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Book No. 91


To first story in the book press: 3960

To last story in the book press: 3973

A Journey in Southern Siberia: The Mongols, their Religion and their Myths

Curtin Jeremiah

Curtin Jeremiah, A Journey in Southern Siberia: The Mongols, their Religion and their Myths, Cambridge, 1909

A Journey in Southern Siberia: The Mongols, their Religion and their Myths

BY

JEREMIAH CURTIN

Author of "The Mongols, A History," "The Mongols in Russia," "Myths and Folk-Lore of Ireland," "Creation Myths of Primitive America," etc.

TRANSLATOR OF THE WORKS OF HENRYK SIENKIEWICZ

With a Map, and Numerous Illustrations from Photographs

BOSTON

LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY

1909

Published November, 1909

TUE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.

FULFILLING THE AUTHOR'S WISH

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED

TO HIS VALUED

FRIEND

SIR WILLIAM VAN HORNE

 

A Journey in Southern Siberia

by Jeremiah Curtin

[1909]

Jeremiah Curtin, writer, polyglot, ethnographer and folklorist, travelled in 1900 to central Siberia to study the religion and folklore of the Buryat people. The Buryats are one branch of the Mongols, who at one point conquered a large swath of Asia, Europe and India. Their home is around Lake Baikal in central Siberia. The first third of this book is a travelogue which describes Curtin's Siberian journey; this is a fascinating glimpse at Tsarist Siberia just before the Revolution. The last two-thirds of the book is an extraordinary record of the mythology of the Buryats. The lore is of great interest, resembling in its fluid, dreamlike narrative the Native American tales. There are many elements found elsewhere through Asia and Europe such as epic horses (and horse sacrifices), battles with giants, a World-mountain and 'the water of life', (see The Epic of Gilgamesh). There are also unique elements such as heroes with oracular books embedded in their bodies.

This one of the last of Curtin's books, published after his death in 1906. Etexts of the full text of other books by Curtin at this site are Myths and Folk-lore of Ireland, Tales of the Fairies and of the Ghost World and Creation Myths of Primitive America.

 

CHAPTER III

COLLECTING MYTHS

The day following the wedding Andrei Mihailovitch came over from his summer place. He was supposed to remain at home for nine days, still he came. After a while he invited me to walk along the street with him. We went the whole length of the village. He met a number of people, who showed immense respect for him; he kissed one man, but there was much condescension in his kiss. The grandeur of the old Buriat as he led me, an American, on exhibition through the town, was truly fine.

We stood for a time on the long bridge across the Kudá, talked a little, and looked at the river, the country, and the Russian Mission Church.

"Bishops and priests," said Mihailovitch, "have asked me to be baptized, but I would not. I will stay with the beliefs into which I was born."

Just then a man appeared, racing on horseback at the highest speed. There seemed to be in the horse and man a peculiar impetus and internal force. Without decreasing the pace of the horse the man turned toward Andrei Mihailovitch, and, during the instant in which he was passing, saluted him with the highest respect. Soon the man was beyond the Mission Church, and next he was a speck on the horizon.

"Think," said I to my host as I watched the horseman, "of the time when Jinghis Khan had a cavalry of one hundred thousand men like that man and more than two hundred thousand horses swifter than that horse."

"Oh," replied he, "there was never on earth anything to equal the cavalry of Jinghis Khan. It swept everything down before it! What have we now? – Nothing. We were great once, we conquered many countries, we ruled many peoples. China and Russia overpowered us, but our turn will come again."

We went back to the balcony and talked long over the question of finding men who could tell the ancient myths and explain the customs and beliefs of the Buriats. A list was made, and that afternoon the search began. Messengers were sent to surrounding villages to look for wise men. Those who were able were to be brought to Usturdi, if possible. In case they were old and decrepit I could go to them. The first and most important step was to find persons who knew what I wanted and would tell it.

