Gher, ourto and ordo: words for Mongol dwellings
Editorial contextIn a footnote Timkovsky explains the vocabulary: the felt tent the Russians call a jourta or kibitka is a gher in Mongol; a cluster of tents forming a village or station is an ourto; oulous means empire or people; and ordo (the root of 'horde') means a chateau or imperial palace. It is a neat reminder that the famous Tartar 'horde' was originally the ruler's camp-palace.
Such a tent (made of felt,) … is in Mongol called gher; several tents together, forming a kind of village or station, are called ourto. Oulous, or olos, signifies in Mongol, empire, people; ordo, a chateau, or imperial palace.
About Mongols
A Buddhist monument of stone, clay and grey brick
Editorial contextOn a walk near Urga the Russians climbed to a soubourgan (suburgan, a Buddhist stupa) built by a Mongol prince. Timkovsky notes how it was made: a square base of unhewn stone bound with clay and straw, grey brick walls, and a core of sand and stones. It shows Mongol nobles commissioning permanent religious buildings even while living in tents.
we ascended an eminence, on which stands a soubourgan, or sacred pyramid, of the disciples of Boudha, erected by a Mongol prince. The pedestal, which is of a square form, is made of unhewn stone, cemented with a composition made of clay and straw: the walls are made of gray bricks, and the interior filled with sand and stones.
About Khalkha Mongols
Ashes kept in monuments of wood or stone
Editorial contextExplaining Mongol funerals, Timkovsky says the lama decides how each body is disposed of, and that the devout or wealthy raise monuments of wood or stone to hold the ashes. He backs this up by quoting the thirteenth-century friar Rubruck (Ruysbroek) on Tartars keeping ashes in 'high pyramids', a sign that he read his Mongols through older European books.
Those who wish to show their devotion or their riches, cause monuments of wood or stone to be erected, in which they deposit the ashes of the deceased. This custom has been observed in Mongolia from the remotest times. Ruysbroek, says expressly: "The Tartars (Mongols), like the nations of antiquity, burn their dead, and preserve their ashes in high pyramids."
About Mongols
Keep in mind
The Rubruck line is quoted secondhand from a French anthology, not checked against Rubruck's text.
A child's body left in a leather sack
Editorial contextOn the road the mission was startled to find a dead child sewn in a leather sack, with a scrap of sheepskin, millet and bread laid on top. Timkovsky says this was the usual Mongol way of disposing of the dead, and goes on to explain that lamas chose between burning, water burial, exposure on a platform or leaving the body on the steppe for animals and birds.
We were greatly surprised at seeing on the road, six wersts from Elesoutou, the dead body of a child in a leather sack. Upon the sack was a little piece of sheep-skin, some millet, and some bread. This is the usual manner of burying the dead among the Mongols.
About Mongols
Shamans and the household god Ongon
Editorial contextPassing the Ongon mountains, named for the 'king of the Shamans', Timkovsky notes that shamanism survived among the Mongols despite the Buddhist lamas. He gives the Mongol words for male and female shamans and describes Ongon, a household guardian made of scraps of red cloth that women kept in the tent and appeased with offerings when things went wrong.
Among these people a man is called beg, and a woman ouddogoun, in the Mongol language. They are distinguished by an ardent imagination in the evocation of spirits, which throws them into wild transports. Ongon is their household divinity, which watches over their families and flocks. These remnants of the Shamanic faith have still many zealous partisans among the Mongols
About Tsakhar Mongols
Milk, dried cheese and milk brandy
Editorial contextA tall lama told the travellers about a cattle plague that had left the steppe people short of food. Timkovsky records their diet: meat when herds were large, otherwise milk, dried cheese (kourout) and millet, with a milk brandy drunk in summer. On the facing page he adds that they made coarse felt from sheep's wool, twisted horsehair into ropes, and had 'neither handicrafts nor manufactures'.
When they possess many cows and sheep, they subsist upon their flesh, otherwise they content themselves with milk and dried cheese (bissalak and kourout), they likewise make use of a kind of millet (shara bonda). To exhilarate their spirits they drink, though only in summer, a kind of brandy, which they extract from milk.
About Khalkha Mongols
Turkestan speech sounds like Kazan Tatar
Editorial contextWhile in Peking, Timkovsky talked through an interpreter with men from Little Bucharia (the Tarim basin towns) and noticed that their language was very like that of the Kazan Tatars, 'who are also of Turkish origin'. Here 'Tartar' means the Turkic-speaking Muslims of the Volga, a different people entirely from the Mongols he had just crossed.
In the conversations I had in China, through the medium of an interpreter, with natives of Little Bucharia who had come to Peking, I observed that their language much resembles that of the Tartars of Kasan, who are also of Turkish origin.
About Turkic peoples of Eastern Turkestan; Kazan Tatars
Rocks that look like ruined buildings
Editorial contextA day before seeing the real ruins, Timkovsky camped by a granite ridge that from far off looked like a forest and close up looked like altars, a sarcophagus, a tower and 'the ruins of a house with a stone floor'. He calls it a 'lusus naturae', a freak of nature, and explains it as decomposed granite lying in slabs. On the following page his Mongol hosts add that the rock is full of loadstone that pulls at any gun brought near it.
At a distance it looks like a forest; but when seen near at hand, it presents an extraordinary lusus nature. These rocks resemble, now an immense altar, now a sarcophagus; here a tower, there the ruins of a house with a stone floor. The rock, a decomposed granite, lies in large masses from three to nine inches thick
About Khalkha Mongols
Keep in mind
The author himself judged these to be natural rock, not buildings.
A Mongol official's belief about Genghis Khan's houses
Editorial contextA Mongol officer (the zakiroktchi) told the Russians he was sure several European kings descended from Genghis Khan, since Genghis had reigned in Russia, and that ruins of Genghis Khan's houses still stood in Mongolia and probably in Russia too. Timkovsky dismisses the royal descent as absurd but records the belief. It is an early example of a local legend crediting ruins to Genghis Khan.
The zakiroktchi was persuaded that several sovereigns of Europe must be descendants of Gingis Khan, … because he had reigned in Russia, and other foreign countries; a conjecture of which it seems unnecessary to shew the absurdity. He informed us that there still existed in Mongolia ruins of houses that belonged to Gingis Khan, and he supposed there must be some in Russia.
About Khalkha Mongols
Keep in mind
Hearsay from a Mongol official; Timkovsky himself rejects part of it.
A living Buddha whose face follows the moon
Editorial contextTimkovsky reports what the Khalkhas believed about their koutouktou (Jebtsundamba Khutughtu), the reincarnating high lama of Urga: that he had already lived through sixteen generations and that his face aged and grew young again with the moon. He presents it as their belief, not his.
The Kalkas affirm, that their koutouktou has already seen sixteen generations, and that his physiognomy changes with the phases of the moon. At new moon, he has the appearance of a youth; at the full, of a man in the prime of life; and appears quite old in the last quarter.
About Khalkha Mongols
Keep in mind
A popular belief reported secondhand.