418 FROM NORTH POLE TO EQUATOR. 



granted that there are as many women and girls, the whole num- 

 ber does not reach eleven thousand; and the above estimate is 

 rather too high than too low, even though the tract inhabited by 

 our people extends up the Obi to the district of Surgut, and up the 

 Irtish to the neighbourhood of Tobolsk. 



All the Ostiaks on the upper Irtish and middle Obi live in fixed 

 log-houses, very simple, but resembling those of the Russians, and only 

 here and there among these permanent dwellings, which indicate a 

 higher degree of civilization, do we come upon a birch-bark tent 

 or tshum. On the other hand, on the lower Obi, and especially 

 between Obdorsk and the mouth of the stream, only birch-tents are 

 to be seen, and they are, naturally, the only homes of the nomadic 

 reindeer herdsman. Almost, if not exactly in agreement with this 

 difference in dwelling, is the difference in religion, for the Ostiaks 

 inhabiting settled villages belong to the Orthodox Greek Catholic 

 Church, and are reckoned among its members, as they have been 

 baptized, while those dwelling in the tshum are still true to their 

 ancient faith, which, although regarded by the Russian priests and 

 their followers as blind heathenism, is by no means devoid of poetic 

 grandeur, still less of moral worth. The tent-dwellers certainly 

 practise their religion with more ardour and conviction than the 

 settled villagers do their so-called Christianity, which, as far as can 

 be observed, seems to an unbiassed onlooker rather a superstitious 

 idolatry than a nobler substitute for the religion which grew out of 

 a childlike mood, and finds expression in childlike ways. With the 

 adoption of log-houses and of Christianity, the Ostiaks of the 

 central Obi and lower Irtish regions have, to a certain extent, given 

 up their own dress in favour of that of the neighbouring Russian 

 fisher-folk, and in their intercourse with these, have adopted many of 

 their manners and customs. In part, too, they have lost their 

 purity of race, and have retained only the inalienable characteristics, 

 the language and all peculiarities preserved by it, perhaps also the 

 skill, dexterity, and harmless good-nature common to all the 

 Ostiaks. But one cannot venture to assert that their morals have 

 improved with their civilization, or that their purity of life has 

 increased with Christianity; and in any case it is more satisfactory 



