When sending Boshnyak to Sakhalin, Nevelskoy asked him to verify the rumor about people who had been left on Sakhalin by Lieutenant Khvostov and who had lived, according to the Gilyaks, on the Tym River.2
Boshnyak was successful in discovering traces of these people. In one Tym River settlement the Gilyaks exchanged four pages torn from a prayerbook for three arshins of nankeen cloth, saying the prayerbook had been the property of Russians who had once lived there. On the title page, in barely legible script, were the words: "We, Ivan, Danilo, Pyotr, Sergey and Vasily, were landed in the Aniva settle- ment of Tomari-Aniva by Khvostov on August 17, 1805. We moved to the Tym River in 1810 when the Japanese arrived in Tomari." Later, exploring the area where the Russians had lived, Boshnyak concluded that they had lived in three huts and cultivated gardens. The natives told him that the last of the Russians, Vasily, died recently, that they were fine people, that they went fishing and hunting with the natives and dressed native fashion except for cutting their hair. Elsewhere the natives informed him that two of the Russians had had children with native women. Today the Russians left by Khvostov on Northern Sakha- lin have been forgotten and nothing is known of their children.
Boshnyak adds that as a result of his constant inquiries concerning any Russians settled on the island, he learned from natives in the Tangi settlement that some thirty-five or forty years ago there had been a shipwreck, the crew were saved and they built themselves first a house and later a boat. They made their way across La Perouse to the Tatar Strait by boat and they were again shipwrecked near the village of Mgachi. This time only one man was saved. His name was Kemets. Not long afterward two Russians came from the Amur. Their names were Vasily and Nikita, and they joined Kemets and built themselves a house in
Mgachi. They hunted game professionally and traded with the Manchurians and Japanese.
One Gilyak showed Boshnyak a mirror supposedly given to his father by Kemets. The Gilyak would not sell the mirror at any price, saying that he was keeping it as a precious memento of his father's friend. Vasily and Nikita were terrified of the Tsar, and it is obvious that they had escaped from his prisons. All three died on Sakhalin.
The Japanese Mamia-Rinzo3 learned in 1808 on Sakha- lin that Russian boats often appeared on the western side of the island, and the piracy practiced by the Russians eventually forced the natives to expel one group of Russians and to massacre another. Mamia-Rinzo names these Rus- sians as Kamutsi, Simena, Momu and Vasire. "The last three," says Shrenk, "are easily recognizable as the Russian names Semyon, Foma and Vasily. Kamutsi is quite similar to Kemets," in his opinion.
This short history of eight Sakhalin Robinson Crusoes exhausts all the data concerning the free colonization of Northern Sakhalin. If the extraordinary fate of five of Khvostovs sailors, Kemets and the two refugees from prison resembles an attempt at free colonization, this at- tempt must be regardcd as insignificant and completely un- successful. The really important fact is that they all lived on Sakhalin for a long time, and to the end of their lives not one of them engaged in agriculture. They lived by fish- ing and hunting.
To round out the picture I must mention the local indigenous population—the Gilyaks. They live on the west- ern and eastern banks of Northern Sakhalin and along the rivers, especially the Tym.4
The villages are old; their names, mentioned in the writings of old authors, have come down without change. However, their way of life cannot be called completely settled, because a Gilyak feels no ties toward his birthplace or to any particular place. They often leave their yurts to practice their trades, and to wander over Northern Sakha- lin with their families and dogs. But as to their wander- ings, even when they are forced to take long journeys to the mainland, they remain faithful to the island, and the Sakhalin Gilyak differs in language and customs from the Gilyak living on the mainland no less than the Ukrainian differs from the Muscovite.
In view of this, it seems to me that it would not be very difficult to count the number of Sakhalin Gilyaks without confusing them with those who come for trading purposes from the Tatar shore. There would be no harm in taking a census of them every five to ten years; otherwise the im- portant question of the influence of the penal colony on their numbers will long remain open and will be solved in a quite arbitrary fashion.
According to data gathered by Boshnyak in 1856, there were 3,270 Gilyaks on Sakhalin. Fifteen years later Mitsul found only 1 ,500, and the latest data which I obtained from the prison copy of Statistical Records of Foreigners, 1889, showed there were only 320 Gilyaks in both regions. If these figures hold true, not one Gilyak will remain in tcn or fifteen years' time. I cannot judge the correctness of the figures given by Boshnyak and Mitsul, but the official figure of 320 can have no significance whatsoever. There are several reasons for this. Statistics on foreigners are cal- culated by clerks who have neither the educational back- ground nor the practical knowledge to do it, and they are given no instructions. When they gather information at the Gilyak settlements, they naturally conduct themselves in an overbearing manner. They are rude and disagreeable, in contrast to the polite Gilyaks, who do not permit an arro- gant and domineering attitude toward people. Because they are averse to any kind of census or registration, consider- able skill is needed in handling them. Also, the data is gathered by the administration without any definite plan, only in passing, and the investigator uses no ethnographic map but works in his own arbitrary fashion. The data on the Alexandrovsk district includes only those Gilyaks who live south of the Vangi settlement, while in the Tymovsky district they counted only those they found near the Rykov- skoye settlement. Actually they do not live in this settle- ment, but pass through it on their way to other places.
Undoubtedly the number of Sakhalin Gilyaks is con- scantly decreasing, and this judgment can be made simply by eye-counc. How large is this decrease? Why is it taking place? Is it because Gilyaks are becoming extinct, or be- cause they are moving co the mainland or farther north on the island? Due co the lack of actual statistics (and our figures on the destructive influence of Russian colonization can be based only on analogies) it is quite possible that up co the present day Russian influence has been insignificant, almost zero, since the Sakhalin Gilyaks live by preference along the Tym and the eastern shores of the island, which the Russian settlements have not yet reached.';
The Gilyaks are neither Mongols nor Tungus, but be- long to some unknown race which may once have been powerful and ruled all of Asia. Now, living out their last centuries on a small patch of land, they are only a small remnant. Yet they are a wonderful and cheerful people. Because of their unusual sociability and mobility, the Gil- yaks long ago succeeded in having relations with all the neighboring peoples, and so it is almost impossible to find a pure-blooded Gilyak without Mongol, Tungus or Ainu elements.
A Gilyak's face is round, flat, moonlike, of yellowish cast, with prominent cheekbones, dirty, with slanting eyes and a barely visible beard. His hair is smooth, black, wiry, gathered into a braid at the nape of the neck. His facial expression is not savage; it is always intelligent, gentle, naively attentive; he is either blissfully smiling or thought- fully mournful, like a widow. When he stands in profile with his sparse beard and braid, with a soft, womanish expression, he could be a model for a picture of Kuteykin,6 and it becomes almost understandable why some travelers regard the Gilyaks as belonging to the Caucasian race.