'Very far removed from the ferocity' of the Tartar legend
Editorial contextGerard spent days travelling with boys from Tibetan villages as guides and describes them with real affection. He directly rejects the reputation for ferocity that the word Tartar carried in Europe. When he fell ill with rheumatism at Peenoo in Spiti, the villagers brought medicine, sugar, spices and tea.
They are of a mild and benevolent disposition, very far removed from the ferocity commonly attached to the character of a Tartar. I have had many instances of their humanity. At Peenoo, in Speetee, where I was confined to my bed for two days with rheumatism, I never experienced more attention
About Tibetans of Kinnaur and Spiti
Keep in mind
Gerard himself warns that he may have taken 'too favourable a view' of them (p.109).
Gartok: a famous market town of black tents
Editorial contextGartok (Garoo), the chief wool mart of western Tibet, is not a town of houses at all but a camp of black tents occupied for six months of the year. In winter the people move downstream and the Chinese governors live in a fort. Each July a fair of 10,000 to 12,000 people gathers there. Gerard never got there; this comes from informants.
Is a collection of black tents inhabited by pastoral tribes for six months. In winter, the Tartars retire chiefly to Eegoong on the bank of the river, two stages down the stream, and the Chinese governors reside at the Fort of Tuzheegung, where they have houses. Garoo is the most famous mart for wool in Chinese Tartary
About Tibetan herders and Chinese officials
Keep in mind
From informants; Gerard was refused entry to Chinese territory.
A frontier chief who refused 150 rupees
Editorial contextAt Peenoo in Spiti, Gerard asked the headman (styled Lafa) for leave to return by the Taree pass. The man sent back his 150 rupees and said the travellers were welcome to goats, sheep and blankets, but not to that road, though he would not fight them. Gerard admired his firmness and goes on to say that the Tartars of the Chinese frontier were as strict about strangers as officials at Peking; he had been turned back at four different points the year before.
The Chinese Tartars, on this remote frontier of their vast empire, are just as vigilant respecting the non-admission of strangers as their countrymen at Pekin : no sum of money, however great, will bribe them to infringe the orders of their superiors.
About Tibetans of Spiti; officials of Chinese-ruled Tibet
Continue in this sourceGerard's account of Kinnaur and the 'Tartars' of the Tibetan frontier1800 to 1839 · 13 passagesHouses of stone below and sun-dried brick above
Editorial contextGerard describes the flat-roofed, two-storey houses of Spiti: stone on the ground floor and unburnt (sun-dried) brick on the upper floor, which he hears is the rule across Ladakh too. In a footnote elsewhere he explains that the climate is so dry that such brick houses last as well as stone. Firewood is so scarce it is brought by yak and stacked on the roofs.
The lower half of the houses here, and I have heard, throughout most part of Ludak, is built of stone, and the upper of unburnt bricks : they are two stories high, and flat roofed.
About Tibetans of Spiti and Ladakh
Continue in this sourceGerard's account of Kinnaur and the 'Tartars' of the Tibetan frontier1800 to 1839 · 13 passagesThe people of Spiti are 'completely of Tartar appearance'
Editorial contextOn his side trip to Spiti (Piti), Trebeck described the people as 'completely of Tartar appearance in form and face', then went on to their dress, drinking, and the braided hair of the women decorated with amber and coral. It shows 'Tartar' used by British travellers for any Tibetan or Central Asian looking highlander.
The people of Piti are completely of Tartar appearance in form and face; the men are less robust and better grown than those more to the north, and the women are far from good looking.
About Spiti people (Tibetan-speaking)
Keep in mind
A physical stereotype, not an ethnic identification.