to sap the vitality of the natives, and drastic action on the part of the Government could not stop it. Of recent years the efforts of the Russian Government have been more successful, and the Siberian traders themselves have taken action to prevent the selling of liquors to the natives. On the other hand, it must be remembered that the Siberian traders have saved the natives in many places from actual starvation, for in the old days in severe seasons famine and pestilence decimated their ranks. Now, however, such occurrences are rare, since full opportunity is given for the natives to exchange their wares for flour and tea.
The Russian influence on the native Siberian has therefore had both its sunny and its dark side, and in the present intermediate phase it is difficult to forecast the future accurately. Those natives, who do not become absorbed, will probably die out in time, because of their natural unfitness, while those, who do become absorbed, will probably add a new and valuable element to the Slav race. The enormous preponderance of the Slavs everywhere, together with the assimilating power of the Russian colonist, simplifies the native problem very considerably, and in fact no such problem can really be said to exist in Siberia as it does in other parts of the Eastern Empire of Russia.
In the population of Siberia at the present day the Great and Little Russians constitute ninety-two per cent, and the remaining eight per cent, make up the native tribes. These are divided into three main groups—Turko-Tartar, Finn, and Tartarized Finn.[1] Taking the first group, four and a half per cent, of the
- ↑ See Ethnographical Diagram of Western and Central Siberia.
