74 SIBERIA IN EUROPE. CHAP. vii. 



As we are now on the subject of this strange race, we may 

 as well insert here some details we gathered a few days 

 later, after our return to Ust-Zylina, from a Samoyede, who 

 drove up in his reindeer sledge from a choom near Habariki. 

 Our interpreter was a Polish Jew, banished by his father to 

 Siberia, because he had adopted the religion of the Greek 

 Church. He translated the Samoyede's bad Russian into 

 worse German. 



We were informed that when a young Samoyede desires 

 to marry, and has come to some understanding with the 

 damsel of his choice, he visits her father's chooin, and with 

 a short stick taps him, and then the mother of the maiden, 

 on the shoulder. He then demands the girl in marriage, 

 and offers the father and mother a glass of vodka, which he 

 has brought with him. As a token of his goodwill the father 

 drinks the vodka ; he tells the young man he has no objec- 

 tion, but that he must ask the girl's consent. The pre- 

 liminary ceremony of asking papa having been gone through, 

 the young man retires. A few days later he comes again to 

 the choom ; this time accompanied by what servants he has, and 

 provided with plenty of vodka. His retinue remain outside, 

 while he enters the choom, and seats himself by the side of 

 his lady love. The father hands the young man a glass of 

 vodka ; he drinks half, and hands the half-full glass, under 

 his left arm, to the girl, who finishes it. The father then 

 gives his daughter a glass of vodka, who in like manner 

 drinks half of it, and presents the remainder with her left 

 hand under her right arm to her lover, who drains the glass. 

 After this the father hands a piece of raw flesh to the young 



