Life of Schamyl Part 4

The Circa.s.sian maid is said to have in her veins some of the blood of the Amazons who anciently bore the pharetra, and followed hunting in these mountains. Her style of dress and measured gait, together with her sharing the martial sentiments of the society in which she lives, give her still something of the port of Diana, and make her fit to be the warrior's bride. But at the same time she is not lacking in the feminine graces. Dressed in brocade or in rags, the Circa.s.sian girl is represented by travellers as never awkward, and never failing to a.s.sume spontaneously the most easy and natural as well as the most dignified att.i.tudes. Her manners have but little of the excessive reserve afterwards adopted when she becomes a wife. But so long as she is in the market for a husband, she allows herself to be seen freely by all men whether wis.h.i.+ng or not to become purchasers. She goes abroad unveiled; dances with the other s.e.x; mingles fearlessly though without effrontery amid the groups of men; kisses the hand of the stranger before seating herself on the divan by his side; and, though truly modest and decorous in her deportment, she yields her cheek, almost without a blush, to the lips of the warrior who, returning from the slaughter of the enemy, feels ent.i.tled to claim those favors which in less fortunate lands can only be stolen by swains the most dexterous and whose stars aid them.

The Circa.s.sian girls are sparingly nourished, says an ancient writer,[A]

living mostly on milk, bread of millet, and pastry. Delicate in her food as she is neat in her dress, growing up in the healthy air of the mountains, living in a society of simple tastes and natural habits, always treated with gallant courtesy by a race of men whose hearts are mostly moved by a love of war and of beauty, it is not strange that nature should have preserved through so many generations something of the type of loveliness which adorned the world's age of gold, and which in modern times has made the Caucasian head to be regarded by civilized man as the truest image of his Maker.

[Footnote A: Pallas]

XIX.

WIVES.

While the Circa.s.sian damsel, in her modest simplicity, is tolerant of freedoms not altogether consistent with occidental notions of propriety, and is generally ready enough to flee her tribe with a lover who happens to be unable to pay the dowry demanded by a too avaricious father or guardian, on becoming a married woman she takes the veil and retires from the gaze of men almost as effectually as she would do by shutting herself up in a convent. Now when she goes abroad, all her gay colors are covered by the white mantle which envelops her whole figure. Her sanctum, if she lives in a hamlet, is separate from the other buildings, is inclosed by a wooden fence, and concealed by the foliage of trees and shrubbery. No males enter it, excepting those of her own family and the ataliks of her children. Even her husband does not visit her in the daytime, but steals to her couch under cover of the darkness of night like a paramour. When out of the house she scrupulously avoids meeting his eye, and on perceiving him in the same path goes about or stands aside in order to avoid his notice.

Having been bought with a price, she is rather the slave than the companion of her husband, who may have as many wives as he likes, or rather can pay for. She rises on his entrance into her apartments and remains standing until he is seated; and this in fact is a mark of respect paid by woman to all males, except they be serfs, but also to the elders of their own s.e.x. Latterly, however, the introduction of Mahometanism has brought even into these mountains a partial recognition of those rights which in some western countries have recently secured for the wife the blessings of financial as well as social independence.

Under the law of the Koran she is nominally free; can hold property in her own right; and on the infringement of her privileges, may have the satisfaction of prosecuting her husband at law and bringing him into court to answer her.

The Circa.s.sian woman, however, not having as yet become accustomed to place much reliance on her legal rights, contents herself with the exercise of those means of influence, if not of control, which have been given her by nature. Denied the pleasure of the society of her lord during the day, when at evening he comes to her apartments, fatigued it may be by the exercise of the chase or the exertions of the foray, she smoothes the brows wrinkled by care, dissipates by gentle caresses the pains of overwearied nature, and wins over to the emotions of conjugal love, the soul which all day long has been vexed by angry pa.s.sions and the rage of war.

