The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1891-05-07
ALMOST OUT OF THE WORLD.

The Swanetans, q Curious People Living
in the Heart of the Caucasus.
Before the Anthropological society Of
St. Petersburg a member, DR.. Olderogge,
read an interesting paper on the results Of
his explorations in the heart of Caucasia.
He had penetrated where few explorers
had been before. He came to Swaneta,
long but narrow valley at the foot
of the Elburz mountain, through which
the river Ingoora winds. For most of the
year Swaneta is isolated entirely from the
world, and even in the summer season the
mountain passes leading to the locality are
made extremely dangerous by water cur
rents, avalanches and falling rocks.
There is strange semi-savage people In
the valley numbering about 5000 families.
They subsist on their chase for wild ami
mails, of which there is an abundance In
the mountains, and in the Yild season of
the year plant just as much grain as is re-
quired for their immediate necessity. Every
now and then a Swanetan will wander
away from his secluded home into more
civilized neighborhood to sell few hides
and to get in exchange few things that
he misses in his native valley, such as
cloth, cotton fabrics and some articles OF
apparel.
But this he does very seldom and with
great unwillingness, for his needs are few
and his native valley has made him love
isolation. They speak dialect the princi-
pal element of which is corrupt Georgian,
with Persian and Kirguese terms of speech
strongly intermixed. They are of a pacific
nature and extremely shy of strangers.
DR.. Olderogge introduced himself to them
as a hawker, and, trying to trade with
them, drew them into conversation and
made his studies and observations.
The dress and manner of living of the
Swanetans present striking contrast to
the dwellings they occupy. They cover
their bodies with hides in the winter and
go about half naked in the warm season of
the year; of cleanliness and comfort they
know nothing, and there are no luXuries
among them. But they live in ancient
castles Of magnificent construction, though
more than half ruined. There is quite
number of such castles in the mountains
that encircle the Swanetan valley. The
Swanetans have a sort of writing, and their
folk lore is rich in curious traditions and
quaint legends, pointing to time when
their intercourse with the world was more
frequent than at present. and when they
ranked among the strong and civilized
peoples of the region.
But all this is dying out with them.
They worship four divinities and sacrifice
animals unto them. Their conceptions of
those deities are strikingly suggestive of
corrupted notions of the Trinity and the
Virgin, and indicate that they were once
Christians, but lapsed into heathenism be-
fore Christianity took deep root among
them. They are strangers to all that we
accept as social morality. There is ter
rible percentage among them of lunatics,
idiots, cretins, epileptics, and those
stricken with cognate, physical and nerv-
Gus diseases.
The physical deformities of the Swane-
tans are commensurate with their moral
deterioration, and show that they must
have lived as they live now for many gen.
erations. Their heads are flattened at the
back and abnormally elongated in the
temples; they are marked with strong
prognatism and with diasthem of both the
upper and lower teeth. As a consequence
of cretinism, which is prevalent among
them, nearly all the Swanetans have
goitres, which begin to develop at very
early age.-New York Sun.