Archaeology, Ethnology & Anthropology of Eurasia 46 (3) 2018   DOI: 10.17746/1563-0110.2018.46.3.107-113

Annotation:  The Discovery of a Bifacial Industry in Vietnam Technological Development of the Neolithic Pottery at Göytepe (West Azerbaijan) Reconstruction of Extreme Paleoclimatic Events in Northwestern Siberia Using Ancient Wood from Fort On the Construction Features of Wheeled Vehicles in Iran and Mesopotamia (Third to First Millennia B The Adaptation of the Seima-Turbino Tradition to the Bronze Age Cultures in the South of the West Si A Half of a Metal Bipartite Mold of the Seima-Turbino Period from the Upper Irtysh Region Zotino III: An Early Iron Age Metallurgical Center in the Trans-Urals Middle and Late Bronze Age House-Building in the Steppe and Forest-Steppe Altai Artistic Metalwork Found Near the Tomskaya Pisanitsa Cultural Ties Across Taiga and Steppe: Material Culture from the Medieval Lower Angara River and Pro Bronze Plaques from Northern Kyrgyzstan with Representations of Horsemen Kimak and Chu-mu-kun 處木昆: Notes on an Identification Traditional Buryat Burials: Changes and Stereotypes Substitute Offering: An Ob Ugrian Ritual Tradition Surviving in the 20th and Early 21st Century Seventeenth Century Siberia as a Land of Opportunity: Social Mobility Among the Russian Pioneers Deciduous Human Teeth from the Upper Paleolithic Site of Yudinovo, Western Russia Realism of Face Depiction in Portraiture   

Kimak and Chu-mu-kun 處木昆: Notes on an Identification

V.V. Tishin

Institute of Mongolian, Buddhist and Tibetan Studies, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Sakhyanovoy 6, Ulan-Ude, 670047, Russia

This study addresses the origin of the Turkic tribe Kimak, known from Muslim sources. In 800–1100 AD, the Kimak lived in Semirechye. In the article, they are associated with the Chu-mu-kun 處木昆 tribe, which resided in the same area in 600–800 AD and was described by Chinese sources. The Kimak genealogical legend related by the 11th century Persian author Gardizi includes the story of the founder of the Kimak tribe’s being immersed in water (the alleged reason why the Kimak worshipped water). This story suggests that the reconstructed Chinese variant of the tribal name Chumukun 處木昆 meant *cumuqun ~ *comuqun *‘immersed in water’, *‘drowned (?)’. On the basis of toponymy in the Chinese sources and of the Old Turkic personal names relating to Altai and Semirechye, it is concluded that the words Chu-mu-kun 處木昆 and Yemak (Yan-mo 鹽莫) were used as early as the mid-7th century, but were parts of personal names, unrelated to the Irtysh valley, where, according to Gardizi, the Kimak tribal union originated. These facts not only document the ethnic diversity of the Kimak tribal union, but suggest that the name, at least, of the dominant tribe derived from a personal name. Like Y.A. Zuev, I am skeptical of the identification of the names of Kimak and Yemak.

Keywords: Ethnic history, Turks, nomads, tribes, ethnonymy, onomastics.