A whole horde on the move
Editorial contextThe missionaries travelled with Erdeni's horde as it moved camp. The column was more than a verst wide: strings of camels carrying the tents, goods and children in baskets, then the herds. No one walked; even mothers with babies rode. Zwick describes the migration as a festive show at which families displayed their best clothes and carpets.
The main body of this moving multitude extended more than a verst in breadth, and consisted of single columns of camels, bearing tents, household goods, and children, who were stowed in baskets; next followed troops of horses, cattle and sheep … Nobody performs a migration on foot … we even saw mothers on horseback with infants, who were hardly out of the cradle
About Kalmyks (Torgut horde of Prince Erdeni)
Continue in this sourceTwo Moravian missionaries among the Kalmyk hordes of the lower Volga1823 · 19 passagesFelt tents that beat army canvas
Editorial contextBergmann explains the Kalmyk hut: a lattice wall, a wooden roof ring, poles between them, and felt covers tied on with strong bands of camel wool; when a fire is lit, the felt is simply pulled back from the roof ring to let the smoke out. He insists these huts keep out rain and storm, stay warmer in winter and cooler in summer than soldiers' canvas tents, and are ideal for nomads who rarely stay more than a week in one place, since they come apart easily and travel on camels.
Outside, such huts are covered with felt, and the felts are fastened with strong bands of camel wool. … They withstand rain and gale, are far warmer in winter and protect far better against the heat in summer than ordinary soldiers' tents of sailcloth. … which can be taken apart with little trouble and carried on by camel.
Working translation
Original wording
Auswendig sind dergleichen Hütten mit Filzdecken umzogen, und diese mit starken Bändern von Kameelwolle befestigt. … Sie widerstehen dem Regen und Sturmwinde, halten im Winter weit wärmer, und schützen im Sommer weit mehr gegen die Hitze, als die gewöhnlichen Soldatenzelte von Seegeltuch. … die sich mit leichter Mühe aus einander nehmen, und auf Kameelen weiter fortschaffen lassen.
About Volga Kalmyks (Torghut and Dörbet Mongols)
Continue in this sourceBergmann's wanderings among the Kalmyks1802 to 1803 · 11 passages'We get drunk every day': a mare's-milk spirit party
Editorial contextAt a drinking bout with Kalmyk clergy, Bergmann watched a boy of ten or twelve drain five bowls and a sixty-year-old gelung twelve. He noticed for the first time that fermented mare's milk (tschigan, which the Tatars call kumiss) was intoxicating even before distilling: the drinkers began to speak Tatar and Russian and even scraps of German. When he asked whether such parties were frequent, the old monk answered flatly that they got drunk every day, and the others said it was a kind of medicine. Bergmann doubted it and blamed the drink for the eye troubles common among Kalmyks.
The Kalmyk drinkers were all so full of the fumes of this drink that they began to speak Tatar and Russian, and some even to throw about scraps of German. … I asked whether such tschigan parties were often held here. The old man answered me quite categorically: 'We get drunk every day.'
Working translation
Original wording
Die kalmükischen Trinker waren alle so voll von den Dünsten dieses Getränks, daß sie Tatarisch und Russisch zu sprechen, und einige sogar deutsche Brocken um sich zu werfen anfingen. … Ich fragte, ob man hier öfters dergleichen Tschigangelage anzustellen pflegte. Der Alte antwortete mir ganz kathegorisch: „Wir besaufen uns alle Tage.”
About Kalmyk monks (gelungs) and herders
Continue in this sourceBergmann's wanderings among the Kalmyks1802 to 1803 · 11 passagesThe Kalmyk kibitka: a felt house two camels can carry
Editorial contextA precise description of the felt tent (kibitka) from people who stayed in them: a cylinder as high as a man's shoulder, a conical roof open at the top for smoke, a wooden ring held up by many spars. The whole thing comes apart and can be carried by two camels. On the next page they add that the felts kept out the fiercest storms, as they learned from experience.
Their dwellings are felt tents, called kibitkas by the Russians. They are four or five yards in diameter, cylindrical to the height of a man's shoulder, with a conical top, open at the apex to let the smoke escape. The frame is light, and can be taken asunder for the convenience of carriage.
