This article is a tour de horizon of the origin myths that were recorded in the Chinese dynastic and other historical works written during the Türk era (552–ca. 744) and in subsequent official histories (e.g., the Zhoushu, Suishu, Beishi, Jiu Tangshu and Xin Tangshu), historical handbooks (the Tongdian) and historical collections (e.g., the Youyang zazu [and the Taiping Guangji] and the recent translations of and scholarship on them). Also included is a discussion of a Uyğur-origin Tibetan ‘report’ on the ‘Northern Peoples’.
The article focuses on the Ashina-Türk grouping that became the founding and ruling clan of the Türk Qağanate. The shaping of the Ashina-Türk took place in a range of areas extending from the Chinese border zones of Gansu and Xinjiang to Mongolia and Southern Siberia. The Ashina-Türks appear to have been a ‘composite’ of peoples with a variety of ethno-linguistic affiliations. A lupine ancestor figures in most of the origin accounts.
In the early 540s, a people bearing the name Türk came to the Chinese borders ‘for the first time’ seeking to obtain silk goods. Taizu (534–56 ad), the Northern Zhou ‘emperor’, the real power holder during the reign of the Western Wei Emperor, Wendi (535–51 ad), dispatched an embassy to them, in 545 ad, led by a Sogdian, An Nuopantuo (Nakbanda).
The notice about the embassy and the Türk reciprocal embassy sent in 546 is prefaced by an origin tale of the Türks. This and several other origin tales are reported in the Chinese accounts and one Tibetan source. They locate the (Ashina-) Türks in various parts north of the Chinese frontiers. Who were the Ashina-Türks and whence did they come?
The Türk Empire and Spread of the Ethnonym Türk
The Ashina, the ruling clan of the Türks, forged a core union of 30 tribes, the Türk boδun (‘Türk People’) noted in the Türk and Uyğur inscriptions. They founded a Qağanate (empire) in Mongolia in 552, having successfully overthrown their Rouran/Avar overlords and rapidly expanded across Eurasia, conquering lands from the borders of Manchuria to the Pontic steppes and Crimea.
While retaining a nominal unity, the Qağanate divided into eastern and western halves, ca. 580–611, over which the Ashina exercised a collective sovereignty and in which the Eastern Ashina Qağans were accorded a slightly higher status. The latter, beset by natural disasters and military setbacks, succumbed to Tang China in 630.
The Western Qağans submitted in 657/659. The Eastern Qağanate revived in 682 and again brought the Western Qağanate under its rule. Nonetheless, internal discord continued and the Eastern Ashina-Türk realm fell to the subject Basmïl (also led by Ashina rulers) who were, in turn, toppled by their allies the Uyğurs, aided by the Qarluqs and Oğuz in a dizzying series of revolts in 742–43.
Türk refers only to the eponymous founders and rulers of the First and Second Türk Qağanates. Turk denotes speakers of a Turkic language. The notice is from the Zhoushu, 50.908 (Liu, Die chinesischen Nachrichten, vol. 1: 6–7, vol. 2: 490, n. 21; de la Vaissière, Histoire: 184–85).
Türk or Türük/Türük (User, Köktürk ve Ötüken Uygur: 168–71, 293, Pulleyblank, ‘The Chinese Name’: 124–25; Divitçioğlu, Orta Asya Türk İmparatorluğu: 21–22; Kafesoğlu, Umumî Türk Tarihi: 18–21; Aydın, Uygur Kağanlığı Yazıtları: 153; Ölmez, Orhon-Uygur: 78–79 et passim). Türkü, proffered by Clauson, ‘Turks and Wolves’: 4 et passim, has not found wide acceptance.
Ashina 阿史那 EMC*a şi’ na’, LMC aʂŗ ́na’ (Pulleyblank, Lexicon: 23, 283, 221) < Khotan Saka âşşeina-âššena ‘blue’ (Bailey, Dictionary of Khotan Saka: 26–27) = Turk. kök, ‘blue’ as argued by Kljaštornyj, ‘The Royal Clan’: 445–48. Atwood, ‘Some Early’: 68–78, connects Ashina with Tokh. Arši ‘holy man’ (cf. Sanskrit rşi, ONW: a-şə-na, see Coblin, Compendium: 124–25 [0016], 240–41 [0382], 121 [0005].
