DOI 10.31554/2222-9175-2019-34-123-128
THE WORLD VIEW BASIS FOR THE INNER ASIA NOMAD BREEDING: A COW/BULL IMAGE
Sodnompilova M. M.
Cattle are part of the main wealth of the nomadic cattlemen of Central Asia – Taban Khoshu Mal “five types of cattle” and occupies an important place in the life support system of nomads. An ambiguous attitude to cattle in the environment of the Turkic-Mongolic peoples was expressed in correlating the image of the cow with the lower/afterworld, including the cow in the category of animals with “cold breath” and the parallel existence of the cult of the celestial gray bull. The ambivalence of the cow/bull image is due to the influence of two different-time traditions, one of which, the earliest, was accompanied by population migrations and the spread of cattle breeding on the steppe and forest-steppe spaces of Inner Asia. The other, late, dates back to the tradition
of the early medieval Turkic-speaking ethnic groups in Central Asia, and is associated with the Uighur-Oghuz cult of the bull, among which the mythical character in the image of the bull is included in the genealogy.
