CHAPTER XXVII.
THE TATARS AND MONGOLS—THE KAPTSHAK—HISTORY AND TRADITIONS OF THE NOGAIS.
Perhaps no people has given occasion to more discussions than the Tatars and Mongols, nor is the problem of their origin completely solved in our day, notwithstanding the most learned investigations. Some admit that the Tatars and Mongols formed but one nation, others allege that they are two essentially different races. According to Lesvèque d'Herbelot and Lesur[50] the Tatars are but Turks. Klaproth,[51] while he asserts that the Tatars and Mongols spring from the same stock, nevertheless regards the white Tatars, whom Genghis Khan conquered, as Turks. Lastly, D'Ohson in his remarkable history of the Mongols, treats the Mongols and Tatars as distinct races, but does not admit the theory of the Turkish origin. The same uncertainty that hangs over the Mongol and Tatar hordes of the fourteenth century, prevails with regard to the people who, under the name of Tatars, now dwell in the southern part of the Russian empire; and they have been considered sometimes as descendants of the Turkish tribes that occupied those regions previously to the twelfth century, sometimes as remnants of the conquering Mongol Tatars. Let us try to unravel this tangled web of opinions, and see what may be the least problematical origin of these various nations.
The Chinese writers for the first time make mention of the Tatar people in the eighth century of our era, under the name of Tata, and consider them as a branch of the Mongols. The general and historian, Meng Koung,[52] who died in 1246, and who commanded a Chinese force sent to aid the Mongols against the Kin, informs us in his memoirs that a part of the Tatar horde, formerly dispersed or subdued by the Khitans,[53] quitted the In Chan mountains,[54] where they had taken refuge, and joined their countrymen, who dwelt north-east of the Khitans. The white Tatars and the savage or black Tatars then formed the most important tribes of those regions.
According to D'Ohson, the Chinese comprehended under the name of Tatars all the nomade hordes that occupied the regions north of the desert of Sha No, either because the Tatars were the nearest, or because they were the most powerful of all those tribes. The intercourse of the Chinese with the west of Asia, would have afterwards served to give currency to the general denomination by which they designated their nomade vassals; and thus from the commencement of the power of the Genghis Khan, those tribes would have been already known by the name of Tatars,[55] which was propagated from nation to nation until it reached Europe, although it was repudiated with contempt by the conquerors themselves, as that of a nation they had exterminated. It is a fact established by the statements of many writers, and by D'Ohson himself, that Genghis Khan annihilated the white Tatars, and thus it has come to pass by a most curious freak of accident, that this extinguished people became celebrated all over the East by the conquests of its very destroyers.
Jean du Plan de Carpin expresses himself still more positively: "The country of the Tatars," he says, "bears the name of Mongal,[56] and is inhabited by four different peoples, the Jeka Mongals, that is to say, the Great Mongals; the Sou Mongals, or the Fluviatile Mongals, who call themselves Tatars from the name of the river that flows through their territory; the Merkit and the Mecrit. All these peoples have the same personal characteristics and the same language, though belonging to different provinces, and ruled by divers princes."[57] He then goes on to speak of the birth of Genghis Khan among the Jeka Mongals, and of his conflicts with the Sou Mongals and the other Tatar tribes.
On comparing this author with the Chinese writers mentioned and commented on in the works of de Guignes, Abel Rémusat and D'Ohson, it will appear beyond all question that the Jeka Mongals are none other than the black Tatars, and that the Sou Mongals are the representatives of the white Tatars. As for the Merkit and the Mecrit, we confess, with M. d'Avezac, that our knowledge of them amounts only to conjecture; but, whatever was their origin, they are of but little importance with regard to the question we are now discussing.
