Part 20 (1/2)
[Ill.u.s.tration: 105.--YAKUT PRIESTS.]
The Turkish family comprises rather a large number of races. We shall consider here only the _Turcomans_, the _Kirghis_, the _Nogays_, and the _Osmanlis_.
The _Turcomans_.--The Turcomans wander in the steppes of Turkestan, Persia, and Afghanistan. They stray as far as Anatolia to the west. The tribes who dwell in this last district have the shape and the physical characteristics of the White Race; those who inhabit Turkestan show in their physiognomy the admixture of Mongol blood.
The Turcoman is above the middle height. He has not strongly developed muscles, but he is tolerably powerful and enjoys a robust const.i.tution.
His skin is white; his countenance is round; his cheek bones are prominent; his forehead is wide, and the development of the bony part of the skull forms a kind of crest at the top of the head. His almond-shaped and nearly lidless eye is small, lively, and intelligent.
His nose is usually insignificant and turned up. The lower part of his face retreats a little, and his lips are thick. He has scanty moustachios and beard, and his ears are large and protruding.
The Turcoman's dress consists of wide trousers falling over the foot and tight at the hips, and of a collarless s.h.i.+rt open at the right side down to the waist, falling, outside the trousers, halfway down the thigh.
Outside these an ample coat is fastened round the waist by a cotton or wool belt. It is open in front and slightly crossed over the chest. Its sleeves are very long and very wide, a little skull-cap is worn instead of the hair, and is covered with a kind of head-dress called talbac, made of sheep skin, in the shape of a cone with a slightly depressed summit. His shoes are a sort of slipper, or simply a sandal of camel or horse skin fastened to the foot by a woollen cord.
The type is more strongly defined in the Turcoman women than in the men.
Their cheek bones are more prominent, and their complexion is white.
Their hair is generally thick but very short; and they are obliged to lengthen their tresses with goat-hair loops and strings, to which they fasten gla.s.s beads and silver pearls.
We will not describe their dress, but will only observe that they wear a round cap on their head, to which they fasten a silk or cotton veil falling backwards. The whole is surrounded by a kind of turban of the breadth of three fingers, on which are some little squares of silver.
One end of the veil is brought under the chin from right to left, and is fastened, by a little silver chain ending in a hook, on the left side of the face.
Trinkets, necklaces, bracelets, and chains play such a prominent part in the adornment of the Turcoman women, that a dozen of them together drawing water make as much tinkling as the ringing of a small bell.
The men wear no ornament.
Fig. 106 represents a camp of nomadic Turcomans.
M. de Blocqueville, who published in 1866, in the ”Tour du Monde,” the curious account ent.i.tled ”Fourteen months' captivity among the Turcomans,” describes as follows the habits of these tribes:--
”The Turcomans keep close to their tent a sheep or a goat, which they fatten and kill on special occasions. The bones are taken out and the meat is cut up and salted; some of it is dried and acquires a high flavour much liked by the Turcomans; the rest, cut into smaller pieces and placed in the animal's paunch, is kept to make soup out of. They collect the bones and other leavings, and stew them down in a pan so as to have some broth to offer on festival occasions to their friends and neighbours. The intestines fall to the children's share, who broil them on the coals and spend whole days in sucking and pulling about this half-cleansed offal.
[Ill.u.s.tration: 106.--TURCOMAN ENCAMPMENT.]
”... ... Women are treated with more consideration by the Turcomans than by other Mussulmans. But they work hard, and every day have to grind the corn for the family food. Besides this, they spin silk, wool, and cotton; they weave, sew, mill felt, pitch and strike the tents, draw water, sometimes do some was.h.i.+ng, dye woollen and silk stuffs, and manufacture the carpets. They set up out of doors, in the fine weather, a very primitive loom made of four stakes firmly fixed in the ground, and, with the a.s.sistance of two large cross pieces on which they lay the woof, begin the weaving, which is done with an iron implement composed of five or six blades put together in the shape of a comb. These carpets, generally about three yards long and a yard and a half wide, are durable and well made. Every tribe or family has its own particular pattern, which is handed down from mother to daughter. The Turcoman women are necessarily endowed with a strong const.i.tution to be able to bear all this hard work, during which, they sometimes suckle their children, and only eat a little dry bread, or a kind of boiled meat with but little nourishment in it. It is especially turning the grindstone that wears them out and injures their chest.
”In their rare intervals of leisure they have always got with them a packet, of wool or of camel's hair, or some raw silk, that they spin whilst they are gossiping or visiting their neighbours; for they never remain quite idle like the women of some Mussulman countries.
”The man has also his own kind of work; he tills the soil, tends the crops, gets in the harvest, takes care of the domestic animals, and sometimes starts on plundering expeditions in order to bring home some booty. He manufactures hand-made woollen rope; cuts out and st.i.tches together the harness and clothing of his horses and camels; attempts to do a little trade, and in his leisure moments makes himself caps and shoes, plays on the doutar (an instrument with two strings), sings, drinks tea, and smokes.
”These tribes are very fond of improving themselves, and of reading the few books that chance throws into their hands.
”As a rule the children do not work before their tenth or twelfth year.
Their parents up to that age make them learn to read and write. Those who are obliged to avail themselves of their children's a.s.sistance during the press of summer labour, take care that they make up for lost time in the winter.
”The schoolmaster, mollah (priest or man of letters), is content to be remunerated either in kind, with wheat, fruit or onions; or in money, according to the parents' position. Each child possesses a small board, on which the mollah writes down the alphabet or whatever happens to be the task; this is washed off as soon as the child has learned his lesson.