'We get drunk every day': a mare's-milk spirit party
Editorial contextAt a drinking bout with Kalmyk clergy, Bergmann watched a boy of ten or twelve drain five bowls and a sixty-year-old gelung twelve. He noticed for the first time that fermented mare's milk (tschigan, which the Tatars call kumiss) was intoxicating even before distilling: the drinkers began to speak Tatar and Russian and even scraps of German. When he asked whether such parties were frequent, the old monk answered flatly that they got drunk every day, and the others said it was a kind of medicine. Bergmann doubted it and blamed the drink for the eye troubles common among Kalmyks.
The Kalmyk drinkers were all so full of the fumes of this drink that they began to speak Tatar and Russian, and some even to throw about scraps of German. … I asked whether such tschigan parties were often held here. The old man answered me quite categorically: 'We get drunk every day.'
Working translation
Original wording
Die kalmükischen Trinker waren alle so voll von den Dünsten dieses Getränks, daß sie Tatarisch und Russisch zu sprechen, und einige sogar deutsche Brocken um sich zu werfen anfingen. … Ich fragte, ob man hier öfters dergleichen Tschigangelage anzustellen pflegte. Der Alte antwortete mir ganz kathegorisch: „Wir besaufen uns alle Tage.”
About Kalmyk monks (gelungs) and herders
Fines counted in nines of cattle
Editorial contextBergmann translates the old Kalmyk law code, the 'Ssadschin Bitschik' (the Mongol-Oirat code). Penalties are counted in head of livestock, usually in multiples of nine: whoever forgets himself towards father, mother or teacher pays three nines, two nines or one nine; a daughter-in-law who wrongs her parents-in-law pays three nines and, if she struck them, is flogged. Thieves lose cattle and are flogged and branded, and anyone who turns to sorcerers must give his best horse to the informer.
According to the Tsaadzhin Bichig, whoever forgets himself towards father, mother or teacher pays, according to the nature of the offence, 3 times 9, 2 times 9, or just 9 head of cattle. … Thieves shall be punished by loss of cattle, by lashes and by branding. Whoever takes refuge with sorcerers or sorceresses shall give his best horse to the informer.
Working translation
Original wording
Nach dem Ssadschist Bitschick zahlt derjenige, welcher sich gegen Vater, Mutter, Lehrer vergißt, nach Beschaffenheit des Vergehens, 3 mal 9, 2 mal 9, oder bloß 9 Stück Vieh. … Diebe sollen durch Verlust an Vieh, durch Geißelhiebe und Brandmal bestraft werden. Wer zu Zauberern und Zauberinnen seine Zuflucht nimmt, soll sein bestes Pferd dem Angeber hingeben.
About Kalmyks (Oirat law)
Keep in mind
Bergmann's summary of the Oirat code of 1640, not a full translation. He notes it had lost much of its force and that the Russian Kalmyks, too poor to pay the fines in cattle, used it more as a yardstick than a rule.
'Kalmyk': a Tatar word for those who stayed behind, or turned away
Editorial contextBergmann spells the name 'Kalmük' after the pronunciation of the Russians and Tatars, because the name itself comes from Tatar. The Kalmyks once called themselves Oelöt (Oirats). He rejects Strahlenberg's idea that the name comes from kalpak, a cap, and follows the Khivan historian Abulghazi: the Tatar word means either 'those left behind' or 'apostates'. On the next page he guesses that Tatars and Mongols once shared one religion, and that when the Mongols turned to Lamaist Buddhism the Muslim Tatars called them apostates.
Far more likely is the derivation from the word khalimak. Abulghazi himself seems to confirm this by giving this people the name Khalmak. According to this Tatar expression, the name Kalmyk means either apostates or those who remained behind.
Working translation
Original wording
Weit wahrscheinlicher ist die Herleitung von … Worte Chalimäk. Abulhasi selbst scheint das dadurch zu bestätigen, daß er diesem Volke den Namen Khalmak beilegt. Dem eben angeführten tatarischen Ausdrucke nach, bezeichnet der Name Kalmük entweder Abtrünnige oder Nachgebliebene.
About Kalmyks (Oirats), named by their Tatar neighbours
Keep in mind
An etymology argued from earlier writers; the religious explanation on the next page is Bergmann's own hypothesis.
Attila's court, seen as a Kalmyk khan's household
Editorial contextBergmann argues that the Huns were a Mongol people. He compares Jordanes' description of Hunnic faces with the Kalmyks, and says that reading Priscus' account of his embassy to Attila feels like entering a Kalmyk khan's dwelling: the ruler on a raised seat facing the door, guests ranked on his right and left, and Attila eating from a wooden bowl while his guests used silver and gold. He goes on to explain Hunnic names from Mongol words.
The envoy sees him opposite the entrance on a raised couch, just as among the Kalmyks and all Mongol peoples. The envoys sit, as among the Kalmyks, on both sides of the prince, the most distinguished on the right, the others on the left. … but Attila follows the custom of his people when he eats the meat offered to him from a wooden bowl and drinks from a wooden cup.
