A typical land in this respect is Ferghana, the former Khanate of
Khokand, on the southern border of the Great Kirghiz horde.
Khokand, on the southern border of the Great Kirghiz horde.
Cambridge Medieval History - v1 - Christian Roman Empire and Teutonic Kingdoms
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. · The news of the onward rolling food scared the bravest
people, and compelled them to fly from their homes ; thus their neigh-
bours, too, were set in tumultuous motion, and so it went on until
some more powerful State took defensive measures and stemmed the
tide of peoples. Now the fugitives had to face the assailant. A battle
of nations was fought, the flower of famous peoples strewed the field,
and powerful nations were wiped out. The deserted or devastated
territories were occupied by peoples hitherto often quite unknown,
or settled by nations forcibly brought there by the conqueror; States,
generally without duration and kept together only by the one powerful
hand, were founded. The giant State, having no cohesion from within,
fell to pieces at the death of the conqueror or shortly after ; but the
sediment of peoples, together with a stratum of their nomad oppressors
which remained from the flood, could not be pushed back again, and
immense areas of a continent received once again an entirely new ethno-
graphy—the work of one single furious conqueror.
Oftener and longer than in Europe successive Altaian empires held
together in Asia, where the original population had long become
worn out by eternal servitude and the central zone of the steppes
supplied a near and secure base for plundering hordes. That some of
these Asiatic empires attained to a high degree of prosperity is not
due to the conquerors, who indeed quickly demongolised themselves
by marriage with aliens, but was the consequence of the geographical
position, the productivity of the soil, and the resigned tractableness and
CH, XII.
## p. 352 (#382) ############################################
352
Altaian Empires
adaptability of the subjugated who, in spite of all the splendour of their
masters, were forced to languish in helpless servitude.
Out of Central Asia from time immemorial one nomad horde after
another broke into the steppes of South Russia and of Hungary, and
after exterminating or pushing out their predecessors and occupying
their territories, used this new base to harry and enslave the surrounding
peoples far and wide, forcibly transforming their whole being, as in
Ferghana.
But the bestial fury of the nomads not only laid bare the country,
recklessly depopulated enormous tracts, dragged off entire peoples and
forcibly transplanted and enslaved them, but where their sway was of any
duration they brought their subjects down to the level of brutes, and
extirpated every trace of nobler feeling from their souls. Central Asia
of to-day, as Vámbéry states from personal observation, is a sink
of all vices. And Franz von Schwarz draws the following cheerless
picture of the Turkestan Sarts, among whom he lived for fifteen years :
With respect to character they are sunk as low as man possibly can be.
But this is not at all to be wondered at, as for thousands of years they
were oppressed and enslaved by all possible peoples, against whom they
could only maintain themselves by servility, cunning, and deceit. The
Sart is cowardly, fawning, cringing, reticent, suspicious, deceitful,
revengeful, cruel, and boastful. At the same time he shews in his
appearance and manner a dignity and bearing that would compel the
uninitiated to regard him as the ideal of a man of honour. In the
former native States, as in Bokhara and Khiva to-day, the entire system
of government and administration was based exclusively on lying, deceit,
and bribery, and it was quite impossible for a poor man to get justice.
The opposite of the Sart is his oppressor the Kirghiz, who is shy,
morose, and violent, but also honourable, upright, good-hearted, and
brave. The terrible slave-hunting Turkoman is distinguished from all
other Central Asiatics by his bold and piercing glance and proud bearing.
In wild bravery no other race on earth can match itself with him, and
as a horseman he is unsurpassed. He has an unruly disposition and
recognises no authority, but his word can be absolutely relied upon'.
What a tragic fate for an enslaved people. Although its lowest
degradation is already behind it, how long yet will it be the object of
universal and not unnatural contempt, while its former oppressor, void
of all humane feeling, a professional murderer and cattle-thief, remains
as a hero and ideal super-man?
So long as the dominant nomad horde remains true to its wandering
life, it lives in the midst of the subjugated only in winter, and proceeds
in spring to the summer pastures. But it is wise enough to leave behind
overseers and guards, to prevent revolts. The individual nomad has no
.
need to keep many slaves ; besides, he would have no occupation and no
1 Schwarz, Turkestan, pp. 25 ff.
## p. 353 (#383) ############################################
Social Consequences of the Servitude
353
food for them, and so an entire horde enslaves entire peoples, who must
provide food for themselves. In so far as he does not winter directly
among them, the nomad only comes to plunder them regularly, leaving
them nothing but what is absolutely indispensable.
