GILYAKS, a hybrid people, originally widespread throughout the Lower Amur district, but now confined to the Amur delta and the north of Sakhalin. They have been affiliated by some authorities to the Ainu of Sakhalin and Yezo; but they are more probably a mongrel people, and Dr A. Anuchin states that there are two types, a Mongoloid with sparse beard, high cheek-bones and flat face, and a Caucasic with bushy beard and more regular features. The Chinese call them Yupitatse, “Fish-skin-clad people,” from their wearing a peculiar dress made from salmon skin.

See E. G. Ravenstein, The Russians on the Amur (1861); Dr A. Anuchin, Mem. Imp. Soc. Nat. Sc. xx., Supplement (Moscow, 1877); H. von Siebold, Über die Aino (Berlin, 1881); J. Deniker in Revue d’ethnographie (Paris, 1884); L. Schrenck, Die Völker des Amurlandes (St Petersburg, 1891).