They are an agricultural population, not fishers and hunters.
They are also, most probably, an unmixed population; since none of their neighbours live so exclusively to themselves, (i.e. not in mixed villages, half Russian, or half Bashkir,) as the Votiaks.
The government under petty chiefs, or the heads of tribes, still continues; and it is a privilege of the Votiaks to elect their own village judges or arbiters.
Their population seems on the increase. At the end of the last century it was forty thousand: in 1837 it was one hundred thousand.
3.
THE TCHEREMISS.
Locality.—The left bank of the Middle Volga; fewer on the right. Governments of Kasan, Simbirsk, and Saratov. Recently, settlements in the Government of Astrakan, Conterminous with the Votiaks.
Name.—Russian. Native name, Mari=men.
Numbers.—According to Schubert, two hundred thousand.
Religion.—Imperfect Christianity. Greek Church.