Thus costumed, the Tadibe takes his drum of reindeer-skin, ornamented with brass rings, and, attended by a neophyte, walks round and round with great stateliness, while invoking the presence of the spirits by a discordant rattle. This gradually increases in violence, and is accompanied by the droning intonation of the words of enchantment. The spirits in due time appear, and the Tadibe proceeds to consult them; beating his drum more gently, and occasionally pausing in his doleful chant,--which, however, the novice is careful not to interrupt,--to listen, as is supposed, to the answers of the aerial divinities. At length the conversation ceases; the chant breaks into a fierce howl; the drum rattles more and more loudly; the Tadibe seems under a supernatural influence; his body quivers, and foam gathers on his lips. Then suddenly the frenzy ceases, and the Tadibe utters the will of the Tadebtsios, and gives advice how a straying reindeer may be recovered, or the disease of the Samojede worshipper relieved, or the fisherman’s labour rewarded with an abundant “harvest of the sea.” The office of the Tadibe is usually transmitted from father to son; but occasionally some individual, predisposed by nature to fits of excitement, and endowed with a vivid imagination, is initiated into its mysteries. His morbid fancy is worked upon by long solitary self-communings and protracted fasts and vigils, and his frame by the use of pernicious narcotics and stimulants, until he persuades himself that he has been visited by the spirits. He is then received as a Tadibe with many ceremonies, which take place at midnight, and he is invested with the magic drum. It will be seen, therefore, that the Tadibe, if he deceives others, partly deceives himself. But he does not disdain to have recourse to the commonest tricks of the conjuror, with the view of imposing upon his ignorant countrymen. Among these is the famous rope-trick, introduced into England by the Davenport Brothers, and since repeated by so many professional necromancers. With his hands and feet fastened, he sits down on a carpet of reindeer-skin, and, the lights being put out, invokes the spirits to come to his assistance. Soon their presence is made known by strange noises; squirrels seem to rustle, snakes to hiss, and bears to growl. At length the disturbance ceases, the lights are rekindled, and the Tadibe steps forward unbound; the spectators, of course, believing that he has been assisted by the Tadebtsios.