The peasantry had to supply the nomads and their herds who wintered
among them with all that was demanded. For this purpose they stored
up grain and fodder during the summer, for in Central and East Europe
the snow falls too deep for the herds to be left to scrape out fodder alone.
During the winter the wives and daughters of the enslaved became a prey
to the lusts of the yellow-skins, by whom they were incessantly violated,
and thus every conjugal and family tie and as a further consequence the
entire social organisation was seriously loosened. The ancient Indo-
European patriarchal principle, which has exclusively prevailed among
the Altaians also from the earliest times, languished among the enslaved
just because of the violation and loosening of the conjugal bond, which
often continued for hundreds of years. The matriarchal principle
came into prominence, for the Altaian adulterer repudiated bastards,
and still more did the husband where there was one, so the children
followed the mother. Where therefore matriarchal phenomena occur
among Indo-Europeans, usually among the lower strata of popula-
tion, they are not survivals of pre-patriarchal times, but probably
arose later from the corruption of married life by systematic adultery.
Thus the subjugated Indo-Europeans became_here more, there less-
mongolised' by the mixture of races, and in places the two superimposed
races became fused into a uniform mixed people.
Indo-European usage and law died out, and the savage wilfulness of
the Altaians had exclusive sway. Revolutions among the people driven
.
to despair followed, but they were quelled in blood, and the oppression
exercised still more heavily. Even if here and there the yoke was
successfully shaken off, the emancipated, long paralysed and robbed of
all capability of self-organisation, were unable to remain independent.
Commonly they fell into anarchy and then voluntarily gave themselves
up to another milder-seeming servitude, or became once more the prey
of an if possible rougher conqueror.
In consequence of the everlasting man-hunting and especially the
carrying off of women in foreign civilised districts there ensued a strong
mixing of blood, and the Altaian race-characteristics grew fainter,
especially to the south and west. The Greeks by the time of
Alexander the Great were no longer struck by the Mongol type-
already much obliterated—of the nomads pasturing in the district
between the Oxus and the Jaxartes. This led to the supposition that
these nomads had belonged to the Indo-European race and had originally
been settled peasants, and that they had been compelled to limit them-
selves to animal rearing and to become nomads only after the conversion
The Mongol type of features extends westward to Bavaria and Württemberg.
23
C. MED. H. VOL. I. CH. XII.
## p. 354 (#384) ############################################
354
Mixture of Races.
The Scythians
1
1
1
of their fields to deserts through the evaporation of the water-basins? .
This supposition is false, as we have seen before.
The steppes and deserts of Central Asia are an impassable barrier
for the South Asiatics, the Aryans, but not for the North Asiatic,
the Altaian; for him they are an open country providing him with the
indispensable winter pastures. On the other hand, for the South Asiatic
Aryan these deserts are an object of terror, and besides he is not
impelled towards them, as he has winter pastures near at hand. It is
this difference in the distance of summer and winter pastures that makes
the North Asiatic Altaian an ever-wandering herdsman, and the grazing
part of the Indo-European race cattle-rearers settled in limited
districts. Thus, while the native Iranian must halt before the trackless
region of steppes and deserts and cannot follow the well-mounted robber-
nomad thither, Iran itself is the object of greatest longing to the nomadic
Altaian. Here he can plunder and enslave to his heart's delight, and if
he succeeds in maintaining himself for a considerable time among the
Aryans, he learns the language of the subjugated people, and by mingling
with them loses his Mongol characteristics more and more.
If the
Iranian is now fortunate enough to shake off the yoke, the dispossessed
iranised Altaian intruder inflicts himself upon other lands. So it was
with the Scythians.
