| History of the Turkic peoplespre–14th century | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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TheYemek orKimek were aTurkic tribe[1] constituting theKimek-Kipchak confederation, whose other six constituent tribes, according toAbu Said Gardizi (d. 1061), were theImur (orImi),Tatars,Bayandur,Kipchaks,Lanikaz, andAjlad.[2]
Minorsky, citing Marquart, Barthold, Semenov and other sources, proposes that the nameKīmāk (pronouncedKimäk) is derived fromIki-Imäk, "the two Imäk", probably referring to the first two clans (Īmī andĪmāk) of the federation.[3]
On the other hand,Pritsak attempted to connect the Kimek with the Proto-MongolicKumo of theKumo Xi confederation (庫莫奚;Middle Chinese: kʰuoH-mɑk̚-ɦei; *qu(o)mâġ-ġay, from *quo "yellowish" plus denominal suffix *-mAk); Golden judges Pritsak's reconstruction "highly problematic", as Pritsak did not explain howQuomâġ might have producedKimek; still, Golden considers the connection with the Proto-Mongolic world seriously.[4]
Mahmud al-Kashgari does not mention any Kimek, butYamāk; Kashgari further remarked thatKara-Khanids like him considered Yemeks to be "a tribe of the Kipchaks", though contemporary Kipchaks considered themselves a different party.[5][6][7] The ethnonymYemäk might have been transcribed in the mid 7th century by Chinese authors as 鹽莫Yánmò <Middle Chinese *jiäm-mâk,[8] referring aTiele group who initially inhabited northwestern Mongolia before migrating to north ofAltay Mountains andIrtysh zone.[9][10][a]
Initially, Golden (1992:202, 227, 263) accepted the identification of Kimeks with Imeks/Yimeks/Yemeks, because the /k/ > ∅, resulting inKimek >İmek, was indeed attested in several Medieval Kipchak dialects; Golden also thought Yemeks unlikely to be 鹽莫 *jiäm-mâk >Yánmò in Chinese source.[13] However, Golden later changed his mind, reasoning that, as the Medieval Kipchak dialectal sound-change /k/ > ∅ had not yet happened in the mid-7th centuryOld Turkic, the identification of Yemeks with Kimeks is disputed. As a result, Golden (2002:660-665) later abandons the Kimeks > Yemeks identification and becomes more amenable to the identification of 鹽莫 Yánmò with Yemeks, by scholars such as Hambis,Zuev, and Kumekov, cited in Golden (1992:202).[14] According to Tishin (2018), Yemeks were simply the most important of the seven constituent tribes whose representatives met at theIrtysh valley, where the diverse Kimek tribal union emerged, as related byGardizi.[15]
In theWestern Turkic Khaganate twoChuy tribes, Chumukun and Chuban, occupied a privileged position of being voting members of the confederation's Onoq elite,[16] while theChuyue and Chumi tribes did not. A part of the Chuyue tribe intermixed with theGöktürks' remnants and formed a tribe calledShatuo, which lived in southernDzungaria, to the west ofLake Barkol.[17] The Shatuo separated from the Chuyue in the middle of the 7th century. (Another component of the Chuyue, the Chigil, were still listed in censuses taken in Tsarist Russia and the early decades of the Soviet Union.)
After the disintegration in 743 AD of the Western Turkic Kaganate, a part of the Chuy tribes remained in its successor, theUyghur Kaganate (740-840), and another part retained their independence.[18] During theUyghur period, the Chuy tribes consolidated into the nucleus of the tribes known asKimaks in the Arab and Persian sources.[19]Lev Gumilyov associated oneDuolu Chuy tribe,Chumukun 處木昆 (< *čomuqun "immersed in water, drowned")[20] with the Kimeks as both coincidentally occupied the same territory, i.e.Semirechye, and that Chumukun were known only to Chinese and Kimek only to Persians and Arabs.[21][22] The head of the Kimek confederation was titledShad Tutuq, "Prince Governor"[23] (tutuk being fromMiddle Chinesetuo-tuok 都督 "military governor");[24] as well asYinal Yabghu, according to Gardizi.[25] By the middle of the eighth century, the Kimeks occupied territory between theUral River andEmba River, and from theAral Sea andCaspian steppes, to the Zhetysu area.
