The Human Race Part 19

_The Burats._--Miss Lisa Christiani, in the course of her travels in eastern Siberia, received the chiefs of some Burat tribes who had made known their desire to pay her their respects. She met on the following day, on the banks of the Selinga, an escort, sent by the Burats in her honour, composed of three hundred hors.e.m.e.n, dressed in splendid satin robes of various colours, and wearing pointed caps trimmed with fur; they carried bows and arrows in their shoulder-belts, and bestrode richly caparisoned horses (fig. 100). It was in this manner the traveller made her first acquaintance with this tribe.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 100.--BURATS ESCORTING MISS CHRISTIANI.]

At the time Miss Christiani fell in with them, the Burats were celebrating the obsequies of one of their princ.i.p.al chiefs. The travellers were present at the funeral service and ceremonies, which were performed in a Mongol temple, and afterwards at the games which took place according to their ancient custom. These games included archery, wrestling, and horse and foot races. A banquet followed, at which roast mutton, cheese, cakes, and even some capital Champagne were served to the guests.

The Burats number about thirty-five thousand men, dwelling in the mountains to the north of Bakal. Their herds and flocks const.i.tute their wealth. Their religion is _Shamanism_, a species of idolatry very prevalent amongst the inhabitants of Siberia. Their supreme G.o.d inhabits the sun; he has under his command a host of inferior deities. Amongst these barbarous people woman is considered an unclean and soulless being.

THE TUNGUSIAN FAMILY.

The Tungusian family consists of two divisions: the Tunguses to the north, and the Manchus to the south-east.

The _Tunguses_.--The Tunguses, who are scattered in Siberia from the Sea of Okhotsk to Ienissia and to the Arctic Ocean, are nomadic, and live on the produce of their hunting and fishing. Daouria to the north of China is their native country. Those who live under the Russian government are cla.s.sified, according to the domestic animals const.i.tuting their princ.i.p.al resources, as dog Tunguses, horse Tunguses, and reindeer Tunguses.

The nomadic Tunguses of Daouria were described at the close of the last century by the Russian naturalist Pallas, the same who found on the sh.o.r.es of the Lena the antediluvian mammoth, still covered with its skin and coat of hair, the discovery of which caused so much excitement in Europe.

_Manchus._--Fig. 101 represents the type of this race. We do not think it necessary to speak of them.

THE YAKUT FAMILY.

The countenance of the _Yakuts_ is still flatter and broader than that of the Mongols. Their long black hair flows naturally round their head, while but little grows on their faces: they keep one tress very long, to which they tie their bow to keep it dry when they are obliged, in the course of their wanderings or whilst out hunting, to swim across deep rivers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 101.--MANCHuS SOLDIERS.]

[Ill.u.s.tration:

_P. Sellier, p.^{t}_

_Imp. Dupuy, 22, R. des Pet.i.ts Hotels_

_G. Regamey, lith._

MONGOLIAN

ESQUIMAUX

YELLOW OR MONGOLIAN RACE]

We will take a few details about the country of the Yakuts and its inhabitants from the interesting travels of Ouvarouski, republished in the "Tour du Monde." The land of the Yakuts has two different aspects.

To the south of Yakutsk, it is covered with lofty rocky mountains; to the west and to the north, it is a plain on which grow thick and bushy trees. It contains numberless streams of considerable depth and width.

The inhabitants, however, content themselves with boats made of planks or wooden and bark canoes, only capable of holding two or three persons.

The reindeer is the princ.i.p.al means of conveyance used by the Yakuts.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 102.--YAKUTS.]

The severity of the cold is very great in this country--greater, perhaps, than in any other part of Siberia. Its population is not more than two hundred thousand. The Yakuts (figs. 102 and 103) are stoutly made, though only of middle height. Their countenance is rather flat, and their nose is of a corresponding width. They have either brown or black eyes. Their hair is black, thick, and glossy. They never have any on their faces. Their complexion is between white and black, and changes three or four times a year; in the spring, from the action of the atmosphere; in the summer, from that of the sun; and in winter, from the cold and from the effects of the heat of their fires. They would make bad soldiers, as their peaceful disposition forbids them from ever fighting; but they are active, lively, intelligent, and affable. In their encampments their provisions are at the service of every traveller who seeks their hospitality. Let his stay last a week, or even a month, there is always more than enough for both himself and his horse. They are fond of wine and tobacco, but they endure hunger and thirst with remarkable patience. A Yakut thinks nothing of working for three or four days without either eating or drinking.

But let us quote Ouvarouski, the author of the description of the customs of the Yakuts.

"The land of the Yakuts," says this traveller, "is so extensive that the temperature varies very much. At Olekminsk for instance, wheat thrives capitally, because there the white frost comes late; at Djigansk on the contrary, the earth always remains frozen two spans below the surface, and the snow begins to fall in the month of August.

"The Yakuts are all baptised in the Russian faith, two or three hundred of them perhaps excepted. They obey the ordinances of the church and go annually to confession, but few receive the sacrament, because they are not in the habit of fasting. They neither go out in the morning nor retire to rest at night without saying their devotions. When chance has befriended them, they thank the Lord; when misfortune overtakes them, they regard it as a punishment inflicted by the Almighty for their sins, and, without losing heart, patiently await better times. In spite of these praiseworthy sentiments they still preserve some superst.i.tious beliefs, particularly the custom of prostrating themselves before the devil. When long sicknesses and murrains prevail, they cause their shamans to practise exorcisms and sacrifice cattle of a particular colour.

