Khiva and Kokand: towns of mud
Editorial contextDrawing on Alexander Burnes and other authors, Wolff describes the capital of Khiva as a town of mud huts with three stone mosques and a mud palace, living largely by the slave trade, and says Kokand was likewise built of mud except for three stone bazaars.
The capital of Khiva is a town of mud huts, with three stone mosques, and a mud palace. Its chief trade is in slaves, of whom there are about forty thousand in the Khanat ; and it is said there are many captured Russians, who are slaves in Khiva. … It is, like Khiva, built of mud, with the exception of three stone bazaars.
About Uzbek khanates of Khiva and Kokand
Keep in mind
Second-hand; Wolff did not visit Khiva or Kokand on this journey.
Bukhara's sun-dried brick and arched bazaars
Editorial contextQuoting Burnes's figures, Wolff describes Bukhara's massive buildings, the Khan's fortress-palace, houses of sun-dried brick, narrow dirty streets and lofty arched bazaars where each trade had its own section.
It has massive buildings, three hundred and sixty mosques, three hundred schools, the Khan's palace, or rather fortress ; houses built of bricks dried in the sun ; very narrow and dirty streets ; lofty arched bazaars, in which the different trades have their distinct sections ; and ponds and fountains for the supply of water.
About Uzbek emirate of Bukhara
Keep in mind
Taken from Burnes, as the page says.
Turkmens pray without mosques
Editorial contextOn his first journey Wolff noted that the Turkmens had no mosques, praying alone in the open or in their tents and gathering twice a year in the desert for common prayer. He also records a claim by the Jews of Turkestan that the Turkmens descend from the biblical Togarmah.
All the Jews of Turkistaun assert that the Turkomauns are the descendants of Togarmah, one of the sons of Gomer, mentioned in Genesis x. 3. The Turkomauns have no mosque; they pray apart from each other, either in the field or the tent. Twice in the year they assemble in the desert, and prefer their prayer.
About Turkmens
Keep in mind
The biblical ancestry is a Jewish tradition Wolff repeats.
Turkmen elders who could advise but not punish
Editorial contextWolff describes his Turkmen guides as truly 'masterless': their greybeards (aqsaqals) could give advice and lead raids, but had no power to punish anyone.
The Turkomauns my guides were, in the strictest sense of the word, masterless : for their Aga Sakals, ' lords with the beard,' have only a right to give advice, and to conduct them on their plundering expeditions, but they have no power to punish.
About Turkmens
Twin brothers named Mogul and Tatar
Editorial contextIn a Tabriz prison Wolff met a captive chieftain who wrote out his family tree for him. It calls him a 'Tatar of the family of Genghis Khan' and gives a traditional origin story: an ancestor had twin sons, Mogul Khan and Tatar Khan, from whom the Moguls and the Tatars descend.
Muhammed, son of Izhak Khan Kerahe, Tatar of the family of Ghengis Khan. The ancestors of Ghengis Khan were Oolinjah Khan and Olamgoo, a Mogul, who had twins : the name of the one was Mogul Khan, and the other Tatar Khan, from whom all the Tatars descend, as the Moguls do from Mogul Khan.
About Muhammad Khan Qarai, a Khorasani chief claiming descent from Genghis Khan
Keep in mind
A traditional genealogy (a version of the Mongol origin story found in Persian and Turkic histories), not history.
Uzbeks replace the 'Turks or Tatars'
Editorial contextWolff says that after the 'Turks or Tatars' were driven out, the Uzbeks became the ruling people, brought to the Oxus by Shaybani Khan with their first centre at Urgench in Khiva. He treats 'Turk' and 'Tatar' as one name for the earlier rulers.
Since the expulsion of the Turks or Tatars, the Usbecks are the dominant people. Sheybek Khan brought them to the country of the river Amoo in the year 1498, when they had the centre of their empire at Organtsh, in Khiva.
About Uzbeks under Shaybani Khan
Keep in mind
Wolff's date is approximate; Shaybani Khan's conquest of Transoxiana is usually dated to about 1500 to 1507.
Timur's pyramid of skulls, as the Turkmens told it
Editorial contextSnowed in at a desert camp, Wolff listened to Turkmens talk of Alexander and Timur as if they had lived yesterday. One told how Timur punished the Khan of Khwarazm by building a pyramid of human skulls cemented with clay at Urgench, sparing only dervishes, scholars and poets.
It is remarkable to hear these Turkomauns speak of the exploits of Alexander and Timur, exactly as if of modern occurrence. … He made a pyramid at Organtsh entirely of skulls of men, cemented with clay. He spared the lives of none, except those of holy derveeshes, of the learned, and of poets, around whose houses he placed Karawl, i. e. guards.
About Turkmens of the Merv desert; Timur (Tamerlane)
Keep in mind
Oral tradition. Timur's skull towers are recorded elsewhere (Wolff also mentions one at Sabzevar), but this telling is folk memory.
Russia is Gog and Magog
Editorial contextIn a caravan leaving Bukhara, a Turkmen told Wolff that Russia would conquer the world, having built a fort in the sea near Khiva. A dervish added that the great mullahs of Samarkand said Russia was Gog and Magog, the destroying peoples of the end times.
A Turkomaun present said, "The Russians shall be the conquerors of the world. They have now built a strong castle almost in the midst of the sea, not far from Khiva. … A derveesh sitting among us made the following remark ; "The great mullahs of Samarcand assert that Russia is the Jaaj-Majooj, i. e. Gog and Magog
About Dervishes and Turkmens
Keep in mind
A prophecy repeated in conversation, reflecting fear of Russian expansion.
The rumour that Wolff had been to Tartarus
Editorial contextWolff found a rumour running through Bukhara that he knew 72 languages and 72 religions, had spoken with 72 nations, and had even visited the 'land of darkness', which he glosses as Tartarus. The word play between Tartary and Tartarus here comes from Wolff's own gloss.
A report was spread abroad, I found, throughout the whole country of Bokhara, that Mullah Joseph Wolff, the grand derveesh from England, was acquainted with seventy-two languages, with seventy-two religions, and had conversed with seventy-two nations of the earth. That, further, I had been in Sulmistaun, i. e. the ' land of darkness," Tartarus
About People of Bukhara
Keep in mind
Gossip about Wolff himself; the 'Tartarus' gloss is his.
Were the Mohicans Tatars?
Editorial contextOn a trip to America Wolff thought he saw signs that Native Americans were of 'Tatar race': a shared word for 'great', a fondness for the number nine, and a custom of playing a mournful flute outside a sweetheart's tent like the Turkmens. It is a striking example of how far the Tatar idea could stretch.
Many of their customs, besides words in their language, and their physiognomy, rather seem to me to betray a Tatar race. Thus, for instance, they have the word kelaun, great, which is also used in the same sense at Bokhara. They have nine as a favourite number, which the Tatars also have.
About Mohican people of North America, compared with Tatars and Turkmens
Keep in mind
Wolff's own speculation from a few coincidences.