THE HEATHEN OSTIAKS.
[Note 82] p. 426.—Present state of Ostiaks.
The Ostiak population was estimated in 1891 at about 27,000, and is believed to be still decreasing. There is some interesting information regarding them in Erman’s Travels in Siberia.
[Note 83] p. 433—Larvæ out of nostrils.
The reindeer is excessively troubled by the attacks of several insects, related to the bot-flies (Œstridæ), which attack sheep, cattle, and horses in this country. One lays its eggs in the skin, another in the nostrils, whence the larvæ emerge. The reindeer have a great horror of these insects, and are said to become weak and emaciated in their efforts to avoid them. The disease due to the parasitic insects is sometimes referred to as “germ”, and may destroy most of a herd.
[Note 84] p. 438.—Brick Tea.
See Note 36.
[Note 85] p. 444.—Shamans.
Some interesting details as to these in Hofgaard’s Nordenskïold’s Voyage. He speaks of the preparatory asceticism: “solitude, watching, fasting, exciting and narcotic remedies work upon his imagination; he soon sees the spirits and the apparitions he heard about in his youth, and believes firmly in them”.... “He is no cool, calculating deceiver, no common conjuror.” “Sometimes they have been thrashed in order that they might change a particular prophecy, but Wrangel relates a case in 1814, when their orders to kill a beloved chief, in order to stay a plague, were at length obeyed. Though Christianity has been introduced for more than a century, the Shamans have still (1882) much power.”
A scholarly account of the Shamans, which includes much interesting material in regard to the customs which Brehm describes in this chapter, will be found in the Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xxiv., August and September, 1894. “Shamanism in Siberia and European Russia”, being the second part of “Shamantsvo,” by Professor V. M. Mikhailovskii, translated by O. Wardrop.