SAMOYEDES, a Neo-Siberian tribe, spread in small groups from the Altai mountains down the basins of the Ob and Yenisei, and along the shores of the Arctic ocean from the mouth of the latter river to the White sea, subdivided into three main groups : (a) The Yuraks in the coast-region from the Yenisei to the White sea ; (b) the Tavghi Samoyedes, between the Yenisei and the Khatanga; (c) the Ostiak Samoyedes, intermingled with Os tiaks, in the forest regions of Tobolsk and Yeniseisk.
The Samoyedes, who now maintain themselves by hunting and fishing on the lower Ob, are partly mixed in the S. with Ostiaks. Clothed in skins, they make use of implements in bone and stone, eat carnivorous animals—the wolf included—and cherish super stitions regarding the teeth of the bear. Their huts are erected with stone ; their graves are mere boxes left in the tundra. Death is ascribed to an evil female spirit. Personal belongings are buried with the dead. The religion is fetishism mixed with Shamanism, the shaman (tadji-bei) being a representative of the great divinity, Nim. Women become Shamans.
Of the S. Samoyedes, who are completely Tatarized, the Beltirs live by agriculture and cattle-breeding in the Abakan steppe. They profess Christianity, and speak a language closely resembling that of the Sagai Tatars. The Kaibals, or Koibals, can hardly
be distinguished from the Minusinsk Tatars and support them selves by rearing cattle. Castren considers that three of their stems are of Ostiak origin, the remainder being Samoyedic. The Kamasins, in the Kansk district of Yeniseisk, are either herdsmen or agriculturists. They speak a language with an admixture of Tatar words, and some of their stems contain a large Tatar ele ment. The interesting nomadic tribe of Karagasses, in the Sayan mountains, is disappearing; the few representatives are rapidly losing their anthropological features, their Turkish lan guage and their distinctive dress. The Motors are now little more than a memory. One portion of the tribe emigrated to China and was there exterminated; the remainder have disap peared among the Tuba Tatars and the Soyotes. The Samoyedes on the Ob in Tomsk may number about 7,00o.