Uzbek 'black houses' of felt
Editorial contextIn his appendix on Bukhara, Fraser reports that the tents of the country Uzbeks were like those of the Turkmens: a lath frame under thick black felts, called kara-ui ('black house') or kirgah, with a lattice smoke hole that could be covered with felt when it rained.
The tents, or rather houses, of the Oozbecks resemble those of the Toorkomans, of which a description has already been given, a frame work of thin laths covered with thick, black felts, and they are called karaooees (black houses) or kirghahs. The floors of the rich are spread with carpets and numuds, those of the poor with a blanket or mat of camels' hair
About Nomadic Uzbeks of the emirate of Bukhara
Keep in mind
From informants, not seen by Fraser.
Bukhara's houses of raw brick and timber
Editorial contextFraser's informants described Bukhara's houses as two or three storeys of raw (unfired) brick strengthened with timber frames, with poorer houses of timber filled with mud and broken brick. The city's roughly eighty colleges, by contrast, were mostly of stone and lime.
The houses in Bockhara are in general two and even three stories high, built of raw brick, and often strengthened by wooden frame work ; those of inferior description are constructed of the same frames of timber, filled up with mud and fragments of brick.
About Townspeople of Bukhara
Keep in mind
Second-hand description.
At Merv, only the burnt brick survived
Editorial contextFraser doubts the tales of marble palaces at Merv. His informants said the main surviving ruins were a mosque and college credited to Timur, the tomb of the Seljuk sultan Sanjar and an arsenal, which lasted because they were built of fired brick.
there are no ruins to prove the existence of the marble palaces, and baths, and tombs, which have been vaguely attributed to it ; the chief remains are those of a fine large mosque, with a medressa, built by Timoor Shah ; of the mausoleum of Sooltaun Sanjer, and of a fine arsenal, all of which having been constructed of burnt brick, have partly escaped
About Former Seljuk and Timurid rulers; Merv then under Bukhara
Keep in mind
From informants. On the same page a footnote doubts the huge death tolls given for the Mongol sack of Merv.
A brick tower among the Turkmen pastures
Editorial contextRiding through Goklen Turkmen pastures, Fraser reached the Gonbad-e Kavus, a hollow brick tower on a mound that he guessed at 150 feet high. He admired its fired bricks and lime mortar, and judged it to be of early Islamic ('Arabic') origin, though he could not read its inscription. The nomads grazing around it were not credited with building it.
It has been built of the finest fire-baked bricks, large, square, and about two inches and a half thick, with which also, placed flat, the roof has been covered ; and so well have they stood, that not above one or two of the whole have been yet displaced. The whole is cemented with lime, and of the most excellent masonry
About Goklen Turkmens (camped around it); builders unknown to Fraser
Keep in mind
Fraser could not read the date. The tower is now known to be the tomb of the Ziyarid ruler Qabus, built around 1006 to 1007.
Turkmens: no chiefs, no nobles
Editorial contextFraser says Turkmen camps of 30 to 200 families followed an elder but had no rulers or nobles, and anyone who tried to seize power would be destroyed. Only a rare figure like Genghis Khan or Timur, he adds, could force such people into a single powerful union.
But they have no governors, chiefs, or nobles among them : and if any one should attempt to arrogate superior consideration to himself, or openly aim at power or authority, it would be the signal for his destruction. … Such an event can only occur, when some individual supereminently endowed with talents and courage, like a Chengiz, or a Timour, arises to force into union substances naturally repellent
About Turkmen tribes (Teke, Goklen, Yomut)
A Turkmen singer like an Aeolian harp
Editorial contextAfter dinner in a Goklen chief's tent, two musicians played until past midnight. Fraser found the singing far sweeter than Persian music: the singer's voice imitated the vibrating string of the tar, and the audience rocked and shouted with delight.
the measure was always closed by a single line or chorus that died away in a very sweet and singular cadence, infinitely more agreeable than any music I ever heard in Persia, for the singer did not strain his voice in the way usual in that country, but taught it most curiously to follow the inflections of the tarr, imitating the sound and undulations of the wire
About Goklen Turkmens at the camp of Khallee Khan
Guests seized by the reins
Editorial contextTurkmen hospitality, Fraser was told, was so insistent that people ran out of the first tent a stranger reached, grabbed his horse and made him their guest; going on to another tent was an insult. In a footnote he warns that his informant made the tribes sound more trustworthy than they were.
When any stranger (who is not an acknowledged enemy) enters a camp, he is saluted at the first tent he approaches by its inhabitants, who run out, seize his reins, and insist on his alighting, and becoming their guest; even should the tent contain but a single
About Turkmens
Keep in mind
Fraser says this part came almost word for word from informants and may overstate Turkmen trustworthiness.
