living mostly on milk, bread of millet, and pastry. Delicate in her food
as she is neat in her dress, growing up in the healthy air of the
mountains, living in a society of simple tastes and natural habits,
always treated with gallant courtesy by a race of men whose hearts are
mostly moved by a love of war and of beauty, it is not strange that
nature should have preserved through so many generations something of
the type of loveliness which adorned the world's age of gold, and which
in modern times has made the Caucasian head to be regarded by civilized
man as the truest image of his Maker.
[Footnote A: Pallas]
XIX.
WIVES.
While the Circassian damsel, in her modest simplicity, is tolerant of
freedoms not altogether consistent with occidental notions of propriety,
and is generally ready enough to flee her tribe with a lover who happens
to be unable to pay the dowry demanded by a too avaricious father or
guardian, on becoming a married woman she takes the veil and retires
from the gaze of men almost as effectually as she would do by shutting
herself up in a convent. Now when she goes abroad, all her gay colors
are covered by the white mantle which envelops her whole figure. Her
sanctum, if she lives in a hamlet, is separate from the other buildings,
is inclosed by a wooden fence, and concealed by the foliage of trees and
shrubbery. No males enter it, excepting those of her own family and the
ataliks of her children. Even her husband does not visit her in the
daytime, but steals to her couch under cover of the darkness of night
like a paramour. When out of the house she scrupulously avoids meeting
his eye, and on perceiving him in the same path goes about or stands
aside in order to avoid his notice.
Having been bought with a price, she is rather the slave than the
companion of her husband, who may have as many wives as he likes, or
rather can pay for. She rises on his entrance into her apartments and
remains standing until he is seated; and this in fact is a mark of
respect paid by woman to all males, except they be serfs, but also to
the elders of their own sex. Latterly, however, the introduction of
Mahometanism has brought even into these mountains a partial recognition
of those rights which in some western countries have recently secured
for the wife the blessings of financial as well as social independence.
Under the law of the Koran she is nominally free; can hold property in
her own right; and on the infringement of her privileges, may have the
satisfaction of prosecuting her husband at law and bringing him into
court to answer her.
The Circassian woman, however, not having as yet become accustomed to
place much reliance on her legal rights, contents herself with the
exercise of those means of influence, if not of control, which have been
given her by nature. Denied the pleasure of the society of her lord
during the day, when at evening he comes to her apartments, fatigued it
may be by the exercise of the chase or the exertions of the foray, she
smoothes the brows wrinkled by care, dissipates by gentle caresses the
pains of overwearied nature, and wins over to the emotions of conjugal
love, the soul which all day long has been vexed by angry passions and
the rage of war.
As a wife she is faithful; for indeed the jealousy of a Circassian
husband is not to be endured. The disgrace of being sent home to her
parents and of compelling them to pay back her purchase-money, would
pierce her heart like a knife; not to mention other more barbarous
punishments with which the haughty warrior instantly avenges any
encroachment on his honor.
She is not only dutiful, but diligent in his service. She prepares with
her own hands his food; she makes all his clothes, covering them with
stitches until they become a raiment of needle-work; and helped by her
daughters she even manufactures his shoes and caps, his tent and shaggy
cloak, besides embroidering the coverings of his arms and the trappings
of his war-horse. To the Circassian woman therefore might be addressed
the commands of Telemachus to Penelope:--
Your widowed hours apart, with female toil
And various labors of the loom, beguile.
Nor in her poverty does she refuse the severer labors of the garden and
the field. Frequently she delves in the earth by the side of her Adam.
Sometimes she earns in the sweat of her brows the bread of both, while
he combats the invaders of their common country in pass and plain, or
practises his athletic games in the peaceful valley, or even sits idle
by the house-door, interrupting his listlessness only to burnish a
weapon or caress his steed. And in the higher and more barren mountains,
if the reports of travellers are to be credited, his better half, as
modest and still more industrious than the first mother, may be seen
picking the flinty soil during the heats of the day decked out with none
of the finery worn on occasions of ceremony, but clad simply in that one
garment deemed indispensable in all countries having made the smallest
progress in civilization.[A]
[Footnote A: Dubois.]
