“On fête days, they assemble round one of their priests, who beats on a drum and recites prayers, whilst an acolyte sprinkles the faithful with milk and alcohol.”
One of these old Olkhonese, one day, related to me a legend, concerning the sect inhabiting the Trans-Baikal. In order to understand this legend, it is necessary to know that there is a great difference of level between Irkutsk and Lake Baikal, and that all the waters of this lake are held in check at the highest by an enormous rock, at the opening of the Angara. If this rock, they say, were to break away, all the water in the lake would rush down in a single wave, annihilate Irkutsk and, carrying everything before it with frightful rapidity, would form a vast sea filling the valley of the Angara. The Shamanists believe that the souls of the departed are transported on to this rock after death. The top of this rock where they sojourn is so narrow and precipitous that they are seized with giddiness, and being close to the turmoil and rush of the flood into the Angara, they are so bewildered with it, that they can hardly keep their footing. If they succeed in doing so, it is because they have been good and have the grace of God; if, on the contrary, their life has been wicked, they are drawn in and lost in the rushing waters. The roar produced by the impetuosity of these waters of the Angara, is, according to these people, nothing more than the united lamentations of the souls who fear losing their balance. It is true, that at this spot, the mountains give a striking echo from the uproar of the fall. I do not suppose I should be suspected by my readers of belief in the supernatural, and yet, I could easily fancy, in this imposing concert of nature, that I was sometimes listening to human voices from the Shamanic rock.
But the Buriats, a people who originate from the neighbourhood of Nertschinsk, to the west of Irkutsk and Lake Baikal, and the Tungus, who pretend to be even better horsemen than the Kirghiz or the Mongols, are the most numerous of these divers races seen at Irkutsk. These two races have become so Russianized in their habits, and almost in their costumes, that it is unnecessary to say much about them. Neither the nose, nor the cheek-bones, nor the forehead is prominent: one can then easily realize to himself the appearance of the profile of a Buriat. The women redeem the plainness of their faces by a figure generally very fine, and an extraordinary smoothness of skin, which has become proverbial in Siberia. Now and then some Samoyeds are seen, a race formerly nomadic, but who begin, I am informed, to people Yakutsk, just as the Buriats and the Tungus have established themselves at Irkutsk and around there. The clothing of these people of the extreme north, is made of the skin of the reindeer, ornamented with little bits of cloth, generally of bright red. I have seen several of them clad in seal skins, and skins of other amphibious animals: but these it seems, are the poorest, for this kind of fur is cheap and not warm.
SAMOYED PEASANTS.
There is no race more degraded in the characteristic of regarding the women as inferior beings, and among no other, are they treated so harshly as among the Samoyeds. “They are annoyed and oppressed,” says Pallas, “even in their own tents. The men put a pole behind the fire-place, facing the entrance, and the women are not allowed to stride over this. This stolid, idiotic race of beings believe that if the wife should unluckily pass within, the night will not end without a wolf coming and devouring one of their reindeer. To be in a delicate state, euphemised as ‘interesting,’ is considered degrading. During this period, women dare not eat fresh meat; they are obliged to be satisfied with less palatable food. They are particularly ill-treated at the period of their accouchement. They are obliged to make their confession in the presence of the husband and the midwife: to declare whether they have been unfaithful to their lords, and if so, to name the paramour. They take good care not to deny the imputation, fearing, that in doing so, they would have to endure cruel sufferings at the critical moment: on the contrary, if they are guilty, they avow their peccadillo with perfect frankness. Their confession, however, is attended with no inconvenience. The husband merely goes in search of the accused, and exacts from him some slight compensation.”
The revelry of the carnival at Irkutsk is quite different from that in France: it consists principally in continuous promenades in large open sledges, around which are suspended numerous bells: the harness also is covered with bells wherever they can be attached. But this is not sufficient; enthusiasts violently agitate others in their hands to produce a more effective resonance; and, by way of accompaniment, that nothing may be missing, children and the lower classes, who, in ordinary times, slide rapidly on their skates over a little wooden causeway, covered along the houses with frost-hardened, well-beaten snow, flit past in greater numbers at these rejoicings, in which bells again are not wanting to complete the stirring hurly-burly.
My windows unhappily were towards the principal street, where this abominable jingling was ever present. Never did I feel so much the want of a little quietness, as during these ten days of carnival, than which nothing better could be contrived à porter le diable en terre.
Never did I salute with more pleasure the arrival of Lent.
During the first three days of this period of penitence, a singular custom permits the coachmen attached to the house where you are staying to pay you a visit and demand a present. I, being a foreigner, was unduly honoured in seeing defile before me, in the rear of the drivers of the establishment, all the isvostchiks or cabmen that had profited by my fares during my sojourn.