Note 178 — Chapter II · HUNTERS AND FISHERS.
Reading edition
In Kamchatka slaves were employed for various domestic labours, such as fetching wood, feeding the dogs, making axes and knives from stone and bone178. The Kamchadales were not so far advanced in the arts of life as the tribes of the Pacific Coast of North America. They think only of the present, says Steller; they are not ambitious to become rich. They do not like to work more than is needed for their own and their families’ subsistence. “When they have got as much as they think to be sufficient, they do not collect any more food; they would not even do so, if the fish came on land and the animals into their dwellings”. A rather brisk trade was, however, carried on by them and was largely dependent on female labour179. They also had fixed habitations180.