Maimachin: a wooden frontier town guarded by Mongols
Editorial contextFollowing Pallas, Coxe describes the Chinese trading town of Maimachin facing Russian Kiakhta, with frontier posts inscribed in Russian and Manchu. Its only defence was a wooden wall and a small ditch dug in 1756 during the Qing wars with the Kalmyks (Dzungars), and its gates were watched by a garrison of Mongols in tattered clothes armed with clubs.
Maimatschin has no other fortification than a wooden wall, and a small ditch of about three feet broad; the latter was dug in the year 1756, during the war between the Chinese and the Calmucs … over each of these gates there is a wooden guard-house for the Chinese garrison, which consists of Mongols in tattered clothes, and armed with clubs.
About Chinese merchants; Mongol garrison of the Qing
Keep in mind
The following pages describe the town's one-storey wooden, plastered Chinese houses; those are Chinese, not Tartar, buildings.
A Khan who spread Islam by force
Editorial contextCoxe gives one reason Kuchum's khanate was fragile: much of it was newly conquered, and he had alienated his 'idolatrous' (shamanist) subjects by pushing Islam on them with intolerant zeal. It is a useful reminder that 'Tartar' Siberia was religiously mixed, with Islam still spreading in the sixteenth century.
He had newly acquired a large part of his territories by conquest; and had, in a great measure, alienated the affections of his idolatrous subjects by the intolerant zeal, with which he introduced and disseminated the Mahometan religion.
About Siberian Tatars and their subject peoples
Keep in mind
'Idolatrous' is the source's word for the region's shamanist peoples.
Raw rhubarb stalks that grip the throat
Editorial contextIn an appendix on rhubarb, Coxe (credited to Pallas) says the Tartars ate the leaf stalks of wild rhubarb raw, and that outsiders who tried them got a spasm of the throat at every meal until they grew used to it. A small, odd detail of steppe diet.
The stalks of the leaves are eaten raw by the Tartars: they produce upon most persons, who are unaccustomed to them, a kind of spasmodic contraction of the throat, which goes off in a few hours; it returns however at every meal, until they become habituated to this kind of diet.
About 'Tartars' of the Baikal region (probably Buryats or Mongols)
Keep in mind
Which people Coxe means by 'Tartars' here is not stated.
A Khan descended from Genghis
Editorial contextCoxe describes Muscovy's early raids into western Siberia, when 'Tartar tribes' paid tribute, and one chief, Yediger, promised a thousand sables a year. Yediger was then overthrown by Kuchum Khan, whom Coxe identifies as a direct descendant of Genghis Khan who had only recently founded his realm there.
Some Tartar tribes were indeed laid under contribution; and a chief, whose name was Yediger, consented to pay an annual tribute of a thousand sables. But this expedition was not productive of any lasting effects; for soon afterwards Yediger was defeated, and taken prisoner by Kutchum Chan; the latter was a lineal descendant of the celebrated Zinghis Chan
About Siberian Tatars
The Tatars called it Isker, not Sibir
Editorial contextIn a footnote Coxe rejects the popular idea that Siberia was named after the captured fortress of Sibir, pointing out that the Tatars themselves called the fort Isker. He suggests the regional name came to the Russians earlier, through the Permian and Zyrian peoples.
Several authors have supposed the name of Siberia to derive its origin from this fortress, soon after it was first taken by the Russians under Yermac. But this opinion is advanced without sufficient foundation; for the name of Sibir was unknown to the Tartars, that fort being by them called Isker.
About Siberian Tatars
'Tartar nations': Kalmyks, Mongols and Buryats
Editorial contextIn a note Coxe praises Pallas's new work on the 'Tartars' living between Siberia and the Great Wall, whom Pallas divides into Kalmyks, Mongols and Buryats, split in religion between shamanism and the Dalai Lama's Buddhism. It shows 'Tartar' used in 1780 as an umbrella term for Mongolic peoples.
No writer has placed the religion and history of the Tartar nations in a more explicit point of view than Mr. Pallas … concerning the Tartars, who inhabit parts of Siberia, and the territory which lies between that country and the Chinese wall … as they are divided into Calmucs, Mongols, and Burats.
About Kalmyks, Mongols and Buryats
Miracles at the enemy's grave
Editorial contextAfter Yermak drowned in the Irtysh, his body was first abused on Kuchum's orders, but then, Coxe says, the Tatars came to revere him: they buried him with pagan rites, and stories spread that touching his body cured all illness and that a flame hovered over his tomb. A footnote adds that a Kalmyk prince, Allai, was said to have been cured by drinking earth from the grave.
Many miraculous stories were soon spread abroad, and met with implicit belief. The touch of his body was supposed to have been an instantaneous cure for all disorders; and even his clothes and arms were said to be endowed with the same efficacy. A flame of fire was represented as sometimes hovering about his tomb
About Siberian Tatars; later a Kalmyk prince
Keep in mind
Legend preserved in Russian Siberian chronicles; Coxe calls these 'idle fables'.