The Turkic creation myth, known as the creation of Kao-che in Chinese sources (

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...

: 高車 / 高车,

Pinyin Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese for ...

: Gāochē, Wade-Giles: Kao-ch'e), is an ancient story about the creation of the Turks told among various

Turkic peoples The Turkic peoples are a collection of diverse ethnic groups of West, Central, East, and North Asia as well as parts of Europe, who speak Turkic languages.. "Turkic peoples, any of various peoples whose members speak languages belonging t ...

. The tale is told in Chinese in the

Wei Shu The ''Book of Wei'', also known by its Chinese name as the ''Wei Shu'', is a classic Chinese historical text compiled by Wei Shou from 551 to 554, and is an important text describing the history of the Northern Wei and Eastern Wei from 386 to 55 ...

. and the

History of the Northern Dynasties The ''History of the Northern Dynasties'' () is one of the official Chinese historical works in the ''Twenty-Four Histories'' canon. The text contains 100 volumes and covers the period from 386 to 618, the histories of Northern Wei, Western We ...

The story

One of the greatest

khans Khan may refer to: *Khan (inn), from Persian, a caravanserai or resting-place for a travelling caravan *Khan (surname), including a list of people with the name *Khan (title), a royal title for a ruler in Mongol and Turkic languages and used by ...

of the

Xiongnu The Xiongnu (, ) were a tribal confederation of nomadic peoples who, according to ancient Chinese sources, inhabited the eastern Eurasian Steppe from the 3rd century BC to the late 1st century AD. Modu Chanyu, the supreme leader after 20 ...

had two daughters, both of whom were so sublimely beautiful that it was commonly believed these two girls were created by

Tengri Tengri ( zh, 騰格里; otk, 𐰚𐰇𐰚:𐱅𐰭𐰼𐰃, Kök Teŋri/Teŋiri, lit=Blue Heaven; Old Uyghur: ''tängri''; Middle Turkic: تآنغرِ; ky, теңир; tr, Tanrı; az, Tanrı; bg, Тангра; Proto-Turkic *''teŋri / * ...

to marry the emperors or gods of the realm, not for humans. Hearing these ideas from his subjects, the khan started looking for ways to keep his daughters away from people. He ordered an extremely tall tower to be built in the northernmost part of his land, an uninhabited wasteland, and had them both locked up inside. He subsequently began to beg the gods to show themselves and marry his daughters. His ceaseless cries got to a point that finally one day, one god was able to stand it no more. He manifested as a gray wolf and came down from the heavens. He married the sisters, who bore many children from this marriage: the 9 Oghuz and the 10 Ogurs. These children resembled their father and carried his wolven spirit, and they, too, roamed the earth and multiplied. Thus were the

Turks Turk or Turks may refer to: Communities and ethnic groups * Turkic peoples, a collection of ethnic groups who speak Turkic languages * Turkish people, or the Turks, a Turkic ethnic group and nation * Turkish citizen, a citizen of the Republic o ...

created.

Notes

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The story

Notes

See also