[710] Although officially returned as Muhammadans of the Sunni sect, Levchine tells as that it is hard to say whether they are Moslem, Pagan (Shamanists), or Manichean, this last because they believe God has made good angels called Mankir and bad angels called Nankir. Two of these spirits sit invisibly on the shoulders of every person from his birth, the good on the right, the bad on the left, each noting his actions in their respective books, and balancing accounts at his death. It is interesting to compare these ideas with those of the Uzbeg prince who explained to Lansdell that at the resurrection, the earth being flat, the dead grow out of it like grass; then God divides the good from the bad, sending these below and those above. In heaven nobody dies, and every wish is gratified; even the wicked creditor may seek out his debtor, and in lieu of the money owing may take over the equivalent in his good deeds, if there be any, and thus be saved (Through Central Asia, 1887, p. 438).
[711] See especially his Reiseberichte u. Briefe aus den Jahren 1845-49, p. 401 sq.; and Versuch einer Koibalischen u. Karagassischen Sprachlehre, 1858, Vol. I. passim. But cf. J. Szinnyei, Finnisch-ugrische Sprachwissenschaft, 1910, pp. 19-20.
[712] Peschel, Races of Man, p. 386.
[713] In a suggestive paper on this collection of Finnish songs C. U. Clark (Forum, April, 1898, p. 238 sq.) shows from the primitive character of the mythology, the frequent allusions to copper or bronze, and the almost utter absence of Christian ideas and other indications, that these songs must be of great antiquity. "There seems to be no doubt that some parts date back to at least 3000 years ago, before the Finns and the Hungarians had become distinct peoples; for the names of the divinities, many of the customs, and even particular incantations and bits of superstitions mentioned in the Kalevala are curiously duplicated in ancient Hungarian writings."
[714] When Ohthere made his famous voyage round North Cape to the Cwen Sea (White Sea) all this Arctic seaboard was inhabited, not by Samoyeds, as at present, but by true Finns, whom King Alfred calls Beormas, i.e. the Biarmians of the Norsemen, and the Permiaki (Permians) of the Russians (Orosius, I. 13). In medieval times the whole region between the White Sea and the Urals was often called Permia; but since the withdrawal southwards of the Zirynians and other Permian Finns this Arctic region has been thinly occupied by Samoyed tribes spreading slowly westward from Siberia to the Pechora and Lower Dvina.
[715] See A. Hackman, Die Bronzezeit Finnlands, Helsingfors, 1897; also M. Aspelin, O. Montelius, V. Thomsen and others, who have all, on various grounds, arrived at the same conclusion. Even D. E. D. Europaeus, who has advanced so many heterodox views on the Finnish cradleland, and on the relations of the Finnic to the Mongolo-Turki languages, agrees that "vers l'époque de la naissance de J. C., c'est-à-dire bien longtemps avant que ces tribus immigrassent en Finlande, elles [the western Finns] étaient établies immédiatement au sud des lacs d'Onéga et de Ladoga." (Travaux Géographiques exécutés en Finlande jusqu'en 1895, Helsingfors, 1895, p. 141.)
[716] Finska Forminnesföreningens Tidskrift, Journ. Fin. Antiq. Soc. 1896, p. 137 sq.
[717] "Les Finnois et leurs congénères ont occupé autrefois, sur d'immenses espaces, les vastes régions forestières de la Russie septentrionale et centrale, et de la Sibérie occidentale; mais plus tard, refoulés et divisés par d'autres peuples, ils furent réduits à des tribus isolées, dont il ne reste maintenant que des débris épars" (Travaux Géographiques, p. 132).
[718] A word of doubtful meaning, commonly but wrongly supposed to mean swamp or fen, and thus to be the original of the Teutonic Finnas, "Fen People" (see Thomsen, Einfluss d. ger. Spr. auf die finnisch-lappischen, p. 14).
[719] "Þa Finnas, him þuhte, and þa Beormas spræcon neah án geðeode" (Orosius, I. 14).