Prester John between Gog and Magog on the old sea charts
Editorial contextRamusio notes that Marco Polo called the northern lord Uncan 'Prester John' and put his seat in two regions, Og and Magog. He adds that on all the sea charts made 200 and 300 years earlier, Prester John is placed in the north above India, between the Ganges and the Indus, with no mention of an Ethiopian Prester John; on the next page he calls these 'the provinces of Gog and Magog, that is, of the Tartars'.
where Messer Marco Polo says that in the north there was a great lord called Uncan, whose name some take to mean Prester John in our language, and that his principal seat was in two regions, Og and Magog: it should be known that on all those sea charts one sees today, made 200 and 300 years ago, this Prester John is placed in the north and above India
Working translation
Original wording
oue dice Messer Marco Polo che sotto la Tramontana v'era vn gran signore detto VmCan che vogliono alcuni questo nome dire Preti Ianni, nella nostra lingua: & che la sua principale sedia era in due regioni, Og & Magog, è da sapere, che in tutte quelle carte da nauigare che si vegghono hoggidi fatte già 200 & 300. anni, v'è posto questo Prete Ianni sotto la Tramontana & sopra l'India
About Tartars identified with Gog and Magog; 'Uncan' as Prester John
Keep in mind
Ramusio is reporting legend and old maps, not asserting the facts himself; useful for the maps team.
Transcribed from the page image (corpus OCR partly garbled); long s and ligatures normalized.
Royal tombs with poisoned children and arrow traps
Editorial contextHuc passes on a lurid report about Tartar kings' burials: a brick building with statues, a central cavern full of treasure, children killed with mercury to keep their faces fresh and set up around the corpse holding the king's pipe and snuff, and a spring-loaded battery of bows to shoot any grave robber. He says bow-makers sold such traps and that Chinese sometimes bought them to guard their houses.
These monstrous interments sometimes cost the lives of a great number of slaves. They take children of both sexes, remarkable for their beauty, and make them swallow mercury till they are suffocated; in this way they preserve, they say, the freshness and ruddiness of their countenance, so as to make them appear still alive.
About Mongol princes (reported)
Keep in mind
Huc did not see this; 'they say' marks it as hearsay, and it echoes older Chinese tomb legends.
The 'piebald horde' of Siberia
Editorial contextA 'piebald horde' was famous in 16th-century Siberia, and some doubted it existed because people thought its members were themselves spotted. Klaproth says the name only described their horses, and quotes the explorer Messerschmidt's diary: in 1721 the governor of Tomsk still claimed the Kistym Tatars had been piebald people who slowly 'degenerated' into white ones.
the piebald horde, … whose existence has often been doubted because people believed that the men who made it up were themselves piebald, whereas it concerned only their horses. … the voevoda of Tomsk asserted 'that the Kistym Tartars were called the piebald horde (pegaya or pestraya orda), that they had been piebald, but had gradually degenerated by becoming white.'
Working translation
Original wording
la horde bigarrée, … dont on a souvent révoqué en doute l'existence, parce qu'on croyait que les hommes qui la composaient étaient eux-mêmes bigarrés, tandis qu'il ne s'agissait que de leurs chevaux. … le woiewode de Tomsk assura: « Qu'on appelait les Tartares de Kistym la horde bigarrée (piegaga ou piestra orda), qu'ils étaient bigarrés, mais qu'ils avaient successivement dégénéré, en devenant blancs.
About Kistym Tatars (Siberian Tatars near Tomsk)
Keep in mind
Klaproth himself rejects the spotted-people story as an 'extravagant idea'; the voevoda was repeating local lore.
Heaps of monster bones across Tartary and Siberia
Editorial contextDiscussing why lions are carved on Tibetan buildings though none live nearby, Turner remarks that if lions ever lived there wild, it was in the age of the huge animals whose bones lie in heaps in Tartary and Siberia. He takes the bones (mammoths) as proof of a great convulsion of the globe. This is Turner's own speculation, a common idea in his day.
it must have been at the same time with those vast monsters, whose bones are found in huge heaps in various parts of Tartary and Siberia at this day, and clearly point to some great convulsion, and change, in the order of our globe.
