FEES FOR THE DEVIL! 13 
gtises in the mountainous countries, who wander about with their 
j urts and their reindeer. 
In the mean time, X had an opportunity of witnessing tha 
incantations of a Jakutish shaman. He was invited by a sick 
person to appease the evil spirit supposed to have sent the dis¬ 
order. The shaman exchanged his usual Jakutish dress for the 
habit of his office, made of reindeer leather (called Rudwuga), 
which reached not much above the knee, and was covered over 
with narrow thongs, and thin bits of iron of different shapes and 
sizes. Having made his arrangements, he untied his hair that 
was fastened together upon his head # , smoked a pipe of tobacco, 
took his tamlujirme, seated himself in the midst of the jurt, 
and beating it first at long intervals with his bolujach, or a flat 
stick covered with reindeer-skin, sung a shaman’s song ; in which, 
as my interpreter told me, he challenged all the seven spirits 
under his command. A few minutes afterwards he began to beat 
his tambourine again, and bawl with great vehemence, standing up 
and addressing himself in different positions ; and then to jump 
and hop about th§ sick person to the sound of his instrument, at the 
same time screaming with a horrible voice, and distorting him¬ 
self in a hideous manner. His head, with the dishevelled hair, 
rolled backward and forward with such rapidity that it seemed to 
he. moved by springs; his eyes glared like those of a maniac; 
and falling soon after, from the violent exertion, into a sort of 
swoon, two Jakuts used their endeavours to support him. Re¬ 
covering in a few minutes, he called for a knife, with w hich he 
stabbed himself in the body, and commanded a Jakut to drive 
in the weapon to the hilt; then going to the hearth, he took out 
three burning coals, and swallowing them, danced without r dis- 
covering any symptoms of pain. At length he pulled the knife 
out of his body ; and, after vomiting the coals with some diffi¬ 
culty, began to prophesy that the sick man would be better if 
he offered a horse to the vricked spirit which tormented him ; 
at the same time defining the colour of the horse to be sacrificed. 
In all such cases, the lot, of. course, always falls upon the fat¬ 
test and choicest. 
The shamans demand nothing for their trouble, but are cori*- 
tented with what is given them : they have, however, always 
the privilege of the first seat at the feast on the sacrifice, when 
they eat with a voracious appetite. For the evil spirit they 
set apart the head, legs, tail, and skin; w hich, when stretched 
upon a pole, are hung on a birch, or larch-tree, from whence 
they are never removed. 
* The shamans only let their hair grow, the other Jakuts putting their’s 
off, after the manner of the Russian peasantry. 
