Journal of the Society of Arts : Volume XLVIII, No. 2480 [‎679v] (8/24)

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JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY OF ARTS.
{June i, 1900.
allowing the beard to grow, while the women
wind yards of cotton stuff about their heads.
The male attire consists usually of a pair of
baggy leather breeches, a coarse shirt, and
one or more rough coats, the head being
covered with a skull-cap and a conical hood of
sheepskin or felt. On special occasions a red
velvet coat and a tall felt hat, with turned-up
brim, are worn by the well-to-do. Polygamy
was adopted by the race at the time when the
Russians forced Mohammedanism upon them,
and the position of their women folk is not
enviable. When a man wishes to marry he
buys a wife, or one is bought for him by his
relations, and once the kalynt, or purchase-
money, is paid, the wife becomes the mere
chattel of her husband, who generally treats
her with less consideration than he does his
cattle. He can divorce her with the greatest
ease, and her family may then attempt to sell
her again. However much she may be ill-
treated she has no redress, the utmost that can
happen being a remonstrance from her relations
to the husband for “depreciating her market
value ; ” whilst even if he killed her, under
Kirghiz law he had no more serious penalty
to encounter than a fine. “A woman has only
half as much soul as a man,” says a Kirghiz
proverb; and the men of the tribe evidently
act up to this belief. The more serious crimes
are now amenable to Russian law, but smaller
matters are settled before certain chosen
elders, who are not paid for their services, but
receive a portion of every fine they inflict.
Hitherto little has been done by Russia to
civilise the tribes under her dominion, and
such a thing as a Kirghiz school is practically
unknown. Although Mohammedanism is
nominally their religion, the Kirghiz do not
trouble much about doctrine, many of them
still adhering to the old Shaman, or devil-
worship, while ancestor-worship is still largely
practised.
It may be said, perhaps, that the principal
object of Kirghiz existence is the breeding of
cattle and horses, to which nearly the whole of
their time is devoted. In bartering his cattle
the Kirghiz does not make a feature of honesty,
and will invariably cheat whenever he gets the
chance.
Fond as he is of horse-flesh, his sheep —of
which he has a famous fat-tailed breed called
the Kardiak —are perhaps nearest to the heart
of the Kirghiz. All over Central Asia and in
Southern Siberia mutton is the staple food,
and the nomads who inhabit the steppe regions
are accustomed to eat it in tremendous quan
tities. The allowance for a Mongol driver of
a caravan, for instance, is a leg of mutton per
man per day ; but it must be added that should
meat fail, the Mongol is not only capable of
foregoing his favourite food, but of existing on
fare so coarse and scanty that no European
could support life on it. The nomads, as a
rule, do not take much trouble over the pre
paration of their food, boiling it in a pot, and
taking it out in handfuls as it seems to them
sufficiently cooked, or gnawing the flesh from
the bones, which they return to the pot again.
A very delicate dish, and one set before
honoured guests, is composed of the tails of
sheep ; and the shin-bone of this useful animal
is carried by superstitious Kirghiz as an
amulet, and is also used in divination. His
sheep are, indeed, so important to the Kirghiz
or Uzbek, or to any native of Central Asia,
that it is etiquette to suppose, for the sake of
courtesy, that every man possesses flocks, and
in greeting him the first inquiry must be not
for his health but for theirs.
The favourite drink of the Kirghiz is made
from brick-tea, but kutnis, or mares’ milk, is
drunk, as among the Mongols, to produce
intoxication, for which purpose also is used a
kind of beer, distilled from grain, called buza,
which has a stupefying effect.
On the whole the Kirghiz are a simple
and credulous people, not particularly brave.
Owing to their skill as trackers, in which they
rival the Red Indians, they make excellent
scouts.
The Kalmuks, with whom, as has been said,
the Kirghiz have largely intermarried, are
another race of Central Asian nomads, who
originated in a confederacy of Mongol tribes
living in Zungaria,on the north-western borders
of the Chinese Empire, and combining together
to resist the aggressions of another tribe of
kindred origin. This confederacy, known as
the Oirat, made attacks on China, and at one
time took the Emperor prisoner, and marched
to the walls of Peking. Internal dissensions,
however, broke the power of the Oirat, and
some of the tribes migrated to Siberia, probably
receiving at that time the name of “ Kalmuk,”
which in Turkic dialect means “ remnant.”
Zungaria still remained in the possession of
the same tribes, whose fratricidal wars and
quarrels finally ended in their becoming vassals
to China. Meanwhile, the Kalmuks had been
driven further and further, till finally they
crossed the Ural, and settled in the lower
region of the Volga. Finding her new subjects
in Zungaria inclined to rebel, China took a