Former Turco-Mongol tribal confederation in Mongolia
The
Keraites
(also
Kerait, Kereit, Khereid
;
Mongolian
:
Хэрэйд
;
Chinese
:
克烈
) were one of the five dominant
Mongol
or
Turkic
tribal confederations (
khanates
) in the
Altai-Sayan region
during the 12th century. They had converted to the
Church of the East
(
Nestorianism
) in the early 11th century and are one of the possible sources of the European
Prester John
legend.
Their original territory was expansive, corresponding to much of what is now
Mongolia
.
Vasily Bartold
(1913) located them along the upper
Onon
and
Kherlen
rivers and along the
Tuul river
.
[6]
They were defeated by
Genghis Khan
in 1203 and became influential in the rise of the
Mongol Empire
, and were gradually absorbed into the succeeding Turco-Mongol khanates during the 13th century.
Name
In modern
Mongolian
, the confederation is spelled
Хэрэйд
, (
Khereid
). In English, the name is primarily adopted as
Keraites
, alternatively
Kerait
, or
Kereyit
, in some earlier texts also as Karait or Karaites.
[7]
[8]
One common theory sees the name as a cognate with the Mongolian
хар/khar
and Turkic
qar?
for "black, swarthy". There have been various other Mongol and Turkic tribes with names involving the term, which are often conflated.
[9]
According to the early 14th-century work
Jami' al-tawarikh
by
Rashid-al-Din Hamadani
, Mongol legend traced the clan back to eight brothers with unusually dark faces and the confederation they founded.
Kerait
was the name of the leading brother's clan, while the clans of his brothers are recorded as
Jirkin, Konkant, Sakait, Tumaut, Albat
.
[10]
Other researchers also suggested that the Mongolian name
Khereid
may be an ancient
totem
name derived from the root Kheree (
хэрээ
) for "
raven
".
[11]
History
Origins
The Keraites first entered history as the ruling faction of the
Zubu
, a large confederacy of tribes that dominated
Mongolia
during the 11th and 12th centuries and often fought with the
Liao dynasty
of
north China
, which controlled much of Mongolia at the time.
It is unclear whether the Keraites should be classified as
Turkic
or
Mongol
in origin. The names and titles of early Keraite leaders suggest that they were speakers of
Turkic languages
, but coalitions and incorporation of sub-clans may have led to
Turco-Mongol
amalgamation from an early time.
[12]
[13]
All Khereid tribal names have meanings in the
Mongolian language
and end with either the
Mongolic
plural suffix "d" (t; ud, uud, ud, uud) and singular suffix "n" common among
medieval
and
modern clans
.
[14]
The Keraites consisted of eight Mongolic tribes, including the Khereid, Jirkhin, Khonkhoid, Sukhait, Albat, Tumaut, Dunghaid, and the Khirkh.
Rashid al-Din Hamadani
(1247?1318) says in the
Jami' al-tawarikh
(Section Three, Khereid Tribe):
At that time they had more power and strength than other tribes. The call of Jesus - peace be upon him - reached them and they entered his faith. They belong to the Mongol ethnicity. They reside along the
Onon
and
Kerulen
rivers, the land of the Mongols. That land is close to the country of the
Khitai
.
[15]
They are first noted in Syriac Church records which mention them being absorbed into the
Church of the East
around 1000 by Metropolitan Abdisho of the
Merv ecclesiastical province
.
Khanate
After the Zubu broke up, the Keraites retained their dominance on the steppe until they were absorbed into the
Mongol Empire
. At the height of its power, the Keraite Khanate was organized along the same lines as the Naimans and other powerful steppe tribes of the day. A section is dedicated to the Keraites by Rashid al-Din Hamadani (1247?1318), the official historian of the
Ilkhanate
, in his
Jami' al-tawarikh
.
The people were divided into a "central" faction and an "outer" faction. The central faction served as the khan's army and was composed of warriors from many different tribes with no loyalties to anyone but the Khan. This made the central faction more of a quasi-feudal state than a genuine tribe. The "outer" faction was composed of tribes that pledged obedience to the khan, but lived on their own tribal pastures and functioned semi-autonomously. The "capital" of the Keraite khanate was a place called Orta Balagasun, which was probably located in an old
Uyghur
or
Khitan
fortress.
[
citation needed
]
Markus Buyruk Khan was a Keraite leader who also led the Zubu confederacy. In 1100, he was killed by the Liao. Kurchakus Buyruk Khan was a son and successor of Bayruk Markus, among whose wives was Toreqaimish Khatun, daughter of Korchi Buiruk Khan of the
Naimans
. Kurchakus' younger brother was Gur Khan. Kurchakus Buyruk Khan had many sons. Notable sons included
Toghrul
, Yula-Mangus, Tai-Timur, Bukha-Timur.
