A Study of the Ancient Turks Family

Abstract

This article discusses the form of the Ancient Turks family in the context of original source data. The conclusions of the Marxist scholars were mostly artificial and speculative, while in the rest of the scientific world the problem received little attention. Through consideration of the issues under discussion, involving original source data, the author points to a nuclear form of the Ancient Turks family, which is typical of nomadic societies in general. The problem of family organization as a social institution of nomadic societies has remained relevant throughout all periods of the study of nomadism. However, the views of scientists on the form of family of nomads had evolved in the context of the enlargement of both the source and methodological bases used for these studies. The family institution in the social life of Inner Asian nomads of the Old Turks Period (the sixth – the tenth centuries AD), and of the Türks in particular, have not yet become a subject of special research, although they have been touched upon by researchers in the context of various problems of the social history both of the Türks or other nomadic societies. Under the influence of Marxism, an evolutionary stadial approach to the study of socio-economic relations among nomads was established in historiography, according to which nomadic economic activity and societal structures of nomads were considered on the basis of ideas about the existence of unified scheme of the historical process. Therefore, based on the classic work of Friedrich Engels Der Ursprung der Familie, des Privateigenthums und des Staats, Aleksandr N. Bernshtam argued that the main economic unit among the Türks was a patriarchal family (Bernshtam 1946: 88, 94). This idea was further supported by other Soviet researchers (Abramzon 1951: 152–155; Lashuk 1967: 119; Markov 1976: 79; etc.). Sergei P. Tolstov wrote about ‘large patriarchal families characterized by Social Evolution & History / September 2019 116 polygamy, a developed institution of adoption and ... a highly developed clientela’ (Tolstov 1938: 32; 1948: 264). Sergei G. Klyashtorny also adhered to the traditional idea that ‘the basic cell of production of any nomadic society’, including the Türkic one, was the ‘family household.’ However, he characterized it as being patriarchal (Klyashtorny 2003: 483; etc.). Lev N. Gumilyov believed that the Türks had a pairing family (Gumilyov 1967: 70, 74), although in another passage, discussing the Tiělè 鐡勒 tribes, he wrote about ‘large families’ and about the tranformation of those ‘large families’ into tribes (Ibid.: 61). In the opinion of Yury A. Zuev, originally ‘the smallest economic unit and the basis of the social structure of the ancient Turks society was a large-family community, whose obligatory attributes were a common dwelling (at an early stage), a common pot, and a patriarch-housekeeper’ (Zuev 1967: 71; 1977: 331). His argument in favor of this was found in sources discussing cattle, which requires stabling, and their presence thus implies a sedentary way of life for the Türks (Idem 1967: 72). Zuev based this passage on chapter 197 of the Tōng Diǎn 通典 (801) in which he translated the Türkic title Yí kèhán 遺可汗, ‘house kagan’ (Ibid.: 71–72; 1977: 331): Yì yǒu kèhán wèi zài yèhù xiàhuò yǒu jūjiā dàxìng xiāng hū wéi yí kèhán zhě tūjué hū wū wéi yíyán wū kèhán yě 亦有可汗位在葉護下或有居家大姓相呼為遺可 汗者突厥呼屋為遺言屋 可汗也 (cited in Taşağıl 2003a: 200 [Tōng Diǎn, ch. 197, p. 1068a, lines 21–23]). The identification of the character yí 遺 as the Turks word äb or äv (‘house’) was proposed in 1958 by Liu Mau-Tsai (1958: 9, 498– 499 [Anm. 49]). He translated the passage in the following: ‘Es gab auch Khagane die im Range niedriger standen als der Ye-hu (Yabgu). Es kam auch vor, dass grosse zu haus bleibende, also nicht amtierende Familien sich gegenseitig I Khagan 遺可汗 nannten. Die T'u-küe sagten für den Raum (order das Haus 屋) I [M. ywi\] (alttürkischäb~äv). Der Titel bedeutete also Raum(oder Haus-) Khagan,’ However, this translation was criticized by Zuev who noted the absence of the phrase ‘large families, stayed at home, i.e. did not officiate’ (Zuev 1998: 159; 2002: 289) in the Chinese text. In Zuev's first variant of translation it read ‘...it happens that living in houses (or families, Chin. jiā) in large families call each other “uv-qaγan”; a house is called by the Türks the uv, and that means house qaγan’ (Zuev 1967: 71–72). His later translation of the same text read: ‘There are qaγans of lower rank than yabγu. It happens also that living in families in large genera (originally: rodami) called their head uyqaγan; a house is called by the Türks the üy; that means house qaγan’ (Zuev 1977: 331). The translation proposed by Vsevolod S. Taskin is still Tishin / A Study of Ancient Turks Family 117 different: ‘There are also qaγans [standing] at a lower position than yèhù, and there are representatives of large families living at home who call each other yí