The headdress of the married woman is not the tiara of the maid, but
some kind of plain or ornamental stuff wound round the head in the form
of a turban, and with ends falling gracefully down on the shoulders.
This completely covers the hair which is worn short, with curls in the
neck. Over it on going out is thrown a veil of snow-white muslin which
descending mingles its folds with those of the mantle. This latter is
often a large square of European woollen of the finest texture that can
be afforded by the wearer; and whether fine or coarse has always a
picturesque look in the distance; and nearer by is generally worn with a
certain degree of womanly coquetry which lends grace to its folds, and
to the dullest eyes reveals half-glimpses of the beauty concealed
beneath.
Here the fashions of dress, whether for males or females, never change.
Garments therefore not being thrown aside or altered with every month's
variation of style as in the west, are frequently made of costly
materials and adorned with such elegance of needle-work as to render
them almost as precious as the sacred poet's vesture of gold wrought
about with divers colors. This applies of course to garments of ceremony
chiefly. A very fine paraja or mantle of camel or goat's hair, a skirt
of brocade, or a scarf ornamented with silver thread will sometimes
outlast a generation, and be handed down an heirloom even to
grandchildren. The belle who putting on the apparel which possibly a
preceding century has fabricated, does not find herself in an antiquated
cut nor with stitches placed amiss, loses no time of course in dreaming
of new fashions, nor self-respect in being obliged to parade in the old
ones. Her only fashionable foible is that of knitting silver lace, she
not having as yet been initiated into the mystery of making Chinese
boxes and card-racks, dolls' dresses and family portraits in worsted.
XX.
FEMALE SLAVE-TRADE.
Serfdom, to a limited extent, exists in the Caucasus, more particularly
in the western part. It is, however, a comparatively mild form of
bondage, the only real slaves in the mountains being the captives taken
in war who are compelled to do most of the hewing of wood and the
drawing of water. The serfs are rarely transferred with the land, and
never without their own consent. In return for their services they
receive maintenance, clothing, lodging, and some yearly gratuity. Wives
are furnished them gratis; and while their sons remain the serfs of the
master, the money received for the daughters when sold in marriage is
equally divided between him and the father. Their occupations consist in
cultivating the soil, taking care of horses and cattle, and waiting in
the guest-house; they being under no obligation to serve in war or even
give attendance on journeys. Often they farm the land of their masters
for half the product. They also have the right of purchasing their
freedom at the price of a certain number of oxen; and if ill-treated may
flee to another master for protection, who on payment of a moderate
compensation to their former owner is entitled to retain them. Socially
they are on a footing of almost equality with their lords, wearing the
same dress, living in similar houses, partaking of about the same diet,
sharing in all games and festivities, and associating on all occasions
with freemen as if they were their peers.
The well-known Circassian slave-trade is confined to the sale of
females. In the eastern Caucasus girls are rarely bought and sold except
in marriage; but in the western they are exported to supply the harems
of the Turks, more especially those of Constantinople. At one time this
trade was forbidden by Russia, and all of her subjects found engaged in
it were sent to Siberia; but in 1845 it was again legalized on condition
that the females to be exported into Turkey should take out letters of
Russian protection, the object being partly to conciliate the
Circassians, and partly to create a class of persons resident in the
dominions of the sultan who should depend upon the czar as their
protector and lord paramount.
Even when prohibited, however, the traffic was carried on by means of
small craft which under protection of Russian papers obtained at
Trebizond under pretence of going to Kertsch for grain, braved the
dangers of the winter voyage when from the inclemency of the weather the
Russian cruisers had been withdrawn from the coast of Circassia, and
taking in their precious cargo of souls landed it at Sinope or Samsoun.