The old Mohammedan authors, such as Massoudi and Ebn Haoucal, who treat of the nations of Asia, appear not to have known the Tatars, for they never speak of them. Their name figures, however, in a Persian abridgment of universal history, entitled "Modjmel ut Tevarikh el Coussas;" and Reschyd el Dyn calls the Tatars a people famous throughout the world; but it would be difficult to extract from these authorities any precise argument for the solution of our problem. After all, as previously to the days of Genghis Khan, the most important tribe of Mongols bore the name of Tatars, it is not surprising that the Mussulman writers included the whole of that people under this denomination. The Chinese, on the contrary, being in close intercourse with the Tatars, their vassals, must of course have known their generic name, and transmitted it to us.
Now let us recapitulate. If we reflect that Genghis Khan, though born in the tribe especially designated as black Tatars, yet adopted the denomination of Mongols for his people; that historians have been unanimous in calling Genghis Khan's soldiers Mongols; that the Chinese chroniclers, De Guignes, and many others, have considered the Tatars as only a branch of the Mongols; that Du Plan de Carpin himself begins his history with these words: "Incipit historia Mongalorum quos nos Tartaros appellamus," it will not be easy to deny, that previously to the twelfth century, previously to the great Asiatic invasions, the Tatars and Mongols were parts of one nation, belonging to one race. If subsequently the hordes of Genghis renounced their special name, this circumstance must be ascribed to the sanguinary contest which Jessoukai and his son, Genghis Khan, had to sustain against their oppressors, the white Tatars, then the principal tribe in those regions. But the term Tatar still prevailed in Europe, though it continued to be regarded as synonymous with Mongol by all the Chinese writers, and by most of those of other nations.
The religious and political constitution of the various Mongol or Tatar branches before Genghis Khan, is very imperfectly known to us, and affords us no manner of ground for presuming a positive separation into two races. According to the Mongol work, "The Source of the Heart," written in the beginning of the thirteenth century it appears that Lamism was first adopted by Genghis Khan, and that it became under his successors the prevailing religion of the Mongols proper. Marco Polo's narrative seems nevertheless to prove, that at the end of the thirteenth century the Mongols had not yet entirely adopted the creed and rites of Lamism; we now find it professed by all the Kalmucks of Russia.
In later times, after the invasions by Genghis Khan and his sons, the Europeans, through ignorance or heedlessness, gave the name of Tatars not only to the tribes who had figured in those Asiatic irruptions, but also to the Mahometans, who had once been masters of the regions adjacent to the Caspian and the Black Sea, and had been subjugated by those conquerors; hence have arisen in a great measure all the mistakes and discussions respecting the origin of the Tatars. After the Mongol torrent had subsided, Europeans persisted in giving the appellation of Tatars to all those Mussulman nations originally of Turkish origin, that to this day occupy the territory of Kasan and Astrakhan, the Crimea and the region called Turcomania, situated between the Belur Mountains, Lake Aral, and the Caspian Sea; and as all these nations exhibited a religious, political, and moral character peculiar to themselves, people were naturally led to distinguish them from the Mongols, and to attribute to them a special origin. Thus Pallas and many other travellers, after visiting the Mahometans of Southern Russia, and comparing them with the Kalmucks, have made of the Tatars and Mongols two distinct races; and Malte Brun, in his geography, has given the name of Tatar to all the tribes established in our day in Turkistan, applying that of Mongol exclusively to the nations inhabiting the central tableland of Asia, from Lake Palcati and the Belur Mountains to the great wall of China, and to the Siolky Mountains which separate them from the Manchous, a tribe of the great race of the Tongouses. All these writers have failed to observe, that the appellation Tatar lost all signification in Asia under the destroying power of Genghis Khan, and has ever since existed only in the European vocabulary.
Doubtless, Genghis Khan and his successors did not achieve all their conquests by the arms of the Mongols alone; and after having subjugated all the Mahometan nations occupying the vast regions of Turcomania and a part of Western Asia, they of course incorporated them with their hordes, and employed them in their European invasions.
What, then, are we to suppose is the origin of all those tribes who, under the name of Tatars, now inhabit the south of Russia? We agree entirely with the opinion put forth in Courtin's "Encyclopédie Moderne," that these Tatars are nothing but Turks, Comans, or Petshenegues, who having been at the commencement of the thirteenth century masters of all the countries north and west of the Caspian Sea as far the Dniepr, were afterwards subdued by the sons of Genghis Khan, and contributed towards the foundation of a new empire comprised between the Dniepr and the Emba, to which was given the name of Kaptshak, or Kiptshak, a designation which appears to have been originally that of the territory.
