Pallas's historical collections on the Mongol peoples
Pallas's two-part study (1776 and 1801) of the history, laws, religion and learning of the Kalmyks, Mongols and Buryats.
Full title Collections of Historical Reports on the Mongolian Peoples (Sammlungen historischer Nachrichten über die mongolischen Völkerschaften), 2 parts, 1776 and 1801
Peter Simon Pallas lived among the Volga Kalmyks and the Buryats and Selenga Mongols during his expedition of 1768 to 1774, and later collected Kalmyk and Mongol texts, translations and informants' reports. Part 1 (1776) covers the origins, history, law and way of life of the Kalmyks, including the flight of the Torghuts in 1771; part 2 (1801) covers Tibetan Buddhism among the Mongol peoples: its gods, clergy, temples, festivals, calendar, writing and learning, with plates. This corpus has both parts in Google scans; part 1's OCR is unusable (German read as Cyrillic), so the accounts here come from part 2.
How they knew
Part eyewitness
Who “Tartar” means here
Pallas uses 'Tataren' for the Turkic Tatars (Crimean, Nogai, Kazan, Siberian) and keeps Kalmyks, Mongols and Buryats as 'Mongol peoples'; 'tatarisch' also appears loosely for inner Asian customs shared with the Mongols.
Why read it
A scientist's close look at how Mongol peoples actually built and worshipped, from portable felt temples to brick pagodas, with sharp asides on European fantasies about the East.
Watch out
Pallas mixes his own observation with reports and translations, and his judgements of taste are blunt. The OCR of part 2 is fair, of part 1 unusable; page numbers in the appended literary section are not reliable.
A brick bell tower and brick monastery near the half-ruined city of Taimingtschin
Editorial contextFrom reports, Pallas lists the temples of eastern Mongolia: a remarkable brick tower called Chonchotu with many idol figures and iron bells, and on the Locho a monastery of many brick temples, less than thirty versts from the half-deserted city of Taimingtschin and forty from an old earth fortress. A footnote sends the reader to Ides's and Witsen's accounts of this ruined 'city of the gods' (Burchan-Chotton) and its idol tower, the same ruins Adam Brand described.
proper temples, and on the latter stream also a remarkable tower of bricks with many idol figures and iron bells, called Chonchotu; but on the Locho river itself, below the stream Elbingol, a monastery built with many temples of brick … not thirty versts from the half-deserted city of Taimingtschin and about forty from an old earth fortress on the Locho
Working translation
Original wording
ordentliche Tempel und an lezteren Bach auch ein merkwürdiger Thurn von Ziegeln, mit vielen Götzenfiguren und eisernen Glocken, Chonchotu genant, am Flusse Locho selbst aber, unterhalb dem Bach Elbingol, ein mit vielen Tempeln aus Ziegeln erbautes Kloster … nicht dreißig Werste von der halbwüsten Stadt Taimingtschin und etwan vierzig von einer am Locho vorhandnen alten Erdfestung
Peter Simon Pallas (Sammlungen historischer Nachrichten über die mongolischen Völkerschaften, part 2, 1801)
Felt temples on the Volga, stone temples in Mongolia
Editorial contextOpening his chapter on Buddhist temples, Pallas contrasts the Volga Kalmyks, who because of their wandering life still kept their images in portable sacred felt tents, which he compares to the Tabernacle of the Israelites in the desert, with the Mongols under Chinese rule, who had long had permanent temples, some of stone. He adds that under the Mongol khans who ruled China, buildings for Lamaist worship were raised in the eastern Mongol steppes, but after the empire broke up the Mongols returned to a moving life.
but the Volga Kalmyks, because of their unsettled way of life, still keep their idol worship, as the Mongols also formerly did, in movable sacred felt huts (Burchanin-Orgö), which could be compared to the Tabernacle of the Israelites still living as nomads in the wilderness … The Mongols who are under China have long had permanent temples in various places of their land, some of them built of stone
Working translation
Original wording
die wolgischen Kalmücken aber halten, wegen ihrer unstäten Lebensart, ihren Götzendienst noch izt, so wie sonst auch die Mongolen thaten, in beweglichen heiligen Filzhütten, (Burchanin-Orgö) welche der Stiftshütte, bey denen in der Wüste, noch nomadisch lebenden Israeliten verglichen werden könten … Die Mongolen, welche unter China stehn, haben vorlängst an verschiednen Orten ihres Landes beständige und zum Theil von Stein erbaute Tempel gehabt
Peter Simon Pallas (Sammlungen historischer Nachrichten über die mongolischen Völkerschaften, part 2, 1801)
Editorial contextPallas dismisses Mongol music as wailing and inharmonious and claims the Mongols passed this 'corrupted taste' to the Crimean Tatars, outdone only by Nogai songs. By contrast, he says, the Kazan Tatars, the Bashkirs and the 'unmixed' Siberian Tatars have quite tolerable melodies, much like the songs of the Scottish Highlands. He adds that the Mongols can write down music in Tibetan letters with lines showing rising and falling notes.
the Mongols have passed on this same corrupted taste to the Crimean Tatars, whose miserable screeching is far surpassed by the Nogai songs, whereas the Kazan and Bashkir, and also the unmixed Siberian Tatars, have quite tolerable melodies, which very much resemble the songs of the Scottish Highlanders.