Leaving their families behind in the South Russian steppes, the
Scythians invaded Media C. B. C. 630 and advanced into Mesopotamia
and Syria as far as Egypt. In Media they took Median wives and learned
the Median language. After being driven out by Cyaxares, on their
return some twenty-eight years later, they met with a new generation,
the offspring of the wives and daughters whom they had left behind,
and slaves of an alien race. A thorough mixture of race within
a single generation is hardly conceivable. A hundred and fifty years
later Hippocrates found them still so foreign, so Mongolian, that he
could say that they were “ very different from the rest of mankind, and
only like themselves, as are also the Egyptians. ” He remarked their
yellowish-red complexion, corpulence, smooth skins, and their consequent
eunuch-like appearance—all typically Mongol characteristics. Hippo-
crates was the most celebrated physician and natural philosopher of
the ancient world. His evidence is unshakable, and cannot be in-
validated by the Aryan speech of the Scythians. Their Mongol type
was innate in them, whereas their Iranian speech was acquired and is no
refutation of Hippocrates' testimonya. On the later Greek vases from
South Russian excavations they already appear strongly demongolised
and the Altaian is only suggested by their hair, which is as stiff as a
horse's mane-hence Aristotle's epithet ejdúspexes—the characteristic
that survives longest among all Ural-Altaian hybrid peoples.
1 Ukert, Geographie, 11. 2, p. 275; Schwarz, Sintflath, pp. 346, 489 ff.
2 Peisker. Beziehungen, pp. 22 ff.
## p. 355 (#385) ############################################
The Scythians and Magyars
355
If a nomad army is obliged to take foreign non-nomadic wives,
there occurs at once a dualism, corresponding to the two sexes, in
the language and way of living of each individual household. The new
wives cannot live in the saddle, they do not know how to take down the
tent, load it on the beasts of burden, and set it up again, and yet they
must share the restless life of the herdsman. Consequently, where the
ground admits of it, as in South Russia, the tent is put on wheels and
drawn by animals. Thus the Scythian women were hamaxobiotic (wagon-
inhabiting), the men however remained true to their horse-riding life and
taught their boys too, as soon as they could keep themselves in the saddle.
But the dualism in language could not maintain itself; the children held
to the language of the mother, the more easily because even the fathers
understood Medish, and so the Altaian Scythian people, with their
language finally iranised, became Iranian. But their mode of life re-
mained unchanged: the consumption of horse-flesh, soured horse's milk
(kumiz) and cheese of the same, the hemp vapour bath for men (the women
bathed differently), singeing of the fleshy parts of the body as a cure for
rheumatism, poisoning of the arrow-tips, wholesale human offerings and
slaughter of favourite wives at the burials of princes, the placing on
horseback of the stuffed bodies of murdered warriors round the grave,
etc. —all such customs as are found so well defined among the Mongols
of the Middle Ages.
The modern Tartars of the Crimea, whose classical beauty sometimes
rivals that of the Greeks and Romans, underwent, in the same land, the
same change to the Aryan type.
The same is the case with the Magyars whose mounted nomadic mode
of life and fury, and consequently their origin, was Turkish, but their
language was a mixture of Ugrian and Turkish on an Ugrian basis? .
Evidently a Magyar army, Turkish in blood, formerly advanced far to the
north where it subdued an Ugrian people and took Ugrian wives ; the
children then blended the Ugrian speech of their mothers with the
Turkish speech of their fathers. But they must also once have dominated
Indo-European peoples and mixed themselves very strongly with them,
for Gardēzī's original source from the middle of the ninth century
describes them as “handsome, stately men. ” At that time they
'
were leading the nomad existence in the Pontic Steppe—the old
Scythia—whence they engaged in terrible slave-hunting among the
neighbouring Slavs; and as they were notorious women-hunters, they
must have assimilated much Slav, Alan, and Circassian blood, and
thus became “handsome, stately men? . ” However the change did
not end there. At the end of the ninth century their army, on its
return from a predatory expedition, found their kindred at home totally
exterminated by their deadly enemies, the Patzinaks, a related stock.
v. the table of languages above, p. 333.
2 Marquart, pp. 144 ff. , 466 ff.
-
1
CH. XII.