The princes of this empire were Mongols or Tatars, but the majority of their subjects were Turks. It appears even that the latter formed a large portion of the armies of Genghis Khan in his late expeditions. The Turkish language thus remained predominant throughout the Kaptshak, Little and Great Bokhara, and among the Bashkirs and Tchouvaches. A few Mongol words are still found in the Turkish dialect of the Russian Mahometans, but they are extremely rare, and this may be easily explained. The soldiers of the Mongol army were of course bachelors, and when they married Kaptshak women, their children adopted the language of their mothers. The sovereigns themselves of this new empire soon embraced Mahometanism. Bereke, the brother and successor of Batou, set the first example; Usbeck Khan, who reigned in 1305, followed in his steps, and declared himself the protector of Islam, which thenceforth became the creed of the conquerors as well as of the conquered.
It must not be inferred from the preceding statement that the Turks and Mongols may not, in more remote times, have belonged to one and the same race; we are not quite of that opinion; we have considered the Turkish race only under the conditions in which it appeared in Europe and Asia about the twelfth century, that is to say, modified by long contact with the Caucasian nations, and we have left altogether out of view what it may previously have been. Moreover, if De Guignes is rightly informed, the inhabitants of the Kaptshak are really of Mongol origin, and the soldiers of Genghis Khan took pains to prove to them that they were their countrymen.
Towards the close of the fifteenth century, the empire of the Kaptshak was divided into several khanats—Kasan, Astrakhan, and the Crimea, the rulers of which, descended from Genghis, were all Mongols; but then they had no longer armies drawn from the interior of Asia, and the Turkish element finally prevailed throughout the whole population. Still, it cannot be denied that the Mahometan hordes of Russia present some resemblance to the Mongols, and this tends to confirm the ideas we have expressed above. But then it is obvious that two nations that served so long under the same banners, and lived under the same government, must have intermarried with each other, and that their blood must have been frequently mingled. Moreover, it is a most remarkable fact, with what pertinacity the Mongol type maintains its identity in spite of the mixture of many generations; a few marriages are sufficient to spread traces of it in the course of a certain time, over a whole nation. I have seen one example of this in the Cossacks, who have been living amidst the Kalmucks for about two hundred years.
The Tatars in the mountains of the Crimea more rarely exhibit Mongol features; the Greek profile is frequently found among them. This difference is owing to their mixture with the Goths, the Greeks, and the remnants of other nations that have successively overrun the peninsula.
The Nogais, who inhabit the plains of the Crimea, and the steppes of the Sea of Azof, are unquestionably the nearest in appearance to the Mongols of all the Tatars, and generally their physiognomy is such as cannot be attributed to any other origin. Moreover, according to their own traditions, they never made part of the Kaptshak, nor did they arrive in Europe until subsequently to the death of Genghis Khan, after having dwelt from time immemorial, if not with the Mongols, at least in their vicinity.
According to Lesvèque, the horde of the Nogais, long the most celebrated of the west after that of the Kaptshak, was constituted in the thirteenth century by Nogai, a Tatar general, who, after conquering the countries north of the Black Sea, succeeded in forming a state independent of the Kaptshak. The traditions I collected among the Nogais themselves, make no mention whatever of a general of that name; their chronicles allege that the name of the nation is derived from neogai (which may be translated by the phrase, mayst thou never know happiness), and that it was bestowed on them in their old country, on account of their precarious and vagabond life.[58] I am inclined to adopt this opinion; for considering the importance which the Nogais attach to nobility and to antiquity of race, it would be very extraordinary that they should not have preserved the name of the founder of their power. The same traditions relate that after the death of Genghis Khan, the horde whence the Nogais of the Crimea are descended, arrived under the command of Djanibek Khan on the Volga, the left bank of which it kept possession of for many years. Part of this horde afterwards crossed the river, and advancing to the foot of the Caucasus, settled on the Kouma and the Terek. The principal tribe of these Tatars, and the same of which we are about to speak, soon forsook those regions, and after crossing the Don, the Dniepr, and the Dniestr, finally settled in Bessarabia, in the country called Boudjiak. There it remained more than half a century; but being continually harassed by the Turks and Moldavians, it abandoned its new country, retraced its steps, and under the command of Jannat Bey, traversed the Crimea and the Straits of Kertch. After reaching the banks of the Kouban, the horde was broken up, by internal dissensions, into three branches, the largest of which remained on the Kouban, and the others recrossed the straits. One of these tribes fixed itself on the plains of the Crimea, and the other returned to Bessarabia, partly by land, partly by sea.