Working translation
Original wording
Der Gesandte erblickt ihn dem Eingange gegenüber auf einem erhabenen Lager; ganz wie bey den Kalmüken und bey allen mongolischen Völkerschaften. Die Gesandten setzen sich, wie bey den Kalmüken, zu beiden Seiten des Fürsten, die vornehmsten rechts, die übrigen links. … aber Attila folgt der Sitte seines Volks, wenn er das dargebrachte Fleisch aus einer hölzernen Schaale speist, und sein Getränk aus einem hölzernen Becher trinkt.
About Huns, whom Bergmann identifies with the Mongols
Keep in mind
Bergmann's own theory, built on comparing ancient texts with what he saw among the Kalmyks.
Proud heirs of Chinggis Khan
Editorial contextBergmann reports that the Kalmyks counted themselves one people with the Mongols, remembered with pleasure the deeds of their forefathers under Chinggis and his successors, and that most of their princes traced their blood to him. No Kalmyk doubted that the heirs of that heroic stock could match those deeds again if there were more of them. He then records a Kalmyk asking him whether the Prussians had not been defeated by the Kalmyks, since some 4,000 had served in the Russian army against Prussia.
The Kalmyks count themselves as one [Mongol] people. They think with pleasure of the deeds of their ancestors under Chinggis and his successors. Most of the present Kalmyk princes honour in themselves the blood of that great hero from whom they derive their descent. No Kalmyk doubts that the descendants of the Mongol heroic line could equal the deeds of old, if greater numbers backed up their courage.
Working translation
Original wording
Die Kalmüken rechnen sich zu einem … Volke. Sie denken mit Wohlgefallen an die Thaten ihrer Vorältern unter Tschingis und dessen Nachfolgern. Der größte Theil der jetzigen Kalmükenfürsten ehrt in sich selbst das Blut jenes großen Helden, von welchem sie ihre Abkunft herleiten. Kein Kalmük zweifelt daran daß die Nachkommen des mongolischen Heldenstamms, die ehemaligen Thaten erreichen könnten, wenn eine größere Anzahl ihren Muth unterstützte.
About Volga Kalmyks and their princes
Keep in mind
One word is lost in the scan after 'zu einem'.
Was the yurt copied from a bird's nest?
Editorial contextBergmann offers his own 'hypothesis' about how the Mongol peoples invented the felt tent. Living in treeless country, they could neither dig caves nor build huts of branches, so perhaps one of them copied the hanging, bag-shaped nest that the penduline tit weaves from plant wool. Because a house cannot hang from a branch, the Mongols set it on the ground and put the door at the bottom. He presents this frankly as a guess.
This remarkable bird makes from a kind of wool an oblong bag, which it fastens to twigs so skilfully that neither wind nor weather can damage its hanging home. This method, I fancy, the forefathers of the Kalmyks used, to make huts for themselves after the example of the remez [penduline tit], which they afterwards tried to perfect more and more and to support ever better with woodwork.
Working translation
Original wording
Dieser merkwürdige Vogel bereitet aus einer Art von Wolle, einen länglichen Sack, den er so geschickt an Zweige befestigt, daß weder Wind noch Wetter im Stande sind, seine schwebende Wohnung zu beschädigen. Diese Methode, dünkt mich, benutzten die Voreltern der Kalmüken, um sich nach dem Beispiele des Remes Hütten einzurichten, die sie in der Folge immer mehr zu vervollkommnen und mit Holzwerk immer besser zu stützen suchten.
About Ancestors of the Kalmyks and Mongols (Bergmann's theory)
Keep in mind
Bergmann's own speculation, not a Kalmyk tradition.
The captain bound in raw cowhide
Editorial contextDuring the 1771 flight the Kalmyks captured a detachment under Captain Dudin, and, Bergmann says, Ubashi had the officer's head and hands bound in strips of fresh cowhide, which tightened as they dried. Bergmann heard this from one of Dudin's own Cossacks, a Persian by birth, who later escaped from Kalmyk and then Kazakh captivity and saw his officer two months after his capture, still bound and awaiting death. What became of Dudin was never known.
One of his Cossacks, a Persian by birth, from whose own mouth I learned of this act of cruelty, saw his captain again two months after his capture, with the strips of cowhide round his head and hands, in the most terrible state, expecting death at every moment, though death seemed to flee him.
Working translation
Original wording
Einer seiner Kosaken, ein gebohrner Perser, … aus dessen eigenem Munde ich diesen Zug von Grausamkeit erfahren habe: sah seinen Rittmeister zwey Monate nach der Gefangenschaft wieder, mit den Streifen von Kuhhaut um Kopf und Hände, in dem schrecklichsten Zustande, alle Augenblicke seinen Tod erwartend, der ihn zu fliehen schien.
About Torghut Kalmyks and a captured Russian officer
Keep in mind
A single informant's account of wartime cruelty, told decades later.