Beckwith, ‘The Pronunciation’: 39–46; Tokh.A: *ārśilāś ‘noble kings’> Old Türk. aršilaš, ‘an epithet or title’, which the Chinese ‘misunderstood’ as a ‘surname’ or ‘clan-name’ (equated by Beckwith with ’Aρσίλας the ‘eldest’ or ‘senior ruler of the Turks’ mentioned by Menander, History: 172/173, 276, n. 222.)
The Head of the last Eastern Ashina-Türk ruler, Ozmïš Qağan, was dispatched to the Tang. The Qarluqs, fleeing (745) their erstwhile allies, the Uyğur Qağans, supplanted the fading Western Qağanate in 766.
The Uyğur Qağanate (744–840), largely controlling the old Eastern Türk realm, erected, like their predecessors, a series of steles with inscriptions in Turkic runiform script composed in the late 740s–late 750s, announcing themselves as the new—or restored—masters of the Turko-nomadic imperium, claiming a Qağanal status that had preceded that of the Ashina- Türks. Theirs, they implied, was the true restauratio imperii.
The Chinese accounts employed 突厥Tujue ‘Türks’ not as a generic gentilic encompassing all Turkic-speaking groups but only to denote the Türks proper. In Chinese sources, only two ‘successor states’ retained the ethnonym Türk/Tujue: the Khazars (ca. 630s/650–965/969) in the Western Eurasian steppes, whose royal house probably derived from the Ashina: ‘Türk Khazar’ (突厥可薩 Tujue Kesa, 突厥曷薩 Tujue Hesa in the Tang dynastic annals),and the ‘Shatuo Türks’沙陀突厥 (Shatuo Tujue, from the seventh to the tenth century), who periodically figured in Chinese affairs. Mention is also made of the Muma Tujue (木馬突薩 ‘wooden-horse Türks’—a reference, in a section dealing with the Kyrgyz, to some kind of Türks using skis) and the Niuti Tujue (牛蹄突薩 ‘oxhoof Türks’).
The Baifu (白服 ‘white clothed’) and Huang tou (黃頭 ‘yellow head’) Tujue are also noted, but their ethno-tribal connections are uncertain. In some situations, Türk became a politonym, embracing its subject peoples, not all of whom accepted it willingly. When Türk political power collapsed, the older names resurfaced. The Uyğurs, among others, subsequently employed the name ‘Türk’ to denote a Turkic literary koine (Türkčä).
The continuity of specific forms of governance and titulature by peoples stemming from the Türk Qağanate may also points to some consciousness of ‘Türk’ political roots. In time, however, due to migrations away from the Türk core ‘holy’ lands in Mongolia and the impact of new religions (especially Islam), new genealogical dispensations appeared.
Turk became widely used by Muslim, Byzantine and other authors as a generic term to denote the largely Turkic-speaking Central Eurasian nomads with whom they were coming into ever-increasing contact. The Turkic world becomes more visible following the collapse of the Xiongnu polity (by the mid-second century ce). Although Xiongnu ethno-linguistic affiliations remain uncertain, it is clear that their subjects included Turkic-speaking peoples.
Usually stateless, the clans and tribes of this nomadic world in the course of interaction with their ‘imperial’ neighbours were transformed into militarily more effective polities led by a ruling clan or tribe. Scholarship is divided as to whether their political morphology was monocentric, stemming from a single large confederation termed ‘Oğur’ (West Old Turkic)~‘Oğuz’ (East Old Turkic), or polycentric, that is, having multiple origins.
Türk Origin Tales
With these prefatory remarks, we may now turn to the ethnogonic reports about the Türks. From the Türks we have little. They began to leave historical records in the form of steles inscribed in Sogdian during the first Türk Qağanate. These have survived only in fragments.
Writings in Turkic touching on historical matters appear in the early eighth century with the second Türk Qağanate. In the runiform inscriptions for Köl Tegin, Bilgä Qağan we find only a formulaic statement of cosmic and human origins: When the blue heaven/sky above and brown earth below were created, between them humankind was created and my ancestors, Bumïn Qağan and İštämi/İstämi Qağan having sat upon the throne (as master) over humankind, organized and set in order the Türk realm and law.
The origin tales of the Türks, which may be divided into ‘Wolf Tale I’, ‘Wolf Tale II’, ‘the Shemo/Žama Tale’ and a‘Historical Account’, were recorded in Chinese dynastic histories and historical compilations based on or copied from the same source(s) and repeated in later collections of historical tales. In addition, there is a ‘Dog Tale’ reported in a Tibetan-Uyğur account.