23-2
## p. 356 (#386) ############################################
356
The Magyars and Roumanians
Consequently the whole body had again to take foreign wives, and they
occupied the steppes of Hungary. Before this catastrophe the Magyars
are said to have mustered 20,000 horsemen- an oriental exaggeration,
for this would assume a nomad people of 200,000 souls. Consequently
only a few thousand horsemen could have fled to Hungary. There they
mixed themselves further with the medley race-conglomeration settled
there, which had formed itself centuries before, and assimilated stragglers
from the related Patzinak stock. By this absorption the Altaian type
asserted itself so predominantly that the Frankish writers were never tired
of depicting their ugliness and loathsomeness in the most horrifying
colours. Their fury was so irresistible that in sixty-three years they were
able with impunity to make thirty-two great predatory expeditions as far
as the North Sea, and to France, Spain, Italy, and Byzantium. Thus the
modern Magyars are one of the most varied race-mixtures on the face of
the earth, and one of the two chief Magyar types of to-day-traced to
the Árpád era by tomb-findings—is dolichocephalic with a narrow
visage. There we have before us Altaian origin, Ugrian speech, and
Indo-European type combined.
Such metamorphoses are typical for all nomads who, leaving their
families at home, attack foreign peoples and at the same time make war
on one another. In the furious tumult in which the Central Asiatic
mounted hordes constantly swarmed, and fought one another for the
spoils, it is to be presumed that nearly all such people, like the
Scythians and Magyars, at least once sustained the loss of their wives
and children. The mounted nomads could, therefore, remain a pure
race only where they constantly opposed their own kin, whereas to the
south and west they were merged so imperceptibly in the Semitic and
Indo-European stock, that no race-boundary is perceivable.
The most diversified was the destiny of those mounted nomads who
became romanised in the Balkan peninsula (Roumanians or Vlakhs,
Baúxou), but, surprising as it may be outside the steppe region, remain
true to this day to their life as horse and sheep nomads wherever this is
still at all possible. During the summer they grazed on most of the
mountains of the Balkan peninsula, and took up their winter quarters
on the sea-coasts among a peasant population speaking a different
language. Thence they gradually spread, unnoticed by the chroniclers,
along all the mountain ranges, over all the Carpathians of Transyl-
vania, North Hungary, and South Galicia to Moravia ; towards the
north-west from Montenegro onwards over Herzegovina, Bosnia, Istria,
as far as South Styria ; towards the south over Albania far into Greece.
In the entire Balkan peninsula there is scarcely a span of earth which
they have not grazed. And like the peasantry among which they
wintered (and winter) long enough, they became (and become) after
1 Vámbéry, Ursprung, pp. 128 ff. , 320 ff. , 407 ff. ; A magyarság, pp. 152 ff.
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. · The news of the onward rolling food scared the bravest
people, and compelled them to fly from their homes ; thus their neigh-
bours, too, were set in tumultuous motion, and so it went on until
some more powerful State took defensive measures and stemmed the
tide of peoples. Now the fugitives had to face the assailant. A battle
of nations was fought, the flower of famous peoples strewed the field,
and powerful nations were wiped out. The deserted or devastated
territories were occupied by peoples hitherto often quite unknown,
or settled by nations forcibly brought there by the conqueror; States,
generally without duration and kept together only by the one powerful
hand, were founded. The giant State, having no cohesion from within,
fell to pieces at the death of the conqueror or shortly after ; but the
sediment of peoples, together with a stratum of their nomad oppressors
which remained from the flood, could not be pushed back again, and
immense areas of a continent received once again an entirely new ethno-
graphy—the work of one single furious conqueror.
Oftener and longer than in Europe successive Altaian empires held
together in Asia, where the original population had long become
worn out by eternal servitude and the central zone of the steppes
supplied a near and secure base for plundering hordes. That some of
these Asiatic empires attained to a high degree of prosperity is not
due to the conquerors, who indeed quickly demongolised themselves
by marriage with aliens, but was the consequence of the geographical
position, the productivity of the soil, and the resigned tractableness and
CH, XII.
## p. 352 (#382) ############################################
352
Altaian Empires
adaptability of the subjugated who, in spite of all the splendour of their
masters, were forced to languish in helpless servitude.
Out of Central Asia from time immemorial one nomad horde after
another broke into the steppes of South Russia and of Hungary, and
after exterminating or pushing out their predecessors and occupying
their territories, used this new base to harry and enslave the surrounding
peoples far and wide, forcibly transforming their whole being, as in
Ferghana.
