The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

190 RUSSIA IN ETJBOPE.old funeral rites survived in these districts till the tenth and eleventh centuries,as show n by (he Byzantine coins found in the kurgans, where the warrior reposeswith his arms, or the woman is still adorned with her finery. At times thefunerals were accompanied hy sacrifices of animals, and even of men and women.The large Chorna Mogila mound near Chernigov contained a confused calcinedheap of remains of men, horses, birds, fish, arms, implements, and jewellery."When, towards the end of the ninth century, the eastern Slavs begin toemerge from the darkness of mediaeval times, they occupy all the region of theFig. 95.— Chorna Mogila.— Kurgan, near Chernigov.water-partings and head-streams of theVolga, Dvina, Niemen, Vistula, Dniester,and nearly all the Dnieper basin, besides a few isolated communities as far eastand south-east as the Caspian, Kuban, and Sea of Azov. These Slav tribesalready offer the elements of a vigorous nationality, and they now definitely takethe historic name of Russians.The origin of tliis term has been much discussed. According to one tradition