Huts on wagons, and guns lent only for the winter
Editorial contextIn summer the Nogais, like the Kalmyks, move camp for food and fodder, carrying their goods on camels and setting their huts on great wagons made for the purpose. In winter they camp around Astrakhan for mutual defence against Kalmyk raids across the frozen Volga, and the Russian governor lends them weapons each winter and takes them back each summer, keeping one of their princes as hostage.
for carrying their goods they have camels, and they put their huts on great wagons made for the purpose … To repel the attacks they suffer from them, the Governor of Astrakhan, who protects them, lends them arms every winter and takes them back every summer
Working translation
Original wording
pour le transport de leurs meubles, ils ont des chameaux, & mettent leurs hutes sur de grands chariots faits exprès … Pour repousser les insultes qu'ils en reçoivent, le Gouverneur d'Astracan qui les protège, leur prête des armes tous les Hivers, & les reprend tous les Etés
About Nogai Tatars (and Kalmyks)
Keep in mind
How the governor handled weapons and hostages was information Struys had from others.
Captured in Daghestan: dragged behind horses, shot with blunted arrows
Editorial contextAfter a shipwreck on the Caspian coast, Struys and his companions were stripped by one band and then seized by another, who took them for spies of the rebel Razin. He describes being tied to horses' tails and driven barefoot through thorns, then bound to a tree and struck with arrows whose points had been blunted to make the torment last. Russian slaves of the prince vouched that they were Dutch, which saved their lives (two pages later).
they tied us to the tails of their horses, making us follow backwards and barefoot through the brambles and thorns with which the road was covered … tie me to a tree, where they pierced me with arrows whose iron they had blunted
Working translation
Original wording
ils nous attachèrent à la queue de leurs chevaux, nous faisant suivre à reculons & les piés nus, au travers des ronces & des épines dont le chemin étoit tout couvert … me rattacher à un arbre, où ils me percèrent à coups de flèches dont ils avoient émoussé le fer
About Tartars of Daghestan (the men of 'Sultan Osmin')
Keep in mind
His own ordeal, but told in a ghost-written book that heightens every drama.
A sacrifice thrown against a hide on a post
Editorial contextOn holy days the Cheremis tie the freshly flayed hide of a cow, sheep or horse to a post, roast the meat, and throw a dish of it and a cup of mead against the hide while murmuring prayers. The page adds that they revere the sun, fire and water above all visible things.
For this they have holy days, on which they begin the ceremony by tying to a post the hide of a cow, sheep or horse flayed for the purpose; they put the meat on the coals, and when it is roasted they cut it into small pieces, fill a dish with them, take it in one hand and a cup of mead in the other, then throw the whole against the hide
Working translation
Original wording
Ils ont pour cela des jours consacrés, ausquels ils commencent la cérémonie par attacher à un poteau, une peau de vache, de mouton ou de cheval écorché exprès: ils en mettent la chair sur la braise; & quand elle est rôtie, ils la coupent par petits morceaux, dont ayant rempli un plat, ils le prennent d'une main & une tasse d'hidromel de l'autre, puis jettent le tout contre la peau
About Cheremis (Mari people), called Tartars
Keep in mind
Very close to Olearius's description of the Cheremis, so probably copied.
Kalmyks and Nogais: no fixed homes, and horsemeat softened under the saddle
Editorial contextAt Saratov Struys first met the Kalmyks, whom he calls the ugliest of men. Kalmyks and Nogais, he says, have no fixed dwellings and move camp as the grazing allows; they prefer horsemeat and eat it after softening it under the saddle. The saddle-meat story is an old European stereotype about steppe riders. On the same page he wrongly calls the Kalmyks Muslims; they were Buddhists.
They have no fixed dwellings … but of all meats, horse is most to their taste. All the preparation they give it is to put it under the saddle, where, being a little softened by the horse's warmth, they take it out and make their best meals of it.
Working translation
Original wording
Ils n'ont point de demeures fixes … mais de toutes les viandes, celle de cheval est plus à leur goût. Tout l'aprêt qu'ils y font, est de la mettre sous la selle, où étant un peu amollie par la chaleur du cheval, ils l'en retirent, & en font leurs meilleurs repas.
About Kalmyks and Nogais
Keep in mind
The saddle-meat tale is repeated from much older writers, and the page is openly hostile.
The Cheremis: 'Tartars' who speak Russian
Editorial contextStruys files the Cheremis under 'Tartars' (his chapter title calls them 'Tartares nommés Czérémisses'), yet on this page he says their everyday language is Russian and that they only understand, and in places speak, Tatar. They were in fact the Mari, a Finno-Ugric people. He also calls them rough and stupid, a sample of the book's contempt.
These peoples are rough, coarse and stupid … Their ordinary language is Muscovite [Russian], but they understand Tartar and even speak it in some places. They have neither priests nor churches, nor do they celebrate any of the mysteries of the Gospel.
