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102 THE EXPLORATION OF THE CAUCASUS they formed villages. These consist of two-storied stone houses, with flat wooden roofs and balconies, not altogether unlike those found in many of the ruder hamlets of the Italian Alps. In each of the old fortress -farms lived a family, or genf^, who held all property, even their personal earnings, in common. They owned slaves, prisoners taken in war or the offspring of female captives. Blood-revenge produced terrible feuds between the clans, and it is only in comparatively recent times that crimes have been allowed to be atoned for by payments in cattle. Funeral feasts form a great pai't of Ossete religion. In Ossetia a man has to feed not only his de.scendants but his departed ancestors. There is no greater insult to an Ossete than to tell him that ' ' dead are ! hungry They have no less than ten Feasts of the Dead, some of which last several days, in their calendar. By a pious fiction the food consumed is held to benefit not him who eats but him in whose honour it is eaten ; thus greediness may cloak itself in filial piety. The prayer that is recited with the New-Year offering to the departed is not without local colour and character : ' May he be at peace and may his grave be undisturbed ; may he be famous among the dead, so that none may have power over his sustenance, and that it may reach him untouched and be his for ever, that increasing it may multiply as long as the rocks fall down our mountains and the rivers roll over the plains, neither groMdng mouldy in summer nor being frozen in winter ; and may he divide it according to his goodwill among such of the dead as have no food.' The Ossete idea of a future world is clearly one where ' daily bread ' still continues the first and chief care. It would take too long to repeat the various and interesting details given by Professor Kovalevsky of Ossete rites and customs, their peculiar i-everence for sacred trees and groves, for the hearth and the great chain that holds the cooking-caldron, their beliefs in the visits interchanged between the visible and the invisible world, in heroes who return to fight, like Castor and Pollux, side by side with the living. It is, I think, impossible not to recognise that we are here in the atmosphere from which classical legends sprang, among stay-at-home relations of the more brilliant people his
KASBEK AND THE OSSETE DISTRICT 10.1 who, stimulated by the climate, the contact with other races, and the town life possible on the shores of the iEgean Sea, developed Greek Mythology. Of architecture or of art, beyond jewellery and metal- work, there is indeed little in Ossetia. But what there is bears out this suggestion. In several places in the district groups of tombs are met with. They are quadrangular edirices, with sloping roofs, and furnished with external ledges, on which are laid votive offei'ings, generally weapons or antlers. The Ossetes appear to be quicker in temj^er than the neigh- bouring tribesmen. Twice I have nearly come to open quarrel with them. On the first occasion, in 1868, a skirmish arose over an exorbitant demand for payment, and was to some extent, perhaps, our own fault. We were young, and our interpreter, who had been accustomed, in the service of the late Mr. Gifford Palgrave, to see his master treated with the resjiect due to a British Consul in the East, was brusque in his ways. Such passing unpleasantnesses are not, in my experience, frequent, and I have never heai'd of one that resulted in any harm to a traveller. M. Levier, however, tells a story of a Russian ofiicer who, being attacked by a sheep-dog, shot his assailant. He was thereupon attacked also by the Ossete shepherd with such violence that he only owed his safety to his revolver, which he was compelled to use a second time. It may be inferred that it is judicious to avoid petty wrangles with Ossetes, and to tranquillise their sheep-dogs with ice-axes rather than to dismiss them with fire-arms. I have on many occasions followed the former course with complete success.
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102 THE EXPLORATION OF THE CAUCASUS<br />
they formed villages. These consist of two-storied stone houses,<br />
with flat wooden roofs and balconies, not altogether unlike those<br />
found in many of the ruder hamlets of the Italian Alps. In each<br />
of the old fortress -farms lived a family, or genf^, who held all<br />
property, even their personal earnings, in common. They owned<br />
slaves, prisoners taken in war or the offspring of female captives.<br />
Blood-revenge produced terrible feuds between the clans, and it<br />
is only in comparatively recent times that crimes have been allowed<br />
to be atoned for by payments in cattle.<br />
Funeral feasts form a great pai't of Ossete religion. In Ossetia a<br />
man has to feed not only his de.scendants but his departed ancestors.<br />
There is no greater insult to an Ossete than to tell him that '<br />
'<br />
dead are ! hungry They have no less than ten Feasts of the Dead,<br />
some of which last several days, in their calendar. By a pious<br />
fiction the food consumed is held to benefit not him who eats but<br />
him in whose honour it is eaten ; thus greediness may cloak itself<br />
in filial piety. The prayer that is recited with the New-Year<br />
offering to the departed is not without local colour and character :<br />
'<br />
May he be at peace and may his grave be undisturbed ; may he<br />
be famous among the dead, so that none may have power over his<br />
sustenance, and that it may reach him untouched and be his for<br />
ever, that increasing it may multiply as long as the rocks fall<br />
down our mountains and the rivers roll over the plains, neither<br />
groMdng mouldy in summer nor being frozen in winter ; and may<br />
he divide it according to his goodwill among such of the dead<br />
as have no food.' The Ossete idea of a future world is clearly<br />
one where '<br />
daily<br />
bread '<br />
still continues the first and chief care.<br />
It would take too long to repeat the various and interesting<br />
details given by Professor Kovalevsky of Ossete rites and customs,<br />
their peculiar i-everence for sacred trees and groves, for the hearth<br />
and the great chain that holds the cooking-caldron, their beliefs<br />
in the visits interchanged between the visible and the invisible<br />
world, in heroes who return to fight, like Castor and Pollux, side<br />
by side with the living.<br />
It is, I think, impossible not to recognise<br />
that we are here in the atmosphere from which classical legends<br />
sprang, among stay-at-home relations of the more brilliant people<br />
his