CAUCASIA AND ITS PEOPLES 51 



tion of the old-time Ossete customs, of their slave 

 deals, their blood feuds, their Feasts of the Dead, 

 of which there are seven ; of their sacred groves, and 

 the slain heroes who resuscitate themselves in order 

 to fight the battles of their descendants. 



There is a tradition prevalent in the Caucasus that 

 the Ossetes and the Khevsurs, who wear chain mail 

 and helmets, are of Crusader stock, though why the 

 Crusaders crusaded so far away from the Holy Land 

 history sayeth not. The Ossetes are considered by 

 ethnologists to be of undoubted Aryan extraction, and 

 the language spoken by the tribe is affiliated to the 

 Medo-Persian. 



Eastward of Ossetia are many small tribes, too 

 numerous and complicated for a slight mention. 

 Among them are the Ingouch, Touche, and Kara- 

 boulaks, who all at one time formed a part of the vast 

 Tchettchetz host, but on the adoption by the latter 

 of a loose form of Mahommedanism, the Ingouch threw 

 off intertribal amenities, and remained in a condition 

 of heathenism, whose ancient rites and usages are said 

 by historians to be older than Druidism. The majority 

 of the Ingouch have no idea of a Supreme Being, see 

 their gods in strange rocks, which they call yerdas, and 

 periodically worship, and find their sermons in, shape- 

 less silver lares et penates, to which uncarven meaning- 

 less treasures they make propitiatory sacrifices. 



Beyond the lands of the Mahommedan Tchettchetz, 

 a very large, subdivided tribe, is Daghestan, a moun- 

 tain region containing many offshoots from the splen- 

 did dominant races whose support enabled Schamyl to 



