An Amsterdam burgomaster's huge 1705 compilation describing every land then called Tartary, from Crimea to Korea.
Full title North and East Tartary, or a concise account of some of those lands and peoples formerly known (Noord en Oost Tartarye), second enlarged edition
Nicolaes Witsen (1641-1717), burgomaster of Amsterdam and a director of the Dutch East India Company, visited Moscow in 1664-1665 but never went to Siberia. For decades he gathered Russian route books, Jesuit letters, Dutch embassy diaries, maps, objects and interviews, and published them as Noord en Oost Tartarye (1692, enlarged 1705). It moves region by region from Manchuria (Niuche) and Mongolia through Siberia, the Kalmyk and Kazakh steppes and the Caucasus to Crimea, often printing his informants' reports word for word. The corpus copy is the DBNL transcription of the 1705 second edition, so the Dutch is clean and page references are printed pages.
How they knew
Compiled from others
Who “Tartar” means here
A very wide umbrella. Witsen follows the European habit of calling all lands east of the Ob and the Caspian 'Tartarye', covering Manchus, Mongols, Kalmyks and Siberian peoples, while noting that Siberia strictly speaking is not Tartary and that the peoples properly called Tartars now live mostly in Crimea and around Kazan.
Why read it
It shows exactly what the word Tartary meant to the best-informed European of the 1690s, and it names its sources, so a reader can see where each claim came from.
Watch out
A compilation of many voices of uneven reliability, so credit each passage to the informant or book Witsen is quoting; his own theories (Egyptians in Siberia, for example) are speculation. The bundle page covered only the Great Wall, so these accounts come from searching the full text.
A silver bowl from a riverbank grave, and who could have made it
Editorial contextWhen the Irtysh undercut its bank near Samarovsky Yam in 1688, a wooden coffin with old bones, silver arm-rings, a silver necklace and a silver bowl fell out. The governor of Siberia, Fyodor Golovin, later gave the bowl to Witsen. Witsen asks who made such silverwork, found in several graves there, since the present inhabitants do not know how to work silver.
a grave, or wooden coffin, with the bones of a man long dead, together with some silverwork of arm-rings and a silver necklace … It deserves notice where, and by whom, this silver vessel, whose like is found more often in that region in some burial places, may have been made, because in these parts the art of working silver is not known among the natives today.
Working translation
Original wording
een Graft, of houte Dood-kist, met gebeenderen eener voor lang verstorven Mensch, beneffens eenig Zilver-werk van Arm-ringen, en een Zilvere Halsband … Het verdient zijn aenmerkinge, waer, en by wien dit Zilver geschir, wiens gelijken meer worden gevonden te dier Oord in zommige Begraef-plaetzen, mag gemaekt zijn, om dat in deze gewesten tegenwoordig by de Inboorlingen, de konst van in Zilver te werken niet is bekent.
Why they are called Tartars: the horde that gave its name
Editorial contextJohannes Melman, a Dutch East India Company interpreter in China from 1656, wrote down for Witsen what 'the most sensible Tartars' in Peking told him about their origins. The Scythians beyond Mount Imaus lived in seven hordes, one of them called Tartar; because the khan they elected came from that horde, all his subjects took the name Tartar and kept it.
Moreover, at the time of this division, the Scythians who lived beyond Mount Imaus consisted of seven hordes, which were called Tartar, Tangur, Cunat, Tateyr, Sonic, Mongli and Tebeta … and because this elected emperor had come from the horde of the Tartars, all his subjects took that name of Tartar … and have kept it to this day.
Working translation
Original wording
Daerenboven bestonden de Scyten, ten tijde dezer verdeelinge, die achter de Berg Imaus zich onthielden, in zeven Horden, welke genoemt wierden, Tartar, Tangur, Cunat, Tateyr, Sonic, Mongli, en Tebeta … en om dat dezen gekoren Keizer uit de Horde der Tartaren was voort gekomen, zoo hebben alle zijne onderdanen dien naem van Tartar … aengenomen, en tot noch toe behouden.
