404 EUSSIA IN EUEOPE. 



upou he takes bread and salt, and drinks with the company the still smoking 

 blood of a sheep that has just been killed. In the evening he withdraws to the 

 graveyard with his relations bearing lighted candles. Here he again fills his 

 mouth with blood, utters some solemn words of blessing on the domestic animals, 

 and lies down on the grave. A white sheet is then thrown over him, but 

 immediately removed, for the mystery is now accomplished. The soul of the 

 deceased has been consigned to a lump of dough, and the dead may henceforth 

 enter the "apiary of Mother Earth," one of the three "apiaries" into which 

 the universe is divided, for the Mordvinian ideal of the Cosmos is that of the 

 beehive, in which all is done with rule and measure. 



The Cheremissians and Chuvashes. 



The Cheremissians, numbering from 200,000 to 260,000, are almost exclusively 

 known by this oifensive Tatar name, which means " Evil " or " Good- for- Nothing," 

 or possibly " Warriors." The national name is Mori, or Mari (" Men "), perhaps 

 identical with that of the ancient Mer, or Merians, of Suzdalia. They formerly 

 occupied most of the region stretching along both banks of the Yolga and Kama 

 between the Sura and Yiatka confluences, and were probably a branch of the 

 great Bulgar nation. But in the thirteenth century the Novgorodians founded 

 a fortified factory in their country, and with this first attempt at colonisation 

 began a series of wars between the natives and their Slav and Tatar invaders. 

 The Cheremissians were not always worsted in these protracted struggles, and 

 even in the seventeenth century they succeeded in interrupting all communica- 

 tion between Nijni-Novgorod and Kazan. But before the end of that century they 

 were finally subdued, and are now broken up into isolated communities, with no 

 ethnical cohesion, except on the left bank of the Volga, below the Vetluga, and 

 thence to the vicinity of Kazan. The Cheremissians of the "plains" have 

 better preserved the old customs than those of the opposite bank, the " hill " 

 Cheremissians, so called because their district is limited by the high cliffs of the 

 Volga. The latter, being surrounded on all sides by the Russians, have almost 

 everywhere lost their national individuality, and are becoming gradually absorbed 

 in the dominant race. 



Amongst the Cheremissians of the plains the Finnish type is still conspicuous 

 amidst the Slav populations. They are of a browner complexion, with flat or 

 snub nose, very prominent cheek bones, scant beard, narrow and oblique eyes. The 

 women, naturally ugly enough, are often further disfigured, like the Suomi of 

 Finland, by sore eyes, caused by the smoky atmosphere of their hovels. The 

 Cheremissians make bad farmers. Belonging to a period of transition between the 

 nomad and settled state, they still prefer the chase, fishing, or stock-breeding to 

 agriculture. But their old civilisation, such as it was, has perished. They 

 formerly possessed a sort of writing system consisting of rude marks, or runes, 

 notched on sticks, and they still pretend that they had written books " which 

 were devoured by the great cow." But they have preserved a few industries 



