Portable Nogai huts of twigs and felt
Editorial contextReuilly describes the seven or eight thousand Nogais roaming between the Berda and the Molochna. Their round huts, about eight feet across, have a wicker wall and dome covered with rush mats and brown felt, a smoke-hole and a tiny door; the furniture is a few cushions, a low table, pots and dishes. He adds that they were starting to build fixed houses and farm.
They encamp themselves in little cabins of felt; their tents, according to Thunmann, are a kind of portable huts, of a circular form, of about eight feet in diameter, made of lath-work or hurdles of twigs, about the size of a thumb, forming a sort of wall about four feet in height, upon which rests a dome or roof of the same structure
About Nogai Tatars (remnant of the Kuban Tatars)
Keep in mind
The tent description is taken from Thunmann's earlier book, not Reuilly's own observation.
A young mare killed for an honoured guest
Editorial contextReuilly says Tatar nobles still kill a horse to feast a distinguished guest. When he arrived at the house of Atai Myrza's brother, the prince told him a young mare had been slaughtered in his honour; the interpreter explained this was the greatest compliment, since a mare was the most precious thing he could offer.
They still retain the practice of killing a horse, to make a feast on the arrival of a guest of distinction. On my arrival at the house of the brother of Atai Myrza, this prince said to me, “You are very welcome. As soon as I hear that you had come, I ordered a young mare to be killed, to give you a feast.”
About Crimean Tatar nobility (family of Atai Myrza)
Coffee-houses, hawking and a singer with a guitar
Editorial contextNoble Tatars love hawking and hare-hunting; in town, men spend whole days cross-legged in coffee-houses, smoking and talking. Sometimes a singer recites stories or verses to a guitar-like instrument while the listeners nod in approval. Reuilly finds Tatar song 'grave, harsh, and discordant' and describes a dance of shaking limbs with the feet barely leaving the ground.
Hawking and hunting the hare, form the greatest delight of the noble Tartars. In the towns their amusements are reduced to meeting in the coffee-houses… Sometimes a singer recites a story or chaunts verses, accompanying himself with a bad instrument, in the shape of a guitar; the assembly listens with the greatest attention, and expresses the pleasure it receives by slight motions of the head.
About Crimean Tatars
A Turkish dialect even Turks struggle with
Editorial contextReuilly says the Tatars speak a Turkish dialect so mixed with Mongol and Arabic words that a Turk finds it hard to follow, and the Nogais are hardest of all to understand because they speak fast and gutturally.
Though the general language of the Tartars is only a Turkish dialect, yet it is intermixed with such a number of Mogol and Arabic words, that a Turk has a difficulty to understand it. The Nogays in particular render themselves scarcely intelligible, by the quickness with which they speak, and the guttural pronunciation.
About Crimean Tatars; Nogai Tatars
A note on this quote
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How the Nogais came to the Crimea
Editorial contextIn his history chapter Reuilly says that when Mengli Giray became khan under Ottoman protection (1478), few Tatars actually lived in the Crimea; the khan settled thousands of Nogais captured in wars on the Volga, and his successors peopled the Kuban and the lands between the Don and Dniester the same way.
When the sovereignty of the peninsula passed to Menguely Guerai, there were not many Tartars amongst its inhabitants; but the wars which he carried on with them on the banks of the Volga, afforded him an opportunity to bring with him into the Crimea, several thousand Nogays, who were obliged to establish themselves in that country.
About Crimean Tatars; Nogai Tatars
Keep in mind
Compiled history from earlier authors; the claim of few Tatars before 1478 is his source's view.
Why the Tatar ruler is 'khan' and a sultan is a mere prince
Editorial contextIn notes on coins of the last Crimean khan, Shahin Giray, the French orientalists Langlès and Millin explain that among Turks and Persians 'sultan' means sovereign and 'khan' a lesser officer, but among the Tartars it is the reverse, perhaps because 'khan' is a Tartar word found in Kalmyk, Mongol and Manchu. They add that Shahin was the 39th and last khan and descended from Genghis Khan.
Among the Tartars on the other side, a directly contrary usage prevails, and the sovereign only has a right to the distinction of khan, which he places before his proper names, either it is because the word is originally Tartar, and is to be found, indeed, in the Calmuc dialects, Monghol, Mantchou, &c.; while sultan is Arabian
About Crimean Tatars (Giray khans)
Broken ribs cured by drinking gruel
Editorial contextReuilly watched a Tatar remedy: a servant of Atai Myrza who broke two ribs falling from his horse was made to drink water-gruel until his belly swelled, under threat of the bastinado, so the ribs would push back into place. Reuilly will not vouch for the cure but admits the man was better by the time he left.
A domestic of Atai Myrza having fallen from his horse, and had two of his ribs broken, his master made him drink water gruel till his belly was prodigiously inflated; and when he refused to take more, he was threatened with the bastinado and drenched with the gruel… his master assuring me that the ribs would get into their places spontaneously.
About Crimean Tatars (household of Atai Myrza)