Kazakh genealogy
28.05.2024 2183

The chronicle is a long-established oral historiographic tradition that conveys the process of the emergence of a clan, tribe, and ethnic group in the traditional Kazakh environment. This tradition, widespread among other Turkic and Mongolian peoples leading a nomadic lifestyle, can be considered as a special channel of folk culture. Because such features as convention, stereotypedness, variability, mood, cyclical process of plot development, characteristic of folklore works, are genre properties of the poetics (architectonics) of genealogy. At the same time, genealogy should be assessed as an institution. This is due to the fact that genealogy was a very effective tool for organizing and regulating multi-level, multifaceted social relations, including kinship relations, in a nomadic environment.


G.I. Spassky, an expert on the history of Siberia and publisher of the excellent magazine “Sibirsky Vestnik” (later “Asiatic Vestnik”), a scientist who worked a lot on a detailed study of the history and ethnography of the Kazakh people. In 1804, he collected data about the tribes of the Kazakh people, and in 1809, while traveling along the southern slopes of Altai, he studied the history, archeology and ethnography of this region. In the work of the researcher “Kyrgyz-Kaisaki of the Greater, Middle and Lesser Horde,” published in 1820, he conducted a somewhat broader study of the ethnography of the Kazakh people based on expeditionary, archival materials and literary versions about the three faces of the Kazakh people. Kazakhs. It tells about when the Kazakh people received the name “Kazakh”, how they grew and developed, how they were divided into three hundred, named after three brothers. There is also a genealogical description associated with the names of clans and tribes.

Sh. In Ualikhanov’s work entitled “Kyrgyz Genealogy”, studying the tribal composition of the Kazakh people, the history of the origin of individual tribes and their location, he noticed that the roots of these peoples come from the tribes that are part of Kishi Yuza. In the second half of the 15th and 15th centuries, the Ula and Middle Yuz tribes came to the Kazakhs, and issues related to the ethnic region, language, economy and culture of the Kazakh tribes are discussed.

I. Kazantsev in his work “Description of the Kyrgyz-Kaisaks,” published in St. Petersburg in 1867, drawing attention to the ethnogenesis of the Kazakhs, said that they consist of three hundred, and hundreds consist of clans and tribes. For example, the author connects the name Zhetiru with the names of the seven sons of the leader Karatamysh. G.N. Potanin’s work, published on the basis of collected materials related to Kazakh folk literature, includes a lot of necessary information regarding the traditional ethnography and geography of the Kazakhs. There are many genealogies and legends about the history of the origin of the tribes of the Kazakh people.

In the same year, a publication by ethnographer and anthropologist A. was published. Kharuzin’s work entitled “Kyrgyz Bukey Horde” describes the tribal and class conditions of the Kazakhs of the Bukey Horde.

And, according to G. Vambery, it is difficult to identify the most important, main and branches of the generic parts. Preserving the relationships between clans in the minds of the people in the form of family genealogy makes it easier to distinguish between branches. Thus, it is concluded that the symbol of each clan marked the border of pasture, field, grazing, wintering, protection and was a symbol of the ancestral home. Thus, he draws attention to the importance of studying the genealogy of the tribe.

Among the intellectuals who wrote the history of the Kazakh people at the beginning of the 20th century, the meaning of Shakarim Kudaiberdiuly’s work is different. His work entitled “Chronology of the Turks, Kirghiz-Kazakhs and Khans,” published in Orinbor in 1911, is a history of the Kazakh tribes of the Kazakh people from ancient times to the 19th century, genealogy of tribes, emblems, slogans, etc. . you can get some information about the problems. In addition, the genealogy, written on the basis of ancient legends and legends, provides information about the period of formation of the Kazakh people, individual events in its history, as well as about people famous in history.

Kazakh ethnographer and first railway engineer, public figure M. Tynyshpayev 1925. In the work “Materials of the history of the Kyrgyz-Kazakh people” published in Tashkent, the origin and structure of the tribes of the Kazakh people, legends and stories about the origin of the Kazakhs, symbols and slogans of the Kazakh tribes were studied. and historical material was selected to describe the history of each tribe. Using non-scientific methods, the researcher examines the linguistic harmony of geographical names and historical names as evidence of the long existence of Kazakh tribes. The author associates the name of the Tama tribe with the geographical name Taman, but does not express specific scientific opinions about the origin and history of the Tama tribe. M. Tynyshpayev talks about the Tabyn tribe in Mongolian, herd means five, and perhaps this name should have come from the union of five clans. In his work, the author provided information about the generic tables of the Kazakh tribes and population.