[
citation needed
]
In union with the
Khitan
, they became vassals of the
Kara-Khitai
state.
[
citation needed
]
After Kurchakus Buyruk Khan died, Ilma's Tatar servant Eljidai became the de facto regent. This upset
Toghrul
who had his younger brothers killed and then claimed the throne as Toghrul khan (
Mongolian
:Тоорил хан/Tooril khan) who was the son of Kurchakus by Ilma Khatun, reigned from the 1160s to 1203.
[
citation needed
]
His palace was located at present-day Ulan Bator and he became
blood-brother
(
anda
) to Yesugei. Genghis Khan called him
khan etseg
('khan father'). Yesugei, having disposed of all Tughrul's sons, was now the only one in line to inherit the title khan.
The Tatars rebelled against the
Jin dynasty
in 1195. The Jin commander sent an emissary to Timujin. A fight with the Tatars broke out and the Mongol alliance defeated them. In 1196, the Jin Dynasty awarded Toghrul the title of "Wang" (king). After this, Toghrul was recorded under the title "Wang Khan" (
Chinese
:
王汗
;
pinyin
:
Wang Han
). When Temujin, later
Genghis Khan
, attacked
Jamukha
for the title of
Khan
, Toghrul, fearing Temujin's growing power, plotted with Jamukha to have him assassinated.
In 1203, Temujin defeated the Keraites, who were distracted by the collapse of their coalition.
Toghrul was killed by Naiman soldiers who failed to recognize him.
Mongol Empire and dispersal
Genghis Khan married the oldest niece of Toghrul,
Ibaqa
, and then two years later divorced her and had her remarried to the general Jurchedei. Genghis Khan' son
Tolui
married another niece,
Sorghaghtani Bekhi
, and his son
Jochi
married a third niece,
Begtutmish
. Tolui and Sorghaghtani Bekhi became the parents of
Mongke Khan
and
Kublai Khan
.
[16]
The remaining Keraites submitted to Timujin's rule, but out of distrust, Timujin dispersed them among the other Mongol tribes.
[
citation needed
]
Rinchin protected Christians when
Ghazan
began to persecute them but he was executed by
Abu Sa'id Bahadur Khan
when fighting against his custodian,
Chupan
of the
Taichiud
in 1319.
Keraites arrived in Europe with the
Mongol invasion
led by
Batu Khan
and
Mongke Khan
.
Kaidu
's troops in the 1270s were likely mostly composed of Keraites and Naimans.
[17]
From the 1380s onward, Nestorian Christianity in Mongolia declined and vanished, on the one hand due to the
Islamization
under
Timur
and on the other due to the
Ming
conquest of Karakorum.
The remnants of the Keraits by late 14th century lived along the
Kara Irtysh
.
[18]
These remnants were finally dispersed in the 1420s in the Mongol-Oirat wars fought by
Uwais Khan
.
[19]
Nestorian Christianity
The Keraites were converted to the
Church of the East
, a sect of
Christianity
, early in the 11th century.
[16]
[20]
[21]
Other tribes evangelized entirely or to a great extent during the 10th and 11th centuries were the
Naiman
and the
Ongud
.
Hamadani stated that the Keraites were Christians.
William of Rubruck
, who encountered many Nestorians during his stay at
Mongke Khan
's court and at
Karakorum
in 1254?1255, notes that Nestorianism in Mongolia was tainted by
shamanism
and
Manicheism
and very confused in terms of liturgy, not following the usual norms of Christian churches elsewhere in the world. He attributes this to the lack of teachers of the faith, power struggles among the clergy and a willingness to make doctrinal concessions to win the favour of the Khans. Contact with the
Catholic Church
was lost after the
Islamization
under
Timur
(reigned 1370?1405), who effectively destroyed the Church of the East. The Church in
Karakorum
was destroyed by the invading Ming dynasty army in 1380.
The legend of
Prester John
, otherwise set in India or Ethiopia, was also brought in connection with the Eastern Christian rulers of the Keraites. In some versions of the legend, Prester John was explicitly identified with Toghril,
[16]
but Mongolian sources say nothing about his religion.
[22]
Conversion account
An account of the conversion of this people is given in the 12th-century
Book of the Tower
(
Kitab al-Majdal
) by
Mari ibn Suleiman
, and also by 13th-century
Syriac Orthodox
historian
Bar Hebraeus
where he names them with the Syriac word
??????
"Keraith").
