Part 34

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.

The roving life to which the Kirghiz are compelled by the necessity of finding sufficient pasturage for their numerous herds, involves a style of dwelling which is easily constructed, can be taken down at one spot and erected again at another without special difficulty, and which must yet afford a sufficient protection against the hardness and inclemency of the climate. These requirements are fulfilled more thoroughly by the yurt than by any other movable dwelling, and it is not too much to say that this is the most perfect of all tents. Thousands of years of experience has made the yurt what it is--a home for the nomadic herdsman, or any other wanderer,--which, in its own way, cannot be surpassed. Light and easily moved, readily closed against storms, or thrown open to admit air and sunshine, comfortable and commodious, simple, yet admitting of rich decoration without and within, it unites in itself so many excellent qualities that one appreciates it ever more highly as time goes on, and finds it more and more habitable the longer one lives in it. It consists of a movable lattice-work which can be extended or contracted, and which forms the lower upright circular walls of the framework, a coupling ring which forms the arch at the top, spars inserted into both these, and a door in the lattice-work; light mats of tschi-grass, and large wads or sheets of felt, cut to shape, and most ingeniously laid on, compose the outer covering of the whole framework, and thick carpets of felt cover the floor. With the exception of the door-frames, which are mortised together, and of the spars, the upper ends of which are inserted into holes in the coupling-ring, the whole structure is held together simply by means of cords and bands; and it is thus easily taken to pieces, while its form--circular in cross section, and cupola-like longitudinally--renders it capable of great resistance to violent storms and bad weather of all sorts. The work of putting it up scarcely requires more than half an hour, that of taking it down even less; the strength of a single camel conveys it from place to place, but its construction and decoration take up much of the time and all the ingenuity of the housewife, to whose share falls the chief work of making it, and the whole labour of setting it up.

The yurt forms an important part of the movable property of a Kirghiz. A rich man owns six or eight, but he spends money rather on the decoration of a few than on the construction of many, for he is assessed and taxed not according to the size of his herds but the number of his yurts. The high-class Kirghiz certainly shows his wealth through his yurt, by fitting it up as richly as possible, making it out of the most valuable felt, and decorating it without and within with coloured pieces of cloth; but he sets store rather by the possession of costly rugs, and beautifully sewn and embroidered silken coverlets, with which he decorates the interior of the living-room on festive occasions. Such rugs are handed down from father to son, and the possession of them ranks scarcely below that of uncoined silver.

The real wealth of the nomadic herdsman cannot, however, be estimated by such secondary things; it must be calculated by his herds. Even the poorest owner of a yurt must possess numerous beasts to enable him to live, or survive in the struggle for existence; for the herds he tends form the one indispensable condition of life; they alone stand between him and ruin. The rich man’s herds may number thousands upon thousands, those of the poor man at least hundreds; but the richest may become poor, if disease breaks out among his herds, and the poor man may starve if death visits his beasts. Wide-spreading murrain reduces whole tribes to destitution, causes thousands of human beings literally to die of starvation. Little wonder, then, that every thought and aspiration of the Kirghiz is bound up with his herds, that his manners and customs correspond to this intimate connection between man and beast, that the man is, in short, dependent on the animal.

Not the most useful, but the noblest and the most highly prized of all the domesticated animals of the Kirghiz is the horse, which in the eyes of its owner represents the sum and essence of domestication, and the climax of all beauty; it is a standard by which to reckon, according to which wealth or poverty is determined. He does not call it a horse, but simply the domestic animal; instead of the words “left and right” he uses the expressions, “the side on which one mounts a horse”, and “the side on which one carries the knout”. The horse is the pride of youth and maiden, of man and woman, whether young or old; to praise or find fault with a horse is to praise or blame its rider, a blow given to a horse one is not riding is aimed not at the horse but at its owner.

A large number of the Kirghiz songs refer to the horse; it is used as a standard of comparison to give an estimate of the worth of men and women, or to describe human beauty.

“Little bride, little bride, Dear foal of the dark brood-mare!”

the singer calls to the bride who is being led into the bridegroom’s yurt;

“Say where is the play of the white locks And where the play of the foals, For kind as is the new father, He is not the old father to me,”

the bride answers to the youths who sing the “Jarjar”, the song of consolation to the departing bride, referring by the words “Foal-play” to the time of her first love.

