MYTHOLOGIES OF THE ALTAI TRIBE
The Altai people (Altay: Altay-kiji), also the Altaians (Altay: Алтайлар, Altaylar), are a Turkic ethnic group of indigenous peoples of Siberia mainly living in the Altai Republic, Russia. Several thousand of the Altaians also live in Mongolia (Mongolian Altai Mountains) and China (Altay Prefecture, northern Xinjiang) but are officially unrecognized as a distinct group and listed under the name “Oirats” as a part of the Mongols, as well as in Kazakhstan where they number around 200. For alternative ethnonyms see also Tele, Black Tatar, and Oirats. During the Northern Yuan Dynasty of Mongolia, they were ruled in the administrative area known as Telengid Province. Recent linguistic, genetic and archaeological evidence suggests that the earliest Turkic peoples descended from agricultural communities in Northeast China who moved westwards into Mongolia in the late 3rd millennium BC, where they adopted a pastoral lifestyle. By the early 1st millennium BC, these peoples had become equestrian nomads. In subsequent centuries, the steppe populations of Central Asia appear to have been progressively replaced and Turkified by East Asian nomadic Turks, moving out of Mongolia.
The Altai Republic (/ˈæltaɪ/; Altai: Алтай Республика, Altay Respublika; Kazakh: Алтай Республикасы, Russian: Респу́блика Алта́й, romanized: Respublika Altay, pronounced [rʲɪˈspublʲɪkə ɐlˈtaj]), also known as Gorno-Altai Republic, and colloquially, and primarily referred to in Russian to distinguish from the neighbouring Altai Krai as the Gornyi Altai (Russian: Горный Алтай, lit. ‘the mountainous Altai’), is a republic of Russia located in southern Siberia. It is a part of the Siberian Federal District, and covers an area of 92,903 square kilometers (35,870 sq mi); with a population of 210,924 residents. It is the least-populous republic of Russia and least-populous federal subject in the Siberian Federal District. Gorno-Altaysk is the capital and the largest town of the republic. The Altai Republic is one of Russia’s ethnic republics, primarily representing the indigenous Altai people, a Turkic ethnic group that form 37% of the republic’s population, while ethnic Russians form a majority at 54%, and with minority populations of Kazakhs, other Central Asian ethnicities, and Germans. The official languages of the Altai Republic are Russian and Altai. Kazakh is official in areas of compact settlement of its speakers.
Altaian is the general name for a group of Turkic peoples living in the region of the Altai Mountains of southern Siberia in the Altai Republic. These peoples include the Chelkan, Kumandin, Telengit, Teles, Teleut, and Tubalar. The name “Altai Kizhi” is applied both to a specific unit among them and to this group of peoples as a whole; it is a descriptive designation, not an official one. “Altai” designates the region; “kizhi” means “man” or “person” and is generally used to denote a nation, folk, or people. Historically, there is no specific name for these peoples. They may identify themselves by the name of the locality in which they live, such as a river or a forest zone; for example, one group of Altaians living in the Mayma River region refers to itself as the “Mayma Kizhi” or the “Maymalar” (i.e., the Maymas). The Tubalar occupy a forest zone and sometimes refer to themselves as the “Yish Kizhi”—the “Forest [lit., Wooded Mountain] People.” It is also the custom among peoples of the Altai to refer to themselves as the members of a line of common descent. In the past they were designated “Kalmyks,” “Mountain Kalmyks,” etc., but this is an error, because the Kalmyks speak a language classified in the Mongolian Language Family and have only a distant connection, if any, to the Turks. The frequent occurrence of the term “Tele” among the names of these peoples (Telengit, Teles, Teleut) goes back to the name of an ancient Turkic people, the Tele. A variant of this name is set down in Chinese records of the sixth to eighth centuries.
The Altai people (Altay: Алтай-кижи, romanized: Altay-kiji), also the Altaians (Altay: Алтайлар, romanized: Altaylar), are a Turkic ethnic group of indigenous peoples of Siberia mainly living in the Altai Republic, Russia. Several thousand of the Altaians also live in Mongolia (Mongolian Altai Mountains) and China (Altay Prefecture, northern Xinjiang) but are officially unrecognized as a distinct group and listed under the name “Oirats” as a part of the Mongols, as well as in Kazakhstan where they number around 200. For alternative ethnonyms see also Tele, Black Tatar, and Oirats. During the Northern Yuan Dynasty of Mongolia, they were ruled in the administrative area known as Telengid Province. Most of the Southern Altaians traditionally lived in yurts. Many Northern Altaians mainly built polygonal yurts with conic roofs made out of logs and bark. Some Altai-Kizhi also lived in mud huts with birch bark gable roofs and log or plank walling. The Teleuts and a few Northern Altaians lived in conic homes made out of perches or bark. With the influx of Russians near the homeland of the Altaians, there was an increase of the construction of large huts with two to four slope roofs in consequence of Russian influence.
