THE NORTH RIDING PROJECT

Sombre, mysterious and inscrutable the mountains are.  Grey peaks in Dagestan, green jungles in Ichkaria, white glaciers in the Chechen country.  In Dagestan, in the auls, in the courtyards of the grey mosques, pale emaciated men sit for ten years, twenty years, bent over the incontrovertible wisdom of the Koran, set down in minute and graceful writing.  Where the jungle begins the Koran ceases; no one there knows the great teaching.

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In the midst of the jungles, between hills and streams, stand small tents which none but the initiated can find.  Within the tents, upon stone pillars, are set small wooden figures, the gods of the forest folk.  Before them burns the pyre, and priests with white beards kill sacrificial animals, eating the raw meat and smearing the gods and themselves with the sacrificial blood.

Essad-Bey/Caucasus, 1931