国立情報学研究所 - ディジタル・シルクロード・プロジェクト
『東洋文庫所蔵』貴重書デジタルアーカイブ

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prostrated himself before the God and confessing his fault begged forgiveness. The figure looked benignly on him and smiled, and he beard a voice warn him against such sacrilege in future. He returned to Lob and kept his story secret for a long time till a Lamma discovered and exposed him, and he was so ashamed that he left the country."

The Kalmâks are entirely a nomadic or pastoral people. They have no towns or cities of their own. They live in Khargcik camps, which they shift about from place to place according to the seasons and the requirements of their flocks and their crops. Their camps are always pitched in a circle around their patron God who is set up in the centre as their presiding deity and protector. Every tent besides has its own household God who receives the worship of only the occupants of the tent ; but the central God is worshiped by the whole camp, and nobody passes it without a low bow and always keeping the figure on the right hand; to pass it on the left is sure to bring down some calamity on the whole community. Should anybody so offend, the whole camp is struck and pitched in some other spot. Cattle are excluded from the centre of the camp lest, they should so offend the God.

The Kalmaks are all of the Budhist religion. Their idols are called Burkkun collectively, but the chief idol of the camps is called Mada'r(. It is the figure of a man, and is of copper. gilded ; its size is that of a boy twelve years old. Once a year it is fixed against as pole in front of the Khan's Khargâh for three days at the commencement of spring ; • and the people come and adore by prostrating themselves on the ground before it, and pressing their foreheads against the body of the figure. Every Khargâh has its own idol, and everybody carries a small one suspended by a thread round the neck, and concealed on the breast inside the frock. They are mostly made of copper, though some are of brass.

Their religion is kept up by the priesthood called Lamma, and nobody knows their books but themselves. The head Lamma of each country is appointed from, Tuwat or Joh and usually comes from that country. Every Kalmâk father is bound to give up his second or third son to be educated as a Lamma. When a Lamma dies his body is fleshed, and the bones are broken up and tied in a bundle, and kept for transmission to Joh, which is a six months' journey from Karâshahr (my informant in these matters is a Karashahr Kalmâk) by the annual caravan.

At the yearly festival held at Joh, the bones of defunct Lammas, brought from all quarters, are boiled in a huge cauldron. On this occasion two or three aged Lammas always sacrifice themselves by jumping into the boiling liquor, and become converted into soup which is called Sholun-arshan. At the conclusion of the festival, this soup is distributed amongst the attendant Lammas, who fill it into copper vessels covered with red cloth ; these copper vessels are called l6nkha, and are carried about the person suspended on one side from the girdle. When all these Lammas disperse and return to their own homes they distribute their store of Sholunarshan to the other Lammas who receive it in little copper vessels the size of a thimble and similar in shape to the ldnkka. They are always worn slung at the waist from the girdle; and when he eats the Lamma first dips a wood pencil into the little copper bottle and passes it across his tongue.

The Kalmâk language is different entirely from the Turki spoken by the Kirghiz, and Uzbak, and Tartar of Kâshghar; and it differs in dialect as spoken by the Mânjhii of Ila, the Kalmâk of Yuldliz, and the Tuwat of Joh; the Tanghiit and the Monghol too have peculiar languages, and in fact every tribe has its own speech, which is more or less unintelligible to his neighbours, though of the same race. The Mânjhix write their language in characters like the Chinese, but the Kalmâk don't write their language, unless the Lamma do it for them, and then they must read it too.

A sample of the Kalmâk language will be found in the comparative vocabulary appended to this general description. They appear to be entirely illiterate, for I could hear of no books amongst them.

The Kalmâk people are divided into tribes and clans like the Kirghiz, whom they resemble in their wandering mode of life. The ruler of a whole province comprising many tribes is called Gkaldan, which is the same as Khân ; and the head or chief of a tribe is called Noyûn, which is the same as Beg; the,latter titles in each case being those current amongst the Uzbak people.

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