All games full of
dash and excitement are played on horseback.
dash and excitement are played on horseback.
Cambridge Medieval History - v1 - Christian Roman Empire and Teutonic Kingdoms
Still more regular are the wanderings of the nomads, however
far they extend. The longest are those of the Kirghiz who winter by
the Aral Sea and have their summer pastures ten degrees of latitude
further north in the steppes of Troitsk and Omsk. The distance,
allowing for the zig-zag course, comes to more than 1000 miles, so that
each
year
the nomad must cover 2000 miles with all his herds and other
goods.
During the winter the nomad in the desert is, so to speak, a prisoner
in his tent, practical, neat, and comfortable as this is. It is a rotunda
15 feet high, and often over 30 feet broad. Its framework consists of
a wooden lattice in six to ten separable divisions, which can be widened
out, or pushed together for packing. Above this comes the roof-frame
of light rafters which come together in a ring above. This is the
opening for air, light and smoke, and is only covered at night and
during severe cold. Inside a matting of steppe-grass runs round the
framework, and outside is a felt covering bound round with ropes of
camel's hair. Tent-pegs and ropes protect the tent from being over-
turned by the violent north-east orkan, during which the hearth-fire
must be put out. As the felt absorbs and emits very little heat, the
tent is warm in winter, and cool in summer. Inside the tent the sacks
of victuals hang on the points of the wall-lattice; on the rafters above
are the weapons, harness, saddles, and, among the heathen tribes, the
idols. Behind the hearth, the seat of honour for guests and old men is
spread with the best felt and carpets; in front of the hearth is the place
for drinking-vessels and sometimes for fuel, the latter consisting of
camel- and cattle-dung, since firewood is found only in a few places
in the steppes and deserts. The nomad-life admits of only the most
CH, XII.
## p. 336 (#366) ############################################
336
The Tent and its Contents. Property in Land
necessary and least breakable utensils : for preparing food for all in the
tent there is a large cast-iron caldron, acquired in Chinese or Russian
traffic, with tripod and tongs; a trunk-like kumiz-vat of four smoked
horse-hides thickened with fat; kumiz-bottles, and water-bottles of
leather ; wooden chests, tubs and cans hollowed out of pieces of wood,
or gourds; wooden dishes, drinking-bowls, and spoons ; among the
slave-hunting Turkomans short and long chains, manacles, fetters, and
iron collars also hung in the tent to the right of the entrance.
The accommodation provided by the tent, and the economising of
space is astonishing; from long past times everything has had its
assigned place; there is room for forty men by day, and twenty by
night, notwithstanding the many objects hanging and lying about.
The master of the household, with the men, occupies the place of
honour; left and right of the hearth are the sleeping-places (felt, which
is rolled up in the daytime); left of the entrance the wife and the
women and children, to the right the male slaves, do their work. For
anyone to leave his wonted place unnecessarily, or without the order of
the master, would be an unheard-of proceeding. In three-quarters of an
hour a large tent can be put up and furnished, and it can be taken to
pieces and packed just as quickly; even with movables and stores
it is so light that two camels suffice to carry it. The Nogai-Tartars
carry their basket-like felt tents, which are only 8 to 10 feet in diameter,
on two-wheeled carts drawn at a trot by small-sized oxen. In the
thirteenth century, under Chinghiz and his followers, the Mongols
also made use of such cart-tents, drawn by one camel, as store-holders,
but only in the Volga-district and not in their own country in Mon-
golia. They also put their great tents-as much as thirty feet in
diameter-on carts drawn by twenty-four oxen twelve in a line? The
nature of the ground admitted of this procedure and consequently the
tent had not to be taken to pieces at each stopping-place (as must
be done in the steppes and deserts), but only where a considerable
halt was made. In South Russia such wagon-tents date from the
.
oldest times, and were already in use among the Scythians.
Among a continually wandering pastoral people the interests of
neighbours often collide, as we know from the Bible-story of Abraham
and Lot. Thus a definite partition of the land comes about. A folk,
or a section of a folk--a tribe-regards a certain stretch of land as its
special property, and tolerates no trespass from any neighbour whatso-
ever. The tribe, again, consists of clans and the latter of camps, which,
in their turn, regard parts of the whole tribal district as their own.
This produces a very confused medley of districts, over which the
individual camps wander. In spring and autumn the nomad can
find abundant fodder almost everywhere, in consequence of the greater
moisture and luxuriant grass crop. The winter and summer abodes
1 Rubruquis in Recueil, iv. p. 220; Marco Polo, 1. p. 255.
1
## p. 337 (#367) ############################################
Winter and Summer Pastures
337
a
demand definite conditions for the prosperity of the herds. The
winter settlement must not have too severe a climate, the summer
grazing-ground must be as exempt as possible from the terrific plague
of insects. Since many more conditions must be satisfied for the
winter than for the summer pastures, it is the winter quarters which
determine the density of the nomad population. Thus the wealth of a
people accords with the abundance of their winter quarters, and all
internal encounters and campaigns of former centuries are to be regarded
as a constant struggle for the best winter settlements.
In winter, whenever possible, the same places as have been used for
long times past are occupied ; in the deep-lying valley of a once-existing
river, not over-exposed to the wind, with good water, and grazing-places
where the snow settles as little as possible, and the last year's dung
makes the ground warmer and, at the same time, provides fuel. Here
at the end of October the tent, made warmer by another covering, is
pitched, protecting the nomad from the raging winter buran and the
numbing cold. The herds, however, remain in the open air without a
sheltering roof, and must scrape for themselves the withered shrubs,
stalks, and roots from the snow. They get terribly thin ; indeed sheep,
camels, and oxen perish when the snow falls deep, and the horses in
scraping for fodder trample down the plants and make them uneatable,
or when ice forms and shuts out sustenance entirely. But in early spring
the situation improves, especially for the sheep, which, from mere skele-
tons, revive and get fat on the salt-steppes where a cursory inspection
reveals no vegetation on the glittering crust of salt. The salt-pastures
are incomparably more nourishing than the richest Alpine meadows, and
without salt there would be no sheep-rearing nomads in Central Asia.
To freshen the spring-pasturage the steppe is burnt off as soon as the
snow has melted, as the dry last year's steppe-grass gets matted under
the snow, and would retard the sprouting of the new grass ; the ground
manured by the ashes then gets luxuriantly green after a few days.
In the middle or at the end of April, during the lambing of the
sheep, and the foaling of the mares, preparations for striking the winter
tent are made. At this time the animals yield most milk, and a stock
of hard cheese (kurut) is made. At the beginning of May the steppe
begins to dry up, and the intolerable insects appear. Now the goods
which are superfluous for the summer are secretly buried, the tent is
struck, and loaded with all necessary goods and chattels on the decorated
camels. It is the day of greatest rejoicing for the nomad, who leaves
his inhospitable winter quarters in festal attire.
The winter quarters are regarded as the fixed property of the in-
dividual tent owners, but the summer pastures are the common property
of the clan. Here each member of the clan, rich or poor, has in theory
the right to settle where he likes. But the wealthy and illustrious
always know how to secure the best places. To effect this each camp keeps
a
C. MED, H. VOL. I. CH, XII.
22
## p. 338 (#368) ############################################
338
Loss of Cattle
-
a
the time of departure to the summer pastures and the direction to be
taken as secret as possible; at the same time it makes an arrangement
with the nearest-related camps, in conformity with which they suddenly
depart in order to reach their goal as quickly as possible. If the place
chosen is already occupied, the next which is still free is taken. At the
beginning of spring, when the grass is still scanty, the camps can remain
only a very short time-often one day or even only half a day—in one
place; later on in their more distant wandering—from well to well—they
can stay for weeks in the same place. At midsummer movement is more
rapid, and in autumn, with an increasing abundance of water, it is again
slower. In the sand-desert the nomad finds the wells covered by drift-
sand, and he must dig down to them afresh, if necessary daily. The
regulation of these wanderings is undertaken by the aksakals, not always
according to justice.
The cattle can easily be taken off by a hostile neighbour, for the
steppe is free and open. Therefore the nomads of the steppes, unlike
the nomads of the mountains, do not split themselves into single families.
They constantly need a small war-band to recover the stolen booty from
the enemy. On the other hand, the instinct of self-preservation often
drives a whole people to violate their neighbours' rights of property.
When there is dearth of fodder the cattle are ruined, and the enterprise
and energy of the owner cannot avert calamity. The impoverished
nomad infallibly goes to the wall as a solitary individual, and only
seldom is he, as a former wanderer (tshorva), capable of becoming a
despised settler (tshomru). For he feels it to be the greatest misfortune
and humiliation when he must take to the plough, somewhere by a
watercourse on the edge of the desert; and so long as the loss of all his
herds has not hopelessly crushed him, he does not resign himself to that
terrible fate which Mahomet has proscribed with the words: “wherever
this implement has penetrated, it has always brought with it servitude
and shame. ”
In spring, when severe frost suddenly sets in after the first thaw, and
the thin layer of snow is covered in a single night with a crust of ice
an inch thick, the cattle cannot scrape food out of the snow, and the owner
cannot possibly supply a substitute. When the frost continues hundreds
of thousands of beasts perish, and whole districts previously rich in herds
become suddenly poor. So as soon as ice appears the people affected
leave their winter quarters, and penetrate far into their neighbours'
territory until they find food for their herds. If they are successful a
part at least of their cattle is saved, and when the weather changes they
return home. But if all their cattle perish entirely, they must starve
if they are unwilling to rob their wealthy neighbour of a part of his
herds. Bloody feuds occur too in autumn on the return from the
summer pastures, when the horses have become fat and powerful and the
longer nights favour and cover long rides. The nomad now carries out
## p. 339 (#369) ############################################
Custom.
Kumiz
339
the raids of robbery and revenge resolved upon and skilfully planned in the
summer, and then he goes to his winter quarters.
But how can these barbarous robbers live together without exter-
minating each other? They are bridled by an old and tyrannical king,
invisible to themselves, the deb (custom, wont). This prohibits robbery
and murder, immorality and injustice towards associates in times of
peace; but the strange neighbour is outlawed ; to rob, enslave or kill
him is an heroic deed. The nomads' ideas of justice are remarkably
similar to those of our ancestors. Every offence is regarded as an injury
to the interests of a fellow-man, and is expiated by indemnification of the
loser. Among the Kazak-Kirghiz anyone who has killed a man of the
plebs (a “ black bone "), whether wilfully or accidentally makes no differ-
ence, must compensate the relations with a kun (i. e. 1000 sheep or
100 horses or 50 camels). The slaughter of a “white bone” costs a
sevenfold kun. Murder of their own wives, children, and slaves goes
unpunished, since they themselves are the losers. If a Kirghiz steals an
animal, he must restore it together with two of the same value. If a
wrong-doer is unable to pay the fine, his nearest relations, and failing
them the whole camp, must provide it.
