Ethnocultural analogies in the traditional culture of the Kyrgyz and South Altai people: retrospective analysis of the materials of the russian-kyrgyz ethnological expedition 2022

Abstract

The article opens a section devoted to the problem of ethnocultural ties of the Turkic peoples. Its author describes four phenomena of the traditional culture of the southern Altai people, which were discovered during an ethnological expedition to the Altai Republic. All of them in one form or another are characteristic of the traditional culture of the Kyrgyz. The paper discusses the game chatyrash, which was revived by the Altaians, lost by the Kyrgyz, but it was mentioned in the Kyrgyz epic “Manas”. The second evidence is the ritual of serving ucha – rump, which is the culmination of serving a meal among the Altai peoples and the Kyrgyz, the most honourable dish. However, Kyrgyz people serve it to a wider circle of relatives. The third one is similar traditional methods of butchering a sheep carcass, names of its bones, the order of serving parts of the animal during a meal, and preference of horsemeat. Finally, the Altai word tagyl, recorded during the expedition, allowed the author to put forward a hypothesis about its similarity with the Kyrgyz San-Tash as a phenomena associated with stones. The author comes to the conclusion about the close ethnogenetic and ethnocultural connection between the southern Altaians and the Kyrgyz, which emerged in the Middle Ages.

Keywords

• semi-nomadic cattle breeding
• vertical nomadism
• ethnocultural ties
• primitive hoe farming