The Nogais of the Kouban again divided into several tribes, some of which connected themselves with the Kalmuck hordes, others with the mountaineers of the Caucasus. During all these emigrations, they were successively commanded by Jam Adie, Kani Osman, and Kalil Effendi, the Tatar of the Crimea. The latter, at the head of one of the principal tribes the Kouban, marched along the eastern coast of the Sea of Azof, crossed the Don, and encamped on the banks of the Moloshnia Vodi, where he died; his tomb still exists near the Nogai village of Keneges, on the Berda. He was succeeded by Asit Bey, who ruled for seventeen years, and was the last Tatar chief; he died in 1824. But long before his death, in the time of Catherine II., these Nogai hordes were completely subjected to the laws of the empire, and were under the management of Russian officials. Count Maison, a French emigrant, was appointed their governor in 1808, and he it was, who by dint of perseverance, made them renounce their nomade ways, and settle in villages.
The Nogais now occupy the whole region between the Sea of Azof and the Moloshnia Vodi. They are about 52,000 souls, residing in seventy-six villages. As long as they were vagrants they remained very poor, cultivating no grain but millet, which was their usual food, and of this they could hardly procure a sufficient supply. Turbulent, fickle, and thievish, they had an insurmountable aversion for all steady toil, and particularly for agricultural labour; their occupations were tending cattle, hunting, riding, music, and dancing. They were fond of assembling and sitting in a ring, smoking and hearing the traditions of their forefathers. All the cares of the household fell upon the women. Their clothes, cooking utensils, bread, &c., they procured in exchange for cattle. They seldom remained many months in one spot; an hour was enough for them to pack up wife, children, and goods in their araba,[59] and then moving at random towards some other point of the horizon, they carried with them all they possessed. "Such is the order established by God himself," cried the Nogai, "to us he has given wheels, to other nations fixed dwellings and the plough." There was little wealth among them in those times, though there was a certain overbearing aristocracy that monopolised all the gifts of fortune and power to the detriment of the other members of the community, many of whom, either through ignorance or sloth, became even slaves of the shrewder and braver. Such was the origin of the authority of the Mourzas, or noble chiefs of the aouls (villages, encampments).
The Nogais had for their emigrations, like the Kalmucks, circular tents of felt, three or four yards in diameter, and conical at top. In winter, they constructed earthen huts beside their kibitkas. Such cold and damp dwellings were very prejudicial to health, as was proved by the multitude of children that died every year.
Under Count Maison's wise and disinterested administration, all these old habits disappeared by degrees, and the Nogais began to improve their condition. By dint of patience and zeal they were prevailed on to build commodious dwellings, and having once established themselves in villages, their prosperity went on regularly increasing, and every man had the means of procuring subsistence for his family by his own labour. Count Maison is still remembered by the Nogais with the most lively gratitude, but his honesty did not protect him from malevolence and intrigues; it provoked against him all the subordinate functionaries whose peculations he prevented; and after enduring disgusts and annoyances without number, he sent in his resignation to St. Petersburg in 1821. Since that time the Nogais have had no special governor, but are under the control of functionaries attached to the ministry of the interior, who reside in their villages. They have, however, preserved the judicial authority of their cadis, and the Russian tribunals only take cognizance of those criminal and civil cases which the cadis cannot decide. The Nogais are exempt from military service, but they pay money contributions to the crown, at the rate of thirty rubles for each family.