As a wife she is faithful; for indeed the jealousy of a Circa.s.sian husband is not to be endured. The disgrace of being sent home to her parents and of compelling them to pay back her purchase-money, would pierce her heart like a knife; not to mention other more barbarous punishments with which the haughty warrior instantly avenges any encroachment on his honor.

She is not only dutiful, but diligent in his service. She prepares with her own hands his food; she makes all his clothes, covering them with st.i.tches until they become a raiment of needle-work; and helped by her daughters she even manufactures his shoes and caps, his tent and s.h.a.ggy cloak, besides embroidering the coverings of his arms and the trappings of his war-horse. To the Circa.s.sian woman therefore might be addressed the commands of Telemachus to Penelope:--

Your widowed hours apart, with female toil And various labors of the loom, beguile.

Nor in her poverty does she refuse the severer labors of the garden and the field. Frequently she delves in the earth by the side of her Adam.

Sometimes she earns in the sweat of her brows the bread of both, while he combats the invaders of their common country in pa.s.s and plain, or practises his athletic games in the peaceful valley, or even sits idle by the house-door, interrupting his listlessness only to burnish a weapon or caress his steed. And in the higher and more barren mountains, if the reports of travellers are to be credited, his better half, as modest and still more industrious than the first mother, may be seen picking the flinty soil during the heats of the day decked out with none of the finery worn on occasions of ceremony, but clad simply in that one garment deemed indispensable in all countries having made the smallest progress in civilization.[A]

[Footnote A: Dubois.]

The headdress of the married woman is not the tiara of the maid, but some kind of plain or ornamental stuff wound round the head in the form of a turban, and with ends falling gracefully down on the shoulders.

This completely covers the hair which is worn short, with curls in the neck. Over it on going out is thrown a veil of snow-white muslin which descending mingles its folds with those of the mantle. This latter is often a large square of European woollen of the finest texture that can be afforded by the wearer; and whether fine or coa.r.s.e has always a picturesque look in the distance; and nearer by is generally worn with a certain degree of womanly coquetry which lends grace to its folds, and to the dullest eyes reveals half-glimpses of the beauty concealed beneath.

Here the fas.h.i.+ons of dress, whether for males or females, never change.

Garments therefore not being thrown aside or altered with every month's variation of style as in the west, are frequently made of costly materials and adorned with such elegance of needle-work as to render them almost as precious as the sacred poet's vesture of gold wrought about with divers colors. This applies of course to garments of ceremony chiefly. A very fine paraja or mantle of camel or goat's hair, a skirt of brocade, or a scarf ornamented with silver thread will sometimes outlast a generation, and be handed down an heirloom even to grandchildren. The belle who putting on the apparel which possibly a preceding century has fabricated, does not find herself in an antiquated cut nor with st.i.tches placed amiss, loses no time of course in dreaming of new fas.h.i.+ons, nor self-respect in being obliged to parade in the old ones. Her only fas.h.i.+onable foible is that of knitting silver lace, she not having as yet been initiated into the mystery of making Chinese boxes and card-racks, dolls' dresses and family portraits in worsted.

XX.

FEMALE SLAVE-TRADE.

Serfdom, to a limited extent, exists in the Caucasus, more particularly in the western part. It is, however, a comparatively mild form of bondage, the only real slaves in the mountains being the captives taken in war who are compelled to do most of the hewing of wood and the drawing of water. The serfs are rarely transferred with the land, and never without their own consent. In return for their services they receive maintenance, clothing, lodging, and some yearly gratuity. Wives are furnished them gratis; and while their sons remain the serfs of the master, the money received for the daughters when sold in marriage is equally divided between him and the father. Their occupations consist in cultivating the soil, taking care of horses and cattle, and waiting in the guest-house; they being under no obligation to serve in war or even give attendance on journeys. Often they farm the land of their masters for half the product. They also have the right of purchasing their freedom at the price of a certain number of oxen; and if ill-treated may flee to another master for protection, who on payment of a moderate compensation to their former owner is ent.i.tled to retain them. Socially they are on a footing of almost equality with their lords, wearing the same dress, living in similar houses, partaking of about the same diet, sharing in all games and festivities, and a.s.sociating on all occasions with freemen as if they were their peers.

