Editorial contextFraser says Turkmen camps of 30 to 200 families followed an elder but had no rulers or nobles, and anyone who tried to seize power would be destroyed. Only a rare figure like Genghis Khan or Timur, he adds, could force such people into a single powerful union.
But they have no governors, chiefs, or nobles among them : and if any one should attempt to arrogate superior consideration to himself, or openly aim at power or authority, it would be the signal for his destruction. … Such an event can only occur, when some individual supereminently endowed with talents and courage, like a Chengiz, or a Timour, arises to force into union substances naturally repellent
Editorial contextAfter dinner in a Goklen chief's tent, two musicians played until past midnight. Fraser found the singing far sweeter than Persian music: the singer's voice imitated the vibrating string of the tar, and the audience rocked and shouted with delight.
the measure was always closed by a single line or chorus that died away in a very sweet and singular cadence, infinitely more agreeable than any music I ever heard in Persia, for the singer did not strain his voice in the way usual in that country, but taught it most curiously to follow the inflections of the tarr, imitating the sound and undulations of the wire
Editorial contextRiding along a long raised bank near Gorgan, Fraser heard that the rich plain had once been shielded from the Tartar tribes by a mighty wall from the mountains to the sea. He dismissed it as a legend about 'fabulous kings'.
It is said that this rich tract was once separated from the desert beyond it, and protected from the incursions of the Tartar tribes by a wall of great strength, which ran from the mountains to the sea. I believe, however, this great work is attributed to some of the fabulous kings, and is probably fabulous itself.
Fraser's doubt was misplaced: archaeologists have since traced a real brick barrier across this plain, the Great Wall of Gorgan, usually dated to the Sasanian period (5th to 6th century), long before any 'Tartars'.
Editorial contextFraser says no one had yet described exactly how the 'portable wooden houses' of the Turkmens are made, and does so: a folding lattice of thin laths pinned with rawhide that opens out like a child's toy, curved roof poles, black felt (numud) coverings, a reed screen outside and a broad woven band holding it all together.
The frame is curiously constructed of light wood, disposed in laths of about an inch broad, by three quarters thick, crossing one another diagonally … and pinned at each crossing with thongs of raw hide, so as to be moveable ; … over which is thrown a covering of black numud, leaving in the center a large hole to give vent to the smoke, and light to the dwelling
Editorial contextTurkmen women did not hide from strangers or wear full veils, only a cloth over the lower face. Fraser describes their tall shako-like caps covered in gold coins, silver bells and set stones, which he thought looked more like horse trappings than jewellery.
The Toorkoman women are not shut up, or concealed like those of most Mahometan countries, nor do they even wear veils … most of them wear a lofty cap, with a broad crown resembling that sort of soldier’s cap called a shako … The front of this is covered with ornaments of silver or gold, in various shapes ; most frequently gold coins, mohrs or tomauns, strung in rows
Editorial contextRiding through Goklen Turkmen pastures, Fraser reached the Gonbad-e Kavus, a hollow brick tower on a mound that he guessed at 150 feet high. He admired its fired bricks and lime mortar, and judged it to be of early Islamic ('Arabic') origin, though he could not read its inscription. The nomads grazing around it were not credited with building it.
It has been built of the finest fire-baked bricks, large, square, and about two inches and a half thick, with which also, placed flat, the roof has been covered ; and so well have they stood, that not above one or two of the whole have been yet displaced. The whole is cemented with lime, and of the most excellent masonry
Editorial contextTurkmen hospitality, Fraser was told, was so insistent that people ran out of the first tent a stranger reached, grabbed his horse and made him their guest; going on to another tent was an insult. In a footnote he warns that his informant made the tribes sound more trustworthy than they were.
When any stranger (who is not an acknowledged enemy) enters a camp, he is saluted at the first tent he approaches by its inhabitants, who run out, seize his reins, and insist on his alighting, and becoming their guest; even should the tent contain but a single
Editorial contextFraser records that when a Turkmen died, the body was washed on the spot and a small mound with a tree or pole was raised there, while the body itself was buried further out on the plain. He saw the plain dotted with these markers.
When one of these Toorkomans dies, they wash the body on the spot where he breathed his last, or as near it as possible; and on that spot they raise a little mound, by digging a circular trench, two or three feet wide, throwing the earth up in the centre; and in this mound they plant a tree, or pole, to mark the place.
Editorial contextFraser sorts the Turkmen tribes by how 'Tartar' they looked: the Teke most, the Goklen less, the Yomut least, with big differences even within one family. It shows 'Tartar' being used as a physical type rather than a nation.
The Tuckehs have a great deal of the Tartar physiognomy; many of the men were tall, stout and well made, with scanty beards, eyes small, and drawn up at the corners ; high cheek bones, and small flat noses: some on the contrary had handsome features, more resembling those of Europeans than Asiatics.