OSTIAKS, or Ostyaks, a tribe of Finnish origin, who inhabit the basin of the Obi in western Siberia; a few hundreds also are nomads in the basin of the lower Yenisei. Plano Carpini and Marco Polo in the 13th century knew them on the flat lands of the Obi, and the best investigators (Castrén, Lerberg, A. Schrenck) consider the trans-Uralian Ostiaks and Samoyedes as identical with the Yugra of the Russian annals During the Russian conquest their abodes extended much farther south than now, and they had numerous settlements on the basin of the Obi, no less than forty one of their fortified places having been destroyed by the Cossacks in 1501, in the region of Obdorsk alone. Remains of these “towns” are still to be seen at the Kunovat river, on the Obi 20 miles below Obdorsk, and elsewhere. The total number of the Ostiaks may be estimated at a little over 27,000. Those on the Irtish are mostly settled, and have adopted the manner of life of Russians and Tartars. Those on the Obi are mostly nomads; along with 8000 Samoyedes in the districts of Beryozoff and Surgut, they own 93,600 reindeer. The Obi Ostiaks are Russified to a great extent. They live almost exclusively by fishing, buying from Russian merchants corn for bread, the use of which has become widely diffused....
The Ostiaks call themselves Ass-yakh (people of the Obi), and it is supposed that their present designation is a corruption of this name. By language they belong (Castrén, Reiseberichte, Reisebriefe·, Ahlqvist, Öf vers. af Finska Vet. -Soc. F<>rh., xxi.) to the Ugrian branch of the eastern Finnish stem,—a classification confirmed by a grammar of their language, compiled in 1875, in Hungarian, by Hunfalvy. All the Ostiaks speak the same language, mixed to some extent with foreign elements; but three or four leading dialects can be distinguished.
The Ostiaks are middle-sized, or of low stature, mostly meagre, and not ill made, however clumsy their appearance in winter, in their thick fur-clothes. The extremities are fine, and the feet are usually small. The skull is brachycephalic, mostly of moderate size and height. The hair is dark and soft for the most part, fair and reddish individuals being rare; the eyes are dark, generally narrow; the nose is flat and broad; the mouth is large and with thick lips; the beard is scanty. The younger men and women are sometimes of an agreeable appearance. The Mongolian type is more strongly pronounced in the women than in the men. On the whole, the Ostiaks are not a pure race; the purest type is found among the fishers on the Obi, the reindeer-breeders of the tundra being largely intermixed with Samoyedes (see Castrén; Γr Finsch’s Reise nach IV est- Sibirien, &c.).
Investigators are unanimous in describing them as very kind, gentle, and honest; rioting is almost quite unknown among them, as also theft, this last occurring only in the vicinity of Russian settlements, and the only penalty enforced being the restitution twofold of the propeιty stolen. The farther they are removed from contact with Russian dealers and traders the higher do their moral qualities become (Middendorff and Castrén).
They are very skilful in the arts they practise, especially in carving wood and bone, tanning (with egg-yolk and brains), preparation of implements from birch bark, &c. Some of their carved or decorated bark implements (like those figured in Middendorff’s Sibirische Reise, iv. 2) show great artistic skill. Only a few have guns, the great majority continuing to hunt with bow and arrows.
Their folk lore, like to that of other Finnish stems, is imbued with a deep feeling of natural poetry, and reflects also the sadness, or even the despair, which has been noticed among them. The number of those who are considered Christians reaches 2000; but their Shamanism is still retained, hardly anything being borrowed from Christianity beyond the worship of St Nicholas, who is a most popular saint among them.
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