THE CAMBRIDGE MEDIEVAL HISTORY I 186
The Predatory Nature of Nomadic Life
12-13. The Predatory Nature of Nomadic Life
In consequence of the healthy climate, the milk diet, and the Spartan hardening, the Altaian enjoys excellent health, hence the saying "Healthy as a Kirghiz." There are not a few old men of eighty, and some of a hundred years. Infectious diseases are almost unknown, chiefly because the constant smoke in the tent acts as a disinfectant, though combined with the ghastly filthiness it promotes the very frequent eye-complaints, itch, and eruptions of the skin. In consequence of the constant wandering on camel-back, and through the Shamanic hocus-pocus, illness and death at home are vexatious, and sudden death on the field of battle is preferred.
In order not to be forgotten, the Turko-Tartar — in contrast to the Mongol — likes to be buried in a conspicuous place, and, as such places do not exist on the steppes, after a year there is heaped over the buried corpse an artificial mound which, according to the wealth of the dead man, rises to a hill-like tumulus. At the same time an ostentatious funeral festival lasting seven days is held, with races, prize combats, and other games on horseback. Hundreds of horses, camels, and sheep are then consumed.
The nomad loves his horses and weapons as himself. The principal weapon is the lance, and in European warfare the Uhlans and Cossacks survive from the armies of the steppes. The nomad-peoples who invaded Europe were all wonderfully sure bowmen. The value of the bow lies in the treacherous noiselessness of the arrow, which is the best weapon for hunting and ambush, and is therefore still in use today together with the rifle. In addition there have always been long-handled iron hatchets and pick-shaped battle-axes for striking and hurling, and the bent sabre. The warrior's body was often protected by a shirt of armour made of small polished steel plates, or by a harness of ox-leather plates, the head by a helmet; all mostly Persian or Caucasian work.
The hard restless life of the mounted nomad is easily disturbed by pressure from his like, by the death of his cattle from hunger and disease, and by the prospect of plunder, which makes him a professional robber. Of this the Turkoman was long a type. The leading features in the life of a Turkoman are the alaman (predatory expedition) or the tchapao (the surprise). The invitation to any enterprise likely to be attended with profit finds him ever ready to arm himself and to spring to his saddle.
The design itself is always kept a profound secret even from the nearest relative; and as soon as the serdar (chief-elect) has had bestowed upon him by some mullah or other the fatiha (benediction), every man betakes himself, at the commencement of the evening, by different ways, to a certain place indicated before as the rendezvous. The attack is always made either at midnight, when an inhabited settlement, or at sunrise, when a caravan or any hostile troop is its object. This attack of the Turkomans, like that of the Huns and Tartars, is rather to be styled a surprise. They separate themselves into several divisions, and make two, hardly ever three, assaults upon their unsuspecting prey; for, according to a Turkoman proverb, "Try twice, turn back the third time."
The party assailed must possess great resolution and firmness to be able to withstand a surprise of this nature; the Persians seldom do so. Very often a Turkoman will not hesitate to attack five or even more Persians, and will succeed in his enterprise. Often the Persians, struck with a panic, throw away their arms, demand the cords, and bind each other mutually; the Turkomans have no occasion to dismount except for the purpose of fastening the last of them. He who resists is cut down; the coward who surrenders has his hands bound, and the horseman either takes him up on his saddle (in which case his feet are bound under the horse's belly), or drives him, before him: whenever from any cause this is not possible, the wretched man is attached to the tail of the animal and has for hours and hours — even for days and days — to follow the robber to his desert home. Each captive is then ill-treated until his captor learns from him how high a ransom can be extracted from his kinsmen. But ransoming was a long way from meaning salvation itself, for on the journey home the ransomed were not seldom captured again and once more enslaved.
Poor captives were sold at the usual price in the slave-markets at Bokhara, Khiva, etc.; for example, a woman of fifty for ten ducats. Those that could not be disposed of and were retained as herdsmen, had the sinews of their heels cut, to hinder them from flight. Until their overthrow by Skobelev in 1881 more than 15,000 Tekke-Turkomans contrived such raids day and night; about a million people in Persia alone were carried off in the last century, and made on the average certainly not less than £10 per head. In the ninth century the Magyars and their nomadic predecessors in South Russia, according to Ibn Rusta's Arabian source, behaved exactly as the Turkomans in Persia; they provided for the slave-markets on the Pontus so many Slav captives that the name slave finally became the designation in the West of the worst servitude.
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