Fly Agaric among the Koryaks in Langsdorff's Bemerkungen

This translation is prepared for the archive from the public-domain 1812 German edition of Langsdorff's voyage. The excerpt is brief, but it records fly agaric not only as a pharmacological curiosity but as a traded object in the economy of Kamchatka and Koryak-Russian exchange.

Fly Agarics in Koryak Trade

The Koryaks wander through this country all year with their countless tame reindeer herds, and they readily sell so many of them to the Russians and Kamchadals in exchange for trifles, especially tobacco, brandy, fly agarics, kettles, axes, and other utensils, that they are sufficiently supplied with meat for food and hides for clothing.

With the abundance of their herds they conduct barter with the neighboring Russians and Kamchadals, obtaining iron and copper kettles and other kitchenware, knives, axes, tobacco leaves, brandy, fly agarics,* gunpowder and lead, sealskin straps, train oil, and other articles in exchange for reindeer.

• The fly agarics are preferred by the Koryaks, as a stupefying or intoxicating agent, even to brandy. My special observations on this subject may be found in the Annalen der wetterauischen Gesellschaft für die gesammte Naturkunde, vol. 16, p. 249.