Research Article The Kipchak Tribe of Jeti-Kashka in the History of Central Asia

Research Article

Abstract

This article investigates the history of the Jeti-Qashqa tribal group. The formation of this tribal group is associated with the emergence of the Kyrgyz tribal union, whose early structure is reflected in the sixteenth-century work “Majmuʿ al-Tawarikh” by Sayf al-Din Akhsikenti. This source describes the composition of the Kyrgyz tribes, presenting their principal groupings through accounts of tribal progenitors as murids (disciples) of the head of the Ishqiyya dervish order, Shaykh Sayyid Mir Jalil. The first person in this list of murids is the head of the Jeti-Qashqa tribe, Aq-Timur Qipchaq, who arrived from the locality of Qulan and was accompanied by his seven sons  - Dawlati-Yar, Khuda-Yar, Berdi, ʿAli-Yar, Musa-Yar, ʿIsa-Yar, and Tule-Yar. The narrative then describes the arrival of the progenitors of the principal Kyrgyz tribal associations, accompanied by those of individual tribes. The work specifies that the Jeti-Qashqa shared a common origin with the tribes of the “Qaraqarin” Qipchaqs, whose leader was the legendary Kyrgyz epic hero, the batyr Manas. Notably, in the contemporary genealogical nomenclature of the Kyrgyz, the Jeti-Qashqa tribal group is not associated with the Qipchaqs; rather, it forms part of the Solto and Basyz tribes. From the early 1840s, during the rise of the tribal union known as the “Ferghana Qipchaqs” in the Khanate of Kokand, the Iti-Qashqa are recorded as one of its large constituent groups. Alongside the Qulan, Ulmas, Ilyatan, and Yashiq tribes, they played a significant role in the political events of the region. Representatives of the Jeti-Qashqa became part of the administrative elite of the Khanate of Kokand; Mulla Khalbek was awarded the rank of qushbegi and held the highest administrative and political office, that of mingbashi (mingbāshī). An analysis of the components of the ethnonym Jeti-Qashqa demonstrates that its first component, “jeti,” i.e., “seven,” possessed a special, sacred significance in Turkic cultural tradition. In the history of nomadic peoples, the numeral “seven” reflects the completion of a cycle in the formation of tribal unions. For instance, the Kimak union consisted of seven tribes. There are also references to the seven Rong tribes, the seven tribes of the Mohe people, the union of the seven Magyar tribes, and other similar formations. The term “jeti” itself derives from the verb “jet”, meaning “to reach”; the development “jet-di > jeti” is associated with the meaning “achieved, ready”. The second part of the two-part ethnonym Jeti-Qashqa is associated with the designation of a leader or military commander in the historical administrative terminology of the Oirat, Kyrgyz, Altai, and Khakas peoples