The principal food consists of milk-products-not of the fresh milk
itself, which is only taken by children and the sick. A special
Turko-Tartar food is yogurt, prepared with leaven from curdled milk.
The Mongols also eat butter-the more rancid the more palatable-
dripping with dirt, and carried without wrapping in their hairy greasy
coat-pockets. From mare's milk, which yields no cream, kumiz (Kirghiz),
tshegan (Mongolish) is fermented', an extremely nutritious drink which is
good for consumption, and from which by itself life can be sustained. How-
ever, it keeps only a few hours, after which it becomes too sour and efferves-
cent, and so the whole supply must be drunk at once. In summer, with an
abundance of mares, there is such a superfluity of kumiz that hospitality
is unlimited, and half Altai is always drunk. The Turkomans and Kara-
Kalpaks, who possess few horses and no studs, drink kumiz seldom. The
much-drunk airan from fermented unskimmed camel, cow, and sheep-milk
quenches thirst for hours, just as does the kefir of the Tartars from cow's
milk. The airan, after being condensed by boiling, and dried hard as
stone into little balls in the sun, is made into kurt, kurut, which can be
kept for months and is the only means of making bitter salt-water
drinkable. According to Marco Polo it formed the provision of the
Mongol armies, and if the horseman could not quench his thirst in any
other way, he opened one of his horse's veins and drank the blood. From
kumiz and also from millet a strong spirit (Kirghiz boza) is distilled,
i Zemarchos (A. D. 568) mentions the drink kosmos at the Turkish Khan's
Court, Rubruquis (A. D. 1253) cosmos (variant comos) among the Mongols, and
the prince's drink cara-cosmos, Marco Polo, kemiz; all corruptions of the word
kumiz.
CH. XII.
22-2
## p. 340 (#370) ############################################
340
Food
which produces dead-drunkenness followed by a pleasant Nirvana-
sensation.
A comparison of Rubruquis' account with that of Radloff" shews that
the dairying among the Altaians has remained the same from the earliest
times. A late acquisition from China, and only available for the
wealthier, is the “brick-tea,” which is also a currency, and a substitute
а
for money.
;
Little meat is eaten, notwithstanding the abundance of the herds ; it
is only customary on festive occasions or as a consequence of a visit of
special honour. In order not to lessen the stock of cattle, the people
content themselves with the cattle that are sick beyond recovery, or dead
and even decaying. The meat is eaten boiled, and the broth drunk
afterwards. Only the Volga-Kalmucks and the Kara-Kirghiz, who are
very rich in flocks, live principally on sheep and horse meat. That the
Huns and Tartars ate raw meat softened by being carried under the
saddle, is a mistake of the chroniclers. At the present time the mounted
nomads are accustomed to put thin strips of salted raw meat on their
horses' sores, before saddling them, to bring about a speedy healing.
But this meat, impregnated with the sweat of the horse and reeking
intolerably, is absolutely uneatable.
From the earliest times, on account of the enormous abundance of
game, hunting has been eagerly practised for the sake of food and skins,
or as sport, either with trap and snare, or on horseback with falcon and
eagle. From Persia came the long-haired greyhound in addition. Fish-
ing cannot be pursued by long-wandering nomads, and they make no
use even of the best-stocked rivers. But by the lakes and the rivers
which do not dry up, fishing is an important source of food among short-
wandering nomads.
For grain the seeds of wild-growing cereals are gathered ; here and
there millet is grown without difficulty, even on poor soil. A bag of
millet-meal suffices the horseman for days; a handful of it with a drink
of water appeases him well enough. Thus bread is a luxury for the
nomad herdsman, and the necessary grain can only be procured in barter
for the products of cattle-rearing and house-industry. But the Kirghiz
of Ferghana in their short but high wanderings on the Pamir and Alai
high above the last agricultural settlements, which only extend to
4600 feet, carry on an extensive agriculture (summer-wheat, millet,
barley) by means of slaves and labourers at a height of 8500 feet,
while they themselves climb with their herds to a height of 15,800 feet,
and partly winter in the valleys which are free from snow in winter.
The nomads eat vegetables seldom, as only carrots and onions grow
in the steppes. The half-settled agricultural half-nomads of to-day
· Rubruquis, pp. 227 ff. ; Radloff, 1. pp. 425 ff.
2 Schwarz, Turkestan, p. 89 (note).
3 Middendorff, pp. 329 f.
## p. 341 (#371) ############################################
Voracity. Costume
341
can be left out of consideration'. According to Plano Carpini the
Mongols had neither bread nor vegetables nor leguminous food, nor
anything else except meat, of which they ate so little that other
peoples could scarcely have lived on it. However, in summer they
consumed an enormous quantity of milk, and that failing in winter, one
or two bowls of thin millet boiled in water in the morning, and nothing
more except a little meat in the evening.
We see that from the earliest times the Altaian nomad has lived by
animal-rearing, and in a subsidiary degree by hunting and fishing, and
here and there by a very scanty agriculture. As among some hordes,
especially the old Magyars, fishing and hunting are made much of,
many believe that they were originally a hunting and fishing folk, and
took to cattle-rearing later. This is an impossibility. The Magyars,
just as were the others, were pure nomads even during winter, other-
wise their herds would have perished. Hunting and fishing they
pursued only as stop-gaps when milk failed. A fishing and hunting
people cannot so easily become mounted nomads, and least of all
organised in such a terribly warlike way as were the Magyars.
The innate voracity of the Turko-Tartars is the consequence of the
climate. The Bedouin in the latitude of 20° to 32°, at a mean temperature
of 86° F. can easily be more abstinent and moderate with his single meal
a day (meat, dates, truffles) than the Altaian in the freezing cold, between
the latitudes of 38° and 58°, with his three copious meals. The variable
climate and its consequences—hunger in winter, superfluity in summer
-have so hardened the Altaian that he can without difficulty hold out
for days without water, and for weeks (in a known case forty-two days)
in a snowstorm without any food; but he can also consume a six-months’-
old wether at one sitting, and is ready to repeat the dose straight off!
Originally the Altaian clothed himself in skins, leather, and felt, and
not till later in vegetable-stuffs acquired by barter, tribute, or plunder.
To-day the outer-coat of the Kazak-Kirghiz is still made of the shining
skin of a foal with the tail left on for ornament. The Tsaidan-Mongols
wear next their bare skin a felt gown, with the addition of a skin in
winter only, and leather breeches. All Central Asiatics wear the high
spherical sheep-skin cap (also used as a pillow), the tshapan (similar
to a dressing-gown and consisting of fur or felt in winter), leather boots,
or felt stockings bound round with rags. Among many tribes the hair
of the men is worn long or shaved off entirely (Herodotus tells of a
snub-nosed, shaven-headed people in the lower Ural), and the Magyars,
Cumans and others were shorn bare, but for two pigtails.
The wife occupies a very dependent position. On her shoulders falls
the entire work of the household, the very manifold needs of which are
to be satisfied almost entirely by home industry. She must take down
1 For the transition from the nomad to the half-nomad state v. Vámbéry,
Türkenvolk, p. 171.
>
a
CH. XII.
## p. 342 (#372) ############################################
342
The Wife. Education. Inheritance
the tent, pack it up, load it on camels, and pitch it; she must prepare
leather, felt, leather-bottles, cords, waterproof material, and colours
from various plants; she must spin and weave wool and hair ; she must
make clothes, collect camel- and cattle-dung, knead it with dust into
tough paste and form and dry it into cakes ; she must saddle and bridle
horses and camels, milk the sheep, prepare kumiz, kurut, and airan, and
graze the herds of sheep in the night-for the husband does this only by
day, and in addition only milks the mares; his remaining occupation is
almost entirely war and plundering. To share the domestic work would
be for an Altaian paterfamilias an unheard-of humiliation.
Originally the choice of a wife was as unrestricted among all the
Altaians as among the Mongols, who, according to Plano Carpini
and Marco Polo, might marry any relative and non-relative except
their own mothers and daughters, and sisters by their own mothers.
But to-day several nomad peoples are strictly exogamic. The bride
was chosen by the father, when still in her childhood; her price (kalym)
was twenty-seven to a hundred mares, and her dowry had roughly the
same value. Polygamy was consequently only possible among tribes
rich in herds, but it was a necessity, as one wife alone could not
accomplish the many duties. Virgin purity and conjugal fidelity are
among the Turko-Tartars, and especially among the Kirghiz, somewhat
rare virtues ; on the other hand, Marco Polo agrees with Radloff in
praising the absolute fidelity of the Mongol women.
The upbringing of the children entails the extreme of hardening.
During its first six weeks the new-born child is bathed daily, summer
and winter alike, in the open air ; thenceforward the nomad never
washes, his whole life long. The Kalmuck in particular is absolutely
shy of water. Almost to puberty the children go naked summer and
winter; only on the march do they wear a light khalat and fur-cap.
They are suckled at the breast to their fifth year. At three or four
they already sit free with their mother on horseback, and a six-year-old
girl rides like a sportsman. The education of the boys is limited to
riding; at the most falconry in addition. On the other hand, the girls
are put to most exhausting work from their tenderest years, and the
value of a bride is decided by the work she can discharge. Among
nearly all Altaian peoples the son thinks little of his mother, but
towards his father he is submissive.
Hereditary right is purely agnatic. As soon as the married son is
able to look after himself, he is no longer under the authority of his
father, and if he likes he can demand as inheritance a part of the
herds adequate to establishing a separate household. Then however he
is entirely settled with, and he cannot inherit further on the death of
his father when there are younger sons-his brothers--still unportioned.
-
If impoverished the father has the right to take back from his appor-
tioned sons every fifth animal from the herds (Kalmucks). The daughters
## p. 343 (#373) ############################################
Trade. Religion
.
343
are never entitled to inherit, and on marrying receive merely a suitable
dowry from their brothers, who then receive the kalym. If only
daughters survive, the inheritance goes to the father's brothers or
cousins, who in that case receive the kalym as well.
Speedy as the Altaian is on horseback, on foot he is helpless and
unwieldy; and so the dance is unknown to him.
All games full of
dash and excitement are played on horseback. His hospitality is
marvellous ; for weeks at a time he treats the new arrival to the best he
has, even when it is the despised and hated Shîitish Persian. He possesses
many sagas and songs—mostly in the minor key, and monotonous as
the steppes—which are accompanied on a two-stringed guitar. Tenor
and mezzo-soprano predominate, and the gait of the horse and the stride
of the camel mark the rhythm.
The surplus of the female house-industry and of the herds is, as a
rule, exchanged in barter for weapons and armours, metal and wooden
articles, clothing material, brick-tea and grain. Instead of our gold
and silver coinage they have—sit venia verbo—a sheep coinage, in
which all valuations are made. Of course they were acquainted with
foreign coins from the earliest times, and obtained countless millions
of pounds from tribute, plunder, and ransom of prisoners, and they
used coins, now and then, in external trading, but among themselves
they still barter, and conclude all their business in sheep, cattle, horses,
and camels. Rubruquis says of the Mongols in 1253: “We found
nothing purchasable for gold and silver, only for fabrics, of which we
had none.
