Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 24, 1913.djvu/525

 Collectanea. 487

The next song was sung to me by an old woman supposed to be a shaman. I was spending a summer night as a guest in the hut of some Gilyak neighbours of mine. We slept on benches with our day clothes over us for coverings. The fire went out, and the moonlight shining through a hole in the roof lit up the heads of the people. A figure with tangled white hair, — (she was in mourn- ing for her husband and therefore could not comb her hair), — began to sing in a low voice. " Sister of ' Milk ' is singing," whispered to me a young friend who lay beside me. All conver- sation at once ceased, the listeners even holding their breath. At times the song dropped to a whisper or a smothered cry ; then from all corners voices of encouragement would come, to show the singer that the listeners were awake and interested in her song. The encouragement certainly acted upon her ; by and by the song grew louder, the time quickened, and the words were clearer. The moon went down and the hut was in darkness. Through the hole in the roof I could see only a few twinkling stars in a clear but dark sky. The mournful tones beat against the roof. The strained attention of the listeners did not waver, and I heard from time to time deep sighs of emotion. Next day I asked the old woman to dictate the song to me.

" By the sea, in the place where is now the Russian Colony Alexandrovsk, was formerly a Gilyak village, situated in the middle of a larch wood. Fifty years ago the singer, then a child of ten years, met a girl of fifteen, the wife of a rich Gilyak, to whom she had been sold in her childhood. Forced to live with a man she hated, she could not hide her loathing of her husband ; this angered him, and sometimes he beat her. She could not hope for any help from her relatives, for her father had deserted her and her mother. She therefore gathered together her com- panions, mostly unmarried girls, and sang to them a farewell song ; then put an end to her life by hanging." This is the song as the old woman remembered it : —

V. The Suicides Song.

"The larch tree is smooth and tall. When I go to cut the grass it trembles from the summit to the very roots, and its branches bow