Wolf Tale I
The earliest version of Wolf Tale I is recorded in the Zhoushu (50.907– 08), which was written in a period in which China was in frequent, direct contact with the Türks. It is largely identical with the account in the Beishi (99.3285), which contains additional comments.
It has been argued that the Zhoushu’s section on the Türks was lost and was replaced by the account in the Beishi, both, perhaps, drawing on no longer extant earlier works. Neither is the original account. The Suishu (84.1863), compiled at virtually the same time as the Zhoushu, has an almost identical version, taken from the latter or derived from the same source(s).
Later versions are found in the Tongdian (197.5401–02) and considerably abbreviated in the Cefuyuangui (958, 112251b–52a)—again drawing on the same source(s). The ‘origin tale’, with its slight variations in the aforementioned sources, should be read as one account, to or from which the authors added or subtracted elements:
The ancestors of the Türks lived on the right bank of the Western Sea. The Türks are a separate tribe of the Xiongnu. Their family name is Ashina. They formed a tribe that was independent of the Xiongnu, but later were attacked by a neighbouring state and all were killed except for a ten-year old boy.
When the enemy soldiers saw that he was so young, they did not have the heart to kill him, so they cut off his feet and threw him into a grass-covered swamp. Here, there was a she-wolf who fed the young boy meat.
He grew up and had relations with the she-wolf, who became pregnant. When the king of the neighbouring state learned that the youth was still alive, he again sent men to kill him. When they saw a she-wolf beside the young man, they wanted to kill her too. The she-wolf fled to a mountain in the north in the state of Gaochang (Turfan).
There was a cave in this mountain in which there was a broad plain with abundant grass. This plain, which stretched out for hundreds of li and was surrounded on all sides by mountains. The she-wolf hid in the mountains. Here, she gave birth to ten sons. When they grew up, they went out of the cave and married women from the outside. They brought many children into the world.
Each of these descendants took a family name and one of them took the name Ashina. Their children and grandchildren increased until they constituted some hundreds of families. After some generations,they became subjects of the Ruru. In the period of the Great Yabğu their lines/families became stronger. They settled/ lived in the southern slopes of the Jinshan (Altay Mountains) and worked as blacksmiths for the Ruru. Since the Jinshan had the appearance of a helmet (兜 鍪 doumou); and they called a ‘helmet’ tujue, they called themselves Tujue.
The Zhoushu, following a discussion of Türk investiture customs titles and offices of government, adds that the Türks: place on the tops of their standards a golden wolf’s head. Also, the imperial guard corps of the ruler was called Fuli, a word that has the meaning of ‘wolf’ in Chinese translation. The Türks stem from a she-wolf and do not want to forget their origins. Wolf Tale I is followed by another in the Zhoushu (50.908), Beishi (99.3286), Tongdian (197.5402) and Cefuyuangui (956.11252a).
Wolf Tale II
Other traditions report that the ancestors of the Tujue derived from the Suo state,48 which was located north of the Xiongnu: The chief of the tribe was Abangbu, who had seventeen (Beishi: seventy) brothers. One of them was called Yizhi Nishidu, who was born of a she-wolf.
Abangbu and his brothers were stupid and slow-witted (愚癡 yu chi) and thus their state was, in the end, attacked and destroyed (by others). However, (Yizhi) Nishidu was touched by a spirit {had supernatural powers} and because of that he could summon forth wind and rain. He married two women. One was the daughter of the Summer-God and the other the daughter of the Winter-God.
One of them bore four sons. One son changed himself into a white swan. Another son founded a state between the Afu and Jian Rivers. The state was called Qigu (Kyrgyz). The third son ruled on the Chuzhe River. The fourth brother lived on Jiansi Chuzheshi mountain.
He was the eldest of the four sons. On this mountain there also lived other branches of Abangbu’s tribe. It was often very cold {and damp} there and the oldest son provided fire for them so they could warm themselves and remain alive. Thus, they were saved and they chose the oldest son as their chief and gave him the name Tujue. He was NeduliuŠad. He had ten wives, each of whose sons took the clan [族 zu] (name) of [his] mother as his family name (姓 xing).
Ashina was the son of his concubine (小妻 xiao qi, lit. smallest/least of his wives). After the death of Neduliu, they wished to elect one of the sons of the ten mothers to succeed him. They gathered under a great tree and agreed that the one who could jump the highest up the tree would be selected as their leader. The son born of Ashina was the youngest son, but he jumped the highest. Thus, the other sons made him their chief (主 zhu‘lord, master’). He was called Axian Šad.