When our servant shewed them a Hyperpyron (Byzantine
gold coin), they rubbed it with their fingers and smelt it to see if it,
were copper. ” They have no hand-workers except a few smiths.
The Altaian, and especially the Turko-Tartar barbarian, considered
only the advantage of the moment; the unlimited plundering was hostile
to any transit-trade. But when and so long as a strong hand controlled
the universal plundering spirit, a caravan trade between north and south,
and especially between east and west was possible, and, with high duties,
formed a considerable source of income for the Central-Asiatic despots.
The religious conceptions of a group of primitive people inhabiting
such an enormous district were of course never uniform. To-day the
greatest part of the Altaians is Buddhist, or Islamitic, and only a few
Siberian Turkish tribes remain true to the old-Altaian Shamanism.
The characteristic feature of Shamanism is the belief in the close
union of the living with their long dead ancestors; thus it is an un-
interrupted ancestor worship. This faculty however is possessed only by
a few families, those of the Shamans (Mong. shaman, Turk. kam), who
pass on their power from father to son, or sometimes daughter-with the
visible symbol of the Shaman drum by means of which he can call up
the spirits through the power of his ancestors, and compel them to active
assistance, and can separate his own soul from his body and send it into
CH. XII.
## p. 344 (#374) ############################################
344
Shamanism
the kingdoms of light and of darkness. He prepares the sacrifice, con-
jures up the spirits, leads prayers of petition and thanksgiving, and in
short is doctor, soothsayer, and weather prophet. In consequence he is
held in high regard, but is less loved than feared, as his ceremonies are
uncanny, and he himself dangerous if evil inclined. The chosen of his
ancestors attains to his Shaman power not by instruction but by sudden
inspiration; he falls into a frenzy, utters inarticulate cries, rolls his eyes,
turns himself round in a circle as if possessed, until, covered with per-
spiration, he wallows on the ground in epileptic convulsions ; his body
becomes insensible to impressions ; according to accounts he swallows
automatically, and without subsequent injury, red-hot iron, knives, and
needles, and brings them up again dry. These passions get stronger
and stronger, till the individual seizes the Shaman drum and begins
“shamaneering. ” Not before this does his nature compose itself, the
power of his ancestors has passed into him, and he must thenceforth
“shamaneer. " He is moreover dressed in a fantastic garb hung with
rattling iron trinkets. The Shaman drum is a wooden hoop with a
skin, painted with gay figures, stretched over both sides, and all kinds of
clattering bells and little sticks of iron upon it. In “shamaneering”
the drum is vigorously struck with one drum-stick, and the ancestors
thus invoked interrogated about the cause of the evil which is to be
banished, and the sacrifice which is to be made to the divinity in
order to avert it. The beast of sacrifice is then slaughtered and
eaten, the skin together with all the bones is set aside as the sacrificial
offering. Then follows the conjuration-in-chief, with the most frantic
hocus-pocus, by means of which the Shaman strives to penetrate with
his soul into the highest possible region of heaven in order to undertake
an interrogation of the god of heaven himself.
From the great confusion of local creeds some such Shaman system
as the following can be constructed; though the people themselves have
only very vague conceptions of it.
The universe consists of a number of layers separated one from
another by a certain something. The seventeen upper layers form the
kingdom of light, seven or nine the underworld of darkness. In between
lies the surface of man's earth, constantly influenced by both powers.
The good divinities and spirits of heaven protect men, but the bad
endeavour to destroy them. Originally there was only water and neither
earth nor heaven nor sun nor moon. Then Tengere Kaira Khan (“the
kind heaven ") created first a being like himself, Kishi, man. Both
soared in bliss over the water, but Kishi wished to exalt himself above
the creator, and losing through his transgression the power to fly, fell
headlong into the bottomless water. In his mercy Kaira Khan caused
a star to rise out of the flood, upon which the drowning Kishi could sit;
but as he could no longer fly Kaira Khan caused him to dive deep down
and bring up earth, which he strewed upon the surface of the water.
1
ir
be
kin
all
with
is al
who
and
munit
(prince
sevente
sevente
underwc
them.
every tu.
Erlik-Kh
the horrit
suffer jus
poverty, ill
man than t
CH. XII.
## p. 345 (#375) ############################################
Cosmogony
345
But Kishi kept a piece of it in his mouth in order to create a special
country out of it for himself. This swelled in his mouth and would have
suffocated him had he not spat it out so that morasses formed on Kaira
Khan's hitherto smooth earth. In consequence Kaira Khan named Kishi
Erlik, banished him from the kingdom of light, and caused a nine-
branched tree to grow out of the earth, and under each branch created
a man as first father of each of the nine peoples of the present time. In
vain Erlik besought Kaira Khan to entrust to him the nine fair and good
men; but he found out how to pervert them to evil. Angered thereat
Kaira Khan left foolish man to himself, and condemned Erlik to the
third layer of darkness. But for himself he created the seventeen layers
of heaven and set up his dwelling in the highest. As the protector and
teacher of the now deserted race of man he left behind Mai-Tärä (the
Sublime). Erlik too with the permission of the Kaira Khan built himself
a heaven and peopled it with his own subjects, the bad spirits, men
corrupted by him. And behold, they lived more comfortably than the
sons of the earth created by Kaira Khan. And so Kaira Khan caused
Erlik's heaven to be shattered into small pieces, which falling on the
earth formed huge mountains and gorges. But Erlik was doomed until
the end of the world to everlasting darkness. And now from the seven-
teenth layer of heaven Kaira Khan controls the destiny of the universe.
By emanation from him the three highest divinities came into being:
Bai Ülgön (the Great) in the sixteenth, Kysagan Tengere (the Mighty)
in the ninth, and Mergen Tengere (the All-wise) in the seventh layer of
heaven, where “Mother Sun” dwells also. In the sixth is enthroned
“Father Moon,” in the fifth Kudai Yayutshi (the highest Creator).
Ülgön's two sons Yayik and Mai-Tärä, the protecting patrons of man-
kind, dwell in the third on the milk-white sea Süt-ak-köl, the source of
all life; near it is the mountain Sürö, the dwelling of the seven Kudai,
with their subjects the Yayutshi, the guardian angels of mankind. Here
is also the paradise of the blessed and righteous ancestors of living men,
who mediate between the divinities of heaven and their own descendants,
and can help them in their need. The earth is personified in a com-
munity of spirits (Yer-su) beneficent to man, the seventeen high Khans
(princes) of the seventeen spring districts, whose abodes lie on the
seventeen snow peaks of the highest mountains, by the sources of the
seventeen streams which water the land. In the seven layers of the dark
underworld prevails the dismal light of the underworld sun peculiar to
them. This is the dwelling of all the evil spirits who waylay men at
every turn: misshapen goblins, witches, Körmös, and others ruled by
Erlik-Khan the dreadful prince on the black throne. Still deeper lies
the horrible hell, Kasyrgan, where the sinners and criminals of mankind
suffer just punishment. All evil comes from Erlik, cattle-disease,
poverty, illness, and death. Thus there is no more important duty for
man than to hold him steadfastly in honour, to call him “ father Erlik,"
CH, XII.
## p. 346 (#376) ############################################
346
The next life. Death
and to appease him with rich sacrifices. If a man is to be born, Ülgön,
at the request of the former's ancestors, orders his son Yayik to give
a Yayutshi charge of the birth, with the life-force from the milk-white
sea. This Yayutshi then watches over the newly-born during the whole
of his life on earth. But at the same time Erlik sends forth a Körmös
to prevent the birth or at least to hamper it, and to injure and misguide
the newly-born his whole life long. And if Erlik is successful in anni-
hilating the life-forces of a man, Körmös drags the soul before Erlik's
judgment-seat. If the man was more good than bad, Erlik has no
,
power over him, Körmös stands aside, and the Yayutshi brings the soul
up to paradise. But the soul of the wicked is abandoned by its
Yayutshi, dragged by its Körmös to hell in the deepest layer of the
underworld, and flung into a gigantic caldron of scalding tar. The
worst sinners remain for ever beneath the surface of the tar, the rest rise
gradually above the bubbling tar until at last the crown of the head
with the pigtail comes to view. So even the sinner's good works are not
in vain. The blessed in heaven reflect on the kindnesses once done by
him, and they and his ancestors send his former Yayutshi to hell, who
grasps him by the pigtail, pulls him out of the tar, and bears the soul
up to heaven. For this reason the Kalmucks let their pigtails grow, as
did many of the nomad peoples of history.
However, there is no absolute justice. The gods of light, like the
spirits of darkness, allow themselves to be won over by sacrificial viands,
and, if rich offerings are forthcoming, they willingly wink at trans-
gression; they are envious of man's wealth and demand gifts from all
,
and so it is advisable to stand well with both powers, and that can only
be done through the medium of the Shamans. So long as Erlik is
banished in the darkness, a uniform ordering of the universe exists till
the last day when everything created comes to an end, and the world
ceases to be!
With Shamanism fire-worship was closely associated. Fire purifies
everything, wards off evil, and makes every enchantment ineffective.
Hence the sick man, and the strange arrival, and everything which he
brings with him must pass between two fires. Probably fire-worship was
originally common to all the Altaians, and the Magyars also of the
ninth century were described by the Arabian geographer as fire-
worshippers.
In consequence of the healthy climate, the milk diet, and the Spartan
hardening, the Altaian enjoys excellent health, hence the saying "Healthy
as a Kirghiz. There are not a few old men of eighty, and some of a
hundred years. Infectious diseases are almost unknown, chiefly because
the constant smoke in the tent acts as a disinfectant, though combined
with the ghastly filthiness it promotes the very frequent eye-complaints
,
itch, and eruptions of the skin. In consequence of the constant wandering
1 Radloff, 11. pp. 1 ff.
99
## p. 347 (#377) ############################################
Weapons. Predatory Life
347
on camel-back, and through the Shaman hocus pocus, illness and death
at home are vexatious, and sudden death on the field of battle is preferred.
In order not to be forgotten, the Turko-Tartar—in contrast to the
Mongol-likes to be buried in a conspicuous place, and, as such places
do not exist on the steppes, after a year there is heaped over the buried
corpse an artificial mound which, according to the wealth of the dead
man, rises to a hill-like tumulus. At the same time an ostentatious
funeral festival lasting seven days is held, with races, prize combats, and
other games on horseback. Hundreds of horses, camels, and sheep are
then consumed.
The nomad loves his horses and weapons as himself. The principal
weapon is the lance, and in European warfare the Uhlans and Cossacks
survive from the armies of the steppes. The nomad-peoples who invaded
Europe were all wonderfully sure bowmen. The value of the bow lies in
the treacherous noiselessness of the arrow, which is the best weapon for
hunting and ambush, and is therefore still in use to-day together with
the rifle. In addition there have always been long-handled iron hatchets
and pick-shaped battle-axes for striking and hurling, and the bent sabre.
