Jehoshaphat Aspin, Cosmorama (1826)

In 1826 Jehoshaphat Aspin published Cosmorama: A View of the Costumes and Peculiarities of All Nations (London, 1826) which mapped various peoples and countries around the world.


Aspin  (the pseudonym of the unknown female author) was a popular writer in Britain who had written a number of children's books on history, geography and astronomy. The Cosmorama proved to be quite popular in Britain and was reprinted in the mid-1830s.

In describing various countries and peoples, Aspin relied on existing travelogues to create short essays that introduced English-speaking adolescents to far-away lands and peoples. The author often focused on peoples' resemblances to other nations, thus highlighting connections that, in author's mind, would help reader retain information. 

Aspin's essays on Georgia are noteworthy not as much for their factual details as for what they taught young English-speaking adults about the Georgians (and the Mingrelians) in the early 19th century.

THE GEORGIANS

These people occupy a great part of the southern declivity of the Caucasus ; and are in many respects similar to the Circassians in their customs and manners. They make a profession of Christianity; but it is not certain to what particular creed they are attached, nor what forms of worship they have adopted.

The Georgians are in general tall, well proportioned, and elegant in shape; and their language is soft, harmonious, and expressive; but their minds, unrestrained by education and virtuous habits, are depraved and vicious.

The dress of the Georgians nearly resembles that of the Cossacks, though men of rank frequently appear in the Persian costume. They usually dye their hair, beard, and nails, of a red colour; and the women do the same to the palms of their hands. In the streets, women of rank always appear veiled; and there it is deemed indecorous in any man to accost them. It is, likewise, reckoned uncivil in conversation to inquire after the wives of any of the company.

Punishments in criminal cases are in this country of the most cruel and terrific nature; fortunately, however, they are not frequent, as well because delinquents can easily abscond into neighbouring districts, as because the princes are more enriched by confiscations of property, than by the tortures of the accused.

The clergy are paid liberally, not by the living, but by the dead. At the death of a Georgian, the bishop requires one hundred crowns, for performing the funeral rites; and this extravagant demand must be satisfied, though the widow and children of the deceased be ruined by it, which is frequently the case.

THE MINGRELIANS

These people, seated in the ancient country of Colchis, between the Black Sea and Mount Caucasus, are generally handsome; the men strong and well made, and the women very beautiful: but both sexes are very depraved. They sell their children; or, if they can find no purchasers, put them to death, when they have difficulty in bringing them up.

The bread used by the superior classes is made of wheat, barley, or rice; and, when eating, they sit cross-legged upon a carpet. The lower orders, for want of bread, eat a kind of paste made of a plant, called gom ; and they sit upon a mat, or bench.

The nobility exercise an absolute power over their vassals, even to the deprivation of life, liberty, and estate. Their arms are bows, arrows, lances, sabres, and bucklers.

The Mingrelians call themselves Christians; but both their clergy and laity are utterly ignorant of the Christian doctrines, and their service is intermixed with Jewish and Pagan rites. They never eat pork, nor drink wine, without making the sign of the cross; and their monks and nuns, who abstain wholly from animal food, pay no other regard to religion or morality than a strict observance of the fasts prescribed by the clergy, which is considered as an atonement for every other neglect of duty.

The archbishop of Georgia derives a great revenue from his flock; for, besides seven hundred vassals, bound to furnish him with the necessaries and luxuries of life, he raises money by the sale of the children of his wretched dependants, as well as by visitations of his dioceses. In the latter, he levies heavy contributions on the bishops and inferior clergy,who, in their turn, plunder the people, sell the wives and children of their vassals into slavery, and commit the most flagrant crimes. They also, for money, pretend to foretell future events, and to recover the sick by appeasing the evil genius by which the patient is harassed. The dignitaries of the church are clad in scarlet; the inferior clergy are distinguished from the laity by the length of their beards, and by their high round caps, which are also common to their inferiors. Among the idols, with which their churches are filld, those of St. George and St. Grobas engage their principal attention: to the latter, they have attached such ideas of terror, that they lay their offering at a distance before it, lest, by approaching too near, they should incur the wrath of the in-dwelling power.

On the death of their friends, these people, in common with the Georgians, abandon themselves to inordinate grief; but at the interment, they wash it all away with copious potations. Their chief cause of concern, however, arises from the surrender, which the bishop requires, of all the moveables of their departed relative, whether they consist of horses, arms, clothes, or money. This right, on the death of a bishop, devolves upon the prince; who, assuming the clerical character for the occasion, seizes at once on the accumulated spoil which the defunct priest had collected by the plunder of his subjects.