About Kalmyks (Oirat Mongols)
Continue in this sourceThe Hommaire de Hells in the Caspian steppes and the Crimea1838 to 1841 · 17 passages'Kalmyk': a Tatar word for those who stayed behind, or turned away
Editorial contextBergmann spells the name 'Kalmük' after the pronunciation of the Russians and Tatars, because the name itself comes from Tatar. The Kalmyks once called themselves Oelöt (Oirats). He rejects Strahlenberg's idea that the name comes from kalpak, a cap, and follows the Khivan historian Abulghazi: the Tatar word means either 'those left behind' or 'apostates'. On the next page he guesses that Tatars and Mongols once shared one religion, and that when the Mongols turned to Lamaist Buddhism the Muslim Tatars called them apostates.
Far more likely is the derivation from the word khalimak. Abulghazi himself seems to confirm this by giving this people the name Khalmak. According to this Tatar expression, the name Kalmyk means either apostates or those who remained behind.
Working translation
Original wording
Weit wahrscheinlicher ist die Herleitung von … Worte Chalimäk. Abulhasi selbst scheint das dadurch zu bestätigen, daß er diesem Volke den Namen Khalmak beilegt. Dem eben angeführten tatarischen Ausdrucke nach, bezeichnet der Name Kalmük entweder Abtrünnige oder Nachgebliebene.
About Kalmyks (Oirats), named by their Tatar neighbours
Keep in mind
An etymology argued from earlier writers; the religious explanation on the next page is Bergmann's own hypothesis.
A prince's camp laid out like a town
Editorial contextThe horde's headquarters had a fixed plan. The prince's tent, a tent serving as the hall of justice and the princess's tent stood on one side of the wells, the temple tents and the Lama's huts on the other, with the lesser priests in a semicircle around them and the prince's officials and servants ringed outside. Zwick adds that every door faced the main temple. Erdeni's camp held about 100 tents.
To the north of these were the royal tents, viz. that of Erdeni himself, the hall of justice, and the tent of Princess Mingmer ; to the south, the Churulls (or temples) and the huts of the High Priest, or Lama. Round these, in a wide semicircle, were the tents of the inferior priests (or Gellongs,) and these again were enclosed by the ministers and servants of the Prince.
About Kalmyks (Torgut horde of Prince Erdeni)
Continue in this sourceTwo Moravian missionaries among the Kalmyk hordes of the lower Volga1823 · 19 passagesKalmyks who live in houses on carts
Editorial contextEvliya says the Kalmyks have no fleas, lice, bedbugs, snakes, scorpions or tarantulas among them, because their round houses stand on carts and they live on the open steppe. He then begins his description of their appearance: small eyes, said to come from the salt mines of the region.
Among them there are no fleas, lice, bedbugs, snakes, tarantulas or scorpions at all, because their round houses are on carts and they are desert-dwellers.
Working translation
Original wording
وبونلرده اصلا پیره وکهله وتخته بتی ویلان وچیان وعقرب اولمز زیرا درم اولری عربهلر اوزره اولوب صحرا نشینلردر
About Kalmyks (Oirat Mongols)
Keep in mind
The link between cart-houses and the absence of vermin is Evliya's own explanation. 'Kalmyk' here means Oirat Mongols recently arrived on the Volga, whom he treats as a kind of Tatar.
Transcribed from the page image (corpus OCR is partly garbled); bracketed variant markers omitted.
The horde: a town of 500 felt huts with a bazaar
Editorial contextA Kalmyk horde, Bergmann explains, was laid out like a moving town: the huts stood well apart to leave grazing, with three main quarters, the prince's, the priests' and the market, called bazar in Kalmyk as in Tatar and Russian, and the ordinary huts around them. His horde, of about 500 felt huts, was the chief one on the Volga because the head of all the Dalai Lama's followers in Russia lived there. He adds that since the vice-khan Ubashi led more than 70,000 Kalmyk households out of Russia in 1771, no new khan had been named until recently.