The warrior's body was often protected by a shirt of armour made of
small polished steel plates, or by a harness of ox-leather plates, the
head by a helmet; all mostly Persian or Caucasian work.
The hard restless life of the mounted nomad is easily disturbed by
pressure from his like, by the death of his cattle from hunger and disease,
and by the prospect of plunder, which makes him a professional robber.
Of this the Turkoman was long a type. The leading features in the life
of a Turkoman are the alaman (predatory expedition) or the tchapao (the
surprise). The invitation to any enterprise likely to be attended with
profit finds him ever ready to arm himself and to spring to his saddle.
The design itself is always kept a profound secret even from the nearest
relative; and as soon as the serdar (chief elect) has had bestowed upon
him by some mollah or other the fatiha (benediction), every man betakes
himself, at the commencement of the evening, by different ways, to a
certain place indicated before as the rendezvous. The attack is always
made either at midnight, when an inhabited settlement, or at sunrise,
when a caravan or any hostile troop is its object. This attack of the
Turkomans, like that of the Huns and Tartars, is rather to be styled a
surprise. They separate themselves into several divisions, and make two,
hardly ever three, assaults upon their unsuspecting prey; for, according
,
to a Turkoman proverb, “Try twice, turn back the third time. ” The
party assailed must possess great resolution and firmness to be able to
withstand a surprise of this nature; the Persians seldom do so. Very
often a Turkoman will not hesitate to attack five or even more Persians,
and will succeed in his enterprise. Often the Persians, struck with a
panic, throw away their arms, demand the cords, and bind each other
mutually; the Turkomans have no occasion to dismount except for the
CH. XII.
## p. 348 (#378) ############################################
348
Servitude. Vegetarianism
ransom
purpose of fastening the last of them. He who resists is cut down; the
coward who surrenders has his hands bound, and the horseman either
takes him up on his saddle (in which case his feet are bound under the
horse's belly), or drives him before him : whenever from any cause this
is not possible, the wretched man is attached to the tail of the animal
and has for hours and hours-even for days and days—to follow
the robber to his desert home. Each captive is then ill-treated until
his captor learns from him how high a can be extracted
from his kinsmen. But ransoming was a long way from meaning sal-
vation itself, for on the journey home the ransomed were not seldom
captured again and once more enslaved. Poor captives were sold at the
usual price in the slave-markets at Bokhara, Khiva, etc. ; for example, a
woman of fifty for ten ducats. Those that could not be disposed of and
were retained as herdsmen, had the sinews of their heels cut, to hinder
them from flight. Until their overthrow by Skobelev in 1881 more than
15,000 Tekke-Turkomans contrived such raids day and night; about a
million people in Persia alone were carried off in the last century, and
made on the average certainly not less than £10 per head? .
In the ninth century the Magyars and their nomadic predecessors in
South Russia, according to Ibn Rusta's Arabian source, behaved exactly
as the Turkomans in Persia; they provided for the slave-markets on the
Pontus so many Slav captives that the name slave finally became the
designation in the West of the worst servitude.
With man-stealing was associated cattle-stealing (baranta), which
finally made any attempt at cattle-rearing impossible for the systematic-
ally plundered victim, and drove him to vegetarianism without milk
nourishment. And what a vegetarianism, when agriculture had to
suffer from the ever-recurring raids, and from bad harvests! And
where the predatory herdsman settled for the winter in the midst of an
agricultural population and in his own interests allowed them a bare
existence as his serfs, there came about remarkable connexion of two
strata of people different in race and, for a time, in speech also.
A typical land in this respect is Ferghana, the former Khanate of
Khokand, on the southern border of the Great Kirghiz horde. The
indigenous inhabitants of this country, the entirely vegetarian Tadjiks
and Sarts, from immemorial times passed from the hands of one nomad
people to another in the most frightful servitude. In the sweat of their
brows they dug canals for irrigation, cultivated fields, and put into
practice a hundred arts, only to pay the lion's share to their oppressors
who, in the full consciousness of their boundless power, indulged the most
bestial appetites. But the majority of the dominant horde could not turn
from their innate and uncontrollable impulse to wander; in the spring
they were drawn irresistibly to the free air of the high-lying steppes, and
only a part of them returned to winter among the enslaved peasantry.
Vámbéry, Travels, pp. 99 ff. , 276 ff. , 364 ff. ? Marquart, pp. 466 ff.
a
a
1
## p. 349 (#379) ############################################
Emigration
349
This hopeless state of affairs continued to the Russian conquest in 1876,
for the directly adjoining deserts always poured forth wild hordes afresh,
who nipped in the bud any humaner intercourse of herdsmen and
peasants. For rapine and slavery were inevitable wherever the nomads
of the vast steppes and deserts made their abode in the immediate
neighbourhood of more civilised lands. What their own niggardly
soil denied them, they took by force from the fruitful lands of their
neighbours. And because the plundered husbandman could not pursue
the fleet mounted nomad into the trackless desert, he remained unpro-
tected. The fertile districts on the edge of the Sahara and the Arabian
desert were also in this frightful position, and Iran felt this calamity all
the harder, because the adjoining deserts of Turan are the most extensive
and terrible, and their inhabitants the wildest of all the nomads of the
world.
No better fared the peoples inhabiting East Europe, on the western
boundaries of the steppe-zone. As early as the fourth century B. C.
Ephorus stated that the customs, according to the individual peoples,
of the Scythians and the Sarmatians (both names covered the most
medley conglomerations of nomads and peasants) were very dissimilar.
Some even ate human beings (as the Massagetae ate their sick or aged
parents), others abstained from all animals. A thousand years later
, .
Pseudo-Caesarius of Nazianzus tells of a double people, that of the Sklavenes
(Slavs) and Phisonites on the lower Danube, of whom the Sklavenes
abstained from meat eating. And Constantine Porphyrogenitus in the
year 952 stated that the Russians (*Pôs, North Germanic Varangians, who
coming from Scandinavia held sway over the Slavs of Russia) bought
horses, cattle and sheep from their terrible nomadic neighbours the
Patzinaks, because they had none of these animals themselves (i. e. in
the Slav lands which they dominated). In certain districts of East
Europe therefore vegetarianism was permanent among the peasant folk,
who for more than two thousand years had been visited by the Altaians
with rapine and murder; this can be proved from original sources to have
been the case from the fourth century B. c. to the tenth century A. D. —that
is, for 1400 years! It is exactly the same state of things as in Ferghana
in modern times.
As long as a nomad horde finds sufficient room in the steppe it does
not think of emigration, and always returns home from its raids richly
laden with the plunder. But if the steppe-zone is thrown into a ferment
by struggles for the winter pastures or by other causes, the relatively
weakest horde gets pushed out of the steppe, and must conquer a new
home outside the zone. For it is only weak against the remaining nomad
hordes, but against any other State upon which it falls it is irresistible.
All the nomads of history who broke into Europe, the Scythians, Sarma-
tians, Huns, Bulgarians, Avars, Magyars, Cumans, were the weakest in
the steppes and had to take to fight, whence they became assailants of
CH. XII.
## p. 350 (#380) ############################################
350
Conquests
the world, before whom the strongest States tottered. With an energetic
Khan at their head, who organised them on military lines, such a horde
transformed itself into an incomparable army, compelled by the instinct
of self-preservation to hold fast together in the midst of the hostile
population which they subjugated; for however superfluous a central
government may be in the steppe, it is of vital importance to
a conquering nomad horde outside it. Consequently, while that part
of the people which remained in the steppe was split up into loose
clan associations, the other part, which emigrated, possessed itself of
immense territories, exterminated the greater part of entire nations
and enslaved the rest, scattered them as far as they pleased, and
founded a despotically governed State with a ridiculously, small band
of horsemen.
The high figures in the chronicles are fictions exaggerated by terror
and imagination, seeing that large troops of horsemen, who recklessly
destroyed everything around them, would not have found in a narrow
space even the necessary pasture for their many horses. Each Mongol
under Chinghiz Khan, for example, was obliged to take with him 18
horses and mares', so as always to have a fresh steed and sufficient mare's
milk and horse's blood for food and drink. Two corps under the
command of Sabutai and Chebe sufficed this great conqueror for the
overthrow of West Asia? . In four years they devastated and in great
part depopulated Khorasan, North Persia, Azerbaidjan, Georgia,
Armenia, Caucasia, the Crimea, and the Volga territories, took hundreds
of towns, and utterly defeated in bloody engagements the large armies
of the Georgians, Lesghians, Circassians, and Cumans, and the united
forces of the Russian princes. But they spared themselves as much as
possible, by driving those of the subjugated people who were capable
of bearing arms into the fight before them (as the Huns and Avars
did previously), and cutting them down at once when they hesitated.
But what the Altaian armies lacked in numbers was made up for by
their skill in surprises, their fury, their cunning, mobility, and elusiveness,
and the panic which preceded them and froze the blood of all peoples.
On their marvellously fleet horses they could traverse immense distances,
and their scouts provided them with accurate local information as to the
remotest lands and their weakness. Add to this the enormous advantage
that among them even the most insignificant news spread like wildfire
from aul to aul by means of voluntary couriers surpassing any intelligence-
department, however well organised. The tactics of the Mongols are
described by Marco Polo in agreement with Plano Carpini and all
the other writers as follows: “They never let themselves come to
close quarters, but keep perpetually riding round and shooting into
the enemy. And as they do not count it any shame to run away in
i Marco Polo (Ramusio's edition), 1. p. 48.
2 Vámbéry, Türkenvolk, p. 180; Bretschueider, 1. p. 294.
## p. 351 (#381) ############################################
Conquests
351
ܪܪ
battle, they will sometimes pretend to do so, and in running away they
turn in the saddle and shoot hard and strong at the foe, and in this way
make great havoc. Their horses are trained so perfectly that they will
double hither and thither, just like a dog, in a way that is quite
astonishing. Thus they fight to as good purpose in running away as if
they stood and faced the enemy, because of the vast volleys of arrows
that they shoot in this way, turning round upon their pursuers, who are
fancying that they have won the battle. But when the Tartars see that
they have killed and wounded a good many horses and men, they wheel
round bodily and return to the charge in perfect order and with loud
cries; and in a very short time the enemy are routed. In truth they are
stout and valiant soldiers and inured to war. And you perceive that it
is just when the enemy sees them run, and imagines that he has gained
the battle, that he has in reality lost it; for the Tartars wheel round in
a moment when they judge the right time has come. And after this
fashion they have won many a fight. ” The chronicler, Peter of Zittau,
in the year 1315, described the tactics of the Magyars in exactly the
same way.
