THE HEATHEN OSTIAKS. 425 



fastened to the supports of the hut, serve as a drying-stand, from 

 which also the cooking-kettle hangs. To right and left of the 

 passage, boards, or at least mats, are laid down, and serve as floor- 

 ing and also to mark off the sleeping places, whose head-end is 

 towards the wall. Mats, made of bundles of sedge, long-haired, 

 soft reindeer skins, and cushions stuffed with reindeer hair or dried 

 moss, form the bed, and its coverings are of fur. A mosquito tent, 

 under which the whole family creeps in summer, protects the sleepers 

 more effectually against the winged tormentors than the smoky 

 fire of rotten willow wood which is kept constantly burning in the 

 entrance of the tshum. Cooking vessels, tea and drinking kettles, 

 bowls, leather bags for holding flour and hard-baked bread, little 

 chests with locks for holding the most valuable possessions, especi- 

 ally the tea-set, an axe, a gimlet, leather scrapers, a bowl-like work- 

 box, a bow, crossbow or gun, snow-shoes, and various implements 

 of the chase, make up the domestic plenishings. A household god 

 replaces the crucifix, which is rarely absent from the huts of the 

 Christian Ostiaks. 



The tshum is protected against the cold and storms of winter 

 by a leather covering of worn-out skins sewn together, or, more 

 effectually, by spreading a second layer of sheets of birch-bark over 

 the first. 



If the owner of the tshum be a fisherman, one may see in front 

 of his dwelling drying-stands for hanging up the nets, and others 

 for drying fish, all very carefully made; also exceedingly light, 

 daintily -wrought fishing-baskets, several excellent little boats, and 

 other fishing apparatus; if he be also a huntsman there are in 

 addition all kinds of implements of the chase, such as bows and 

 spring-crossbows; if he be a reindeer-herdsman there are several 

 well-made sledges with their appropriate harness, and the boat 

 which is also indispensable. 



Every Ostiak is experienced in fishing, almost all hunt or set 

 snares, but not all are herdsmen. To possess reindeer means, among 

 them, to be well-to-do, to possess many is to be rich; to live by fish- 

 ing alone is poverty. Horses and cows are to be seen in some of 

 their settlements, though in very small numbers, and only in the 



