Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 1.djvu/444

430 mountain of Thibet, and contains 999 chambers. At a mile from this palace stands the celebrated temple Dshu. Every new year there assembles in this temple the clergy of the whole of Thibet, to the number of 17,000 men. They celebrate there day and night divine service for twenty-one days.

All the rest of the clergy is composed of lamas. To become a lama is not an easy thing. For this, besides the three principal books, it is necessary to read a multitude of others, which embrace many hundred volumes. It is also necessary to be instructed in astronomy, in medicine, and in other sciences; and lastly, which is the most difficult, it is necessary to perform the vote to think upon God every moment, and strictly to execute all the commandments, the number of which surpasses two hundred.

The social organization of the Calmucks at the commencement of the seventeenth century, that is to say, at the epoch of their arrival in Russia, was purely patriarchal. Many families united by the bonds of relationship formed a khoton, of which the most aged was the head. Many khotons composed an aïmak, governed by the zaïsangh the power of whom was hereditary from father to son. Afterward many aïmaks in their turn formed a commune, and many communes composed an oulouss, governed by a nohyon, or chief. Lastly, a certain number of oulouss, united under the command of a taïsha, formed a tribe. The taïsha, who had the rank of a prince, governed personally in the principal oulouss; and all the others he ceded to his sons and brothers, who governed there by turns. All the tribes united constituted the entire people, commanded by the khan.

The actual rule over the Calmucks belongs to the Court of Domains, at Astrakhan. Formerly there were three kinds of punishment—corporal punishment, fine, and the degradation of the criminal in the face of the entire tribe. Thus, for example, for disobedience to parents, as well as for rudeness or insolence to elders or chiefs, they applied to the offender, first, a certain number of blows with a stick, and then, after having daubed his face with soot, and tied a pan round his neck, they promenaded him through the whole khoton. This chastisement is called degradation by means of the hand, because, to apply it, he who is charged with its execution takes a handful of soot from the bottom of the pan, and spreads the whole handful over the face of the offender. For a theft they punished the thief by promenading him equally through the khoton by a cord round his neck. Those who met him gave him blows with a rod on his naked body, and some deride him.

The exercise of justice has three degrees: The first, which was practised in the khoton, had a family character. The second consisted in a veritable tribunal, named zargo, and was composed of the zaïsanghs under the presidency of a nohyon. Lastly, the supreme tribunal, after the number of its members, called Judgment of the