This Cap Is Hollow Within, And Is Covered Over With Rich Silk.
On The Top Of This They Erect A
Bunch of quills, or slender rods, about a
cubit long, or even more, which they ornament with peacocks feathers on
The
top, and all around with the feathers of a wild drake, and even with
precious stones. The rich ladies wear this ornament on the top of their
heads, binding it on strongly with a kind of hat or coif, which has a hole
in its crown adapted for this purpose, and under this they collect their
hair from the back of the head, lapped up in a kind of knot or bundle
within the botta; and the whole is fixed on by means of a ligature under
their throat. Hence, when a number of these ladies are seen together on
horseback, they appear at a distance like soldiers armed with helmets and
lances. The women all sit astride on horseback like men, binding their
mantles round their waists with silken scarfs of a sky-blue colour, and
they bind another scarf round their breasts. They likewise have a white
veil tied on just below their eyes, which reaches down to their breasts.
The women are amazingly fat, and the smaller their noses, they are esteemed
the more beautiful. They daub over their faces most nastily with grease;
and they never keep their beds on account of child-bearing.
SECTION IX.
Of the Duties and Labours of the Women, and of their Nuptials.
The employments of the women are, to lead the waggons, to load and unload
the horses, to milk the cows, to make butter and gryut, to dress skins, and
to sew them together, which they generally do with sinews finely split and
twisted into long threads. They likewise make sandals, and socks, and other
garments, and felts for covering their houses. They never wash their
garments, alleging that it would offend God, and that hanging them up to
dry would occasion thunder; and they even beat any person who pretends to
wash their garments, and take their clothes from them. They are
astonishingly afraid of thunder, during which they turn all strangers from
their dwellings, and wrapping themselves in black felt, remain covered up
till it is over. They never wash their bowls or dishes; or if they do wash
the platters into which the boiled meat is to be put, they do it merely
with the scalding broth, which they throw back into the pot.
The men make bows and arrows, saddles, bridles, and stirrups, construct
houses and carts, takes care of the horses, and milk the mares, agitate the
cosmos or mares milk, make leather sacks, in which these are kept, take
care of, and load the camels, tend the cows, sheep, and goats, and these
are sometimes milked by the men, sometimes by the women. They dress hides
with sheeps milk, thickened and salted. When they mean to wash their head
and hands, they fill their mouths with water, which they squirt out
gradually on their hands, and moisten their hair or wash their heads.
No man can have a wife unless by purchase; so that many maids are rather
old before marriage, as their parents always keep them till they can get a
good market. They keep the first and second degrees of consanguinity
inviolate, but pay no regard to affinity, as one man may have either at
once, or successively two sisters. Widows never marry, as their belief is,
that all who have served a man in this life, shall do so in the next; so
that widows believe that they shall return after death to their husbands.
Hence arises an abominable custom among them, that the son sometimes
marries all his father's wives except his own mother; for the court or
household of the father and mother always devolves to the younger son, and
he has to provide for all his father's wives, which fall to his share along
with the inheritance; and he considers, that if he takes his father's
wives, it will be no injury or disgrace to him though they went to his
father in the next world. When any one has made a bargain with another for
his daughter, the father of the maid gives a feast to the bridegroom, and
the bride runs away and hides herself in the house of one of her relations.
Then the father says to the bridegroom, "My daughter is now yours, take her
wherever you can find her." On which he seeks for her, with the assistance
of his friends, till he discovers her concealment, and then leads her as if
by violence to his house.
SECTION X.
Of their Laws and Judgments, and of their Death and Burial.
When two men fight, no one must interfere to part them, neither may a
father presume to aid his own son; but he who considers himself injured
must appeal to the court of his lord, and whoever shall offer him any
violence after this appeal is put to death. He who is appealed against,
must go without delay, and the appellant leads him as a prisoner. No one is
punished capitally, unless taken in the act, or unless he confesses; but
when witnessed against by many, he is severely tortured to extort
confession. Homicide, adultery, and fornication, are punished with death;
but a man may use his own slave as he pleases. Great thefts are punished
capitally; but for small ones, as for stealing a sheep, when the party is
not caught in the fact, but otherwise detected, the thief is cruelly
beaten. And when an hundred strokes are to be given by order of the court,
an hundred separate rods are required, one for each blow. Pretended
messengers are punished with death, as are likewise sacrilegious persons,
whom they esteem witches, of which more will be said hereafter.
When any one dies, he is mourned for with violent howlings, and the
mourners are free from tribute during a whole year.
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