Kayı (tribe)

Origin

In his history work Shajara-i Tarākima, the Khan of Khiva and historian, Abu al-Ghazi Bahadur, mentions Kayı among the 24 ancient Turkmen (Oghuz Turkic) tribes, direct descendants of Oghuz Khagan. Oghuz Khagan is a semi-legendary figure thought to be the ancient progenitor of Oghuz Turks. Kayı translates as "strong". In his extensive history work “Jami' al-tawarikh” (Collection of Chronicles), the statesman and historian of the Ilkhanate Rashid-al-Din Hamadani also says that the Kayı tribe comes from the oldest of Oghuz Khan's 24 grandchildren who were the patriarchs of the ancient Oghuz tribes, and the name Kayı means "powerful".

Soviet Sinologist and Turkologist Yury Zuev based on the analysis of tribal names and tamgas from Tang Huiyao, identifies a number of ancient Central Asian Turkic tribes as Oghuz-Turkmen tribes, one of them is the Kay tribe, whom the Chinese knew as Xí 奚 (

Even so, Köprülü rejects scholarly attempts to link the formerly Mongolic Qay/Xi to the Oghuz Turkic tribe Qayı(ğ); he points out that Kashgari's Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk distinguished the Qay tribe from the Qayığ branch/sub-tribe of the Oghuz-Turkmen tribe.

History

According to Ottoman tradition, Osman I, the founder of the Ottoman Empire, was a descendant of the Kayı. This claim has, however, been called into serious question by many modern historians. The only evidence for the Ottomans' Kayı descent came from genealogies written during the fifteenth century, several centuries after the life of Osman. More significantly, the earliest genealogies written by the Ottomans did not include any reference to Kayı descent, indicating that it may have been fabricated at a later date.

The famous Oghuz folk narrator, soothsayer and bard Dede Korkut was a Kayı. In the 10th century, the Central Asian Oghuz Yabgu State was headed by supreme leaders (or Yabghu) who belonged to the Kayı tribe.

According to Soviet archaeologist and ethnographer Sergey Tolstov, part of the Kayi tribe moved in the Middle Ages from Central Asia to modern day Ukraine, they are known in the Rus' chronicles as kovuy and kaepichi as one of the tribes that formed the Turkic tribal confederation called the Black Klobuks, who were allies of the Rurikids of the Rus' Khaganate; Golden however considers the Kaepichi to be descendants of the para-Mongolic Qay instead.

Legacy of the Kayı tribe

Soviet and Russian linguist and Turkologist A. V. Superanskaya associates the Kayı tribe with the origin of the name of the city of Kyiv; however, Canadian Ukrainian linguist Jaroslav Rudnyckyj connects the name Kyiv to the Proto-Slavic root *kyjь, which should be interpreted as meaning 'stick, pole' as in its modern Ukrainian equivalent Кий; therefore, the toponym should in that case be interpreted as 'palisaded settlement'.

In Anatolia, twenty seven villages bear the name of Kayı.

In Turkmenistan, the Kayı tribe is one of the main divisions of the Gökleň Turkmens living in the Balkan velayat and consists of the following clans: adnakel, ak kel, alatelpek, bagly, barak, burkaz, ganjyk, gapan, garabalkan, garawul, garagol, garagul, garadaşly, garakel, garga, garyşmaz and others. The Kayı are also a subtribe of the Bayat Turkmens of the Lebap velayat.

Inspirations

The name and logo of the İyi Party (İyi means Good in Turkish) of Meral Akşener is inspired by the seal of the Kayı tribe.

Notes

References

Sources

• Kafesoğlu, İbrahim. Türk Milli Kültürü. Türk Kültürünü Araştırma Enstitüsü, 1977. page 134
• Gmyrya, L. 1995. "Hun country at the Caspian Gate: Caspian Dagestan during the epoch of the Great Movement of Peoples". Makhachkala: Dagestan Publishing

