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196
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[JULY, 1882.
It was forbidden to wash cooking or domestic utensils in water. Pallas tells us this prohibi- tion still prevails among the Kalmuks, who always clean these articles with a piece of felt or dried grass." Carpini tells as the Mongols would not touch fire with a knife or take their food with the same instrument out of a kettle, or strike with a hatchet near a fire. To break these rules was to bring misfortune or to cause it to thunder, and the meaning of the prohibition was no doubt, as in other cases, a dread of offending the elements.
It is probable that the well-known purifications enjoined upon strangers before admission to the Khân's presence by passing them between two fires and the prohibition to tread on the piece of wood forming the threshold of the tent or yurt, and upon which the curtain dropped when it was closed, were also contained in the Yasa The strict exercise of justice was enjoined everywhere, as was the free interchange of commodities and trade. No one was to touch the goods of a dead man. When a man died without heirs, his widow and his property were not to go to the Khan, but to the servant of the deceased, while each person had to set apart from his flocks annually horses, sheep, milk and wool for the ruler. Annually at the new year all the young maidens and boys were to be brought before the Khakan, 80 that he might select wives for his harem and soldiers for his army. The Terkhans were alone privileged persons. They were to be free from all imposts, and always to have free
access to the ruler. The will of the Khân was to be supreme everywhere.88
The foregoing account of the Yasa is mainly based on Von Hammer's account, with which I have incorporated sach notices as I could find elsewhere which may be reasonably attributed to the great Code. Those who wish to study the laws which at present govern the Eastern Mongols would do well to refer to Hyacinthe's work on Mongolia, in the German translation of which by Borg (pp. 320-426) will be found a very elaborate account of the current laws and institutions of Mongolia. A more interesting collection of laws was published by Pallas in his well known work entitled Samlungen Historischer Nachrichten, etc., vol. I. p. 195, etc. Here will be found a very interesting series of enactments drawn up at the beginning of the 17th century, and assented to by the various principal chiefs of the Mongols and Kalmuks, twenty-six in number, as well as the special enactments published by the famous Kalmuk chief Galdan, by a special commission of six leading Buddhist monks, etc. In addition to these Pallas, op. cit. pp. 193-4, refers to a very old law book, Zaachin Bichik. Of this he had not been able to get a copy, nor were its enactments in force, but he had heard of several of them which were curious, and of which he quotes some, but there is no reason to suppose that any of them have been derived from the great Yasa, or are indeed to be attri. buted to so early a date as that of Chinghiz Khân.
FISH-CURING AT THE MALDIVES.
BY H. C. P. BELL, C.C.S. The fish caught in the seas encircling the Bnt among the Maldivians faru mas would Atols of the Maldive archipelago are classed seem to comprehend also the larger kinds, such by the natives broadly into two chief kinds :- as 'seir-fish' (M. digu mas, S. tôrd)--Cybium
(i.) Faru mas. This term includes what the (Scomber, Linn.) guttatum-and sharks' (M. Simhalese call gal malu, and bears the same miyaru, S. môrá). These fish are of a soft, oily literal meaning, viz., 'rock fish ;' such are : nature, unadapted for curing, only edible when Maldive.
Simhalese.
fresh, and never salted for the foreign market. Rhai mas, Tambuwa,
(i.) The real "Maldive fish" (M. Kalubili Farutoli mas,
Sílává,
mas,' vulgarly komboli mas, S. umbala lada) of Hibaru mas,
Kopperá.
the Ceylon and Indian markets are chiefly
32 Saml. Hist. Nach. I, p. 131.
See Ind. Ant. vol. VIII. p. 321, Notes and Queries," a3 Von Hammer, op. cit. pp. 186-192: Miles, Shajrat ul where Mr. D. Ferguson on the authority of the learned Atrak, pp. 90-96; Bar Hebreeus, Chron. Syr.pp. 450 and 451; Mudaliy Ar L. de Zoysa" would set old Pyrard right, by Abulghazi, ed. Des Maison, P. 144 ; Vartan, Journ. Asiat. deriving " cobily mash" from the Simhalese Kaebili (pl. 5th ser. tome XVI, p. 307; Notices et Extraits des M88. 1 of Kaebella) pieces', and mas' fish.' Quandoque bonus du Roi, tome V, p. 205 etc.; D'Ohsson, vol. I, pp. 404- dormitat Homerus. 416; De la Croix, Hist. of Genghis Khan, pp. 79-88.
