Jean Chardin, Journal du voyage du chevalier Chardin en Perse & aux Indes (1673) - Part 2

Born in Paris in a Hugenot (Protestant) family, Jean Chardin (1643-1713) spent much of his life traveling to the East because of his father's position as a jeweler and shareholder in the French East India Company. In 1664, the twenty year old Chardin set out on a long journey to Persia, traveling through the Ottoman Empire, Georgia and Armenia before arriving to Persia, where he served at the courts of Shah Abbas II and Shah Safi. After a trip to India, Chardin returned to France in 1670. In 1671, he published an account of the coronation of Shah Safi and in the same year set off for Persia, traveling through Georgia once more before arriving in Isfahan in 1673. He remained in Persia for several years before visiting India and returning home in 1677. 

With the start of the persecution of the Hugenots in France, Chardin moved to England in 1680. The first edition of his Travels appeared in London in 1686 - entitled "Journal du voyage du chevalier Chardin en Perse & aux Indes Orientales, par la Mer Noire & la Colchide..." - and was followed over the next decades by several expanded editions. Chardin's travelogue provides precious insights into the regions and societies that he had encountered on his journeys. He remains one of the best-informed European observers of Georgia and Safavid Persia.

The text below is based on the French edition (volume I, pp. 46-47) published in Amsterdam in 1711.

The noblemen of the country have full power over the lives and estates of their tenants, with whom they do what they please. They seize upon them, whether wife or children; they sell them, or dispose of them otherwise as they think fit. Every man furnishes his Lord with so much corn, cattle, wine, and other provisions, as he is able. So that their [noblemen's] wealth consists in the number of their vassals. Besides, every one is obliged to entertain his Lord two or three days in a year at their own expenses, which is the reason that the nobility, so long as the year lasts, go from one place to another devouring their tenants, and sometimes the tenants of other men.

The Prince himself leads the same life, so that it is a hard matter every day to know where to find him. When the vassals of several lords are at difference, their masters decide the dispute: but when the lords are at variance among themselves, force and brute strength determine the quarrel, and the strongest side gets the better. There is not a gentleman in Mingrelia but has some quarrel or other. And therefore it is, that they always go armed, and as numerously attended as they can. When they ride, they are armed at all points, and their followers are as well; nor do they ever sleep without their swords by their sides; and when they go to Bed, they sleep upon their stomachs, with their swords underneath them.

Their Arms are a lance, bow and arrows, a straight sword, a mace and a buckler; but there are very few that carry firearms. They are very good soldiers, ride horses very well, and handle their lances with an extraordinary dexterity. They train children in the use of a bow starting at the age of four and they become so adroit that can shoot even the most smallest birds in flight. 

Their Habit is peculiar; and unless they be the Ecclesiastical Persons, they wear but very little beard. They shave the top of their heads in a circle but allow the rest of their hair to grow down to their eyes, and then clip it round at an even length. They cover their Heads with a light cap of felt, very thin pared and cut into several half-moons around edges. In the winter they wear a fur bonnet: They are moreover so beggarly [gueux] and so wretched [miserables], that for fear of spoiling their caps or their bonnets in the rain, they will put them in their pouches, and go bare-headed. Over their bodies they wear little shirts [chemises] that fall down to their knees, and tuck into a straight pantaloon. Nor

indeed is there any habit in the world more deformed then theirs. They carry a [long] rope at their girdles, to tie together such people or cattle which they rob from their neighbors or take in war. The nobles wear leather girdles four fingers broad, full of silver studs, at which they hang a knife, a whetstone, and a steel to strike fire: together with three leather purses, the one full of salt, the other of pepper, and the other with pack-needles, lesser-needles, and thread. The poor people go almost naked; such is their misery not to be paralleled anywhere else; not having any thing to cover their nakedness but a pitiful felt resembling the chlamys of the Ancients; into which they thrust their heads, and turn which way they please as the Wind sits; for it covers but one side of their bodies, and falls down no lower than their Knees. There are some, that are pared very thin to keep out the Water, which are not so heavy as the common sort; that are ready to weigh a man down, especially when thorough wet. He that has a shirt and a pair of pitiful drawers, thinks himself rich; for almost all of them go bare-Foot; and such of the Colchians as pretend to shoes, have nothing but a piece of a buffalo's hide, and that untanned too; this piece of raw hide is attached to their feet with a thong of the same: so that for all these sort of sandals, their feet are as dirty as if they went bare-foot.

