Alfred Nicolas Rambaud

“ Russian Slavs certainly had visions of another life, but, like all primitive peoples, they looked forward to a life which was gross and material. In the 7th century among the Wends, German Slavs, women refused to survive their husbands, and burned themselves on their funeral pile. This ancient Aryan custom must have been in vigor among the Russian Slavs at an equally early epoch. ”

“ While the funeral pile blazed, one of the Russians said to our narrator, “You Arabs are fools: you hide in the earth the man you have loved best, and there he becomes the prey of worms. We, on the contrary, burn him up in the twinkling of an eye, that he may the quicker enter paradise.” Nestor found the rite among the Russian Slavs. The excavations made in a great number of kourgans (barrows) confirm his testimony. The discoveries recently made in the tombs of Novgorod by M. Ivanouski, prove that the Slavs of Ilmen had preserved or adopted the custom of burying their dead. ”

“ The fame of the swords made by the Russian Slavs extended to Arabia. Nestor relates that the Khazars imposed a tribute of swords on the Polians. When the latter brought the arms to the Khazars, they were afraid, and said to their princes, “Our swords have only one edge—these have two. We tremble lest one day this people should levy a tribute on us and other tribes.”
Agriculture was the favorite occupation of the Slavs. Nearly all their deities are of an agricultural character. The favorite heroes of their epic cycle, Mikoula and Ilia, were the sons of laborers. ”

“ The excavations made, either in the kourgans or in the soil of the gorodichtches, have shown us the Slavs were more civilized than Nestor supposed. Vessels of pottery, tolerably well designed, iron and bronze, gold and silver objects, glass, false pearls, rattles, prove that they had a certain amount of trade, and a fairly extensive commerce, particularly with Asia. ”

“ About these earth-enclosures, which were capped by wooden palisades or hedges of osier, and were the common means of defence for each group of families, we usually find grouped, as in a cemetery, the kourgans or tumuli of the dead. ”