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CHINGHIZ KHAN AND HIS ANCESTORS.
OCTOBER, 1882.]
Tang dynasty the Chinese virtually ceased to have intercourse with the country west of Mongolia, and we do not again meet with notices of the Kirghiz until the Mongol historians speak of them. In the Yuan-shi we are told the Ki-li-gi-si lived along the Yenissei." In a Chinese geographical work of the Yuan period laid under contribution by De Guignes and others' we are told that the country of the Ki-li-gi-si was originally peopled by 40 men of the race of the Usu," who married 40 Chinese wives. It was 10,000 li from the Mongol capital Ta-tu. Some tribes of the Naimans had lived there. Their country was 1400 li in length and 700 in breadth. Through its midst ran the river Kian," which flowed towards the N.W. Southwest was the river O-pu, i.e. the Obi, and northeast another river named Yü-siu, (i. e. the Iyus which joins the Chulym and then falls into the Obi). The Chinese Geography wrongly makes the Yüsiu join the Kian. The language of the Kirghiz was the same as that of the Uighurs; their customs differed from those of the neighbouring peoples. In some manuscript notes of Gaubil's quoted by Quatrèmere we are told that the Kie-kia-zi lived to north and north-west of the great sandy desert towards lake Baikal and on the bank of the Yenissei, the Selinga, the Obi, and the Irtish; that their king was styled Kohan, and that they used alphabetic characters like those of the Hoei-hu" and a cycle of 12 years, each one named after an animal." These facts are confirmed by Visdelou and De Guignes from Chinese sources and also by Mirkhavend, who tells us when the Kuri and Kirghiz merchants went to Khubilai's court with presents the vizier named Senkah who was a Uighur acted as interpreter.
In the notice of the journey of Ch'ang Te to visit Khulagu Khân in 1259, a narrative known as the Si-shi-ki, we have this sentence: "It is reported that the Ke-li-ki-sze instead of horses use dogs" (for drawing sledges)." Turning to the great Persian historian Rashidu'd-din we read that the country of the Kirghiz and that of
23 Palladius, note 498 to the Yuan-ch'ao-pi-shi, 23 Kirghiz is made a son of Oghuz Khan by the Muhammadans.
2 i. e. the Yenissei.
25 De Guignes, tome II, p. lx; Klaproth, Asia Polyglotta, p. 233.
20 i. e. the Uighurs.
27 Quatrèmere, op. cit. p. 412, note, Id., p. 413,
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the Kemkemchiut were adjoining but distinct. Kemkemchiut was the name of a considerable river. The country to which it gave its name was bounded on one side by Mongolistan, on another by the river Selenga, on the banks of which dwelt the Taijiut, on another side it bordered on the great river Angara, where ended the bounds of Abir u Sibir, and lastly, it touched the mountains where the Naimans dwelt. The land of Kemkemchiut contained a great number of towns and nomade tribes. All the kings of the country, whatever their name, bore the title of Inal.80 The river Kemkemchiut of this notice is no doubt the Kham-kan-ho of Visdelou's notice as stated by Quatrèmere, the tributary of the Yenissei called the Kemchik, which is called Khem in D'Anville's map, and Ulu Kem, i. e. the Great Kem, in Pallas's map. A place at the outfall of the Kemchik into the Yenissei is still called Kem-kem-chek Bom, Bom merely meaning the cliff of a high mountain overhanging a river. In another of his works Klaproth says the pillars marking the frontier between the Russian and Manchn empires were placed at the place called Kem Kemchik Bom. When the Russians first conquered Siberia, the Kirghiz were still living on the Upper Yenissei, the Iyus and the Abakan. In the year 1606 they acknowledged the Russian supremacy in conjunction with the Barabinski, and were at this time divided in allegiance between the Russians and the Kalmuks. Pressed by their neighbours they moved hence, and eventually, at the beginning of the 18th century, had altogether left Siberia. They are now found in the mountains of Chinese Turkestan and about lake Issikul, etc. and wander from the neighbourhood of Kashgar to the Upper Irtish, being among the most unsophisticated of the Turkish races. Traces of their occupancy are still found in their old country, thus a lake Kirgis is found south of the Altai and further away, a river which the Manchus call Chalikissabira. To return to
29 Bretschneider, Notices of Med. Travellers, p. 74. 20 Quatrèmere's Rashidu'd-din, p. 411 note; Erdmann, Temudschin, etc., p. 246; D'Ohsson, vol. I, p. 103 note. 31 Klaproth, Asia Polyglotta, pp. 231 and 232.
32 Memoires relatifs a l'Asiie, tome I, p. 21; D'Ohsson, vol. I, p. 104 note.
33 Quatrèmere, op. cit., p. 413, note; Erdmann, Temudechin, note 9.