Suo 索 OC: sâk LH: sak MC: sâk (Schuessler, Minimal: 72 [2-33a]); EMC, LMC: sak (Pulleyblank, Lexicon: 298); sak, sak, sag (Coblin, Compendium: 383[0881]).
Harmatta, ‘A türkök eredetmondája’: 391, identified Suo with the ethnonym Saka and noted the connection with Han-era Sai 塞 OC: sək(h) LH: sək, səC (Schuessler, Minimal: 111 [5-28a]) but considered the terms representations of two different Saka groupings.
Beckwith, Empires: 405, n. 53, also argues that Suo renders Saka and cites Menander, History: 116/117: ‘the Turks, who had formerly been called the Sacae’ (ὅτι των Τούρκων τῶν Σακῶν καλούμενων) as evidence for the Saka connection.
契骨 EMC: khejh kwət/ khit kwət LMC: khjiaj ̀ kut; khit kut, (Pulleyblank, Lexicon: 248 111); MC khejH kwot (Kroll, Dictionary: 140) = Qïrqïr (Qïrqïz> Mod. Turk.Kyrgyz). Sinor, ‘Legendary Origin’: 228–29, cites the Youyang zazu that the Qïrğïz ‘do not belong to the race of the wolf’. Rather, Qïrğïz origin tales relate that they stemmed from the mating of a spirit and a cow and lived in a cave north of the Kögmän Mountains (see further); see also Ögel, Türk Mitolojisi, vol. 1: 21–22.
In the Orxon inscriptions, the Kyrgyz are noted as having a Qağan (BQ, E, 20 N, 26-28, KT, E, 25, N, 13; Berta, Szavaimat: 155, 161, 164–65, 185). Eberhard, Kultur und Siedlung: 46, also reports that they lived mixed with the 丁靈 Dingling: LH teŋ leŋ< têŋ-rêŋ (Schuessler, Minimal: 137 [9-11a]) >狄歷 Dili (EMC: dejk-lejk)/特勒 Tele (EMC: dək lək)/勑勒 Chile (EMC: trhik lək)/直勒 Zhile (EMC: drik-lək) >鐵勒 Tiele (EMC: thet-lək) = tägräg.
The Tiele union included the Toquz Oğuz, among whom the Uyğurs were paramount (Erkoç, ‘Türk Mitlerindeki’: 63, n. 34; Pulleyblank, ‘High Carts’: 22). Tiele et al. may be a Tabġač (Mongolic/Para-Mongolic) term for ‘wagon’ (Kljaštornyj, Runičeskie pamjatniki: 162–63, that is, ‘the people of the wagons’ denoting the Oğuz)
The Tiele were also termed 高 車 Gaoche ‘high carts’ (Pulleyblank, ‘The High Carts’: 22), pointing to a semantic connection with *tägräg. Some later tales replace the cow of the Kyrgyz origin myth with a red dog.
This account differs from the other one (in the Zhoushu), but both agree that the Tujue stem from a she-wolf. The descendant (grandson) of Axian Šad was Tumen (i.e., Bumïn, first Qağan of the Türks). (Xin Tangshu 215, 2b: the ancestor of the Western Türks was Tuwu, a grandson of Nedulu. He was called a Great Yabğu. Tumen (Bumïn) was the oldest son of Tuwu and grandson of Nedulu.) When Tumen’s tribe became somewhat stronger, they came to the border to trade for silk fabrics.
Historical Account
The ‘historical account’ precedes ‘Wolf Tale I’ in the Suishu (84.1863). It is repeated in the Beishi (99.3285), Tongdian, 197.5401) (159), Cefuyuangui (956.11251b) and Zizhi Tongjian (159.4926).
Kljaštornyj, Runičeskie pamjatniki: 199–200, views this ‘genealogical legend’ as containing elements of the stages of the ethnogenesis of the Kyrgyz, Kipchak (‘white swan’) and Tiele (Oğuz), confirmed, in his view, by archaeological finds in the Sayan-Altay zone from the third to the fifth century.
The claim to the lofty titles Šad and Yabğu implying ties with the Rouran Qağanal house is probably a fiction invented by the Ashina-Türks after they took the Qağanate. Bumïn’s revolt in 552 was sparked by the Rouran Qağan’s disdainful rejection of his request for a Rouran princess-bride (Liu, Die chinesischen Nachrichten, vol. 1: 7), calling him 我鍛奴 ‘my iron-working slave’.
