Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/63

 The Aborigines of Northern Asia. 51

the soul belonging to man only. The siinyesiin is absent when man sleeps, and when the amin goes away the man dies.

The Finnic Woguls and Ostiaks believe that man is com- posed of ( I ), earthly part ; (2), the shadow, isi\ and (3), the soul, //// khehnkholas.^'^

Religious dualism is more marked than among Palaeo- Siberians, and the veneration of "white" spirits predom- inates. Among the Buriats the greatest worship is given to the sky, tetigrei; hence they venerate the sun, moon, and many spirits inhabiting the sky, — tengreis ; they acknow- ledge 99 different tengreis, o{ which 55 are from the west, — good spirits, because the west wind is beneficial, — and only 45 are eastern, hostile tengreis.^^

Two of the most conscientious writers on Siberia, Agapitoff and Khangalofif, are of opinion that in the 99 tengreis the heavens in their different aspects are personified, eg. calm, storm, gale, wind, etc.

Klementz thinks that among the Buriats along the Kuda river the white tengreis existed before the black ones.

Among the Yakuts good spirits are called aiy and bad abassy, but among the Yakuts who migrated from south to nortii the wiiite spirit Etugen, who was formerly supreme, has been displaced by a black spirit, as is testified by Trostjanski.^* Contrary to the Buriats their bad spirits are from the west and their good spirits from the east.

Among the Finnic tribes, Ostiaks and VVoguls, the chief of the white spirits is Yanitch-toruni, and the chief of the black spirits is Kul, who is also ruler of the world of shadows. Gondatti, from whom we have this information, states that these natives have not now the religious fear

^'Gondatti, Sledy Yazychestva m Inorodcev Sievero-zapadnoy Sibiri (l888), P- 39-

(1883), pp. 3-23.
 * ' Agapitoff and Khangaloff, Materiauy dla izuchenia Shamanstva v Sibiri

•*' Trostjanski, op. cit., p. 158.