The number found was small. Some had gone on visits to distant places and were inaccessible, others had known much years before, but had forgotten almost everything. In the first attempt only two old men were discovered. These two promised to come the following day. They came, gave some information, told one story, good as far as it went, but told too briefly. The story was of Esege Malan, or Father Bald Head (Father Bald Head is the highest heaven itself), and Ehé Tazar, Mother Earth. It is given farther on in this volume, with other myths.

Other men were found after those two, but none came who were at all satisfactory till Manshut appeared. He told three stories: Gesir Bogdo, Ashir Bogdo, and The Iron Hero.

When Manshut had finished these three stories he declared that he was forced to go home. I was greatly disappointed, for I was convinced that he knew more myths. Though he promised earnestly to come again and tell me all that he could remember I was doubtful about his return, for he was a restless man and seemed to dislike anything that required concentrated attention. He was a great lover of the pipe and smoked continually, drew whiffs between sentences, even between words. As talking seemed to interrupt his smoking, at least to a certain extent, I felt that I should not see him again until he needed more money for tobacco.

Early in the morning of July 30th a procession of long-bodied one-horse wagons crowded with men and women passed through the main street of Usturdi. These men and women were convicts from Russia, and a stalwart soldier, carrying a rifle, walked by the side of each wagon.

A halt was called on the first open field beyond the village. The dusty wagons were at once abandoned, and the crowd of convicts, falling into groups, began to build fires and prepare tea. Meanwhile the soldiers formed a circle around the entire party and stood on guard.

There were two hundred and seventy-four of these men and women. They were on the way to the Lena River, and farther north to the frozen Yakuts country. They had received sentence before the ukas abolishing exile to Siberia had been issued, and were specially interesting as being, perhaps, the last group of prisoners to be sent into that country, which has so long been used as a place for exile and punishment. Following the convicts came a small party of political prisoners, but they were allowed to stop at the post station for rest and refreshment.

The crowd sitting on the ground ate brown bread and drank tea with great relish. The soldiers conducting the prisoners did not fare better than the prisoners, in fact they did not fare as well, for I saw them receive merely large pieces of rye bread; at this halt they were not given tea. It seemed to me that by united action the convicts with naked hands might overpower the soldiers, for though the soldiers were alert fellows with much presence of mind, they were few in number.

The impression produced by these people was peculiar. They were all strong and sturdy, mainly of the peasant class. They were by no means downcast, grieved, or troubled. Forty of them were manacled, and even those men seemed in no way affected. One could not think while looking at these convicts that they were an oppressed and punished people. I was very anxious to talk with some of them, but it was not permitted to go inside the line of soldiers.

After a rest of an hour or so command was given to "raise camp," and five minutes later fires had been stamped out, kettles packed, and the long-bodied wagons were again moving forward over the dusty road.

I then went to visit Andrei Mihailovitch at his summer place. When about a mile and a half from his house I met him riding over to Usturdi in a little one-horse trap. He turned back, however, and drove forward rapidly, so as to reach home and be ready to welcome me. I wished greatly to photograph the "Ongons" or gods supposed to protect his house and property. I was doubtful about getting his consent, but he gave it with many pleasant words. I first photographed those that guard the home and are always hanging high up in one corner of the house. Then I went out to photograph the Ongons that guard the property. They were in a box having a door made of four small panes of window glass; this box was fastened to the top of a corner post of the carriage shed. With much difficulty it was unscrewed, and brought down and placed where I could photograph the gods which it contained. Andrei Mihailovitch could not carry these gods into a house nor could he take them out of the box, for that would bring misfortune to the family.

Inside the large box were two small boxes of home manufacture. In these were crude pictures of the gods, tiny men and women in outline, also the skin of a ground squirrel, and one or two other dried skins of very small animals. When these were photographed Andrei Mihailovitch invited me to visit his winter home, saying that on the way we would pass his field Ongons.