The ancestors of the Tujue were mixed Hu from Pingliang. They had the family name Ashina. When the Emperor Taiwu (r. 424–52) of the Northern/ Later Wei destroyed Mujian ruler of the Xiongnu state of Northern Liang (397–439) in the Gansu Corridor led by the Juqu clan, the Ashina fled with 500 families to the Ruru.
They lived for generations on the Jinshan (Altay) Mountains, where they worked as makers of iron implements. Sincenthe Jinshan looked like a helmet and people call a ‘helmet’ tujue, for this reason they called themselves by this name. According to another legend, their ancestors reigned above the Western Sea...
This passage sums up a concluding phase in the pre-history of the Ashina. Following the fall of the Han dynasty in 220, there was an influx of Xiongnu, Xianbei and other tribes into Northern China, where they created ephemeral polities (the ‘Sixteen States’, 304–429).
The forebears of the Ashina, a ‘Xiongnu’ grouping,ncame to Gansu after 265. Here, they absorbed local elements becoming the ‘mixed Hu’ of Pingliang, the later Ashina-Türks. The Ashina, together with the Northern Liang princes, Wuhui (d. 444) and Anzhou (d. 460), fled to Gaochang, which came under Rouran rule in 460.
The Ashina were subsequently resettled on the Altay probably ca. 439 and most certainly before 487 or 492, other dates that have been suggested.
Wolf motif
In the Orkhon inscriptions, the Ashina-Türk Qağans repeatedly proclaimed their heavenly mandate to rule, addressing often recalcitrant, newly subdued core and subject peoples. The tale of a numinous wolf ancestress had an ideological–spiritual resonance among many of their northern subjects.
Implicit in this were hints at shaman-like connections to the spirit world exemplified by the ceremonial ritual strangulation of the Qağan at his investiture, which brought him into contact with the supernatural and allowed him to predict the length of his reign.
Wolf Tales I and II share a highly significant theme beyond lupine ancestry: Ashina is one of 10 siblings. In reality, the Ashina were the leading clan of a grouping of 10 clans (or tribes), the inner core of the Türk union.
The decimal system of socio-military organisation, well known in Eurasia, probably existed in the Ashina-Türk pre-polity. The wolf motif found physical expression in the relief on the Bugut stele in which a child appears to be under a wolf’s belly.
The Wusun and Uyğurs shared the wolf motif in different forms. The Wusun (from the second century bce to the early sixth century ce) are first noted as neighbours of the Yuezhi in the Qilian-Dunhuang region and west of the Xiongnu. Both were driven westward by the Xiongnu in the second century bce. Their ethno-linguistic affiliations—Indo-European (perhaps Indo-Iranian or Tokharian)—remain disputed.
The Wusun have a tale in which the Kunmo/Kunmi, orphaned heir of their vanquished tribal leader, Nan doumi 難兜靡88 (defeated by the Xiongnu), is nourished by a she-wolf (or wolves) and ravens in the steppe.
The similarities between the Wusun and Türk wolf tales as well as a posited connection between Ashina and *Aśvin have suggested a relationship between the two—although this is far from certain. Interestingly, in the Ashina tale, lupine descent is maternal. In contrast, the Gaoche (Dingling/Dili/Tiele) ~Toquz Oğuz (subsequently Uyğurs-led) union, claimed a lupine male ancestor.
In the Weishu (103.2307) and Beishi (98.3270), they are presented as the fruit of the union of a daughter of the Xiongnu chanyu and a wolf. Like the Türks, the Uyğurs also had wolf-head banners. However, the Uyğurs (and Tiele union) are presented as distinct from the Ashina-Türks, although both shared ‘Xiongnu’ connections. The Ashina-Türk-Uyğur enmity antedated the rise of the Türk state.
The wolf theme is ancient and widespread across Eurasia, from Rome to Inner Asia. Whether it came to the Ashina from neighboring ‘Scythian’ peoples or was part of a possible ancient Iranian patrimony remains an open question. ‘Wolf-men’ figure prominently in the warrior cults and foundation tales of a number of states of Indo-European origin.
Among the Türks (and later the Genghisid Mongols) the wolf was worshipped as an ancestor, whereas in other wolf tales (e.g., Roman, Sāsānid), it is a ‘divinely guided nurse’. The wolf motif and the cavern motifs, whatever their origins, played an important role in the symbolic life of the Türks.