[23]
[24]
According to these accounts, shortly before 1007, the Keraite Khan lost his way during a snowstorm while hunting in the high mountains of his land. When he had abandoned all hope, a saint,
Sergius of Samarkand
, appeared in a vision and said, "If you will believe in Christ, I will lead you lest you perish." The king promised to become Christian, and the saint told him to close his eyes and he found himself back home (Bar Hebraeus' version says the saint led him to the open valley where his home was). When he met Christian merchants, he remembered the vision and asked them about the Christian religion, prayer and the book of canon laws. They taught him the
Lord's Prayer
,
Te Deum
, and the
Trisagion
in Syriac. At their suggestion, he sent a message to Abdisho, the Metropolitan of
Merv
, for priests and deacons to baptize him and his tribe. Abdisho sent a letter to
Yohannan V
,
Patriarch of the Church of the East
in Baghdad. Abdisho informed Yohannan V that the Khan asked him about fasting and whether they could be exempted from the usual Christian way of fasting since their diet was mainly meat and milk.
Abdisho also related that the Khan had already "set up a pavilion to take the place of an altar, in which was a cross and a Gospel, and named it after Mar Sergius, and he tethered a mare there and he takes her milk and lays it on the Gospel and the cross, and recites over it the prayers which he has learned, and makes the sign of the cross over it, and he and his people after him take a draft from it." Yohannan replied to Abdisho telling him one priest and one deacon was to be sent with altar paraments to baptize the king and his people. Yohannan also approved the exemption of the Keraites from strict church law, stating that while they had to abstain from meat during the annual
Lenten fast
like other Christians, they could still drink milk during that period, although they should switch from "sour milk" (
fermented mare's milk
) to "sweet milk" (normal milk) to remember the suffering of Christ during the Lenten fast. Yohannan also told Abdisho to endeavor to find wheat and wine for them, so they can celebrate the
Paschal Eucharist
. As a result of the mission that followed, the king and 200,000 of his people were baptized (both Bar Hebraeus and Mari ibn Suleiman give the same number).
[12]
[25]
Legacy
After the final dispersal of the remaining Keraites settling along the
Irtysh River
by the
Oirats
in the early 15th century, they disappear as an identifiable group. There are various hypotheses as to which groups may partially have been derived from them during the 16th or 17th century.
According to Tynyshbaev (1925), their further fate was closely linked to that of the
Argyn
.
[26]
The name of the
Qarai Turks
may be derived from the Keraites, but it may also be connected to the names of various other Central Asian groups involving
qara
"black".
[27]
Kipchak
groups such as the
Argyn
Kazakhs
and the
Kyrgyz
Kireis
have been proposed as possibly in part derived from the remnants of the Keraites who sought refuge in Eastern Europe in the early 15th century.
[28]
See also
References
Citations
- ^
?ндэсний Статистикийн Хороо. Хэрээд.
- ^
?ндэсний Статистикийн Хороо. Хэрэйд.
- ^
Нанзатов Б. З. Кударинские буряты в XIX веке: этнический состав и расселение // Вестник БНЦ СО РАН. ? 2016. ? № 4 (24). ? С. 126?134.
- ^
Нанзатов Б. З., Содномпилова М. М. Селенгинские буряты в XIX в.: этнический состав и расселение (юго-западный ареал) // Вестник БНЦ СО РАН. ? 2019. ? № 1 (33). ? С. 126?134.
- ^
Бембеев В. Ойраты. Ойрат-калмыки. Калмыки: история, культура, расселение, общественный строй до образования Калмыцкого ханства в Поволжье и Предкавказье. ? Джангар, 2004. ? С. 87. ? 495 с.
- ^
V.V. Bartold in the article on Genghis Khan in the 1st edition of the
Encyclopedia of Islam
(1913); see Dunlop (1944:277)
- ^
"History of the voyages and discoveries made in the north translated from the German of
Johann Reinhold Forster
and elucidated by several new and original maps" p.141-142
- ^
"A General History And Collection of Voyages And Travels, Arranged In Systematic Order: Forming A Complete History of The Origin And Progress of Navigation, Discovery, And Commerce By Sea And Land, From The Earliest ages to the present time."
Robert Kerr (writer)
, section VIII.2.
- ^
"EAS 107, Владимирцов 324, ОСНЯ 1, 338, АПиПЯЯ 54-55, 73, 103-104, 274. Despite TMN 3, 427, Щербак 1997, 134."
Tower of Babel Mongolian etymology database
.
- ^
Rashid-al-Din Hamadani
,
Jami' al-tawarikh
cited after
(in Russian)
translation
by L.A. Khetagurov (1952)
[
clarification needed
]
"It is said that in ancient times was the king; He had seven [eight] sons, all of them [were] swarthy. For this reason they were called Kerait. After a time, each of the branches, and the progeny of those sons got a special name and nickname. Until very recently, in Kerait was the name of one [tribal] branch, [i.e.] the sovereign one; the other sons became the servants of his brother, who was their sovereign, while they did not have sovereignty."
