A Tatar village of ten houses and many felt tents
Editorial contextWhile his ship loaded salt, Chardin walked to a nearby Tatar settlement to buy food. He saw only ten or twelve houses and a little mosque, but round them many tents, round and square, and closed covered wagons that served as houses. The best tents were made of poles laid crosswise and covered with light felts, with an opening at the top for light and smoke, a felt door, and carpets on walls and floor.
About a Mile from the Shoar there is a Habitation of the Tartars, whither I went with some of my Servants to buy Provisions, but I did not see in all that place above Ten or Twelve Houses with a little Mosquee. Only round about it there was a great Number of Tents, Round and Square
About Crimean Tatars
An Armenian monastery levelled by the Tartars and rebuilt in brick
Editorial contextAt Etchmiadzin, seat of the Armenian patriarch, Chardin was told the first monastery was built by the patriarch Nerses and ruined by the Tartars, and that it had been levelled five times in all. What he saw was built of brick. Here Tartars appear as destroyers, not builders.
The first Monastery of this Church was built by Nierses the Twenty Ninth Patriarch of Armenia: This the Tartars ruin'd; and if we may believe the Chronology of the Place, it had been Five times levell'd with the Ground: It is at present built of Brick
About Tartars (Mongol and later invaders)
A captive Tartar prince who galloped home from Isfahan
Editorial contextChardin tells the court story of 'Abouel-Kazi', a prince of Khwarazm captured in a Persian victory over the Uzbeks. Shah Safi treated him as royalty in Isfahan for ten years, until he feigned illness, went to a spa, and rode off with twenty Uzbek horsemen sent to fetch him. He became khan and stayed a friend of Persia. This is Abu'l-Ghazi Bahadur, khan of Khiva, later author of a famous history of the Turks.
To whom the Yusbeck Prince thus briskly answer'd; I am highly oblig'd to the King of Persia, but I owe more my own Country and Relations that call me back. 'Tis my Father that sends me these Men, to facilitate my return to my Native soil
About Uzbeks of Khwarazm (Khiva)
Keep in mind
Court gossip retold decades later; details such as the role of the prince's father may not match other accounts.
Hidden grain pits and a camp struck in half an hour
Editorial contextThe same Tatars stored grain and fodder in deep pits in the ground, covered so skilfully that only the diggers could find them again, dug either inside the tents or out in the fields. When they moved on, tents came down and were loaded in less than half an hour, carried by oxen and horses. He adds they were Muslims 'intermix'd with strange superstitions' about fortune-telling.
The Tartars store up their Corn and their Forrage, as do all the Country-People in the East, in deep Pits under Ground which they call Amber, or Magazines. Which they cover so exactly, that you cannot discern where they have remov'd the Earth
About Crimean Tatars
Why no empire can conquer people who move every month
Editorial contextExplaining why the Ottomans do not try to rule the Caucasus and the steppe directly, Chardin argues that settled people in towns can be conquered and held, but people who move all their lives cannot. It is his own reflection, but it neatly explains why steppe peoples were so hard for empires to pin down.
For if the People that inhabit those parts, were united into Cities and strong Places, there might be a way found to reduce 'em, and keep 'em in Subjection. But which way is it possible to subdue a People that change their Habitations every Month, and all their Life-time wander up and down the Country?
About Nomads of 'Tartary and Scythia'
Keep in mind
Chardin's own opinion, not a report of what he saw.
'Tartary full of towns' and the meaning of 'horde'
Editorial contextArriving at Caffa, Chardin explains the map names. Geographers call Crimea 'Crim Tartary', which he takes to mean 'Tartary full of towns', because Crimean Tatars mostly live in towns, at least in winter, unlike the Nogais outside the peninsula, who live in hordes. Horde, he adds, is a Turkish and Persian word for an army camp or a court's train. Together they make 'Lesser Tartary', as against the Asian Tartars beyond the Sea of Azov.
The Modern Geographers call it Crim Tartary and Precopensian Tartary. As much as to say Tartary full of Towns; to distinguish the Tartars of this Peninsula that live for the most part in Cities, especially all the Winter long, from those other European Tartars, which inhabit without the Peninsula, call'd Nogays … Hordes or Hordou, a word which signifies an Assembly
About Crimean Tatars and Nogais
Keep in mind
This etymology is Chardin's own and is not the usual explanation of the name.
'Yusbek': a hundred lords, or 'he is the lord'?
Editorial contextChardin gives two etymologies for the Uzbeks. Persians derived it from 'yuz' (a hundred) and 'bek' (lord), mocking a land split among a hundred petty princes; the Uzbeks rejected that and said it meant 'he is the lord'. He adds that Tartar and Turkish are one language, Turkish being a dialect of it.
They are called Yusbecks, at least if the Persian Etymology be true, by reason of the great number of Sovereign Princes by which the Tartars are Govern'd; for Yus, as well in the Language of the Tartars as Turks, which is but a Dialect of it, signifies a hundred, and Bek, Lords
About Uzbeks, whom Chardin calls the Tartars of Lesser Tartary
'Turk' means a man from the highlands of Tartary
Editorial contextChardin insists that the true 'Turkey' is the vast highland of Tartary, homeland of both the Turkmen herders and the Ottomans' ancestors. In the East, he says, 'Turk' simply means someone from those highlands, and Ottoman subjects find the name barbarous. He also scolds European travellers who write about countries without knowing the language.
For that among them Turk signifies one that comes from those High-lands of Tartary, let it be from what part it will.
About Turkmens and Turks, as seen from Persia
Amazons near the Kalmyks, and an Amazon's dress in the palace
Editorial contextIn Georgia Chardin asked about the Amazons of classical legend. He met no one who had been to their country, but many told stories, and in the prince's palace he was shown a large woman's garment of coarse wool said to have belonged to an Amazon killed near Kakheti. The Georgian prince's son told him a numerous unknown people lived five days north, always at war with 'the Tartars, which they call Calmac'.
I confess, I never saw any Person in Georgia who had been in the Country of the Amazons; but I have heard many of 'em tell Stories of those People. And they shew'd me in the Prince's Palace, a large Female habit of a course Woollen Stuff
About Kalmyks (as the Georgians called them) and a legendary people beyond
Keep in mind
Chardin reports the stories but, on the next page, rejects the classical details as Greek fables.