Chinggis's men were Mongols, not Tatars
Editorial contextWriting about Russian fortune-telling customs, Erman says the tribes of Chinggis Khan who overran Russia were really a branch of the Mongols from the Irkutsk region, who later joined with the 'Tatar hordes'. Over time, he says, Russian historians wrongly gave the Tatars the whole glory of the conquest.
In point of fact, we know that the tribes under Chingis Khan, who overran that country, were really a branch of the Mongol nation from the government of Irkutsk, who subsequently formed a union with the Tatar hordes; and to the latter the Russian historians, in process of time, incorrectly attributed the whole glory of the conquest.
About Mongols and Tatars
Keep in mind
Erman's placing of the Mongol homeland 'from the government of Irkutsk' is his own view; the Mongol heartland lay farther south, in today's Mongolia.
White plastered chimneys and a raised sleeping floor
Editorial contextNear Tara Cochrane passed neat Tatar villages whose white plastered chimneys and ovens reminded him of home. Inside, half the room was raised about fourteen inches and used for sitting, sleeping and storage; there were no chairs, only clean bedding and many pillows, which were always offered to a guest. A few pages earlier he stayed in a Tatar district of seventy miles without a single Russian, praising the clean houses and well-kept land.
At Kamenski I quitted the great Siberian road not far from Tara, passing several neat Tartar villages, whose white plastered chimneys and ovens reminded me a little of those in my own country. The furniture consists of a few earthenware utensils, and a set of tea things: one half of the room is elevated above the other about fourteen inches
About Siberian Tatars
Keep in mind
On the same page Cochrane calls the Tatars near the Vagai river 'of the Bashkire race'; they were Siberian Tatars.
A Kazakh tent of folding trellis
Editorial contextOn the steppe four miles from Omsk, Holman and an interpreter visited a family of Kazakhs in their tent. He learned that the frame was made of neat trellis-work that folded up small for moving, covered with thick matting, with woollen beds round half the wall separated by fine cane screens. A pit dug near the centre kept the lambs warm, while sheep and horses had tents of their own. The family let him examine whatever he liked.
The frame of the tent was made of neat trellis-work, so constructed as to admit of being folded up into a small compass, for the convenience of conveyance, whenever they think proper to change their habitations; this was surrounded by thick matting; around one half of the inner circumference of the tent were placed beds of a coarse woollen stuff
About Kazakhs ('Kirguise Tartars')
Keep in mind
Holman was blind; his description comes from touch and from what his interpreter told him.
Tatar women spinning thread from nettles
Editorial contextOn the road to Tobolsk in 1786, Sauer noted Tatar farmers who also made and sold neat worsted carpets. Coming back in 1794, he saw Tatar women near Tara spinning thread from nettle fibres, making linen as good as flax. The Siberian settlers also told him that trade with the Mongols was not as open as before.
The Tartar women about Tara were preparing nettles, and spinning thread from the fibres; the linen made of which was fine and good, apparently equal to that made of flax. I have already mentioned the neat carpets then made by these industrious people.
About Siberian Tatars
Continue in this sourceMartin Sauer's account of the Billings expedition1785 to 1794 · 12 passages