About (none: fossil animals)
Keep in mind
Turner's own inference from reports of mammoth bones; he did not see them.
The hare, the owl and the fortress of wind
Editorial contextRiccoldo's origin tale: the Tartars lived shut in by mountains whose only pass held an empty fortress that roared with the noise of horses, men and trumpets, a trick of the wind. A hunter chasing a hare followed it in, saw an owl singing on the gate, reasoned that no one lives where a hare runs and an owl sings, and led his people out. So, Riccoldo says, Tartars honour the hare and paint it on arms and tents, and nobles wear owl feathers and owl skins, which Western merchants now sell them for up to twenty pounds each.
'There is no dwelling of men where a hare flees and an owl sings.' And so, entering confidently, he found no one.
Working translation
Original wording
Non est habitacio hominum, vbi lepus fugit et bubo cantat. Et sic fiducialiter intrans neminem inuenit.
About Tartars (Mongols)
Keep in mind
A legend Riccoldo heard; Hayton of Corycus (W229) tells a different owl story in which the bird saves Genghis Khan in a bush.
Kalmyk musicians play Rossini at a steppe banquet
Editorial contextAt dinner with the Kalmyk prince, attended also by Khan Jangir of the Inner (Bukey) Kazakh Horde, the food was cooked by a Russian chef and champagne was served. A band of Kalmyks led by a Russian bandmaster played overtures, including Rossini, marches and dance music, and Rose found it a remarkable sight to see Kalmyk musicians handle European instruments so skilfully.
…a band of Kalmyks, led by a Russian bandmaster, performed overtures by … and Rossini, as well as marches and dance music, with great skill.
Working translation
Original wording
…ein Chor von Kalmücken, unter Anführung eines russischen Kapellmeisters, Ouverturen … und Rossini wie auch Märsche und Tanzmusik mit vieler Fertigkeit auf.
About Kalmyks (Buddhist Oirat Mongols of the lower Volga)
Keep in mind
The OCR of this page is badly garbled; the wording was restored from damaged text (one composer's name is unreadable) and should be checked against the scan.
The scan is too rough to double-check this quote by machine. Compare it with the page.
Yermak's armour and the Tatars' vow of silence
Editorial contextIn 1651 the Tobolsk officer Ulian Remezov took Yermak's famous mail coat, reclaimed from Tatar princes, as a gift to the Kalmyk ruler Ablai, who kissed it and raised it to his head. Ablai then told his own version of Yermak's death: drowned at the ford, found and shot at, his blood flowing, his armour divided up, miracles from his armour and clothes, and a Tatar oath 'on pain of death' not to tell the Russians about him. Ablai said that as a sick child he was given earth from Yermak's grave to drink and was cured.
And Ablai began to tell stories about him, according to his own history: how he came to Siberia, and fled from Kuchum at the ford, and drowned, and was found, and was shot at, and blood flowed, and they divided up his armour and carried it off, and how there were miracles from the armour and the clothing, and how the Tatars made a vow on pain of death not to tell the Russians about him
Working translation
Original wording
И нача Аблай повѣсти дѣяти о немъ по своей исторіи, какъ пріѣхалъ въ Сибирь, и отъ Кучюма на перекопѣ побѣжа, и утопе, и обрѣтенъ, и стрѣлянъ, и кровь течаше, и пансыри раздѣлиша и развезоша, и какъ отъ пансырей и отъ платья чюдесъ было, и какъ Татара смертной завѣтъ положиша, что про него Русакамъ невѣщати
About Ablai, Kalmyk (Oirat) ruler; Ulian Remezov, Tobolsk envoy; Siberian Tatars
Keep in mind
A family story of the Remezovs, told half a century later; the miracles are Tatar and Kalmyk beliefs as Russians reported them.