Working translation
Original wording
eben diesen verdorbenen Geschmack haben die Mongolen den Krymischen Tataren mitgetheilt, deren elendes Geschrey, durch die Nogaischen Gesänge noch weit übertroffen wird, da doch die Kasanischen und Baschkirischen, wie auch die Sibirischen unvermischten Tataren ganz erträgliche Melodien haben, welche sehr nach den Gesängen der Schottischen Hochländer arten.
Peter Simon Pallas (Sammlungen historischer Nachrichten über die mongolischen Völkerschaften, part 2, 1801)
Editorial contextIn a footnote to a pass issued by the Tibetan Panchen Lama that he found among the Kalmyks, stamped with a red seal, Pallas explains that the Mongol and Tatar peoples of Asia confirm letters and documents not by signing their names but by printing the mark of their seal or signet ring (tamga) in colour beneath them; without it, even a signed name is not considered valid.
The Mongol as well as the Tatar peoples of Asia are accustomed to confirm their letters and manuscripts not by signing their name, but by the mark of their signet or seal ring (tamga) printed underneath in colour, without which even a signature is not considered valid.
Working translation
Original wording
Die Mongolischen sowohl, als tatarischen Völker Asiens pflegen ihre Briefe und Handschriften nicht mit Unterschrift des Namens, sondern durch das mit Farbe darunter abgedrukte Zeichen ihres Signets oder Petschierrings (Tamga) zu bekräftigen, ohne welches selbst die Namensunterschrift nicht für gültig gehalten wird.
Peter Simon Pallas (Sammlungen historischer Nachrichten über die mongolischen Völkerschaften, part 2, 1801) (footnote)
What the Kalmyks call Tatars, Russians and themselves
Editorial contextPallas ends his notes on Mongol learning with a list of Kalmyk names for peoples and places. The Kalmyks call the Tatars 'Manggot', a word meaning a goblin, which the Buryats and Mongols apply to the Russians instead; the Kalmyks call Russians 'Orross' and themselves 'Oelöt' or 'Chalmik'. The list also gives Tobolsk as 'Toboltora' and Bukhara as 'Chotton', 'the towns'.
Manggot, the Tatars, a name which, however, means a goblin, and which the Buryats and Mongols give to the Russians; the latter, on the other hand, are called Orross by the Kalmyks … and themselves, finally, Oelöt or Chalmik
Working translation
Original wording
Manggot, die Tataren, welchen Namen aber, der einen Kobolt bedeutet, die Buraten und Mongolen den Russen beylegen; Orroß werden leztere hingegen von den Kalmücken … genannt … sich selbst endlich Oelöt oder Chalmik
Peter Simon Pallas (Sammlungen historischer Nachrichten über die mongolischen Völkerschaften, part 2, 1801)
Editorial contextPallas rejects the theory, pushed by the Augustinian friar Georgi, that Tibetan and Mongol Buddhism grew out of Nestorian Christianity or Manichaeism, calling it a heap of rubble glued together in a polemical spirit. He lumps it with other learned fantasies: the Chinese and Indians as an Egyptian colony, the Lapps as Israelites, pagan gods as biblical patriarchs, and the recent placing of Atlantis and the first seat of all learning as far north as Spitsbergen.
With such learned bombast the Chinese and Indians have before now been made into an Egyptian colony, the Lapps into Israelites, the idols of heathendom into patriarchs of the Bible, and only recently the Atlanteans, and with them the first seat of all learning, have been moved as far as Spitsbergen
Working translation
Original wording
Mit dergleichen gelehrtem Schwall sind wohl eher die Chineser und Indianer zu einer ägyptischen Colonie, die Lappländer zu Israeliten, die Götzen des Heydenthums zu Patriarchen der Bibel gemacht, und noch neulich die Atlanten und mit ihnen, der erste Sitz aller Wissenschaften bis nach Spitzbergen verlegt worden
Peter Simon Pallas (Sammlungen historischer Nachrichten über die mongolischen Völkerschaften, part 2, 1801)
About Mongol and Tibetan Buddhists; European theorists
Keep in mind
Pallas does not name the Atlantis author; it fits J.-S. Bailly's northern Atlantis letters of 1779.
The fine print
How we know
mixed Part firsthand observation, part drawn from other sources.
mixed: Pallas's firsthand observation among the Volga Kalmyks and Buryats 1769-1773, informant testimony (Kalmyk priests, Russian officials), translated Kalmyk and Mongol texts, and compilation of earlier Russian records on the Zunghars and the Torghut flight of 1771
Research notes
Part 1 catalogued on IA with language Russian in error (text is German). Part 2 IA date 1776 conflicts with the 1801 imprint; record both. Pallas used Bakunin's Kalmyk history and translations by Jährig; attributions inside the text should be checked case by case.
Reprint Graz 1980 exists.
Why it matters
The most detailed eighteenth-century European account of Kalmyk and Mongol history, law, religion and material culture, including the origin traditions of the Oirats and the history of Zungharia to its destruction by the Qing; a prime witness for how the Mongol peoples described themselves to a European observer, independent of the Tartary label.