Kazakhs between brothers and enemies in the mythology and historical oral tradition of the Western Mongols (Oirats)
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| Year of publication | 2023 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | Traditionally sharing a similar mobile pastoral lifestyle, the Kazakhs can be considered one of the closest cultural partners of the Mongols. The Kazakh aristocracy traces its origins to the Chinggisids and this fact was giving to some of the Kazakh groups even a higher sacral authority that was possessed and claimed by the mostly non-Chinggisid ruling clans of the Western Mongols. However, long periods of the Oirat (Western Mongolian) domination over a part of the Kazakhs and the later Kazakh migration to areas inhabited by the Mongols gave rise to many narratives of mutual hostility. At the same time, the need to support friendly and tolerant neighbourly relations produced narratives emphasizing mutual brotherhood. This paper based on the Mongolian oral tradition viewed as source of local historical consciousness tries to describe these two partially contradictory, but always interconnected community-shared ideas about Kazakhs, as manifested in the interpretation of narratives in the mythology about the origin of Kazakhs and in historical oral tradition about encounters between Kazakhs and Oirats in recent local history. With their numerous occurrences among the narratives of the oral tradition of the Oirats, stories of enmity as well as cooperation represent an important building block of communitarian identity expressed through oral memory. The narratives from the oral tradition differ from the mythological narratives by involving a genealogical link between the characters engaged within the story and the current recipients. The oral genealogies – forming the backbone of oral tradition among Western Mongols and Kazakhs – play a significant role in passing down feelings of grievances and enmity, as well as memories of cooperation and alliances. |
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