Rensselaer Republican, Volume 19, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 May 1887 — Daghestan Mountaineers. [ARTICLE]

Daghestan Mountaineers.

G. Radde has written the following account of the mountaineers of Daghestan: “On my arrival at Kouroush, a nest of the Lesghians hidden away amid rocks, I went to some pains to find a marked type of the population. From an anthropological point of view the inhabitants of the Samur heights are a mixed population. Brown hair is most common in both sexes, and light gray eyes are very seldom seen among them. Both men and women have very thin heads of hair, and the men not only shave their heads, but cut the beard so '“ as to leave only two narrow’ strips on - either side of the chin. The J e wish type, which is almost common in the plain of Samur, is not to be met with here. The women dress like their Tartar sisters.” They take particular pride in their shoes, which are embroidered, of different colors, and ornamented with gold thread, and Dr. Radde considers them so pretty and original as to deserve a book to themselves. The higher one goes in the social scale the greater is the labor thrown on the woman and the more idle does the man become. During the Doctor’s stay at Kouroush as many as forty men were always to be found sleeping constantly in front of his house from morning till evening. The male considers labor dishonorable to his sex. Th*, Lesghian women are at work from sunrise to sunset. He has even seen them building houses.