which it is a trade centre, and it has lumber mills, tanneries, paper mills, boiler works, and other manufacturing establishments. The water-works are owned and operated by the municipality. The city, at first called Duncan, then Inverness, and finally Cheboygan, was settled in 1846, incorporated as a village in 1871, reincorporated in 1877, and chartered as a city in 1889.
CHECHENZES, Tchetchen, or Khists (Kisti), the last being the name by which they are known to the Georgians, a people of the eastern Caucasus occupying the whole of west Daghestan. They call themselves Nakhtche, “people.” A wild, fierce people, they fought desperately against Russian aggression in the 18th century under Daûd Beg and Oman Khan and Shamyl, and in the 19th under Khazi-Mollah, and even now some are independent in the mountain districts. On the surrender of the chieftain Shamyl to Russia in 1859 numbers of them migrated into Armenia. In physique the Chechenzes resemble the Circassians, and have the same haughtiness of carriage. They are of a generous temperament, very hospitable, but quick to revenge. They are fond of fine clothes, the women wearing rich robes with wide, pink silk trousers, silver bracelets and yellow sandals. Their houses, however, are mere hovels, some dug out of the ground, others formed of boughs and stones. Before their subjection to Russia they were remarkable for their independence of spirit and love of freedom. Everybody was equal, and they had no slaves except prisoners of war. Government in each commune was by popular assembly, and the administration of justice was in the hands of the wronged. Murder and robbery with violence could be expiated only by death, unless the criminal allowed his hair to grow and the injured man consented to shave it himself and take an oath of brotherhood on the Koran. Otherwise the law of vendetta was fully carried out with curious details. The wronged man, wrapped in a white woollen shroud, and carrying a coin to serve as payment to a priest for saying the prayers for the dead, started out in search of his enemy. When the offender was found he must fight to a finish. A remarkable custom among one tribe is that if a betrothed man or woman dies on the eve of her wedding, the marriage ceremony is still performed, the dead being formally united to the living before witnesses, the father, in case it is the girl who dies, never failing to pay her dowry. The religion of the Chechenzes is Mahommedanism, mixed, however, with Christian doctrines and observances. Three churches near Kistin in honour of St George and the Virgin are visited as places of pilgrimage, and rams are there offered as sacrifices. The Chechenzes number upwards of 200,000. They speak a distinct language, of which there are said to be twenty separate dialects.
See Ernest Chanter, Recherches anthropologiques dans le Caucase (Lyon, 1885–1887); D. G. Brinton, Races of Man (1890); Hutchinson, Living Races of Mankind (London, 1901).
CHECKERS, the name by which the game of draughts (q.v.) is known in America. The origin of the name is the same as that of “chess” (q.v.).
CHEDDAR, a small town in the Wells parliamentary division of Somersetshire, England, 22 m. S.W. of Bristol by a branch of the Great Western railway. Pop. (1901) 1975. The town, with its Perpendicular church and its picturesque market-cross, lies below the south-western face of the Mendip Hills, which rise sharply from 600 to 800 ft. To the west stretches the valley of the river Axe, broad, low and flat. A fine gorge opening from the hills immediately upon the site of the town is known as Cheddar cliffs from the sheer walls which flank it; the contrast of its rocks and rich vegetation, and the falls of a small stream traversing it, make up a beautiful scene admired by many visitors. Several stalactitical caverns are also seen, and prehistoric British and Roman relics discovered in and near them are preserved in a small museum. The two caverns most frequently visited are called respectively Cox’s and Gough’s; in each, but especially in the first, there is a remarkable collection of fantastic and beautiful stalactitical forms. There are other caverns of greater extent but less beauty, but their extent is not completely explored. The remains discovered in the caves give evidence of British and Roman settlements at Cheddar (Cedre, Chedare), which was a convenient trade centre. The manor of Cheddar was a royal demesne in Saxon times, and the witenagemot was held there in 966 and 968. It was granted by John in 1204 to Hugh, archdeacon of Wells, who sold it to the bishop of Bath and Wells in 1229, whose successors were overlords until 1553, when the bishop granted it to the king. It is now owned by the marquis of Bath. By a charter of 1231 extensive liberties in the manor of Cheddar were granted to Bishop Joceline, who by a charter of 1235 obtained the right to hold a weekly market and fair. By a charter of Edward III. (1337) Cheddar was removed from the king’s forest of Mendip. The market was discontinued about 1690. Fairs are now held on the 4th of May and the 29th of October under the original grants. The name of Cheddar is given to a well-known species of cheese (see Dairy), the manufacture of which began in the 17th century in the town and neighbourhood.
CHEDUBA, or Man-aung, an island in the Bay of Bengal, situated 10 m. from the coast of Arakan, between 18° 40′ and 18° 56′ N. lat., and between 93° 31′ and 93° 50′ E. long. It forms part of the Kyaukpyu district of Arakan. It extends about 20 m. in length from N. to S., and 17 m. from E. to W., and its area of 220 sq. m. supports a population of 26,899 (in 1901). The channel between the island and the mainland is navigable for boats, but not for large vessels. The surface of the interior is richly diversified by hill and dale, and in the southern portion some of the heights exceed a thousand feet in elevation. There are various indications of former volcanic activity, and along the coast are earthy cones covered with green-sward, from which issue springs of muddy water emitting bubbles of gas. Copper, iron and silver ore have been discovered; but the island is chiefly noted for its petroleum wells, the oil derived from which is of excellent quality, and is extensively used in the composition of paint, as it preserves wood from the ravages of insects. Timber is not abundant, but the gamboge tree and the wood-oil tree are found of a good size. Tobacco, cotton, sugar-cane, hemp and indigo are grown, and the staple article is rice, which is of superior quality, and the chief article of export. The inhabitants of the island are mainly Maghs. Cheduba fell to the Burmese in the latter part of the 18th century. From them it was captured in 1824 by the British, whose possession of it was confirmed in 1826 by the treaty concluded with the Burmese at Yandaboo.
CHEERING, the uttering or making of sounds encouraging, stimulating or exciting to action, indicating approval of acclaiming or welcoming persons, announcements of events and the like. The word “cheer” meant originally face, countenance, expression, and came through the O. Fr. into Mid. Eng. in the 13th century from the Low Lat. cara, head; this is generally referred to the Gr. κάρα. Cara is used by the 6th-century poet Flavius Cresconius Corippus, “Postquam venere verendam Caesaris ante caram” (In Laudem Justini Minoris). “Cheer” was at first qualified with epithets, both of joy and gladness and of sorrow; compare “She thanked Dyomede for alle . . . his gode chere” (Chaucer, Troylus) with “If they sing . . . ’tis with so dull a cheere” (Shakespeare, Sonnets, xcvii.). An early transference in meaning was to hospitality or entertainment, and hence to food and drink, “good cheer.” The sense of a shout of encouragement or applause is a late use. Defoe (Captain Singleton) speaks of it as a sailor’s word, and the meaning does not appear in Johnson. Of the different words or rather sounds that are used in cheering, “hurrah,” though now generally looked on as the typical British form of cheer, is found in various forms in German, Scandinavian, Russian (urá), French (houra). It is probably onomatopoeic in origin; some connect it with such words as “hurry,” “whirl”; the meaning would then be “haste,” to encourage speed or onset in battle. The English “hurrah” was preceded by “huzza,” stated to be a sailor’s word, and generally connected with “heeze,” to hoist, probably being one of the cries that sailors use when hauling or hoisting. The German hoch, seen in full in hoch lebe der Kaiser, &c., the French vive, Italian and Spanish viva, evviva, are cries rather