Almost all the Mingrelians, both men and women, even the most noble and wealthy, rarely have but one shirt [chemise] and one pair of breeches [calleçon] at a time; which last them at least a year: in all which time they never wash them more than three times: only once or twice a week they shake them over the fire for the vermin to drop off, with which they are mightily haunted; and indeed, I cannot say I ever saw anything so nasty and loathsome, which is the reason that the Mingrelian ladies do not smell well. I always taken with their beauty but could not endure a moment longer in their company because of rank odor from their skins stifled all my amorous thoughts.

The Grandees eat, sitting upon carpets, after the manner of the Eastern people. Their napkin is only a piece of painted cloth, or leather, and sometimes they only wipe upon the boards. The common people sit upon a bench [banc], with another bench before them of the same height, which serves for a table. All their dishes are made of wood, as are all their drinking cups: only among the people of quality [nobility] you shall see a little silver plate.

Moreover it is the custom in this savage country [pais sauvage] that the whole family, without distinction for males and females, eat all together. The king [eats] with his entire suite down to his very grooms. The Queen [shares her meal] with her [waiting] ladies, maids, servants and all, down the very lackeys that attend her. When it does not rain, they dine in the open courts, where they rank themselves, either in a circle, or side by side, one below another, according to their quality [status]. If it be cold weather they make great bonfires in the court where they eat; for wood-firing costs nothing in that country, as I have said already. When they sit down, four men, if the family be great, bring upon their shoulders a large kettle full of gom, or boiled grain as I have already described; of which, most usually a half-naked wretch [un gueux, a demi nud] serves, upon a wooden plate, to every one his proportion, which weighs full three pounds. Afterwards two other servants, somewhat but not much better equipped, bring in another kettle full of grain more white than the other; which is only for the better sort. Upon work-days they never give but only gom to the servants, the masters being served with vegetables, or roasted fish or meat. On holidays, or when they make entertainments, they kill either a hog, or an ox, or a cow, especially if they have no venison. As soon as they have cut the throat of the beast, they dress it, and set it upon the fire, without salt, or sauce, in the great kettle where they boil it. When it has boiled a while, they take it from the fire, pour away the broth, and serve meat half-raw without any seasoning. The Master of the House has always standing before him a large portion of this food: they set before him likewise all the vegetables, all the bread, and all the poultry and wildfowl. He presently carves for his guests and his friends their share. They feed themselves with their fingers, and that so nastily that nothing but extremity of hunger could provoke the meanest of our Europeans to eat at the tables of these barbarians. 

When they have begun to eat, there are two persons who serve the drink round the table. Among the common people, this function is performed by women or maids. It is the same incivility among them to call for wine as to refuse it. For they must wait until it is presented, and take it when it is given to them. They never give less then a pint at a drought, which at their ordinary meals is thrice done; but at feasts and banquets, the guests, and the gentry drink on till they are drunk. The Mingrelians and their neighbors are very great drinkers, far exceeding the Germans, and all the Northern People They never mix their wine, but drink it pure, both men and women. But once they are drunk, they think their pints too little and therefore drink out of their dishes, and out of the pitcher itself. While I stayed near Cotatis [Kutaisi], I lodged at a gentleman's house, who was one of the stoutest drinkers in all the country: and while I stayed at his house, he made a feast for three of his friends; at what time they were all four so set upon carousing that from ten in the morning till five in the evening, they drank out a whole charge of wine; a charge of wine weighs three hundred pounds. 

It is also a custom among these people, practiced by all the world, to rise from the table, and [to relieve themselves] as often as they have occasion, and when they return, they sit down without ever washing their hands. They provoke their guests and their friends, as much as they can, to drink; it being chiefly at the table that they observe civility, and are free of their arms [complimens]. Conversations between men are about their robberies [contes de vols], wars, fights, murders [assassinats] and selling of slaves. Neither is discourse any better among the women, for they are pleased with all sorts of love-tales, no matter how obscene or lascivious, and they are unashamed of using the dirtiest words; and their children learn these filthy words and phrases as soon as they can speak; so that by that time they are ten years of age, their discourse with the women is as obscene as one dares to say. In Mingrelia, education of children, without exaggeration, is lewdest in the world. Their fathers raise them for thievery [larcin], and their mothers for depravity [turpitude].