When a vigorous conqueror like Attila or Chinghiz arose among the
mounted nomads and combined several hordes for a cyclonic advance,
they swept all before them on the march, like a veritable avalanche of
peoples.
far they extend. The longest are those of the Kirghiz who winter by
the Aral Sea and have their summer pastures ten degrees of latitude
further north in the steppes of Troitsk and Omsk. The distance,
allowing for the zig-zag course, comes to more than 1000 miles, so that
each
year
the nomad must cover 2000 miles with all his herds and other
goods.
During the winter the nomad in the desert is, so to speak, a prisoner
in his tent, practical, neat, and comfortable as this is. It is a rotunda
15 feet high, and often over 30 feet broad. Its framework consists of
a wooden lattice in six to ten separable divisions, which can be widened
out, or pushed together for packing. Above this comes the roof-frame
of light rafters which come together in a ring above. This is the
opening for air, light and smoke, and is only covered at night and
during severe cold. Inside a matting of steppe-grass runs round the
framework, and outside is a felt covering bound round with ropes of
camel's hair. Tent-pegs and ropes protect the tent from being over-
turned by the violent north-east orkan, during which the hearth-fire
must be put out. As the felt absorbs and emits very little heat, the
tent is warm in winter, and cool in summer. Inside the tent the sacks
of victuals hang on the points of the wall-lattice; on the rafters above
are the weapons, harness, saddles, and, among the heathen tribes, the
idols. Behind the hearth, the seat of honour for guests and old men is
spread with the best felt and carpets; in front of the hearth is the place
for drinking-vessels and sometimes for fuel, the latter consisting of
camel- and cattle-dung, since firewood is found only in a few places
in the steppes and deserts. The nomad-life admits of only the most
CH, XII.
## p. 336 (#366) ############################################
336
The Tent and its Contents. Property in Land
necessary and least breakable utensils : for preparing food for all in the
tent there is a large cast-iron caldron, acquired in Chinese or Russian
traffic, with tripod and tongs; a trunk-like kumiz-vat of four smoked
horse-hides thickened with fat; kumiz-bottles, and water-bottles of
leather ; wooden chests, tubs and cans hollowed out of pieces of wood,
or gourds; wooden dishes, drinking-bowls, and spoons ; among the
slave-hunting Turkomans short and long chains, manacles, fetters, and
iron collars also hung in the tent to the right of the entrance.
The accommodation provided by the tent, and the economising of
space is astonishing; from long past times everything has had its
assigned place; there is room for forty men by day, and twenty by
night, notwithstanding the many objects hanging and lying about.
The master of the household, with the men, occupies the place of
honour; left and right of the hearth are the sleeping-places (felt, which
is rolled up in the daytime); left of the entrance the wife and the
women and children, to the right the male slaves, do their work. For
anyone to leave his wonted place unnecessarily, or without the order of
the master, would be an unheard-of proceeding. In three-quarters of an
hour a large tent can be put up and furnished, and it can be taken to
pieces and packed just as quickly; even with movables and stores
it is so light that two camels suffice to carry it. The Nogai-Tartars
carry their basket-like felt tents, which are only 8 to 10 feet in diameter,
on two-wheeled carts drawn at a trot by small-sized oxen. In the
thirteenth century, under Chinghiz and his followers, the Mongols
also made use of such cart-tents, drawn by one camel, as store-holders,
but only in the Volga-district and not in their own country in Mon-
golia. They also put their great tents-as much as thirty feet in
diameter-on carts drawn by twenty-four oxen twelve in a line? The
nature of the ground admitted of this procedure and consequently the
tent had not to be taken to pieces at each stopping-place (as must
be done in the steppes and deserts), but only where a considerable
halt was made. In South Russia such wagon-tents date from the
.
oldest times, and were already in use among the Scythians.
Among a continually wandering pastoral people the interests of
neighbours often collide, as we know from the Bible-story of Abraham
and Lot. Thus a definite partition of the land comes about. A folk,
or a section of a folk--a tribe-regards a certain stretch of land as its
special property, and tolerates no trespass from any neighbour whatso-
ever. The tribe, again, consists of clans and the latter of camps, which,
in their turn, regard parts of the whole tribal district as their own.
This produces a very confused medley of districts, over which the
individual camps wander. In spring and autumn the nomad can
find abundant fodder almost everywhere, in consequence of the greater
moisture and luxuriant grass crop. The winter and summer abodes
1 Rubruquis in Recueil, iv. p. 220; Marco Polo, 1. p. 255.
1
## p. 337 (#367) ############################################
Winter and Summer Pastures
337
a
demand definite conditions for the prosperity of the herds. The
winter settlement must not have too severe a climate, the summer
grazing-ground must be as exempt as possible from the terrific plague
of insects. Since many more conditions must be satisfied for the
winter than for the summer pastures, it is the winter quarters which
determine the density of the nomad population. Thus the wealth of a
people accords with the abundance of their winter quarters, and all
internal encounters and campaigns of former centuries are to be regarded
as a constant struggle for the best winter settlements.
In winter, whenever possible, the same places as have been used for
long times past are occupied ; in the deep-lying valley of a once-existing
river, not over-exposed to the wind, with good water, and grazing-places
where the snow settles as little as possible, and the last year's dung
makes the ground warmer and, at the same time, provides fuel. Here
at the end of October the tent, made warmer by another covering, is
pitched, protecting the nomad from the raging winter buran and the
numbing cold. The herds, however, remain in the open air without a
sheltering roof, and must scrape for themselves the withered shrubs,
stalks, and roots from the snow. They get terribly thin ; indeed sheep,
camels, and oxen perish when the snow falls deep, and the horses in
scraping for fodder trample down the plants and make them uneatable,
or when ice forms and shuts out sustenance entirely. But in early spring
the situation improves, especially for the sheep, which, from mere skele-
tons, revive and get fat on the salt-steppes where a cursory inspection
reveals no vegetation on the glittering crust of salt. The salt-pastures
are incomparably more nourishing than the richest Alpine meadows, and
without salt there would be no sheep-rearing nomads in Central Asia.
To freshen the spring-pasturage the steppe is burnt off as soon as the
snow has melted, as the dry last year's steppe-grass gets matted under
the snow, and would retard the sprouting of the new grass ; the ground
manured by the ashes then gets luxuriantly green after a few days.
In the middle or at the end of April, during the lambing of the
sheep, and the foaling of the mares, preparations for striking the winter
tent are made. At this time the animals yield most milk, and a stock
of hard cheese (kurut) is made. At the beginning of May the steppe
begins to dry up, and the intolerable insects appear. Now the goods
which are superfluous for the summer are secretly buried, the tent is
struck, and loaded with all necessary goods and chattels on the decorated
camels. It is the day of greatest rejoicing for the nomad, who leaves
his inhospitable winter quarters in festal attire.
The winter quarters are regarded as the fixed property of the in-
dividual tent owners, but the summer pastures are the common property
of the clan. Here each member of the clan, rich or poor, has in theory
the right to settle where he likes. But the wealthy and illustrious
always know how to secure the best places. To effect this each camp keeps
a
C. MED, H. VOL. I. CH, XII.
22
## p. 338 (#368) ############################################
338
Loss of Cattle
-
a
the time of departure to the summer pastures and the direction to be
taken as secret as possible; at the same time it makes an arrangement
with the nearest-related camps, in conformity with which they suddenly
depart in order to reach their goal as quickly as possible. If the place
chosen is already occupied, the next which is still free is taken. At the
beginning of spring, when the grass is still scanty, the camps can remain
only a very short time-often one day or even only half a day—in one
place; later on in their more distant wandering—from well to well—they
can stay for weeks in the same place. At midsummer movement is more
rapid, and in autumn, with an increasing abundance of water, it is again
slower. In the sand-desert the nomad finds the wells covered by drift-
sand, and he must dig down to them afresh, if necessary daily. The
regulation of these wanderings is undertaken by the aksakals, not always
according to justice.
The cattle can easily be taken off by a hostile neighbour, for the
steppe is free and open. Therefore the nomads of the steppes, unlike
the nomads of the mountains, do not split themselves into single families.
They constantly need a small war-band to recover the stolen booty from
the enemy. On the other hand, the instinct of self-preservation often
drives a whole people to violate their neighbours' rights of property.
When there is dearth of fodder the cattle are ruined, and the enterprise
and energy of the owner cannot avert calamity. The impoverished
nomad infallibly goes to the wall as a solitary individual, and only
seldom is he, as a former wanderer (tshorva), capable of becoming a
despised settler (tshomru). For he feels it to be the greatest misfortune
and humiliation when he must take to the plough, somewhere by a
watercourse on the edge of the desert; and so long as the loss of all his
herds has not hopelessly crushed him, he does not resign himself to that
terrible fate which Mahomet has proscribed with the words: “wherever
this implement has penetrated, it has always brought with it servitude
and shame. ”
In spring, when severe frost suddenly sets in after the first thaw, and
the thin layer of snow is covered in a single night with a crust of ice
an inch thick, the cattle cannot scrape food out of the snow, and the owner
cannot possibly supply a substitute. When the frost continues hundreds
of thousands of beasts perish, and whole districts previously rich in herds
become suddenly poor. So as soon as ice appears the people affected
leave their winter quarters, and penetrate far into their neighbours'
territory until they find food for their herds. If they are successful a
part at least of their cattle is saved, and when the weather changes they
return home. But if all their cattle perish entirely, they must starve
if they are unwilling to rob their wealthy neighbour of a part of his
herds. Bloody feuds occur too in autumn on the return from the
summer pastures, when the horses have become fat and powerful and the
longer nights favour and cover long rides. The nomad now carries out
## p. 339 (#369) ############################################
Custom.
Kumiz
339
the raids of robbery and revenge resolved upon and skilfully planned in the
summer, and then he goes to his winter quarters.
But how can these barbarous robbers live together without exter-
minating each other? They are bridled by an old and tyrannical king,
invisible to themselves, the deb (custom, wont). This prohibits robbery
and murder, immorality and injustice towards associates in times of
peace; but the strange neighbour is outlawed ; to rob, enslave or kill
him is an heroic deed. The nomads' ideas of justice are remarkably
similar to those of our ancestors. Every offence is regarded as an injury
to the interests of a fellow-man, and is expiated by indemnification of the
loser. Among the Kazak-Kirghiz anyone who has killed a man of the
plebs (a “ black bone "), whether wilfully or accidentally makes no differ-
ence, must compensate the relations with a kun (i. e. 1000 sheep or
100 horses or 50 camels). The slaughter of a “white bone” costs a
sevenfold kun. Murder of their own wives, children, and slaves goes
unpunished, since they themselves are the losers. If a Kirghiz steals an
animal, he must restore it together with two of the same value. If a
wrong-doer is unable to pay the fine, his nearest relations, and failing
them the whole camp, must provide it.
The principal food consists of milk-products-not of the fresh milk
itself, which is only taken by children and the sick. A special
Turko-Tartar food is yogurt, prepared with leaven from curdled milk.
