408 RUSSIA IN EUEOPE. 



much the same language, present nearly the same appearance, and descend equally 

 from the old Biarmians, who had commercial relations with the Norsemen by the 

 channel of the "White Sea. They also call themselves by the common name of 

 Komi-Mort — that is, " People of the Kama " — and, with the Votyaks, form a distinct 

 group in the Finnish family. The word Permian is said to mean " Highlander," 

 and would seem to belong to the same root as jmrma, which throughout the North 

 is applied to plateaux and wooded hills. The Permians liave been mostly 

 Russified, but in 1875 the language was still spoken by about 66,000 on both 

 sides of the Urals. Since the fifteenth century they have been Orthodox Christians, 

 and have long abandoned the worship of the " Old Woman of Gold," but share in 

 all the superstitions of the Russians regarding ghosts and spirits. They especially 

 dread the tricks of domestic goblins, the evil eye, incantations, spells wafted by the 

 wind, bewitched clods of earth met on the highways. The worship of the stove, 

 as natural in the North as is that of the sun in the South, is still maintained, and on 

 anniversaries smoking meats are brought to the graves, because the dead delight in 

 the savoury odour of the feast. Beer is also poured down through rents in the 

 soil, with invitations to drink as formerly. Till recently the Russians of the 

 country were said to practise the same customs. Before the emancipation nearly 

 all the Permians were serfs of the Strogonov and other nobles of commercial 

 origin, and to their former debasement should perhaps be attributed their extremely 

 licentious habits. 



Far more numerous are their kinsmen the Votyaks, or Votes, settled chiefly in 

 the basin of the Viatka, which probably takes its name from them. Florinski 

 estimated them at 250,000 in 1874, and they do not seem to have diminished since 

 the arrival of the first Russian settlers in the country, though, according to their 

 traditions, they have been driven northwards. They are skilled husbandmen, 

 stock-breeders, and bee-fiirmers, nnd notwithstanding their vicinity to the large 

 cities of the Volga, they have been less Russified than the Permians. Like the 

 Cheremissians nominal Christians, like them, also, they are still addicted to diverse 

 Shamanistic practices, and endeavour, by similar rites, to conjure the evil influences 

 of Keremet. When crossing a stream they always throw in a tuft of grass, with 

 the words, "Do not keep me back." Their speech, of which Ahlqvist published a 

 grammar in 1856, is closely allied to that of the Ziryanians. 



Amongst the other peoples of the Kama basin there are several who have been 

 variously classified, by some with the Finns, by others with the Tatars, and who, 

 through interminglings caused by migration, conquest, and conversion, now belong, 

 in point of fact, to both races. Such are the Mesh tcheryaks,- who formerly occupied 

 the Oka basin, chiefly in the districts that now form the governments of Riazan, 

 Tambov, and Nijni-Novgorod. A section of the Mordvinian Finns has hitherto 

 retained this name ; but most of them have been driven eastwards to the banks of 

 the Kama and Belaya, and to the Ural valleys. Those who remained behind have 

 been gradually Russified in religion, speech, and customs, while others who settled 

 amongst the Bashkirs have in the same Avay been assimilated to that race. 

 According to Rittich these Tatarised Meshtcheryaks numbered over 138,000 in 



