Nogais, Cheremis, Mordvins and 'Chircasses': other 'Tartars'
Editorial contextFletcher files several quite different peoples under 'Tartar': the Nogais (the best warriors, but the most savage), the Cheremis (actually the Finnic-speaking Mari), the Mordvins (also Finnic) and the 'Chircasses'. He says they differ more in name than in way of life, except the Chircasses, who border south-west towards Lithuania, follow Polish fashions, are far more 'civil', and are partly subject to the king of Poland and Christian. That description fits the Dnieper Cossacks, whom Russians called Cherkasy, better than the Circassians of the Caucasus.
There are divers other Tartars that border upon Russia, as the Nagais [Nogais], the Cheremissens, the Mordwites, the Chircasses, and the Shalcans, which all differ in name more then in regiment or other condition from the Chrim Tartar, except the Chircasses
About Nogai, Cheremis (Mari), Mordvins, 'Chircasses' (probably the Dnieper Cossacks, Russian Cherkasy)
Keep in mind
A good example of 'Tartar' as a catch-all: the Mari and Mordvins are not Turkic peoples at all, and the Christian 'Chircasses' near Lithuania were probably Cossacks.
Villages 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.
The Nogais: a splinter of the Golden Horde
Editorial contextCrossing the Nogai steppe she explains the horde's name: the Nogais split from the Golden Horde under a leader called Nogai, which, she suggests, let them escape Timur's destruction of the Horde in the 1380s and 1390s. She adds that Russian rule has greatly changed them since earlier travellers' accounts.
The Nogay Tartars, who have wandered for some ages in this desert (a part of the primitive or little Scythia of the ancients), were originally a subdivision of the famous golden horde placed in the Kaptchak by the conqueror Zingis Chan, (properly Tschinghis), who, on some quarrel among themselves, separated from the main body of their nation, under a chief or general named Nogay
About Nogai Tatars
Continue in this sourceMaria Guthrie's letters from a tour of the Crimea1795 to 1796 · 15 passagesSiberia, the Nogays and a coin-minting town on the Irtysh
Editorial contextFollowing 'Lorenzo' again, the Cihannuma says the Nogay Tatars are subject to the Crimean khans, that north of them lived the Bulghars, and north of the Bulghars lies the land of Siberia, mostly forest, where some Nogay Tatars live. There is a town there called Hanam, very prosperous and famous for trade, where jewels are sold, and Tatars of Cathay and Muscovites gather to trade. It gives an Ottoman reader a Siberia of towns and markets, not an empty waste.
North of the Bulghar people lies the land of Siberia; most of it is forest, and some of the Nogay Tatars live there. They have a city called Hanam, very prosperous and famous for trade.
Working translation
Original wording
بولغار قومندن شماله سیبریا اولکهسی دوشر اکثری اورمانلقدر ونوغای تاتارلرینك بعضی انده ساکن اولورلر وهمه خانام برشهرلری وار غایت معمور وتجارتله مشهوردر
About Nogay Tatars, Siberian Tatars ('Kesellu' Tatars), Bulghars
Keep in mind
Compiled from European atlases; the town names are garbled forms of names on Western maps.
Transcribed from the page image (corpus OCR of this facsimile is garbled).
A Nogai prince in a little clay town
Editorial contextAn Italian merchant told her he had crossed the Nogai steppe and was welcomed by the Nogai chief Beyazet Beg, who lived in a small clay-built town and ate mostly milk, koumis and mutton. Trying to please a European, the prince served an 'Italian' feast so strange that the guest slipped out to be sick, and promised a French one next day.
He said, he found their chief named Beyazet Beg, i. e. Prince Bajazet, dwelling in a little town built with clay, on the lake and rivulet Bolotchik… This Tartar prince, who lives like his Scythian ancestors… principally on milk and its preparation koumis (which constitutes the food, wine, and brandy of the Tartars), with occasionally the flesh of his flocks
About Nogai Tatars
Keep in mind
Second-hand story from a merchant.
Dung fuel, millet and a whole sheep at one sitting
Editorial contextCrossing treeless plains, de Tott explains that the Nogais burn cakes of dung kneaded with sandy earth. He reports (as hearsay) that they had uprooted the old forests so no enemy could surprise them. Their everyday diet is millet and mare's milk, yet a Nogai could eat a whole sheep for a wager.
each family carefully collects the dung of the cattle, which they knead with a sort of sandy earth, and produce a turf which unfortunately smokes the Tartars more than it warms them. No people live more soberly. Millet and mares milk are their usual diet… A Noguais might lay a wager that he eat a whole sheep, and win his wager, without having an indigestion.
About Nogai Tatars
Keep in mind
The claim that the Nogais tore up the forests is something he was 'assured' of, not something he saw.