- ^
Хойт С.К. Кереиты в этногенезе народов Евразии: историография проблемы. Элиста, 2008. 82 с.
- ^
a
b
R. Grousset,
The Empire of the Steppes
, New Brunswick, New Jersey, Rutgers University Press, 1970, p191.
- ^
Unesco (1992).
History of Civilizations of Central Asia, Volym 4
. UNESCO. p. 74.
ISBN
9789231036545
.
- ^
History of Mongolia (2003) Volume II
- ^
Compendium
, Paris, 1866, p.362
- ^
a
b
c
Li, Tang (2006). "Sorkaktani Beki: A prominent Nestorian woman at the Mongol Court". In Malek, Roman; Hofrichter, Peter (eds.).
Jingjiao: the Church of the East in China and Central Asia
. Steyler Verlagsbuchhandlung GmbH.
ISBN
978-3-8050-0534-0
.
- ^
Tynyshbaev (1925)
- ^
Tynyshbaev (1925)
- ^
Tynyshbaev (1925)
- ^
Hunter (1991).
[
page needed
]
Silverberg, Robert
(1972).
The Realm of Prester John
. Doubleday. p.
12
.
- ^
Kingsley Bolton; Christopher Hutton (2000).
Triad Societies: Western Accounts of the History, Sociology and Linguistics of Chinese Secret Societies
. Taylor & Francis. pp. xlix?.
ISBN
978-0-415-24397-1
.
- ^
Atwood, Christopher P. (2004).
Encyclopedia of Mongolia and the Mongol Empire
. Facts On File.
ISBN
0816046719
.
- ^
Bar Hebraeus, Chronicon ecclesiasticum (ed. and tr. J.B. Abbeloos and T.J. Lamy, vol. 3, coll. 279-81)
.
See Hunter (1991).
[
page needed
]
- ^
Bar Hebraeus Chron. Syr. (1286) 204/184
- ^
Moffett,
A History of Christianity in Asia
pp. 400-401.
- ^
"The further fate of our Kerei is closely linked with the fate of Argyn, although they did not play such a large role as the Argyn. The Kerei [or at least the Achamail subgroup] participated in the campaign of Barak (1420) in Tashkent and Khujand.
In 1723
the Kerei (as well as the Argyns) suffered relatively less than other peoples. In the wars of
Muhammad Shaybani
, there is mention of a tribe called
Sakhiot
, obviously the Kerei who had remained among the Uzbeks of Ferghana, Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva." Tynyshbaev (1925)
- ^
G. Nemeth, A Hongfoglalo Magyarsag Kialakulasa, Budapest, 1930, 264-68, cited after P. Oberling,
"Kar??i"
,
Encyclopedia Iranica
, vol. XV, Fasc. 5 (2002), pp. 536?537.
- ^
Dunlop (1944:289), following Howorth,
Unknown Mongolia
(1913).
Sources
- Boyle, John Andrew, "The Summer and Winter Camping Grounds of the Kereit,"
Central Asiatic Journal
17 (1973), 108?110.
- Douglas Morton Dunlop
,
The Karaits of East Asia"
,
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies
, University of London, 1944, 276–289.
- Hunter, Erica C. D. (1989). "The Conversion of the Kerait to Christianity in A.D. 1009".
Zentralasiatische Studien
.
22
: 142?163.
- (in Russian)
Khoyt, S.K.,
Кереиты в этногенезе народов Евразии: историография проблемы
("Keraites in the ethnogenesis of the peoples of Eurasia: historiography of the problem"), Elista: Kalmyk State University Press (2008).
- (in Russian)
Kudaiberdy-Uly, Sh. (Кудайберды-Улы, Шакарим),
КЕРЕИ
"Родословная тюрков, киргизов, казахов и ханских династий" (trans. Бахыт Каирбеков), Alma-Ata, 1990.
- Nemeth, Julius, "Kereit, Kerey, Giray"
Ural-Altaische Jahrbucher
36 (1965), 360–365.
- Togan, ?senbike, "Flexibility and Limitation in Steppe Formations: the Kerait Khanate and Chinggis Khan" in:
The Ottoman Empire and its Heritage
, Vol. 15, Leiden: Brill (1998).
- (in Russian)
Tynyshbaev, M. (Тынышбаев, Мухамеджан),
КЕРЕИ
"Материалы по истории казахского народа", Tashkent, 1925.
- Borbone, Pier Giorgio.
"Some Aspects of Turco-Mongol Christianity in the Light of Literary and Epigraphic Syriac Sources (Pier Giorgio Borbone) - Academia.edu"
. Pisa.academia.edu
. Retrieved
2012-09-20
.