The Mongols also eat butter-the more rancid the more palatable-
dripping with dirt, and carried without wrapping in their hairy greasy
coat-pockets. From mare's milk, which yields no cream, kumiz (Kirghiz),
tshegan (Mongolish) is fermented', an extremely nutritious drink which is
good for consumption, and from which by itself life can be sustained. How-
ever, it keeps only a few hours, after which it becomes too sour and efferves-
cent, and so the whole supply must be drunk at once. In summer, with an
abundance of mares, there is such a superfluity of kumiz that hospitality
is unlimited, and half Altai is always drunk. The Turkomans and Kara-
Kalpaks, who possess few horses and no studs, drink kumiz seldom. The
much-drunk airan from fermented unskimmed camel, cow, and sheep-milk
quenches thirst for hours, just as does the kefir of the Tartars from cow's
milk. The airan, after being condensed by boiling, and dried hard as
stone into little balls in the sun, is made into kurt, kurut, which can be
kept for months and is the only means of making bitter salt-water
drinkable. According to Marco Polo it formed the provision of the
Mongol armies, and if the horseman could not quench his thirst in any
other way, he opened one of his horse's veins and drank the blood. From
kumiz and also from millet a strong spirit (Kirghiz boza) is distilled,
i Zemarchos (A. D. 568) mentions the drink kosmos at the Turkish Khan's
Court, Rubruquis (A. D. 1253) cosmos (variant comos) among the Mongols, and
the prince's drink cara-cosmos, Marco Polo, kemiz; all corruptions of the word
kumiz.
CH. XII.
22-2
## p. 340 (#370) ############################################
340
Food
which produces dead-drunkenness followed by a pleasant Nirvana-
sensation.
A comparison of Rubruquis' account with that of Radloff" shews that
the dairying among the Altaians has remained the same from the earliest
times. A late acquisition from China, and only available for the
wealthier, is the “brick-tea,” which is also a currency, and a substitute
а
for money.
;
Little meat is eaten, notwithstanding the abundance of the herds ; it
is only customary on festive occasions or as a consequence of a visit of
special honour. In order not to lessen the stock of cattle, the people
content themselves with the cattle that are sick beyond recovery, or dead
and even decaying. The meat is eaten boiled, and the broth drunk
afterwards. Only the Volga-Kalmucks and the Kara-Kirghiz, who are
very rich in flocks, live principally on sheep and horse meat. That the
Huns and Tartars ate raw meat softened by being carried under the
saddle, is a mistake of the chroniclers. At the present time the mounted
nomads are accustomed to put thin strips of salted raw meat on their
horses' sores, before saddling them, to bring about a speedy healing.
But this meat, impregnated with the sweat of the horse and reeking
intolerably, is absolutely uneatable.
From the earliest times, on account of the enormous abundance of
game, hunting has been eagerly practised for the sake of food and skins,
or as sport, either with trap and snare, or on horseback with falcon and
eagle. From Persia came the long-haired greyhound in addition. Fish-
ing cannot be pursued by long-wandering nomads, and they make no
use even of the best-stocked rivers. But by the lakes and the rivers
which do not dry up, fishing is an important source of food among short-
wandering nomads.
For grain the seeds of wild-growing cereals are gathered ; here and
there millet is grown without difficulty, even on poor soil. A bag of
millet-meal suffices the horseman for days; a handful of it with a drink
of water appeases him well enough. Thus bread is a luxury for the
nomad herdsman, and the necessary grain can only be procured in barter
for the products of cattle-rearing and house-industry. But the Kirghiz
of Ferghana in their short but high wanderings on the Pamir and Alai
high above the last agricultural settlements, which only extend to
4600 feet, carry on an extensive agriculture (summer-wheat, millet,
barley) by means of slaves and labourers at a height of 8500 feet,
while they themselves climb with their herds to a height of 15,800 feet,
and partly winter in the valleys which are free from snow in winter.
The nomads eat vegetables seldom, as only carrots and onions grow
in the steppes. The half-settled agricultural half-nomads of to-day
· Rubruquis, pp. 227 ff. ; Radloff, 1. pp. 425 ff.
2 Schwarz, Turkestan, p. 89 (note).
3 Middendorff, pp. 329 f.
## p. 341 (#371) ############################################
Voracity. Costume
341
can be left out of consideration'. According to Plano Carpini the
Mongols had neither bread nor vegetables nor leguminous food, nor
anything else except meat, of which they ate so little that other
peoples could scarcely have lived on it. However, in summer they
consumed an enormous quantity of milk, and that failing in winter, one
or two bowls of thin millet boiled in water in the morning, and nothing
more except a little meat in the evening.
We see that from the earliest times the Altaian nomad has lived by
animal-rearing, and in a subsidiary degree by hunting and fishing, and
here and there by a very scanty agriculture. As among some hordes,
especially the old Magyars, fishing and hunting are made much of,
many believe that they were originally a hunting and fishing folk, and
took to cattle-rearing later. This is an impossibility. The Magyars,
just as were the others, were pure nomads even during winter, other-
wise their herds would have perished. Hunting and fishing they
pursued only as stop-gaps when milk failed. A fishing and hunting
people cannot so easily become mounted nomads, and least of all
organised in such a terribly warlike way as were the Magyars.
The innate voracity of the Turko-Tartars is the consequence of the
climate. The Bedouin in the latitude of 20° to 32°, at a mean temperature
of 86° F. can easily be more abstinent and moderate with his single meal
a day (meat, dates, truffles) than the Altaian in the freezing cold, between
the latitudes of 38° and 58°, with his three copious meals. The variable
climate and its consequences—hunger in winter, superfluity in summer
-have so hardened the Altaian that he can without difficulty hold out
for days without water, and for weeks (in a known case forty-two days)
in a snowstorm without any food; but he can also consume a six-months’-
old wether at one sitting, and is ready to repeat the dose straight off!
Originally the Altaian clothed himself in skins, leather, and felt, and
not till later in vegetable-stuffs acquired by barter, tribute, or plunder.
To-day the outer-coat of the Kazak-Kirghiz is still made of the shining
skin of a foal with the tail left on for ornament. The Tsaidan-Mongols
wear next their bare skin a felt gown, with the addition of a skin in
winter only, and leather breeches. All Central Asiatics wear the high
spherical sheep-skin cap (also used as a pillow), the tshapan (similar
to a dressing-gown and consisting of fur or felt in winter), leather boots,
or felt stockings bound round with rags. Among many tribes the hair
of the men is worn long or shaved off entirely (Herodotus tells of a
snub-nosed, shaven-headed people in the lower Ural), and the Magyars,
Cumans and others were shorn bare, but for two pigtails.
The wife occupies a very dependent position. On her shoulders falls
the entire work of the household, the very manifold needs of which are
to be satisfied almost entirely by home industry. She must take down
1 For the transition from the nomad to the half-nomad state v. Vámbéry,
Türkenvolk, p. 171.
>
a
CH. XII.
## p. 342 (#372) ############################################
342
The Wife. Education. Inheritance
the tent, pack it up, load it on camels, and pitch it; she must prepare
leather, felt, leather-bottles, cords, waterproof material, and colours
from various plants; she must spin and weave wool and hair ; she must
make clothes, collect camel- and cattle-dung, knead it with dust into
tough paste and form and dry it into cakes ; she must saddle and bridle
horses and camels, milk the sheep, prepare kumiz, kurut, and airan, and
graze the herds of sheep in the night-for the husband does this only by
day, and in addition only milks the mares; his remaining occupation is
almost entirely war and plundering. To share the domestic work would
be for an Altaian paterfamilias an unheard-of humiliation.
Originally the choice of a wife was as unrestricted among all the
Altaians as among the Mongols, who, according to Plano Carpini
and Marco Polo, might marry any relative and non-relative except
their own mothers and daughters, and sisters by their own mothers.
But to-day several nomad peoples are strictly exogamic. The bride
was chosen by the father, when still in her childhood; her price (kalym)
was twenty-seven to a hundred mares, and her dowry had roughly the
same value. Polygamy was consequently only possible among tribes
rich in herds, but it was a necessity, as one wife alone could not
accomplish the many duties. Virgin purity and conjugal fidelity are
among the Turko-Tartars, and especially among the Kirghiz, somewhat
rare virtues ; on the other hand, Marco Polo agrees with Radloff in
praising the absolute fidelity of the Mongol women.
The upbringing of the children entails the extreme of hardening.
During its first six weeks the new-born child is bathed daily, summer
and winter alike, in the open air ; thenceforward the nomad never
washes, his whole life long. The Kalmuck in particular is absolutely
shy of water. Almost to puberty the children go naked summer and
winter; only on the march do they wear a light khalat and fur-cap.
They are suckled at the breast to their fifth year. At three or four
they already sit free with their mother on horseback, and a six-year-old
girl rides like a sportsman. The education of the boys is limited to
riding; at the most falconry in addition. On the other hand, the girls
are put to most exhausting work from their tenderest years, and the
value of a bride is decided by the work she can discharge. Among
nearly all Altaian peoples the son thinks little of his mother, but
towards his father he is submissive.
Hereditary right is purely agnatic. As soon as the married son is
able to look after himself, he is no longer under the authority of his
father, and if he likes he can demand as inheritance a part of the
herds adequate to establishing a separate household. Then however he
is entirely settled with, and he cannot inherit further on the death of
his father when there are younger sons-his brothers--still unportioned.
-
If impoverished the father has the right to take back from his appor-
tioned sons every fifth animal from the herds (Kalmucks). The daughters
## p. 343 (#373) ############################################
Trade. Religion
.
343
are never entitled to inherit, and on marrying receive merely a suitable
dowry from their brothers, who then receive the kalym. If only
daughters survive, the inheritance goes to the father's brothers or
cousins, who in that case receive the kalym as well.
Speedy as the Altaian is on horseback, on foot he is helpless and
unwieldy; and so the dance is unknown to him.
All games full of
dash and excitement are played on horseback. His hospitality is
marvellous ; for weeks at a time he treats the new arrival to the best he
has, even when it is the despised and hated Shîitish Persian. He possesses
many sagas and songs—mostly in the minor key, and monotonous as
the steppes—which are accompanied on a two-stringed guitar. Tenor
and mezzo-soprano predominate, and the gait of the horse and the stride
of the camel mark the rhythm.
The surplus of the female house-industry and of the herds is, as a
rule, exchanged in barter for weapons and armours, metal and wooden
articles, clothing material, brick-tea and grain. Instead of our gold
and silver coinage they have—sit venia verbo—a sheep coinage, in
which all valuations are made. Of course they were acquainted with
foreign coins from the earliest times, and obtained countless millions
of pounds from tribute, plunder, and ransom of prisoners, and they
used coins, now and then, in external trading, but among themselves
they still barter, and conclude all their business in sheep, cattle, horses,
and camels. Rubruquis says of the Mongols in 1253: “We found
nothing purchasable for gold and silver, only for fabrics, of which we
had none.