Johannes Melman (Dutch East India Company interpreter), report printed by Nicolaes Witsen
About Tartars (Mongols, as told to a Dutch interpreter in Qing China)
Keep in mind
The seven names closely match the list of Tartar nations in Hayton's Flower of the Histories of the East (1307), so book learning seems to be mixed into this 'Tartar' testimony.
Tartary: a European label for everything east of the Ob
Editorial contextIntroducing Siberia, Witsen explains his own usage: in Europe the name Tartary is commonly given to all lands east of the Ob and the Caspian Sea, and he uses it that way too, though strictly speaking Siberia does not lie in Tartary. A clear statement that 'Tartary' on his maps was a convention, not the name of a state.
just as, under the name Tartary, most commonly in Europe, all lands east of the Ob and the Caspian Sea are known, as I too include them under that name; although, properly speaking, this Siberia does not lie in Tartary
Working translation
Original wording
gelijk met de naem Tartarye, meest doorgaens in Europa, alle Landen beoosten de Oby, en het Kaspische Meir, zoo als ik dezelve onder die benaming mede betrekke, bekent zijn; hoe wel dan eigentlijk genomen, dit Siberia in Tartarye niet en legt
A gold sphinx from a Siberian kurgan, and Egyptians in Siberia?
Editorial contextWitsen describes a small beaten-gold figure sent to him from Siberia, dug from an old burial under a kurgan: a lion or tiger body with a human head and spread wings. On the same page he wonders whether Egyptian idol-worship somehow reached Siberia, or whether Chinese settlers of Chinggis Khan's time left such things. A striking early report of Scythian-style gold from Siberian mounds, wrapped in pure speculation.
Another idol, two fingers' breadth in size, of beaten gold, was sent to me from Siberia; it too was lifted from an old burial place, where human bones were found with it, under a kurgan or great mound; it shows the body of a four-footed beast, like a tiger or lion, has the head of a man, and two wings
Working translation
Original wording
Een ander Afgoden-beeld, groot twee vinger-breet, van geslagen Goud, is my uit Siberien toegezonden, 't geen mede uit een oude Begravenis-plaets, daer men Menschen doods-beenderen by vond, onder een Kurgan, of groote heuvel is geligt, vertoont het Lichaem van een viervoetig Beest, als van een Tyger of Leeuw, heeft het hooft van een Mensch, en twee vleugelen
The object is real evidence; Witsen's Egyptian and Chinese explanations are his own guesses, which he himself calls a riddle.
The fine print
How we know
compilation Assembled from earlier sources. The author did not observe it directly.
compilation of earlier sources and informant testimony: Witsen never visited Siberia; he assembled Russian, Jesuit, Dutch and Muscovy-embassy reports, letters and interviews (his own 1664-65 Moscow journey underlies parts)
Research notes
Compilation: each section names its source (Martini atlas, Rougemont, Palafox, Couplet, Montanus, letters from Pekin via Grimaldi, 1686 Dutch embassy diary, Russian informants). First edition 1692 exists but no scan located in this pass; DBNL text is the 1705 second edition. Catalogue publisher string in Delpher gives Halma dates 1699-1711 (publisher activity, not imprint).
Resolves L009 (English pass lead). W079 (Philosophical Transactions 1686 notice) refers to the associated Witsen map, recorded separately as a map state. Access checked via KB resolver redirect (HTTP 200) and DBNL colophon.
The largest early-modern European compilation devoted explicitly to Tartary: Witsen defines Noord en Oost Tartarye region by region (Niuche/Manchuria, Mongolia, Siberia, Kalmyk and Kirghiz steppe, Crimea) and prints his sources, so it shows exactly what a well-connected 1690s Amsterdam observer meant by the word and what data (Russian route books, Jesuit letters, embassy diaries) lay behind it.