For about fifteen years past a Mennonite of the German colonies has of his own accord continued the work so judiciously begun by Count Maison. M. Cornies, one of the most remarkable men in New Russia, deservedly exercises the greatest influence over the Nogais, among whom his advice and exertions have already produced some excellent results. The miserable villages of former days have been gradually superseded by pretty houses in the German style, surrounded with gardens, and agriculture has made such progress, that a large number of farmers are now able to export corn.
The Nogais are rather strict observers of the precepts of Islam. Their country contains eleven mosques, and each village has several houses for prayer. Their clergy are subject to the mufti of the Crimea and of his representative, who resides in the aoul of Emmaout; they consist of effendi mollahs, mollas, and cadis. The mollahs take tithe of all grain, and a fortieth of the cattle. Their functions are to call the people to prayer, to pray for the sick, write talismans, preside at sacrifices, marriages, and funerals, and perform all the rites of public worship. The effendi mollahs draw up articles of marriage and divorce; and, in concert with the village elders, they decide all quarrels and suits between husband and wife, and all questions relative to the sale of the latter. They also fulfil along with the cadis the duties of interpreters of the law, and preceptors of the Koran. Circumcision, which boys undergo at ten or twelve years of age, is performed by the bab (father), whose office is hereditary. Hadjis, or pilgrims, who have visited the kaaba of Mecca, though they have no official duties, still possess great authority, and are consulted on almost all occasions; they are distinguished by a green or white shawl rolled round their woollen caps. The pilgrimage to Mecca, is not quite obligatory on the Nogais, who generally exempt themselves from it by means of offerings and sacrifices. The new measures adopted by the Russians render this journey very difficult, and the Tatars must soon renounce it altogether. Every individual is bound before he sets out to prove that he takes with him at least 120l.; his passport costs him nearly 8l., and if he does not return, the whole village where he was born is bound to pay his quota of taxation until a new census of the population is made.
Expiatory sacrifices are very common among the Nogais: they take place during the Kourban Bairam, on the occasion of a death, for the commemoration of deceased persons, on the celebration of a marriage, on return from a journey, and as an atonement for the omission of any religious duty. Those who offer them up invite to their houses their friends and relations, and the poor of the village, to whom they give a good portion of the victim, which is either a sheep or a cow, according to the wealth of the individual, or the importance of the occasion.
The great forty days fast of Ramazan is strictly observed only by aged persons of either sex. Curiously enough the obligation of prayer is imposed only on persons aged forty or fifty; the seventh day of the Mussulman week, which corresponds to our Friday, is celebrated only by the priests and some devout old men. The prohibition against wine is not at all regarded by the young, especially in travelling. In general the rising generation of Nogais pay very little heed to the commandments of Mahomet, and by no means share this religious fanaticism of the Asiatic Mussulmans. Long and handsome beards are held in great veneration among them. Old men shave the whole head, but the young leave a small tuft growing on the top of the crown. This custom obliges them to wear woollen caps in all seasons.
The Nogais have generally two wives, and some even three, but this is a very rare case. The plurality and sale of wives frequently occasion quarrels, brawls, and acts of bloody vengeance.
Charity, which is regarded in the Koran as one of the greatest virtues, extends only to the poor who beg from door to door, and who are usually given a little bread and millet. Orphans and old people are left to the care of their friends or relations, for the Nogais have no public establishment for the indigent. The fidelity of the Nogais is proverbial; even the most thievish of them would never betray a trust reposed in them. As for the ancient hospitality, it is now only exercised from habit, and very rarely from virtue. Still they invariably afford the most cordial welcome to every aged Mussulman or hadji, and in these cases their hospitality is quite patriarchal. Reverence for the aged is considered by them as a sacred duty.
