PREFATORY NOTE

The volume opens with a brief sketch of the physical features and the history of Siberia, a comparatively unknown and dreary country, which covers about one-ninth of the continental surface of the globe. The long journey in southern Siberia is then amply described; the landscape, the institutions, the dwellings, and the mode of life of the people he met are set forth with vividness and philosophical appreciation. An important section of the book relates to the customs of the Buriats—their traditions and ceremonies at the birth of a child, at a marriage, and in sickness, and their burial rites. It then deals with the origin of the shamans or priests, with the sacred trees and groves, and with the gods of the Buriats. The myths connected with the Mongol religion are next recorded, just as Curtin heard them from the lips of living Buriats. A collection of folktales completes the volume. It is a book of very unusual character, which only an extraordinary linguist and scholar could have written, so difficult was the gathering of the material for it. The journey itself involved considerable hardship and exposure, and the linguistic, historical, and anthropological knowledge required to produce the book has seldom, if ever before, been possessed by any single scholar.

The manuscript of this volume was finished a few months before Curtin's death, but it has been published posthumously without the advantage of his revision.

CHARLES W. ELIOT.

OCTOBER 20, 1909.