Human Body in Traditional Views of Turkic and Mongolian Peoples: Blood and Circulatory System

The study of the human body in the system of traditional somatic ideas of the Turkic and Mongolian peoples of Inner Asia is urgent in the studies of humans as a social and biological beings. The problem of perception and comprehension of the composition of the main features constituting the human body, particularly such biological fluid as blood, is of particular interest in the study of mythological human anatomy. The interest in this element of the human body is due to the increased attention of the Turkic and Mongolian peoples to blood. The views on the nature of blood, the source of its formation, many prohibitions and signs associated with blood are known. Many concepts associated with human anatomy, including blood, formed the basis for the organization of the social structure of nomadic societies. Understanding the significant role of this biological fluid in the functioning of the body formed a certain system of ideas about the dependence of health, hereditary diseases and even a person's character on the appearance and volume of blood as the characteristics of this biological fluid available for visual perception. Blood unlike bone is mobile and changeable in the context of social interpretations. If the bone of the progenitor was not being changed passing to all his descendants, then the blood of representatives of the social community, who took women from different clans as wives, was mixed in marriage unions. The views of the Turkic and Mongolian peoples of Inner Asia on the composition of blood are characterized by uncertainty. The idea of a vital substance, a soul was widely developed in the worldview of the Turko-Mongols. Blood is one of the containers of the vital substance. A number of prohibitions and restrictions associated with blood allow us to talk about the significant role of the sun as a source of life, giving its vital energy to the blood. Obviously, evidence of this “relationship” is the color (red) and the warmth inherent to blood. However, ideas on the nature of blood formed in the traditional worldview of the Mongolian and Turkic peoples and recorded in the 18–19 centuries significantly differ from the early views of the ancestors of the nomads. Reconstruction of the Pra-Altai language made it possible to restore one of the key meanings of the term čiunu (blood) – “soul”, “wind”. We believe that early views on the nature of blood were greatly influenced by the phenomenon of respiration, which is characteristic of all beings.