The well-known Circa.s.sian slave-trade is confined to the sale of females. In the eastern Caucasus girls are rarely bought and sold except in marriage; but in the western they are exported to supply the harems of the Turks, more especially those of Constantinople. At one time this trade was forbidden by Russia, and all of her subjects found engaged in it were sent to Siberia; but in 1845 it was again legalized on condition that the females to be exported into Turkey should take out letters of Russian protection, the object being partly to conciliate the Circa.s.sians, and partly to create a cla.s.s of persons resident in the dominions of the sultan who should depend upon the czar as their protector and lord paramount.

Even when prohibited, however, the traffic was carried on by means of small craft which under protection of Russian papers obtained at Trebizond under pretence of going to Kertsch for grain, braved the dangers of the winter voyage when from the inclemency of the weather the Russian cruisers had been withdrawn from the coast of Circa.s.sia, and taking in their precious cargo of souls landed it at Sinope or Samsoun.

Thence conducted privately to Trebizond, they were finally conveyed by Turkish and Austrian steamers to Constantinople.

These girls were the daughters of the serfs and poorer cla.s.s of persons; those of n.o.bles, chiefs, and men of means being rarely if ever sold to the slave-merchant. Sold they however must be even if they remain at home, the Asiatic doctrine prevailing in the Caucasus that the woman should be bought, not given in marriage, and where a dowry in addition to a wife would be the gilding of refined gold and adding sugar to the honey-comb. The married woman is the property of her lord--or was until nominally set free by the introduction of the law of the Koran. The idea of becoming the slave of a master was therefore nearly synonymous in the mind of a maid of low degree with that of becoming the wife of a husband; and to make the journey to Constantinople for the purpose of being bought by a wealthy Turk, was looked forward to by many a one as a settlement in life preferable to remaining at home the wife of a poor peasant. This sentiment was encouraged by the sight, not uncommon in Circa.s.sia, of females who after having obtained an education and a competency in Constantinople have returned to reside in their own country. It is also well known to the humblest maiden that the high officers in the Turkish state often take to themselves wives of the daughters of the Caucasus, who, if they do not return to the land of their fathers, at least play, in that of their adoption, a part in society superior to that of the wives of even chiefs and princes in the mountains.

Accordingly, it is not generally looked upon by the Caucasian female born in poverty, as a misfortune to be sold into Turkish captivity. She pleases her fancy, on the contrary, with imagining that she will become the wife of, it may be, the sultan himself, or of a pasha, or of the admiral of the fleet. She will be the light of the harem of a nabob with many tails. She will be dressed in rich silks and velvets, and adorned with gold and jewelry. She will live in the great aoul of Stamboul, in a sakli by the Golden horn, or in the woods that skirt the Sweet Waters.

Nor, poor thing, does she know or stop to consider that she may be thrown into those same beautiful waters sewed up alive in a sack. Many a one, no doubt, leaves her home however humble with a sigh of regret; many a one sheds bitter tears of shame when made to stand forth half naked in the marketplace; and many a one even in the gorgeous halls and perfumed chambers of Constantinopolitan princes, tired of the watching of eunuchs and of the bickerings of rivals, would gladly exchange all the luxuries of the harem for the freedom of a hut in her native mountains.

Still it is the testimony of travellers that the great majority of poor females in Circa.s.sia are as ready to go to Stamboul as pilgrims to Mecca. When captured by Russian cruisers on the voyage, some of them have been known to cast themselves into the sea or to drive a knife into their hearts rather than submit to become wives to the enemies of their country, the hated Muscovites; but they have no aversion to the Turk.

