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TUNGUSIAN PROPER.
"THE
Tungusians, or Tongooses, are a nomadic people, supposed to have originally
inhabited the
country called Daouria, on the borders of
Mongolia and Mantchooria, towards the
northern limits of
Chinese dominion. But while
their brethren, the Mantchoos, extended their conquests southward
into China Proper, the Tongooses, with
their flocks and herds, wandered towards the north; and they
are now to be found amidst the vast mountainous regions which extend from
Lake Baikal to the Sea
of Okhotsk, and likewise further to the northward, in the various countries
situated on the Lena,
Kolyma, and Tungooska rivers. In number they are supposed, according
to the latest Russian autho-
rities, to amount to about 52,500. They are filthy and degraded in
their habits, and greatly inferior in
physical conformation, and in every other respect, to the Mantchoos.
Some few among the Tungooses have been baptized, but they are
in general grossly ignorant:
their religion is a branch of Shamanism, and consists
chiefly in the worship of fire, and in a superstitious
reverence for amulets. Their language differs both in words and in
pronunciation from the Mantchou;
it is extremely rude and barbarous, and contains a considerable admixture of
Mongolian words.
Several efforts have been made, from time to time, for the spiritual
enlightenment of this widely-
dispersed people; but, owing to the numerous petty dialects into which their
language is divided, the
task of translating the Scriptures into a dialect generally intelligible to
the whole nation is attended
with peculiar difficulty. A version of the sacred
volume has been commenced in the dialect of the
Tschapogires, a Tungusian tribe dwelling along the course of the
Toungo-unski, a branch of the
Yenesei. In the Report of the Russian Committee, laid before the
annual meeting of the Bible
Society at St. Petersburg, 1819, this version was mentioned as one of the
"new translations" then in
progress. No further intelligence on this subject has been since
received; and it appears but too
probable that, from some cause or other, the Tschapogirian translation has
been altogether relinquished."--The Bible of Every Land. (1860,
Second Edition) Samuel Bagster [Info only]
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