Thence conducted privately to Trebizond, they were finally conveyed by
Turkish and Austrian steamers to Constantinople.
These girls were the daughters of the serfs and poorer class of persons;
those of nobles, chiefs, and men of means being rarely if ever sold to
the slave-merchant. Sold they however must be even if they remain at
home, the Asiatic doctrine prevailing in the Caucasus that the woman
should be bought, not given in marriage, and where a dowry in addition
to a wife would be the gilding of refined gold and adding sugar to the
honey-comb. The married woman is the property of her lord--or was until
nominally set free by the introduction of the law of the Koran. The idea
of becoming the slave of a master was therefore nearly synonymous in the
mind of a maid of low degree with that of becoming the wife of a
husband; and to make the journey to Constantinople for the purpose of
being bought by a wealthy Turk, was looked forward to by many a one as a
settlement in life preferable to remaining at home the wife of a poor
peasant. This sentiment was encouraged by the sight, not uncommon in
Circassia, of females who after having obtained an education and a
competency in Constantinople have returned to reside in their own
country. It is also well known to the humblest maiden that the high
officers in the Turkish state often take to themselves wives of the
daughters of the Caucasus, who, if they do not return to the land of
their fathers, at least play, in that of their adoption, a part in
society superior to that of the wives of even chiefs and princes in the
mountains.
Accordingly, it is not generally looked upon by the Caucasian female
born in poverty, as a misfortune to be sold into Turkish captivity. She
pleases her fancy, on the contrary, with imagining that she will become
the wife of, it may be, the sultan himself, or of a pasha, or of the
admiral of the fleet. She will be the light of the harem of a nabob with
many tails. She will be dressed in rich silks and velvets, and adorned
with gold and jewelry. She will live in the great aoul of Stamboul, in a
sakli by the Golden horn, or in the woods that skirt the Sweet Waters.
Nor, poor thing, does she know or stop to consider that she may be
thrown into those same beautiful waters sewed up alive in a sack. Many a
one, no doubt, leaves her home however humble with a sigh of regret;
many a one sheds bitter tears of shame when made to stand forth half
naked in the marketplace; and many a one even in the gorgeous halls and
perfumed chambers of Constantinopolitan princes, tired of the watching
of eunuchs and of the bickerings of rivals, would gladly exchange all
the luxuries of the harem for the freedom of a hut in her native
mountains.
Still it is the testimony of travellers that the great majority of poor
females in Circassia are as ready to go to Stamboul as pilgrims to
Mecca. When captured by Russian cruisers on the voyage, some of them
have been known to cast themselves into the sea or to drive a knife into
their hearts rather than submit to become wives to the enemies of their
country, the hated Muscovites; but they have no aversion to the Turk.
Often they suffer somewhat on the voyage for lack of suitable shelter,
food, and clothing; and generally they arrive at Constantinople much
better subjects for the Turkish bath than the harem. But they are often
placed in seminaries to be educated for the places they are to occupy in
the houses of the great; being on their arrival frequently not more than
twelve years of age, and always destitute of the few accomplishments
considered indispensable in the families of Turks of any distinction. A
beautiful young Circassian, when thus prepared for the life of the
harem, will sometimes sell for as much as twenty or even thirty or forty
thousand piastres, though the ordinary price might not be more than five
or ten thousand. But even in Circassia an Englishman has been known to
pay for a wife "three hundred and twenty-five pieces of cotton cloth,"
valued there at upwards of six thousand piastres. Since the repeal of
the Russian law forbidding the slave-trade, however, the price of this
merchandise has greatly fallen in the market.
There is no evil, however great, without some good; and to the
Circassian trade in female slaves is to be traced the superiority, both
of physiognomy and of blood, which belongs to the modern Turk above the
Tartar of the steppe and of the desert.
XXI.
FORM OF GOVERNMENT.