Ethnographers V.V. Vostrov and M.S. Mukanov studied the ethnic history, composition and structure of the Kazakh tribes before the Kazan Revolution and the order of their settlement. Scientists used genealogical data in their works and made a scientific assumption about the kinship of the Ramadan tribe of the Little Hundred with the Dulat and Albanian tribes of the Big Hundred. This can be evidenced by the fact that the symbol and motto of the Ramadan clan is “Dulat”. Researchers note the similarity between the symbols of Ramadan and Dulat, as well as the Albanian clans, emphasizing that this is not a coincidence.

R.G. Kuzeev’s work “The Origin of the Bashkir People” is one of the valuable works in the ethnogenesis of the Turkic peoples in terms of its methodological effectiveness. R.G. In Kuzeev's work, he argues that the Kipchaks - part of the Bashkir people - were related to the Zhetir - part of the Kazakh minority. Returning to the study of the symbol of the Ramadan tribe, it is especially important that a similar symbol is found among the Chinese tribe, which is part of the Turkic-speaking peoples close to the Kazakh people - the Karakalpaks, Uzbeks, and Bashkirs.

Kh. Madanov’s collection “Chronology of the Little Hundred” was published in 1993. The chronicle of Kishi Khunda mentions such tribes as six ancestors of Alim, twelve ancestors of Bayula, Zhetiru, as well as Nogai-Kazakhs, Tolengits and their clans and clans, settled in the western region of the Kazakh country. At the same time, it contains a lot of information and rich data about folklore legends and historical figures.

The work of Z. Sadibekov entitled “Kazakh Chronicle”, published in 1994, is a rational collection that has its own unique features, starting with al-Qissa and starting with Adam, focusing on three persons and clans of the Kazakhs, tracing the symbols of clans and tribes .

“The Kazakh Chronicle”, prepared by J. Beisenbayuly, was published in 1994. This collection was the beginning of the spread of entire clans of three hundred tribes, the addition of data transmitted from ancestors, the addition of data that had previously been used only for scientific purposes. The genealogical tables presented here are not a scientifically based genealogical table, but branch out along established genealogical lines among the Kazakhs.

The work “Kazakhs”, published in 1995, presents complete historical materials about the ethnic process of the Kazakh people, the traditional way of farming, the occupations and way of life of the people, their beliefs. The collection focuses on the three hundred Kazakh tribes, their settlement area and population, as well as their symbols and slogans, albeit indirectly, and defines their meaning. The concept of the basis, traditional material and spiritual culture of the Kazakh people has been studied.

The work of Kh. Argynbaev, M. Mukanov, V. Vostrov “On Kazakh genealogy” indicates that Kazakh genealogy is an important historical source for the analysis of the ethno-tribal structure of the Kazakhs. Researchers aim to determine the time of existence of a particular clan and the ancestral homeland, the relationship between clans, as well as the problems of kinship in Kazakh society and the associated phenomena of branching and branching of patriarchal dynasties and, in general, to reveal the meaning of patriarchal-feudal relations that reigned before the revolution. Differentiating, analyzing and defining tribal structures, he formulated them consistently with additional tables, genealogies and legends.

It should be noted that books on the history of Kazakh tribes prepared by the Alash Historical Research Center are of particular value and educational value. The publication under his organization of 13 volumes of 29 books on the scientifically studied history of Kazakh clans was a great contribution to the science of Kazakhstan, and the adoption of a completely new direction and a new approach in the study of history was a significant innovation. in the world of science and society. The Alash Center focused on the history of each tribe of three hundred Kazakhs, its symbols and slogans, and tried to provide as many genealogies and legends associated with it as possible.

EM. Ethnological analysis of genealogical data was carried out in Tunbaev's research work. Information about the history of the past in Kazakh mythology, heroic songs, dynastic legends is differentiated and it is proven that they are a special spiritual source of historical knowledge. The Turkic etymologies of tribal names in genealogy were systematized and thereby the tribal composition of the Kazakh people was determined. Slogans and symbols of clans and tribes in the genealogy were collected, analyzed and sequenced.

