Endurability (he wrote) is their chief feature.  It is simply colossal.  Not only do they bathe every morning in the frozen sea, and stand naked on the beach, inhaling the icy wind, but their endurability, even when at hard work on insufficient food, surpasses all that can be imagined.  During a protracted scarcity of food, the Aleoute cares first for his children; he gives them all he has, and himself fasts.  They are not inclined to stealing; that was remarked even by the first Russian immigrants.  Not that they never steal; every Aleoute would confess having sometime stolen something, but it is always a trifle; the whole is so childish.  The attachment of the parents to their children is touching, though it is never expressed in words or pettings.  The Aleoute is with difficulty moved to make a promise, but once he has made it he will keep it whatever may happen. (An Aleoute made Veniaminoff a gift of dried fish, but it was forgotten on the beach in the hurry of the departure.  He took it home.  The next occasion to send it to the missionary was in January; and in November and December there was a great scarcity of food in the Aleoute encampment.  But the fish was never touched by the starving people, and in January it was sent to its destination.) Their code of morality is both varied and severe.  It is considered shameful to be afraid of unavoidable death; to ask pardon from an enemy; to die without ever having killed an enemy; to be convicted of stealing; to capsize a boat in the harbour; to be afraid of going to sea in stormy weather. to be the first in a party on a long journey to become an invalid in case of scarcity of food; to show greediness when spoil is divided, in which case every one gives his own part to the greedy man to shame him; to divulge a public secret to his wife; being two persons on a hunting expedition, not to offer the best game to the partner; to boast of his own deeds, especially of invented ones; to scold any one in scorn.  Also to beg; to pet his wife in other people’s presence, and to dance with her to bargain personally:  selling must always be made through a third person, who settles the price.  For a woman it is a shame not to know sewing, dancing and all kinds of woman’s work; to pet her husband and children, or even to speak to her husband in the presence of a stranger.(32)

Such is Aleoute morality, which might also be further illustrated by their tales and legends.  Let me also add that when Veniaminoff wrote (in 1840) one murder only had been committed since the last century in a population of 60,000 people, and that among 1,800 Aleoutes not one single common law offence had been known for forty years.  This will not seem strange if we remark that scolding, scorning, and the use of rough words are absolutely unknown in Aleoute life.  Even their children never fight, and never abuse each other in words.  All they may say is, “Your mother does not know sewing,” or “Your father is blind of one eye."(33)