Often they suffer somewhat on the voyage for lack of suitable shelter, food, and clothing; and generally they arrive at Constantinople much better subjects for the Turkish bath than the harem. But they are often placed in seminaries to be educated for the places they are to occupy in the houses of the great; being on their arrival frequently not more than twelve years of age, and always dest.i.tute of the few accomplishments considered indispensable in the families of Turks of any distinction. A beautiful young Circa.s.sian, when thus prepared for the life of the harem, will sometimes sell for as much as twenty or even thirty or forty thousand piastres, though the ordinary price might not be more than five or ten thousand. But even in Circa.s.sia an Englishman has been known to pay for a wife "three hundred and twenty-five pieces of cotton cloth,"

valued there at upwards of six thousand piastres. Since the repeal of the Russian law forbidding the slave-trade, however, the price of this merchandise has greatly fallen in the market.

There is no evil, however great, without some good; and to the Circa.s.sian trade in female slaves is to be traced the superiority, both of physiognomy and of blood, which belongs to the modern Turk above the Tartar of the steppe and of the desert.

XXI.

FORM OF GOVERNMENT.

The society of which Schamyl on reaching the age of manhood became a member in full was a free democracy. In the western Caucasus the various tribes, such as the Kabardians, the Ubighe, and the Adighe, who are the Circa.s.sians proper, live under a form of social organization more or less feudal and aristocratic; but in the eastern, among the Lesghians, the Tchetchenians, and the inhabitants of Daghestan, there is for the most part no distinction of cla.s.ses. Several small tribes in this latter division which are of Tartar origin are indeed governed by khans; but even among them where the form of government is despotic, as well as west of the Terek where it is aristocratic, there prevails such a spirit of personal independence together with such an equality of civil rights and social conditions, that the Circa.s.sians in general may best be characterized as a.s.sociations of free brothers, not unlike the Germans as described by Tacitus.

More especially is this true of the Lesghians of whom is Schamyl. Among them previously to the establishment of his system of government, there was no other chief of the state than he who by general consent led the warriors of the tribe on their expeditions against the enemy. Nor did such office of leader outlast a foray or a campaign. In time of peace all were brothers, free and equal before the law, with only such diversity of social condition as might result from a difference in natural gifts or in the favors of fortune. Whoever had been endowed with most commanding powers, whoever was foremost in valor and the exercise of all manly virtues, was in fact a chieftain though without the formality of an election; he was king though without a t.i.tle; and between the natural and the divine right to govern there was practically no difference.

The public affairs of the tribe were regulated in general a.s.sembly. The freemen came together at their own will to sit in the council ring on the greensward beneath the trees. In these meetings no officer claimed precedence as a right, but all granted it by consent to the elders and those most distinguished for valor and the gift of speech. The counsels of age and experience were heard first. The wise man also, whoever he was, the valiant in arms, the influential from worth of character, all gave their opinion; but most the a.s.sembly hung upon the sweet tongue of eloquence. For the orator has ample scope in the free a.s.semblies of the Circa.s.sians. When he rises to speak, especially if he be advanced in years, the princ.i.p.al men of the tribe sometimes even come forward and reverently kiss his robe. If possessed of more of the impetuosity of early life, he will perhaps clash into the ring on horseback and harangue the a.s.sembly from the saddle. Then if in the midst of his impa.s.sioned volubility any Hotspur interrupt the orator, the latter foams with rage and would transgress all bounds of propriety if the lifted hand of some elder did not instantly restore silence.

When the object of the meeting is to agree on an expedition against the enemy, the favorite topic and constant burden of eloquence is the oppression and the cruelty of the Russians. As the speaker dilates upon their burnings and shedding of blood, the aoul laid low by their artillery, the women violated, the youth carried away captive, the tribes gradually driven back into the mountains, his voice rages with indignation or wails in the plaintive tones of unaffected sorrow. His eye flashes beneath the s.h.a.ggy, contracted brows; the clenched fist is relaxed only to grasp shaska or poniard; the blood rushes and returns from the cheek; and the chest heaves with violently struggling emotions.