But the bestial fury of the nomads not only laid bare the country,
recklessly depopulated enormous tracts, dragged off entire peoples and
forcibly transplanted and enslaved them, but where their sway was of any
duration they brought their subjects down to the level of brutes, and
extirpated every trace of nobler feeling from their souls. Central Asia
of to-day, as Vámbéry states from personal observation, is a sink
of all vices. And Franz von Schwarz draws the following cheerless
picture of the Turkestan Sarts, among whom he lived for fifteen years :
With respect to character they are sunk as low as man possibly can be.
But this is not at all to be wondered at, as for thousands of years they
were oppressed and enslaved by all possible peoples, against whom they
could only maintain themselves by servility, cunning, and deceit. The
Sart is cowardly, fawning, cringing, reticent, suspicious, deceitful,
revengeful, cruel, and boastful. At the same time he shews in his
appearance and manner a dignity and bearing that would compel the
uninitiated to regard him as the ideal of a man of honour. In the
former native States, as in Bokhara and Khiva to-day, the entire system
of government and administration was based exclusively on lying, deceit,
and bribery, and it was quite impossible for a poor man to get justice.
The opposite of the Sart is his oppressor the Kirghiz, who is shy,
morose, and violent, but also honourable, upright, good-hearted, and
brave. The terrible slave-hunting Turkoman is distinguished from all
other Central Asiatics by his bold and piercing glance and proud bearing.
In wild bravery no other race on earth can match itself with him, and
as a horseman he is unsurpassed. He has an unruly disposition and
recognises no authority, but his word can be absolutely relied upon'.
What a tragic fate for an enslaved people. Although its lowest
degradation is already behind it, how long yet will it be the object of
universal and not unnatural contempt, while its former oppressor, void
of all humane feeling, a professional murderer and cattle-thief, remains
as a hero and ideal super-man?
So long as the dominant nomad horde remains true to its wandering
life, it lives in the midst of the subjugated only in winter, and proceeds
in spring to the summer pastures. But it is wise enough to leave behind
overseers and guards, to prevent revolts. The individual nomad has no
.
need to keep many slaves ; besides, he would have no occupation and no
1 Schwarz, Turkestan, pp. 25 ff.
## p. 353 (#383) ############################################
Social Consequences of the Servitude
353
food for them, and so an entire horde enslaves entire peoples, who must
provide food for themselves. In so far as he does not winter directly
among them, the nomad only comes to plunder them regularly, leaving
them nothing but what is absolutely indispensable.
The peasantry had to supply the nomads and their herds who wintered
among them with all that was demanded. For this purpose they stored
up grain and fodder during the summer, for in Central and East Europe
the snow falls too deep for the herds to be left to scrape out fodder alone.
During the winter the wives and daughters of the enslaved became a prey
to the lusts of the yellow-skins, by whom they were incessantly violated,
and thus every conjugal and family tie and as a further consequence the
entire social organisation was seriously loosened. The ancient Indo-
European patriarchal principle, which has exclusively prevailed among
the Altaians also from the earliest times, languished among the enslaved
just because of the violation and loosening of the conjugal bond, which
often continued for hundreds of years. The matriarchal principle
came into prominence, for the Altaian adulterer repudiated bastards,
and still more did the husband where there was one, so the children
followed the mother. Where therefore matriarchal phenomena occur
among Indo-Europeans, usually among the lower strata of popula-
tion, they are not survivals of pre-patriarchal times, but probably
arose later from the corruption of married life by systematic adultery.
Thus the subjugated Indo-Europeans became_here more, there less-
mongolised' by the mixture of races, and in places the two superimposed
races became fused into a uniform mixed people.
Indo-European usage and law died out, and the savage wilfulness of
the Altaians had exclusive sway. Revolutions among the people driven
.
to despair followed, but they were quelled in blood, and the oppression
exercised still more heavily. Even if here and there the yoke was
successfully shaken off, the emancipated, long paralysed and robbed of
all capability of self-organisation, were unable to remain independent.
Commonly they fell into anarchy and then voluntarily gave themselves
up to another milder-seeming servitude, or became once more the prey
of an if possible rougher conqueror.
In consequence of the everlasting man-hunting and especially the
carrying off of women in foreign civilised districts there ensued a strong
mixing of blood, and the Altaian race-characteristics grew fainter,
especially to the south and west. The Greeks by the time of
Alexander the Great were no longer struck by the Mongol type-
already much obliterated—of the nomads pasturing in the district
between the Oxus and the Jaxartes. This led to the supposition that
these nomads had belonged to the Indo-European race and had originally
been settled peasants, and that they had been compelled to limit them-
selves to animal rearing and to become nomads only after the conversion
The Mongol type of features extends westward to Bavaria and Württemberg.