[the market,] which in Kalmyk, as in Tatar and Russian, is called bazar. … The horde in which I am is the foremost of all the Kalmyk hordes on the Volga, not so much because of the number of felt huts, which is about 500, as because the head of all the Kalmyk followers of the Dalai Lama living in Russia has set up his seat in it.
Working translation
Original wording
im Kalmükischen, so wie im Tatarischen und Russischen, den Namen Basar führt. … Die Horde, zu welcher ich mich … ist die vorzüglichste von allen kalmükischen Horden an der Wolga; nicht sowohl wegen der Anzahl der Filzhütten, die aus ungefähr 500 besteht, als weil das Oberhaupt aller in Rußland lebenden kalmükischen Anhänger des Dalai Lama, seinen Sitz darin aufgeschlagen hat.
About Volga Kalmyks
Continue in this sourceBergmann's wanderings among the Kalmyks1802 to 1803 · 11 passagesA chapel mortared with a prince's ashes
Editorial contextThe Kalmyks did build in stone and wood, for their dead nobles. Zwick visited a small memorial chapel (zaza) for the late Torgut prince Sandschi-Ubaschi: a wooden room about four paces square on a stone base, reached by steps, with a flat roof and a small tower. He was told that the prince's ashes had been mixed into its mortar and whitewash.
This chapel was erected to the memory of the late Torgud Prince Sandschi-Ubaschi, father of the Prince Zerren Ubaschi, and his ashes, as the Calmucs informed me, are mixed with the mortar which cements and whitens the building. The foundation of this edifice is of stone, upon which is erected a wooden chapel, with steps up to it.
About Kalmyks (Torguts)
Keep in mind
The ashes in the mortar is what the Kalmyks told him.
A tomb of cut shell-stone with 'Tatar' letters
Editorial contextCamped near the source of the Manych, Bergmann rode with a Kalmyk guide to some old graves on a ridge. The largest was a rectangle four paces by three, built of smooth blocks more than an arshin long, cut from larger masses, and the next page mentions 'Tatar script characters' on it. The stone was made of packed fossil sea snails, so crumbly it could be rubbed to powder; another grave bore a carved bull's head, and animal bones, some burnt, lay around. On the way back he looked again at rock masses that 'looked like natural walls', which his companion said ran for several versts; they were made of the same fossil shells, and Bergmann supposed the gravestones had been cut from them.
Graves with carved signs suggest that foreign peoples once lived [here]. … Its stones were more than an arshin long, cut smooth from larger masses and laid on top of one another in a rectangle. The rectangle was four paces long and three wide.
Working translation
Original wording
Gräber mit eingehauenen Zeichen, lassen uns den ehemaligen … fremder Völker vermuthen. … Steine davon waren mehr als Arschin lang, … glatt aus größeren Massen gehauen und im … Viereck über einander gelegt. Das Viereck war vier Schritt lang und drey breit.
About 'Foreign peoples' who once lived in the steppe (unnamed)
Keep in mind
The page break cuts the sentence about the inscription, so it is unclear exactly what he saw; he does not claim to have read it.
The Kalmyk story of Shakyamuni
Editorial contextIn a footnote Strahlenberg records the Kalmyk account of 'Xacamuni', that is the Buddha Shakyamuni: once a prince in India, taken up to heaven alive for his holiness, whose celibate sons explain why lamas may not marry, and one of whom brought the religion to Tibet. It is a garbled but recognisable outline of Buddhist teaching as told to a Swedish captive.
They say that 4000 Years ago, he was only a Soveraign Prince, in India; But on Account of his unparallel'd Sanctity, God had taken him up to Heaven alive; But the Place whither he was translated, none of them pretend to know.