Mean-while in reply is heard the low, half-stifled sob; the irrepressible tears trickle down the sunburnt cheeks of those who weep for their country, if not their friends; teeth are clenched and brows are knit and sabres are half-drawn; while at intervals is responded amen! amen! and at the conclusion a shout of applause breaks from the universal throat, and rings through the air until the echoing hill-sides give it back to each other in boisterous accord.

New laws are rarely made by this a.s.sembly, the tribe being governed very much by custom and ancient usage. Whenever these prove an insufficient rule of action, the Koran, in those parts of the mountains where it has been introduced, is appealed to. Of course, in a state of society so simple and unchanging there is little need of that constant lawmaking and unmaking deemed so indispensable in free and more civilized communities. Whatever rules of conduct have been longest established and found to meet the necessities of many generations, are by these primitive mountaineers held most sacred. To execute laws, therefore, not to make them, is the princ.i.p.al object of what little government exists in the Caucasus. Offenders are tried in the council ring; punishments consist mostly of fines, which if not paid by the guilty individual himself, must be by his family or his tribe; and crimes against persons which are not thus compounded are prosecuted by the injured party and those of his blood even to the third and fourth generations.

Hence arise those numerous feuds which, arraying family against family and tribe against tribe, produce a degree of mutual alienation of which great use has been made by the Russians in their war of subjugation. For the right of revenge is one of the three great principles on which is based the whole system of Circa.s.sian usage, the exercise of hospitality and respect for age being the two others. But to limit the sway of this old law of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth under which intestine wars prevailed, as formerly among the clans of Scotland, and suits at law were protracted from generation to generation, as in the chancery of England, fraternities have latterly been established and oaths imposed on the members, whereby the ends of justice have been better secured as well as domestic peace greatly promoted. For an oath taken over even a few amulets is sufficient to secure the fulfilment of an engagement; and when formally administered upon the Koran suspended from two rifle-rests, the warrior, who never trembled before, is, by the simple ceremony, agitated with dread, and having deposited his rifle, his pistol, or his bow, will die but what he will keep his word.

The barbarity of this law of blood has also been always more or less counteracted by the affectionate respect for age, wherever met with, which runs through the code of Circa.s.sian manners, as well as by such an universal practice of hospitality as keeps the door of the apartment for guests standing wide open from one end of the year to the other throughout the mountains, and which enables even the foreigner to enter the country unharmed, by placing himself under the protection of any chieftain he may select for his konak or guardian.

XXII.

RELIGIOUS BELIEF.

The religious belief of the countrymen of Schamyl formerly partook of the simplicity of their mode of government. Not a century ago they were almost entirely pagan, performing their religious ceremonies not in temples made with hands, but in groves, in the shadow of whose melancholy boughs dwelt many divinities. They believed also in one Great Spirit whose presence filled immensity, and who was likened to no living thing, nor fas.h.i.+on of a man. To him were subject all inferior powers who presided over the seasons of the year, over various localities, over the lives of the lower animals, and over all the doings and destinies of mankind.

Merissa, for example, was the protector of bees; and at her festivals, celebrated at the season of gathering in the sweets of the hive, all the viands and beverages with which the wors.h.i.+ppers regaled themselves, were prepared with honey. Still more powerful was Seozeres, who held in subjection the winds and waters, and who being at the same time the guardian of animals, tempered the air to the shorn flock and brought the springs out of the rocks for the supply of the herd. Tliebse had the care of smiths and all the cunning workmans.h.i.+p of forges, and at his fete libations were poured in honor of him upon the hatchet and the ploughshare. Domestic happiness and good-fellows.h.i.+p among neighbors were presided over by the three sisters denominated fates in the mythology of the Greeks, and who besides interfered on the field of battle to throw their invisible s.h.i.+eld over the favorite warrior; who sped the traveller on his way; and to whom the father on bringing his family across a new threshold offered sacrifice and invocation.