One of the most striking characteristics of these Tatars is their excessive vanity with regard to every thing that concerns the nobility of their ancestors. It shows itself not only towards strangers, but also in their dealings with each other. They profess likewise the most profound contempt for the Persians, the Turks, and even for the mountain Tatars of the Crimea, and deem it a dishonour to intermarry with those nations, which yet are of the same creed, if not of the same origin with themselves.
The Nogai alternates between total supineness and extraordinary exertion, so that to make any profit of him he must be employed by task work and not by the day. This sloth, however, is not so much a vice inherent in the character of the nation as a result of its old vagrant and precarious existence, and of its limited wants. On the other hand, the nomade habits of other days have developed the capacity of this people in a remarkable degree, and whether as artisans or journeymen, agriculturists or manufacturers, the Nogais invariably give proof of great ability and skill.
The Nogai is of moderate stature, but well proportioned; his movements are free and unembarrassed, and his attitude is never awkward under any circumstances. The women are, like all those of the East, comely when young; but when old they are horribly ugly. Neither sex exhibits any decided national physiognomy; countenances both of the Circassian and the Mongol type are very common among them.
The Nogai constructs his own cottage with bricks dried in the sun, and whitewashes it regularly once a year within and without. Its dimensions are scarcely more than two or three-and-thirty feet by thirteen. The roof consists of a few rafters on which are laid reeds and branches of trees loaded with earth and ashes. A dwelling of this kind hardly costs more than 100 rubles; others of a larger size, with a floor and ceiling of wood, cost from 400 to 500 rubles. Each dwelling consists of two rooms, the kitchen, which is next the entrance, and the family room. The kitchen contains a fireplace, an iron pot, wooden vessels for milk and butter, harness and agricultural implements; the second room, which serves as a dormitory, is furnished with felt carpets, quilts, a pile of cushions, boxes containing clothes, and a dozen of napkins embroidered with coloured silk or cotton, according to the fortune of the family, and hung round the room. When the Nogai has two or more wives he constructs his house in such a manner that each of them may have her separate room.
The costume of the Nogais is commodious. It consists of wide trousers, a cotton or woollen shirt, and a short caftan, fastened round the waist with a leathern girdle. Their head-dress is a cylindrical cap of lamb's-skin. In the winter they wear a sheep's-skin over the caftan, and in snowy weather they muffle themselves in a bashlik, or hood, which conceals their head and shoulders.
The women wear a shift, a cloth caftan, belted above the hips with a broad girdle adorned with large metal buckles, Turkish trousers and slippers. Their head-dress is a white veil fastened to the crown of the head, with the two ends hanging gracefully on the shoulders. They wear little silver finger and nose rings, and heavy earrings often connected by a chain passing under the chin. Young girls part their hair into a multitude of tresses, and instead of the veil wear a little red skull-cap bedizened with bits of metal and all sorts of gewgaws.
The Nogais eat mutton, beef, mares' flesh, &c., fish, and dairy produce. They prepare koumiss from mares' milk, and esteem it above all other liquors. They also kill sick horses for food, and very often do not disdain the flesh of one that has died a natural death. Mares' flesh, minced, forms the chief part of a national dish called tarama, which the men eat with their friends in token of sincerity and brotherhood. The women are not allowed to partake of these repasts. Their favourite dish is millet boiled in water, with a little sour milk called tchourtzch. Kalmuck tea is also much esteemed, and since the improvement of agriculture, the use of bread, which was formerly unknown, is gradually spreading among them.
Their most common diseases are fever, small-pox, ulcers, itch, and syphilis. No one takes any means either to avoid or cure them. Charms are the only medicine known to the Nogais, and they are even quite indifferent to certain maladies which they attribute to fatality. They attribute great medicinal virtues to pepper, alum, sugar, and honey. The mortality of infants is frightful among them, and accounts for the stationary condition in which the population has long remained.
No system of education as yet exists among the Nogais; their children grow up like the young of animals. Every village, indeed, possesses a cabin decorated with the name of school, in which the clergy give some imperfect lessons in the Tatar language and writing; but the rest of their teaching, which is exclusively religious, consists in the reading of Arabic books, which the teachers understand no better than the pupils.
