Yedisan, the 'Seven Thousand' horde that made a khan
Editorial contextCorrecting a Moldavian chronicler, Peyssonnel explains that the name Yedisan belongs only to the plains beyond the Dniester, taken from one of the four Nogai hordes under the Crimean khan. Yedi-san means 'seven thousand', the horde's original number of men. He adds that this horde alone, in revolt, deposed Khan Alim Girai and put Qirim Girai on the throne, events he witnessed and reported to the French court in 1759.
This horde is called Yedsan or Yedi-San, that is, seven thousand, because it was originally made up of seven thousand men … This one horde, in revolt, deposed Alim Girai Khan and placed on the throne Qirim Girai Khan, who reigns today. The details of this event, which I witnessed, can be seen in the report I sent to the Court in 1759.
Working translation
Original wording
Cette Horde s'appelle Iedsan, ou Iedi-San, c'est-à-dire, sept mille, parce qu'elle étoit originairement composée de sept mille hommes … Cette seule Horde révoltée a dépossédé Alim Gueraï Khan, & placé sur le Trône Crim Gueraï Khan qui règne aujourd'hui. On voit les détails de cet événement dont j'ai été témoin, dans la Relation que j'en ai envoyée à la Cour en 1759.
About Yedisan Nogais, subjects of the Crimean khan
Continue in this sourcePeyssonnel on the peoples of the Danube and Black Sea1753 to 1757 · 4 passagesVillages of felt tents strung along the valleys
Editorial contextAfter defining 'Little Tartary' (Crimea, the Kuban, part of Circassia and the steppe between Russia and the Black Sea) on the previous page, de Tott contrasts the settled Tatars of the Budjak and Crimea, who live in villages, with the Nogais, who have only felt tents. Yet the Nogais are not aimless wanderers: their tents stand in single lines along valleys, forming 'villages' tens of leagues long that mark out each horde.
The latter province, called at present the Boudjak, is inhabited by Tartars settled in villages, as well as those of the peninsula, but the inhabitants of the three other provinces have only tents made of felt, which they remove at pleasure… their tents ranged along them in one line, form a kind of villages
About Nogai Tatars; Budjak and Crimean Tatars
Keep in mind
The exact length he gives for these tent-villages is damaged in the OCR.
Kurgans on the steppe: battle markers or tombs
Editorial contextCrossing the steppe toward Ochakiv, Broniewski saw very high, large and numerous mounds called 'mogily'. Most people, he says, hold that they mark great and bloody battles or are the tombs of famous men, which he thinks reasonable. He does not say the Tatars built them.
Mounds or tumuli, commonly called mogily, very high, very large and very numerous, are seen, which, as most people assert, and as seems likely and consistent with reason, are the surest signs of once very great and very bloody battles, or the tombs of illustrious men.
Working translation
Original wording
Cozles seu tumuli vulgò Mogilij dicti altissimi maximi & frequentissimi maximorum ac cruentissimorum, vt plurimi asserunt, ac verisimile, rationiq; consonum videtur, quondam bellorum certissima signa; seu illustrium virorum sepulturæ cõspiciuntur.
About Unknown builders; Tatars and Cossacks roam the area
Keep in mind
Explanation from common opinion; most such kurgans are much older burial mounds.
Transcribed from the page image (corpus OCR garbled); long s normalized.
No towns outside the peninsula
Editorial contextChevalier says Lesser Tartary stretched far beyond the Crimean peninsula across the steppe as far as the Don, but that outside the peninsula there were no towns or villages at all. The Tartars simply moved their camps to wherever the grazing was good; the next page says they used huts and 'travelling sheds' only in winter.
There are no Towns nor yet Villages, but in the Chersonesus, the rest being only incultivated Plains, yet of themselves very fruitful, and the Tartars encamp up and down in them as they find more or less forrage
About Crimean Tatars and Nogais
Continue in this sourceA French officer's account of the Cossacks and the Crimean Tartars17th century · 13 passages