23
C. MED. H. VOL. I. CH. XII.
## p. 354 (#384) ############################################
354
Mixture of Races.
The Scythians
1
1
1
of their fields to deserts through the evaporation of the water-basins? .
This supposition is false, as we have seen before.
The steppes and deserts of Central Asia are an impassable barrier
for the South Asiatics, the Aryans, but not for the North Asiatic,
the Altaian; for him they are an open country providing him with the
indispensable winter pastures. On the other hand, for the South Asiatic
Aryan these deserts are an object of terror, and besides he is not
impelled towards them, as he has winter pastures near at hand. It is
this difference in the distance of summer and winter pastures that makes
the North Asiatic Altaian an ever-wandering herdsman, and the grazing
part of the Indo-European race cattle-rearers settled in limited
districts. Thus, while the native Iranian must halt before the trackless
region of steppes and deserts and cannot follow the well-mounted robber-
nomad thither, Iran itself is the object of greatest longing to the nomadic
Altaian. Here he can plunder and enslave to his heart's delight, and if
he succeeds in maintaining himself for a considerable time among the
Aryans, he learns the language of the subjugated people, and by mingling
with them loses his Mongol characteristics more and more.
If the
Iranian is now fortunate enough to shake off the yoke, the dispossessed
iranised Altaian intruder inflicts himself upon other lands. So it was
with the Scythians.
Leaving their families behind in the South Russian steppes, the
Scythians invaded Media C. B. C. 630 and advanced into Mesopotamia
and Syria as far as Egypt. In Media they took Median wives and learned
the Median language. After being driven out by Cyaxares, on their
return some twenty-eight years later, they met with a new generation,
the offspring of the wives and daughters whom they had left behind,
and slaves of an alien race. A thorough mixture of race within
a single generation is hardly conceivable. A hundred and fifty years
later Hippocrates found them still so foreign, so Mongolian, that he
could say that they were “ very different from the rest of mankind, and
only like themselves, as are also the Egyptians. ” He remarked their
yellowish-red complexion, corpulence, smooth skins, and their consequent
eunuch-like appearance—all typically Mongol characteristics. Hippo-
crates was the most celebrated physician and natural philosopher of
the ancient world. His evidence is unshakable, and cannot be in-
validated by the Aryan speech of the Scythians. Their Mongol type
was innate in them, whereas their Iranian speech was acquired and is no
refutation of Hippocrates' testimonya. On the later Greek vases from
South Russian excavations they already appear strongly demongolised
and the Altaian is only suggested by their hair, which is as stiff as a
horse's mane-hence Aristotle's epithet ejdúspexes—the characteristic
that survives longest among all Ural-Altaian hybrid peoples.
1 Ukert, Geographie, 11. 2, p. 275; Schwarz, Sintflath, pp. 346, 489 ff.
2 Peisker. Beziehungen, pp. 22 ff.
## p. 355 (#385) ############################################
The Scythians and Magyars
355
If a nomad army is obliged to take foreign non-nomadic wives,
there occurs at once a dualism, corresponding to the two sexes, in
the language and way of living of each individual household. The new
wives cannot live in the saddle, they do not know how to take down the
tent, load it on the beasts of burden, and set it up again, and yet they
must share the restless life of the herdsman. Consequently, where the
ground admits of it, as in South Russia, the tent is put on wheels and
drawn by animals. Thus the Scythian women were hamaxobiotic (wagon-
inhabiting), the men however remained true to their horse-riding life and
taught their boys too, as soon as they could keep themselves in the saddle.
But the dualism in language could not maintain itself; the children held
to the language of the mother, the more easily because even the fathers
understood Medish, and so the Altaian Scythian people, with their
language finally iranised, became Iranian. But their mode of life re-
mained unchanged: the consumption of horse-flesh, soured horse's milk
(kumiz) and cheese of the same, the hemp vapour bath for men (the women
bathed differently), singeing of the fleshy parts of the body as a cure for
rheumatism, poisoning of the arrow-tips, wholesale human offerings and
slaughter of favourite wives at the burials of princes, the placing on
horseback of the stuffed bodies of murdered warriors round the grave,
etc. —all such customs as are found so well defined among the Mongols
of the Middle Ages.
