Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume IV.djvu/616

 604 CIRCASSIA archal jurisdiction, regulating even their mar- riages and the education of their children. Having no written laws, the administration of justice was formerly regulated by custom and tradition, and ordinary affairs were administered by a council of the oldest and most respected of the villagers, whose award was final. All ranks associate, and are clothed, fed, and housed alike, the only difference being in their warlike equip- ment, wherein the rich men display great ex- travagance ; the array of a chief consists of a coat and helmet of mail, sword, javelin, rifle, pistols, poniard, and frequently bow and arrows. The chiefs alone are entitled to the privilege of wearing red. Like most oriental nations, they shave the head, and never remove the head covering. The ordinary costume consists of a tunic descending to the knee, secured around the waist by a leather belt, and having on both sides of the breast from 12 to 20 small pockets in which cartridges are carried, a round fur cap, and cloth trousers of eastern pattern. On a journey a goat's-hair cloak with a hood is add- ed. Their habitations are log huts, put together slightly, so as to be abandoned at short notice. Around these cabins they cultivate millet, bar- ley, and vegetables for their own food, permit- ting their flocks to pasture among the hills. The Circassian national dish is millet porridge ; they also distil a kind of whiskey from millet. Bees are reared on most farms, and mead is a favorite beverage. Great attention is paid to the breeding of horses. Oxen are employed in agriculture. Mules and asses are the beasts of burden, the horse being considered too noble an animal for labor. There is no regular taxa- tion, the lower orders being required to supply what the nobles want; but the vassal who finds the exactions of his lord too severe can transfer his allegiance to another. Some of their domestic customs are curious. A bride- groom makes a show of carrying off his bride by force from her father's house. The Circas- sian husband has unlimited power over the lives of his wife and children. The wife hides herself from strangers, and the children must stand in his presence. Polygamy is allowed, but custom limits men to one or at most two wives. The women have fine forms and complexion, both of which are carefully preserved by exemption from labor and by attention to diet and cos- metics. The household work is done by the married women. The traffic in their daughters has been the greatest reproach against the Circassians. About 1,000 girls were formerly , exported annually. The Russians stopped the trade, but by treaty in 1845 its renewal was permitted. Lady Sheil, in her " Glimpses of Life and Manners in Persia" (London, 1856), gives an interesting account of the slave trade as she saw it in 1849. Dealers from Constan- tinople and Egypt made voyages to Circassia, taking with them silk and cotton cloths, chintz- es, shawls, colored leather, gunpowder, and salt, which they exchanged for females and youths. Ugly and old females were taken for menial service, and the handsome girls for the harems. Men could not sell their daughters ! against their consent, but it was the great am- i bition of a Circassian girl to become an inmate flight, and the amount of the purchase was di- vided between them. The price of males varied from $50 to $400, that of females from $50 to $700, according to age and beauty. The traffic was again suppressed in 1855 by the firman of Abdul-Medjid, which prohibited the sale of white persons as slaves. Notwithstanding the prohibition, however, there was in 1856 an absolute glut in the Circassian slave market at Constantinople, and a Circassian girl, formerly thought very cheap at $500, might then have been had for $25. The Circassians are fond of music ; their instruments are chiefly a shep- herd's flute and one resembling a violin, with but two strings. There are wandering poets, and every chief has his own bard. The sexes do not dance together ; the young men form a circle, into which one steps and goes through a round of comic leaps and gestures, the others keeping time by clapping their hands. The dance of the girls is similar, but performed with more grace. The Circassians unite into brotherhoods, consisting of 20 or more fami- lies,, who bind themselves to assist each other in cases of .need, and a widow of one is pro- vided for by the whole brotherhood. The re- ligion is a mixture of Mohammedanism, Chris- tianity, and paganism. Nominally they follow the precepts of the Koran, but pay a supersti- tious reverence to the sign of the cross, while the bulk of the people believe in a good spirit called Merem, and an evil, Tchible, the god of thunder ; also Tleps, the god of fire, and Se- osserer, of water and winds, and protector of cattle. They have no mosque, but there are sacred groves and mountains where they resort for prayer. Their mollahs or priests are much reverenced. The different tribes have a stri- king similarity in habits and customs, but differ widely in language. "Within a narrow space it is said that no fewer than 72 dialects have been counted, and one particular region was named by Abulfeda Jebel el- Ulsun, the moun- tain of languages. The language is harsh, abounding in gutturals, and bears little resem- blance to any other, except that there are a few words resembling those of the Finnish. Nouns have seven cases, but no gender; the plural is formed by the addition of khe or her. An r affixed to a word serves as an article. The comparative is formed by nakhai placed before the adjective, and the superlative by the affix ded, or the prefixes kodo, bo, bodedo. The numerals are : tee, 1 ; tuu, 2 ; sshe, 3 ; plea, 4 ; tfo, 5 ; khkho, 6 ; ble, 7 ; iye, 8 ; vgu, 9 ; pse, 10. The personal pronouns are: serti, I; vuore, thou ; ie, ar, he ; tere, we ; snore, you ; a, arikh, they. Five conjugations have been distinguished in the verb, and the different tenses and moods are expressed by the ter-
 * of the harem of a wealthy Turk. Sometimes
 * a man induced his friend to sell him, then took