Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - XIII. From Yakutsk to the Lower Lena
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living in primitive tents on the shore, below a group of
yurtas which have not been inhabited since—some ten
years ago—the fearful Ospa, as small-pox is called, raged in
that region, exterminating the majority of the inhabitants.
Ospa, according to the opinion of the natives, is an evil
spirit, which has entered the country with the Russians,
and in the shape of an old Russian woman lurks in the
forests in order to steal into the yurtas of the natives.
Woe to the families living in the regions where the Ospa
makes her appearance! Like wildfire she flashes from
one yurta to another, from one camp to another, scourging
the people, until their bodies are covered all over with
red and black spots, and they finally die! And there is
no help against her devastation. The Shaman is able to
exorcise the native evil spirits, but against the fiends
brought into the country by the Russians—Ospa, syphilis,
and others—he is powerless. In this place, for example,
a Shaman had tried to drive away the Ospa, but without
success. Then there came another Shaman, one of “the
strong ones,” and he shamanised night and day for three
days, several times attaining the ecstatic state, until he
at length fell into a stupor from which he never awoke.
Shortly after his death Ospa disappeared. Thus the Shaman
—so the natives believed—saved them from the fearful
Ospa by the sacrifice of his own life.[1]
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