The modern Tartars of the Crimea, whose classical beauty sometimes
rivals that of the Greeks and Romans, underwent, in the same land, the
same change to the Aryan type.
The same is the case with the Magyars whose mounted nomadic mode
of life and fury, and consequently their origin, was Turkish, but their
language was a mixture of Ugrian and Turkish on an Ugrian basis? .
Evidently a Magyar army, Turkish in blood, formerly advanced far to the
north where it subdued an Ugrian people and took Ugrian wives ; the
children then blended the Ugrian speech of their mothers with the
Turkish speech of their fathers. But they must also once have dominated
Indo-European peoples and mixed themselves very strongly with them,
for Gardēzī's original source from the middle of the ninth century
describes them as “handsome, stately men. ” At that time they
'
were leading the nomad existence in the Pontic Steppe—the old
Scythia—whence they engaged in terrible slave-hunting among the
neighbouring Slavs; and as they were notorious women-hunters, they
must have assimilated much Slav, Alan, and Circassian blood, and
thus became “handsome, stately men? . ” However the change did
not end there. At the end of the ninth century their army, on its
return from a predatory expedition, found their kindred at home totally
exterminated by their deadly enemies, the Patzinaks, a related stock.
v. the table of languages above, p. 333.
2 Marquart, pp. 144 ff. , 466 ff.
-
1
CH. XII.
23-2
## p. 356 (#386) ############################################
356
The Magyars and Roumanians
Consequently the whole body had again to take foreign wives, and they
occupied the steppes of Hungary. Before this catastrophe the Magyars
are said to have mustered 20,000 horsemen- an oriental exaggeration,
for this would assume a nomad people of 200,000 souls. Consequently
only a few thousand horsemen could have fled to Hungary. There they
mixed themselves further with the medley race-conglomeration settled
there, which had formed itself centuries before, and assimilated stragglers
from the related Patzinak stock. By this absorption the Altaian type
asserted itself so predominantly that the Frankish writers were never tired
of depicting their ugliness and loathsomeness in the most horrifying
colours. Their fury was so irresistible that in sixty-three years they were
able with impunity to make thirty-two great predatory expeditions as far
as the North Sea, and to France, Spain, Italy, and Byzantium. Thus the
modern Magyars are one of the most varied race-mixtures on the face of
the earth, and one of the two chief Magyar types of to-day-traced to
the Árpád era by tomb-findings—is dolichocephalic with a narrow
visage. There we have before us Altaian origin, Ugrian speech, and
Indo-European type combined.
Such metamorphoses are typical for all nomads who, leaving their
families at home, attack foreign peoples and at the same time make war
on one another. In the furious tumult in which the Central Asiatic
mounted hordes constantly swarmed, and fought one another for the
spoils, it is to be presumed that nearly all such people, like the
Scythians and Magyars, at least once sustained the loss of their wives
and children. The mounted nomads could, therefore, remain a pure
race only where they constantly opposed their own kin, whereas to the
south and west they were merged so imperceptibly in the Semitic and
Indo-European stock, that no race-boundary is perceivable.
The most diversified was the destiny of those mounted nomads who
became romanised in the Balkan peninsula (Roumanians or Vlakhs,
Baúxou), but, surprising as it may be outside the steppe region, remain
true to this day to their life as horse and sheep nomads wherever this is
still at all possible. During the summer they grazed on most of the
mountains of the Balkan peninsula, and took up their winter quarters
on the sea-coasts among a peasant population speaking a different
language. Thence they gradually spread, unnoticed by the chroniclers,
along all the mountain ranges, over all the Carpathians of Transyl-
vania, North Hungary, and South Galicia to Moravia ; towards the
north-west from Montenegro onwards over Herzegovina, Bosnia, Istria,
as far as South Styria ; towards the south over Albania far into Greece.
In the entire Balkan peninsula there is scarcely a span of earth which
they have not grazed. And like the peasantry among which they
wintered (and winter) long enough, they became (and become) after
1 Vámbéry, Ursprung, pp. 128 ff. , 320 ff. , 407 ff. ; A magyarság, pp. 152 ff.