Working translation
Original wording
Ces peuples sont rudes, grossiers & stupides … Leur Langue ordinaire est la Moscovite, mais ils entendent le Tartare, & le parlent même en quelques endroits. Ils n'ont ni Prêtres ni Eglises, ni ne célèbrent aucun des mistéres de l'Evangile.
About Cheremis (Mari people), called Tartars
Keep in mind
Much of the Cheremis chapter follows Olearius, so this may be borrowed rather than observed.
A hill made of the bones of a Tartar emperor and seventy kings
Editorial contextPassing a hill called Sariol-Kurgan, Struys records a Russian tradition: the place was once a plain where an Emperor of Tartary came with seventy kings and a countless army to seize Muscovy, and was beaten there with all his men. The mountain, the story ends, is made of their bones (the OCR of those last words is damaged). Cornelis de Bruyn heard a version of the same legend in 1703 (W251).
one of them, called Sariol-Kurgan, if one believes the tradition of the Muscovites, was made in a very strange way. This place, they say, was once a vast plain, where an Emperor of Tartary came down with seventy kings and a countless army to seize Muscovy, and was beaten and defeated there with all who accompanied him
Working translation
Original wording
l'une appelée Sariol-Kurgan, si l'on en croit la tradition des Moscovites, a été faite d'une manière fort étrange. Ce lieu disent-ils, étoit autrefois une vaste plaine, où un Empereur de Tartarie étant descendu avec soixante & dix Rois & un armée innombrable pour se s'emparer de la Moscovie, il y fut battu & défait avec tous ceux qui l'accompagnoient
About a legendary 'Emperor of Tartary'
Keep in mind
A local legend told by Russians; a kurgan is a burial mound, but nothing here dates it or names its builders.
The vegetable lamb: 'I have seen several'
Editorial contextOn the salt steppe west of the Volga grows the 'Boranez', a fruit shaped like a lamb with feet, head and tail, covered in white down. Struys says the Tartars and Russians prize it and keep it in their houses, where he saw several, and that he had also seen one in Swammerdam's cabinet in Amsterdam. People in Astrakhan told him it grows on a stalk and dies when the grass around it is gone. This is the famous barometz legend, in real life probably a fern rhizome shaped to look like a lamb.
where the Boranez or Bornitsch grows, of which we have already spoken. This marvellous fruit has the shape of a lamb, with the feet, head and tail distinctly formed … The Tartars and the Muscovites think highly of it, and most keep it carefully in their houses, where I have seen several.
Working translation
Original wording
où croît le Boranez ou Bornitsch dont nous avons déjà parlé. Ce merveilleux fruit a la figure d'un agneau, avec les piés, la tête & la queue distinctement formés … Les Tartares & les Moscovites en font grand état, & la plupart le gardent avec soin dans leurs maisons où j'en ai vu plusieurs.
About Tartars and Russians of Astrakhan
Keep in mind
He saw objects sold as barometz; how it grows is hearsay, and the whole idea is a legend.
The newly married bride's horn with a bell
Editorial contextCheremis brides, the book says, wear a horn a yard long planted in the middle of the forehead, with a silk tassel and a little bell whose sound reminds the bride that she has just changed her state. The same paragraph then repeats a lurid slander about fathers and their daughters, likened to a tale told of Ceylon.
newly married women add an ornament all their own: a horn a yard long, which they plant in the middle of the forehead; at its end is a silk tassel, and in the middle of this tassel a little bell, whose sound serves to remind the bride that she has lately changed her state.
Working translation
Original wording
les nouvelles mariées ajoûtent un ornement qui leur est tout particulier: c'est une corne longue d'une aune qu'elles se plantent au milieu du front; au bout de laquelle il y a une houpe de soie, & au milieu de cette houpe une clochette, dont le bruit sert à faire souvenir la mariée qu'elle a depuis peu changé d'état.
About Cheremis (Mari people), called Tartars
Keep in mind
Probably taken from Olearius. The horned bridal headdress is plausible; the slander that follows is not evidence of anything.
A Tatar khan's statue in Moscow before which the Tsar must bow
Editorial contextStruys retells the Tatar raid that took Moscow and made the Grand Prince pay tribute. The elder of two Tatar brothers, 'Mendliguerits', had a statue of himself set up in Moscow before which the Tsar would have to prostrate himself whenever he sent the tribute. The story, told from older books, is about the 1521 raid of the Crimean khan Mehmed Giray and his brother Sahib Giray of Kazan.
Of the two Tartar chiefs, who were brothers, the elder, named Mendliguerits, before leaving Moscow, had a statue of himself set up there, before which the Emperor would be obliged to prostrate himself
Working translation
Original wording
Des deux Chefs Tartares qui étoient frères, l'aîné nommé Mendliguerits, avant que de quitter Moskou, s'y fit dresser une statuë devant laquelle l'Empereur seroit obligé de se prosterner
About Kazan and Crimean Tatars (the khan Mehmed Giray)
Keep in mind
Book history, not observation; the details, including the statue, come from older written accounts and cannot be checked here.