"The Yakuts are very intelligent. It is sufficient to hold an hour or two's conversation with one of them to understand his feelings, his disposition, and his mind. They easily comprehend the meaning of elevated language, and guess from the very beginning what is about to follow. Few even of the most artful Russians are able to deceive a Yakut of the woods.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 103.--A YAKUT WOMAN.]

"They honour their old men, follow their advice, and consider it wrong and unjust to offend and irritate them. When a father has several children, he gets them married one after the other, builds a house for them next to his own, and shares with them his cattle and his property.

Even when separated from their parents their children never disobey them. When a father has but one son he keeps him with him, and only separates from him if he loses his wife and marries a second who brings him other children.

"The wealth of a Yakut is estimated in proportion to the number of cattle he possesses; the improvement of his herds is his first thought, his princ.i.p.al wish; he never thinks of putting by money till he has succeeded in this object.

"Anger is acclimatized among all nations; the Yakut is no stranger to it, but he easily forgets the grudge he may owe to any one, provided the latter acknowledges his wrong and confesses himself to blame.

"The Yakuts have other failings, which must not be attributed to an innate bad disposition. Some of them live on stolen cattle, but these are only the needy; when they have taken enough to feed them two or three times from the carcase of the stolen beast, they abandon the rest; this shows that their only motive is hunger, from which they have suffered perhaps for months and years. Besides when the thief is caught, their princes (kinaes, from the Russian kniaz) have him whipped with rods, according to ancient custom, before everybody. The man who has undergone this punishment carries its degradation with him to the day of his death. His evidence can never be again listened to, and his words are of no weight in the a.s.semblies where the people meet to deliberate.

He can be chosen neither as prince nor as _starsyna_ (from the Russian _starchina_, ancient). These customs prove that theft has not become a profession among the Yakuts. The thief is not only punished, but never regains the name of an honest man.

"Let a Yakut once determine to master some handicraft, and he is sure to succeed. He is at one and the same time a jeweller, a tinker, a farrier, and a carpenter; he knows how to take a gun to pieces, how to carve bone, and, with a little practice, he can imitate any work of art he has once examined. It is a pity that they have no instruction to teach them the higher arts, for they are quite capable of executing extraordinary tasks.

"They are wonderful shots. Neither cold nor rain, neither hunger nor fatigue, can stop them in the pursuit of a bird or an animal. They will follow a fox or a hare for two entire days without minding their own fatigue, or the exhaustion of their horse.

"They have a good deal of taste and inclination for trade, and are so well up in driving a hard bargain for the smallest fox or sable skin, that they always get a high price for it.

"The gun-stocks that they manufacture, the combs they cut and ornament, are works of great finish. I may also remark that their oxhide leather bottles never get foul, even if they are left for ten years full of liquid.

"Many of the Yakut women have pretty faces; they are cleaner than the men, and like the rest of their s.e.x are fond of dress and fine things.

Nature has not left them without charms. They cannot be called bad, immoral, or light women. They pay the same honour to their father and mother, and to the aged parents of their husband, as they do to the Deity. Their head and their feet they never allow to be seen stripped.

They never pa.s.s the right side of the hearth, and never call their husbands' relations by their Yakut names. The woman who is unlike this description is looked upon as a wild beast, and her husband is considered extremely unlucky."

Fig. 104 represents a Yakut village and villagers.

The Yakuts profess Shamanism, an idolatrous religion practised by the Finns, by the Samoiedes, by the Ostiaks, by the Burats, by the Teleouts, by the Tunguses, and by the inhabitants of the Pacific islands. Shamanists worship a supreme being, the creator of the world, but indifferent to human actions. Under him are male and female G.o.ds: some good, who superintend the government of the world, and the destinies of humanity; the others evil, the greatest of whom (Chatan, Satan) is considered to be nearly as powerful as the supreme Being.

Religious veneration is also paid to their ancestors, to heroes, and to their priests, called _Shamans_; these latter in their ceremonies practise a great deal of sorcery.

Fig. 105 represents some of these Shamans.

THE TURKISH FAMILY.

The people belonging to the Turk or Tartar family succeeded in founding, in very ancient times, a vast empire which included a part of central Asia from China up to the Caspian Sea. But the Turks, attacked and conquered by the Mongols, were subdued and driven back towards the south-west, that is to say to the south of Europe. There they became in their turn conquerors, and overcame, after laying it waste, a portion of Southern Europe.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 104.--YAKUT VILLAGERS.]

The Turks had originally red hair, greenish-grey eyes, and a Mongolian cast of countenance. But these characteristics have disappeared. It is only the Turks who now-a-days dwell to the north-east of the Caucasus who possess the characteristics of the Mongols. Those who are settled to the south-west exhibit the features peculiar to the white race, with black hair and eyes. The fusion of the former with the Mongols, of the second with the Persians and the Arameans, explain these modifications.

The Turks, more than all nations, manifest the deepest zeal for Mahometanism, and show the greatest intolerance for the followers of other creeds.