A SUMMER ON THE YENESEI 107 



more under the influeDce of the Europeans, it will be a 

 long time before they are finally submerged. In the 

 summer they come in contact with the Russians at the 

 fishing stations, but in winter, when they go into the 

 tundra, they slide back again into their primitive life, 

 away from vodka, and away from the hundred other 

 ills that are the curse of the wdiite man wherever he 

 goes. The natives are the wards of the Empire, and 

 on the whole the Government fulfils its trust towards 

 them. They are judged by their own people, and in so 

 far as they do not come into collision with the Russian 

 settlers, they are allowed to obey their own laws. If 

 one Samoyede injures another, he is judged by his 

 prince. If he injures a European, the case is heard by 

 the native prince and a Russian oflicial together ; but 

 for the most part the northern races are peaceable and 

 good tempered, and difficulties seldom arise. The grand 

 mistake is that the aborigines are taxed, not individually, 

 but by their clans or tribes. This system directly 

 discourages family life, and destroys the social relations, 

 which, as with so many other primitive nations, have 

 until now filled almost the part of religion to the natives 

 of the Yenesei. The tribes tend to break up and wander 

 ofi" by themselves, in order to escape the tax which 

 would be levied on them if they were proved to belong 

 to their clan. Thus the old customs and ties are put 

 aside, and as their compulsory admittance into the 

 Orthodox Greek Church is at present the merest farce, 

 it will not be long before they have no religion at all, 

 either in the form of practical ethics or else in that of 

 faith and rite. At present, the majority of those who 



