THE CAMBRIDGE MEDIEVAL HISTORY I 181

The Nomadic Diet

12-9. The Nomadic Diet

But how can these barbarous robbers live together without exterminating each other ? They are bridled by an old and tyrannical king, invisible to themselves, the deb (custom, wont). This prohibits robbery and murder, immorality and injustice towards associates in times of peace; but the strange neighbour is outlawed; to rob, enslave, or kill him is an heroic deed. The nomads' ideas of justice are remarkably similar to those of our ancestors. Every offence is regarded as an injury to the interests of a fellow man, and is expiated by indemnification of the loser. Among the Kazak-Kirghiz anyone who has killed a man of the plebs (a "black bone"), whether wilfully or accidentally makes no difference, must compensate the relations with a kun (1000 sheep or 100 horses or 50 camels). The slaughter of a "white bone" costs a sevenfold kun. Murder of their own wives, children, and slaves goes unpunished, since they themselves are the losers. If a Kirghiz steals an animal, he must restore it together with two of the same value. If a wrongdoer is unable to pay the fine, his nearest relations, and failing them the whole camp, must provide it.

The principal food consists of milk-products — not of the fresh milk itself, which is only taken by children and the sick. A special Turko-Tartar food is yogurt, prepared with leaven from curdled milk.

The Mongols also eat butter — the more rancid the more palatable — dripping with dirt, and carried without wrapping in their hairy, greasy coat pockets. From mare's milk, which yields no cream, kumiz (Kirghiz), tshegan (Mongolish) is fermented, an extremely nutritious drink which is good for consumption, and from which by itself life can be sustained. However, it keeps only a few hours, after which it becomes too sour and effervescent, and so the whole supply must be drunk at once. In summer, with an abundance of mares, there is such a superfluity of kumiz that hospitality is unlimited, and half Altai is always drunk. The Turkomans and Kara-Kalpaks, who possess few horses and no studs, drink kumiz seldom. The much-drunk air an from fermented unskimmed camel, cow, and sheep milk quenches thirst for hours, just as does the kefir of the Tartars from cow's milk. The airan, after being condensed by boiling, and dried hard as stone into little balls in the sun, is made into kurt, which can be kept for months and is the only means of making bitter salt-water drinkable. According to Marco Polo it formed the provision of the Mongol armies, and if the horsemen could not quench his thirst in any other way, he opened one of his horse's veins and drank the blood. From which produces dead-drunkenness followed by a pleasant Nirvana-sensation A comparison of Rubruquis' account with that of Radloff shews that the dairying among the Altaians has remained the same from the earliest times. A late acquisition from China, and only available for the wealthier, is the "brick-tea," which is also a currency, and a substitute for money.

Little meat is eaten, notwithstanding the abundance of the herds; it is only customary on festive occasions or as a consequence of a visit of special honour. In order not to lessen the stock of cattle, the people content themselves with the cattle that are sick beyond recovery, or dead and even decaying. The meat is eaten boiled, and the broth drunk afterwards. Only the Volga-Kalmucks and the Kara-Kirghiz, who are very rich in flocks, live principally on sheep and horse meat. That the Huns and Tartars ate raw meat softened by being carried under the saddle, is a mistake of the chroniclers. At the present time the mounted nomads are accustomed to put thin strips of salted raw meat on their horses' sores, before saddling them, to bring about a speedy healing.

But this meat, impregnated with the sweat of the horse and reeking intolerably, is absolutely uneatable. From the earliest times, on account of the enormous abundance of game, hunting has been eagerly practised for the sake of food and skins, or as sport, either with trap and snare, or on horseback with falcon and eagle. From Persia came the long-haired greyhound in addition. Fishing cannot be pursued by long-wandering nomads, and they make no use even of the best-stocked rivers. But by the lakes and the rivers which do not dry up, fishing is an important source of food among short-wandering nomads.

For grain the seeds of wild-growing cereals are gathered; here and there millet is grown without difficulty, even on poor soil. A bag of millet-meal suffices the horseman for days; a handful of it with a drink of water appeases him well enough. Thus bread is a luxury for the nomad herdsman, and the necessary grain can only be procured in barter for the products of cattle-rearing and house-industry. But the Kirghiz of Ferghana in their short but high wanderings on the Pamir and Alai high above the last agricultural settlements, which only extend to 4,600 feet, carry on an extensive agriculture (summer-wheat, millet, barley) by means of slaves and labourers at a height of 8500 feet, while they themselves climb with their herds to a height of 15,800 feet, and partly winter in the valleys which are free from snow in winter. The nomads eat vegetables seldom, as only carrots and onions grow in the steppes. The half-settled agricultural half-nomads of to-day can be left out of consideration.

According to Piano Carpini the Mongols had neither bread nor vegetables nor leguminous food, nor anything else except meat, of which they ate so little that other peoples could scarcely have lived on it. However, in summer they consumed an enormous quantity of milk, and that failing in winter, one or two bowls of thin millet boiled in water in the morning, and nothing more except a little meat in the evening.

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