C H A P T E R X X I I .
TH E K IR G H E S E ( Continued).
Settled agricultural Kirghese.— Semi-Nomads.— Nomad Kirghese :
their cattle, sheep, and go a ts.— Losses from joot, storms, and
murrain. — Changing pasture, when and how conducted.—
Stationary pastoral life.— Polygamy.— Kirghese betrothal.— The
Ralim and presents, with rules pertaining.— Marriage ceremonies.
— The bride’s departure.— Kirghese marriage, a civil contract,- 3
Dissolvable by separation or divorce, with laws concerning each.
— Marriage with deceased brother’ s widow.— Laws concerning
inheritance.— Illustrations of Hebrew pastoral life, and suggested
source of Kirghese customs.
TH E Kirghese are essentially a nation of shepherds
and breeders of cattle, and think it a “ comedown
” in life when, by force of circumstances, they
are compelled to resort to settled occupations. In
such an extremity they settle near towns or villages,
let themselves out for labourers, as in the Kalbinsk and
Altai mines, or flock to the peasant villages in haytime
and harvest, where they are in request as cheap
and energetic workmen,* one result of which is that
in a generation or two they become civilized, dress
like Russians, and call themselves Christians. Others
* In 1881 there were taken out by the Semipdlatinsk Kirghese alone,
seeking work near home or in the neighbouring government o f
Tomsk, 29,392 passports, varying as to their length of absence a s
follows *-17,151 for a month, 1,675 for 2 months, 1,873 f° r 3 months,
7,054 for 6 months, 1,635 f ° r & year, and 4 for 2 years.
turn their attention to agriculture. These poorer
Kirghese are called Iginchas, and may be said to form
the settled element of the Kirghese population.
The Kirghese carry on their agriculture by irrigation,
and it is worthy of remark that in the province
of Semipolatinsk, in 1881, the average harvest gathered
by them yielded four-and-a-half times more than was
sown, whilst the Russian agriculturists, trusting to
rain for moisture, reaped in that year rather less
than a three-fold harvest. It should be remembered,
however, that the natives sow large tracts of millet,
which generally gives a more abundant increase than
other grain, and yielded that year an eight-fold crop.
The Dikokamenni Kirghese, many of whom are employed
in agriculture at the eastern extremity of the
Issik-Kul, have rich land, from which they get harvests
yielding, according to Valikhanoff, for millet
seventy and wheat eighty-fold. They cultivate a kind
of millet (kupock), .and distil therefrom a spirit.
Besides the absolutely settled, there is a considerable
number of natives partially settled, whose fields are
usually at a distance from their summer camps and
winter quarters. These people, having sown the land,
wander away, leaving the watering and care of the
fields to a few poor Iginchi, often without family or
cattle, and at harvest time return, to store the gram
in furrows near their winter quarters, but only in
the quantity necessary for maintenance throughout the
* In the Syr-daria province there are 124,325 kibitkas, or more than
50.000 communes of these Iginchas engaged in agriculture, their entire
number throughout Turkistan and Semirechia being reckoned at
300.000 souls. In the province of Semipolatinsk, in 1881, the a griculturists
were nominally 16,956, that is 15 per cent, of the Kirghese population,
but really far less, since that number includes not only those
immediately engaged in cultivation, but those also who help in harvest,
even to the extent of advancing on loan money or s e e d !