PET CHORA 517 



Christianised Samoyedes are buried in the Eussian 

 manner. 



Samoyede Prayer and Sacrifice. When they desire to 

 pray to their god, they bring a reindeer before their idol, 

 which is simply a symbol of their god, and put a noose 

 in the middle of a long rope round its neck. A man 

 holds the rope at each end and another has a noose 

 round its hind foot. The animal is jerked off its feet and 

 thrown at full length on the ground, and it is then 

 stabbed on both sides with two pieces of sharp wood (not 

 with a knife), and in this way they consider that the deer 

 ' is brought to their god,' and the sacrifice is finished. 



After dinner on the 26th of May a Samoyede came in, 

 and after much hammering and reiteration and explana- 

 tion of sounds and syllables, we were able to arrive at the 

 names of the various parts of the reindeer harness, choom 

 and belongings, etc. They differ a little from the names 

 we received before, but the man who told us them the 

 last time was not a pure-bred Samoyede, which may 

 account for the difference in the sounding. The constant 

 use of a y-like sound between certain consonants and the 

 following vowel like the nasal sound in the Spanish n, 

 as in canon makes it difficult for the unaccustomed ear 

 to detect its presence or absence, as some seem to pro- 

 nounce the words with it and some without, as in 

 ' yodyina ' or ' yodina ' a saddle. A terminal n has 

 also a nasal sound ii or is dwelt upon like n-n. 



