Indian Antiquary Vol 10

Author(s): Jas Burgess
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 30

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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
(JANUARY, 1881.
races, that they then possessed written charac- it is placed as the original head-quarters of the ters. He said his race had formerly inhabited far Yakats from which they took their name, as distant southern lands, and quoted several popa-| Ides expressly says, and from which they were lar sayings in proof of it in which gold and driven by the encroachment of the Russians. gems, lions and tigers of which they are now This area is close to that of the Bariats on the quite ignorant are mentioned. To this we may one hand and to that of kindred races to the add that the Yakuts use the famous cycle of | Turks on the other, and is placed at the very animals employed by the southern Turks and fountain head from which a migration would the Mongols in calculating their chronology. naturally creep down the Lena. Now it is a Following up this clue, and bearing in mind the very remarkable fact in confirmation of this distinctively Turkish language spoken by the reasoning that the name Baikal itself is not of Yakuts, the evidence we have of a mixture of Mongol origin, but as we are expressly told, is a Buriat blood, and the more distinct characteristic Yakut gloss, the Yakats now living a long way that being Turks they are not Muhammadans from the Baikal. From all these facts I am but Shamanists, it ought not to be difficult to convinced that the Yakuts were once the domidiscover their nearest relations. The emigra- nant race about the Baikal, and have since been tion of such tribes is bounded by certain con- thrust out and moved down the Lena. This ditions. In winter small parties and detached brings us to the gist of our question. The only families of hunters find their way across the tribe which is known to me in early times which snow-covered tundra, but a whole race emigrates can be identified with the ancestors of the generally along some river. The traditional Yakuts is that of the Merkits of the 13th cenmethod in the case of the Yakuts is also the tury. Like the Yakute they were Turks, like most reasonable. Following the mighty river them they occupied the borders of the Baikal, Lena to its head waters, we arrive at the sea of were unsophisticated by Muhammadanism, and Baikal, whose shores are now occupied by the were no doubt coheirs of the old culture of the Buriats, the Bratzki of the Russian writers, Uighurs. an incroaching race, formerly limited to the The Yako ts occupied as we know the region south of the Baikal Lake, and only country just opposite the head stream of the Leda. recently and since the Rassian conquest of Their name, we are told, is not indigenous Siberia pushing further north and west. Close but one given them by the Bariate, while the to the Baikal lake and on the river Angaraname Merkit was doubtless a mere appellative stands the city of Irkutsk. This city is de- also of foreign origin. I believe therefore that scribed by Isbrand Ides, the earliest authority when defeated and dispersed by Ching hiz we have for this region, under the name of Khân the Merkite withdrew across the Baikal, Jekutska, and it is so named on his map. whence they have gradually wandered down the It is placed on a small tributary of the Angara | Lens, and that the Yakuts are descended from called by him the Jekut. I have no hesita- them. This I take to be an important result tion in accepting this form of the name as for the ethnographer and historian of Asia, and one current in the time of Ides, nor have I much enables us to simplify very considerably the hesitation in assigning it and the river on which disintegrated history of the Turks.
MISCELLANEA.
VESTIGES OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT IN
CENTRAL ASIA. The village of Gumuche Tepe itself is remarkable as being the only maritime Turkoman village of any importance on the Caspian coast. The inhabitants are practically independent, paying only a small annual tribute to Persia. The in- terior administration of the place is entirely in
the hands of the Turkomans. The main industry of Gumuche Tepê is fish-drying, preparation of the skins of water fowl, manufacture of kibitkas and boats, together with the nets and felt carpets used by the residents. The settlement dates from a remote period. It takes its name from a large earthen mound situated about half a mile to the northward, close to the water's edge. This mound,