When our servant shewed them a Hyperpyron (Byzantine
gold coin), they rubbed it with their fingers and smelt it to see if it,
were copper. ” They have no hand-workers except a few smiths.
The Altaian, and especially the Turko-Tartar barbarian, considered
only the advantage of the moment; the unlimited plundering was hostile
to any transit-trade. But when and so long as a strong hand controlled
the universal plundering spirit, a caravan trade between north and south,
and especially between east and west was possible, and, with high duties,
formed a considerable source of income for the Central-Asiatic despots.
The religious conceptions of a group of primitive people inhabiting
such an enormous district were of course never uniform. To-day the
greatest part of the Altaians is Buddhist, or Islamitic, and only a few
Siberian Turkish tribes remain true to the old-Altaian Shamanism.
The characteristic feature of Shamanism is the belief in the close
union of the living with their long dead ancestors; thus it is an un-
interrupted ancestor worship. This faculty however is possessed only by
a few families, those of the Shamans (Mong. shaman, Turk. kam), who
pass on their power from father to son, or sometimes daughter-with the
visible symbol of the Shaman drum by means of which he can call up
the spirits through the power of his ancestors, and compel them to active
assistance, and can separate his own soul from his body and send it into
CH. XII.
## p. 344 (#374) ############################################
344
Shamanism
the kingdoms of light and of darkness. He prepares the sacrifice, con-
jures up the spirits, leads prayers of petition and thanksgiving, and in
short is doctor, soothsayer, and weather prophet. In consequence he is
held in high regard, but is less loved than feared, as his ceremonies are
uncanny, and he himself dangerous if evil inclined. The chosen of his
ancestors attains to his Shaman power not by instruction but by sudden
inspiration; he falls into a frenzy, utters inarticulate cries, rolls his eyes,
turns himself round in a circle as if possessed, until, covered with per-
spiration, he wallows on the ground in epileptic convulsions ; his body
becomes insensible to impressions ; according to accounts he swallows
automatically, and without subsequent injury, red-hot iron, knives, and
needles, and brings them up again dry. These passions get stronger
and stronger, till the individual seizes the Shaman drum and begins
“shamaneering. ” Not before this does his nature compose itself, the
power of his ancestors has passed into him, and he must thenceforth
“shamaneer. " He is moreover dressed in a fantastic garb hung with
rattling iron trinkets. The Shaman drum is a wooden hoop with a
skin, painted with gay figures, stretched over both sides, and all kinds of
clattering bells and little sticks of iron upon it. In “shamaneering”
the drum is vigorously struck with one drum-stick, and the ancestors
thus invoked interrogated about the cause of the evil which is to be
banished, and the sacrifice which is to be made to the divinity in
order to avert it. The beast of sacrifice is then slaughtered and
eaten, the skin together with all the bones is set aside as the sacrificial
offering. Then follows the conjuration-in-chief, with the most frantic
hocus-pocus, by means of which the Shaman strives to penetrate with
his soul into the highest possible region of heaven in order to undertake
an interrogation of the god of heaven himself.
From the great confusion of local creeds some such Shaman system
as the following can be constructed; though the people themselves have
only very vague conceptions of it.
The universe consists of a number of layers separated one from
another by a certain something. The seventeen upper layers form the
kingdom of light, seven or nine the underworld of darkness. In between
lies the surface of man's earth, constantly influenced by both powers.
The good divinities and spirits of heaven protect men, but the bad
endeavour to destroy them. Originally there was only water and neither
earth nor heaven nor sun nor moon. Then Tengere Kaira Khan (“the
kind heaven ") created first a being like himself, Kishi, man. Both
soared in bliss over the water, but Kishi wished to exalt himself above
the creator, and losing through his transgression the power to fly, fell
headlong into the bottomless water. In his mercy Kaira Khan caused
a star to rise out of the flood, upon which the drowning Kishi could sit;
but as he could no longer fly Kaira Khan caused him to dive deep down
and bring up earth, which he strewed upon the surface of the water.
1
ir
be
kin
all
with
is al
who
and
munit
(prince
sevente
sevente
underwc
them.
every tu.
Erlik-Kh
the horrit
suffer jus
poverty, ill
man than t
CH. XII.
## p. 345 (#375) ############################################
Cosmogony
345
But Kishi kept a piece of it in his mouth in order to create a special
country out of it for himself. This swelled in his mouth and would have
suffocated him had he not spat it out so that morasses formed on Kaira
Khan's hitherto smooth earth. In consequence Kaira Khan named Kishi
Erlik, banished him from the kingdom of light, and caused a nine-
branched tree to grow out of the earth, and under each branch created
a man as first father of each of the nine peoples of the present time. In
vain Erlik besought Kaira Khan to entrust to him the nine fair and good
men; but he found out how to pervert them to evil. Angered thereat
Kaira Khan left foolish man to himself, and condemned Erlik to the
third layer of darkness. But for himself he created the seventeen layers
of heaven and set up his dwelling in the highest. As the protector and
teacher of the now deserted race of man he left behind Mai-Tärä (the
Sublime). Erlik too with the permission of the Kaira Khan built himself
a heaven and peopled it with his own subjects, the bad spirits, men
corrupted by him. And behold, they lived more comfortably than the
sons of the earth created by Kaira Khan. And so Kaira Khan caused
Erlik's heaven to be shattered into small pieces, which falling on the
earth formed huge mountains and gorges. But Erlik was doomed until
the end of the world to everlasting darkness. And now from the seven-
teenth layer of heaven Kaira Khan controls the destiny of the universe.
By emanation from him the three highest divinities came into being:
Bai Ülgön (the Great) in the sixteenth, Kysagan Tengere (the Mighty)
in the ninth, and Mergen Tengere (the All-wise) in the seventh layer of
heaven, where “Mother Sun” dwells also. In the sixth is enthroned
“Father Moon,” in the fifth Kudai Yayutshi (the highest Creator).
Ülgön's two sons Yayik and Mai-Tärä, the protecting patrons of man-
kind, dwell in the third on the milk-white sea Süt-ak-köl, the source of
all life; near it is the mountain Sürö, the dwelling of the seven Kudai,
with their subjects the Yayutshi, the guardian angels of mankind. Here
is also the paradise of the blessed and righteous ancestors of living men,
who mediate between the divinities of heaven and their own descendants,
and can help them in their need. The earth is personified in a com-
munity of spirits (Yer-su) beneficent to man, the seventeen high Khans
(princes) of the seventeen spring districts, whose abodes lie on the
seventeen snow peaks of the highest mountains, by the sources of the
seventeen streams which water the land. In the seven layers of the dark
underworld prevails the dismal light of the underworld sun peculiar to
them. This is the dwelling of all the evil spirits who waylay men at
every turn: misshapen goblins, witches, Körmös, and others ruled by
Erlik-Khan the dreadful prince on the black throne. Still deeper lies
the horrible hell, Kasyrgan, where the sinners and criminals of mankind
suffer just punishment. All evil comes from Erlik, cattle-disease,
poverty, illness, and death. Thus there is no more important duty for
man than to hold him steadfastly in honour, to call him “ father Erlik,"
CH, XII.
## p. 346 (#376) ############################################
346
The next life. Death
and to appease him with rich sacrifices. If a man is to be born, Ülgön,
at the request of the former's ancestors, orders his son Yayik to give
a Yayutshi charge of the birth, with the life-force from the milk-white
sea. This Yayutshi then watches over the newly-born during the whole
of his life on earth. But at the same time Erlik sends forth a Körmös
to prevent the birth or at least to hamper it, and to injure and misguide
the newly-born his whole life long. And if Erlik is successful in anni-
hilating the life-forces of a man, Körmös drags the soul before Erlik's
judgment-seat. If the man was more good than bad, Erlik has no
,
power over him, Körmös stands aside, and the Yayutshi brings the soul
up to paradise. But the soul of the wicked is abandoned by its
Yayutshi, dragged by its Körmös to hell in the deepest layer of the
underworld, and flung into a gigantic caldron of scalding tar. The
worst sinners remain for ever beneath the surface of the tar, the rest rise
gradually above the bubbling tar until at last the crown of the head
with the pigtail comes to view. So even the sinner's good works are not
in vain. The blessed in heaven reflect on the kindnesses once done by
him, and they and his ancestors send his former Yayutshi to hell, who
grasps him by the pigtail, pulls him out of the tar, and bears the soul
up to heaven. For this reason the Kalmucks let their pigtails grow, as
did many of the nomad peoples of history.
However, there is no absolute justice. The gods of light, like the
spirits of darkness, allow themselves to be won over by sacrificial viands,
and, if rich offerings are forthcoming, they willingly wink at trans-
gression; they are envious of man's wealth and demand gifts from all
,
and so it is advisable to stand well with both powers, and that can only
be done through the medium of the Shamans. So long as Erlik is
banished in the darkness, a uniform ordering of the universe exists till
the last day when everything created comes to an end, and the world
ceases to be!
With Shamanism fire-worship was closely associated. Fire purifies
everything, wards off evil, and makes every enchantment ineffective.
Hence the sick man, and the strange arrival, and everything which he
brings with him must pass between two fires. Probably fire-worship was
originally common to all the Altaians, and the Magyars also of the
ninth century were described by the Arabian geographer as fire-
worshippers.
In consequence of the healthy climate, the milk diet, and the Spartan
hardening, the Altaian enjoys excellent health, hence the saying "Healthy
as a Kirghiz. There are not a few old men of eighty, and some of a
hundred years. Infectious diseases are almost unknown, chiefly because
the constant smoke in the tent acts as a disinfectant, though combined
with the ghastly filthiness it promotes the very frequent eye-complaints
,
itch, and eruptions of the skin. In consequence of the constant wandering
1 Radloff, 11. pp. 1 ff.
99
## p. 347 (#377) ############################################
Weapons. Predatory Life
347
on camel-back, and through the Shaman hocus pocus, illness and death
at home are vexatious, and sudden death on the field of battle is preferred.
In order not to be forgotten, the Turko-Tartar—in contrast to the
Mongol-likes to be buried in a conspicuous place, and, as such places
do not exist on the steppes, after a year there is heaped over the buried
corpse an artificial mound which, according to the wealth of the dead
man, rises to a hill-like tumulus. At the same time an ostentatious
funeral festival lasting seven days is held, with races, prize combats, and
other games on horseback. Hundreds of horses, camels, and sheep are
then consumed.
The nomad loves his horses and weapons as himself. The principal
weapon is the lance, and in European warfare the Uhlans and Cossacks
survive from the armies of the steppes. The nomad-peoples who invaded
Europe were all wonderfully sure bowmen. The value of the bow lies in
the treacherous noiselessness of the arrow, which is the best weapon for
hunting and ambush, and is therefore still in use to-day together with
the rifle. In addition there have always been long-handled iron hatchets
and pick-shaped battle-axes for striking and hurling, and the bent sabre.