About Kalmyks (Buddhists)
Continue in this sourceStrahlenberg's description of Russia, Siberia and 'Great Tartary'1709 to 1729 · 18 passages'Kalmyk' means the ones who stayed behind
Editorial contextStrahlenberg rejects the view, in the French edition of Abulghazi, that 'Kalmyk' was an insult aimed at their religion. He says the name was given to them in the Tatar language and means a people that remained behind, from 'kal' (I stay) and 'umak' (tribe). A similar 'those who remained' explanation is still often repeated today.
received the name Kallmack, which is not a term of abuse on account of their religion, as the author remarks … but it means and signifies a people or tribe that stays behind or remains there, for Kall or Call means 'I stay there or behind', and Amack or Umack a tribe; hence by syncope Kallmack or Kallmuck.
Working translation
Original wording
den Nahmen von Kallmack erhalten, welches kein Scheltwort ihrer Religion halber ist, wie der Autor … remarquiret … sondern es bedeutet und heisset ein Volck oder Geschlecht, so nach- oder dableibet, denn Kall oder Call, heisset ich bleibe da oder nach, und Amack oder Umack ein Geschlecht, daher per syncop: Kallmack oder Kallmuck.
About Kalmyks (western Mongols, Oirats)
Keep in mind
The OCR of this copy is badly garbled Fraktur; the quote has been restored letter by letter from the damaged text, so check the scan.
The scan is too rough to double-check this quote by machine. Compare it with the page.
The captain bound in raw cowhide
Editorial contextDuring the 1771 flight the Kalmyks captured a detachment under Captain Dudin, and, Bergmann says, Ubashi had the officer's head and hands bound in strips of fresh cowhide, which tightened as they dried. Bergmann heard this from one of Dudin's own Cossacks, a Persian by birth, who later escaped from Kalmyk and then Kazakh captivity and saw his officer two months after his capture, still bound and awaiting death. What became of Dudin was never known.
One of his Cossacks, a Persian by birth, from whose own mouth I learned of this act of cruelty, saw his captain again two months after his capture, with the strips of cowhide round his head and hands, in the most terrible state, expecting death at every moment, though death seemed to flee him.
Working translation
Original wording
Einer seiner Kosaken, ein gebohrner Perser, … aus dessen eigenem Munde ich diesen Zug von Grausamkeit erfahren habe: sah seinen Rittmeister zwey Monate nach der Gefangenschaft wieder, mit den Streifen von Kuhhaut um Kopf und Hände, in dem schrecklichsten Zustande, alle Augenblicke seinen Tod erwartend, der ihn zu fliehen schien.
About Torghut Kalmyks and a captured Russian officer
Keep in mind
A single informant's account of wartime cruelty, told decades later.
A Kalmyk khan said to eat only from gold
Editorial contextAvril reports that the chief khan of the Kalmyks claimed descent from Tamerlane, forced Russians and Uzbeks to pay him tribute, dressed always in white and ate only from gold plate. On the next page he checks the rumour: a French officer in Moscow who had been in this khan's tent near Astrakhan, with 100,000 Tartars, confirmed his splendour but never saw gold or silver plate.
He is very Potent, and therefore forces the Muscovites and the Yousbecks to pay him a certain Tribute, or else he would be continually Harrassing their Countries. 'Tis also reported that he is very Magnificent, that he goes always clad in White, and never eats but serv'd in Gold Plate.
About Kalmyks (Oirat Mongols)
Keep in mind
Rumour, partly contradicted by the eyewitness Avril cites.
Jumping through fire after childbirth
Editorial contextA Mongol or Kalmyk mother, Strahlenberg says, is purified after childbirth by jumping three times through a fire before the lama and her relatives. He adds that they wear or keep a small three-headed idol, made of clay or metal, brought from Tibet and the Dalai Lama. He collects these customs to show a sacred number three.
It is a Custom, to this Day, with the Mungals and Kalmucks, that when a Woman bears a Child, and is afterwards re-admitted into the Community of the People, she must, in the Presence of their Lama, or Priest, and her nearest Relations, jump Three Times thro' a Fire; Which they call the Purification.
About Mongols and Kalmyks
Keep in mind
He does not say he saw this himself.
Kalmyks and the hadith of the Turks
Editorial contextEvliya lists the many spellings of the Kalmyk name and says all historians call them the 'yellow folk' (Bani Asfar). He applies to them a hadith about God's soldiers in the east 'whose name is Turk'. He adds that twenty years earlier the Kalmyks were not on this steppe and 140 Nogay tribes grazed it, sending butter to Taman to be sold cheaply in Istanbul; when the Kalmyks arrived the Nogays were routed and butter became dear.
