supposed will of the Tadebtsois: advises how a stray reindeer may be recovered,
or the disease of the Samojede worshipper relieved, or the fisherman’s labour
may secure a plenteous “harvest of the sea.”
The Tadibe’s office is usually hereditary; but occasionally some outsider,
predisposed by nature to hysteric manifestations, and gifted with a warm,
irregular imagination, is initiated into its mysteries. His morbid fancy is
intensified by long solitary self-communings and protracted fasts and vigils; and
his frame debilitated by the use of pernicious narcotics and stimulants, until he
comes to believe that he has been visited by the spirits. He is then received as a
Tadibe, with numerous ceremonies, which take place at midnight, and is
invested with the magic drum. It is evident, therefore, that the Tadibe, if he
deceive others, is the victim to some extent of self-deception. But, in order to
impose upon his ignorant countrymen, he does not disdain to resort to the
commonest cheats of the conjuror. Among these is the notorious rope-trick,
introduced into England by the performers known as the “Davenport Brothers,”
and since repeated by so many “professional artists.” With hands and feet to all
appearance securely fastened, he sits down on a carpet of reindeer skin, and, the
lights being put out, summons the spirits to his assistance. Their presence is
speedily made known by singular noises; squirrels seem to rustle, snakes to hiss,
bears to growl. At length the disturbance ceases; the lights are rekindled; and the
Tadibe steps forward unbound; the spectators of course believing that he has
been assisted by the Tadebtsois.
Not less barbarous than the poor creatures who submit to his guidance, the
Tadibe is incapable, and probably not desirous, of improving their moral
condition. Similar impostors, claiming and exercising a similar spiritual
dictatorship,—Schamans, as the Tungusi call them, Angekoks among the
Eskimos, Medicine-men among the Crees and Chepewyans,—we find among all
the Arctic tribes of the Old and New World, where their authority has not been
overthrown by Christianity or Buddhism; and this dreary superstition still
prevails over at least half a million of souls, from the White Sea to the extremity
of Asia, and from the Pacific to Hudson’s Bay.
Like the peoples of Siberia, the Samojedes offer up sacrifices to the dead, and
perform various ceremonies in their honour. Like the North American Indians,
they believe that the desires and pursuits of the departed continue exactly the
same as if they were still living; and hence, that they may not be in want of
weapons or implements, they deposit in or about the graves a sledge, a spear, a
knife, an axe, a cooking-pot.