she can be reconciled to the separation.
The Aleutians dwell in excavations of the earth, the sides of which are lined with beams or poles of drift-wood washed ashore, inserted to support a roof formed of similar mate rials. These excavations are from 20 to 40 yards in length, and between six and ten in breadth ; earth is thrown over the roof, which affords a soil for vegetation, so that after the habitations have stood some time, and are overgrown with grass, an Aleutian village bears no imperfect resemblance to an European church-yard. Fifty, or even an hundred and fifty
individuals, dwell in the different divisions of the hut, which is lighted by a small window covered with the membrana ceous intestines of the seal, or with dried fish skin ; and into which they descend by an aperture that at the same time gives egress to the smoke. But little cold is felt within, and their habitations are seldom heated with fire. Traveilers affirm, that they are so warm that the inhabitants sometimes sit naked in them. Their different divisions are made by partitions of seal skin.
As the chief subsistence of the Aleutians is derived from hunting and fishing, a large portion of their time is devoted to these pursuits ; and the greatest display of their art is in the construction of their canoes and weapons. The for mer are remarkably neat, consisting of a wooden frame co vered with leather, and in the inside is a hole to receive the body of the navigator sitting, around which a seal skin is so tightly drawn as to exclude the water. In general, this vessel contains only one person, sometimes two, and rarely three. The length of the first is about eighteen feet, the breadth nearly two feet, and the depth eighteen inches, lightly yet firmly made, and capable of withstanding a con siderable sea ; insomuch, that an Aleutian, in moderate wea ther, can paddle his baidarka, as it is called, ten miles an hour, and can retain his seat in security, while his breast is washed by breakers. _ Neither is much apprehension ex cited by storms ; for several baidarkas, when bound toge ther, easily resist the waves. Billings, a late voyager, speaking of these vessels, exclaims, « If perfect symmetry and proportion constitute beauty, they are beautiful : to me they appeared so beyond any thing that I ever beheld. I have seen some of them as transparent as oiled paper, through which you could trace every formation cf the in side, and the position of the natives sitting in each, whose light dress, painted and plumed bonnet, together with his perfect case and activity, added infinitely to its elegance." The beauty and construction of the baidarka are the sub ject of great emulation among the islanders. They have another large open boat, called a baidar, capable of holding fifteen or twenty people, which was formerly the common property of a village, but all of them arc now in possession of the Russians.