‘Holy caves’ were a means to enter the ‘underground world’, which was much like the one previously mentioned. These notions were well known in Siberian shamanism. A wolf-headed man is noted in a tale in the Taiping Guanji (292.128) and Xin Tangshu (6139), appearing as a ‘guest’ (or mendicant) seeking the leader of the Xueyantuo union (which briefly rose to power after the fall [630] of the First Türk Qağanate in the east).
The wolf-headed guest was fed by his Xueyantuo host and then left. The Xueyantuo followed this curious being to the Ötüken. There, they were frightened off by two men they encountered who said: ‘We are supernatural (神 shen) beings. The Xueyantuo will be destroyed. We have come to take the head of your leader.’
Gardīzi in his section on the Turkic peoples recounts a tale in which the ‘sparseness’ of the facial hair of the Turks and their ‘canine disposition’ are attributed to the wolf’s milk (along with ant’s eggs) that was given to Japheth, the ancestor of the Turks, during a childhood illness.
The evocation of wolf’s milk points to what may be a reflection of the Ashina tale. Al-Birūnī (973–1048) in his comments on the origins of the Turkišāhī dynasty of Kabul mentions that they derived from the Turks and the first of their kings was ‘Burha Tegin’ (or Baraha Tegin) who entered a cave in Kabul and several days later a person ‘emerged as though being born from his mother’s belly’, attired in Turkic clothing.
He was designated king with the title ‘Shah of Kabul’. Kljaštornyj connected Baraha with Turk. Baraq is ‘a long-haired dog’, which was perhaps a taboo name for the lupine ancestor and with the importance of a cave in the Ashina legend. The wolf continued as a potent symbol in Qïpčaq religious beliefs, before their conversion to Islam in the Činggisid era.
Relics of it remained among the Qaračay-Balqars of the North Caucasus. In the southwestern/ Oğuz Turkic languages, böri is regularly replaced with Osm. qurt/kurt, Azeri ġurd and Türkmän ġurt, a word originally (and still) denoting ‘worm’ in other Turkic languages (including Oğuz).
Böri was probably tabooed in Oğuz, as it denoted a magical, holy totem/ancestor,110 but its continuation in the other Turkic languages was not affected.
A satisfactory explanation is still lacking. Interestingly, in the version of the Oğuznāma recorded in Uyğur script and composed in old Oğuz-Qarluq mixed Turkic sometime in the fourteenth century, Oğuz H ̆ an, the eponymous founder of the Oğuz polities who bestows names on other Turkic peoples, declared that kök böri (‘blue wolf’) will be the battle cry (uran) of his people.
Shemo (Žama) and the Deer Tale
The ‘Shemo/Žama Tale’ is recorded in the Youyang zazu (4.44–45) and the Taiping Guangji (480.3957).113
The ancestor of the Tujue bore the name Shemo,114 the god of the *Šar Sea. This sea was west of the cave of the Ashide tribe.Shemo had a divine power. Every day at sunset, the daughter of the Sea-God mounted a white deer117 and met with Shemo.
Together with him she went into the sea and the next day, emerged from it and saw him off. This went on for years. Later, when a great hunt drew near, at midnight the daughter of the Sea-God said to Shemo: ‘Tomorrow when you are going to hunt, a white deer with golden antlers will come out of the cave where your ancestors were born and it will try to run away from there. If you shoot an arrow and hit it, you will be able to continue to maintain a close relationship with me. If you shoot at it and cannot hit it, we will part forever’.
The next day when he surrounded the cave where his ancestors were born, the white deer with golden horns appeared at the mouth of the cave. Shemo sent his attendants left and right to surround [the area] and when the white deer was going to jump out, one of his men hit it [with an arrow].
Shemo was extremely angry and with his own hands he killed the leader A’er and swore an oath: ‘After this we will have to offer human sacrifices to Heaven (天 tian)’. The majority of the sacrifices will come from A’er’s tribe (部落 buluo).
Thereafter, they will kill and sacrifice the sons and grandsons of this tribe to Heaven. Up to our day, the Türks (Tujue), offer human sacrifices in accordance with this tradition to a banner (纛 du/dao) and the group uses this banner.
Shemo after having killed A’er, when evening came, the daughter of the Sea-God came returned to him, however the daughter of the Sea-God seized Shemo and said ‘you have killed someone with your own hands and stink of foul blood, we have no shared future [together]’ and ended their relationship.
Tibetan Dog Myth
The Ms Pelliot Tibétain 1283 includes a report of a mission of five Uyğur envoys to the Inner Asian Turkic world. It contains a version of a legend that would appear to reflect points of contact with the Wolf Tale.