The wealth of a man is expressed in the number of horses he possesses; payment for a bride is made in the value of so many horses; the maiden who is offered as a prize to the winner in a race is held as being worth a hundred mares; horses are given as mutual presents; with horses atonement is made for assassination or murder, limbs broken in a struggle, an eye knocked out, or for any crime or misdemeanour; one hundred horses release from ban and outlawry the assassin or murderer of a man, fifty, of a woman, thirty, of a child. The fine imposed by the tribe for injuring any one’s person or property is paid in horses; for the sake of a horse even a respectable man becomes a thief. The horse carries the lover to his loved one, the bridegroom to the bride, the hero to battle, the saddle and clothing of the dead from one camping-place to another; the horse carries man and woman from yurt to yurt, the aged man as well as the child firmly bound to his saddle, or the youthful rider who sits for the first time free. The rich man estimates his herds as equivalent to so many horses; without a horse a Kirghiz is what a man without a home is among us; without a horse he deems himself the poorest under the sun.

The Kirghiz has thoroughly studied the horse, he knows all its habits, its merits and defects, its virtues and vices, knows what benefits and what injures it; sometimes, indeed, he expects an incredible amount from it, but he never exacts it unless necessity compels him. He does not treat it with the affectionate care of the Arab, but neither does he ever show the want of consideration of many other peoples. One does not see anything of that careful and intelligent breeding of horses which is practised by Arabs and Persians, English and Germans, but he does constantly endeavour to secure the improvement of his favourite breeds by only placing the best stallions with the mares, and castrating the rest. Unfortunately his choice of breeding-horses is determined solely by form, and does not take colour into consideration at all, the consequence being that many of his horses are exceedingly ugly, because their colouring is so irregular and unequal. The training of the horse leaves much to be desired; our wandering herdsman is much too rich in horses for this to be otherwise.

We found the Kirghiz horse a pleasant and good-natured creature, although it by no means fulfilled our ideal of beauty in all respects. It is of medium size and slender build, with a head not ugly though rather large, decidedly ram-nosed, and noticeably thickened by the prominent lower jaw-bones, a moderately long and powerful neck, a long body, fine limbs, and soft hair. Its eyes are large and fiery, its ears somewhat large, but well-shaped. Mane and tail have fine, long hair, always abundant, the hair of the tail growing so luxuriantly that it sweeps the ground; the legs are well formed, but rather slim, the hoofs are upright, but often rather too high. Light colours prevail and very ugly piebalds often offend the eye. The commonest colours are brown, light-brown, fox-coloured, dun, and bay, more rare are dark-brown and black, and one only occasionally sees a gray. The mane and tail greatly increase the beauty of all the light-coloured horses, because they are either black or much lighter than the body hairs.

The temper of the animal is worthy of all praise. The Kirghiz horse is fiery, yet extremely good-natured, courageous in the presence of all known dangers, and only nervous, skittish, and timid when it is bewildered for a moment by something unusual; it is spirited and eager in its work, obedient, docile, willing, energetic, and very enduring, but it is chiefly valuable for riding, and requires long breaking-in to make it of use as a draught animal, in which capacity it is much less valuable than as a riding-horse.

It has a particularly disagreeable habit, for which the Kirghiz is certainly more to blame than the animal, of constantly eating or at least nibbling on the way; it even attempts to satisfy its appetite in the most difficult situations, as in wading through rocky mountain torrents or climbing steep precipices. It is as insatiable as all other domesticated animals accustomed to roam freely over the steppe, but in its association with others of its species, except in the breeding season, it is as peaceable as it is obedient and submissive to its master.

The poorer Kirghiz possess only horses enough to provide a mount for each member of the family, and to ensure the continuance of their stock. The richer dwellers on the steppe, on the other hand, have four or five, indeed I have often been assured as many as ten or twelve thousand head, which feed in separate herds, and at different places, and therefore, naturally enough, thrive better than those of their poorer brethren. Each herd consists of at least fifteen, or at most fifty individuals; in the latter case it comprises one fully-grown stallion, nine brood-mares, and as many young foals, eight two-year-olds, six or eight three-year-olds, and five or six four-year-olds, besides some older animals or geldings. The stallion is absolute lord and master, guide, leader, and protector of the herd, and he never lets himself be deprived of a single foal by the wolf, but attacks that cowardly robber boldly and successfully, striking him to the ground with his hoofs if he shows fight. But he will not tolerate a rival, and drives out all other stallions from the herd as soon as they come to maturity; when he enters on his leadership he drives away his own mother, and later his own daughters. This proud wilfulness necessitates the greatest watchfulness on the part of the herdsman during the pairing time, lest he lose the expelled mares which are seeking a new sultan, or the stallions which are striving for their own independence. The young mare reaches maturity in her fifth year, and the following spring, usually in March, she brings forth her first foal. She is not at once separated from the rest of the herd, but in May she and her foal are brought into the neighbourhood of the yurt, and for four months she is regularly milked to provide the famous koumiss or milk-wine. In autumn, mother and young are allowed to rejoin the herd. Both are received without hesitation, and they enjoy their newly-recovered freedom to the full.

