The visit of the explorer Cossacks, whom the Russians would later christen the Pathfinders, melted into the realm of past history, of memory, acquiring ever more fanciful details. Although from time to time the people of Uelen managed to trade for metal goods through American Eskimos, or their own Yakut neighbors who lived a nomadic life along the deep rivers of the west, or through Yukagirs, Koryaks, and Kaaramkyn, it was their first, now timeworn knives, axes, needles, cauldrons, and the remains of the multicolored droplets that kept the unexpected, magical first contact with the hairmouths alive in their memory. And there was one more reminder of the visitors: the appearance of unusual-looking children, light-haired, light-skinned, with sky blue eyes. The young mothers of such children became highly sought-after brides in Uelen. More and more often Uelen had news of bloody conflict between the Luoravetlan and the Tangitans, the Russian Cossacks. The Yakuts, Koryaks, and Yukagirs, who had once coexisted peacefully with the Luoravetlan, now made alliances with the new conquerors and taught them the best routes for invading the Luoravetlan’s ancient ground.
