THE OSTIAKS. 



185 



BAI^KS OF THE IRTYSCH. 



CHAPTER XV. 



THE OSTIAKS. 



What is the Obi? — Inundations, — An Ostiak summer Yourt. — Poverty of the Ostiak Fishermen. — A 

 winter Yourt. — Attachment of the Ostiaks to their ancient Customs. — An Ostiak Prince. — Archery. 

 — Appearance and Character of the Ostiaks. — The Fair of Obdorsk. 



WHAT is the Obi ? — " One of the most melancholy rivers on earth," say 

 the few European travellers who have ever seen it roll its turbid waters 

 through the wilderness, " its monotonous banks a dreary succession of swamps 

 and dismal pine-forests, and hardly a living creature to be seen, but cranes, 

 wild ducks, and geese." If you address the same question to one of the few 

 Russians who have settled on its banks, he answers, with a devout mien, " Obi 

 is our mother ;" but if you ask the Ostiak, he bursts forth, in a laconic but en- 

 ergetic phrase, " Obi is the god whom we honor above all our other gods." 



To him the Obi is a source of life. With its salmon and sturgeon he pays 

 his taxes and debts, and buys his few luxuries ; while the fishes of inferior 

 quality which get entangled in his net he keeps for his own consumption and 

 that of his faithful dog, eating them mostly raw, so that the perch not seldom 

 feels his teeth as soon as it is pulled out of the water. In spring, when the 

 Obi and its tributaries burst their bonds of ice, and the floods sweep over the 

 plains, the Ostiak is frequently driven into the woods, where he finds but little 

 to appease his hunger ; at length, however, the waters subside, the flat banks 