Apart from the horse, the most useful, and therefore the most important domestic animal of our nomadic herdsman, is the sheep. This animal is very large and well-built, but very much disfigured by the protuberances of fat on the rump. The massive body rests upon long but powerful legs; the head is small, the nose narrow and blunt, the ears pendulous or erect, the horns weak, the skin hard but thick, the udder very much developed, the fat rump often so enormous that the creature can no longer carry it, but bending its knees lets it drag on the ground, unless the herdsman comes to its aid by fixing a little two-wheeled cart under the tail, and placing the burdensome appendage on that. When the Kirghiz rams are crossed with sheep without this protuberance, their descendants acquire the singular appendage in two or three generations, while if smooth-tailed rams be paired continuously with fat-rumped sheep the reverse takes place.

Though the character of the Kirghiz sheep resembles that of our sheep in all important respects, it cannot be disputed that the free life on the steppes, the long journeys which have to be made, and the difficulties which have to be surmounted in the course of these have developed its physical and mental capacities to an incomparably higher degree than is attained by our domestic sheep. Nevertheless, even in the steppe the clever goat acts as leader and guide to the relatively stupid sheep, and it is therefore only right that I should describe the goat next.

The Kirghiz goat is of medium size, massive and well-built, the body powerful, the neck short, the head small, the limbs well-proportioned, the eye large and bright, the glance full of expression, the erect ear pointed, the horns comparatively weak, and either directed backwards and outwards or half turned on their axes, the hair abundant, especially on beard and tail, that on the forehead being long and curled; the prevailing colouring is beautiful pure white with black markings.

The Kirghiz always treat sheep and goats exactly alike, and they feed together in flocks. The poor Kirghiz of one aul make up a flock among them, the rich man, whose beasts are numbered by many thousands, has often several. The shepherd, usually a biggish boy, rides on an ox beside his flock, but he understands so well how to manage his steed and make it trot, that he can overtake the fleetest goat. Once as we were returning from a hunting expedition, we met a shepherd who, by way of amusement, rode along for quite a quarter of an hour beside our briskly-trotting horses, yet his singular steed showed no signs of fatigue. Only the shepherds belonging to the Tartar sheep-owners ride on horses. In hazardous parts of their journeys, such as crossing a rapid stream, or climbing among the mountains, the goats take the lead, and here, as everywhere else, the sheep follow them blindly.

As hay can only be gathered and stacked in the most favoured spots, the birth of lambs and kids in autumn is prevented; it therefore always takes place in spring, and the young ones have thus every chance to thrive well and grow rapidly. New-born lambs and kids are taken into the yurt at once, and they soon become so well accustomed to it that they only quit the comfortable tent with piteous bleatings when circumstances render it necessary. Later on they are put into a shelter near the winter-dwelling. In the open steppe this shelter is a simple hollow in the ground, over which the cold wind blows almost unfelt; finally they are secured to the rope called a kögön, which is stretched between strong poles in front of every yurt. As soon as they begin to graze they are driven out in flocks by themselves to the open steppe, and brought back to the yurt towards evening. Thus they become accustomed from their earliest youth to the free life of the steppes, to wind and tempest, storm and rain.

In comparison with horses, sheep, and goats, cattle play a very subordinate part. Herds of them are certainly to be seen in the neighbourhood of every aul, but they are quite out of proportion to the numbers of sheep and goats. The ox is larger and better built than that of the Russian and Siberian peasants, but it is far behind the Chinese ox, and cannot for a moment be compared with any noteworthy breed of Western Europe. It is of medium size and fleshy, its coat is short and smooth-haired, its horns long and curved, its prevailing colour a beautiful, warm red-brown. The cattle are sent out to graze in rather large herds, with no supervision of any kind, the milch cows being enticed back to the yurt solely by the calves which are tied up and tended there, while the bulls roam about as they please, and often remain away from the aul for several days at a time.