The report breaks off with fragments of yet another legend regarding the ‘savage Turks’, which is too incomplete to be intelligible. The ‘report’ has been discussed by a number of scholars and still poses many problems.
To the north of these, beyond the great mountain chain of sandy desert (l. 69) there are two tribes of the king of heaven. At the time when the rule of Zhama qaghan, the king of the 'Bug chor, was peaceful, when [he] led the army in this direction, the army could not pass and (l. 71) two men went wandering about.
Having run into the tracks of a female camel, as the tracks went towards pure water, near a herd of female camels (l. 73), they ran into a pure woman, and, speaking in Turkic, the woman led [them] and they followed [her] into hiding.
A pack of dogs (l. 75) that was chasing game came back, so the dogs perceived them with their nose and [they] prostrated to the dogs. Then, the dogs loaded on ten female camels whatever they needed and water to cross over the sandy desert (l. 77), and having sent [them] back, they arrived (i.e., returned) to the country of the Turks. [p. 30]
The first dog descended from heaven. It emanated into two, a red dog and a black dog, and as a consort, (l. 79) whilst [they] found a she wolf and mated [with her], she was not suitable for children. Then, [they] abducted a maiden from the wing of a Turkic household and united with that girl.
As for the male children, [they] came out as dogs. Concerning the daughters, (l. 81) [they] came out as human and appeared as pure women (i.e., genuine women). Concerning the tribe of the red dog, it is called Ge zir gu shu.
Concerning the tribe of the black dog, it is called Ga ra gu shu and the dogs and (l. 83) the women speak in Turkic. As for [their] wealth and food, such as cattle, (l. 83) the women put it together and use it. Beyond that, none have heard tell that there are men.
Conclusions
There are no direct references to the Ashina-Türks as necessarily a nomadic people in the origin tales. The references to Hu components and Xiongnu antecedents are open to several interpretations. Hu, by this time, denoted not only ‘Northern steppe nomads’ but included other groupings,in particular Central Asian Iranians, especially the Iranian-Sogdian mercantile diaspora.
The Xiongnu, while predominantly pastoral nomads, also practised ‘small-scale farming’ and controlled subject agrarian populations. ‘Nomads’ in Central Eurasia and the Middle East have often moved along a sliding scale, from a ‘pure nomad’ (a relative rarity) to a settled agriculturalist with a strong pastoralist component.
Economic strategies were flexible.The culture of the later imperial-age Türks was ‘complex’ but pastoralism predominated. The themes of ‘enclosure and emergence’, which figure in the origin accounts, were part of a complex web of themes in which ‘a Mountain, a Tree, a Cave, Water and a Female Spirit’ all figure prominently.
The cave/ ancestral cavern theme appears in the legends and historical accounts. It should be underscored that the she-wolf tales focus on the Ashina, not on other Turkic peoples who have their own origin accounts (lupine and non-lupine), while the Ashide/*Aštaq appear indirectly in the Tibetan Dog Tale.
The tales, as Sinor noted, clearly represent different traditions, albeit with more points of intersection than he accepted. Nonetheless, one can agree with his conclusion regarding ‘the composite ethnic character of the Türks’, comprising non-Turkic elements as well. The eastward orientation of the Türks (not typical of the Turkic peoples), and their peculiar numerical system, Sinor argues, further underscores their non-Turkic origins.
Some DNA tests point to the Iranian connections of the Ashina and Ashide, highlighting further that the Turks as a whole ‘were made up of heterogeneous and somatically dissimilar populations’.
Source: “A Comparative Analysis of Chinese Historical Sources and Y-DNA Studies with Regard to the Early and Medieval Turkic Peoples’
Authors: Joo-Yup Lee and Shuntu Kuang fro, the University of Toronto of Canada
Geographically, the accounts cover the regions of Inner Mongolia, Gansu, Xinjiang, the Yenisei zone and the Altay, regions with Turkic, Indo-European (Iranian [Saka] and Tokharian), Yeniseic, Uralic and other populations. Wusun elements, like most steppe polities of an ethno-linguistic mix, may have also played a substratal role.
The history of the Turkic peoples and their languages are marked by fluidity and migrations. Languages are often spread by groups that are themselves composite in origin but have adopted the ethnonym and language of one of their components.
Turkic, an imperial language since the Türk era, spread across Eurasia and the Middle East in such a process that it absorbed new elements as it moved.
As a consequence of their mobility, ethnogenetic processes were dynamic, taking place in multiple territories.