The Altai Mountains are the divide between Mongolia on the one hand, and Russia and China on the other. The highest peak is Huiten Uul (4373m), which is one of the five at Tavanbogd (literally “the five sacred”) where the three countries join. Only Mt Belukha in the Russian Altai is higher. Scattered among the Altai Mountains are some 20 glaciers, the Potanina glacier being the largest. This is the only region in Mongolia which offers enough variety to trek for a week or more in any single place. The people of the Altai are diverse. On the Mongolian side, the Kazakhs are in the majority. They started to graze their sheep and goats as late as in the 1840s in the summer time. They started to remain year around as late as in the early 1900s. The Kazakhs are a Turkic speaking Muslim people. The mosque in Ölgii has been refurbished and the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca has been resumed. However they are also quite secular as a result of religious controls in the communist times. The major language in Bayan-Ölgii province is Kazakh, although most people are bilingual in Mongolian. Due to long isolation Kazakh traditions and practices are more intact here than anywhere in Kazakhstan. Many Mongolian Kazakhs have been allowed to migrate to Kazakhstan and Turkey, and there have been talks between Kazakhstan and Mongolia to allow all Mongolian Kazakhs dual citizenship. This part of Mongolia has more contact across international borders than elsewhere in the country.
The Altai people comprise an amalgamation of Turkic tribes who reside in the Altai Mountains and the Kuznetsk Alatau. Their origins lie with the earliest Turkic tribes (Uighurs, Kypchak-Kimaks, Yenisey Kyrgyz, Oguz, and others). In 550 c.e., the Tugyu Turks settled in the Altai Mountains along the headwaters of the Ob River and in the foothills of the Kuznetsk Alatau, where around 900 c.e. they formed the Kimak Tribal Union with the Kypchak Turks. From this union sprang the ethnonyms Kumanda, Teleut, and Telengit. In the seventh century, the Telengit lived with another would-be Altai tribe, the Telesy, on the Tunlo River in Mongolia, whence they both migrated to Tyva. By the eighth century they had gravitated to the Altai Mountains and eastern Kazakhstan. The Russians arrived in the 1700s and proceeded to sedentarize many of the nomadic Altai. The Soviet government gave the Altai nominal recognition with the establishment of the Gorno-Altai (Oirot) Autonomous Oblast in 1922. In 1991 it became the Altai Republic.
The people living in the Altai Mountains of Mongolia possess a mythology that is influenced both by their own shamanistic past and their contact with Islam, Buddhism, Christianity, and even Zoroastrianism. Creation stories are especially important among the Altaic tribes. One story tells how the first man, Erlik, created by the god Ulgen from clay, was like the devil in the Hebrew creation, flung out of Heaven for attempting to usurp the creator’s position. After Erlik’s expulsion, Ulgen created the earth. As in the case of Satan in Genesis, the devil figure, Erlik, makes his way to earth and corrupts the first woman, bringing to humankind all the ills we now experience. In another Altaic creation myth, the first-man devil character tries unsuccessfully to fly higher than God and falls into the primeval waters and begs for God’s help. God orders the devil to dive into the depths to find earth, and so the world is created. When the devil tries to hide some of the earth in his mouth so as to make his own world, God discovers the trick and forces the devil to spit out the hidden material, which becomes the world’s wetlands.
