434 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONLVN INSTITUTION, 1924 



them had severeal times been condemned (by the Russian authorities) 

 to punishment, his professional drum and dress had been burned, 

 his hair had been cut off, and lie had been compelled to make a 

 number of obeisances and to fast. He remarked : ' We do not carry 

 on this calling without paying for it. Our masters (the spirits) 

 keep a zealous watch over us, and woe betide us afterwards if we 

 do not satisfy them ; but we can not quit it; we can not cease to prac- 

 tice shaman rites. Yet we do no evil.'''^^ 



On the whole, it may be said that shamanism includes a truly 

 religious element inasmuch as it confirms the thought that man de- 

 pends on spiritual forces, and one may agree with Radloff that it 

 "certainly promotes and sustains certain ethical endeavors." And 

 if it was not once " the comjnon cult of all the Turanian peoples ',' or 

 even the " very earliest religion of the world,'' as some are inclined 

 to think, it seems certain to be a phenomenon of great antiquity and 

 of relative primitiveness. 



28 Sieroshevski-Sumner, 1. c, p. 102. 