kèhán (qaγan). Tūjué call the house yí, and that denomination means the house qaγan’ (Taskin 1984a: 68, 305 [commentary 46]). Taskin noted that the symbol yí 遺 also could be read like yú 于, connecting it to the Turkic word üy ‘house’, and argued that the phrase yú kèhán was used to describe the head of one's own family or clan (Ibid.: 68, 306 [commentary 46]). However, the form üy has been described in more recent sources as the result of phonetic transformation (see Sevortian 1974: 513–515). According to Zuev, after the Türks had transitioned to a nomadic lifestyle, an ‘autonomization’ of individual families occurred within the community, and this process contributed to its disintegration, but not the loss of ties between those small families. As a result of this process, the commonality of the community economy was violated, the large-family community, being incompatible in its classical form with a nomadic economy, began to transform into a patronymy (Zuev 1967: 80–83, 194). In the patriarchal large-family community, the reckoning of both maternal and paternal kinship was preserved due to the significant role women played in the nomadic economy, or the specificity of relations between clan-tribal groups. The patriarchal type of a family did not have the chance to become entrenched, because of the changing conditions of the economy and the features of social ties (Ibid.: 83–84). One of the arguments in favor of the changing Türks economy hypothesis, according to Zuev, is the emergence among them of a new type of dwelling namely, the yurt (käräkü; Rus. yurta) (Ibid.: 77–79). He considers the qiónglú 穹廬 mentioned in Chinese sources to be a description of large yurts, remnants from times when huts had been the main type of dwelling (Ibid.: 74–75, 76). Zuev refers to information on the nomadic peoples of earlier eras or cites data from the Tàipíng huányǔ jì 太平寰宇記 on Qïrqïz (Xiájiásī 黠戛斯) people who were described as ‘having a common house, one bed, one blanket’ (Kyuner 1961: 60). However, the early qiónglú 穹廬 (literally ‘domed hut’) during the period of the Xiōngnú 匈奴 was a domed wicker hut with a felt roof covering (Weinstein 1976: 46; 1993: 45–50; Weinstein and Kryukov 1976: 146–147; Kryukov 1988: 234 (note 2); Kryukov and Kurylev 2000: 10–11). Based on written, archaeological and imaginative sources, Soviet ethnologists concluded that the invention of the yurt with a collapsible lattice frame for the walls belonged to the first millennium AD and it was associated with the Türks (Weinstein 1976: 46; 1991: 50, 54–55; Kryukov, Malyavin, and Sofronov 1984: 140–143; Kryukov and Kurylev Social Evolution & History / September 2019 118 2000: 10–17). This may also be indirectly evidenced by the mention of the word käräkü which was recorded in the Bilgä Qaghan inscription (Şirin User 2009: 72–74), describing a lattice supporting a felt covering of a yurt (Clauson 1972: 744). The fact that the Türks' dwellings could be disassembled and transported can be indirectly gleaned from a passage of the Suí shū 隋書 about Shìwéi 室韋 tribes (Taskin 1984a: 136). At the same time, in certain forest-rich regions, as Leonid R. Kyzlassov tried to show, stationary octagonal wooden yurts were also used (Kyzlassov 1960: 66–67, 74; 1969: 46). This does not contradict the written sources on the presence of cattle in the herds of Türks (Bernshtam 1946: 41, 68, 71; Zuev 1967: 60, 72, 85). Saul M. Abramzon, following up on the idea of a patriarchal community transforming into family-related units consisted of small families (Abramzon 1951; 1970: 64–69, 72–73; 1973: 297–303; 1990: 228, 453 [note 1]). He specifically examined the issue of the family forms among the Türks and agreed with Zuev's arguments, noting only that the processes described by him were characteristic of the earlier periods, while the ‘autonomization’ mentioned by Zuev should be properly understood as a disintegration of the patriarchal family and formation of familyrelated groups. Abramzon disagreed with Zuev's both opinions that the community transformed into patronymy, and that patronymy was the necessary form of community if small families were the basic roaming unit (Abramzon 1973: 301). Abramzon concluded that the conversion from the old lifestyle with dominant large family-communities to the new one in the middle of the first millennium AD, meant a gradual strengthening of the small family (Ibid.: 303–304). However, in his later works Zuev would change his mind. As early as 1998, he translated the above-mentioned fragment of Tōng Diǎn 通典 similar to the translation of Taskin (Zuev 1998: 155; 2002: 289). He noted that the translation of the symbol jiā 家 meaning a small unit like ‘family’ was excluded, because that symbol was often used in a figurative sense, describing, for example, peoples belonging to one state. At the same time, the yí kèhán 遺可汗 was elevated to the same position as yabγu (Ibid.: 159; 2002: 290). Zuev based this interpretation on data from Abū’l-Ğāzī, translating an Arabic se