M.A. In 2013, Alpysbes’ monograph “Kazakh Chronicles as Historical Data” was published. Kazakh genealogies preserved in manuscript collections were studied for the first time from a data point of view and many new data were analyzed. Experience has been developed in a comprehensive analysis of the formation of genealogies, its external and internal state, as well as its historical foundations and content. For the first time, the features of the formation and vital activity of historical consciousness and thinking, reflected in oral and written text samples of genealogical data, are most fully examined. At the same time, the histories of the formation and unification of clans, such as “division”, “symbolic coordination”, “tribal division”, were ordered and differentiated.

Some researchers explain the fact that there is little information in Russian data about the tribes and clans of the Little Hundred that they were part of the Kazakh Khanate at that time. This movement became especially widespread in the first half of the XIV-XVII centuries. The fact that the tribes that were part of the Alsha Union began to become part of the Kazakh Khanate during the reign of Khan Khaknazar is also evidenced by information from Kazakh folk literature. Their arrival in large numbers had a definite influence on the distribution of the tribes inhabiting this territory and caused great changes in the political, social and economic life of these regions. As a result of such territorial changes, the Kazakh Khanate was divided into three hundreds, and the Alshinov association became part of the Little Hundred. Khaknazar Khan's policy towards strengthening the state led to the fact that the Kazakhs became stronger, and in the 70s of the 16th century the Nogais began to raise problems not only related to their lands in the Zhaiyk region, but also related to their pastures in the Volga region.

The symbolism of the tribes was directly related to the emergence of faces, the new unity of the Kazakh community. The first officially recorded time of the appearance of hundreds in historical data is considered to be 1616. As a result of a thorough analysis of the information collected by T. Petrov and I. Kunitsyn, employees of the Russian diplomatic department V.P. Yudin came to the logical conclusion that “if at the time indicated in it (1616) Uly Yuz existed on Kazakh soil, then its antipode - the “Little Kazakh Horde”, i.e. the presence of Little Yuz - was very strange.” Further, the scientist substantiated the possibility of ending the division of the Kazakh community into three hundred during this period on the basis of various narrative materials, including the historical chronicle “Sharaf-name-iy Shahi”, which is unique among the fundamental data associated with the medieval period. According to the logical opinion of the researcher, the names of Shygai Khan, Khaknazar Khan and other khans who ruled the Kazakh community during this period are also mentioned in “Sharaf-name-iy Shahi” and other data. Each of these khans actually ruled more than a hundred people. As a result of studying, this is extremely contradictory. political and social process in the Kazakh region in the 10-20s of the 17th century, V.P. Yudin came to the conclusion that at the end of the 16th century there were Kazakh persons.

Another prominent orientalist, who for the first time drew attention to the historical logic of the mentioned time of appearance of persons, which was ignored by science for some time, and gave a proper assessment of his knowledge, was T.I. It was Sultanov. He draws special attention to the fact that in the 16th century the Kazakh uluses were ruled by sultans, and in the 17th century the yuses (former uluses) were ruled by princes. Analyzing the historical dilemma about whether the ulus and zhuz were simultaneous forms of organization of the Kazakh community during this period, or whether the ulus form of the administrative management system was gradually replaced by the zhuz form, T.I. Sultanov focused on the latest political and structural changes in the nomadic environment as a very likely phenomenon. That is, in connection with the genesis of the scientist V.P. Yudin pointed out that based on the data that he studied scientifically, his logically consistent ideas and the various data that he used, there is a high probability of the transition of a universal administrative-management system to a hundred-system in Kazakh society. The researcher emphasized the possibility that this transition process, the cause of which is unknown, continued until the second half of the 16th century and ended in the period of the 16th-17th centuries. In his opinion, the Kazakh sultans who ruled the Ulus in the 16th-17th centuries now became the rulers of the cities and fortresses of Turkestan (the data used by the researcher indicates that the total number of cities and fortresses that fell under the rule of the sultans reached 20). At the same time, if you follow the author’s line of scientific logic, it seems that after the princes began to rule the uluses, the previous ulus system was transferred to the hundred system. However, in the 18th century (after the collapse of the Tauke Khanate), instead of princes, each village had its own khan, called “Kelte Khan”. But the system is completely established.

At the end of the 16th century, the universal system, which was a form of self-organization of Kazakh society (along with the southern structure), lost its power. Because this system turned out to be insufficient for regulating political and economic issues that arose in society as a result of the circular action of internal and external factors, that is, for organizing and managing a nomadic society. In the center of the Eurasian continent from north to south 1600 км, at a distance between west and east 3000 км. Thus, apparently, a new form of organization and management of the Kazakh people, occupying such a vast territory, arose.