The warrior's body was often protected by a shirt of armour made of
small polished steel plates, or by a harness of ox-leather plates, the
head by a helmet; all mostly Persian or Caucasian work.
The hard restless life of the mounted nomad is easily disturbed by
pressure from his like, by the death of his cattle from hunger and disease,
and by the prospect of plunder, which makes him a professional robber.
Of this the Turkoman was long a type. The leading features in the life
of a Turkoman are the alaman (predatory expedition) or the tchapao (the
surprise). The invitation to any enterprise likely to be attended with
profit finds him ever ready to arm himself and to spring to his saddle.
The design itself is always kept a profound secret even from the nearest
relative; and as soon as the serdar (chief elect) has had bestowed upon
him by some mollah or other the fatiha (benediction), every man betakes
himself, at the commencement of the evening, by different ways, to a
certain place indicated before as the rendezvous. The attack is always
made either at midnight, when an inhabited settlement, or at sunrise,
when a caravan or any hostile troop is its object. This attack of the
Turkomans, like that of the Huns and Tartars, is rather to be styled a
surprise. They separate themselves into several divisions, and make two,
hardly ever three, assaults upon their unsuspecting prey; for, according
,
to a Turkoman proverb, “Try twice, turn back the third time. ” The
party assailed must possess great resolution and firmness to be able to
withstand a surprise of this nature; the Persians seldom do so. Very
often a Turkoman will not hesitate to attack five or even more Persians,
and will succeed in his enterprise. Often the Persians, struck with a
panic, throw away their arms, demand the cords, and bind each other
mutually; the Turkomans have no occasion to dismount except for the
CH. XII.
## p. 348 (#378) ############################################
348
Servitude. Vegetarianism
ransom
purpose of fastening the last of them. He who resists is cut down; the
coward who surrenders has his hands bound, and the horseman either
takes him up on his saddle (in which case his feet are bound under the
horse's belly), or drives him before him : whenever from any cause this
is not possible, the wretched man is attached to the tail of the animal
and has for hours and hours-even for days and days—to follow
the robber to his desert home. Each captive is then ill-treated until
his captor learns from him how high a can be extracted
from his kinsmen. But ransoming was a long way from meaning sal-
vation itself, for on the journey home the ransomed were not seldom
captured again and once more enslaved. Poor captives were sold at the
usual price in the slave-markets at Bokhara, Khiva, etc. ; for example, a
woman of fifty for ten ducats. Those that could not be disposed of and
were retained as herdsmen, had the sinews of their heels cut, to hinder
them from flight. Until their overthrow by Skobelev in 1881 more than
15,000 Tekke-Turkomans contrived such raids day and night; about a
million people in Persia alone were carried off in the last century, and
made on the average certainly not less than £10 per head? .
In the ninth century the Magyars and their nomadic predecessors in
South Russia, according to Ibn Rusta's Arabian source, behaved exactly
as the Turkomans in Persia; they provided for the slave-markets on the
Pontus so many Slav captives that the name slave finally became the
designation in the West of the worst servitude.
With man-stealing was associated cattle-stealing (baranta), which
finally made any attempt at cattle-rearing impossible for the systematic-
ally plundered victim, and drove him to vegetarianism without milk
nourishment. And what a vegetarianism, when agriculture had to
suffer from the ever-recurring raids, and from bad harvests! And
where the predatory herdsman settled for the winter in the midst of an
agricultural population and in his own interests allowed them a bare
existence as his serfs, there came about remarkable connexion of two
strata of people different in race and, for a time, in speech also.
A typical land in this respect is Ferghana, the former Khanate of
Khokand, on the southern border of the Great Kirghiz horde. The
indigenous inhabitants of this country, the entirely vegetarian Tadjiks
and Sarts, from immemorial times passed from the hands of one nomad
people to another in the most frightful servitude. In the sweat of their
brows they dug canals for irrigation, cultivated fields, and put into
practice a hundred arts, only to pay the lion's share to their oppressors
who, in the full consciousness of their boundless power, indulged the most
bestial appetites. But the majority of the dominant horde could not turn
from their innate and uncontrollable impulse to wander; in the spring
they were drawn irresistibly to the free air of the high-lying steppes, and
only a part of them returned to winter among the enslaved peasantry.
Vámbéry, Travels, pp. 99 ff. , 276 ff. , 364 ff. ? Marquart, pp. 466 ff.
a
a
1
## p. 349 (#379) ############################################
Emigration
349
This hopeless state of affairs continued to the Russian conquest in 1876,
for the directly adjoining deserts always poured forth wild hordes afresh,
who nipped in the bud any humaner intercourse of herdsmen and
peasants. For rapine and slavery were inevitable wherever the nomads
of the vast steppes and deserts made their abode in the immediate
neighbourhood of more civilised lands. What their own niggardly
soil denied them, they took by force from the fruitful lands of their
neighbours. And because the plundered husbandman could not pursue
the fleet mounted nomad into the trackless desert, he remained unpro-
tected. The fertile districts on the edge of the Sahara and the Arabian
desert were also in this frightful position, and Iran felt this calamity all
the harder, because the adjoining deserts of Turan are the most extensive
and terrible, and their inhabitants the wildest of all the nomads of the
world.
No better fared the peoples inhabiting East Europe, on the western
boundaries of the steppe-zone. As early as the fourth century B. C.
Ephorus stated that the customs, according to the individual peoples,
of the Scythians and the Sarmatians (both names covered the most
medley conglomerations of nomads and peasants) were very dissimilar.
Some even ate human beings (as the Massagetae ate their sick or aged
parents), others abstained from all animals. A thousand years later
, .
Pseudo-Caesarius of Nazianzus tells of a double people, that of the Sklavenes
(Slavs) and Phisonites on the lower Danube, of whom the Sklavenes
abstained from meat eating. And Constantine Porphyrogenitus in the
year 952 stated that the Russians (*Pôs, North Germanic Varangians, who
coming from Scandinavia held sway over the Slavs of Russia) bought
horses, cattle and sheep from their terrible nomadic neighbours the
Patzinaks, because they had none of these animals themselves (i. e. in
the Slav lands which they dominated). In certain districts of East
Europe therefore vegetarianism was permanent among the peasant folk,
who for more than two thousand years had been visited by the Altaians
with rapine and murder; this can be proved from original sources to have
been the case from the fourth century B. c. to the tenth century A. D. —that
is, for 1400 years! It is exactly the same state of things as in Ferghana
in modern times.
As long as a nomad horde finds sufficient room in the steppe it does
not think of emigration, and always returns home from its raids richly
laden with the plunder. But if the steppe-zone is thrown into a ferment
by struggles for the winter pastures or by other causes, the relatively
weakest horde gets pushed out of the steppe, and must conquer a new
home outside the zone. For it is only weak against the remaining nomad
hordes, but against any other State upon which it falls it is irresistible.
All the nomads of history who broke into Europe, the Scythians, Sarma-
tians, Huns, Bulgarians, Avars, Magyars, Cumans, were the weakest in
the steppes and had to take to fight, whence they became assailants of
CH. XII.
## p. 350 (#380) ############################################
350
Conquests
the world, before whom the strongest States tottered. With an energetic
Khan at their head, who organised them on military lines, such a horde
transformed itself into an incomparable army, compelled by the instinct
of self-preservation to hold fast together in the midst of the hostile
population which they subjugated; for however superfluous a central
government may be in the steppe, it is of vital importance to
a conquering nomad horde outside it. Consequently, while that part
of the people which remained in the steppe was split up into loose
clan associations, the other part, which emigrated, possessed itself of
immense territories, exterminated the greater part of entire nations
and enslaved the rest, scattered them as far as they pleased, and
founded a despotically governed State with a ridiculously, small band
of horsemen.
The high figures in the chronicles are fictions exaggerated by terror
and imagination, seeing that large troops of horsemen, who recklessly
destroyed everything around them, would not have found in a narrow
space even the necessary pasture for their many horses. Each Mongol
under Chinghiz Khan, for example, was obliged to take with him 18
horses and mares', so as always to have a fresh steed and sufficient mare's
milk and horse's blood for food and drink. Two corps under the
command of Sabutai and Chebe sufficed this great conqueror for the
overthrow of West Asia? . In four years they devastated and in great
part depopulated Khorasan, North Persia, Azerbaidjan, Georgia,
Armenia, Caucasia, the Crimea, and the Volga territories, took hundreds
of towns, and utterly defeated in bloody engagements the large armies
of the Georgians, Lesghians, Circassians, and Cumans, and the united
forces of the Russian princes. But they spared themselves as much as
possible, by driving those of the subjugated people who were capable
of bearing arms into the fight before them (as the Huns and Avars
did previously), and cutting them down at once when they hesitated.
But what the Altaian armies lacked in numbers was made up for by
their skill in surprises, their fury, their cunning, mobility, and elusiveness,
and the panic which preceded them and froze the blood of all peoples.
On their marvellously fleet horses they could traverse immense distances,
and their scouts provided them with accurate local information as to the
remotest lands and their weakness. Add to this the enormous advantage
that among them even the most insignificant news spread like wildfire
from aul to aul by means of voluntary couriers surpassing any intelligence-
department, however well organised. The tactics of the Mongols are
described by Marco Polo in agreement with Plano Carpini and all
the other writers as follows: “They never let themselves come to
close quarters, but keep perpetually riding round and shooting into
the enemy. And as they do not count it any shame to run away in
i Marco Polo (Ramusio's edition), 1. p. 48.
2 Vámbéry, Türkenvolk, p. 180; Bretschueider, 1. p. 294.
## p. 351 (#381) ############################################
Conquests
351
ܪܪ
battle, they will sometimes pretend to do so, and in running away they
turn in the saddle and shoot hard and strong at the foe, and in this way
make great havoc. Their horses are trained so perfectly that they will
double hither and thither, just like a dog, in a way that is quite
astonishing. Thus they fight to as good purpose in running away as if
they stood and faced the enemy, because of the vast volleys of arrows
that they shoot in this way, turning round upon their pursuers, who are
fancying that they have won the battle. But when the Tartars see that
they have killed and wounded a good many horses and men, they wheel
round bodily and return to the charge in perfect order and with loud
cries; and in a very short time the enemy are routed. In truth they are
stout and valiant soldiers and inured to war. And you perceive that it
is just when the enemy sees them run, and imagines that he has gained
the battle, that he has in reality lost it; for the Tartars wheel round in
a moment when they judge the right time has come. And after this
fashion they have won many a fight. ” The chronicler, Peter of Zittau,
in the year 1315, described the tactics of the Magyars in exactly the
same way.
When a vigorous conqueror like Attila or Chinghiz arose among the
mounted nomads and combined several hordes for a cyclonic advance,
they swept all before them on the march, like a veritable avalanche of
peoples.
