Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - XIV. Among the Natives on the Lower Lena
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forest or far away on the tundras. For besides this
prohibition, there is another reason for burying the Shamans
in out-of-the-way places—namely, the belief that their spirits,
which are considered to be dangerous, are always hovering
about their graves, which therefore must be avoided.
At the Tungus village, Kumak-Surt, picturesquely
situated on the western bank of the river with the Kara Ulak
mountains abruptly sloping down into the water on the
farther side, I spent some interesting days. The natives
were comparatively well off and showed us much kindness,
and I had an opportunity here of seeing the only dance
practised among the Tunguses in these regions. Taking
each other under the arm, both men and women circled
around with the sun, at the same time turning their bodies
from right to left, chanting in monotonous tones the words:
“Ek Kario! Ek Kario!” the meaning of which they did
not know.
At this place I met with the Yakut Androssoff, who in
1881 saved the lives of Noros and Nindemann, members of
the Jeannette expedition. The reader will perhaps recall the
sad story: how the steamer Jeannette having been crushed
in the ice and sunk on the 12th of June, 1881, in lat.
77° 14′ 57″ N., long. 154° 58′ 45″ E., north-east of the mouth
of the Lena, Captain De Long and his men, in three boats,
made their way amid a thousand dangers and great
hardships over and through the ice between the New Siberian
Islands towards the Lena delta; and how, finally, the three
boats were separated by a storm—one of them being no
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