Kalmuk, Kalmak, Kalmaq, Kalmakh and Kalmagh: all the historians call them the people of Bani Asfar [the 'yellow folk'] … Indeed, twenty years ago this Kalmyk people were not present on this vast steppe, and all the hundred and forty tribes of the Nogay people camped and migrated on the open steppe.
Working translation
Original wording
قالمق وقالماق وقلماق وقلماخ وقلماغ جمیع مورخان بونلره بنی عصفر قومی درلر ... حتی بوقالمق قومی یکرمی سنه مقدم بوهیهات صحراسنده وجودلری اولمیوب جمله نوغای قومنك یوز قرق عدد قبیلهلری صحرای هیهاتده قنوب کوچوب
About Kalmyks (Oirat Mongols)
Keep in mind
The print reads 'Bani Asfar' with a misprint noted by the editor. The dating of the Kalmyk arrival is roughly right (1630s); the religious framing is Evliya's.
Transcribed from the page image (corpus OCR is partly garbled); bracketed variant markers omitted.
Sour milk for the poor, meat for princes, brick tea for all
Editorial contextIn summer the Kalmyks lived almost entirely on sour milk: mare's milk (tschigan) for the rich, cow's milk for the poor. Only the prince and great men ate meat, because the herds were their whole wealth. Their tea came from China by way of Siberia as hard cakes of coarse leaves and stalks, boiled with butter or sheep's-tail fat and salt.
None but the Prince, and the great men, had flesh in their kettles, for the whole wealth of the nation consists in their flocks and herds, and they are forced to use them sparingly. In winter, when they are short of milk, they buy meal from the Russians who inhabit the shores of the Volga
About Kalmyks
Keep in mind
The OCR on this page is badly garbled; check the scan.
Grave mounds and brick foundations on the steppe
Editorial contextCrossing the steppe, Zwick stopped at kurgans, the grave mounds Russians call by that name. He thinks they come from many ages and peoples, but credits most of them to the Tartars of the medieval Volga empire whose ruined cities he names, and on the next page notes two mounds holding the remains of a square brick building.
Such tumuli are every where to be found on the steppes, and most plentifully on the willowy shores of the Volga … They probably belong to different ages, and different races of men, but the majority are undoubtedly to be ascribed to the Tartars … I saw a great number of these hillocks, near the ruins of their principal cities Serag and Tschigis.
About Golden Horde Tatars (as Zwick supposes), and older peoples
Keep in mind
The dating and attribution of the mounds are Zwick's guesses; the omitted words name the empire in a garbled form ('Eamschatkan' in the OCR, apparently for Kipchak).
Milk that makes you drunk: a German chemist scoffs
Editorial contextLepekhin describes how the baptized Kalmyks distil fermented mare's milk into a spirit, with two kettles joined by a tube sealed with clay, and says he saw it more than once, as Professor Gmelin had reported. Foreign chemists called this a fable. His German translator adds a footnote quoting the chemist Caspar Neumann, who had never seen a Kalmyk or Tatar: Neumann found it hard to believe that the 'Tartars' could achieve such a thing and thought the recipe (with millet and barley added) looked 'truly Tartarish'. The translator uses the quotation to show how prejudice misled even a careful scientist.
that such a rare thing should be brought about by the Tartars, who, as far as I know, have shown the world few or no physical or chemical discoveries and are hardly likely to; … whereupon I cannot deny that at first sight the ingredients struck me as truly Tartarish
Working translation
Original wording
daß dergleichen seltene Begebenheit von den Tartarn zuwege gebracht würde, als welche, meines Wissens, wohl wenig oder keine physikalisch-chymische Erfindungen der Welt dargethan, auch wohl nicht leicht darthun werden; … da ich denn nicht läugnen kann, daß mir im ersten Anblick die Ingredientien wahrhaftig recht tartarisch vorkamen
About Baptized Kalmyks, and 'Tartars' in general as imagined by a German chemist
Keep in mind
The sneer is Neumann's, quoted in order to refute it; Lepekhin himself vouches for the milk spirit from what he saw.