The rearing of cattle, particularly horses, forms the chief occupation of the Nogais. Their horses are of the Kalmuck Khirghis race, nimble and robust, though of moderate size, and usually fetch from 100 to 120 rubles: they pass the whole year in the steppe, and have to find their food under the snow in winter. The horned cattle is small. The cows sell for twenty or thirty rubles; they give little milk, and are generally unprofitable. Camels are little used and seldom seen.
In Count Maison's time the Nogais were required to sow, at least, two tchetverts of corn per head, which made a total of about 40,000 tchetverts for the whole population. A year after the count's retirement, the seed sown in the whole territory did not exceed 19,000 tchetverts, and the quantity went on diminishing from year to year. But since the disastrous winters, for cattle, of 1836 and 1837, the Nogais have been induced, by M. Cornies, to apply themselves again to agriculture, and the women have taken a part with the men in field labours.
Their mode of cultivating the ground is extremely defective; they have bad ploughs drawn by four or five pair of oxen, whilst their neighbours, the Germans, do infinitely more work with but two. The harvest generally takes place in July, and is a season of great jollity. Gipsy musicians stroll over the country at that period, and collect an ample store of wheat and millet. The corn is trodden out by horses in the open air: the best, which is called arnaout, sells at from seven to twelve rubles the tchetvert. The territory of the Nogais is still common property, and the want of finite boundaries occasions many quarrels, especially at harvest time.
As usual, among eastern nations, the Nogai women do all the household drudgery, for the men think it beneath them to take part in it. The poor mother of the family is therefore obliged to prepare the victuals with her own hands, to wash the linen, milk the cows and mares, keep the house in repair, churn butter, &c., and take care of the children. She must also gather the firewood, prepare all the drinkables, make candles and soap, and dress the sheep-skins to make pelisses for all the family. This is hard drudgery, and a few years of such married life suffice to make her old. Under such circumstances it is not surprising that the Nogai cannot content himself with one wife, and that the purchase of young girls is so important and costly an affair among them.
A man usually chooses his wife from a remote village; for every young man makes it a point of honour not to have seen his wife before marriage. The only particulars he is anxious to learn indirectly is whether the lady is plump and has long hair. When his choice is fixed, he bargains with the father or the relations of the girl for the price he is to pay for her. A handsome girl of good family costs four or five hundred rubles, besides a couple of score of cows and a few other beasts. Young widows are cheaper, and old women are to be had for nothing. The bride's price is paid on the spot by the wooer, and a horse and two oxen are reckoned equivalent to a couple of cows. The girl's inclinations are never consulted, and she submits to her lot with stoical indifference; she is given dresses, mattresses, and cushions by way of dower. Matches are often made when the bride is still in her cradle, the bridegroom's father paying down a part of the stipulated sum, and when the girl has attained the age of thirteen or fourteen, the marriage takes place without any opposition on the young man's part. But this traffic in girls often occasions long lawsuits between families. Various accidents occur to prevent the espousals, such as mutilation, loss of health or beauty, and, above all, bad faith, and hence arise animosities that are often transmitted from one generation to another.
The women of the mountain race of Tatars of the Crimea, and the Kalmuck women, cost less than young Nogai girls, and are purchased by the poorer classes.
On the day appointed for the wedding, the young people, who have not yet seen each other, choose each of them a deputy, who exchange hands on their behalf, and thus the marriage rite is accomplished. The day is spent in merriment, and in the evening the bride is veiled, and escorted by a troop of women to the conjugal abode, where she sees her husband for the first time.