Unveiled women in coin-covered caps
Editorial contextTurkmen women did not hide from strangers or wear full veils, only a cloth over the lower face. Fraser describes their tall shako-like caps covered in gold coins, silver bells and set stones, which he thought looked more like horse trappings than jewellery.
The Toorkoman women are not shut up, or concealed like those of most Mahometan countries, nor do they even wear veils … most of them wear a lofty cap, with a broad crown resembling that sort of soldier’s cap called a shako … The front of this is covered with ornaments of silver or gold, in various shapes ; most frequently gold coins, mohrs or tomauns, strung in rows
About Turkmen women
A pole on a mound where a Turkmen died
Editorial contextFraser records that when a Turkmen died, the body was washed on the spot and a small mound with a tree or pole was raised there, while the body itself was buried further out on the plain. He saw the plain dotted with these markers.
When one of these Toorkomans dies, they wash the body on the spot where he breathed his last, or as near it as possible; and on that spot they raise a little mound, by digging a circular trench, two or three feet wide, throwing the earth up in the centre; and in this mound they plant a tree, or pole, to mark the place.
About Goklen and Yomut Turkmens
Kimmiz and horse flesh among the Uzbeks
Editorial contextFraser's informants told him the Uzbeks were fond of kimmiz (kumiss), fermented mare's milk shaken in a skin for hours, and often got drunk on it in season. He also heard, and heard denied, that they preferred horse meat to beef.
it is said they are fond of horse flesh, which they prefer to beef : I have heard this denied ; but I do not know which statement is the true one. There is no doubt of their fondness for the national and intoxicating drink, called kimmiz, prepared from mares’ milk, by shaking it violently in a skin for several hours.
About Uzbeks
Turkmens with 'Tartar' faces
Editorial contextFraser sorts the Turkmen tribes by how 'Tartar' they looked: the Teke most, the Goklen less, the Yomut least, with big differences even within one family. It shows 'Tartar' being used as a physical type rather than a nation.
The Tuckehs have a great deal of the Tartar physiognomy; many of the men were tall, stout and well made, with scanty beards, eyes small, and drawn up at the corners ; high cheek bones, and small flat noses: some on the contrary had handsome features, more resembling those of Europeans than Asiatics.
About Teke, Goklen and Yomut Turkmens
Keep in mind
Racial typing typical of the period.
'Moghuls are a tribe of Tartars'
Editorial contextCorrecting an earlier traveller who listed 'Moghuls' among the people of Herat, Fraser explains that Moghuls are properly one tribe of Tartars, and that in India the word was used loosely for Muslims in general because many descended from the Mughal conquerors.
Moghuls are, in truth, a certain tribe of Tartars, very few of whom could possibly be in Herat as part of its permanent population. Probably Captain Christie inserted this word in his journal somewhat loosely, annexing to it the same meaning which is given to it in Hindostan, where it is often applied to Mussoolmans in general
About Mongols / Mughals
The poet who carried his own head
Editorial contextLocal legend held that the Sufi poet Attar was captured when the Mongols sacked Nishapur and later beheaded by his owner. His headless body then picked up its head, ran a mile to the site of his tomb and wrote its own epitaph in blood. The tomb's guardians, Fraser adds, told of villagers who stole lead from it and died.
he drew his sword, and smote off the sheikh’s head ; but no sooner had it rolled to the ground than the body taking it up, ran with it a full mile, to the spot where the tomb now is, and with its own finger for a pen, and its blood for ink, wrote upon a stone the epitaph which has since been engraved upon the tomb.
About Sheikh Farid al-Din Attar, captured when the Tartars (Mongols) took Nishapur
Keep in mind
A saint's legend, reported as such.
A wall against the Tartar tribes
Editorial contextRiding along a long raised bank near Gorgan, Fraser heard that the rich plain had once been shielded from the Tartar tribes by a mighty wall from the mountains to the sea. He dismissed it as a legend about 'fabulous kings'.
It is said that this rich tract was once separated from the desert beyond it, and protected from the incursions of the Tartar tribes by a wall of great strength, which ran from the mountains to the sea. I believe, however, this great work is attributed to some of the fabulous kings, and is probably fabulous itself.
About 'Tartar tribes' of the northern desert
Keep in mind
Fraser's doubt was misplaced: archaeologists have since traced a real brick barrier across this plain, the Great Wall of Gorgan, usually dated to the Sasanian period (5th to 6th century), long before any 'Tartars'.