The white elephant with thirty-three heads
Editorial contextSummarising Kalmyk Buddhist books, the authors describe the world-mountain and its guardian elephant, two leagues long and white as snow, with thirty-three red heads, six trunks each spouting fountains, and a young virgin on every star above them. They note, in a footnote, similar marvels in medieval European cosmography. This is religious myth they report, not something anyone claimed to see.
where dwells an elephant two leagues long, white as snow, and named Gasar Sakitschin Koven (protector of the earth). This fabulous animal has thirty-three red heads, each furnished with six trunks, whence spout forth as many fountains, all surmounted with six stars.
About Kalmyks (Buddhist cosmology)
Keep in mind
A second-hand summary of Kalmyk religious books; the authors do not name the text they used.
A tent bazaar between two princes
Editorial contextArriving at the 'place of heroes' whips', where two Torgut princes were camped, the missionaries found a market that had grown up in the gap between the two princely tents. Russian, Armenian and Tatar merchants lived there in their own tents and carts, forming the travelling bazaar of the horde.
Their tents were about a quarter of a mile asunder, and between them was a multitude of tents and cars belonging to the Russian, Armenian, and Tartar merchants, forming the market, or rather bazaar, of the horde.
About Kalmyks; Russian, Armenian and Tatar traders
Continue in this sourceTwo Moravian missionaries among the Kalmyk hordes of the lower Volga1823 · 19 passagesWas the yurt copied from a bird's nest?
Editorial contextBergmann offers his own 'hypothesis' about how the Mongol peoples invented the felt tent. Living in treeless country, they could neither dig caves nor build huts of branches, so perhaps one of them copied the hanging, bag-shaped nest that the penduline tit weaves from plant wool. Because a house cannot hang from a branch, the Mongols set it on the ground and put the door at the bottom. He presents this frankly as a guess.
This remarkable bird makes from a kind of wool an oblong bag, which it fastens to twigs so skilfully that neither wind nor weather can damage its hanging home. This method, I fancy, the forefathers of the Kalmyks used, to make huts for themselves after the example of the remez [penduline tit], which they afterwards tried to perfect more and more and to support ever better with woodwork.
Working translation
Original wording
Dieser merkwürdige Vogel bereitet aus einer Art von Wolle, einen länglichen Sack, den er so geschickt an Zweige befestigt, daß weder Wind noch Wetter im Stande sind, seine schwebende Wohnung zu beschädigen. Diese Methode, dünkt mich, benutzten die Voreltern der Kalmüken, um sich nach dem Beispiele des Remes Hütten einzurichten, die sie in der Folge immer mehr zu vervollkommnen und mit Holzwerk immer besser zu stützen suchten.
About Ancestors of the Kalmyks and Mongols (Bergmann's theory)
Keep in mind
Bergmann's own speculation, not a Kalmyk tradition.
Stone men by the salt spring
Editorial contextBy a stream in the Manych steppe, opposite the salt that the people of Azov gathered, the book marks 'stone men, idols'. These are the carved stone statues ('kamennye baby') that stood on steppe kurgans, set up by earlier nomads such as the Polovtsy. The clerks give no builder, only the landmark.
And along the right side of that stream are stone people, idols, opposite the salt that the Azov people take.
Working translation
Original wording
А по правой сторонѣ по тому истоку люди каменные болваны, противъ той соли, что емлютъ Азовцы.
About Unnamed makers of steppe stone statues
Keep in mind
The identification with kurgan stelae is the usual scholarly reading; the book does not describe them.
Proud heirs of Chinggis Khan
Editorial contextBergmann reports that the Kalmyks counted themselves one people with the Mongols, remembered with pleasure the deeds of their forefathers under Chinggis and his successors, and that most of their princes traced their blood to him. No Kalmyk doubted that the heirs of that heroic stock could match those deeds again if there were more of them. He then records a Kalmyk asking him whether the Prussians had not been defeated by the Kalmyks, since some 4,000 had served in the Russian army against Prussia.