In the traditional Kazakh environment, the entire Kazakh community was organized into the Big Hundred, the Middle Hundred and the Small Hundred. Ethnologist N. According to Alimbay, the three hundredth organizational structure of Kazakh society can be called an institutional system aimed at effectively organizing the system of existence of nomads according to the territorial and genealogical principle. As a system of organization and management of the nomadic Kazakh community on the extremely vast and harsh territory of the Hundred of Kazakh Lands, based on local geographical features and a fairly complex segmental character, crowded tribal branches of various taxonomic levels (such as clans, tribes) were formed . "

The Great Hundred included the tribes Alban, Suan, Zhalair, Kanly, Dulat, Shapyrashti, Saryuisin, Ysty, Sirgeli, Oshakhti, Shanishkyli, who settled in the Zhetysu region since ancient times. According to some data, including data collected during ethnographic expeditions conducted throughout the country, this group includes the Katagans, whose ethnic history is full of contradictions. According to a long-established genealogical tradition, in the system of genealogical connections the Zhalair tribe was considered a cousin of the Great Hundred. The “senior” status of the Great Hundred among the three hundred provided symbolic (ritual) privilege to representatives of the Zhalair tribe in the system of institutional relations in the traditional Kazakh environment. There is also a plural form Uysindar . This “genealogical” name was probably formed due to the fact that, according to a certain logic, Uisin was considered the only ancestor of the Great Hundred of Kazakhs.

The tribes Argyn, Kipchak, Kerey, Uak, Naiman, Tarakhty, belonging to the middle hundred, have inhabited the central, eastern and northern regions of Kazakhstan since ancient times. According to some genealogical logic, the Tobkyts are not part of the Argyn tribe, but the Tarakts are part of the genealogical composition of the Argyn tribe. However, according to the genealogy, the Tarakhts, who are Argyn’s nephews, should be considered a separate tribe according to the organizational and genealogical structure. The main reason is the unique symbolic status of the ridge as the brother-point of the entire Middle Face. Indeed, according to the fundamental principles of the genealogical system, which have developed since ancient times, only a structure that has generic status can have the status of the elder brother of any hundred. Another personified name of the middle person, based on the genealogical tradition, is Argyndar. In fact, in some general ethnic genealogical versions, as well as in some genealogical logic associated with Uzuz, Argyn is mentioned as the only ancestor of all Kazakhs of the Middle Uzuz.

, Alasha, Alshin, Adai, Baybakti, Berish, Yesentemir, Zhappas (Altyn), Kyzylkurt, Maskar, Taz, Issyk, Sherkesh belong to Baiyuly . Based on the number of tribes included in it, this association is called Twelve Ata Bayuly. As the name suggests, Zhetyru includes seven tribes called Jahalbeyli, Kerderi, Kereit, Tabyn, Tama, Teleu, Ramadan. The Kete, Karakesek, Karasakal, Tortkara, Shekti, Shomekey tribes belong to the genealogical structure known as the six ancestors of Alimuli. In this regard, special attention is paid to the fact that the Kishi-Zhu tribes are organized into three genealogical structures called Alimuly, Bayuly and Zhetiru, which are not found in other Kazakh entities. That is, “daughter” intermediate associations from tribes to hundreds. These associations, the “historical” necessity of which is based on genealogical reasoning, did not actually perform any economic function. However, according to the genealogical tradition, each of these three performed an institutional function, regulating the internal or external issues of only the “belonging” clans and tribes. It is here that these genealogical structures differ from the structural-functional nature of the tribe and the hundred (on the scale of the Little Hundred). According to some pan-ethnic (general Kazakh) and genealogical versions that are directly related to Kishi Yuzu, Alshin is only the ancestor of Kishi Yuza. This can be called a genealogical projection of the process of separation from the Nogai Horde of hundreds of Kishi clans, organized into the Alsha Union in the course of genealogical logic. Therefore, in the Kazakh environment this person is called Kishi face Alshin or Alshin in the plural. Tabyn is considered the younger brother-dot.

Such social categories as Tore and Khoja were not included in the genealogical network of the triangular structure of Kazakh society. However, each of them had its place and role in the system of institutional relations.

