From North Pole to Equator: Studies of Wild Life and Scenes in Many Lands

by Alfred Edmund Brehm

But in the shades of night the ghost of the dead, equipped with his ghostly tools, begins his mysterious spirit-life. What he did while he walked among the living, he continues to do. Invisible to all he leads his reindeer to pasture, guides his boat through the waves, buckles on his snow-shoes, draws his bow, spreads his net, shoots the ghosts of former game, catches the ghosts of former fishes. During night he visits the tshum of his wife and children, causing them joy or sorrow. His reward is to be able to show beneficence to his own flesh and blood; his punishment, to be obliged continually to do them injury.

Such in outline is the religion of the Ostiaks, whom the Greek Catholics despise as heathen. But a just estimate of these honest people, with their child-like nature, inclines us rather to wish that they may ever remain heathen, or at least may never be other than they are.

THE NOMAD HERDSMEN AND HERDS OF THE
STEPPES.

Though the steppe of Central Asia is really rich, and may even seem gay to one who visits it in spring, and though it contains much fruitful land, it is nevertheless only its most favoured portions which admit of a settled life, of a continued residence on any one particular spot. Constant wandering, coming and going, appearing and disappearing, is the lot of all the children of the steppe, men and animals alike. Certain portions submit to the labours of the husbandman; in others, towns and villages may be established, but the steppe as a whole must for ever remain the possession of the nomadic herdsman, who knows how to adapt himself to all its conditions of life.

Among these nomadic herdsmen the Kirghiz take the first rank, by virtue both of numbers and of civilization. Their domain extends from the Don and the Volga to the mountains of Thianshan, and from the middle Irtish to south of the Balkhash Lake, indeed, almost to Khiva and Bokhara; they are divided into tribes and hordes, into steppe and mountain herdsmen, but they are one in descent, in language and religion, in manners and customs, however much the various tribes may appear to differ. The smallest or youngest horde wanders throughout the steppe of Orenburg; a branch of the same, calling itself the Buka tribe, traverses the steppe between the Volga and Ural rivers, especially in the governments of Turgai and Ural; the middle or elder horde inhabits the steppes and mountains of the Irtish and Balkhash regions; and finally, extending from beyond the river Ili towards Khiva and Bokhara are to be found the ever-changing dwelling-places of the mountain Kirghiz, who describe themselves as the great, or eldest horde. No branch of these people applies the name Kirgis or Kirghiz to itself, for that is a term of infamy equivalent to “freebooters”. The proper designation of our people is Kaisak, Kasak, or, as we should read it, Cossack, although even the Russians apply the name Cossack to a people quite distinct from the inhabitants of the steppe.

The Kirghiz, as I shall call them nevertheless, are a Turkish people, about whose racial affinities different opinions are held. Many, if not most, travellers look upon them as true Mongolians, while others regard them, probably more correctly, as a mixed race, suggestive of the Mongolians in some particulars, but, on the whole, exhibiting the characteristics of Indo-Germans, and especially resembling the Turkomans. All the Kirghiz I saw belonged to the middle horde, and were well-built people, small, or of medium height, with faces, not beautiful indeed, but not of the caricature-like Mongolian type, neat hands and feet, clear or transparent light-brown or yellowish complexions, brown eyes, and black hair. The cheek-bones are seldom so prominent, or the chin so pointed, as to give an angular or cat-faced appearance; the eye, of medium size, is usually most arched centrally, and drawn out horizontally at the outer angle; it is thus almond-shaped, but not obliquely set; the nose is usually straight, more rarely hooked; the mouth moderate in size and sharply cut, the beard thin, without being actually scanty. True Mongolian features are certainly to be met with also, more especially among the women and children of the poorer class; but, though I have seen very few really beautiful Kirghiz women, I have met with quite as few of the grotesque faces so common among other undoubted Mongols. The characteristics are unmistakably more suggestive of a mixed race than of any one sharply defined stock. I have seen men whom I should unhesitatingly have pronounced to belong to the nobler Indo-Germans if I had known nothing of their kinship, and I have become acquainted with others about the Mongolian cut of whose faces there could be no possible doubt. The members of the older families usually possess all the essential marks of the Indo-Germans, while men of lower descent and meaner extraction often remind one of the Mongols in many details, and may sometimes resemble them completely. The power of Islam, which permits to slaves who have become converts all the rights of the tribe, may in the course of time have made Kirghiz out of many heathen Mongols, and thus not only have influenced, but actually destroyed the racial characteristics of the Kirghiz.

Although the chief features of the Kirghiz dress are Turkish, it is, as a whole, by no means suited for displaying their figure to advantage. In winter the fur cap, fur coat, and thick-legged boots hide all the details of the figure, and even in summer these do not come into prominence. The poorer Kirghiz, in addition to his fur coat and the inevitable fur cap, wears a shirt, kaftan, and wide trousers; the higher class rich man, on the other hand, wears a great many articles of dress one above the other, like the Oriental; but he stuffs all those which envelop the lower part of his body, with the exception of his fur coat, into his wide trousers, so that he may not be impeded in riding. Consequently, the more richly attired he is the more grotesque he looks. They prefer dark colours to light or bright ones, though they do not despise these, and they are fond of decorations of gay embroideries or braiding. Nearly every Kirghiz wears at his girdle a dainty little pocket, richly decorated with iron or silver mountings, and a similarly ornamented knife; beyond these, and the indispensable signet-ring, he wears no decoration unless the Emperor has bestowed one upon him, in the shape of a commemorative medal.

Of the dress of the women I can say little, first, because modesty forbade me to ask about more than I could see, and secondly, because I did not see the women of the upper class at all, and never saw the others in their gala attire. In addition to the fur coat, boots and shoes, which are exactly like those of the men, the women wear trousers which differ very slightly, a shift, and over it a robe-like upper garment, falling below the knee and clasped in the middle; on the head they wear either a cloth wound in turban-fashion, or a nun-like hood which covers head, neck, shoulders, and breast.

The clothing of both sexes is coarse, except the riding-boots and shoes, which are always well made. Very characteristic, and obviously adapted to the climatic conditions, are the extraordinarily long sleeves which both men and women wear on their upper garment; these fall far beyond the hands, and cover them almost completely.