The young wife must remain shut up at home for a whole year, and see no men, conversing only with her husband and his relations. After this her emancipation is celebrated by a grand banquet. The Nogai women are very timid, for the jealousy of their husbands is extreme. When a married man dies, his brothers inherit his widows, and may keep or sell them as they please. A husband may repudiate his wife whenever he chooses, but she is entitled to marry again after the legalisation of the divorce. When a Nogai has many wives, the first retains peculiar privileges so long as she is young and handsome, but when her beauty fades, a younger rival always gains the good graces of the husband. Hence arise interminable quarrels, and domestic peace is only maintained by the kantshouk or whip of the lord of the mansion. On the whole, the women endure a hard slavery; but their ignorance of a better state of things makes their chains set light on them, and they are insensible of the degraded condition in which they are kept by their absolute lords.
It would be difficult to predict with accuracy the fate reserved for all this Mahometan population. The Nogais have doubtless made great progress within the last twenty years; but their religious notions and their moral and political constitution will long impede their complete reformation, and it will need many a generation to eradicate from among them all those prejudices and all those old habits of a wandering life, which so fatally obstruct their prosperity and their intellectual growth. Besides, it is now impossible to mistake the tendency of the policy adopted by the Russian government towards the foreign races: there is every reason to think that they will at last be entirely absorbed by the Slavic population.
FOOTNOTES:
[50] Histoire de la Russie, par Lesvèque. Bibliothèque Orientale, par d'Herbelot. Hist. des Cosaques, par Lesur.
[51] Voyage au Caucase, par Klaproth, en 1807 et 1808.
[52] See Klaproth, Asia Polyglotta, p. 202.
[53] The Kitans occupied the country north of the Chinese provinces of Tschy Li and Ching-Ching, watered by the Charamuin, or Liao Ho and its confluents. Ibid.
[54] The chain of mountains called In Chan, begins north of the country of the Ordos, or of the most northern curve of the Hoang Ho, or Yellow River, and extends eastward to the sources of the rivers that fall into the western part of the Gulf of Pekin.
[55] We have entirely rejected from our discussion the word Tartar, which owes its origin only to a jeu de mots, of which St. Louis was the author.
[56] Mongal is the most frequent reading in the MSS.; and where the more exact reading, Mongal, occurs, it is probably a correction by the copyists. Mongal is the form prevalent among the Russians; and we have already had occasion to remark, that in transcribing proper names, Du Plan de Carpin generally adopts the Slavonic pronunciation, as he had it from his companion and interpreter, Benedict of Poland. (Extract from the interesting treatise of M. D'Avezac, on the travels of Du P. de C.)
[57] Terra quadam est in partibus Orientis de qua dictum est supra, quæ Mongal nominatur. Hæc terra quondam populos quatuor habuit: unus Yeka Mongal, id est magni Mongali vocabantur; secundus Su Mongal, id est aquatici Mongali vocabantur; sibi autem se ipsos Tartaros appellabant, a quodam fluvio qui currit per terram illorum qui Tatar nominatur. Alius appellabatur Merkit; quartus Mecrit. Hi populi omnes unam formani personarum et unam linguam habebant, quamvis inter se per provincias et principes essent divisi.
In terra Jeka Mongal fuit quidam qui vocabatur Chingis; este incepit esse robustus venator coram domino: dedicit enim homines furari, rapere prædam. Ibat autem ad alias terras et quoscumque poterat capere et sibi associare non demittebat; homines autem suæ gentes ad se inclinavit, qui tanquam ducem ipsum sequebantur ad omnia malefacta. Hic autem incepit pugnare cum Su Mongal sive Tartaris, postquam plures homines aggregaverat sibi, et interfecit ducem eorum, et multo bello sibi omnes Tataros subjugavit et in suam servitutem recepit ac redegit. Post hæc cum omnibus istis pugnavit cum Merkitis, qui erant positi juxta terram Tartarorum, quas etiam sibi bello subjecit. Inde procedens pugnavit contra Mecritas et etiam illos devicit.
[58] The name Nogaï appears to me to have occasioned the same mistakes as Tatar; misled by the conspicuous part played for some time by the Nogaï hordes, most writers have comprehended under that name all the Mussulman tribes of the provinces of Astrakhan and Kasan.
[59] A large four-wheeled vehicle covered with felt. The wheels are never greased, and the noise they make can often be heard at a distance of several versts.