Turkmens: 'true Tatars' by language and face
Editorial contextOn his second Persian voyage, Gmelin landed among the Turkmens of the Mangyshlak coast. He calls them 'true Tatars' by their language and their faces, and notes that as nomads they had no mosques and prayed in their felt tents, which were like Kalmyk ones but rounder on top. A few pages earlier he records their own origin story, that their Abdal tribe descends from a son born to a woman visited by 'a man from the sun'.
But with their wandering way of life they cannot have proper mosques or temples; instead they hold their services in their felt tents, so that some mullahs or priests are always travelling about among them … By their language they are true Tatars, and by their features too.
Working translation
Original wording
Nur können sie bey ihrer wandernden Lebensart keine eigentliche Medscheten oder Tempel haben, sondern sie verrichten den Gottesdienst in ihren Filz-Zelten, daher beständig einige Mulla oder Priester unter ihnen herum ziehen … Nach der Sprache sind sie wahre Tataren, nach der Gesichts-Bildung auch.
About Turkmens of Mangyshlak, east Caspian coast
Keep in mind
'Tatar' here is a language label for a Turkic people, not a claim of shared history.