24. The Kazakh Zhuzes: the origin, territory, tribal structure.

With growing strength came growing numbers. Nogai, Uzbek and Mongol (Altai) tribes in need of pasture came to join the Janibek-Kirai federation. As this tribes gained pastureland, their livestock holdings increased, requiring additional pasturage. This, coupled with the constant need to shift pasturelands that the free grazing of animals demands, led the Kazakh continually acquire new territory, so that by the last quarter of the seventeenth century they controlled most of present-day Kazakhstan. As the allied tribes became more numerous and their holdings increased, problems of social organization and tribal unity were compounded. Apparently in the first half of the sixteenth century, following the death of Qasim Khan and the consequent breakup of his holdings, the Kazakh formed their distinctive three hordes, reintroducing a sense of organization and order.

The nature and composition of the hordes is not completely clear for historians, but the most authoritative of them place the foemation of the Great (Ulu Zhuz), Middle (Orta Zhuz) and Small (Kichi Zhuz) Hordes in the middle of the sixteenth century, during the rule of Haq Nazar (1538-1580).

Each horde was ruled in roughly the same manner. A khan was elected at meeting of sultans, biis (lesser nobles) and clan or family elders, who met annually to affirm the khan leadership, to advise him and to receive his instructions. At this annual meetings the year’s migration was planned and each clan and aul was allocated winter pastureland. The power of the khan was vested in the person, not the office, the power, a particular khan enjoyed was a reflection of his perceived particular fitness to rule. Periods of Kazakh unity, such as the reign of Qasim Khan, Haq Nazar Khan and Khan Tauke, occurred because the khans of the other hordes recognized the military superiority of these individuals and were willing to defer to their authority. After the death of Haq Nazar and Tauke the three hordes again became separate entities.

The Kazakh had dual authority structure; an aristocracy of khans and sultans was superimposed upon a clan-based authority system. The Kazakh had several great families, and each of these (either a clan or, more typically, a branch of clan) was divided among several auls that migrated together and generally grazed their animals on adjoining pasturelands. An aul, which in winter might have numbered as many as thirty or forty yurts, consisted of a few related, extended families. Each aul had an elder, usually referred to as an aksakal (white beard), who was charged with the protection of his pasturelands and people. The elders met to choose a bii to represent the family in negotiations with other families and to mediate internal disputes, regulate the migration, and allocate pastureland. Also the title of bii often went from father to son, the office was not hereditary and could be shifted if the elders so chose.

The biis met to choose the sultans, who typically functioned as sub-khans ruling over particular territory and governing relations between clans, as well as to choose the khan, who governed the entire horde. Sometimes semiauthonomous territories existed within a horde, ruled by lesser khans who had sworn loyalty to the khan of the horde. The khan generally served for life and, keeping with the local tradition, was succeeded first by his brother and then by his son; nonetheless, since to become khan an individual had to prove his own competence, ruling families were often eclipsed by new claimants.

The Kazakhs referred to these three groups as the Ulu Zhuz, Orta Zhuz, and Kichi Zhuz, literally the Great Hundred, Middle Hun­dred, and Small Hundred. This distinction between horde and hundred is important, since the former implies consanguinity and common ancestry, whereas the latter does not. The Kazakh hordes were, in fact, federations or unions of tribes that typically did not share a common ancestry. They were instead simply an extension of the temporary military unions formed by both Turkish and Mongol tribes. Such unions were often called Zhuz; there are references to the existence of various (short-lived) Zhuz in Kazakh territory prior to the sixteenth century.¹⁴ It is thus probable that the Kazakh hordes formed largely for military purposes—to make the Kazakh lands more secure in the absence of any stronger central authority.

Even given the explanation that the Kazakh hordes were created for military-political purposes, the question remains why three such hordes were formed. The legend of Alash and his three sons may be dismissed as fiction, as may the tale repeated by Aristov of a legendary Kazakh, Kosanin, who had three sons, Aktol (Middle Horde), Alchin (Small Horde), and Usun (Great Horde). Such stories seem clearly to have been invented to strengthen the legitimacy of the three hordes by the creation of a legendary common an­cestor.¹⁵ The most convincing explanation is the commonly accepted one: that the tripartite division of the Kazakh people was in response to the unique geography of the steppe. Within the Kazakh-held territories of the sixteenth century there were three natural geographic regions, each containing both summer and winter pasturage. One such area was the Semirech'e region, where the Great Horde migrated along the river basins of the Chu, Talas, and Hi rivers, with summer pasturage in the mountains of the Ala Tau, an area that had its own internal trade network based on pre-existing agricultural oasis settlements. The second region encompassed central Kazakhstan, where the Middle Horde wintered around the lower course of the Syr Darya and in summer migrated to the tributaries of the Sarysu, Tobol, and Ishim rivers in the central steppe region, trading with the cities of Central Asia by water transport on the Syr Darya. The third territory was western Kazakhstan, where the Small Horde wintered along the lower course of the Syr Darya and Ural rivers and in the region between the Irgiz River and Turgai mountains, summering along the tributaries of the Ural River, the headwaters of the Tobol, and in the Irgiz and Mugodzhan hills.