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0128 Across Asia : vol.1
Across Asia : vol.1 / Page 128 (Grayscale High Resolution Image)

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[Photo] Dressing cotton with a harp in the village of Qara Kichin.

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doi: 10.20676/00000221
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C. G. MANNERHEIM

Dressing cotton with a harp in the village of Qara Kichin.

         

Qara Kichin is a small village of 18-20 houses and too mou of land established about 20 years ago. Timber which is cheap in this »well wooded» district is cut into rough planks and is used, too, for building houses which, however, are very defective. The population is poor. Not many cattle. We saw children making meal in the street by pounding grain in a mortar improvised from a hollowed-out block of wood.

The inhabitants call themselves »Tera Mogals» and come from a village of that name in the neighbourhood of Khan ariq. They claim to be derived from »Shals», »Atshloks», »Begile» and »Ala Buran», who founded their village about 1300 years ago. The Shals numbered 20 and no one knows where they came from. Begging was their profession. The Atshloks came as merchants from a village bearing their name in the vicinity of Kash-gar. One by one they settled in Tera Mogal. The Begile had accompanied a Beg from Yarkand, who came to Tera Mogal, married, and then returned, leaving his companions who stayed on and were called Begile after the Beg. Ala Buran was a stranger, who said he had lost his way during a »buran» (storm) and could not find his home again. Hence his name. — In Yaqub Beg's time the Tera Mogals were among his keenest supporters and after his death most of them had fled to Andijan for fear of the vengeance of the Chinese. They only returned some time after. Their language, customs and appearance are like those of the Sarts in Kashgar. Winter lasts about 3 months, though there is no great cold. The snow seldom lies long. Wheat and cotton cannot be grown. The wild boar do a lot of damage to the maize fields, and the population, being unarmed, is helpless. The population is often ravaged by smallpox and many of them are pock-marked.

February 6th.   The bog that surrounds the village NW of Qara Kichin, comes right up to the

Churga utang road that leads eastward, thus bounding the village on the north. Here and there village. further on we saw irregular patches of ice, indicating the bogginess of the district until after a ride of about 3/4 of an hour we reached the edge of a thin »toghraq» wood,

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