The society of which Schamyl on reaching the age of manhood became a
member in full was a free democracy. In the western Caucasus the various
tribes, such as the Kabardians, the Ubighé, and the Adighé, who are the
Circassians proper, live under a form of social organization more or
less feudal and aristocratic; but in the eastern, among the Lesghians,
the Tchetchenians, and the inhabitants of Daghestan, there is for the
most part no distinction of classes. Several small tribes in this latter
division which are of Tartar origin are indeed governed by khans; but
even among them where the form of government is despotic, as well as
west of the Terek where it is aristocratic, there prevails such a spirit
of personal independence together with such an equality of civil rights
and social conditions, that the Circassians in general may best be
characterized as associations of free brothers, not unlike the Germans
as described by Tacitus.
More especially is this true of the Lesghians of whom is Schamyl. Among
them previously to the establishment of his system of government, there
was no other chief of the state than he who by general consent led the
warriors of the tribe on their expeditions against the enemy. Nor did
such office of leader outlast a foray or a campaign. In time of peace
all were brothers, free and equal before the law, with only such
diversity of social condition as might result from a difference in
natural gifts or in the favors of fortune. Whoever had been endowed with
most commanding powers, whoever was foremost in valor and the exercise
of all manly virtues, was in fact a chieftain though without the
formality of an election; he was king though without a title; and
between the natural and the divine right to govern there was practically
no difference.
The public affairs of the tribe were regulated in general assembly. The
freemen came together at their own will to sit in the council ring on
the greensward beneath the trees. In these meetings no officer claimed
precedence as a right, but all granted it by consent to the elders and
those most distinguished for valor and the gift of speech. The counsels
of age and experience were heard first. The wise man also, whoever he
was, the valiant in arms, the influential from worth of character, all
gave their opinion; but most the assembly hung upon the sweet tongue of
eloquence. For the orator has ample scope in the free assemblies of the
Circassians. When he rises to speak, especially if he be advanced in
years, the principal men of the tribe sometimes even come forward and
reverently kiss his robe. If possessed of more of the impetuosity of
early life, he will perhaps clash into the ring on horseback and
harangue the assembly from the saddle. Then if in the midst of his
impassioned volubility any Hotspur interrupt the orator, the latter
foams with rage and would transgress all bounds of propriety if the
lifted hand of some elder did not instantly restore silence.
When the object of the meeting is to agree on an expedition against the
enemy, the favorite topic and constant burden of eloquence is the
oppression and the cruelty of the Russians. As the speaker dilates upon
their burnings and shedding of blood, the aoul laid low by their
artillery, the women violated, the youth carried away captive, the
tribes gradually driven back into the mountains, his voice rages with
indignation or wails in the plaintive tones of unaffected sorrow. His
eye flashes beneath the shaggy, contracted brows; the clenched fist is
relaxed only to grasp shaska or poniard; the blood rushes and returns
from the cheek; and the chest heaves with violently struggling emotions.
Mean-while in reply is heard the low, half-stifled sob; the
irrepressible tears trickle down the sunburnt cheeks of those who weep
for their country, if not their friends; teeth are clenched and brows
are knit and sabres are half-drawn; while at intervals is responded
amen! amen! and at the conclusion a shout of applause breaks from the
universal throat, and rings through the air until the echoing hill-sides
give it back to each other in boisterous accord.
New laws are rarely made by this assembly, the tribe being governed very
much by custom and ancient usage. Whenever these prove an insufficient
rule of action, the Koran, in those parts of the mountains where it has
been introduced, is appealed to. Of course, in a state of society so
simple and unchanging there is little need of that constant lawmaking
and unmaking deemed so indispensable in free and more civilized
communities. Whatever rules of conduct have been longest established and
found to meet the necessities of many generations, are by these
primitive mountaineers held most sacred. To execute laws, therefore, not
to make them, is the principal object of what little government exists
in the Caucasus. Offenders are tried in the council ring; punishments
consist mostly of fines, which if not paid by the guilty individual
himself, must be by his family or his tribe; and crimes against persons
which are not thus compounded are prosecuted by the injured party and
those of his blood even to the third and fourth generations.