We drove over level pastures to the hill eastward, climbed rather slowly to the top and, after we had passed a gate, descended gradually to the brow of the hill, or rather to a point of the slope, whence there is a fine view of the country beyond: several villages, a narrow, winding river, and, somewhat to the left, the winter residence of my host. On the brow of the hill is a collection of twenty-five or thirty pillars, or hewn posts, with four fiat sides. Across the top of each post a small board is so fastened that it projects on the east side like half a roof. Under this roof, in a square aperture in the post, is a small box with handle and sliding cover. The aperture also has a sliding cover which protects and secures the box inside.

Andrei Mihailovitch took the box out of his own post, opened it and showed me the gods which were on pieces of silk or cloth. Fastened on a narrow strip of blue silk were several little metal images. On two small pieces of cloth were tiny painted figures.

I photographed the pillars, and then tied the images around a pillar and photographed them as best I could. After I had finished Andrei Mihailovitch took the pieces of cloth from the pillar, folded them carefully, put them back in the box, and, placing the box on the ground near a small pile of dry juniper, which our driver had collected for him, lighted the herb. When it was burning well he put his foot on it three separate times to make it smoke and quench it. In the box, purified by the smoke, Andrei Mihailovitch placed a little bag of tobacco, which he had taken from it, then he closed the box, put it back in the pillar, and covered the aperture. Everything was done with the greatest care and reverence.

Each Buriat, as soon as he marries and has a home, must set up in the field one of these posts or pillars and place images of his gods in it. The Shaman assists him. When a man dies the box containing his Ongons is removed from the pillar, carried to the forest and hung high up on a tree, and there it remains till it rots away. The person carrying the Ongon from the pillar to the forest must not look back; should he do so it would bring great misfortune to the family of the dead man.

Andrei Mihailovitch's winter house is built on the Russian plan with large brick stoves in the partitions between the rooms. In the yard, however, are two or three eight-cornered Mongol houses where I think the family lives during winter unless some "governor" happens along.

Toward evening I started for Usturdi. The road was through a hilly or rolling country. We passed several rye fields, but with one or two exceptions the grain was very poor. After crossing an elevated ridge we came down into an opening in a forest of small timber – just such a weird opening as Sienkiewicz describes in "The Deluge " – and later on we reached another and larger opening, a remarkably lonely looking place in the dusk of approaching night, and there we came upon a Russian. He was uncouth, sturdy, and somehow uncanny. His horse was feeding near a cart, and the man himself was occupied in smoking, and in stirring something which he was boiling in a kettle over a small fire. He did not notice us or answer my greeting.

It was late in the evening when we reached Usturdi.

A few days passed now, during which I made no effort to get story-tellers but spent my time in studying the language. On the 2d of August the Horse Sacrifice was to be made and I needed to bring my work into order and prepare for this remarkable ceremony.

The Buriat country is one of two places in Asia where the Horse Sacrifice may still be seen. This ceremonial has existed among the Mongols from time immemorial and is a wonderfully interesting survival of a primitive religion.

Andrei Mihailovitch had finished his mourning now and he came over to be present at the great festival. With all his politeness I felt sure that he was not anxious that I should see the death of the horses, – on the contrary, that he was determined I should not see it.

He said to me the evening preceding the sacrifice and then again the following morning: "I will leave about nine o'clock; that is very early. If you start an hour later you will have plenty time." The evening before, however, I had made sure that horses would be waiting at the post station near by, and within ten minutes after the departure of my host I was driving rapidly across the country.

When we had gone a mile or so my driver wished to get a drink of milk at a house by the wayside. He was terribly thirsty, he said. He was as dilatory as might be in getting the milk, then drank a whole gallon, I should think. After that we drove on very slowly. I urged and urged, but still he would not hurry the horses.

Later, when more than halfway to the Hill of Sacrifice he was again about to stop before a house. I would not permit a halt this time, and commanded him to hasten forward. When at last we reached the Hill I found that seven out of nine horses had been sacrificed already. Two fine, white mares remained. I had come very near losing the ceremony. The two, however, were among the best animals, and as every detail was observed in their case, there was a chance to see the sacrifice. The death of the two was sufficiently painful.

 

I bring here only Chapter XI "Myths Connected with Mongol Religion" and Chapter XII "Mongol Myths and Folk-Tales".