Though all the large auls possess camels, by no means every Kirghiz owns one, and even the richest among them seldom possess more than fifty head. For the camel is rightly considered the most perishable of all the stock owned by the nomadic herdsmen of this steppe; its real home lies farther to the south and east. In the part of the steppe through which we travelled only the two-humped camel is reared, but south of the Balkhash Lake and in Central Asia preference is given to the dromedary. The two species cross here and produce strange hybrids in which the two humps are almost fused into one.

The camel of the central steppe belongs to one of the lighter breeds, and is therefore not nearly so massive and awkward as those which are to be seen in most zoological gardens, but it is quite as thickly covered with hair. Nevertheless, it does not stand cold nearly so well as the other domestic animals of the Kirghiz, and requires a felt mat to kneel down or rest on, and even then it often takes cold and dies. While shedding its hair it has to be enveloped in a felt covering, and in summer it has to be protected from mosquitoes and gadflies else it will succumb; in short, it is the object of constant anxiety, and is therefore not suited to a poor man, who feels every loss with threefold force. It resembles the dromedary in being easily satisfied in the matter of food, and in displaying the blind rage characteristic of the pairing-time, when it menaces even its usually loved master, but, for the rest of the year, it differs from the dromedary, very much to its own advantage, in docility and gentleness. Having been accustomed to the dromedary for many years, I was particularly struck by these excellent qualities in the steppe camel; I hardly recognized the race. The camel allows itself to be caught without resisting, and kneels down to be laden, if not altogether without grumbling, at least without the horrible, nerve-shattering bellowing of the dromedary. Even at a trot it carries light burdens uncomplainingly, covering twenty miles or more in the course of a day; if its load slips, it stops of its own accord. With a rider it can cover about thirty miles a day; with a weight of eight cwts. on its back, compelling it to a slow but striding step, it should manage at least half that distance. It grazes almost always in the vicinity of the yurt, in company with all its fellows of the aul, and in the eyes of the Kirghiz it is to a certain extent a sacred animal.

The dog, which is the least valued animal owned by the Kirghiz, is always large but not always beautiful, though the difference between it and the hideous curs to be met with elsewhere in Siberia and Turkestan is very marked and greatly in its favour. The head is long but rather heavy, the limbs more like those of a greyhound than a sheep-dog, the hair long and woolly, the colouring very varied.

Watchful and courageous in the highest degree, he is a worthy adversary of the wolf, an efficient and careful protector of the weaker herds, a suspicious sentinel towards strangers, the faithful slave of his master, an unsociable recluse as far as grown-up people are concerned, but the willing playmate of the children. He has many of the virtues of his race, and is therefore to be found in every yurt or at least in every aul.

The whole life of the Kirghiz centres in his herds,--making use of them and their products, and to that end tending them carefully. The former is the chief occupation of the women, the latter the most important work of the men. With the exception of the bones, which are thrown away unheeded, every portion of the body of every one of their animals is used, just as every female among the live stock is milked as long as possible. The quantity of vegetable food used by the Kirghiz is extremely small; milk and meat form his chief diet in all circumstances, and vegetable products are merely accessory. Bread, in the real sense of the word, he scarcely uses at all, and even the little lumps of dough which may be reckoned as such, are sodden in fat, not baked. Flour and rice,--the latter a frequent dish only among the rich,--also serve to give variety to the everlasting monotony of milk and meat dishes. Little wonder then that death from starvation threatens the Kirghiz, indeed too often overtakes him, when general murrain breaks out among his beasts in the midst of the steppe.

The wealthier people keep the milk of sheep and goats separate from that of cows, and of mares and camels; poor people mix all the milk in one vessel, and thus get only the effect of sheep’s milk, while the rich secure some differentiation of palatal pleasure. From the milk of sheep and goats, which is invariably milked into the same vessel and collected in the same leathern bottle, they prepare not only various dishes, which are eaten at once with or without flour, but also butter, small, sour or bitter, gritty cheeses, most distasteful to a European palate, and a yellow curd very agreeable even to our taste, which, like the cheese, is stored up for use in winter, when it is dissolved in water to make a sort of soup. Cow’s milk, on the other hand, they use chiefly as sour milk, and only rarely make into curds, cheese, or butter, while that of mares and camels is used for making the koumiss so often described. This is a milk-wine made by allowing milk to ferment for four days, and by constantly shaking and beating it. It is much appreciated, and indeed justly prized among the Kirghiz, and the well-to-do among them often drink it to intoxication on festive occasions.