Georg Wilhelm Steller sailed with Vitus Bering from Kamchatka in 1741, went ashore on Kayak Island off Alaska for a few hours, and survived the wreck and winter on what became Bering Island, where Bering died. His journal was edited by P. S. Pallas and published in St Petersburg in 1793 as a companion to his description of Kamchatka. It is a sea and natural history narrative; Tartars appear only once, as a point of comparison for arrows Steller found in an Alaskan storage pit. The corpus copy is the 1793 edition from the Bavarian State Library (its catalogue misreads the author as 'Weller').
How they knew
Eyewitness
Who “Tartar” means here
Only a passing comparison: 'Tungus and Tatars' as the familiar Siberian archers Steller knew.
Why read it
It marks the far eastern edge of the Siberian story: at the first European landing in Alaska, Steller measured what he found against Kamchatka, Tungus and Tatar things.
Watch out
Almost nothing here is about Tartars; Pallas edited the text.
Alaskan arrows like those of the Tungus and Tatars
Editorial contextOn Kayak Island Steller uncovered a covered storage pit full of smoked fish, sweet grass, bark and seaweed cord. Among the goods were arrows much bigger than Kamchatka ones, which he says came close to the arrows of the Tungus and Tatars and were so smooth and black that the owners must have had iron knives. It is a small sign of how Siberian travellers used Tatar gear as their measuring stick.
Among these I also found some arrows which in size far exceeded those of Kamchatka and came close to the arrows of the Tungus and Tatars, very smoothly scraped and painted black, so that one would certainly suppose they had iron tools and knives.
Working translation
Original wording
Unter diesen fand ich auch einige Pfeile, so an Größe die Kamtschatkischen weit übertrafen und denen Pfeilen der Tungusen und Tataren nahe kamen, sehr glatt geschabet und schwarz angestrichen, daß man allerdings eiserne Instrumente und Messer bey ihnen vermuthen sollte.
About Tatars and Tungus (as a comparison); Alaskan coast people
The fine print
How we know
firsthand The author saw the places or people described.
firsthand observation: Steller's journal of Bering's 1741-1742 voyage and wintering on Bering Island
Research notes
IA catalogue title misreads Steller as Weller; Pallas edited and annotated the manuscript.
Why it matters
Marks the eastern terminus of the Siberian source field: eyewitness voyage from Kamchatka to America; useful as a control on eighteenth-century knowledge of the Chukchi and the northeastern limit of Asia.