The Altai Republic was split off from the neighboring Russian province of Altaisky Krai during the Yeltsin era, partly in recognition of the Altai people’s cultural and linguistic uniqueness, but also because of its geographical difference from the flat farmland and big industrial cities of the Krai. The Altai Republic is home to many people of Russian ancestry, but a third of its population is Altai and speaks the Altaian language. Today’s 60,000 Altaians live predominantly in the south of the republic. They are closely related to Mongolians and are considered the original Turkic people. The Altaians joined the Czarist Russian Empire during the 18th century seeking protection from Chinese and Kazakh invaders, but the Altai didn’t truly attract Moscow’s attention until the 20th century when its farmland and stunning rivers and mountains began to draw ethnic Russians as settlers and tourists. The north of the Altai Republic has a large population of Russians who settled during the communist era on collective farms around the provincial capital, Gorno-Altaisk. Today, many of these ethnic Russians identify strongly as Altaians and also wish to protect Altaian lands and culture. Altaians have traditionally practiced shamanism, Buddhism and Burkhanism or Ak Jang (“White Faith”). Most ethnic Altaians are Burkhanists and belong to family clans that revere totem animals, such as the argali and the wolf, and totem flowers. Burkhanists believe in a three-world cosmology (upper, middle and under) and pray to many spirits, including legendary figures from traditional oral epics. Burkhanists are known for their throat singing practice, in which the singer recounts traditional epics that are very complex and endure for hours. Altaian ceremonies always involved a “feeding of the fire” in which food and alcohol are put into a fire in front of the home as each family asks the spirits to protect the health of the land and water and to continue to provide the family with sustenance. The land is foundational to Altaian spiritualism.
The Altai language is not very similar to Kyrgyz, as in we cannot properly understand each other when we speak. It’s only possible if we speak slowly and find common words to reach an understanding, but the same can be done with Turkish as well. The only real similarity is the abundance of Turkic words in daily vocabulary, but morphologically we are very different. The Altai people are not natives of Altai, but rather a mix of the remaining Yenisei Kyrgyz Khaganate’s people, Telengit (Tiele people) and other ethnicities. The Altai language is officially classified as a Yenisei Turkic language, and very recently considered a separate language from Northern Altai, which a year ago was considered a dialect of Altai. The Altai language has over 40-60+ dialects, varying from village and sometimes street. This is due to years of isolation among the Altaians, as well as ethnic mixing. Many of those dialects are mutually unintelligible with each other, one of the least understood dialects is spoken in Ulagan, and Cholushman (which is also in the Ulagan aymak/region.) Our food is extremely similar to other Central Asian people’s, with few exceptions. A religion very similar to Tengriism exists in Altai, called Ак Јаҥ/Ak Jang/White Faith. I honestly do not know much about it as I am Christian, but I can say for sure it’s dying out. In this religion people are ordered to never let a cat inside, but rather to kill them on sight. And of course to insult Russians, but these practices are no longer done.
Researchers in Serbia have studied a collection of ancient petroglyphs revealing the relationship between a medieval nomadic culture and animals. The team of researchers from the Gorno-Altaisk State University has published a new paper in the scientific journal Archaeology, Ethnography and Anthropology of Eurasia presenting their study of medieval Altai rock art, located near the famous Pazyryk burial mounds. Carved in shallow lines with pointed tools, the Altai rock art artisans created images of people holding different weapons in hunting scenes, and even ancient dwellings. The Pazyryk burials are Scythian (Saka) Iron Age tombs located in the in Ulazhonsky District of the Pazyryk Valley, in the Altai Mountains of Siberia, close to the border with China, Kazakhstan and Mongolia. Dating to the 4th–3rd centuries BC these “Scythian-type kurgans tombs” are barrow-like mounds with internal wooden chambers covered by large cairns of boulders. It was in these ancient burial vaults that the Altai rock art was created and left behind for others to understand.
The Turkic word “Altai” means “golden mountains.” These are the highest mountains of the huge Siberian region. The highest peak, Belukha Mountain, is 4,506 meters high and always covered with snow. In Russian (this peak is located in Russia) Belukha literally means something like “white mountain.” Altai, without any exaggeration, is real mountainous country. Its ranges stretch for about 2,000 kilometers through four countries _ Russia, China, Kazakhstan and Mongolia. To get some understanding of Altai’s size here are some statistics: On the territory of Altai, there are over 20,000 lakes, 430 karst caves, about 1,500 glaciers, 200,000 big and small rivers, more than 2,000 mineral water springs. Katun, one of the biggest rivers running from Altai, has about 7,000 waterfalls. Actually, it is a real mountainous country where a human being feels himself as small and powerless as a grain of sand in front of the size and grandeur of nature. As soon as you get to the Altai Mountains, you understand that words cannot explain beauty of this region. Traveling along mountains, you never stop being amazed at how many incredibly beautiful views appear in front of your eyes.
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