After the 840 AD breakup of the Uyghur Khaganate, the Yemeks headed a new political tribal union, creating a new Kimek state.Abu Said Gardizi (d. 1061) wrote that the Kimak federation consisted of seven tribes: Yemeks (Ar.Yamāk <MTrk *Yemǟk or *(Y)imēk),Eymür,Tatars,Bayandur,Kipchak,Lanikaz andAjlad. Later, an expanded Kimek Kaganate partially controlled the territories of theOguz,Kangly, andBagjanak tribes, and in the west bordered theKhazar andBulgar territories. The Kimaks led a semi-settled life, as theHudūd mentioned a town named *Yimäkiya (>Yamakkiyya > ms.Namakiyya); while the Kipchaks, in some customs, resembled the contemporary Oghuzes, who were nomadic herders.[26][27]
In the beginning of the eleventh century the Kipchak Khanlyk moved west, occupying lands that had earlier belonged to the Oguz. After seizing the Oguz lands, the Kipchaks grew considerably stronger, and the Kimeks became dependents of the Kipchaks. The fall of the Kimek Kaganate in the middle of the 11th century was caused by the migration of Central Asian Mongolian-speaking nomads, displaced by the Mongolian-speakingKhitan state ofLiao, which formed in 916 AD in Northern China. The Khitan nomads occupied the Kimek and Kipchak lands west of the Irtysh. In the eleventh to twelfth centuries a Mongol-speakingNaiman tribe displaced the Kimeks and Kipchaks from the Mongolian Altai and Upper Irtysh as it moved west.
Between the ninth and thirteenth centuries Kimek tribes were nomadizing in the steppes of the modernAstrakhan Oblast of Russia. A portion of the Kimeks that left theOb-Irtysh interfluvial region joined the Kipchak confederation that survived until the Mongol invasion, and later united with theNogai confederation of the Kipchak descendants. The last organized tribes of the Nogai in Russian sources were dispersed with the Russian construction ofzaseka bulwarks in theDon and Volga regions in the 17th-18th centuries, which separated the cattle breeding populations from their summer pastures. Another part of the Nogai were deported from theBudjak steppes after Russian conquest of Western Ukraine and Moldova in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century.
According to C. E. Bosworth (2007)[28] and R. Turaeva (2015) the Kimek tribe wasTurkic.[29]
According to R. Preucel and S. Mrozowki (2010)[30] and S. Divitçioğlu (2010),[31] the Kimek tribe wasTungusic.
Josef Markwart proposed that Kimeks were TurkicizedTatars, who were related to thepara-Mongolic-speaking Tatabï, known to Chinese asKumo Xi.[32]
Sümer associates the Kimeks with the Chiks[33] (who were mentioned inTang Huiyao[34][35] andBilge Qaghaninscription[36]); however, Golden sees little evidence for this.[37]
According to Golden (1992), the Quns and Śari (whom Czeglédy (1949:47-48,50) identifies withYellow Uyghurs[38]) were possibly induced into the Kimek union or took over said union and absorbed the Kimek. As a result, the Kipchaks presumably replaced the Kimeks as the union's dominant group, while the Quns gained ascendancy over the westernmost tribes and becameQuman (though difficulties remain with the Qun-Cuman link and how Qun became Cuman, e.g.qun +man "the real Quns"? > *qumman >quman?). Kimeks were still represented amongst the Cuman–Kipchaks as Yimek ~ Yemek (Old East Slavic:Polovtsi Yemiakove).[39]
The majority of researchers (Bakikhanov, S.A. Tokarev, A.I. Tamay, S. Sh. Gadzhieva) derive the name "Kumyk" from aTurkic ethnonymKimak, or from another name forKipchaks —Cuman.[40]
A genetic study published inNature in May 2018 examined the remains of Kimek male buried inPavlodar Region, Kazakhstan ca. 1350 AD.[41][42] He was found to be carrying the paternal haplogroupR1b1b[43] and the maternalhaplogroup A.[44] It was noted that he was not found to have "elevatedEast Asian ancestry".[45]
Kimak - well-known Turkic tribe
