Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - IV. Through the Forest-Region
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principal causes of these sanguinary conflicts among
themselves was the lack of women. Families were few in
number, and those parents that had daughters would not give
them away in marriage, because they needed them for
work at home. Then there was an ukase promulgated,
ordering parents to marry their daughters at the risk of
severe punishment in case of refusal, and girls who refused
to be married were to be beaten with birch boughs. As
in ancient times, expeditions were undertaken to the
villages of the natives in order to rob them of their girls, yet
the lack of women still continued, and so did also the
murderous feuds. It was a common occurrence not only
for neighbours to kill one another, but also for men to
kill their wives from jealousy, and the wives their
husbands. These traits of character, it is true, have been
modified somewhat in later years, but among the genuine
“tscheldòn,” or old Siberian settlers, they still prevail.
Between Tulun and Irkutsk we travelled night and day,
except when we had to wait for horses. During the day
the sun was hidden by clouds of smoke, and at night the
forest was here and there lit up by immense forest-fires,
in the fierce glare of which would now and then be seen
groups of rag-covered brodyagi or tramps, whose look
was more picturesque than reassuring. At intervals of
fifteen or twenty miles we would come to a village with
a stantsia or posting-station, where our horses were changed.
These Siberian villages make a peculiar impression on
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