128 SHAMANISM. 



to the rigour of the climate, although even the natives 

 occasionally suffer dreadful, and even fatal injuries by 

 such accidents as the present. But the case was 

 different as concerned the strangers, whose power 

 to resist the cold they were unacquainted with. 

 In this extremity, recourse was had to thy powers, 

 dread Shamanism ! and whatever people may think of 

 it, I freely confess, that although by no means a man of 

 weak nen'es, the manner of conducting the ceremony, 

 notwithstanding the simpHcity of its details, struck 

 me with a sensation of awe, and first opened my eyes 

 to the real danger we were in. Quitting their sledge 

 with slow and measured step, the pair removed to a 

 distance from us, where Yaneenga prostrated herseff 

 in the snow, her hands upraised above her buried 

 face : the man, turning first to the west, then to the 

 north and south, omitting — I know not why, perhaps 

 accidentally — the fourth point, bowed himself to each 

 repeatedly ; like Yaneenga' s, liis hands and arms were 

 upraised above his head, and he gave forth a succession 

 of cries, which still sound in my ears as I write 

 of them — long wailing shouts, loud, unearthly and 

 despairing, each exhausting the lungs in their emission, 

 like a thunder roll at first, and sinking by degrees to 

 a melancholy faintness. In aU my Hfe I never heard 

 any sounds to equal these for horrible impressiveness ; 



