The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

408 EUSSIA IN EUEOPE.much the same language, present nearly the same appearance, and descend equallyfrom the old Biarmians, who had commercial relations with the Norsemen by thechannel of the White Sea. They also call themselves by the common name ofKomi-Mort—that is, "People of the Kama " —and, with the Yotyaks, form a distinctgroup in the Finnish family. The word Permian is said to mean " Highlander,"and woidd seem to belong to the same root as parma, which throughout the Northis applied to plateaux and wooded hills. The Permians have been mostlyRussified, but in 1875 the language was still spoken by about 66,000 on bothsides of the Urals. Since the fifteenth century they have been Orthodox Christians,and have long abandoned the worship of the " Old Woman of Gold," but share inall the superstitions of the Russians regarding ghosts and spirits. They especiallydread the tricks of domestic goblins, the evil eye, incantations, spells wafted by thewind, bewitched clods of earth met on the highways. The worship of the stove,as natural in the North as is that of the sun in the South, is still maintained, and onanniversaries smoking meats are brought to the graves, because the dead delight inthe savoury odour of the feast. Beer is also poured down through rents in thesoil, with invitations to drink as formerly. Till recently the Russians of thecountry were said to practise the same customs. Before the emancipation nearlyall the Permians were serfs of the Strogonov and other nobles of commercialorigin, and to their former debasement should perhaps be attributed their extremelylicentious habits.Far more numerous are their kinsmen the Yotyaks, or Votes, settled chiefly inthe basin of the Viatka, which probably takes its name from them. Florinskiestimated them at 250,000 in 1874, and they do not seem to have diminished sincethe arrival of the first Russian settlers in the country, though, according to theirtraditions, they have been driven northwards. They are skilled husbandmen,stock-breeders, and bee-farmers, and notwithstanding their vicinity to the largecities of the Volga, they have been less Russified than the Permians. Like theCheremissians nominal Christians, like them, also, they are still addicted to diverseShamanistic practices, and endeavour, by similar rites, to conjure the evil influencesof Keremet. When crossing a stream they always throw in a tuft of grass, withthe words, "Do not keep me back."Their speech, of which Ahlqvist published agrammar in 1856, is closely allied to that of the Ziryanians.Amongst the other peoples of the Kama basin there are several who have beenvariously classified, by some with the Finns, by others with the Tatars, and who,through interminglings caused by migration, conquest, and conversion, now belong,in point of fact, to both races. Such are the Meshtcheryaks, who formerly occupiedthe Oka basin, chiefly in the districts that now form the governments of Riazan,Tambov, and Nijni-Novgorod. A section of the Mordvinian Finns has hithertoretained this name ;but most of them have been driven eastwards to the banks ofthe Kama and Belaya, and to the Ural valleys. Those who remained behind havebeen gradually Russified in religion, speech, and customs, while others who settledamongst the Bashkirs have in the same way been assimilated to that race.According to Rittich these Tatarised Meshtcheryaks numbered over 138,000 in