Hence arise those numerous feuds which, arraying family against family
and tribe against tribe, produce a degree of mutual alienation of which
great use has been made by the Russians in their war of subjugation. For
the right of revenge is one of the three great principles on which is
based the whole system of Circassian usage, the exercise of hospitality
and respect for age being the two others. But to limit the sway of this
old law of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth under which
intestine wars prevailed, as formerly among the clans of Scotland, and
suits at law were protracted from generation to generation, as in the
chancery of England, fraternities have latterly been established and
oaths imposed on the members, whereby the ends of justice have been
better secured as well as domestic peace greatly promoted. For an oath
taken over even a few amulets is sufficient to secure the fulfilment of
an engagement; and when formally administered upon the Koran suspended
from two rifle-rests, the warrior, who never trembled before, is, by the
simple ceremony, agitated with dread, and having deposited his rifle,
his pistol, or his bow, will die but what he will keep his word.
The barbarity of this law of blood has also been always more or less
counteracted by the affectionate respect for age, wherever met with,
which runs through the code of Circassian manners, as well as by such an
universal practice of hospitality as keeps the door of the apartment for
guests standing wide open from one end of the year to the other
throughout the mountains, and which enables even the foreigner to enter
the country unharmed, by placing himself under the protection of any
chieftain he may select for his konak or guardian.
XXII.
RELIGIOUS BELIEF.
The religious belief of the countrymen of Schamyl formerly partook of
the simplicity of their mode of government. Not a century ago they were
almost entirely pagan, performing their religious ceremonies not in
temples made with hands, but in groves, in the shadow of whose
melancholy boughs dwelt many divinities. They believed also in one Great
Spirit whose presence filled immensity, and who was likened to no living
thing, nor fashion of a man. To him were subject all inferior powers who
presided over the seasons of the year, over various localities, over the
lives of the lower animals, and over all the doings and destinies of
mankind.
Merissa, for example, was the protector of bees; and at her festivals,
celebrated at the season of gathering in the sweets of the hive, all the
viands and beverages with which the worshippers regaled themselves, were
prepared with honey. Still more powerful was Seozeres, who held in
subjection the winds and waters, and who being at the same time the
guardian of animals, tempered the air to the shorn flock and brought the
springs out of the rocks for the supply of the herd. Tliebse had the
care of smiths and all the cunning workmanship of forges, and at his
fete libations were poured in honor of him upon the hatchet and the
ploughshare. Domestic happiness and good-fellowship among neighbors were
presided over by the three sisters denominated fates in the mythology of
the Greeks, and who besides interfered on the field of battle to throw
their invisible shield over the favorite warrior; who sped the traveller
on his way; and to whom the father on bringing his family across a new
threshold offered sacrifice and invocation.
Most of the religious festivals were celebrated at either seed-time or
harvest. In the first instance, when the grain was scattered over the
furrows in the hope that the land would yield its increase, the sower
supplicated the friendly interposition of the heavenly powers; in the
latter, after having laid up in storehouses the winter's supply of corn
and wine, the reaper returned thanks to the celestial givers of all good
things, and made merry with his friends in feasts. Nor at this season,
when the sight of nature's decay dashes with a certain degree of sadness
even the hilarity of the ingathering of crops did the pious mountaineers
forget their dead, but uniting with the autumn which spreads over the
graves the gorgeous pall of its many-colored leaves, they likewise
strewed there whatever wild flowers bloomed in the mountains so late in
the year. For they, too, believed in the life beyond the tomb, wherein
there should be no _fana Muscov_ to infest the mountains of happiness,
and where the warrior, laying aside his rifle and his bow, should hear
no more of war beyond the home-march at beat of which he would enter
within the gates of paradise.