References

1. Atanyýazov, Soltansha. (1988). "Словарь туркменских этнонимов".
2. Махмуд ал-Кашгари (Mahmud al-Kashgari). (1939). "Диван лугат ат-турк (Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk)". АН СССР (USSR Academy of Sciences).
3. ''[[Карпов, Георгий Иванович. Г.И.Карпов]].'' Племенной и родовой состав туркмен. (G.I.Karpov. Turkmen tribal and clan composition) — [[Ашхабад. Полторацк (Асхабад)]]: Наркомвмутдел Туркменск. С. С. респ., 1925
4. Ю.Зуев (Yu.Zuyev). (1960). "Тамги лошадей из вассальных княжеств (Horse Tamgas from Vassal Principalities)". Издательство Академии Наук Казахской ССР (Academny of Science of the Kazakh SSR).
5. Golden, Peter B. (2006). "Cumanica V: The Basmils and Qipčaqs" in ''Archivum Eurasiae Medii Aevi'' 15: notes 24–25. p. 17 of 13-42
6. Golden, P.B. (2003) "Cumanica II: The Olberli (Olperli): The Fortunes and Misfortunes of an Inner Asian Nomadic Clan" in ''Nomads and their neighbours in the Russian Steppe'' note. 49 p. 17 of 5-29
7. Köprülü, Mehmet Fuad (2006) Early Mystic in Turkish literature translated by Leiser and Dankoff. 146-147
8. Maħmūd al-Kašğari. "Dīwān Luğāt al-Turk". (1982) Edited & translated by [[Robert Dankoff]] in collaboration with James Kelly. In Sources of Oriental Languages and Literature. Part I. p. 82-84, 101-102; Part II. p. 230
9. "Some Ottoman genealogies claim, perhaps fancifully, descent from Kayı.", Carter Vaughn Findley, ''The Turks in World History'', pp. 50, 2005, Oxford University Press; Shaw, Stanford Jay. ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=UVmsI0P9RDUC&dq=ottomans+kayi+tribe&pg=PA306 History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey]''. [[Cambridge University Press]], 1976, p. 306
10. "Ottoman Empire". Britannica Online Encyclopedia.
11. Atalay, Besim (2006). Divanü Lügati't - Türk. Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Basımevi. {{ISBN. 975-16-0405-2, Cilt I, sayfa 55.
12. Golden, Peter B. (1992). An Introduction to the History of the Turkic People. Otto Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden. p. 358, 359
13. Kafadar, Cemal. (1995). "Between Two Worlds: The Construction of the Ottoman State".
14. Lowry, Heath. (2003). "The Nature of the Early Ottoman State". SUNY Press.
15. Lindner, Rudi Paul. (1983). "Nomads and Ottomans in Medieval Anatolia". Indiana University Press.
16. "АБУ-Л-ГАЗИ->РОДОСЛОВНАЯ ТУРКМЕН->ЧАСТЬ 1".
17. Росляков (Roslyakov), А. (A.). (1956). "Краткий очерк истории Туркменистана (до присоединения к России)". Turkmegosizdat.
18. [[David Nicolle]], Angus McBride. (2001). "Armies of Medieval Russia". Osprey Publishing.
19. Толстов (Tolstov), Сергей (Sergey). (1947). "Города Гузов (историко-этнографические этюды)". Soviet Ethnography Journal.
20. Golden, Peter B. (1990). "The peoples of the south Russian steppes". In Sinor, Denis (ed.). The Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia. Cambridge University Press. p. 279 of pp. 256–284. quote: "Similarly, the Qāy, or elements of them arrived in the Pontic steppes where the Rus' chronicles attested to their present as Kaepichi, i.e. 'sons of the Qay,' a [[Old East Slavic. russified]] of a tribal or clan name *Qay-oba."
21. Golden, Peter B. (2006). "Cumanica V: The Basmils and Qipchaqs" in ''Archivum Eurasiae Medii Aevi'' p. 16-17. quote: " The Qay (the Tatabı of the Türk inscriptions) are noted as ''Xi'' (奚 Late [[Middle Chinese]] ''xɦjiaj'' = Ġay/Qay), in Chinese sources, part of the larger Kumoxi grouping stemming from the ''[[Xianbei]]'' (*Särbi?), a grouping of people that is generally considered to be of 'Proto-Mongolic' or more probably Mongolic and/or 'Para-Mongolic' ethno-linguistic affiliations."
22. A.V.Superanskaya. What is your name?//Nauka i Zhizn magazine. - Moscow, 1993, issue No 4, p.116: “''There are many folk legends that the beginning of a nation was laid by two (or several) brothers ... Apparently, something similar lies behind the legend of Kiy, Schek, Horev and Lybed. The tribal name Kyy (Kiy) belonged to the ancient Turkic peoples. It is still present in the names of tribal structures of modern Turkic peoples.”''
23. Rudnyc'kyj, Jaroslav Bohdan (1962–1982). An etymological dictionary of the Ukrainian language. 2., rev. ed. Winnipeg: Ukrainian free acad. of sciences, pp. 660–663.
24. Еремеев (Yeremeyev), Дмитрий (Dmitriy). (1971). "Этногенез турок (Ethnogenesis of the Turks)".
25. Atanyýazov, Soltansha. (1988). "Словарь туркменских этнонимов".
26. "The bow and two arrows".