Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 1.djvu/439

Rh the priest is invited to give it the name which he finds in his book. Besides which, each Calmuck bears a certain sobriquet; for example, badma, flower, narbo, jewel, etc.

The Calmucks do not reckon their age from the time of their birth, but by a peculiar calculation. Thus, the day of the new year (November 24th—December 6th) being the general birthday, they reckon that a child born, if only a few days before that day of the year, is two years old. The Calmucks trouble themselves very little with the education of their children. As soon as a child begins to walk, he is abandoned to himself, and he habituates himself gradually, by his own experience, to all the privations of a Calmuck existence. When arrived at the age of eight years, the boy is sent to some priest to commence his studies. These consist in learning to read and write and endure for two or three years. The master is paid by means of presents received from the parents at the commencement and at the termination of the course. The girls of the Calmucks, as well of the poor as of the rich, do not learn to read or to write. A girl having finished her thirteenth, and the boy his fifteenth year, they convoke the near relatives, and invite the priests. After a short prayer before the idols, the boy or girl having attained majority is introduced, and his or her hair clipped on the temples. From this moment they are considered marriageable, and they shortly become betrothed.

The religion of the Calmucks is Lamaic, or Buddhist. The doctrine of Buddha, undergoing corruption among the Calmucks from generation to generation, consists at the present day of a most absurd mixture of credences.

According to their ideas, before the creation of the universe, there existed an enormous abyss, which was 20,000,000 miles in depth, and 60,000,000 in breadth. From the bottom of this abyss there came out golden clouds, which afterward condensed into a cloud charged with lightning, and then melted into abundant rain, which formed the ocean. This ocean was nearly 6,000,000 miles in length and 7,000,000 in breadth. In time the winds gradually formed a great quantity of froth on the surface of the ocean, and of this froth the continent was formed. In the first place, there appeared the mountain Summer, which is more than 200,000 miles in height. Upon the top of this gigantic mountain, of which we only see the half, is found a vast plain. The mountain itself has the form of a rock with four flanks. Each side of the mountain has a different color: silvered on the side of the east, red on the west, blue on the side of the south, and golden on that of the north. Around the Summer are found four great islands, which form the four parts of the world. The isle of the south is that which we inhabit; that of the east is peopled with men who live 150 years; the isle of the west, which abounds with cattle, is inhabited by giants; lastly, the isle of the north is peopled by peculiar beings—they each live 1,000 years, and the end of their lives is announced to them by an unknown voice.