Representatives of any tribe based their grouping of a hundred, first of all, on the corresponding genealogical principle , i.e. on the fact that their ancestors were related to each other, and they explained their ancient relationships through the categories and concepts of kinship. relationships in a nomadic environment (for example, ancestor, father, brother, younger brother, aunt, cousin, nephew, cousin, etc.). In the same way, the long-established harmony of relationships between persons was based on genealogical logic, i.e., on the fact that their ancestors come from the same family (father), which means they are brothers and sisters. Therefore, it was emphasized that various genealogical records are the historiographical and ideological justification for the so-called intertribal and interpersonal relations, especially kinship .

In traditional Kazakh oral history, variants of genealogical legends that explain the origin of the three hundred with mythopoetic logic are based on the fact that only the ancestors of the three hundred are half-brothers born of the same father. For example, according to a popular version, Alash was the only ancestor of Ula Yuz, Akarys, Middle Yuz - Bekarys, and Kishi Yuz - Janarys. According to another version of this content, it seems that only the ancestors of the Great Lik - Akshor, the Middle Lik - Bekshor and the Small Lik - Zhanshor - descended from a person named Kazakh. Such pan-ethnic genealogical records played a very important ideological and historiographical function for the nomadic environment, which was supposed to prove the mutual kinship of three hundred Kazakhs. In collegiate meetings such as interhundreds, i.e. dance council, organized at the national level, the ethical relationship between dances was based on the above-mentioned order of kinship of the three hundred only grandfathers as eldest son - middle son - youngest son. In such and other collegial processes of this level, the implementation of the principle of “brother from the same father” was one of the decisive factors that ensured the harmonious functioning of institutional relations in the Kazakh environment.

The structure and functions of the new hundred system were based, first of all, on the segmental (multi-city, tribal) nature and structure of the long-established socio-economic structure of Kazakh society, on the historical justification of this feature, and, of course, on local geographical factors. Each hundred, formed as a political-territorial union of tribes, became a structure organized by the genealogical method. The system of tribal relations, based on the genealogical principle, can be called a kind of “energy” network, covering all spheres and levels of nomadic society. Indeed, in a nomadic ethnocultural environment, in addition to the economic and socio-political interests of people, the genealogical factor is important (that is, the fact that people, clans and tribes united in a hundred consider each other relatives). important for regulating problems arising in society, organizing nomadic groups and their social life. It was a very versatile tool for mobilizing energy. Thus, due to the objective necessity of such life experience, a cycle of different genealogies was formed, which is the “historical” basis of consanguinity, that the lands inhabited by the clans belonging to each hundred are the great heritage handed down from the ancestors, and that the members of these clans are brothers of each other to a friend. Therefore, genealogical logic, in which the nomads wholeheartedly believed, served as the most visible, effective ideological and historiographical tool for organizing and managing clans, tribes and their structural and functional association.

There are different versions of genealogy, common in the traditional Kazakh environment, explaining the genesis of three persons with mythopoetic logic . A prominent representative of Kazakh oral history, Mashkhur-Zhusip Kopeyuli, tells a legend about the origin of the word Alash and the formation of the Kazakh people. According to legend, when Kyzylaristan was khan, he did not have a child from his godmother, and when he conquered Kyzylbas, he captured the khan’s daughter. The godmother of the son who was born then seduced the khan, saying that this child, when he grows up, will take over the country and will be against you, so get rid of him now. On the advice of his godmother, the khan gathered forty young men and sent them to a place where the country had not set foot and where his decisions were not carried out, entrusting him with raising his child. Later, when the boy was still small, forty men scattered everywhere, having nothing to do with the boy. At that time, this land was occupied by the sons of four grandfathers - Kotan, Koban, Kundiger and Kobang. At this time, Maikiy met a 12-year-old boy, convinced of his courage, took him as his son and sent him to Karatau with 100 young men. From there they went and came to Karakengir, Sarykengir, Zhezdikengir - three Kengirs, and with the tip of a white spear and the strength of a white wrist, for three years they set cattle in front of them, built houses on top of them, and became an independent nation. After him, Maikiy sent a hundred people named Akzhol, and after him he sent a hundred people named Alshin. Everyone gathered and formed a large crowd, and the khan picked up a little boy from the middle and named him “Alasha Khan.” After this, the 300 youths who joined individually became individually the Big Hundred, the Middle Hundred and the Small Hundred .

Taiyr Qasymuly