The article describes rituals and beliefs of Nivkh (form. Gilyak) connected with the human life cycle: from the moment of deliverance till the death (natural death). Those materials were collected by the author at his expeditions to the island of Sakhalin in 1926—1928. The thorough description of ceremonies linked to every stage of life and death gives a possibility to restore s wholesome picture of anthropological views of Nivkh.
In this article K. describes complicated concepts of soul (transferring of souls, belief in the outer soul and partial soul living in an eye).
Conception of a child is presented as a complicated process, where physiological reasons not less important than spiritual ones, because children come from natural loci – from forest, sea, and mountains. He introduces taboo for a future mother, and her husband, for the sake of successful deliverance (taboo for some kinds of works – objects made by a pregnant woman should be taken off the house; taboo for making knots and suffocation animals with a rope to escape knotting a child with his or her umbilical cord; food taboo, which kept some survivals of Totemism and etc.). The author describes in details various rites connected with the deliverance (ritual actions for the sake of easy deliverance, etc.). He put much attention to the period infantry and apotropaic magic. There are also notes on the ideas and rituals connected with death, putting a special attention to the rites on the death of a child and an adult.
Kreinovich Е.А. Human Deliverance and Death at the Gilyaks’ View // Ethnography. 1930. # 1/2. P. 89-113