The Kalmyks count themselves as one [Mongol] people. They think with pleasure of the deeds of their ancestors under Chinggis and his successors. Most of the present Kalmyk princes honour in themselves the blood of that great hero from whom they derive their descent. No Kalmyk doubts that the descendants of the Mongol heroic line could equal the deeds of old, if greater numbers backed up their courage.
Working translation
Original wording
Die Kalmüken rechnen sich zu einem … Volke. Sie denken mit Wohlgefallen an die Thaten ihrer Vorältern unter Tschingis und dessen Nachfolgern. Der größte Theil der jetzigen Kalmükenfürsten ehrt in sich selbst das Blut jenes großen Helden, von welchem sie ihre Abkunft herleiten. Kein Kalmük zweifelt daran daß die Nachkommen des mongolischen Heldenstamms, die ehemaligen Thaten erreichen könnten, wenn eine größere Anzahl ihren Muth unterstützte.
About Volga Kalmyks and their princes
Keep in mind
One word is lost in the scan after 'zu einem'.
The Kalmyk 'Kaaba' and Alexander's wall
Editorial contextEvliya records what Kalmyks told him about a domed shrine they call their Kaaba, far to the east beyond a sea of ice. He adds his own learned gloss: Alexander built the Wall of Gog and Magog from every kind of metal, the mountains the Kalmyks call the Yildirak Dag, then built this dome with ancient sages and hid his treasures in it. On a following page Kalmyk elders say their ancestors died from a deafening noise behind the metal mountains.
[Alexander] built the Barrier of Alexander, the mountains, out of every kind of metal; it is the Barrier of Gog, which the Kalmyk people call the 'Yildirak Dag' [the glittering mountain]; afterwards Alexander built the dome which they call their Kaaba.
Working translation
Original wording
سد اسکندر داغلرن جمیع معادنلردن بنا ایدوب قوم قالمغك ( یلدراق داغ ) دیدکلری سد یأجوجدر بعده اسکندر بونلرك کعبه دیدکلری قبهیی بنا ایدوب
About Kalmyks (Oirat Mongols)
Keep in mind
Evliya's modern editor adds a long note calling the story an invention; it mixes Kalmyk (Buddhist) pilgrimage tales with Islamic Alexander legend.
Transcribed from the page image (corpus OCR is partly garbled); bracketed variant markers omitted.
Fines counted in nines of cattle
Editorial contextBergmann translates the old Kalmyk law code, the 'Ssadschin Bitschik' (the Mongol-Oirat code). Penalties are counted in head of livestock, usually in multiples of nine: whoever forgets himself towards father, mother or teacher pays three nines, two nines or one nine; a daughter-in-law who wrongs her parents-in-law pays three nines and, if she struck them, is flogged. Thieves lose cattle and are flogged and branded, and anyone who turns to sorcerers must give his best horse to the informer.
According to the Tsaadzhin Bichig, whoever forgets himself towards father, mother or teacher pays, according to the nature of the offence, 3 times 9, 2 times 9, or just 9 head of cattle. … Thieves shall be punished by loss of cattle, by lashes and by branding. Whoever takes refuge with sorcerers or sorceresses shall give his best horse to the informer.
Working translation
Original wording
Nach dem Ssadschist Bitschick zahlt derjenige, welcher sich gegen Vater, Mutter, Lehrer vergißt, nach Beschaffenheit des Vergehens, 3 mal 9, 2 mal 9, oder bloß 9 Stück Vieh. … Diebe sollen durch Verlust an Vieh, durch Geißelhiebe und Brandmal bestraft werden. Wer zu Zauberern und Zauberinnen seine Zuflucht nimmt, soll sein bestes Pferd dem Angeber hingeben.
About Kalmyks (Oirat law)
Keep in mind
Bergmann's summary of the Oirat code of 1640, not a full translation. He notes it had lost much of its force and that the Russian Kalmyks, too poor to pay the fines in cattle, used it more as a yardstick than a rule.
