THE REGION OF LAKES: INHABITANTS. 329 



on crossing' the thrcsliold, the offering is not accepted, and the family genius is 

 unpropitiated. The Vepses drink a spirit prepared from heet-root, Avhich 

 strangers find most unpalatable, and scurvy makes great ravages amongst them, 

 owing probably to the absence of cabbage, onions, or other green stuffs in their 

 diet. 



The Ingars, or Ingrian Finns, who give their name to tlie province of Ingria 

 of Ingermannland, have ceased to exist as a distinct nationality ; but more or less 

 mixed descendants of these Finns still largely inhabit the coast lands between 

 the Narova and Neva deltas, and all the teriitory washed by Lake Ladoga on the 

 west, north, and north-east. Those settled in the suburbs of St. Petersburg seem 

 to belong to the Tavastian or West Finnish branch, and are collectively known 

 as ChCdvhni, or Chukhontzi. Like their neighbours, the Ijortzîs, or Igrîs, of 

 the river Ijora, a small tributary of the Neva, they are distinguished from other 

 Finns by their low statiire, thick-set frames, and disgusting habits. 



On the shores of Lake Ladoga the population is entirely Karelian. The islands 

 are inhabited both by Finns and Russians, but the latter had till recently become 

 denationalised to the extent of almost entirely forgetting their mother tongue. 

 Here it is the Aryans who are being slowly assimilated to the L^grians, although 

 many so-called Russians in the region of the great lakes are probably nothing but 

 Karelians, their complexion being much fairer, their eyes and hair lighter, than 

 those of the true Slavs. Most of the customs are Finnish, and often perpetuate 

 old pagan observances. Tenacious in their character and ideas, the Karelians 

 change very slowly. "Burn a Karelian," saj^s the proverb, "and after three 

 years he still smoulders." In the seventeenth century the Olonetz Finns were 

 still in their stone age, cutting the throats of animals with flint knives, and then 

 worshipping the implements. On a bluff in Manchin-Sari Island, towards the 

 north of Ladoga, there stands the shrine of the prophet Elias, where the devout 

 orthodox peasantry gathered as of old to offer a sacrifice on the first Sunday after 

 the feast of the saint. Here their forefathers were wont to slay an elk or a deer 

 at the dawn of that day ; but these animals having vanished from the land, a bull 

 has been substituted. The flesh is shared out, cooked in large pots, and religiously 

 consumed by the faithful : after this sacred repast the prophet will not fail to 

 protect the herds from the murrain. The cattle plague is also ccnjured by 

 fumigations of wood kindled by friction, or by casting alive into a pit some animal, 

 such as a cat or cock, a dog, or even a horse. 



Like the Little Russians, the Slavs of the government of Olonetz have preserved 

 many epic poems known locally as stan'nas, or " antiquities." In two months 

 Hilferding collected as many as seventy in a single district of the province. 

 Reciters of these songs are met in every profession, and fresh pieces are being 

 continually composed or adapted. Here the love of funeral dirges is more general 

 than elsewhere in Russia, and although harshly treated under the paternal roof, 

 the betrothed chants elegiac songs for weeks before the wedding. The old beliefs, 

 evidently to a large extent of Karelian origin, have been kept alive amongst the 

 rural classes in Olonetz. Sacred trees are still revered ; offerings, and especially 



