The Way They Were: Russians vs. Natives, 1740

I have just finished reading an extraordinary book: History of Kamtschatka (which we now spell Kamchatka), by Stephan Petrovich Krasheninnkov. Krasheninnkov was a young Russian scientist who participated in Vitus Bering's exploratory voyages to Alaska and Sibera in the early 1700s. His book on Kamchatka (the Russian peninsula extending just off the western end of the Aleutians) was published in 1755, the year of his death. It was translated into English by the British medical doctor James Grieve in 1764.

Grieve explains in the introduction to his translation that Krasheninnokov has made some brilliant observations, but he feels duty-bound to note: "The Russian language in which the original of the following sheets was written is rude and unpolished: other nations have with great care improved and refined their languages by giving proper encouragement to men of learning and genius, but in that country literature has, on the contrary, been until very lately rather discouraged."

Following are a few excerpts from the book in which I've modernized many of the spellings.

"America enjoys a much better climate than the northeast side of Asia, although equally near the sea, and everywhere full of high mountains, which are continually covered with snow; but they have great preeminence when we compare their qualities with those of Asia.

"Not one of our interpreters could understand the American language. This might arise from the great difference in dialect which is observed not only between the wild natives of Kamchatka, but also between the Europeans in different provinces.

"When was America peopled? For though we should grant that America and Asia were never joined"--he's wrong there--"these two parts of the globe lie so near each other that the impossibility of inhabitants of Asia going over to America cannot be maintained.

"When the Americans see any strangers, they row towards them, making a long speech; but before they approach them, they paint their cheeks with a black pencil and stop their nostrils with grass. Wine and tobacco they know not, which serves as real proof of their having had hitherto no communication with Europeans." (Clearly, Krasheninnkov did not realize that tobacco was native to America, and unknown to Europeans until they crossed the Atlantic.)

Much of the tone of the book is derogatory, dwelling on superstitions and such practices as performing burials by feeding the deceased to the dogs. But there are some funny passages. Such as:

"I had the opportunity of seeing one of their chieftains exceedingly surprised upon the first sight of sugar, which he took for salt; but tasting it was so pleased with its sweetness that he begged some pieces to carry to his wives. But, as he was not able to resist the temptation of so great a rarity, he ate it all up on the road. When he reached his house, although he swore to the women that he had tasted salt sweeter than anything he had ever tasted before, yet they would not believe him, insisting that nothing could be sweeter than cranberries with deer's fat and lily roots."

As is well known, the natives did not fare well under the Russians, who enslaved and mistreated them. Krasheninnkov grudgingly admits this, stating that:

"The Cossacks, a people rude enough themselves, seemed to be pretty well pleased with the manner of living here, using the natives as slaves, who furnished them with sables and other furs in abundance, and passing the greatest part of their time at playing cards. Their only want seemed to be that of brandy. In . . . gambling for brandy . . . the gamesters wagered their furs and when they had no furs, even their slaves. What the poor slaves endured is almost incredible, being obliged sometimes to change their masters twenty times a day."