'The name of Tartary is unknown in those regions'
Editorial contextSetting out the geography north of the Hindu Kush, Elphinstone divides the lands into Turkestan (west of the Pamirs) and 'Chinese Turkestan' (east of them), using the local name for Turk-speaking country. Then he adds a blunt note: the people who live there do not call it Tartary. The word was a European map label, not a local one.
All the country west of Beloot Taugh, and north of the Oxus, is called Toorkistaun, a term which may be extended to the east of Beloot Taugh, as far as there is reason to think the Turkish language is spoken … The name of Tartary is unknown in those regions.
About Uzbeks and other Turkic peoples of Central Asia
Keep in mind
Based on what his Central Asian informants told him, not on a visit.
Chinggis Khan's law set above Islam
Editorial contextIbn Arabshah says Timur spoke Persian, Turkish and Mongol but no Arabic, and held to the 'Chinggis Khan rules' (the yasa), treating them like branches of Islamic law. So, he says, did all the Chaghatay, the people of the Dasht, Cathay and Turkestan, whom he calls rabble. For this reason, he adds, leading jurists declared Timur an unbeliever.
He held to the rules of Chinggis Khan, which are like the branches of jurisprudence in the Islamic faith … And so do all the Chaghatay and the people of the Dasht, Cathay and Turkestan, that rabble: all of them put the rules of the accursed Chinggis Khan ahead of the rules of Islam.
Working translation
Original wording
وكان معتقدا للقواعد الجنكيزخانيه وهي كفروع الفقه من الملة الاسلاميه … وكذلك كل الجغتاي واهل الدشت والخطا وتركستان اولئك الطغام كلهم يمشون قواعد الملعون جنكيزخان على قواعد الاسلام
About Timur, the Chaghatay, the people of the Dasht (Golden Horde Tatars)
Keep in mind
Religious polemic. It shows that Chinggisid law still mattered in Muslim Central Asia c.1400, but the tone is hostile.
Transcribed from the page image (corpus OCR of this print is garbled); vowel marks and the asterisk dividers of the rhymed prose omitted.
One great khan in Cathay and three Tartar kings
Editorial contextHayton closes his history with the Tartar world as it stood when he wrote: a great emperor, Temur Khan, sixth of the line, ruling from the city of Jong in Cathay, and three other Tartar kings, Chapar in Turkestan, Toqta in Comania and Kharbanda (Oljeitu) in Tabriz, who all owe him reverence and take their quarrels to his court. It is a clear picture of 'Tartary' as a family of Mongol states, not a single city or civilisation.
The great emperor of the Tartars, the one who now holds the lordship, is named Temur Khan, and he is the sixth emperor. He holds the seat of his empire in the kingdom of Cathay, in a very great city called Jong … There are also three other kings of the Tartars, who have very great power, and all pay reverence and obedience to the great emperor.
Working translation
Original wording
Le grant empereor des Tartars, celui qui ores tient la seignorie, est només Tamor Can, e est le VI empereor. Au roiaume de Cathaï tient le siege de son empire, en une molt grant cité que est nomée Jong … Encores i a autres trois rois des Tartars, qui ont molt grant puissance, e tous portent reverence e obedience au grant empereor.
About The Chinggisid khanates
Continue in this sourceHayton's Flower of the Histories of the East1260 to 1305 · 13 passagesA hundred cities, none with a Chinese name
Editorial contextHeading west past the Tangut frontier, the envoy says he passed more than a hundred cities with no Chinese names and was told of many tribes living there. The list runs on over the page (Mo-li-hi, Mo-k'o-ti, Ho-li-ki-sz, Nai-man, Hang-li, Gui-gu, T'u-ma, Ho-lu), ending 'all are barbarian tribes'. Bretschneider identifies them as the Merkits, perhaps the Mekrins, the Kirghiz, Naimans, Kankali, Uighurs, Tumats and Karluks, peoples Chinggis had just brought under his rule. None of them is called Mongol or Tatar.
I passed through more than a hundred cities: not one of them had a Chinese name. Inquiring about the country, I was told that many tribes were living there, namely, the Mo-li-hi
About Steppe tribes: Merkits, Kirghiz, Naimans, Kankali, Uighurs, Tumats, Karluks
Keep in mind
Bretschneider warns that the envoy's route and distances are too vague and exaggerated to trace, and that his line about rivers flowing east and west is copied from the Han history.
Vambery: East Turkestan, 'also called Chinese Tartary'
Editorial contextIn his introduction Vambery places the Uighur homeland in 'today's East Turkestan or Chinese Tartary, as it is also called'. For a nineteenth-century scholar, 'Tartary' is just an older map name for the region where the Kutadgu Bilig was written, next to the modern term. He also claims Samarkand and Karshi as Uighur foundations from the meaning of their names, an etymological guess.
If we therefore describe the homeland of the Uighurs as present-day East Turkestan, or Chinese Tartary as it is also called, it must be noted that some colonies lay outside these borders.
Working translation
Original wording
Wenn wir daher als die Heimat der Uiguren das heutige Ostturkestan oder die Chinesische Tatarei, wie es auch genannt wird, bezeichnen, so muss jedoch bemerkt werden, dass einzelne Colonien sich auch ausserhalb der bezeichneten Grenzen befanden
About Uighurs
Keep in mind
Vambery's statement that Samarkand means 'rich city' in Uighur and that it was an Uighur colony is his own speculation.
Checked against the page image.
