Müller gives us an account of some of the institutions of these people during the period preceding their final submission to the Russians. When war was declared, the chief named those who were to enlist, and assigned them the quota of arms and horses they were to furnish to the army.
In administering justice, judgments were given by an assembly of elders. He who was found guilty of murder first suffered the penalties pronounced by the tribunal, and was then delivered over to the relatives of his victim, who were at liberty either to kill him, or to keep him as a slave. In the latter event, the assassin had to furnish to his masters one hundred horses and two camels, with liberty to substitute five sheep for every horse.
If the victim of an assassination were a woman or child, the relatives of these had no right to demand the life of the murderer, and the fine was reduced to one half. The crime of rape was punished in the same manner as the murder of women or children.
The Kirghiz still have among them a great number of diviners,[9] in whose revelations they have more or less faith according to the method these magicians employ in predicting.
Some divine with books without having recourse to the stars. Others employ the shoulder blade of a sheep. It is absolutely necessary that this bone be denuded of flesh with a knife, and that human teeth have not gnawed it, otherwise it would have no virtue. When one of these magicians is consulted, he puts the shoulder blade on the fire, and makes his predictions according to the fissures produced by the heat. These diviners pretend with their science to determine how far distant an absent person may be.
The Kirghiz call the third class of magicians _bukscha_. To obtain a prediction from them, they exact a horse, a sheep, or a goat. The magician begins the ceremony by chanting and beating on a drum furnished with rings; and whilst thus occupied, he goes through a succession of leaps and contortions of the body for half an hour. When this part of the ceremony has ended, he has a sheep brought to him, and killing it, receives the blood in a vessel, expressly made for this purpose; he then keeps the skin for himself, and distributes the flesh among the spectators, who eat it. He afterwards takes the bones, and, dyeing them red or blue, throws them towards the west. Then he scatters the blood in the same direction, begins again his contortions, and, after an interval, gives his response to the question proposed to him. A fourth class of diviners are called _kamtscha_. They augur from the colour of the flame that rises from butter or fat thrown into the fire. The latter class of diviners is not much esteemed.