Flood geology and the 'Plateau of Tartary'
Editorial contextHumboldt explains how a geographic guess became a myth. If the highest lands had been the first to emerge from the waters, they must also have received the first seeds of civilisation; 'diluvial' geology built on ancient myths encouraged this, and so the vaguely named Plateau of Tartary gained a 'moral interest'. Travel, measurement and the study of Asian languages, he says, have corrected these exaggerations.
The high regions that had been the first to be left by the waters must also have been the first to receive the seeds of civilisation. Systems of diluvial geology, founded on ancient myths and local traditions, favoured these views. … gave this great massif, this continuous plateau vaguely called the Plateau of Tartary, a moral interest and a special importance.
Working translation
Original wording
Les hautes régions qui les premières avaient été abandonnées par les eaux, devaient aussi avoir reçu les premières des germes de civilisation. Des systèmes de géologie diluvienne, fondés sur des mythes anciens et sur des traditions locales, favorisaient ces aperçus. … donnait à ce grand massif, à ce plateau continu, vaguement appelé Plateau de la Tartarie, un intérêt moral et une importance particulière.
About European scholars of the 18th century
Continue in this sourceHumboldt's Central Asia1829 · 10 passagesA great stone ghost city near Lake Dalai
Editorial contextDescribing Lake Dalai (Hulun Nur) from what the local peoples told him, Spafarii reports a great stone city a day's ride from the lake, 'with every kind of building', its stone halls still whole. Some said its people all died of plague and left their goods behind, so that no one dared enter and people only looked at it from afar; others said war had emptied it. On the same page he repeats that the lake is so deep it holds whales and seals.
A day's journey from the Dalai there is a great stone city with every kind of building, and the stone halls in it are whole; and they say that in that city the people all perished of plague, and all their goods remained there; and the natives dare not go into that city, but look at it all from afar; and others say that it was laid waste by war.
Working translation
Original wording
Отъ Далая днище есть городъ великой каменной со всякимъ строеніемъ, и палаты въ немъ каменныя цѣлы; и говорятъ, что въ томъ городѣ отъ мору люди всѣ пропали, и осталось имѣніе ихъ все тамъ; и иноземцы въ тотъ городъ иттить не смѣютъ, а смотрятъ все издали; а иные говорятъ, что отъ войны запустѣло.
About Mongols nomadising around the lake; the city's builders are not named
Keep in mind
Rumour from local informants; a gap in both manuscripts cuts off the sentence just before, so the river it stood on is lost.
Telebuga lost in the mountains: a hundred thousand dead
Editorial contextReturning from a raid on Hungary, Nogai went by Brasov, while Telebuga tried to cross the mountains. A three-day crossing became fifty days of wandering. Famine set in, the soldiers began to eat people and then to die, and 'eyewitnesses said' a hundred thousand perished. Telebuga came out on foot with his wife and a single mare. The chronicler presents it as God's punishment.
Telebuga went across the Mountain; what should have been crossed in three days, he wandered for 50 days lost in the mountains, led by the wrath of God. And there was a great famine among them; and they began to eat people, and then began themselves to die, and a countless multitude of them died; eyewitnesses said this: the dead were a hundred thousand.
Working translation
Original wording
Телебуга поиде поперекъ Гору; што бяшеть переити треими деньми, и ходи по 50 дній блудя въ горахъ, водимъ гнѣвомъ Божіимъ. И бысть въ нихъ голодъ великъ; и начаша люде ѣсти, потомъ же начаша и сами измирати, и умре ихъ бесчисленое множьство; самовидци же тако рекоша: умершихъ бысть сто тысячь.
About Golden Horde army of Nogai and Telebuga
Keep in mind
The figure of 100,000 is hearsay attributed to eyewitnesses; the cannibalism report is part of the same account.
.jpg)