[Y. P.]

Notes

My collection of Buriat myths and folk-tales is small. The work should have been done years ago. I found many incomplete stories and fragments of myths, and am convinced that during the past five decades a large amount of rich Mongol material has been lost. The collection of the folk-lore of the different peoples of the world should not be neglected, for it is of great value. It is the entire stock of wisdom accumulated by the unlettered masses of mankind in all ages. Like language, it is the product neither of one mind nor a given number of minds, but of all the various groups which together form humanity. Like language, it is property bequeathed by anonymous ancestors or predecessors. As there is no nation, tribe, or group of persons without language, there is none without folk-lore, which in a broad sense is the fruit of the intellectual activity of men before they are modified by what is called education, and represents their religion, philosophy, and literature, if the latter term may be used with reference to people unacquainted with letters.

The term "Folk-lore" first appeared in 1846. Mr. Thoms, in a letter to the "London Atheneum" dated August 12 of that year, signed Ambrose Merton, proposed it, adding, "Remember I claim the honor of introducing the epithet Folk-lore, as Disraeli does that of introducing Fatherland into the literature of this country." The term has, I believe, no exact equivalent in other languages. The words more nearly corresponding to our folk-lore refer only to that part of it included in stories or tales, such as the German märchen; the French contes; the Russian skazki; the Bohemian pohadki; and the Magyar mések.

I think no language except the English has a word that describes the result of the whole mental activity of uneducated men. The Russians have a term as broad as the English, Narodnoe tvorchestvo, meaning people's creativeness. This phrase describes the activity, while ours gives the result of the activity.

The folk-lore of the great nations of antiquity, the Greeks and Romans, is lost to us in its popular form, which we can only infer from what we find preserved in literature, religion, and art. The folk-lore of the Kelts, Teutons, and Slavs has come to us preserved by the uneducated people. Keltic folk-lore from Irish and Welsh sources has entered largely into the poetry and imaginative literature of western Europe. The folk-lore of Germany has had great influence on national literature and music. By a happy chance the Scandinavian branch of Teutonic folk-lore was preserved by Iceland, and preserved in its most developed form, – one in which it more nearly approaches the maturity of Grecian mythology than that of any other folk-lore in Europe.

The folk-lore of the Aryans of India is preserved in the Vedes and the great poems, the Maha Bharata and the Ramayana, and exists in a rich growth of popular lore, only a part of which is yet collected. What there is in Persia in a modern form is unknown; of the ancient stories the Shah Nameh, or Book of Kings, is the great storehouse.

The Slavs, the most numerous of the Aryan race in Europe, present the most interesting field possible for the philologist, and no division of the race has a richer or more beautiful stock of folk-lore.

Folk-lore, though interesting in many directions and of the utmost value, – for taken together with language it furnishes us with a documentary history of the human mind, – is undoubtedly of most importance in what may be called its religions, meaning by religions theories of the universe and man's place in it.

The first five myths in this volume are not considered as myths by the Mongols, but as true descriptions of the Creation, the destruction of evil creatures, and the preparation of the world for its present inhabitants. They are for the Pagan Buriats what the Bible is for Christian peoples. Esege Malan is the Creator. To destroy the harmful creatures which inhabited the earth, Gesir Bogdo, his grandson, leaves heaven and is born of woman. The Iron Hero is created for the purpose of aiding Gesir Bogdo. When the earth is purified and inhabited by man, Mindiu appears.

 

MINDIÚ QUBUN NOYAN

PAGE 105

The story of the birth of Mindiú Qúbun Noyan, whose father was one of the fifty-five Tengeris, is interesting as having parallels in many mythologies. The spirit of the god enters into a hailstone which falls to the earth and is swallowed by Mélûk Shin. In one version of this myth the hailstone falls on Mélûk Shin's head. In due time a son is born. This son of a heavenly Tengeri establishes the Mongol religion. He instructs the people, tells them to whom they are to pray, and what offerings are most acceptable to the gods. He consecrates the first Shamans and teaches them how to offer sacrifices.