Attempts to locate a Turkic Urheimat have ranged across Eurasia, from the Northern Caspian steppe zone to Southern Siberia and Mongolia, regions in which there was contact with Indo-European, Uralic, Yeniseic or other Palaeo-Siberian languages.
As the other ‘Altaic’/transeurasian languages (whatever their ultimate relationship, genetic, melded, completely unrelated) appear to have been located in Manchuria, the Turkic Urheimat, a culminating point in Turkic ethno- and glottogenesis, can be placed on its Western border in Mongolia, South Siberia, most probably in the ethno- linguistically complex Sayano-Altay, Xing’an region.
The argument for such a location is buttressed by the vocabulary for natural surroundings, flora and fauna in Turkic. The Türk origin tales appear to place them, at different stages, in and around the probable Turkic Urheimat and the areas of Gansu and Xinjiang.
The anthroponyms noted in the ethnogenetic accounts cannot be explained on the basis of Turkic. Yeniseic, Palaeo-Siberian and Iranian etymologies have been suggested but require further confirmation.
The Old Türk inscriptions contain words of Uralic (Samoyed and Ugric) provenance, pointing to early contacts or to constituent elements.Iranian and Yeniseic connections cannot be ignored.
If the Ashina-Türk were originally non-Turkic linguistically, the question arises, when did they become Turkic-speakers? Their ‘Xiongnu’ connections, real or a literary topos, do not provide an answer, as the ethno-linguistic affiliations of the actual Xiongnu remain uncertain.
By the time of the Second Türk Qağanate, the Ashina-Türks are definitely Turkic in speech, employing a sophisticated and polished Turkic in their Orkhon inscriptions. Famed as equestrian, pastoral-nomadic warriors, were they earlier a semi-settled people with livestock-breeding and metal-working components in their economy?
Interestingly, aside from Wolf Tale I, no further mention is made of metallurgy, which was important to the Ashina-Türks. Indeed, after establishing relations with Constantinople, one of the products they offered to the East Romans was iron.
The ancient ties with the Kyrgyz implied in Wolf Tale II, a people led by their own Qağan and frequent foes of the Ashina-Türks, require further exploration. Chinese and other accounts note a population (or at least part of it) that was Europoid, leading to speculation that the Kyrgyz were a Turkicised people. The evidence is ambiguous at best. They were clearly Turkic speaking at the time of the Türk Qağanate.
Drompp, ‘The Yenisei Kyrgyz’: 480–88. The Kyrgyz title are 阿熱 EMC: aŋiat LMC: ariat (Pulleyblank, Lexicon: 23, 265), recorded in the Xin Tangshu and elsewhere and long suspected to be a non-Turkic term, is now read as rendering Turk. änäl, a variant of inäl (usually a qualifying adjective, ‘reliable’ trustworthy’, User, Köktürk ve Ötüken: 175, 276). Other terms remain problematic.
Knowledge of Türk origins had faded—or were suppressed—by the time of Mahmūd Kāšġarī (writing in the 1070s), replaced with Islamic and Judaic (the Khazars) genealogies and fleeting references to Alp är Toŋa, a mythical Turkic hero noted in Qarakhanid-era works, often equated with Afrāsiyāb of the Iranian tradition.
In the conversion tales of the various Turkic peoples under Genghisid rule, there is the familiar ‘mythic complex’ of holy mountain, tree (of life), cave (ancestral or otherwise), water and female deity that are adumbrated in one form or another in the Ashina-Türk origin tales.
In the aftermath of the Mongol invasions, a new genealogical dispensation in which Oğuz H ̆ an or Ulu H ̆ an Ata (and tales of the ‘primal man’, popular among the Qïpčaqs and Mongols) played a central role also incorporated these symbols.
The ‘primal man’, Ay Atam and his wife Ay Wa, bore names suspiciously like Adam and Eve (cf. Arab. Hawwā, Heb. Hawa) and their grandson was Küčük/Kičik Äri Bülčägi (‘the wolf cub’ of Küčük Äri), a memory of the lupine theme.
Abbreviations
OC = Old Chinese
ONW = Old Northwest Chinese LH = Late Han
EMC = Early Middle Chinese LMC = Late Middle Chinese MC = Middle Chinese
Tokh. = Tokharian
Source: “The Ethnogonic Tales of the Turks” by Peter B. Golden, Professor Emeritus of History, Turkish and Middle Eastern Studies at Rutgers University, The Medieval History Journal · July 2018
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