The Baskkir love to horses is well-known. Not randomly image of the horse plays an outstanding role in the bashkir epos, in their fine art, national songs. Here the bashkir song - legend “Kara Yurga” (Black ambler) is indicative. It is said in it, that earlier The Bashkirs lived in kins, egets (grooms)from one kin, dressed in the best clothes on the best race horses, looked for the girl to marry in other kins. When such a girl had been found, they began asking in marriage.
It is sung in a song, that a certain glorified eget of Bursyanski kin had gone away on his ambler and found the beautiful girl in Kubalyaksky kin. By returning home, he sent the matchmakers to her parents and received their consent. The father of the eget gave among mahara (repayment for the bride) herd of the horses and everywhere glorified Black ambler. However Kara Yurga began to grow thin on the other yard; it snorted and neighed, endlessly beat the ground, raising clubs of dust. The bride of the eget climbed up on the ambler each day, rode, sang in time its lynces the song, composed by herself eulogizing dignities of the horse.
In one such summer days she put magnificent clothes, adornings, kashmau on (a female headgear, decorated by corals and silver coins). Having thrown on the ambler a silver bridle and silver saddle, she untied the horse from a white tether and, having leaped up on a saddle, decided to prance before yurtas. However, the excited ambler carried away the girl to its native places, to the house of its former host. Special warm attitude of the Bashkirs to horses explains also that by manufacturing any thing connected with the horse, they put the special love and skill.
The most honorary order for the foremans was to produce a good and beautiful saddle. The Bashkirs had it mostly the same, as at many Euroasian horse nomads and consisted of a wooden framework (lenchic) and two bows - forward and back. A forward bow was above, than a back one. The Bashkirs tried to decorate a forward bow. Its head was made out as a sheet of the oval shape and there were ornaments made from sides by carved patterns from spirals or sockets. Frequently it was given the shape of the bird's head, then the saddle reminded a bird. The back bow had also ornaments, but it was more modest.
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The bows of a saddle were decorated with metal overlays,
which had ornaments made by a silver cut or engraving. Stir-rups were attached to the lenchic, which at the Bashkirs were mainly metal, though in use were also wooden ones. Wooden stir-rups were mostly without ornaments, perfection of their shape and thorough trimming harmonized with general composition of the horse’s appearance. The saddle on a back or the horse was kept a broad saddle-girth, a breastplates and an undertaler. They were made mainly of leather, though one could meet those, which were made of hair and of loofah. Belt breastplates and undertalers were decorated with silver overlays from sheets and round horse brasses. Horse brasses were stronger on places of conjunction of belts on the breast and groats of the horse. (Analogy: in dwelling on all the points of its communication with the external world, were made ornaments, so that “ another's ”, so hostile, could not penetrate inside. |
A cheprac was hanged down sideways from a saddle by its both sides, covering sides of the horse. Chepracs were decorated by applique work in the far past : large (so that it could be seen from far away) fabric patterns imposed directly on the cashma. Colour chepracs decorated the horse of the bride. By moving from her native place to the village of the groom she rode on the horse, which had colour chepracs on. The bride had smart clothes with ornaments on, numerous adornings, she and her horse represented ensemble.
-And what, - I have asked, - is Paris good?
-The famous city, very famous! What women there, - he added laughing, - bic yacshi (from the Bashkir language - it is very good). But my wife did not let me go for a walk alone…
-How the wife, - I interrupted him, - was she on the war?
-Yes, she was, and she had a medal.
Being present at this conversation the Bashkir foreman corrected: “ That, hazret (in Arabian - sir), you joke with us. You saw, as my girls rode, only give them spears in hands, and absolutely Cossack, they could throw down any man from the horse ”. (Bashkiria in the Russian literature. Ò.1. Ufa. 1989. Ñ.409) From the point of view of many European peoples the unusual and primitive force of the Bashkirs was experienced on themselves by: the Poles and Swedes, Prussian and French, Turk and others. And the Bashkir arms consisted of few subjects. Vladimir Dal, the participant of military campaigns of Orenburg general - governor Vaseley Perovsky in Turkestan and Kazakh steppes, in which the Bashkirs were attracted, especially emphasizing their manners and tenderness, wrote:
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In battle the Bashkir man moves a quiver from a back on the breast, two take arrows in teeth, and the other two arrows puts on an bow and sends them one after the other with the speed of a wind; at an attack he bends low to the horse with an unbuttoned breast, fold sleeves, and with shrill shout rushes on an enemy ”.The bow with arrows was traditional, but not a single weapon at the Bashkirs. Since long time they applied spears and a bludgeon, sabres and guns in fights. Already mentioned bashkir Jantury, recollecting the participation in the Fatherland war of 1812, told Vaseley Zeferov: “ In former times the Bashkirs were not the same as they are now,-when it so happened that a campaign was planned: they put a coat of mail on, then a dark blue peasant’s long coat, a white cap on a head, the quiver with arrows for a back, a sabre was fastened on a belt, a spear in a hand – and they were ready to go, where the commander ordered. In such order I was on the war with the French and in their large city in Paris ” (Bashkiria in the Russian literature … Ñ.409) the regiments participated in a battle under Leipzig which was known as “fight of the peoples ”. The French general de Marbo in the memoirs wrote about huge impression made on the French by the Bashkir riders, who were called “l ' amour” by the French for their skillful use of bows. The Bashkir warriors participated in Berlin, Frankfurt - on Mine and in exile of the French from Hamburg, Erfurt, and, as it was said, had come in Paris triumphally. They were also awarded with silver medals “ For a capture of Paris of March 19, 1814 ”, “ In memory of war 1812 - 1814 ã.ã. ” And other distinctions.
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Much from arms of the Bashkirs was universal. A bow with arrows, a bludgeon, spears, pistols etc. had military application, and at the same time they were also hunting instruments. They decorated dwellings with them in week-days. They, hanged on covered by cashmas walls of the yourtas personifing riches, welthy of the holder. They were a subject of pride. A battle bow and arrows differed from hunting. |
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Battle arrows, which differed from hunting mainly by shape of the tips, were kept and carried in leather quivers till 15-25 of pieces in each. As well as quivers were decorated with iron sheets and horse brasses, covered by silver stamping.
The ornament on the quivers was in harmonious unity with their shape and size. " The large sheets at the basis of quivers repeated outlines of the lower edges by the shape of these subjects. On each side there were narrow sheets with a band of ornament from zigzags or was located in a line of palmets. From the inside sheets had cuts as semicircle. In a central part of quivers and cover of the bows round horse brasses with ornaments of the different sizes were picturesquely scattered like bright stars on a dark background of the sky. The decorative solution of some cover of the bows was wholly constructed on this principle: they had not a frame by metal overlays; all surface of a cove of the bow represented, as though a deep background leaving the edges of a subject, on which silver horse brasses were scattered in bunches. The contrast of dark and silver - white was fixed in the basis of ornaments and overlays " (Kuseev R.G., Bicbulatov N.V., Shetova S.N. The Comp. p.11)
