E.G. Jaganova demonstrates at the river a ritual with which her ancestors tried to attract fish to swim up the river. For this purpose, they used cow parsnip plants because of their intense smell, and while the people on the shore uttered certain incantations the plants were finally thrown into the water to float downstream. Meanwhile, the various species of fish were lovingly addressed so that they might swim up the river to them. In a later conversation, she recalls how this ritual was once performed at her family fishing site, after a long time of waiting in vain for fish – and whereupon they arrived in great abundance. E.L. Nesterova reports something similar when she once went fishing with relatives. In this case they decided to go to the coast with a bunch of Arctic raspberries and throw them into the sea there. Here the incantation was different, addressing the master of the fish and asking him to gather the fish at the mouth of the river and send them upstream. Also V.K. Belousova remembers a similar ritual. Here they used some fish roe wrapped in nettles and threw it into the river with the same incantations. She emphasized that fish are very sensitive to smells, and that is why one was not allowed to defecate near the river. S.A. Popov explained various omens of nature, from which one could see whether there would be few or many fish, including the particular way in which the cuckoo calls.
of the North
