The Toledo chronicle. [volume] (Toledo, Tama County, Iowa) 1873-1924, 1876-05-11
The Superstiti0us Beliefs Of the Kir.
ghiZ.

NJ. d. CONWAY writes to the Cincinnati
Commercial that DR.. Eugene Schuyler,
Secretary of the United States Legation at
St Petersburg, was recently in London,
having come there to correct the proof
sheets Of his work on Turkistan before
proceeding to his duties at Constantine
pie. From advance sheets left in his
possession, MI. Conway sends the follow
ing extracts giving an account Of the u
rious superstitous notions and customs of
the people of Turkistan:
During the few days l passed in this
garden | learned many proprieties as well
as many superstitions of Mussulman life.
Fol instance l was shown how to eat a
melon. According to the Koran, when
an animal is killed for food, its throat
must be cut in order that the blood may
all run out. BY transfer of ideas the
melon is treated in the same way. First,
its throat is cut small i~ncision is made
in the end farthest from the stem; then
It's head is cut Oft by slicing off a small
piece; after that it is cut up lengthways,
and with one or two dexterous turns of
the knife the flesh is removed from the
rind and cut into thin, small slices, which
are pushed out alternately by the knife.
When a man drinks water, he should first
take one swallow slowly, while repeating
to himself the name of Allah,
and then take two swallows, after
which he can gulp down as much as
he p~leases. When a person ~hiccoughs
it is common to say, You stole ONE
thing from me- This is supposed to bring
| good luck. If you sneeze when l speak
to you, it shows that l am right. If Il
person sneeze three times it is very IN
lucky. Yawning is a most sinful and
dangerous practice, and arises from an
evil place IN your heart, hGzzi Maitdn,
which is getting ready for the reception
of an evil spirit. Mohammed never
yawned, for when he was four years old
he was one day seized in the desert by the
angel Gabriel, who bounced upon him
like a bird and cut out the evil place from
his heart. If, therefore, you yawn, you
should always put up the hand with the
palm outward, so as to ward off the evil
spirits that will at once come to you.
Among the more puritanical folk laugh
ter is also bad, and it is said that Hanify,
one of the famous Mussulman doctors,
lost half of Asia for Islam by laughing.
| Whistling also is bad. Ii a husband
whistle, something will happen to his
wife; and if children whistle, their father
or mother will die. Whistling, too, is
supposed to bring wind, and the Kirghiz
frequently whistles for that purpose, 4
buzzing in ones ears shows that a man is
dead, and a prayer is always repeated.
There is a beautiful legend connected
with this. In heaven there is a tree. on
each leaf Of which is written the name of
some soul, and what men call a buzzing
in their ears is a rustling of one of these
leaves as it falls from the tree. If the
noise in your ears be aringing as of bells,
then it is a Christian soul whose leaf has
fallen, and who is to die: and so for each
faith the noise is different. There also
exist many similar superstitions with re
gard to the ~twitchings of different parts of
the body, called teata6mah. There is a
little bird named A~arkagotch, the forked
tail of which is always trembling. This
tail. if you keep it about you, will always
ward off i'll luck. 1t is, therefore, a very
common part of q woman's head.dress.
There is another belief, too, about the
har7zgatcH. If when you first see this
bird in the spring you dig a deep hole in
the ground under the pig toe of your right
foot, you will find a coal. With this coal
in your hand go and stand in front of a
mosque, having also a slim rod. You
the watch everyone who passes, and at
last there will be a girl wearing a large
hat. You touch her with the rod, and
make her stop and go into the mosque
with you, and you can then obtain her
hat, which viii make you invisible, and
allow you 10 wander unseen where you
please
Among the Kirghiz the magpie (aEa)
is a very ominous bird, and they careful
ly watch its cOmings and goings, If a
kirghiz hears n of these cry, he goes
out to look. If the maybe be on the east,
it means guests; if on the west, a jour
ney; if on the north, bad luck; if on the
south, some remarkable event. With re-
gard TO the crow there are similar super
s%titions, and, among others, it is said that
the karga, 81 ordinary crow, and the kok-
kQrga, or green crow of the steppes, never
met until the Russians came. Before
that the black crow flew away be-
fore the green one came; now both
birdshre seen together. Either the STUN
bling or the snorting of a horse while on
a journey is considered a sign of good
luck. In Bukhara, if, in crossing a
stream, a horse should stumble and let the
rider get wet, it is thought to be the great
est good luck. To meet a woman I'M
mounted, or with nothing in her hands,
is to have bad luck; but if you meet any
one on horseback, especially a young
man, with something in his hands, you
will have good luck. If a hare run across
a mans path while he is on a journey, it
foreshows i'll luck, and he usually goes
back.
at is, however, the sheep which con-
stitutes his chief wealth, that furnishes
the Kirghiz with the best material for
forecasting the future. The shin bone OF
a sheep is always placed above the door
of a kib5tka to keep out robbers, and men
sometimes take one as a charm on a jour
ney. In order to prove to me the efficacy
of this charm, one of the jigits told me
the story of a kirghiz, who, when he was
going on a long journey, was besought by
his wife to carry with him a small bag
which she gave him, and which he was
always to keep fastened to the saddle of
his horse, and never to unite. After he
had accomplished the fortieth day Of his
journey, his horse being weary, his eye
happened to rest upon this bundle, and
he began to wonder what he had been
carrying so long; on cutting it open he
saw forty bones, which, thinking them to
be a useless burden, he threw away. That
very night he was attacked by robbers,
who had been watching him for forty
days, and lost his horse and everything
which he had.
"The most common method of divining
the course of human events, is to place on
the Goals the shoulder-blade OF a sheep
which has been carefully cleaned of the
flesh. This is gradually calcined, and
the cracks, the color, and the small par