Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 4 1886.djvu/43

Rh Ginghis Khan was the Son of the Sky. He appeared on the earth as a babe at the time of building a village. A woman who was collecting fuel of dung heard a child's cry, found him, and brought him up. He married, and had seven sons, of whom six had children, and the seventh not. From the six sons, and from Ginghis Khan himself, proceeded the seven Gachouns.—(A Khalka man of Tachjēn Uryankhai Gachoun.)

The men of the Altai are divided into three tribes—Kaldjan ērkhuit, Sarui ērkhuit, and Kara ērkhuit. When they gave them the names a cunning man divided meat among the three tribes in the following manner: to the first he gave the first joints of the neck, to the second the second joints of the neck (the meat was not roasted nor boiled), to the third he gave soft flesh, "kara êt," that is, black or boiled food. It was thus the three tribes received their names.—(Alexis, a Christian Altai man.)

There lived a khan named Gander Uriuha. He waged war a great deal, once he was at war for three years. At that time his wife was left at home. In the capital where she was left there lived a great Lhama. On his return home Khan Gander Uriuha found his wife had a child, and he suspected it must be the son of the Lhama. He ordered them both to be banished to a mountain. There they lived, the Lhama under one rock, the woman under another; while she cooked the food or fetched water and firewood he looked after the baby. Once when the woman had gone to fetch water, the Lhama, having closed his eyes to recite his prayers, did not observe that the child had run off to the river for something or other. Opening his eyes, and not seeing the child, the Lhama was distressed out of pity for the mother; and, so as to avoid causing her sorrow, he mixed some dough and made of it just such an other second child: he gave it life, and placed it by himself. The mother comes to the Lhama and finds the new babe. To her question whence it had come the Lhama told her the fact. The woman then brought up both children. Rh