In Greek mythology, Helena, the heroine of Troy, is the daughter of Leda and of Zeus, the over-arching heaven, with all its light. Leda after her death was raised to the rank of a divinity. No such honor was given Mélûk Shin, but her son is a god, or, at least, prayers are offered to him and he is supposed to answer them.

Among the Algonkin Indians there is a myth of the Earth-maiden who becomes a mother when looked upon by the sun. She gives birth to a daughter who is called Wakos ikwe, the fox woman. In time Wakos ikwe gives birth to a great hero, the benefactor of aboriginal man in America, the food-giver. This benefactor's name has not been changed or its meaning forgotten; he is known to be that warm air which, in fine weather, we see dancing and quivering above the earth, – that same hot, dancing air which Mother Earth gave to Esege Malan.

 

THE MORNING STAR

PAGE 124

There was once a Mongol myth about Solobung Yubún, the morning star, but, so far as I could find, only fragments of it remain.

In the religious system of the Buriats the morning star is a great personage, the son of Esege Malan the Creator. Solobung Yubún is benevolent; if properly propitiated he will grant increase of crops and of cattle. But the offerings to him must be made at the dawn of day, and the dance in his honor must continue from sunset till daybreak.

Solobung Yubún, the Lucifer of the Latins, has in Mongol myths much the same character as in the myths of the Indians, especially in those of the Modocs and Delawares. The Modocs have a very long story which contains much valuable material. In this story the morning star appears as the attendant spirit of the sun. (Introduction to "Myths and Folk-lore of the Russians, Western Slavs, and Magyars.")

In Delaware myths the morning star often assists people by bringing daylight quickly. In Yana myths the morning star, Halai Anna, and the evening star, Paiowa, are the daughters of Wakara, new moon. ("Creation Myths of Primitive America.")

 

THE BURNING OF THE DEAD

PAGE 101

It is almost certain that in Mongol mythology there was once a long myth about the Cuckoo from which we could get some idea of why this bird is connected with the burning of the dead. From the time that the cuckoo ceases to sing in August till its first song in spring no one who dies is burned. The Mongols do not know why this is. To questions asked the old men in the Buriat land, the answer was always the same: "Mindiú Qúbun told us when and how to burn our dead."

The cuckoo appears in many of the myths in this volume, and usually in connection with bringing the dead to life. When the Iron Hero is killed and thrown into the Black Misty Sea the cuckoo appears, and before her power the sea vanishes. When the skeleton is taken from the cask she sings as she moves around it. When she reaches the head the third time the Iron Hero springs up. When Hanhai is trying to bring her brother to life, she reads in her book that she must ask a certain cuckoo to aid her.

A Buriat will never kill or shoot at a cuckoo.

 

A SHAMAN STORY

PAGE 111

The Buriats believe that the spirit can leave the body and return to it, even after having been away several days. Many of our Indian tribes have the same belief. When in the Indian Territory an old man of the Sauk tribe told me of the many countries he had seen "with his spirit," stating also that his spirit was not happy when away from the body, for it feared that something would happen to the body and it could not return. In India where this conception is universal among the native peoples, a "wise man" will say "I am going to such a village or town." He finds where his body will be safe, lies down and apparently falls asleep, then the spirit leaves the body, makes the long journey and returns. When the man wakens he describes accurately places which he knew nothing about previous to his spirit journey. The Malays do not like to waken a sleeper, lest they may harm him by disturbing his body while his spirit is away.

 

BURIAT BURIAL OF THE DEAD.

PAGE 102

For three days after death the spirit remains near the body. .It is lonely and sad, and is sorry to go from among the living. The Buriats think that when a mother dies her spirit hovers around in the mountains, returning to its home from time to time.

Professor Mooney of the Bureau of Ethnology notes a similar belief among the Cherokee Indians. (Journal of American Folk-lore, Vol. XIII.) "When a member of a family dies, it is believed that the spirit is loath to leave the scenes of life and go alone upon the long journey to the Darkening Land in the west."

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